Champions of the Force

by Kevin J. Anderson

  It struck the floor with a hollow sound, and Nawruun crumpled beside it. His body shuddered, and he made hollow sounds as he wept.

  Tol Sivron tried to find a comfortable place to sit back and relax in the pilot compartment of the Death Star, but the prototype had not been designed for niceties.

  Racks of equipment stood surrounded by bare wires and clumsy welds. Girders and reinforced framework blocked his view of most of the embattled Installation, but he could see that the Rebel forces had overrun the facility.

  At the outer perimeter of the clustered planetoids, the tangled cooling towers and radiation vanes of the power reactor suddenly glowed bright and began to collapse.

  Wermyn's gruff voice came over the radio. "Director Sivron, our explosives have destroyed the coolant systems. The power reactor will soon go supercritical. I don't think the attackers can stop it. Maw Installation is doomed."

  "Very well, Wermyn," Sivron said, dismayed at the loss of capital equipment — but what could he do, after all? His Imperial guardians had deserted him. He and his division leaders had done quite a creditable job of putting up a fight. Without any military help they couldn't be expected to succeed against a well—armed strike force, could they? Besides, they were following established procedure. No one could fault them for that.

  Sivron looked at the stormtrooper captain and at the other three division leaders. The rest of the Maw scientists and stormtrooper contingents had taken refuge inside the prototype's supply and control rooms.

  "I have not had a chance to read the complete technical readouts of this battle — station prototype." Tol Sivron looked around. "Does anyone know how to fly this vessel?"

  Golanda looked at Doxin, who in turn looked at Yemm.

  The stormtrooper captain said, "I have had some experience flying attack vehicles, sir. Perhaps I can interpret the controls."

  "Good, Captain," Tol Sivron said. "Ummm ..." He stood up from his command chair. "Do you need to sit here?"

  "No need, sir. I can handle it from the pilot station." The captain went over to a bolted—together row of controls.

  "They must have detected Wermyn's explosions," Doxin said, watching the Rebel attack ships clustered around the reactor planetoid. Two more shuttles descended as teams were deployed down to the power station. The combined Rebel firepower would block all rescue attempts.

  "Now, how are we supposed to get Wermyn?" Sivron said.

  Yemm began to flip through the Emergency Procedures manual again. "I don't think we addressed that contingency either."

  Tol Sivron's head—tails thrashed in extreme annoyance. "That's not very good, is it?" He scowled, trying to figure out how he could adapt on the spot. Twi'leks were good at adapting. Sivron had managed to adapt when he left his home planet of Ryloth; he had adapted when Moff Tarkin had assigned him as director of the think tank. Now he would adapt his plans again to make the best of a situation that was growing worse by the minute.

  "All right, so there's no time to rescue Wermyn. Change of plans. Our duty is to the Empire. We must take this Death Star prototype and make a rapid retreat."

  Wermyn himself had seen the Rebel strike teams coming down to retake the reactor planetoid, and he contacted Tol Sivron again with a more frantic tenor in his voice. "Director, what can I do to assist you? How are you planning to rescue us?"

  Tol Sivron opened the channel and said in his gravest, most sincere voice, "Wermyn, I just want you to know how much I admire and respect you for your years of service. I regret that your retirement cannot be as long and as happy as I had hoped it would be. Once again, accept my appreciation. Thank you."

  He signed off, then turned to the stormtrooper captain. "We need to get out of here now."

  When the heaviest fighting began to die away, Qwi Xux shuttled down to the Installation with Wedge Antilles. Qwi saw the planetoids growing larger as they approached. She had spent most of her life down there, but she remembered little of it.

  Other than the destruction of the first corvette, the New Republic fleet had suffered minimal losses. The Maw scientists had put up even less resistance than Wedge had feared. Qwi looked forward now to going through her old labs, eager to find her own files in hopes of answering some of her questions ... but afraid to learn the answers.

  Wedge reached over to hold her hand. "It'll be fine. You'll be a great help. Wait and see."

  She looked longingly at him with her large eyes. "I'll do my best." But something caught her attention, and she pointed quickly. "Look, Wedge! We've got to stop it."

  The Death Star prototype rose away from Maw Installation under its own power, glistening in the reflected light of the gas cloud.

  "According to my own records, Maw Installation had a fully functional prototype," Qwi said. "If they take that Death Star into New Republic space —" Before she could complete her sentence, the gigantic sphere of the Death Star shot away toward the edge of the black hole cluster and vanished into the masking clouds of superhot gas.

  Terpfen stood in the looming shadow of the Great Temple as Yavin's early daylight increased, warming the jungles until mists rose in the air.

  Paralyzed with fear in front of the towering, ancient ziggurat, Terpfen swiveled his circular eyes to look back to the landing area where his stolen B—wing fighter rested, humming and ticking as it cooled among the cropped weeds. He saw discolored smears on its hull from where the pursuing X—wing fighters on Coruscant had scored direct hits.

  Looking up, he spotted several of the Jedi candidates, tiny figures atop the temple. As the jungle moon orbited around the gas giant, the configuration of the system set up an unusual phenomenon that had filled the Rebels with wonder when they first established the small moon as a secret base.

  Bright sunlight streaming through the upper layers of the Yavin primary refracted in many different colors, then struck the moon's atmosphere, filtered through the rising mists to let loose a shower of rainbows that lasted only minutes with each dawn. The Jedi trainees, gathered to watch the rainbow storm high above, had seen his ship land. They were coming.

  In a slick fighter jumpsuit that bore no insignia, Terpfen felt his heart pounding, his mind whirling. Confessing his traitorous acts frightened him the most — but Terpfen had to face it. He tried to rehearse his words, but decided that it would not help. There was no good way to share the terrible news.

  He felt dizzy, ready to faint, and grasped the cool, moss—covered blocks of the temple with one flippered hand. He feared that Carida had somehow found him again, that Furgan was sinking his clutches into the organic components that had been substituted for parts of Terpfen's brain.

  No! It was his mind now! He had not felt the tug from his Imperial controllers for over a day now. He'd forgotten what it was like to think his own thoughts, and he had tested the new freedom with growing wonder. He fantasized about overthrowing the Empire, about throttling bug—eyed Ambassador Furgan.

  And during these thoughts no shadowy presence squashed his mind. He felt so ... free!

  He realized the faintness was just his numbing fright. The feeling passed, and Terpfen stood straight again as he heard footsteps approach.

  The first to emerge into the bright daylight was Minister of State Leia Organa Solo herself. She must have run to the turbolift, expecting that the B—wing fighter carried some emergency message from Coruscant. Her hair looked mussed and windblown, and shadows haunted her eyes. Her face wore a concerned frown, as if something else already troubled her.

  Terpfen felt the cold despair increase within him. She would be even more agonized after he told her that the Imperials knew the location of her son Anakin.

  Leia stopped and looked gravely at him, sizing him up. Her brows drew together in thought, and then she said his name. "I know you. Terpfen, right? Why have you come here?"

  Terpfen knew that his battered bulbous head and the lumpy mappings of scars made him recognizable even to humans. Behind Leia came several Jedi students Terpfen did not recognize, u
ntil he saw Ambassador Cilghal. The female Calamarian's large round eyes seemed to bore into his soul. "

  "Minister Organa Solo ...", Terpfen said in a quavering voice. Then he collapsed to his knees, partly in abject misery and partly because his legs refused to support him any longer. "Your son Anakin is in grave danger!"

  He hung his scarred head. Before she could fire off laser—sharp questions, Terpfen confessed everything.

  Leia stared down at Terpfen's scarred head and felt as if she were being strangled. Luke and Ackbar's intricate security and secrecy about Anoth had been breached! The Empire knew where to find her baby son.

  Leia understood little about the defenses on the sheltered, hellish world. Now her servant and friend Winter was the only protection baby Anakin had.

  "Please, Minister Organa Solo — we must go to Anoth at once," Terpfen said. "We must send them a message, evacuate your child before an Imperial strike squad can reach him. While I was under Furgan's influence, I transmitted Anoth's coordinates to Carida, but I did not keep a copy of them. I destroyed that information. You must take us there yourself. I will do whatever I can to help, but we must move quickly."

  Leia made ready to leap into action, ready to do anything necessary to save her son. But a paralyzing realization brought her up short. "I can't contact Anoth. Even I don't know where the planet is!"

  Terpfen stared at her, but she couldn't read expressions on his angular, aquatic face. She continued. "It was kept secret from me, too. The only ones who knew were Winter — and she's on Anoth — and Ackbar, who is now hiding on Calamari, and Luke, who's in a coma. I don't know how to get there!"

  She steadied herself, trying to recall how fast—thinking she had been in her younger days. On the first Death Star she had taken charge during Han and Luke's ill—planned rescue. She had known what to do then. She had acted quickly and without hesitation.

  But now she had three children to care for, and her new priorities seemed to scramble her single—mindedness. Han had already departed to search for Kyp Durron and the Sun Crusher. She'd been left here with the twins, supposedly to keep them safe. She couldn't just leave now.

  Ambassador Cilghal seemed to sense her thoughts. "You must go, Leia. Go save your son. Your twin children will be safe here. The Jedi students will protect them."

  As if suddenly freed of something she hadn't known was binding her, Leia felt plans plunge into her conscious mind. Relaxing, she became cool and decisive. "All right, Terpfen, you're coming with me. We'll go to Calamari as fast as we can. We'll find Ackbar, and he can take us to Winter and Anakin." She looked at the traitor with a complex mixture of anger and hope, pity and sorrow.

  He turned away. "No. What if the Imperials activate me again? What if I am forced to commit some new sabotage?"

  "I'll keep my eyes peeled," she said in a hard voice. "But I want you to come see Ackbar." She thought of the Calamarian admiral's misery, how he had gone to hide in the wilderness of his planet so others would not have to look at his shame. "You're going to explain to him that he wasn't at fault in the Vortex crash."

  Terpfen worked his way back to his feet. He wobbled on his feet, but finally stood firm. "Minister Organa Solo," he said. His voice sounded as if he had swallowed something unpleasant. "I — I am sorry."

  She shot a look at him, but she felt adrenaline pumping through her, a need to be on the move, to do anything possible. Hesitation could mean the loss of everything.

  "Apologize when this is all over," she said. "Right now I need your help."

  The Millennium Falcon emerged from hyperspace near the coordinates of the destroyed Caridan star system.

  Han Solo polarized the segmented viewport to look out at the rubble that had recently been a group of planets and a burning sun; now he saw only a slash of still—glowing gases, a sea of radiation from the supernova. The sheer destruction was on a scale greater even than when he had emerged from hyperspace to find Alderaan reduced to broken debris — back before he had even met Leia, before he had thrown his lot in with the Rebellion, and before he had believed in the Force.

  Carida's exploded star had spewed stellar material in a thick band around the ecliptic, vast curtains of roiling gases that glowed and crackled with intense energy across the spectrum. A shock wave plowed through space, where it would dissipate over thousands of years.

  Under his high—resolution scanners Han spotted a few twisted cinders, burned—out lumps of worlds that had been the outer planets in the system. Now they shone like embers in a dying fire.

  Lando Calrissian sat beside him, his mouth open in amazement. "Boy, that kid sure knows how to cause damage."

  Han nodded. His throat felt dry and raw. It felt strange not to have Chewbacca in the copilot's seat. He hoped his Wookiee friend was having an easier time on his mission than Han was.

  The Falcon's sensor banks barely coped with the overloading energies that pulsed through the wreckage of the Caridan system. X rays and gamma rays hammered against his shields. But Han saw no sign of Kyp.

  "Han, what do you think you'll find with all this static? If you're real sharp and real lucky, you might detect an ion trace from the Sun Crusher's sublight engines, but in the middle of a supernova you'll never pick up the track. Odds are —"

  Han cut him off with a raised hand. "Never quote me the odds. You know better than that."

  Lando grinned. "Yeah, I know, I know. So what are we going to do? What was the point of coming to this system?"

  Han pressed his lips together, searching for an answer. It had felt right to come to Carida to pick up Kyp's trail. "I want to see what he saw," he said, "think like he might have been thinking. What was going through his mind?"

  "You know him better than I do, buddy. If he ignited the Cauldron Nebula to wipe out Admiral Daala, and now he blew up the Imperial military training center, where would he go next? Think for yourself. What would be your next target?"

  Han stared out at the inferno of what had been Carida's sun. "If my goal was to strike out at the Empire, causing as much damage as possible ... I would head for ..." He turned sharply and looked at Lando.

  Lando's deep—brown eyes flew open. "That's too dangerous. He wouldn't go there!"

  Han said, "I don't think dangerous has anything to do with it."

  "Let me guess. Next, you'll say that we're going to follow him to the Core Systems."

  "You got it, old buddy." Han set the coordinates in the navicomputer, and he heard Lando mumble to himself. "Now I'll never get to Kessel on time."

  The glowing gases of Carida's exploded star funneled around them as space elongated. The Falcon shot into hyperspace, heading far behind enemy lines and deep into the heart of the remaining forces of the Empire.

  Near the bright heart of the galaxy, where stars lay close together in uncharted configurations, the resurrected Emperor had gathered his defenses to make a last stand. But since Palpatine's destruction, the Imperial warlords had fought each other for control. With no military genius like Grand Admiral Thrawn to unify the remnants, the Imperial war machine had withdrawn into the protected Core Systems. The warlords had left the victorious New Republic to lick its wounds while they vied for supremacy in their own corner of the galaxy.

  But when one military leader managed to come out on top, the forces would strike against the New Republic. Unless Kyp Durron destroyed them first.

  Han and Lando found an exploded red—dwarf star on the fringes of the Core. The small, dim sun had been unremarkable, and according to the Falcon's planetary atlas, had no habitable worlds. However, scouts had determined that the red—dwarf system sheltered a starship—construction yard, weapons depot, and storage for archives shielded in thick vaults deep within several lifeless, rocky planets.

  Han looked out the viewport and saw that the small star had exploded in a less—spectacular fashion than Carida's sun, a fizzle without enough mass to generate a significant chain reaction. But the shock fronts had still pulverized and incinerated the closely
orbiting planets.

  "He's done it again," Han said. "You can't miss a trail like the one Kyp is leaving."

  Lando squinted at the scanners. "I'm tracking eleven Victory—class Star Destroyers heading out of the system."

  "That's just great," Han said. He had enough to worry about with Kyp and the Sun Crusher; he didn't want to tangle with an Imperial fleet at the same time. "Have they picked us up yet?"

  "Don't think so. There's still a lot of radiation and interference from that explosion. Looks to me like they just packed up and ran."

  Han felt hope blossom in him. "You think this happened recently? Kyp just triggered the star explosion?"

  "Could be."

  "All right. Then you'd better scan for —"

  "Already got him, Han. The Sun Crusher is sitting high above the ecliptic like he's just ... watching."

  "Plot a course," Han said, sitting up straight. "We're going after him. Full speed."

  He punched the thrusters, and the Falcon's bank of sublight engines blazed white. The acceleration shoved Han and Lando back into theirthe seats as the ship made a graceful loop, heading above the orbital plane and approaching the blip on their sensors. As the Falcon closed the gap, though, the Sun Crusher began to flit away.

  "He's spotted us. After him!" Han said. "If he jumps to lightspeed, we've lost him."

  The Falcon shot forward. Han sighted on a bright speck moving across their path against the starfield.

  "Want me to power up the lasers, Han?" Lando asked. "We're not going to shoot him, are we? What if he doesn't stop?"

  "Wouldn't do any good to shoot him — not with that quantum armor of his." Han opened a comm channel. "Kyp, it's me, Han Solo. Kid, we've got to talk to you."

  In answer the Sun Crusher winked as it changed course and increased speed.

  "Punch it," Han said. "Let's go."

  "We're already pushing the red lines," Lando said.

  "She'll hold together," Han answered, then bent to the comm system again. "Hey, Kyp, listen to me."