by James Luceno
“Artificial limbs and body armor seem a curious choice for a Sith,” Shryne said, poised for Vader’s riposte to his lucky strike. “Belittling to the dark side.”
Vader adjusted his grip on the sword and advanced. “No more than throwing in with smugglers denigrates the Force, Shryne.”
“Ah, but I saw the light. Maybe it’s time you did.”
“You have it backward.”
Shryne was steeling himself for a lunging attack when, abruptly, Vader halted and withdrew the blade into the lightsaber’s hilt.
Before Shryne could begin to make sense of it, he heard a creaking sound from below, and something flew at him from one of the ramps. Only a last-instant turn of his sword kept the object from striking him in the head.
It was a plank—ripped from a ramp they had taken to the bridge.
Shryne gazed in awe at unreadable Vader, then began to race toward him, blade held high over his right shoulder.
He didn’t make half the distance when a storm of similar planks and lengths of handrail came whirling at him. Vader was using his dark side abilities to dismantle the ramps!
Surrendering to the guidance of the Force, Shryne swung his lightsaber in a flurry of deflecting maneuvers—side-to-side, overhead, low down, behind his back—but the floorboards were coming in larger and larger pieces, from all directions, and faster than he could parry them.
The butt end of a board struck him on the outer left thigh.
The face of a wide plank slammed him across the shoulders.
Wooden pegs flew at his face; others speared into his arms.
Then a short support post hit him squarely in the forehead, knocking the wind out of him and dropping him to his knees.
Blood running into his eyes, he fought to remain conscious, extending the lightsaber in one shaking hand while clamping the other on the bridge’s handrail. Five meters away Vader stood, his hands crossed in front of him, lightsaber hanging on his belt.
Shryne tried to keep him in focus.
Another board, whirling end-over-end, came out of nowhere, hitting him in the kidneys.
Reflexively the hand that was grasping the railing went to the small of his back, and he lost balance. Trying but failing to catch himself, he fell through space.
Give in the wooden floor saved his life, but at the expense of all the bones in his left arm and shoulder.
Above him Vader jumped from the bridge, dropping to the floor with a grace he hadn’t displayed before and alighting just meters away.
Ignoring the pain in his shattered limb, Shryne began to propel himself in a backward crawl toward the opening through which he and Vader had entered the wroshyr’s trunk, a hot wind howling at him, whipping his long hair about.
The balcony was gone. Fallen.
There was nothing between Shryne and the ground but gritty air filled with burning leaves. Far below, Wookiees were being herded onto the landing platform. The forests were in flames …
Vader approached, drawing and igniting his Sith blade.
Shryne blinked blood from his eyes; lifted his lightsaber hand only to realize that he had lost the sword during his fall. Slumping back, he loosed a ragged, resigned exhalation.
“I owe you a debt,” he told Vader. “It took you to bring me back to the Force.”
“And you to firm my faith in the power of the dark side, Master Shryne.”
Shryne swallowed hard. “Then tell me. Were you trained by Dooku? By Sidious?”
Vader came to a halt. “Not by Dooku. Not yet by Sidious.”
“Not yet,” Shryne said, as if to himself. “Then you’re his apprentice?” His eyes darted right and left, searching for some means of escape. “Is Sidious also in league with Emperor Palpatine?”
Vader fell silent for a moment, making up his mind about something. “Lord Sidious is the Emperor.”
Shryne gaped at Vader, trying to make sense of what he had said. “The order to kill the Jedi—”
“Order Sixty-Six,” Vader said.
“Sidious issued it.” Pieces to the puzzle Shryne had been grappling with for weeks assembled themselves. “The military buildup, the war itself … It was all part of a plan to eliminate the Jedi order.”
Vader nodded. “All about this.” He gestured to Shryne. “About you and me, you could say.”
Shryne’s stomach convulsed, and he coughed blood. The fall hadn’t only broken his bones, but ruptured a vital organ. He was dying. Backing farther out the opening, he gazed into the night sky, then at Vader.
“Did Sidious turn you into the monstrosity you’ve become?”
“No, Shryne,” Vader said in a flat voice. “I did this to myself—with some help from Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
Shryne stared. “You knew Obi-Wan?”
Vader regarded him. “Haven’t you guessed by now? I was a Jedi for a time.”
Shryne let his bafflement show. “You’re one of the Lost Twenty. Like Dooku.”
“I am the twenty-first, Master Shryne. Surely you’ve heard of Anakin Skywalker. The Chosen One.”
The Commerce Guild ship Starstone and the others had chosen to infiltrate grew larger in the transport’s cockpit viewports. Just over a thousand meters in length and bristling with electromagnetic sensor antennas and point-defense laser cannons, the Recusant-class support destroyer had taken a turbolaser bruising during the Battle of Kashyyyk, but its principal cannons and trio of aft thrust nozzles appeared to be undamaged.
Elsewhere local space was dotted with Imperial landers and troop transports, along with hundreds of freighters that had fled the surface of the tormented planet. Central to the latter craft, and a good distance from the support destroyer, floated the Interdictor cruiser that was preventing the traders’ ships from jumping to hyperspace.
Those trapped ships are the reason I was spared, Starstone thought.
The reason she had been rescued by Shryne …
“Any response from the droid brain?” she asked over Filli’s shoulder.
“Well, we’re chatting,” the slicer said from the cockpit’s comm suite. “It recognized the code we used to activate the facility at Jaguada, but it refuses to accept any remote commands. My guess is that it was rudely shut down during the battle, and wants to run a systems check before bringing the destroyer fully online.”
“Be best if we can keep from announcing ourselves,” Cudgel said from the copilot’s chair. “You think you can keep the brain from lighting up the entire ship?”
Chewbacca woofed in agreement.
“Not initially,” Filli said. “The brain will probably restore universal power gradually as part of its diagnostic analysis. Once that’s over and done with, I can task it to kill all the running lights, except for those around the forward docking bay.”
A sudden growl from Chewbacca called Starstone’s attention to the forward viewports.
Fore-to-aft, the pod-like warship was coming to life.
Cudgel muttered a curse. “The Interdictor’s scanners are bound to pick that up.”
“Just a couple of moments more,” Filli said.
Everyone waited.
“Done!” Filli announced.
In reverse order the destroyer’s running lights began to blink out, save for an array of illuminators that defined the rectangular entrance to the docking bay.
Filli flashed Starstone a grin. “The brain’s being very cooperative. We’re good to dock.”
Chewbacca brayed an interrogative.
“Any atmosphere?” Cudgel translated.
Filli did rapid input at the keyboard.
“The ship originally carried several squadrons of vulture and droid tri-fighters,” he said. “But unless the Gossams converted it fully to droid operation I’d expect there be atmosphere and artificial gravity in some areas …” His eyes darted to the display screen. “Looks like a bit of both: Gossam and droid crew.”
“Battle droids?” Starstone said.
Filli nodded. “ ’Fraid so.”
; “You can’t shut them down?”
“Not without shutting down the command bridge.”
Starstone frowned and turned to Cudgel. “Gather up as many blasters as we’ve got aboard. And while you’re at it, you’ll find some rebreathers in the main cabin—just in case there’s no atmosphere.”
“You want a blaster,” he asked as he stood up, “or are you sticking with a lightsaber?”
“This is an occasion that calls for both,” she said.
“Archyr, Skeck, are you copying all this?” Filli said toward the audio pickup.
“Affirmative,” Archyr responded from the drop ship. “But we’ll precede you into the docking bay. We’re better armed and better shielded. After that there’s nothing to do but fight our way to the command bridge.”
Filli displayed a schematic of the destroyer on one of the suite’s monitor screens. “Most of the habitable areas are amidships, but the command bridge is in the outrigger superstructure above the bow.”
“Lucky break for us,” Archyr said. “It’s closer to the bay.”
Starstone was studying the destroyer when the drop ship came alongside the transport. Without having to be told, Chewbacca decelerated and fell in behind the smaller craft.
Starstone slipped into the vacant copilot’s chair to watch the drop ship glide into the bay. Almost immediately blaster bolts crisscrossed the darkness. By the time the transport nosed through the opening, battle droids were dropping like targets in a shooting gallery, and the deck was strewn with spindly body parts.
Rebreathers strapped to their faces, lumas to their foreheads, Starstone, Cudgel, and Filli were standing at the boarding ramp hatch when Chewbacca set the transport down. Shortly the Wookiee joined them there, the bowcaster he carried over his shoulder assembled and gripped in his hands.
As the transport’s outer hatch slid open, the harsh sibilance of blasterfire infiltrated the ship. Starstone and the others hurried out into the thick of the fighting, their headlamps casting long shadows all over the bay. Archyr and several well-armed Wookiees were off to one side, clearing a path through battle droids toward a hatch in the bay’s forward bulkhead.
Firing on the run and hurtling pieces of disintegrated droids, Starstone, Filli, Cudgel, and Chewbacca made a desperate dash for the hatch. The corridor beyond was crowded with battle droids marching in to reinforce those in the docking bay.
Explosive quarrels from Chewbacca’s bowcaster combined with blasterfire and deflections from Starstone’s lightsaber dropped a dozen droids at a time. But for every dozen destroyed, another dozen appeared. Archyr and some of the Wookiees brought up the rear, ultimately allowing Starstone’s contingent to shoot their way into a turbolift that accessed the destroyer’s outrigger arm.
Prepared for the worst, the four of them burst onto the command bridge, only to find a group of befuddled humaniform technical droids, outfitted with power studs at the backs of the heads that allowed them to be quickly and methodically shut down.
Realizing that the bridge had oxygen, everyone removed their rebreathers. Chewbacca dogged the hatch to the corridor while Filli centered himself at the ship’s control console and activated the bridge’s emergency lights.
“Gossams have longer fingers than I have,” he said in the scarlet glow of the illuminators. “This could take some time.”
“We’re running short as it is,” Cudgel said. “Just get the main cannons enabled.”
Battle droids on the far side of the sealed hatch were already trying to pound their way onto the bridge.
Filli went back to work, but a moment later said: “Uh-oh.”
Chewbacca loosed a trolling roar at him.
“Uh-oh, what?” Starstone asked.
Abruptly the destroyer lurched and began to nose about toward Kashyyyk’s crescent of bright side.
“The brain wants to complete the task it was in the middle of when the ship was shut down,” Filli said.
Starstone turned to him. “What was the task?”
“It thinks that the Separatists are losing Kachirho. It’s converting itself into a giant bomb!”
“Can’t you retask it?”
“I’m trying. It won’t listen!”
Cudgel muttered to himself, and Chewbacca issued a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a groan.
“Filli!” Starstone said sharply. “Let the brain think what it wants. Just assign it a new target.”
His blank stare yielded slowly to a grin of comprehension. “Can do.”
Starstone returned the smile, then glanced at Cudgel. “Comlink the Drunk Dancer to prepare to receive guests.”
As soon as Jula received word that the drop ship and transport had exited the Commerce Guild warship, she left the Drunk Dancer in the capable hands of Brudi Gayn and Eyl Dix and headed for the docking bay. Her eagerness sabotaged by the lightsaber gash she had suffered on Alderaan, she moved slowly and carefully, arriving just as the two craft were drifting through the hatch. Forewarned that both were carrying injured, she had ordered the ship’s med droids to rendezvous with her there.
Forewarned.
But not thoroughly enough to prepare her for the number of wounded evacuees who hobbled from the ships, Wookiees squeezing out like circus performers from an absurdly cramped vehicle, and many of them in grave condition.
As for the Jedi, only five of the original seven had survived, and just barely, from the look of them. Jambe Lu, Nam Poorf, and Klossi Anno especially were in a lot worse shape than when they had first come aboard the Drunk Dancer, weeks earlier.
Even the ship’s med droids were dismayed. “This may prove overwhelming, Captain,” one of them said from behind Jula.
“Do all you can,” she told the droid.
It was an unnerving sight, however, and she felt a bit panicked. But the tears she had been holding back since learning of Roan’s sacrifice didn’t gush forth until she set eyes on Filli and Starstone. Seeing her standing distraught, crying into the palms of her hands, Starstone hurried over to wrap her in a comforting embrace.
Jula allowed herself to be held for a long moment. But when she finally stepped out of the embrace, she saw that Starstone’s cheeks were slick with tears, and that only got her crying again. Gently she stroked the young woman’s face.
“What happened to avoiding attachment?” Jula said, sniffling.
Starstone backhanded tears from her cheeks. “I’ve lost the skill. It doesn’t seem to fit well with the Emperor’s New Order, anyway.” She held Jula’s searching gaze. “Your son saved our lives. We tried to go back for him, but …”
Jula averted her eyes. “Someone had to try to stop Vader.”
“I don’t know that Vader can be stopped,” Starstone said.
Jula nodded. “Maybe if I’d raised Roan, he wouldn’t have turned out to be so stubborn.” She frowned in distress. “Some people can’t be talked out of being a hero.”
“Or a Jedi.”
Jula nodded. “That’s what I meant.”
Starstone smiled sadly, then turned to regard a Wookiee and a bearded human who were standing at the foot of the transport’s boarding ramp, speaking with Filli, Archyr, and Skeck. Taking Jula by the hand, Starstone led her over to the unlikely pair, whom she introduced as Chewbacca and Cudgel.
Clearly in distress, the Wookiee was leaning against the ship, resting his head on his folded arms, and slamming his paws against the hull.
“We saw Chewbacca’s tree-city in flames,” Cudgel explained. “There’s no way to know whether his family escaped in time.”
“I promised him the transport,” Starstone told Jula.
Jula looked at Cudgel. “We’ll get it refueled as quickly—”
“No need,” Cudgel cut her off. “Chewie knows that it’s too late. He figures he can do more for his people as a fugitive than he could as a captive.”
The Wookiee affirmed it with a melancholy roar.
“You’re speaking for all of us, Chewbacca,” Starstone said.
<
br /> “So,” Cudgel continued, “we’re wondering, Chewie and I, if we could ride out of this with you.”
Jula’s comlink toned while she was nodding yes.
“Captain, we’re T-ten for the jump to hyperspace,” Brudi said from the bridge, almost casually. “Assuming everything goes according to plan.”
“Have you been able to notify the other ships?” Jula asked.
“As best I could. And I’m trusting that that Interdictor isn’t eavesdropping on every comlink frequency.”
“See what jump options the navicomputer provides,” Jula said. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
She moved away from Starstone and the others to gaze at Kashyyyk’s waning crescent of bright side. Tears streaming down her face, she said in a quiet voice: “I love you, Roan. I thank the Force that I got to know you for a time. But I’ll miss you more now than I ever did.”
In command of the Detainer parked above Kachirho, Captain Ugan normally refused to allow himself to be disturbed when he was on the bridge. But Ensign Nullip was so insistent about seeing him that he finally granted permission for the young technician to be escorted onto the command deck.
A swarthy man with blunt features, Ugan remained seated in his chair, his dark gaze shifting between projected holoimages of the invasion on Kashyyyk and the viewport panorama of the planet itself.
“Be quick about it,” he warned Nullip.
“Yes, sir,” the ensign promised. “It’s simply that we’ve been monitoring some unusual readings from one of the Separatist ships that was left in orbit after the battle here. Specifically, a Commerce Guild Recusant-class support destroyer. I’ve tried repeatedly to convince someone in tactical to bring this to your attention, sir, but—”
Ugan cut him off. “What makes these readings ‘unusual,’ Ensign?”