by James Luceno
“I know this was hurtful,” Lumiya said. “But you have been strengthened by it already.”
Jacen, pained, looked at her. “Words, Lumiya. He will strengthen himself through pain. They don’t diminish the tragedy of what just happened, not at all.”
“It’s not a cliché, Jacen. It’s a necessary component of the ethical assumption of our powers.” She gestured out past the shuttle and the hangar doors, to the unseen stars. “The Jedi find their balance through the abandonment of attachment. The Sith celebrate attachment … but find our balance in the deliberate, agonizing sacrifice of some of the things we love most. Only by that means can we retain our appreciation for loss, pain, mortality—those things that ordinary people experience.”
Jacen considered. Her words made sense. Such a philosophy would allow the Sith to retain their passion … but pain would keep those passions in check. Sith like Palpatine had not followed this principle, had followed philosophies of gain without loss, and their greed had doomed them and everyone around them.
Including Jacen’s grandfather, Darth Vader.
“You will be the man your grandfather couldn’t,” Lumiya said. “Go home, do what you can to stop the war, and to free up time to study. Eventually you will need to find yourself an apprentice. Ben may be worthy, but I think he is already too steeped in the Jedi ways of softness and serenity, so look elsewhere, as well as at him. You’ll need to train to open your mind to facets of the Force you’ve been instructed to ignore or despise. And your greatest attainment of knowledge and power will come at the same time as your greatest act of sacrifice, when you give up something that is as dear to you as life—making your love immortal through its sacrifice.”
“We’ll see,” he said.
“Come back and I will help you see.”
She stood watching through the air lock’s transparisteel wall as he boarded, sealed his shuttle, uncoupled the boarding tube. The shuttle rose on its repulsors, gently turned toward the opening doors, and departed.
Tired, drained, jubilant, Lumiya returned to the living chamber at the top of her habitat. She lay on a couch there and stared up through the scratched transparisteel dome at the stars. “I’ve won,” she said.
Jacen—dark-garbed, a gold-and-black lightsaber hilt at his belt, the pupils of his eyes golden-orange—moved out from a shadowy nook and turned to face her. His mouth did not move, but his words carried to Lumiya’s mind: And so I must go. Become nothingness.
“You always were nothingness. You’re a projection—dark side energy from the caverns, shaped by my imagination and Jacen Solo’s form. But you’ll be back. Bit by bit, Jacen Solo will become you.”
And at last I’ll have a name. A Sith name.
“Yes.”
The phantom Sith moved forward to stand over her. He will learn that the attack at Toryaz Station was your doing. That good men were ruined by the phantoms from your mind, phantoms taking the forms of those they loved. That this war to come could have been prevented but for your interference.
“Yes, someday, perhaps. In the meantime, his anger, the anger of his family, will be directed at Thrackan Sal-Solo, who’s more to blame than I am for that attack—since he did what he did out of self-interest. And by the time Jacen discovers the full truth, he will understand how important he is, how he could not come to be without those events occurring, and he will forgive me.”
I feel his emotions. He will hate you for these events.
“But he will love me for them, too.”
Yes.
Lumiya smiled. “Then I know balance. The balance of the Sith.”
The false Jacen nodded, then slowly, and without evident distress, faded to nothingness.
Bleary-eyed, gently rubbing his stomach, Ben moved into the shuttle’s cockpit and dropped into the copilot’s seat. “How long was I unconscious?”
“Hours,” Jacen said.
“Where’s Nelani?”
Jacen paused, looking for the right words. But the gentle ones would, in the long run, do more damage than the cold, short, truthful ones. “Ben, she’s dead.”
Ben sat up straight. The expression he turned on Jacen was pained, disbelieving. “How? The Sith?”
“Yes and no.” Jacen considered his answer, considered the mix of truth and lies he would someday have to unravel. “There was a person in the lower caverns who called himself a Sith. But he wasn’t. He was just a dark side Force-user who’d learned to tap into the powers imbued in the place. They made him very strong … but only there, on that asteroid. He sent deadly illusions against us.”
“I remember. I fought Mom. She kicked the stuffing out of me.”
“Just as she would in real life. Nelani fought the phantoms of her own inadequacy, phantoms I thought I’d helped her deal with when she was just an apprentice, and she was too weak for them. They killed her.”
“Oh … Sith spawn.” Ben slumped. “What about … about … Bisha? Birsha?” The boy looked confused.
“Brisha,” Jacen supplied. He well knew why Ben looked confused, why he faltered over Brisha’s name. Jacen had interfered with Ben’s memories while the boy slept, brushing away Ben’s recollections of the woman he knew as Brisha almost as artfully as a painter might restore a classic portrait. Doubtless Ben was confused by his sudden inability to remember her features. Jacen would attribute it to the many knocks and blows Ben had sustained. “She died, too. Succumbed to her injuries.” He heaved a false sigh. “I’ve ordered a tremendous quantity of explosives to blow the asteroid up.” It was true that anyone following the coordinates now in the shuttle’s memory to the listed location of her habitat would find only boulder-size chunks of stone. Jacen had falsified details in the shuttle’s memory, charting a route from Lorrd to a different uninhabited star system, another asteroid field. Lumiya was safe from discovery, for now.
“Good.” Ben sat, not speaking, for a few minutes, drumming his fingers restlessly on the arm of the copilot’s chair. “It’s not fair. That they died.”
“No, it’s not. But that happens. It’s life. We just have to find a way … to make ourselves stronger because of it.”
Ben nodded. “I guess you’re right.”
CORUSCANT
“He exists.” Luke looked up from his terminal. On its screen scrolled updated reports of the engagement at Tralus, but Mara could feel that the worry on his face was caused by something else. “He finally exists, for real.”
“Your phantom enemy.”
“Yes.” Luke rose. “That must have been why we were attacked tonight—the false Jacen, the false Ben. They occupied our emotions so thoroughly that we missed the creation of—whatever he is, wherever he is. Maybe it happened close by, or there would have been no reason to divert us.” He looked in all directions, as though the smooth stone walls of the enclave interior chamber would become transparent and reveal the enemy, but they remained stubbornly opaque.
“We’ll find him,” Mara said. “And we’ll beat him.” Her attention returned to her own terminal and a smile crossed her features. “Message from Jacen and Ben. They’re coming home.”
About the Author
AARON ALLSTON is the New York Times bestselling author of novels in the Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi, Legacy of the Force, New Jedi Order, and X-Wing series, as well as the Doc Sidhe novels, which mix 1930s-style hero-pulp action with Celtic myth. He is also a longtime game designer and in 2006 was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design (AAGAD) Hall of Fame. He lives in Central Texas. Visit his website at AaronAllston.com.
Books by Aaron Allston
Galatea in 2-D
Bard’s Tale Series (with Holly Lisle)
Thunder of the Captains
Wrath of the Princes
Car Warriors Series
Double Jeopardy
Doc Sidhe Series
Doc Sidhe
Sidhe-Devil
Star Wars: X-Wing series
Wraith Squadron
Iron Fist
<
br /> Solo Command
Starfighters of Adumar
Star Wars: New Jedi Order series
Rebel Dream
Rebel Stand
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force series
Betrayal
Exile
Fury
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi series
Outcast
Backlash
Conviction
Terminator 3 Series
Terminator Dream
Terminator Hunt
IN HIS IMAGE
Karen Traviss
It is natural for him to want to destroy me. It is not crude mundane ambition, as it would be in an ordinary man; it is part of his growth. And of course it does not offend me—it is why I chose him. But he needs to grow still further.
—Emperor Palpatine, on his apprentice, Darth Vader
IMPERIAL PALACE, CORUSCANT
The trooper was a stranger.
Vader had now served long enough beside the remnant of what had been the Republic’s Grand Army to know exactly how tall a cloned soldier would stand in relation to him. The crowns of their white helmets were consistently level with the mouthpiece of his mask, every single one of them, always, without variance.
But this one barely reached his jaw.
“Take off your helmet,” said Vader.
“Sir!” the trooper responded automatically and popped the seal. He eased off the helmet, an equally unfamiliar thing with its new design of flared mouth guard, and tucked it under one arm in a practiced motion.
He was far from the reassuringly standard Fett clone. The wide pupils of his pale blue eyes were the only indication of his anxiety at being scrutinized as the potential template for a new batch of dutiful warriors.
Vader estimated that he was ten centimeters too short and ten kilos too light.
He circled the soldier a few times with slow, heavy paces that echoed around the polished gray-green walls. At first Vader had been forced by his prosthetic limbs and armor to take such deliberate strides; he was now comfortably one with the suit, but he retained the gait.
It made people wary. It announced him. It served his purpose.
He paused in front of the trooper, chest plate almost close enough to touch him, and looked down into his eyes again until they began to water and the man finally blinked. Vader didn’t even have to test him with the Force. He only needed to stand too close. It fascinated him.
He won’t hold his ground. He’s loyal and he’s competent, but he has his limits. And there’s too much at stake to be rushed into making an inferior choice.
“Dismissed,” said Vader.
The almost-adequate trooper brought his helmet around to his chest in a choreographed move with one hand, and placed it back on his head two-handed with equal precision. Then he saluted, pivoted 180 on his heel, and marched out.
Vader watched him disappear through the great double doors, and waited for the man he knew was watching from behind to show himself.
“He comes highly recommended, but I trust your judgment,” said Emperor Palpatine, stepping out of the shadow of the archway. “I sense your disappointment.”
“No, with respect, you don’t, my Master,” said Vader. They walked now, side by side, Vader shortening his stride to match Palpatine’s. “I’m not disappointed. Merely refining my search. A good man, but not good enough.”
“We have time. There are already clones in production. You know this.”
“Forgive me, but I prefer to oversee a project from inception. The Empire might appear settled, but we need the ability to project power in these early years. And that means maintaining quality as well as restoring numbers.”
“We have sufficient of both to allow you some leeway.”
Vader slowed still further and looked down at Palpatine, almost a caricature of old age whom he neither hated nor feared nor loved. The absence of passion was almost a state of bliss in itself. “I thought you trusted my judgment. Perhaps it’s me you don’t trust, Master.”
“I trust you to do what I know you will do.”
Vader was still wary when they teetered on the brink of what appeared to be a mutual test. He chose not to react. “Peaceful order rests on a strong, well-equipped, satisfied army. I’ve just defined loyalty for you. The ideology doesn’t concern them.”
“Then you must look further.” Palpatine pulled back his hood a little. “And I’m interested that you care about their contentment.”
“I care that none of them are malcontents, and that isn’t the same thing,” said Vader. It wasn’t entirely true: he had more time for the lower ranks than he did for the Moffs and some of the other officers. “And it’s more efficient to inspire respect than to rule by terror.”
Palpatine paused at the doors as if he had been exhausted by the walk across the chamber. His voice was almost a whisper. “I don’t think I understood you correctly. You sound as if you wish to be … liked.”
Vader heard the subtext. Are you weakening so soon? He was purged of anger now, but what would have been an insult between ordinary men still had to be addressed. “Harsh enforcement takes effort. I prefer to avoid the need in the first place. That doesn’t mean that I won’t do whatever is necessary. You know me by now.”
Palpatine paused, a single heartbeat. “A pity we can’t yet clone from other clones.”
“We have a galaxy of potential templates, Master.”
“Then widen your search.” The Emperor managed a pleasant and rare smile. “Let us arrange a trip.”
Vader gave him a deferential nod—a gesture, nothing more—and strode down the hall. A dozen or so stormtroopers were standing at intervals down its length, and they snapped from at ease to attention at precisely the same moment. They saluted.
All of them were exactly the same height, the same build. There were, Vader was almost happy to note, some things you could still count on.
One day I’ll have only myself to rely upon.
He was comfortable with that idea. A year ago, a few months ago, it would have made him unbearably sad.
For once he returned the stormtroopers’ salute. They were almost as dependent on their armor and confined by it as he was. He felt a brief moment of purely professional kinship. Vader had passed beyond the rule of his emotions.
And he knew what it was to be shaped in someone else’s image.
There had been many Emperor’s Hands—under less Imperial titles and even no titles at all—during Palpatine’s time in office, and none of them seemed content with that necessity. It was the nature of assassins, Palpatine decided. They were not team players.
He let the doors close behind him and settled into a carved apocia chair against one wall of his throne room. His current Hand, Sa Cuis, was waiting for him, jaw muscles twitching ever so slightly, clearly impatient even if he thought he was presenting his Emperor with a façade of calm. Palpatine wondered why the assassin bothered to disguise his feelings in front of someone with Force mastery; but it was habit, he imagined, and he allowed him his ingrained need for deception.
Cuis had a totally benign face and a drab charcoal tunic that made him look like a harmless but well-built accountant. It was another elegant camouflage. Palpatine respected a man so secure in his own strength that he needed no external displays of menace.
“My lord, I don’t fully understand this mission, and you know that I need to if I’m to complete it.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable question, even for a Dark Jedi. “There’s nothing complex in it. Follow Lord Vader to the Parmel sector and, with colleagues of your choosing, kill him.”
“There are so many questions I must—”
“Kill him. He needs this.”
“He’s your apprentice. You invested so much in him.” Cuis had very dark eyes, almost perfectly black, and for a moment Palpatine wondered if he had more than human blood in him. He had stopped blinking and now focused slightly to one side of the Emperor. An idea had apparently occurred to him; h
e seemed relieved.
“You mean give him a test, my lord? A run for his credits, sharpen him up—”
“No, I mean kill him. I mean no quarter. Not a feint. A genuine assassination.”
Yes, Cuis had gotten the idea. Palpatine needed none of his Force skills to see that. The assassin was now swallowing frequently. “What if I don’t succeed?”
“I doubt you will succeed. And he’ll kill you—probably.”
Not a pause, not a flicker. A good man, Cuis. “A team would—”
“You will need a team, trust me. Lord Vader is not as strong as I had hoped he might be at this stage, but he remains a formidable opponent.”
Cuis took out a lightsaber and held the hilt in both hands. “I know. I have acquired a more suitable weapon.” With one snap he separated the hilt into two sections; energy streamed straight and vivid from each, one blade red, the other white. He swept slow, careful arcs with both weapons, shafts almost touching, and then shut them down and pressed the hilts back into one again. “This might be enough.”
Palpatine probed discreetly at the Dark Jedi’s mood. Yes, worried, but determined. Professional pride and a little healthy, welcome fear. Death was an occupational hazard for his kind. “I hope not.”
“But what if Lord Vader finds that you’re behind this?” asked Cuis, concern for his own chances of survival apparently set aside.
“He will,” said Palpatine. Oh yes, he would, and that was what Vader needed. “I hope he does.”
A Sith could pass beyond hatred and anger too quickly. Vader needed to become stronger, and fast. Betrayal would not surprise his apprentice, but there was a world of therapeutic difference between waiting for it and experiencing it.
If Palpatine had still been able to experience regret, it would have pained him at that moment.
PARMEL SECTOR, THE OUTER RIM
Vohai sprawled beneath the Lambda-class shuttle, a quilt of grim industrial sites interspersed with parkland and incongruously attractive residential towers. From the view port, Vader watched a single gleaming carriage zip along the unirail that hung two kilometers above the planet’s surface, reflected sunlight forming a burning pinpoint.