Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

by Sean Williams

  The apprentice put as much distance as possible between himself and what was bound to become a vicious and highly competitive scene.

  He had yet to encounter any of the intelligent natives, but he assumed they would be no less hostile than every other life-form on the planet. Although he, too, was a warrior of the dark side, they owed him no allegiance. The very notion of allegiance was foreign to the dark side. The great happy family the Jedi had believed in was a lie, or at the very least a fallacy. Nature was a bloody business; harmony was not the dominant state. Truces could form, but they were always temporary. The Sith understood that. His Master understood that. The relationship between Master and apprentice was always a tense one—and from that tension sprang great power.

  Shaak Ti had understood that, too. The Sith always betray one another, she had said, just as every life-form betrayed every other life-form, if left to their natural inclination. Peace and harmony were aberrations imposed from the outside, to be resisted at every juncture.

  A recon party of stormtroopers stumbled across him while converging on the Rogue Shadow’s landing site. One of them must have noted its descent by eye, since the cloak blocked all other electromagnetic sensors. He warned Juno and suggested she move the ship to another location. She acknowledged his suggestion, and he went back to eliminating the Imperials he had found. They clashed on the side of a lake of quicksand, into which the apprentice telekinetically pushed several of his assailants. They went down fast thanks to their heavy armor. Their cries for help sounded loud over their companions’ comlinks until their air supply finally ran out. The clamor of blasters and lightsaber drew the attention of more scavengers and even prompted a rancor to roar a short distance away.

  He cocked his head, listening. Ignoring the last of the stormtroopers, who backed into the jungle frantically calling for reinforcements, the apprentice paid close attention to a feeling in his gut—that something was brewing. A trap, possibly. The Felucians rode rancors. If the mighty beasts had noted the disturbance, the chances were that their masters had, too.

  He didn’t move. The jungle around him stirred restlessly, recovering from his skirmish with the stormtroopers. Birds flew back to their roosts; fluttering insects reassembled their swarms; tiny lizards resumed their foraging. Animals called in the distance, hooting and screeching to one another in search of food and mates. The lush landscape seemed, on the surface, to be unchanged.

  But he knew …

  The feeling was confirmed when three enormous Felucian warriors leapt bodily out of the quicksand with loud, alien cries.

  He was ready for them, but the dark side had made them stronger. Their rancor-bone blades sent sparks of red light dancing over their ornate headdresses. From their invisible features came the sound of snarling bloodlust. Their desire for victory was palpable. He blocked their blows with difficulty before knocking the legs out from one of them then spearing another through the chest.

  Two against one was a fairer fight. Soon a rotting branch he brought down made it even. Sith lightning finished off the last, although he had to strain until the creature’s headdress caught fire before it finally died. The smoke was foul.

  Another rancor roared, closer this time. Fearing a second ambush, the apprentice hurried off through the dense jungle, slashing and hacking at anything that came within range.

  When he reached the village, he found it deserted and run-down. Its houses slumped over like melted wax; the river was choked with frothing poisons. The sarlacc into which Shaak Ti had fallen was dead, and the bile leaking from its vast body sickened the land for hundreds of meters around. The apprentice stood over its putrid maw, trying not to breathe, and wondered where to go next.

  The dark side was stronger near the sarlacc than it had been anywhere else in his short journey. Reaching out to the Force, he pursued that impression in search of its origins. The sarlacc couldn’t be the source of this odd focus, since it was long dead. He himself couldn’t have left such an indelible impression, even after killing a member of the Jedi Council. Something else had caused this darkening of the life-flows. Something or someone …

  The deepening of the dark side drew him north, along a narrow track that led away from the village. He followed it, wondering what might lie at the end. He crossed blades with several Felucian raiding parties, all of them mounted atop foaming, barely controllable rancors. Their behavior suggested to him that he was heading in the right direction. When they ran from him, they always tried to draw him off the path. When he returned to the path, another raiding party appeared. Soon he was fighting a dozen rancors and at least as many of the Felucian warriors. The more determined they became to stop him, the more determined his insistence that he continue unchecked. When another squadron of Imperials descended into the maelstrom, the conflict threatened to become a stretch for him, just for a moment.

  The sound of a rancor screaming its death throes was one he had carried with him after his last trip to Felucia, occasionally disturbing his dreams. He had never thought it a sound to which he could so quickly become accustomed …

  He pressed on, following the strange Force-signature from hot spot to hot spot. The wounded jungle and its slain inhabitants fell behind him. One furious encounter seemed to signal the crossing of an invisible boundary, for no more attacks came after that point. The Felucians had either given up or been told to stand back. That was good advice, he thought. It seemed a waste to be fighting one another when no number of Felucians were going to best him—not unless they’d come up with better weapons than swords made of sharpened bones and the occasional telekinetic punch.

  A strange shape loomed at him out of the thick, humid air. Lightsaber at the ready, he circled it, taking its measure before coming too close. It was the skeleton of a long-dead rancor, its yellow bones painted green with moss and fungus. Mighty ribs rose up like the bars of a cage from a spine mostly invisible under ground cover. Leg bones and claws lay in a reckless jumble. The skull—almost large enough for a small house—had tipped onto its side with its mouth open. Arm-long teeth still looked sharp enough to rip flesh.

  The apprentice walked respectfully past the skeleton, aware of a hush descending over the jungle. Another skeleton lay a dozen paces on, then two more beyond that. The presence of blackened, ancient bones poking out of the ground in places confirmed his growing suspicion that he had entered a rancor graveyard.

  Watched by enormous, empty eye sockets, he wound his way toward the center, where the darkness seemed most dense. A low rumbling sound broke the eerie silence, as though a very large animal was growling. When an enclosure made entirely of bones loomed out of the undergrowth, he stopped for a moment and stared.

  He had seen this before, too, in the strange state between life and death. He had seen a man bound by cuffs sitting in front of a lamp in a building made of bones—and that man had been Bail Organa. He had recognized the Senator’s file photos but hadn’t been able to place the connection. Now he knew.

  Leia’s father was inside the enclosure. And nearby was a focus of the dark side. That the two were intimately connected he was now completely certain.

  With every fiber of his being alert for danger, he circled the enclosure, looking for a way in. Bones of dozens of species, from the very large to the very small, overlapped everywhere he looked. Human skulls were in the minority; most were Felucian or the species they hunted. Giant rancor thighbones provided columns while long, curving ribs created archways and support for the ceiling. Tiny finger and wing bones crunched underfoot.

  The interior of the structure was a maze of passages and tiny, irregularly shaped rooms. After wandering at random for a full minute, he caught a glimmer of yellow light around a corner and followed it to Bail Organa’s impromptu cell.

  The man looked exactly as he had in the vision. Even the smell matched. On the ground lay a haunch of raw, rotting meat that the apprentice hoped hadn’t been intended as food.

  The prisoner looked up in surprise.

/>   “I’ve come to rescue you, Senator Organa,” the apprentice said, deactivating his lightsaber and kneeling to work on the cuffs. Organa was filthy but didn’t appear to have been hurt. “Master Kota sent me.”

  “Hah. I knew he couldn’t stay out of the fight for long.” The cuffs sprang open, and he leaned back, rubbing his wrists. “I thought he’d be angry with me for ignoring his advice.”

  The apprentice couldn’t hide a smile. “Oh, don’t worry. Kota’s angry. But I think he wants to be able to yell at you in person.”

  He reached for his comlink, but the roar of a rancor cut him off, deeper and with more animal fury than any he had heard before. It was so loud, a shower of tiny bird bones tinkled down on them from the macabre roof above.

  Bail looked up and swallowed nervously. “That’s her pet.”

  “Whose pet?”

  “Maris Brood. Shaak Ti’s Padawan, or so she claims to have been. She’s been keeping me to trade with the Imperials, to buy leniency from Vader. She’s gone mad if she thinks that’d make a difference.”

  The apprentice rolled his eyes. “This whole planet’s gone insane.”

  The roar came again. This time the ground shook. Something big was approaching, and it sounded hungry.

  “Oh, we’re not crazy,” said a voice from behind him.

  The apprentice whipped around with his lightsaber activated. A skinny female Zabrak stepped through the entrance to the bone cell, spinning a pair of short weapons in each hand. They looked harmless until, with a flare of bright red light, each handle ignited, producing two miniature lightsaber blades. The spinning blades cast wild shadows across the bonescapes surrounding them. She swept them about her as casually as if they were wooden sticks.

  When she was certain she had his full attention, she added, “We’ve just embraced the power of the dark side.”

  The apprentice was staring at her, but not because of her words. Her face was as familiar as Bail Organa’s, with its oval features, black lips, and seven thorns sprouting from her forehead. Black braids coiled intimately around her throat. She wore combat boots and leather pants and a stripped-down vest to match. The only difference between this woman and the one he had seen in a vision was her deep red eyes.

  When Shaak Ti had sent her Padawan to hide in the jungle of Felucia, she had indeed been a servant of the light side of the Force. Now she had tipped and joined him on the dark side.

  Because Shaak Ti was dead. Because he had killed her.

  And now Shaak Ti’s apprentice had come to kill him.

  Did she know?

  “Maris Brood,” he said, moving a step away from Bail Organa.

  She tilted her head in acknowledgment. “And you are?”

  “That’s none of your business.” He kept his lightsaber carefully between him and those hypnotically spinning blades. The shaking of the ground was worsening. “I’ve come for the Senator.”

  “Well, you can’t have him.”

  “Can’t doesn’t apply here.”

  She grinned. “Let’s see, shall we?”

  “Stand aside, girl. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  She laughed. “Oh, you won’t do that. He won’t let you.”

  The thundering noise reached a peak as, with a roar like the colliding of worlds, the largest rancor yet crashed the bone walls aside and stood over them, dripping slime from its mandibles. Its skin was a deathly white, giving it a ghostly, supernatural cast. Organa and the apprentice went flying, followed by an avalanche of bones.

  His head ringing, the apprentice burrowed out from under the bone pile barely in time to avoid a giant clawed foot crashing down on him. He ran between the enormous legs and away from the swishing tail, slashing as he went, but the creature’s skin was so thick it didn’t even bleed. Surmounted with tusks and horns longer than he was, the brute—clearly a bull of the species—was by far the biggest living thing he had ever seen. Armor plating thicker than some starship hulls protected its neck and head. Its every movement was ponderous but powerful. It stank of alien flesh and the dark side. The imbalance that had tipped Maris Brood against the Jedi had also turned what had probably once been a noble beast into an insatiable monster.

  And now he had to kill it. His mind was undivided on that point, even if the precise details eluded him. It had his scent now and all the malicious will of Maris goading it to attack. Between grasping hands and cracking tail, he was going to have a hard time just getting near it. When he tried tipping it over with the Force, it simply roared at him in annoyance. Sith lightning glanced off its armored hide like water. He could slash at it with his lightsaber for years and have no effect. Its mind was small and already consumed by Maris’s will.

  The situation looked hopeless. Trying to outrun it would be futile, and he doubted even Juno could land long enough for him and Organa to board and take off in time to avoid several tons of bull rancor bearing down on the ship’s hull. If he couldn’t fight and couldn’t run, what other options were open to him?

  He stalled, dodging the beast’s blows and leading it in circles, wondering if it might eventually tire or grow hungry enough to lose interest in him no matter how much Maris prodded it. It seemed indefatigable, though, and Maris soon noted the tactic. The next time he came around the creature’s rump, forcing it to turn, she was there with twin blades spinning, trying to drive him into those massive, snapping jaws.

  He rolled under the bull rancor’s boulder-sized chin and was blasted with moist, hot breath. The sight of its teeth did nothing to reassure him. If Maris caught him off guard again, or if he made a mistake, those teeth could easily end any aspirations he had of serving alongside his Master as co-ruler of the galaxy.

  Those teeth …

  All his powers useless …

  The beginnings of a plan took shape in his mind. At first thought, it seemed crazy—but no less crazy in its own way than bringing down a skyhook or killing a Jedi Master.

  He jumped a swing of the bull rancor’s deadly tail. It brought its huge, white body about, shaking the ground with every step, and focused its piggy eyes on him. The slavering mouth opened, not to roar but to lunge and bite him in two. Muscles as thick as tree trunks flexed, lowering its head, the better to strike.

  When the mouth was open to its full extent the apprentice took two steps and a deep breath, and jumped inside.

  The smell alone was almost enough to knock him out, but that was the least of the dangers he had to face. He used the Force to keep the jaws open just long enough to avoid the teeth when they closed. Then darkness fell and the creature’s tongue became the biggest threat. His lightsaber—the only source of life in the dank, dripping maw—made short work of that. The bull rancor’s head whipped from side to side, but his will overrode the reflex to open its mouth—something Maris had not thought to control.

  Seeking to stun the beast, the apprentice drew on all the power of the Force and sent a sizzling blast of Sith lightning into the unarmored roof of the creature’s mouth.

  Every neuron in the bull rancor’s brain lit up like a firework. The following seconds were among the worst the apprentice had ever experienced. The bull rancor’s convulsions were wild and prolonged. He clung on for dear life, half drowning in blood and half choked by the foul air, with arms and legs bracing him firmly against the heaving, fleshy walls.

  But it didn’t die. He couldn’t believe it. Wretched, weakened, stumbling, the bull rancor clung to life with Kota’s tenacity. No less desperate, the apprentice played the only card left to him.

  With one powerful release of kinetic energy, he exploded the bull rancor’s head from within.

  Immediately he was falling. A torrent of blood and vile liquids rushed up the gaping throat, sweeping him out onto the field of bones. Blinking, gagging, he barely retained a grip on his lightsaber as the massive headless body dropped to the ground behind him with a mighty, wet crash.

  It was lucky he had retained his weapon, for Maris was on him in an instant, blades humming
and whirling. He barely raised his lightsaber in time to avoid decapitation and stumbled awkwardly to his feet to deflect another attempt.

  “You’ve made me angry now,” she said, “and I’ll make you regret that.”

  “I gave you a choice,” he said, blocking another double blow. “You killed that thing, not me.”

  “The dark side doesn’t split hairs,” she snarled.

  Her eyes blazed red as she rained blow after blow upon him. He staggered backward, weakened by more than just his battle with the bull rancor.

  He was fighting himself—but not in some flashback-inspired hallucination, where the Jedi and the Sith warred in him for control of his future. This time the fight was real, and his opponent was as joyously rich in the dark side as he had ever been. She, too, had lost someone she cared deeply about; she, too, had been sent out into the hard galaxy to fend for herself. They should be helping each other, not fighting each other. But with Bail Organa watching, he couldn’t even raise the possibility of a truce. He was even using Soresu moves against her raw, unpredictable lunges, just as the vision of himself had done in Jedi robes.

  And yet …

  As he defended himself, he saw nothing but self-pity and fear in her eyes. Both were inferior to pure anger, although both could be potent gateways to the true mastery of the dark side that his Master had demonstrated to him. Maris was a newcomer, barely beginning her journey—as he, too, was journeying along a path toward full mastery. For the first time, he understood that the Force didn’t come in two shades only: dark and light, distinct and combative, never meeting in the middle to form gray. Those were ideals, and ideals existed solely for philosophers and theoreticians to argue over. In the real world, dark and light coexisted in varying proportions; nothing was ever static. Thus this former Jedi Padawan could turn to the dark side after a lifetime serving the light—and she could just as easily turn back to the light afterward, if she survived.