Champions of the Force

by Kevin J. Anderson

Inside the operations room FIDO'S diagnostic panel went blank. Winter rubbed her fingertips along the smooth surface of the screen. The first line of defense had taken out half the assault transports. "Good job, FIDO," she whispered. "Thank you."

  The multilegged assault transports began pounding against the blast doors. The thumps of turbolaser impacts and the screeching resistance of heavy metal filled the air.

  Winter knew what she had to do. She toggled on the other automatic defense systems before fleeing the operations room. With silent footsteps she hurried down to the grotto, where Admiral Ackbar had recently come to visit her in his personal B — wing. Winter wished the Calamarian admiral could be at her side right now. She knew she could always count on him, but right now she had to act for herself and young Anakin.

  She ruthlessly clamped down on her personal fears and forced herself to do what had to be done. No time for panic. She ran along the tunnels, leaving the metal hatches open for escape once the stormtroopers saw her. When she emerged into the landing grotto, the repeated thudding explosions from outside nearly deafened her.

  The blast doors buckled inward, dented and glowing cherry — red as continued laser fire melted away the outer armor, chewing into the super — dense metal core. The doors bent as she watched; a split appeared in the middle. Articulated claws pushed through the opening. Laser strikes continued around the attachment bolts until the left — side door twisted. The other door hung askew in its track.

  Whistling wind shrieked into the landing grotto as Winter stood ready to face the assault.

  With a whir of straining engines, the Spider Walkers clambered into the chamber, bristling with weapons and manned by crack stormtroopers.

  The Dreadnaught Vendetta maintained its position in orbit. Colonel Ardax touched his fingertips to the voice pickup in his ear, listening to the report from the assault team on the planetoid below.

  "We have succeeded in breaching the blast doors, Colonel," the stormtrooper commander said into the radio. "Losses have been heavy. Rebel defenses are stronger than anticipated. We are proceeding with caution, but we expect to have the Jedi child in hand shortly."

  "Keep me updated," Ardax said. "Report to me when the mission is completed, and we will arrange for pickup." He paused. "Was Ambassador Furgan one of the casualties?"

  "No, sir," the stormtrooper said. "He was in the rearmost assault transport and faced no direct danger."

  Colonel Ardax signed off. "A pity."

  Ardax was looking out at the three locked planetoids when sudden alarms rang through the Vendetta's control deck. "What's that?"

  A lieutenant looked up from his sensor station, his face ashen. "Sir, a Rebel battleship has just come out of hyperspace! It outguns us by a substantial margin."

  "Prepare to take evasive action," Colonel Ardax said. "It appears that we've been betrayed." He drew a cold breath through gritted teeth. Furgan must have somehow given away their plans to Rebel spies.

  The wide communications screen sizzled with gray static that resolved into the image of a fish — headed Calamarian. "This is Ackbar, in command of the star cruiser Galactic Voyager. Surrender and prepare to be boarded. Any New Republic hostages you have taken must be returned unharmed."

  "Reply, Colonel?" the communications officer said.

  "Our silence is enough of an answer," Ardax said. "Right now our primary objective is to survive. The surface team is forfeit. Set course to fly between the two close components of Anoth. The electrical discharges will mask us from their sensors, and from that point we can escape into hyperspace. Shields at maximum."

  "Yes, sir," the tactical officer said. The navigator set a course.

  "Full speed ahead when ready," Colonel Ardax said. He paced on the control deck.

  With a lurch the Vendetta accelerated toward the broken planet. The Rebel battleship fired at them. The Dreadnaught rattled and shook as heavy explosions struck its shields.

  "They outgun us, sir, but they are aiming to disable, not to destroy."

  Colonel Ardax raised his eyebrows. "Ah, of course — they think we've got the child already! Let's not convince them otherwise."

  The Vendetta sped into the grinding jaws of the broken world.

  Leia squeezed until her nails bit into the smooth fabric of Ackbar's command chair on the Galactic Voyager. The battered old Dreadnaught wheeled in its orbit and set a new course. "They're calling your bluff, Admiral," she said.

  "They are not responding," Ackbar agreed.

  "They won't respond," Terpfen said, sullen at an auxiliary station. "They will run. If they already have the baby, there is nothing to keep them here. They won't risk a fight against a superior battleship."

  Leia swallowed, knowing Terpfen was right. She wished Han could be beside her right now.

  "Then we must not let them get away," Ackbar said. He had stuck close to Terpfen's side throughout the journey. During the mustering of the rescue force, Ackbar had snatched the most loyal members of his salvage crew on Reef

  Home City; he had gathered others from the starship construction yards in orbit. In all that time he had not once mentioned Terpfen's treachery.

  Ackbar and Terpfen were having some kind of silent conflict, a wrestling of wills. Ackbar claimed he understood how the other had been manipulated. He himself had been a prisoner of the Empire, but instead of being programmed as a spy and saboteur, he had served as an unwilling liaison to Moff Tarkin. Though those times had been oppressive, Ackbar had managed to turn his close association with the cruel strategist into an advantage during Admiral Daala's attack on Calamari. Now, he claimed, it was time for Terpfen to use his misery against the Imperials as well.

  As Leia watched from the bridge of the Galactic Voyager, the blunt — ended Dreadnaught ignited its sublight engines. She closed her eyes, gripped the back of Ackbar's chair, and sent out a tendril of thought with her mind to seek the presence of baby Anakin, hoping to find him or comfort him.

  She sensed her baby across the vast distance of space, but could not pinpoint his location, feeling only his presence in the Force. She could make no direct contact, could not see him. Anakin could still be on Anoth, or he could be a prisoner aboard the Dreadnaught.

  "Crippling strikes only. Fire all forward weapons," Ackbar said in a maddeningly calm voice. "Cause only enough damage to prevent them from entering hyperspace."

  High — powered energy beams splashed against the Vendetta's heavy shields. Residual radiation glowed from the hits, showing minor damage to the Imperial ship's hull. But the Dreadnaught continued to accelerate.

  "He's going between two of the planetoids," Leia said.

  Terpfen leaned forward with interest, swiveling his round eyes as he concentrated. "He's trying to use the static discharges as camouflage," he said. "With so much ionization scramble we'll lose him on our sensors. Then he can escape on any heading before we find him again."

  Leia breathed deeply to subdue her anxiety. They were so close — whichyou else would the Dreadnaught run, unless they already had Anakin on board? Again she tried to sense where the baby was.

  The two atmosphere — swathed fragments of Anoth's primary body loomed ahead of the Dreadnaught, with only a tight channel between the lumps. Fingernails of lightning skittered from one atmosphere to the other as the orbiting shards built up an incredible electrostatic charge.

  "Increase speed," Ackbar said. "Stop them before we lose them in the static."

  The Dreadnaught captain still refused to respond.

  "Fire again," Ackbar said. "Increase power."

  Turbolasers struck the starboard side of the Vendetta, shoving it visibly to one side with the momentum of the blasts. Its shields buckled; parts of the Dreadnaught's sublight engines were crippled. But the captain continued his flight. The blue — white exhaust glow increased as the engines powered up, readying for a jump into hyperspace.

  "No!" Leia cried. "Don't let them take Anakin away!" Before she could finish her sentence, the Dreadnaught passed i
nto the narrow passage between the split planet.

  A blinding blue tracery of static blanketed the outer shields of the Vendetta, like a half — formed cocoon. The glow of an ionization cone spread out in front of it as it plowed through the thickening atmosphere into spectacular storms.

  Leia squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating, concentrating. If she could establish a link between Anakin's mind and hers, she had some minuscule chance of tracking him once the Dreadnaught vanished into hyperspace.

  She sensed the people onboard the Imperial battleship — but she felt no glimmer of her own son, nor of her longtime companion Winter. Leia reached out wider with her searching thoughts as the Vendetta plowed through the thin bottleneck of atmosphere.

  The giant armored ship was like a metal probe between a pair of fully charged batteries. The Dreadnaught became a short circuit across the two supercharged atmospheres.

  A colossal lightning bolt blasted through the atmosphere and linked across the warship like a chain of fire. A river of raw power slammed into the Vendetta from both sides, obliterating it in a hurricane of searing electricity, leaving only a burned afterimage on the screen.

  Ackbar gasped audibly and hung his head. Terpfen slumped in his chair, but Leia observed the destruction with only part of her mind. She cast across space — until at last she found the bright point that was her youngest son, Anakin.

  Terpfen stood up as if already bound in thick chains. "Minister Organa Solo, I submit myself to — was

  Leia shook her head. "No punishment, Terpfen. Anakin is still alive. He's on the planet. But right now he's in terrible danger. We have to hurry."

  Winter crouched by the metal hatch outside the landing grotto. She held a blaster pistol in one hand, knowing her white hair and light robes would make her easily visible even in the dimness.

  Four huge mechanical assault transports picked their way over the wreckage of the left blast door and halted with hissing engines in the middle of the grotto. Transparisteel canopies flipped up with a high — pitched whir to disgorge stormtroopers.

  Flicking her eyes from side to side, Winter took a quick inventory. Each of the four Spider Walkers carried two troopers — eight targets. She steadied her blaster and aimed at the nearest white — armored soldier.

  Winter fired off three shots in quick succession. She couldn't tell how many actually hit the trooper, but he flew backward with his armor blasted to pieces. Other soldiers boiled out of the transports, firing in her direction.

  Winter hunched down, but could not get another shot in. The last Spider Walker opened up to reveal one stormtrooper and a squat man with huge eyebrows and thick lips.

  The other troopers had pinpointed Winter's position next to the door and hammered repeated blasts at her. She backed toward the open hatch.

  Winter had two choices: she could either run back and stay with Anakin to defend him with her life — or she could lure the seven remaining invaders away from the baby and do her best to dispose of them.

  Winter squeezed the firing button of her blaster without aiming. Bright streaks ricocheted around the grotto. The squat man ducked under the low — slung cockpit of a Spider Walker. "Go get her!" he yelled.

  One of the stormtroopers, still in the cockpit of an MT — AT, brought laser cannons to bear and shot at the wall beside her head, leaving a smoking crater.

  The squat man screamed from his hiding place under the MT — AT, "Don't kill her. Use stun until you have the child. You" — he gestured to the trooper who had emerged from the Spider Walker with him — his — every with me, we'll ... provide reconnaissance. The rest of you — capture that woman!"

  Exactly as Winter had hoped. She fled down the corridor, knowing that most of the assault team would follow her. She sped along the sloping tunnels, ducking low through jagged archways, slamming heavy air — lock doors behind her as she passed into a deeper level of the installation.

  The stormtroopers followed, making short work of the thick hatches by using focused thermal detonators that blasted the metal doors out of their seams.

  Winter led them through the labyrinth of passages, farther and farther away from baby Anakin. The stormtroopers would be completely disoriented by now.

  The troopers fired whenever they got a clear shot, but Winter managed to avoid being blasted to pieces. She heaved a sigh of relief — the only emotional release she allowed herself — whichenough she finally succeeded in leading the troopers into the subterranean generator room and computer core.

  The chamber itself was a dim morass of tangled equipment, cooling ducts, metal pipes, and throbbing life — support systems. The computer core glowed with oblong green lights that flickered in a waterfall pattern. The computers themselves, incorporated into the pumping stations and generator housing, formed a surrealistic cluster of twisted metal and plastic and a confusion of transparisteel diagnostic screens, inputstoutput terminals — more equipment than anyone could possibly fathom a purpose for.

  Winter knew the equipment was just stage dressing to hide the real purpose of the chamber.

  The troopers hesitated at the threshold, as if suspecting a trap within the shadows. Winter pointed her blaster and fired seven rapid shots at them. The stormtroopers dived for cover and then, when Winter did not fire again, charged into the dim room after her.

  Winter did not try to hide. She ran to the glowing pillar of the computer core and then into shadows on the other side of the chamber, surrounded by conduits and tubes and flashing lights that served no purpose. The stormtroopers moved toward her, still shooting.

  Winter fired several more times, just to provoke them, and to make sure they remained within the chamber. One of her shots ricocheted off a gleaming surface and flew into the side of a stormtrooper, melting the white armor from his right arm.

  Winter appeared to be cornered at the far side of the room as the troopers advanced toward her — five of them, one hanging back with an injured arm.

  The Imperial soldiers got halfway across the space before the walls begin to writhe and move.

  Jointed pipelines and conduits, bulky control decks, and spherical readout panels shifted, clicking together into specific components. Winter heard pieces locking into place, metal against metal, connections linking up.

  The machine — filled walls suddenly became a squad of burly assassin droids assembled out of disguised components. The droids activated their weapons, forming a shooting gallery whose only purpose was to destroy stormtroopers.

  Winter had no need to issue commands. The assassin droids knew exactly what they were supposed to do. They had been programmed to ignore her and the Jedi children, but they knew their targets well.

  From all sides the assassin droids opened fire on the five pursuers. The cross fire of deadly beams cut down the white — armored Imperials in less than two seconds, leaving only piles of smoldering wreckage, fused and melted armor, and useless weapons in dead hands. None of the stormtroopers had an opportunity to fire a single shot.

  One of the troopers groaned once, hissed in pain, then fell into the silence of death. The shadows cast a blanket over the carnage.

  Heaving a sigh of relief, Winter stepped over the bodies, which were still sizzling from the massacre. She looked down at the expressionless black visors of the Imperial enemy. "Never underestimate your opponent," she said.

  Ambassador Furgan crouched low as the stormtrooper sprinted ahead of him down the lumpy rock corridors.

  Furgan had no combat training and no experience, but he did his best to imitate his companion's fluid movements. He held his blaster rifle in hand, glancing down repeatedly to make sure the weapon was powered up.

  The tunnels were dim and shadowy, lit by white glowtubes mounted along the ceilings. The stormtrooper pressed his armor back against the wall and held his weapon around a corner to see if he drew any fire; then he jogged down to the next intersection of tunnels.

  They passed door after door, unsealing each room, ready to snatch the helpless c
hild and run back to their MT — AT'S. Furgan and the trooper found storage compartments filled with crates of supplies and equipment, the dining room, empty sleeping quarters — but no child.

  Far beneath them Furgan heard the patter and distant echo of blaster fire. He glared back toward the sounds. "I told them not to shoot her down. Why didn't they listen to me?" He turned to the stormtrooper. "Now we'll have to find the child all by ourselves."

  "Yes, sir," the stormtrooper said, without expression.

  The next metal door was locked and sealed. No one responded when the stormtrooper hammered with his white gauntlet. He withdrew a pack of tools from his utility belt, removed a high — powered cutting laser, and slashed open the door's control panel. Moving with nimble fingers despite the thick gloves, he rewired the sparking controls.

  The door ground open, exposing the pastel colors of a room filled with toys, a plush bed ... and a four — armed nanny droid backed into a protective position in the corner to shelter a small child.

  "Ah, here we are at last," Furgan said. He stepped inside looking around for booby traps. The trooper flanked him, maintaining his defensive position, blaster rifle in hand. Furgan saw no other defenses, just the TDL droid.

  "Please leave," the nanny droid said in a sweet, grandmotherly voice. "You are disturbing the baby."

  Furgan let loose with a full — throated laugh. "The only defense they managed was one nanny droid?" He chuckled again. "We sent an entire assault team to take a baby away from a nanny droid?"

  The TDL droid stood in front of the baby, who sat very still on the floor. The droid used her lower set of arms to unfold a blaster — proof metal apron from the base of her torso to shield the baby from stray laser fire.

  "You may not have this child," the droid said. "I must warn you that my programming is to protect him at all costs."

  "How touching. Well, I'm going to take that child — at all costs," Furgan said, nodding with a triumphant smile to the stormtrooper. "Go get the baby."