Luke realized that the droid was taking readings, checking on his body’s condition. He wondered if Artoo would detect anything different, now that Luke’s spirit had been set free; but the droid gave no sign.
Luke attempted to move over to Artoo, to touch the polished barrel-shaped body. It took him a moment to figure out how to move his ghostly “legs.” His image skimmed across the floor with a dizzying fluidity. But when he stroked Artoo, his hand passed directly through.
He felt no contact with the plasteel of the droid’s body, no sensation of the floor against his ethereal feet. Luke tried walking completely through the droid, hoping somehow to scramble Artoo’s sensors, but Artoo continued to take readings, unperturbed.
The droid gave another sad hoot as if in farewell, then spun around and whirred slowly back toward the turbolift.
Luke called out. “Wait, Artoo!” But he held little hope the droid would hear.
A quick idea came to him: rather than using his illusory hands, he reached out with the Force. He thought of how he and Gantoris had used little nudges from the Force to rattle metal antennas in the airborne ruins of Tibannopolis on Bespin.
Luke reached out invisibly to tap Artoo’s shell, hoping to make a loud spang that would at least let the droid know something was amiss. He pushed and thumped with all his intangible might, and succeeded only in what he thought was a barely audible bump against the droid’s metal casing.
Artoo paused, but while Luke gathered strength to make another Force assault, the droid dismissed the unexplained sound and entered the turbolift. Inside the turbolift, Artoo turned his optical sensor once more toward the body of his master, made a low, sliding whistle, and then the doors whisked closed. Luke heard the humming of the platform as it dropped back down to the lower levels of the Great Temple.
Luke stood in the echoing grand audience chamber all alone—awake again, but insubstantial and apparently powerless. He would have to find some other way to solve his predicament.
He looked out through the temple skylights into the blackness of the jungle moon’s deep night, and he wondered what he could do to save himself.
4
With a Wookiee bellow of impatience, Chewbacca urged the last members of the Special Forces team onto the remaining troop transport. The other transports had been shuttling up and down from Coruscant orbit all day, carrying weapons, equipment, and personnel to the strike force already assembled in space.
The heavily armed battle group consisted of one escort frigate and four Corellian corvettes—enough firepower to occupy the secret Imperial think tank, Maw Installation, and to overcome any resistance from the weapons scientists stranded there.
The last three stragglers hustled up the ramp, clad in light armor and securing tight packs onto their shoulders. Chewbacca watched the soldiers strap into their seats before he punched the ALL CLEAR button to raise the boarding ramp.
“Your impatience is not helping, Chewbacca,” See-Threepio said. “The tension level is already substantial, and you’re simply making things worse. I have a bad feeling about this mission already.”
Chewbacca growled at him, disregarding his comment. Impatient, he picked up the droid and dropped him with a metallic clatter into the only remaining spare seat—which was, unfortunately, next to Chewbacca’s own.
“Indeed!” Threepio said as he dutifully hooked himself in. “I’m doing my best. This isn’t my area of expertise, you know.”
Chewbacca settled into a seat that had never been designed to accommodate a creature of his massive proportions. He bent his hairy knees nearly to chest level. He wished he could be with Han in the Millennium Falcon, but Han and Leia had gone to see Luke Skywalker, and Chewbacca felt his stronger duty was to go rescue the Wookiee prisoners left inside Maw Installation.
The rest of the assault team shifted in their seats, looking around, double-checking their mental lists of equipment and procedures. Page’s Commandos, a crack assault troop, would be handling most of the front-line mission, with plenty of New Republic firepower to back them up. The Special Operations Commander, General Crix Madine, had given the Special Forces thorough briefings on strategy for the planned occupation. The soldiers were fully trained and competent.
Chewbacca just wished the pilot would hurry up and take off. He blew out a long sigh through his rubbery lips, thinking uneasily of Han. He had waited a long time for an opportunity to rescue the tortured Wookiee slaves, though.
When he, Han, and young Kyp Durron had been captured by Admiral Daala at Maw Installation, Chewbacca had been forced to work with captive Wookiees aboard the Star Destroyers and down in the Installation itself. The Wookiees had been imprisoned for more than ten years, working at hard labor, and the resistance had gone out of them. The thought of their ruined lives made Chewbacca’s blood boil.
Not long ago, with Threepio’s dubious abilities as translator, Chewbacca had addressed the New Republic Council. He urged them to occupy the Installation and rescue the Wookiee prisoners, as well as to keep the new weapon designs from falling into Imperial hands. Seeing Mon Mothma’s support, the Council had agreed.
With a mechanical whir and a thump of metal against metal, the landing struts of the transport drew up inside the hull. With a lurch the transport rose on its repulsorlifts, then headed off the landing platform, rising into the sky as the metropolis of Imperial City glittered below.
Threepio began talking to himself. Chewbacca marveled at how sophisticated the droid’s electronic brain must be to consistently find so many things to complain about.
“I simply don’t understand why Mistress Leia ordered me to go with you. I am always happy to serve in any capacity, naturally, but I could have assisted greatly in watching the children while she visited Master Luke on Yavin 4. I’ve been doing a good job of taking care of the twins, haven’t I?”
Chewbacca grunted. Threepio continued. “True, we misplaced them at the Holographic Zoo for Extinct Animals, but that was only one time, and it all turned out right in the end.” He swiveled his golden head.
As the acceleration increased, Chewbacca closed his eyes and growled at him to be quiet. Threepio ignored him. “It would have been nice to see Artoo-Detoo again at Master Luke’s Jedi academy. I haven’t spoken to my counterpart in a long time.”
Threepio did not slow down as he changed subjects. “I really don’t know what use I’m expected to be on this military mission. I’ve never been very skilled at combat. I don’t like combat. I don’t like excitement in any form, though I seem to have encountered enough of it.”
Inertia pushed Chewbacca back against his uncomfortably small seat as the transport accelerated toward the congregation of battleships in orbit around Coruscant.
Threepio continued, and continued. “Of course I understand that I am technically supposed to help sift through the data in the Maw Installation computers, and I suppose I could be of some use translating the languages of alien scientists—but certainly there must be some other droid better qualified for that type of work? Isn’t General Antilles taking along an entire team of slicer droids to get encrypted information? Page’s Commandos are experts in this sort of thing. Why do I have to go along and do all the hard work? It seems unfair to me.”
Chewbacca barked a sharp command. Threepio turned to him with his yellow optical sensors glowing in indignation. “I will not be quiet, Chewbacca. Why should I listen to you after you put my head on backward in Cloud City?
“If you yourself had spoken up during the preparations for putting this team together, you could have convinced them to let me stay with Mistress Leia. But you thought I might be an asset to this mission, and now you’re just going to have to listen to me.”
With a sigh of annoyance Chewbacca reached over and hit the power switch on the back of Threepio’s neck. The droid fell silent, his words slurring to a stop as he slumped forward.
On the troop transport Page’s Commandos—noted for their intense training, cold efficiency, and utter pr
ofessionalism—took a moment to applaud Chewbacca’s action.
On the command bridge of the escort frigate Yavaris, General Wedge Antilles looked across space. Sunlight reflected off the metal hulls of his fleet. He had asked for command of this mission because he wanted to return to where Qwi Xux had spent so much of her life—to where the secrets of her lost memory might lie hidden.
The Yavaris was a powerful ship, despite its fragile appearance caused by the thin spine that separated its two primary components. At the frigate’s aft end a boxy construction contained sublight and hyperdrive engines and the power reactors that drove not only the engines but also twelve turbolaser batteries and twelve laser cannons. On the other end of the connecting rod, separated from the engines, was the much larger command section, hanging down in an angular structure that contained the command bridge, crew quarters, scanners, and cargo bays that carried two full X-wing fighter squadrons for the assault.
The escort frigate held a crew of about nine hundred seasoned soldiers, while the rest of his fleet—four Corellian corvettes—carried one hundred on each vessel.
Wedge brushed his dark hair away from his forehead and set his square jaw. The last of the troop transports had docked on the frigate, bringing the remainder of the handpicked raiders.
Han Solo had reported that Maw Installation was no longer protected by Admiral Daala’s Star Destroyers, which had been lured out of the black hole cluster to wreak havocacross the galaxy. The precious weapons information and scientists inside the Installation were undefended. Probably. Wedge was prepared for surprises, especially from a congregation of Imperial weapons designers.
On the command bridge of the Yavaris, Wedge toggled on the intercom. “Prepare to depart,” he said. The four corvettes folded around the escort frigate in a diamond formation. Ahead, Wedge saw throbbing blue-white light as banks of heavy engines pulsed to life.
The corvettes’ huge engines were twice as large as the living compartments and the hammerhead-shaped control section. Princess Leia had been riding a corvette when Vader’s Star Destroyer had captured her, demanding that she return the stolen Death Star plans, so long ago.
He watched the light-embroidered nightside of Coruscant veer away from the fleet as they angled up out of orbit, past metallic docking stations and heavy parabolic mirrors that directed magnified sunlight to warm the higher frozen latitudes.
He wished Qwi had stayed with him to watch the departure, but she was down in their quarters reviewing information tapes, studying … studying. Since her memory would not come back of its own accord, Qwi intended to fill the gaps with the missing information as quickly as possible.
She also had a deep revulsion toward watching a planet from orbit. It had taken Wedge much quiet encouraging before she finally told him that the sight reminded her of her youth, when she had been held hostage aboard an orbital training sphere under the harsh tutelage of Moff Tarkin. Qwi had been forced to watch as Victory-class Star Destroyers obliterated the honeycomb settlements of her people whenever students failed their examinations.
Thinking of the terrible things the Empire had done to the delicate and lovely Qwi made Wedge clench his teeth. He turned to the bridge crew. “Ready for hyperspace?”
“Course set, sir,” the navigation officer answered.
Wedge vowed to do what he could to fill Qwi’s life with joy … once they had conquered Maw Installation.
“Move out,” he said.
Inside windowless quarters in the protected lower decks of the Yavaris, Qwi Xux stared into the tutorial screen and blinked her indigo eyes. She skimmed file after file, absorbing the information as enthusiastically as a Tatooine desert sponge grabbed droplets of moisture.
A small portrait holo of Wedge sat inside a cube atop her worktable. She glanced at it frequently, reminding herself what he looked like, who he was, how much he meant to her. None of her memories were certain after Kyp Durron’s assault on her mind.
She had initially forgotten Wedge himself, forgotten the times they had spent together. He had desperately told her everything, showed her pictures, taken her out to the same places that the two of them had visited on the planet Ithor. He had reminded her of the reconstruction site of the Cathedral of Winds they had visited on Vortex.
Some of these things caused elusive images to flicker in the back of her mind, enough that she knew they had been there once … but she could not grasp them anymore.
Other things Wedge told her exploded back into her thoughts with full clarity, enough to bring stinging tears. Whenever that happened, Wedge was there to hold her in his arms and comfort her.
“No matter how long it takes,” he had said, “I’ll help you to remember. And if we can’t find all of your past again … then I’ll help you make new memories to fill those spaces.” He brushed her hand, and she nodded.
Qwi reviewed the tapes of her speech before the New Republic Council, where she had insisted that they dispose of the Sun Crusher and stop trying to analyze it. The Council members had grudgingly agreed to mothball the project by plunging it into the core of a gas-giant planet. But now it appeared that this had not been sufficient to keep the superweapon away from an anger and determination as powerful as Kyp Durron’s.
As she reviewed the holotaped speech she had given, she heard the words in her own voice, but did not remember speaking them. She placed the memories in her mind, but they were external views of herself as seen and recorded by others. She heaved a deep breath and scrolled to the next data file. A cumbersome method, but it would have to do.
Much of her basic scientific knowledge remained intact, but certain things were completely gone: insights she had gained, new weapons designs and new ideas she had developed. It seemed that when Kyp had rummaged around in her brain, yanking out anything that had to do with the Sun Crusher, he had erased whatever he found questionable.
Now Qwi had to rebuild what she could. It didn’t bother her that knowledge of the Sun Crusher had been obliterated. She had previously vowed to tell no one how the weapon worked—and now telling would be impossible, even if she wanted to. Some inventions were better erased.…
The Maw assault fleet had been under way for almost a full day, heading toward the Kessel system. Qwi had been studying much of the time, sparing only a moment to talk to Wedge when he came to visit after completing his duties on the command bridge. When he brought her food, they ate together, making small talk, spending their time looking into each other’s eyes.
As she sat at the data terminal, Wedge would come and stroke her narrow shoulders, massaging until her tense muscles turned buttery and warm. “You’re working too hard, Qwi,” he had said more than once.
“I have to,” she answered him.
She recalled her youth, when she had studied desperately, cramming knowledge of physics and engineering and weaponry into her pliable young brain for Moff Tarkin. She alone had survived the rigorous training. Kyp’s heavy-handed scouring of her mind had left her with those painful childhood memories—memories she would just as soon forget.
There were some things she could not recapture from data tapes or tutorial programs. She had to go back inside Maw Installation, into the laboratories where she had spent so many years. Only then could she determine which memories would come back and how much of her past she would have to sacrifice forever.
The intercom rang out, and Wedge’s voice flooded into their quarters. “Qwi, would you come up to the bridge, please? There’s something I’d like you to see.”
She acknowledged, smiling at the sound of his voice. She took a turbolift up to the frigate’s command towers and stepped out onto the bustling bridge. Wedge turned to greet her—but her indigo eyes were drawn to the broad viewport at the front of the Yavaris.
She had seen the Maw cluster before, but her mouth still dropped open in awe. The incredible maelstrom of ionized gases and superheated debris screamed past the edges of the bottomless black holes in a great whirlpool of color.
; “We came out of hyperspace near the Kessel system,” Wedge said, “and we’re lining up our vector to go in. I thought you might want to watch.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat and stepped forward to take his hand. The black holes formed a maze of gravity wells and dead-end hyperspace paths; only a few dangerously “safe” courses made passage possible through the tangled labyrinth.
“We downloaded the course from the Sun Crusher,” Wedge said. “I hope nothing’s changed, or we’ll all have a big surprise when we try to make it through.”
Qwi nodded. “It should be safe,” she said. “I double-checked the route.”
Wedge looked at her warmly, as if her verification gave him more confidence than all the computer simulations.
The black hole cluster was an impossible astronomical oddity; for thousands of years astrophysicists had attempted to determine its origin—whether some freak galactic combination had led to the birth of the black holes, or whether some impossibly ancient and powerful alien race had assembled the cluster for its own purposes.
The Maw sent out deadly radiation and was even now drawing the Kessel system to its eventual doom. For the present, though, the Empire had found a stable island within the cluster and had built its secret laboratory there.
“Let’s go then,” Qwi said, looking out at the brilliant gases flaring in incredible slow motion. She had much to learn—and a score to settle. “I’m ready.”
The ships of the Maw assault fleet spread apart, arrowing one by one into the heart of the black hole cluster.
5
One wing of the rebuilt Imperial Palace had been converted into a crèche for the water-loving Calamarian people, humid quarters for those brought by Admiral Ackbar and trained as his specialized starship mechanics.
Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy III: Champions of the Force Page 4