Ghost of the Jedi

by John Whitman

  Star Wars

  Galaxy of Fear

  05

  Ghost of the Jedi

  by John Whitman

  source : IRC

  uploaded: 13.II.2006

  PROLOGUE

  The shuttle's door opened onto the gray landscape of a dead world. The

  wind howled across the dry plain, whistling among sharp, jagged slabs of rock

  that seemed to grow out of the ground like stone trees.

  Borborygmus Gog stumbled out of the shuttle. He was frustrated.

  His frustration turned to pure hatred when he saw who was waiting for him

  on the planet's surface.

  "What an unexpected pleasure," he sneered.

  Darth Vader withstood the howling wind, stronger than the jagged rocks

  around him. "I am here to fix Project Starscream."

  Gog glared. "Project Starscream does not need to be fixed."

  Vader tilted his head forward, looking down on the doctor. "Are you

  certain? Hoole has proved himself to be a formidable enemy. I warned you

  before not to be overconfident. Now Hoole has ruined the first four stages of

  Star-scream, and he is still on the loose, thanks to your incompetence."

  The skin on Gog's back rippled. He hated Vader, hated his power and his

  arrogance. Gog wanted that power-more than anything he wanted to take Vader's

  place beside the Emperor's throne. Gog was a Shi'ido, a shapechanger. He felt

  the urge to transform into a wampa ice beast and rip out Vader's throat. He

  eyed the lightsaber hanging from Vader's belt. He was sure he could reach

  Vader before the Dark Lord drew his weapon.

  But Vader also commanded the Force, and against that, Gog had no defense.

  At least not yet.

  He said, "The project is at a very important stage. The fifth experiment

  is crucial. Besides, the Emperor himself put me in charge of Project

  Starscream. It is my responsibility."

  Vader's breath rasped through his face mask. "And the Emperor himself has

  asked me to make sure it proceeds with no interference. I have already ordered

  the deaths of Hoole and his family."

  "No!" Gog blurted.

  The Dark Lord's voice was threatening. "What?"

  Gog recovered himself and said calmly, "That is, there is something

  peculiar about Hoole's niece and nephew-especially the niece. They are worth

  further study."

  Vader scoffed. "You tried using them with your Nightmare Machine project

  and failed. Now they threaten everything."

  "But-"

  "The order is given," Vader interrupted. "I have already sent an assassin

  to find them."

  With that, Vader whirled around and strode away. Somewhere out there, his

  ship and his soldiers lurked.

  Gog resisted the urge to draw his blaster and shoot Vader in the back.

  The Dark Lord would know without turning around if he even reached for his

  weapon. Vader had the Force.

  The Force. If his plans were to succeed, Gog needed something to defeat

  the Force.

  A cold smile crept across Gog's lips. He had not told Vader why Hoole's

  niece and nephew-especially the niece-interested him. And why the fifth

  experiment was so important.

  It had to do with the Force.

  Gog knew he had to act fast if he was to beat Vader. He laughed to

  himself. Vader wanted the Arrandas killed. Gog wanted them alive.

  Hoole and his friends would be lucky if Vader's assassin found them

  first.

  CHAPTER 1

  The laser blasts came close. Too close.

  One of the energy bolts glanced off the side of the ship, and Tash and

  Zak felt the Shroud buck under the blast. But the shields held. The Shroud was

  a good ship.

  "She'll hold together," Zak said. "I think."

  As if determined to prove him wrong, another laser bolt struck the ship,

  sending a shock wave from stem to stern.

  "There are two more coming in," Deevee said.

  "I see them," Uncle Hoole said tightly.

  He banked the ship hard to the left. As the ship spun, Tash caught a

  glimpse of one of the ships that was chasing them.

  An Imperial Star Destroyer.

  A dozen laser cannons sent energy beams streaking toward them. Luckily,

  the Shroud was fast, and Hoole managed to slip away from most of them.

  "We can't take another hit like that!" Zak said. "Quiet," Hoole ordered.

  "I've almost loaded the coordinates for the hyperspace jump."

  Tash tried not to think about the facts. Imperial Star Destroyers were

  the most powerful ships in the galaxy. They were huge, and had hundreds of

  weapons that could turn most other ships into space vapor. Despite their size,

  they were also incredibly fast. Very few ships could outrun them. One Star

  Destroyer could wipe out a fleet of smaller ships.

  And four of them were chasing the Shroud.

  They had been tailing Hoole and the Arrandas since their recent escape

  from the Hologram Fun World. For awhile Hoole thought he had lost them, but

  the Imperial ships had merely sent a signal to another fleet, and now they

  were nearly surrounded.

  A direct hit from a Star Destroyer's cannon made the ship groan. A

  warning light flashed on the control panel.

  "We've lost the main deflector shield!" Zak called out. "The next shot

  will vaporize us!"

  "Almost there," Hoole said to himself. His fingers flew frantically over

  the controls.

  "They're firing again!"

  "There!" Hoole said. He pulled a large switch on the Shroud's control

  panel. The ship lurched forward as though dragged by giant hands, and plunged

  into the streaking white light of hyperspace.

  A few hours later, the Shroud still hurtled through the swirling

  whiteness of hyperspace. In the cockpit, four figures huddled over the control

  console, their faces lit by the red glow of the instrument panel as the Shroud

  traveled through the most desolate parts of the galaxy.

  "Where are we?" asked Tash Arranda.

  "I don't recognize any of these star charts," said her brother, Zak.

  "If I'm not mistaken," said the droid DV-9, "these coordinates will take

  us far into the Outer Rim. This is the least colonized part of the galaxy, and

  the farthest away from the center of Imperial power."

  "Correct, Deevee," replied Hoole curtly.

  Tash and Zak exchanged glances. For the seven months they had known him,

  Uncle Hoole had been close-mouthed and stiff-necked. They figured he was

  constantly in a bad mood because he was a Shi'ido. The Shi'ido species tended

  to be more serious than humans. But for the past several hours, Hoole had

  burned with the intensity of a superlaser. He had not left the cockpit once as

  he piloted the Shroud on a frantic starhopping course, taking them from one

  star system to another, never stopping, never even slowing down.

  Zak pointed to an indicator light that flashed an alarming shade of red.

  "One of the power couplings is overheating."

  "Ignore it," Hoole said.

  Zak blinked. He had a mind for mechanics and knew what the warn
ing light

  meant. "If we don't let the engines cool, the power coupling could blow, and-"

  "Ignore it," Hoole snapped again. "That is the least of our concerns."

  Tash looked at her brother, who mouthed three words: This. Is. Bad.

  Tash wondered how much worse things could get after their escape from the

  Hologram Fun World. Zak and Tash had nearly been trapped there by an evil

  scientist named Borborygmus Gog. They had been saved only by their own quick

  thinking, the help of a good-hearted gambler named Lando Calrissian, and the

  courage of Uncle Hoole. Like all Shi'ido, Hoole had the power to change his

  shape. Disguised as an Imperial stormtrooper, he had freed Tash, Zak, and the

  others, and they had slipped from Gog's clutches. But their escape did not

  seem to ease Hoole's tension.

  "Uncle Hoole," Tash asked gently, "can you tell us any more about what's

  going on?"

  Hoole clenched his jaw as he punched new coordinates into the Shroud's

  navicomputer. "I know little more than you do, Tash. Gog is working on an

  experiment called Project Starscream. The Imperial government is involved at

  the highest levels. Not only have we made ourselves Gog's enemies, we may have

  fallen under the eye of the Emperor himself."

  Tash and Zak both swallowed hard. The Emperor? Tales of his power, and

  his cruelty, were known throughout the galaxy.

  When their adventures had begun, and Hoole had started to act so

  strangely, Tash at first had thought her uncle was working for the Empire. He

  always seemed to know what the Imperials were doing and where to find them.

  But slowly Tash had realized that Hoole wasn't an Imperial. In fact, he seemed

  to be working against the Empire.

  A new thought crept into Tash's mind. Was Hoole a Rebel? Perhaps Hoole

  was spying on Gog for the Rebels. Tash was pretty sure that Hoole knew some

  Rebels. Once, they all had been rescued from one of Gog's experiments by an

  odd group of travelers-two men, a woman, two droids, and a Wookiee. At the

  time, Tash had thought their rescuers were Rebels. She still thought so.

  Zak interrupted her thoughts. "If the whole Empire is after us, what are

  we going to do?"

  Tash looked directly at Uncle Hoole and said meaningfully, "Maybe we

  should try to contact the Rebels."

  Hoole said without hesitation, "That might work, Tash, if we knew how to

  contact them."

  "You mean, you don't know how?" she challenged.

  Hoole raised an eyebrow. "Of course not. If the Rebels were that easy to

  find, the Empire would have destroyed them long ago."

  "Oh," she said, disappointed. "I just thought... I mean..."

  Hoole almost smiled. "You thought I was a Rebel? No, Tash, I have no more

  connection with the Rebel Alliance than you do."

  "But, then how did you learn about Project Starscream? How do you know so

  much about Gog, and why does he seem to know you?" Tash said. "Why were you

  investigating his experiments?"

  Hoole paused. "I have my reasons. But you've given me an idea, Tash.

  Strap yourselves in."

  Tash had no time to repeat her question as Hoole punched a new set of

  commands into the navicomputer. She and Zak slipped into their crash webbing

  and Deevee braced his mechanical body against the hull of the ship as the

  Shroud groaned into an even higher speed. Gauges bleeped angrily and the

  engines began to whine. Just when Zak and Tash thought the ship would burst at

  the seams, Hoole pulled back on a lever and the white streaks of hyperspace

  gave way to a brilliant starfield. In the distance they could see a bright

  yellow planet.

  "What's that?" Tash asked.

  Hoole guided the ship toward the growing yellow sphere. "It is a place

  far from Imperial eyes. With luck, it's also where we'll find out how to

  contact the Rebels."

  "Thank goodness we've found someplace safe," Deevee sighed.

  Hoole turned his dark eyes on the droid and the two young humans. "I did

  not say we were safe. We are entering a wretched hive of scum and villainy."

  The Shroud rocketed planetside. It settled almost unnoticed into a fleet

  of old freighters docked on the outskirts of a small town that baked under the

  heat of two blazing suns. They climbed from their ship and Hoole led them to a

  dusty lot, where a tall insectoid creature rented and sold transport vehicles.

  After some haggling, Hoole rented a creaking landspeeder that barely managed

  to hover off the ground. The landspeeder's repulsors whined as Zak, Tash, and

  Deevee clambered aboard.

  Moments later, the landspeeder carried them away from the settlement and

  out into a wide, flat desert.

  Tash stared at the horizon, where yellow sand met a clear blue sky. "I

  think this whole planet is made of sand," she muttered.

  "That is correct," Hoole replied. "This place is called Tatooine. I did

  research here once. It is an dry, unpleasant planet. I was happy to leave it."

  "Then what are we doing here?" Zak asked.

  "You will see," Hoole answered.

  Hoole guided the landspeeder far out into the empty desert. The terrain

  was so barren and lifeless that Tash thought Hoole had made a mistake. But

  just when she was convinced that they were lost, a massive fortress appeared

  on the horizon, squatting like a toad at the foot of a large, rocky mountain.

  Hoole pulled the landspeeder up to the gates of the structure and jumped

  out. As he approached the doors, a large electronic eye popped out of a hatch

  and scanned him. Then it asked a question in a language neither Zak nor Tash

  understood.

  "I wish to see your master," Hoole replied in Basic, the galaxy's

  universal language. "Tell him Hoole is here."

  The sentry eye retreated through the hatch. A moment later a deep rumble

  shook the ground, and the great gates opened to admit them. Beyond the gates,

  a hallway led into darkness like a passage into the underworld.

  "Stay close to me," Hoole ordered.

  He didn't have to tell them twice. Zak and Tash clung to his blue robe as

  they followed him down the hallway.

  Tash heard a sharp, steady click-click sound from the shadows. Turning,

  she saw a large mechanical spider stalk slowly past them, its metal legs

  scratching against the floor. A large, transparent globe bulged from its

  belly. Inside the globe floated a living brain.

  "Disgusting," Tash gagged.

  "A brain spider," Deevee noted. "Fascinating. I had heard of such things,

  but I'd never seen one."

  "Well, I hope I never see another one," Zak added with a shudder.

  A moment later they were halted by two pig-like Gamorrean guards. Once

  again Hoole stated his name, and the guards let him pass.

  Where is he taking us? Tash thought to herself. Then something occurred

  to her that was more frightening than a brain spider: Uncle Hoole was known in

  this place.

  As they approached the end of a hall, Tash heard the sound of music and

  voices drifting up from below. And as soon as they started down the wide

  stairway, Tash's senses were assaulted by the loudest, strongest, most

  sickening collection of noises, smells, and sights they had ever encountered.


  "Oh, my," Deevee gasped.

  In a wide audience hall, crowds of aliens laughed, ate, drank, and

  fought. A gang of Gamorreans wrestled on three low benches and tables. Six

  multi-legged creatures were playing a dice game in one corner, while in

  another, an alien band played a frantic tune. The entire chamber was a riot of

  activity, except for one curious corner where a quiet man sat observing the

  madness.

  In the center of the large room, a space had been cleared where four

  humans were tormenting a small, rodent-like Ranat. The Ranat had been

  blindfolded and his ears plugged with wax. The poor creature squealed and

  stumbled around, completely blind and deaf. The humans dodged away from the

  Ranat, laughing at their cruel game of tag.

  In the middle of this chaos, on a high platform, sat a large, slug-like

  Hutt, smacking his lips as he stuffed live eels into his mouth with loud

  slurps. The Hutt laughed as the blind and deaf Ranat fell to his knees.

  Hoole descended into the craziness and strode up to the platform. As if