by James Luceno
Slowly, subtly, through the months and years from Yavin to Endor, Cronal had served his vision. A delicate balance had had to be meticulously maintained, to navigate the intricacies of the relationship between Palpatine and Vader … to inculcate a rivalry with the half-mechanical terror that Palpatine had elevated to the rank of Lord of the Sith. For all his undoubted physical power, Vader had never been more than a blunt instrument, with no real understanding of the truth of the Dark, nor of the uses of real power. He had been, all in all, only a thug with a lightsaber … and, as it proved, a weakhearted, emotionally crippled, impulsively treasonous thug at that.
Though Vader could never have been Cronal’s equal in coursing the mazy paths of dark power, it had served Cronal’s purpose to pretend jealousy—even to appear to fail, more than once, and to openly bridle under Vader’s supposed authority, so that Palpatine had begun to suspect that Cronal might deliberately sabotage the monster’s operations. Thus it was that he had persuaded Palpatine—subtly, oh-so-delicately, so that the Emperor believed to the day of his death that it had all been his own idea—that Cronal could better serve the Empire from afar, away from Coruscant, away from the prying optical receptors of Vader’s ridiculous helmet. Away from the entirely too-keen vision, both physical and mystic, of Palpatine himself.
Out among the forgotten fringes of the galaxy, Cronal had appeared to merely bide his time, running minor operations through his private networks of agents, while in truth he had devoted his life to searching out forgotten lore of the ancient Sith and other supposed masters of the Dark. If they had done so much damage even with their limited understanding of the Dark, how much greater destruction might be wrought by one who knew all their secrets, and also knew the One Truth?
He traveled in secret, deep into the Unknown Regions, following his Darksight vision to worlds so ancient that even legend had no memory of them. Among the drifting moon trees that flowered in the interstellar space of the Gunninga Gap, he was able to discover and assemble scraps of the Taurannik Codex, which had been destroyed in the Muurshantre Extinction a hundred millennia before; arcane hints in that forbidden tome led him to the Valtaullu Rift and the shattered asteroid belt that once had been the planet-sized Temple of Korman Lao, the Lord Ravager of the long-vanished race of demon-worshipping reptoids known as the Kanzer Exiles. The lore in the Temple fragments gave him the knowledge he needed to capture the corrupt spirit essence of Dathka Graush, to rip it free from its resting place in Korriban’s Valley of Golg, to eventually extract and consume even the most secret lore of Sith alchemy that the ancient tyrant had carried to his grave.
And that ancient Sith alchemy had given him the knowledge to forge a device to control the living crystal that formed the structure of Mindorese meltmassif …
Because the Emperor had once confided in him that the transference of the spirit to another was a pathway to the ultimate goal of a Sith: to cheat death. Of course, he had been thinking of clones, but Cronal’s plans were more ambitious; if such a feat was possible, he determined that he would perform it—and not to a mere clone body, either. After all, his own body had never been strong, and his service to the Dark had eaten away what little strength he’d had until he could no longer stand—until he could no longer feed himself, or even breathe without the life-support functions built into his gravity chair. Why should he settle for exchanging his flawed and failing body for another of the same model, every bit as certain to fail?
No. His devotion to the Way of the Dark had shown him a path to power greater than Palpatine could have ever dreamed: to transfer his consciousness permanently into a body that was young, that was healthy and handsome in a way Cronal had never been. A body more powerful in the Force than Vader, potentially more powerful even than Palpatine. The body of a true hero, beloved by all right-thinking citizens in the galaxy as the very symbol of truth and justice …
He would not simply turn Luke Skywalker to the service of the Dark. Why should he? Luke Skywalker served the Dark already, without ever guessing; he had powers of destruction that humbled even the Death Star.
No: Cronal would become Luke Skywalker, and serve the Dark himself.
Reclining in his life-support chamber, Cronal shut down the holoeditor. He had enough material already to persuasively make the case to the Republic as to why the stormtroopers would release him, even serve him, once he had become Skywalker. This was why his top commanders were all clones; he was counting on their conditioned obedience to even the most outrageous orders. Then the galaxy-wide release of his own little reality holodrama would make him—that is, Luke—even more famous, even more beloved, as the hero who had stood alone against the mad warlord Shadowspawn and single-handedly ended his reign of terror …
He actually found himself getting a bit giddy. He cackled softly as he indulged a fleeting fantasy of allowing Skywalker to awaken in the Election Center, so that Cronal could spend his last moments in this decaying body gloating, and boasting, and explaining to Skywalker every last detail of his fiendish plan.
That would be in character, wouldn’t it?
It’s what “Shadowspawn” would do, at any rate … but, sadly, it was not to be. However amusing it might have been, the risk was too great. Darksight, however powerful, was not perfect.
There was, after all, that slight issue about his puppet Shadowspawn surviving the climax of Cronal’s little holothriller. That punch to the forehead … it was all wrong. The final blow should have been delivered with the blade of Skywalker’s lightsaber. That was how Cronal had planned it. How he had seen it.
The lesson was clear: something could still go wrong. No more time would he waste in rehearsal. He must finish this. Now.
He closed his eyes and drove his mind into the Dark.
First he set his will upon the hairline web of meltmassif he’d grown within his own body: an ultrafine network that replicated his nervous system like a shadow cast in mineral crystals. Then he reached forth his hand in the darkness of his life-support shell and stroked the control that would lower the Sunset Crown from its compartment behind his headrest. Once the Sunset Crown was in place upon his head, he no longer had need of controls. He had no need of hands, or mouth, or eyes.
The Sunset Crown was his great achievement, the device that had been the object of his long quest into the depths of Sith alchemy; it was a transmitter, a transformer, that worked via the Force instead of electromagnetism. It converted his disciplined will into a signal that could interact directly with the unique electrochemical structure of meltmassif … and with the alien beings who used meltmassif as an anchor, a physical form to localize their energy-based consciousness, even as a human nervous system anchored and localized the energy-based consciousness called the human mind.
He had used this device to create the Pawns, those mind-locked technozombies who had become Cronal’s eyes and mouths and hands; the Pawns were not only a conduit for his orders, but a necessary stepping-stone on his path toward self-transformation. Each Pawn had been chosen because he or she could touch the Dark—what the ignorant Jedi and the deluded Sith called being “Force-sensitive”—and because their wills could be utterly controlled by his own, through the Sunset Crown’s influence over the crystals of meltmassif seeded within their skulls. On his command, their wills would align with his own and provide the added boost to his own Dark-touch necessary to make the transfer of his consciousness permanent.
When his mind awakened the power of the Sunset Crown, it sent his consciousness outward, an expanding sphere of will. When it touched the crystals in the meltmassif that lined every tunnel, every chamber, every nook and cranny of his entire vast base, the crystals resonated with the frequency of his desire, like a sounding board the size of the surrounding volcanic dome. He became the base, and the base became him; all within the base registered in the part of his brain that had once only registered his kinesthetic sense of his body position.
Throughout the base, his thirty-nine most Force-powerful Pawns instantly dropped w
hat they were doing and converged on the Election Center, where Luke Skywalker already lay embedded in the hardened stone of the primary Pawning Table, his lightsaber buried in the rock beside him.
The fortieth, and most powerful, Pawn was already there: his puppet Shadowspawn, having unexpectedly survived the climax of Cronal’s little holothriller, had been delivered to the same chamber. When this was all over, Cronal intended to discover exactly why the deadman interlock in “Shadowspawn” ’s Crown had failed to activate, but until then, there was no reason to simply discard him; he had a great deal of Force potential—worth ten of the others—and so Cronal had simply directed that “Shadowspawn” ’s Crown be recovered and replaced. Adding him to the Pawns for the focusing would substantially accelerate both the neurocrystalline interpenetration and the consciousness transfer itself.
Unlike what occurred during the standard Pawning process that Cronal had painstakingly developed, Skywalker had not had his hair flash-burned away, had not had his skull opened and crystals implanted in his brain. No neurosurgery, not for Skywalker, nothing that might leave a suspicion-arousing scar.
He lay wholly within the meltmassif, buried alive with not even a breathing tube. Well, semi-alive: in full thanatizine II suspension, he had at least another hour before he would next need to take a breath. Before that breath would come, the combined power and perception Cronal channeled through the Pawns would have induced the meltmassif surrounding Skywalker’s body to pierce his skin with invisibly fine needles of living crystal … they would enter through every pore, through his mouth and his nose, his ears, his tongue … and with the arcane powers he had ripped from the spirit of the ancient King of the Sith, Cronal would shape those crystals within Skywalker’s body as he had shaped the ones in his own: into a webwork mirror of the young Jedi’s nervous system.
Then Cronal would simply close his eyes and pour forth his consciousness like water into a waiting jug. With a twist of will—for thanatizine II only affected the organic body and would have no effect upon the crystalline neuroweb—he would liquefy the meltmassif of the Pawning Table and arise, quite literally, a new man. When he opened his eyes again, those eyes would be blue.
And he would extend his hand, and the Force would answer his call, bringing Skywalker’s lightsaber—no, Cronal’s lightsaber—up from the same meltmassif, because what was a Jedi without the Jedi weapon?
And should anything go wrong, well …
Should anything at all go wrong, the last living Jedi—the last being in the galaxy that Cronal would ever have any reason to fear—was already buried alive; all that Cronal might need to change in that description would be the word alive.
CHAPTER 11
Lando stood at the forward viewscreens of the Remember Alderaan’s bridge, watching as the battle cruiser’s A-wing squadrons mopped up the last of the marauding interceptors that had been attacking the Slash-Es. He nodded—the Mandalorians were proving to be every bit as good as their reputation claimed—and turned to the Remember Alderaan’s commander. “Well done, Captain,” he said. “Recall all fighters and initiate search and rescue. And see to it that when Lord Mandalore lands, he receives my compliments and gratitude, as well as my urgent request for the honor of his company at his earliest convenience.”
The captain nodded. “As the general orders.”
Lando turned to the ComOps officer. “Get me a secure channel with Commander Antilles of Rogue Squadron.”
“Um, subspace is heavily jammed, General—”
“Okay,” Lando said with an agreeable smile that somehow didn’t look the slightest bit friendly. “Now that we’ve got that straightened out, get me a secure channel with Captain Antilles.”
The ComOps officer swallowed and turned back to his console. “Yes, sir.”
“And when you get that channel,” Lando said crisply, coming to a snap decision, “tell him I’m waiting for him in the Deck Seven fighter bay.”
“Sir.”
“Tell him that I’ve been waiting. Remind him that I don’t like waiting. And let Lord Mandalore know where we are.” He spun and headed for the turbolift. He jabbed a finger at C-3PO, who had been inconspicuously eavesdropping by an engineering console. “You. With me.”
“Me? Really? But, but, General Calrissian—”
“Now,” Lando said as he passed.
“That’s a bit brusque, isn’t it?” C-3PO nonetheless shuffled into the turbolift after him. “Please, General Calrissian, you do seem, if you don’t mind my mentioning, just the slightest bit agitated—”
“I can’t imagine why.” Lando stabbed the turbolift’s destination panel and the door cycled shut.
The turbolift had barely hummed into motion when the whole compartment seemed to lurch a meter or two to one side, hard enough that Lando had to clutch at C-3PO—who had his peds, as he preferred when on a moving surface, maglocked to the deck—to keep his feet. “What was that? It felt like an impact—but an impact big enough to shift the whole ship like that should have pretty much vaporized us.”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say, General, but—”
“It was a rhetorical question, Threepio.” Lando dusted himself off and grimaced when he discovered a tiny spot of machine oil on one cuff. “You’re not expected to answer.”
“Oh, yes—I entirely understand. I, myself, am programmed with a number of conversational null-content phrases, used only for emphasis or—”
“Okay, okay.” Lando fished out his comlink and brought it to his mouth. “Calrissian here. What just happened?”
“Unknown, General. We’re looking into it.”
C-3PO was still nattering on. “I misunderstood your rhetorical intent, General, because I can acquire that information for you.”
Lando lowered the comlink. “You can?”
“Oh, certainly. The ship will know.”
“It will?”
“Of course, General. Mon Calamari designs are quite intelligent—much more capable than any organic brain.” C-3PO emitted a brief burst of static that sounded remarkably like an apologetic cough. “No offense intended, of course …”
“Of course.” Lando nodded at the turbolift’s comm panel. “Please.”
The protocol droid stepped over to the comm panel and his vocabulator emitted a high-pitched whine nestled in white noise. The comm panel gave back a noise that to Lando’s ears sounded indistinguishable from the first.
“What?” C-3PO’s hand came up to his vocabulator slot. “Ooh, that’s awful! Oh, my goodness!”
“What did it say?” Lando said. “What was that jolt?”
“The jolt? I don’t know.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The ship made an improper suggestion,” C-3PO said primly.
Lando blinked. “Are you kidding?”
“If only I were,” the droid sighed. He leaned close to whisper in Lando’s ear. “She’s a terrible flirt,” he confided. “You know how sailors can be …”
“I sure do.” Lando was, after all, Lando. “Flirt back.”
“General, really!”
“You want a girl to tell you secrets, you better be ready to at least nuzzle her ear.”
“Well, I never!”
“I know—but you should.”
C-3PO was still sputtering static when the turbolift doors hissed open on Deck Seven. Lando strode off toward the fighter bays without looking back.
Mon Calamari fighter bays were as beautifully functional as any other feature of their ships. Fighters entered the bay in a smoothly continuous stream, assisted by force-shield-reinforced capture netting that also gathered each one up and delivered it, as appropriate, either to its designated berth or to the huge transfer field that would carry a badly damaged craft to the battle cruiser’s onboard repair bay. There was virtually none of the barely controlled chaos that characterized fighter bays on more conventional warships; even the roar of the entering fighters’ engines was muted by phased-array sonic dampers.
&n
bsp; Nestled among the ranks of A-wings were, unexpectedly, an X-wing fighter and a B-wing bomber—and standing stiffly at attention in front of them stood Commander Wedge Antilles and First Lieutenant Tycho Celchu.
“You got here fast,” Lando said as he received their salutes.
“Yes, sir.” Wedge, still at attention, sounded not the slightest bit like an insubordinate troublemaker who was roughly one atomic diameter short of demotion and serious brig time. “I did happen to recall that the general hates to be kept waiting, General. Sir.”
“Don’t think you’re gonna smooth your way out of this one, Wedge—” Another shift-shock rocked the whole ship sideways and knocked Lando off-balance again; this time he had to steady himself against Wedge’s shoulder, which was nearly as hard as C-3PO’s. “Damn it! What is that?”
“The ship informs me,” C-3PO reported calmly as he came up behind, “that it was gravity shear of unknown origin, interfering with the ship’s engines as well as its artificial gravity and inertial compensators, not to mention placing substantial physical stress on its structure—oh, oh my. Oh, my. That’s terribly dangerous, isn’t it?”
“I’d say so,” Wedge said.
“But I’m not ready for demolition!”
Wedge went on as if the droid hadn’t spoken. “We call ’em gravity bombs, sir. Point-source grav projectors, going faster than an A-wing on a header into a black hole. They’re ballistic—no drive signature, so you can’t detect them until you’re already inside their radius of effect. Dangerous enough by themselves—something like them was loaded onto the fake shuttle that took out the Justice—but the worst part is that they play merry hell with the gravity stations Shadowspawn scattered throughout the asteroids. There’s not a navicomputer in the fleet that can predict the orbit of practically anything in the whole system—that’s why we’ve got the Slash-Es sweeping the fields; we’re trying to pry open a jump window before the star goes supercritical.”
“I get it.” Lando discovered that he was more interested in the tactical problem this presented than in punishing Rogue Squadron. Especially since it looked like he’d need them. “How’s it going?”