by Alex Wheeler
"Problem?" The Commander smiled. "Let me help you out." He took a step toward X-7. Then another, and another, until they were standing face to face.
Now, X-7 thought. But his limbs were frozen. And his mind was screaming in pain.
He hadn't had any trouble holding the blade to the Commander's throat before. But that had been different. Then he had only intended to scare Soresh. Now, with murder running through his veins, he couldn't move. Could barely breathe.
"Feeling out of sorts?" Soresh said smugly. "Limbs a little heavy? Chest a little constricted?"
X-7 tried to speak, but found he couldn't even do that. The more desperately he wanted to kill the Commander, the more rigid and useless his limbs became. It was becoming an effort to stand. The vibroblade was heavy and awkward in his numb fingers. Distantly, he felt it drop to the floor.
And the pain…
X-7 had suffered pain before. He had been bred for pain. But this was different. It had no source; it came from within.
"You can't hurt me," the Commander said, "because I'm your master, whether you choose to forget that or not. Your mind will never forget. Your programming will never forget." He clapped a hand on X-7's shoulder. X-7 spat in his face. The Commander didn't even bother to wipe it off. "Let this be a lesson to you," he said, saliva dripping down his cheek. "Humans have free will. But you have only my will. You're not a person anymore. You're a tool. You're a program. You are, and will always be, mine."
X-7 finally understood.
Take me home. The words formed themselves in his brain, almost without his intention. But he knew that if he were to try to form them, his mouth would comply. He would be able to move. His rebellious body would fall into line again, ready to serve the Commander. It would be easy. He opened his mouth.
And the window exploded.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Luke burst through the window, Div and Han close behind him. X-7 was standing face to face with an Imperial officer, both of them as still as stone. "Come on!" Luke shouted. X-7 didn't move; he didn't even turn in the direction of the commotion. The Imperial blanched at the sight of the Rebels and their blasters. He backed away, stumbling over his own feet, and ducked beneath his desk. One hand groped blindly on the desk, feeling around for the comlink. "Security!" he shouted in a high, fluttery voice. "Emergency! Security!"
"X-7, come on," Luke said urgently.
"Enough," Han said. He grabbed X-7 and slipped a hook at the end of the liquid-cable line around X-7's belt buckle. "Let's get out of here while we still can." He gave the liquid cable a harsh yank. X-7 started, as if suddenly realizing they were there.
"What…?"
But there was no time. The Rebels dragged X-7 toward the window. As one, they jumped.
It was heart-stopping, flying into midair like that, the ground so many stories beneath. But the cable caught. "All clear?" Div said into the comlink.
"All clear," Leia's voice reported.
Luke nodded. "Coming up." He pressed the retraction switch, and the line went taut, then yanked him up the side of the building. Div, Han, and X-7 dangled a few meters beneath him.
It would be easy for Luke to reach across with his lightsaber and sever X-7's line. It wouldn't even be that difficult to make it look like an accident. X-7 would plummet to the ground, and Luke would never have to look into his cold eyes again. He would never have to pretend they were allies.
And he wouldn't have to force himself to trust X-7—to once again put his life in the traitor's hands.
But the edge of the roof was drawing nearer and nearer. Ferus's arm dangled over the side. He gripped Luke's arm and hauled him onto the roof. The moment was gone.
We should have just left him, Luke thought.
But this rescue mission wasn't about helping X-7. It was about protecting a valuable resource, their newest weapon against the Empire. Nothing could be more important than that.
"We should call it off," Luke argued. "Bad enough that the Empire knows Rebels are on Belazura—"
"Because you screwed up the blueprint retrieval," Div pointed out angrily.
Luke ignored him. They might be in Div's house, but it was Leia's mission. She was the one he had to convince. "If X-7 compromised us with the Imperials—"
"We are not calling it off," Div snapped. "After everything we've done? General Rieekan gave me his word."
"Nobody wants this," Leia said. "But we have to proceed carefully."
"I say we proceed right off this rock," Han said. "Now, before the Empire comes calling."
Leia scowled. "Of course you want to run."
"It's not about running," Han argued. "It's about being smart."
"And what would you know about that?" Leia asked.
Han leaned forward, jabbing a finger at the princess. "Listen to me, Your Worshipfulness. You face down a mean Klatooinian, a crazy Ortolan, and a Chiss with an anger-management problem and a CryoBan grenade—all on the same night. And then you talk to me about running away. I'd like to see you try to tie a Klatooinian to the back of a wild rancor."
"And I'd like to see you swallowed up by a—"
"I may have a solution."
Everyone looked up. X-7 had appeared in the room with his usual silent stealth. He'd spoken only once since they'd fled Soresh's roof in a stolen airspeeder. And that wasn't to say thank you. It was only to ask how they'd known where he was—and why they were following him. "I lost you once," Div had said, thinking quickly. "I wasn't about to lose you again." Accepting that, X-7 had fallen into a stony silence. Until now.
"Since it's my fault that you're in this position," X-7 continued, "your having felt the need to…rescue me."
There was something off about the way he said the word, Luke thought. Rescue. As if it was an insult. But his face was placid, his voice pleasant; nothing to indicate that he was anything less than sincere. Nothing but Luke's vague misgivings.
"While I was a guest of Commander Soresh, I had a chance to learn a few things," X-7 said, keeping his eyes on Div. "One of particular interest to you, I believe. Tomorrow, at sixteen hundred hours, an Imperial delegation will be arriving on Belazura for a tour of the Imperial garrison. A delegation that includes Darth Vader."
It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.
"Vader?" Luke repeated. "Here?"
X-7 nodded.
Leia's face had gone pale. Luke knew she held Darth Vader responsible for the destruction of Alderaan. Responsible for the deaths of everyone she loved.
And it was Vader's lightsaber that had struck Ben to the ground.
Vader was the evil engine at the heart of the Empire, doing the Emperor's dark bidding. He was an enforcer, a last resort, the ultimate threat. And without him, the Empire might well begin to crumble.
This could be it. The beginning of the end. If they could pull off the attack. If X-7's intel could be trusted.
"We go forward," Leia said in a commanding tone. "Tomorrow, Belazura's Imperial garrison goes up in smoke."
Luke nodded, trying to suppress his doubts. "And Vader with it."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was time.
The Rebels gathered in the small Divinian compound. They inventoried their weapons, made one last survey of the garrison blueprints, rehearsed the plan one final time. And then they set out to destroy the Empire's seat of power on Belazura.
Or die trying.
X-7 suppressed a smile. He knew which it would be. He was just sorry he wouldn't be around to watch. "Div, wait," he said, pulling his so-called brother away from the others. "I need to talk to you for a minute. In private."
Div looked indecisively back and forth between X-7 and the departing Rebels. "Can it wait?"
"It really can't," X-7 said. "Brother."
Div checked the time on his datapad and nodded. "Five minutes," he agreed. "Then we need to get into position."
X-7 didn't say anything.
"Well?" Div asked. "What is it?"
"Not
here." X-7 led him upstairs, into the room that had once belonged to Trever. He shut the door.
He had considered letting Div go, showing some form of mercy to the man who might be his adopted brother. But that impulse was just a symptom of the sickness, the rot that had eaten away at his insides, turning his durasteel will to Sarkanian jelly. And Div was at the root of it all. These memories, these delusions, these repulsive feelings, they all revolved around Div and his stories of the past. He was the only link to Trever, the only thing tethering X-7 to humanity. With Div gone, Trever would die forever.
X-7 would be free.
"What's going on?" Div asked. X-7 could tell he was starting to get suspicious.
He should just do it. But he wasn't ready. Not yet.
"I couldn't let you go with them," he said. He turned his back to Div, picked up one of the old photo albums, and leafed through. Shot after shot of Trever and Lune, happy boys, happy together. But he wasn't looking at the images. The photo album shielded him as he drew the palm-sized laser blaster from his coat, readied himself to fire. At point-blank range, there would be no risk of error.
"What? Why not?"
"They're all going to die," X-7 said coldly. "The Empire is waiting for them to arrive. As you should have been waiting for me." He whirled around, raised the blaster.
But he didn't pull the trigger.
Div froze. His eyes widened. "You sent them into an ambush?" he said.
"You're worried about your friends?" X-7 asked. "Now?"
It was the final straw. If this was what it meant to be human, X-7 wanted nothing to do with it. Ignoring the threat to one's own life because someone else was in danger? It was the quickest way to die. Other people were like anchors, dragging you down. If you let yourself become attached, you'd inevitably be pulled under.
This, X-7 finally understood, was what made him superior. He'd deceived himself long enough, pretending he could be one of them. He'd torn himself apart, pretending to be someone he wasn't. Pretending to be someone.
It was a lie. He was no one.
He was X-7.
There was no escaping that.
"What is this?" Div said quickly. "We've been over and over this. It's not a trap. Everything I've told you has been the absolute truth. You're my—"
"Brother," X-7 said. "Don't worry. I believe you."
Div released a nearly imperceptible sigh.
"That's why I need to do this," X-7 said.
He fired.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Something's wrong," Luke whispered, nervously adjusting his maintenance uniform as they approached the garrison's workers' entrance.
"Of course something's wrong," Han shot back, sounding annoyed. "We're walking into an Imperial garrison. Two of us against two hundred of them. And we're doing it voluntarily. What's not wrong about that?" He hoisted his toolbox, which held six Merr-Sonn Munitions Class-A thermal detonators. The plan was simple. They would use the security access codes X-7 had given them. Div and X-7 were doing the same on the opposite end of the garrison. They would sneak in, place the detonators at the heart of the building, a weapons arsenal, where any explosion would ignite a wider blaze. The detonators were on a timer set for thirty minutes. Just as Darth Vader was surveying his latest triumph, the building would explode.
Two Rebel strike forces under Leia's command were positioned around the perimeter of the building, ready to go at a moment's notice.
Han reached the designated entrance. He raised his hand to enter the code that would let them slip in unnoticed. Without thinking, Luke grabbed his wrist to stop him.
"What now, kid?" Han asked irritably. "If you don't have the stomach for this—"
"It's not that," Luke whispered. "Something's wrong."
He had that feeling, the dark, suffocating cloud that sometimes descended over him when danger was near. The Force, warning him of trouble. But it wasn't just that. It was something he didn't feel—something missing.
The last time he'd been near Darth Vader, he'd sensed a different darkness. He hadn't understood it then, but he remembered it vividly. It was power, sizzling in the air, like the change in air pressure before a storm, subtle at first, then overwhelming.
And it was missing.
"Vader isn't here," Luke said.
"How would you know?" Han asked.
"I just know." And if X-7 had been lying about Vader's presence, what else had he been lying about?
Han shook his head. Luke knew he had little patience for what he thought of as Jedi mumbo jumbo, which meant Luke wasn't going to convince him with talk of gut feelings and trusting the Force. He had to speak in a language Han understood.
"You don't trust X-7 any more than I do," Luke pointed out.
Han didn't disagree.
Luke pushed on. "So if he gave us the wrong codes—"
"Kid, if X-7's against us, we've got bigger problems than the wrong codes," Han said. "And—" He jerked his head toward the AC-1 surveillance droids keeping their mechanical eyes on the entrance. "It's probably already too late." He gave the barrel of his blaster a loving tap. "But it's not like we're going in unprepared."
"Two of us and two hundred of them," Luke reminded him. "You're prepared for that?"
Han laughed. He entered the security code. The door slid open. No stormtroopers, no alarms, no nothing. "Looks like you were worried about nothing," Han said as they stepped inside.
Then his comlink pinged. "Luke! Han!" Leia's tinny voice blared through the static. "It's a trap—" Her voice was cut off by the thunder of an explosion.
The transmission went dead.
Ferus didn't know why he'd been compelled to turn back. To anyone else—to Leia, especially—it would look cowardly. He'd abandoned his designated post for no particular reason. He'd fled the base just before the Rebel raid was to begin, and was headed as fast as he could to the relative safety of the Divinian compound. It was irrational and unexpected. But it wasn't cowardice.
It was a certainty that something was very wrong.
And the ghost of a voice, whispering in his ears.
Go.
It could have been Obi-Wan's voice, speaking from beyond the grave. But Ferus believed it was his own. And he followed it.
The Divinian house was empty. Ferus prowled the rooms one by one, lightsaber at the ready. There was something off here. He could sense it. He flung open door after door. Kitchen. Refresher. Bedroom. A second bedroom—
Ferus gasped and rushed across the room. "Div!" he shouted, kneeling by the body.
The boy's eyes were closed. A blast of laserfire had scorched his shoulder. Ferus pressed two fingers to Div's pale neck. He closed his eyes. "Please," he whispered, feeling for a pulse.
It was there. Faint, but there. He was alive.
"Come on," Ferus urged him, hurriedly dressing the wound. "Stay with me. Stay with me, Lune."
"How many times do I have to tell you that's not my name?" Div opened his eyes and gave Ferus a weak smile.
"What happened?"
Div struggled to sit up.
"Easy," Ferus said. "Go slow."
Div shook his head. "No time. Head for the garrison. It's an ambush."
"X-7?"
"I don't know what happened. He just…turned."
"He shot you in the shoulder," Ferus mused, tucking Div's left arm into a makeshift sling.
"I noticed."
"Interesting."
Div dragged himself to his feet, wincing at the pain. "You find this interesting?"
"He is a trained Imperial assassin, and he shot you point-blank—in the shoulder," Ferus said, helping Div stand. "If he'd wanted you dead, you'd be dead. Makes you wonder."
"Makes you wonder, maybe," Div said. "Makes me want to go save our friends from walking into a bloodbath."
Div was pale and trembling with the effort of standing. The sling kept his shoulder immobile, but moving was clearly agony. "I'm not sure how much help you can be to anyone in this condition," Feru
s said, worried.
Div just stared at him with the same determined, unsettling gaze he'd had as a child. "I have to try."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"Go!" Luke urged Han. "I'll plant the detonators. You help Leia."
Han was already in motion. The Rebel strike forces had camouflaged themselves in the wooded hills surrounding the garrison. Now their hiding place was lit up by exploding grenades and bolts of laserfire crackling through the trees. It had been an ambush, and the Rebel forces were surely overpowered. There was no chance that Han's presence would turn the tide, even with the fragmentation grenades tucked into his belt beside his backup blaster. If he was smart, he'd just walk away, save his own skin while he had the chance. But he didn't hesitate to plunge into the smoky battle.
Chewbacca was in there somewhere.
Leia was in there.
It was total chaos. Laserfire shot through the thick haze of smoke. The nahtival trees were on fire. The branches crackled as they burned, and flaming leaves fluttered through the air, igniting small patches of zura grass. The Rebels and the stormtroopers seemed to be firing blindly, desperate to hit someone—anyone.
There were at least twice as many stormtroopers as there were Rebels. Han bashed the nearest one in the back of the head and pushed forward into the center of the mess.
Laserfire peppered the trees. "Chewie!" Han shouted, catching sight of the Wookiee surrounded by four stormtroopers. Chewbacca grabbed one in each hand and swung them like a stun baton into the others. The Imperials went down in a grunting heap.
"Get down, buddy!" Han shouted as a stormtrooper perched in a tree began shooting at the Wookiee. Han whipped his blaster into action and took him out with a single shot to the head. The Imperial toppled to the ground, landing with a clatter on two of his allies.
Chewbacca roared in gratitude, already turning toward a couple of Rebels pinned down by a circle of troopers. Han was charging in to help when a blast of laserfire shot past, singeing his shoulder. He flinched, whipping around to return fire. But his assailant was already down. Leia stood over the body. She snatched the trooper's fallen blaster rifle and tossed it to Han.