Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy III: Champions of the Force

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Exar Kun had also been betrayed by his supposed partner, the warlord Ulic Qel-Droma. Now Han had betrayed Kyp. Master Skywalker had also betrayed him by failing to teach the appropriate lessons … appropriate defenses against Exar Kun. In his head the voice of the Sith Lord shouted for him to kill Han Solo, to destroy the enemy. To let his anger flow through and be strong.

  It overwhelmed Kyp. He squeezed his dark eyes shut, unable to watch as his hands gripped the control levers for launching the torpedo. He primed the system. The screens blinked with warning signals, which he disregarded.

  He needed to destroy something. He needed to kill those who had betrayed him. His fists gripped the firing handles. His thumbs rested on the launch buttons, squeezing, ready—

  Squeezing—

  And then the haunting voice of Exar Kun rose to a wail in his mind, an utterly forlorn scream as if he were being torn out of this universe and exiled to another place entirely, where he could torment Kyp Durron no more.

  Kyp snapped backward in his control seat as if an invisible tow cable had been severed. His arms and head dangled like a puppet with suddenly snipped strings. The cool wind of freedom whistled through his mind and body. He blinked his eyes and shuddered with revulsion at what he had been about to do.

  The Millennium Falcon still gripped the Sun Crusher in its tractor beam. As Kyp saw the battered old ship, Han Solo’s prize possession, he felt a tidal wave of despair.

  Kyp reached out to the energy torpedo controls and vehemently canceled the firing sequence. The plasma generator flickered and faded as the energy died away.

  Without the presence of Exar Kun inside him, Kyp felt isolated, suddenly in free fall—but independent.

  He opened the communication channel but couldn’t form words for a few moments. His throat was dry. It felt as if he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in four thousand years.

  “Han,” he croaked, and said louder, “Han, this is Kyp! I …” He paused, not knowing what next to say—what else he could say.

  He hung his head and finally finished, “I surrender.”

  17

  The Twi’lek Tol Sivron still felt jangled from his horrendous passage through the Maw, escaping from the Rebel invasion force and riding the gravity between black holes.

  His long head-tails tingled with a rush of impressions, delighted to see that the information he had long ago stolen from Daala’s secret files—the list of tortuous safe routes through the black hole cluster—had been accurate. If the course map had been the least bit imprecise, he and his retreating crew would not be alive now.

  The Death Star prototype lurched under full power as it emerged safely from the cluster, but just as it sped away from the sinuous, brilliant gases, the propulsion systems fizzled and went off-line.

  Sparks showered from panels as the stormtrooper captain shut down the engine power and rerouted systems. Yemm attempted to use a manual fire-extinguishing apparatus to squelch flames licking out of a nearby console, but he succeeded only in short-circuiting the intercom systems.

  Golanda and Doxin flipped furiously through repair manuals and design specifications.

  “Director,” the stormtrooper captain said, “we have successfully broken free from the Maw, though the strain has caused a good deal of damage.”

  Doxin looked up, scowling. “I remind you that this was a nonhardened prototype, never meant to be actually deployed.”

  “Yes, sir,” the stormtrooper said in an inflectionless voice. “As I was about to say, I believe the damage can be repaired in only a few days. It is a simple matter of bypassing circuits and reinitializing computer systems. I believe after this shakedown the prototype will be in much better shape for combat.”

  Tol Sivron rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Good, good.” He leaned back in the pilot’s chair. “That will give us time to select a suitable target for our first attack.”

  Golanda called up a navigational chart, displayed across the viewscreen. “Director, the Kessel system is very close, as you know. Perhaps we should—”

  “Let’s get the propulsion units up and running again before we plan too far ahead,” Doxin interrupted. “Our ultimate strategy may depend on our capabilities.”

  Yemm tore the cover off the communications panel and squinted down into the morass of blackened wires, sniffing the burned insulation.

  Golanda kept studying her station, calling up readings from the prototype’s exterior sensors. “Director, I’ve found something puzzling. Looking at the gas turbulence that surrounds the black hole cluster, it appears that another very large ship has recently entered the Maw, only moments ago. It seems to have followed one of the other paths Admiral Daala designated as a safe route through to the Installation.” She looked at him, and Tol Sivron flinched away from her unpleasant face. “We just missed them.”

  Sivron didn’t know what she was talking about, nor why it should concern him. All of these frantic problems were like stinging insects buzzing around his head, and he swatted at them.

  “We can’t do anything about that now,” he said. “It’s probably another Rebel ship coming to mop up the invasion of our facility.” He sighed. “We’ll get back at them, as soon as we get the Death Star up and running again.”

  He leaned back in his pilot’s chair and closed his beady eyes, longing for just a moment’s peace. He wished he had never left his home planet of Ryloth, where the Twi’lek people lived deep within mountain catacombs in the habitable band of twilight that separated the baking heat of day from the frigid cold of endless night.

  Tol Sivron thought of more peaceful days, breathing the stale air through gaps in his pointed teeth. The heat storms on Ryloth brought sufficient warmth into the twilight zone to make the planet habitable, though desolate.

  The Twi’leks built their society around the governorship of a five-member “head-clan” who led the community in all matters until such time as one of them died. At this point the Twi’leks cast out the remaining members of the head-clan to the blasted wasteland—and presumably to their deaths—while they selected a fresh group of rulers.

  Tol Sivron had been a member of the head-clan, pampered and spoiled by the benefits of power. The entire clan was young and vigorous, and Sivron had expected to reap the benefits of his position for many years—spacious quarters, Twi’lek dancing women renowned throughout the galaxy, delicacies of raw meat that he could tear with his pointed teeth and savor the spicy liquid flavors.…

  But the good life had lasted barely a standard year. One of his idiot companions had lost his balance on a scaffolding while inspecting a deep-grotto construction project and had fallen to impale himself upon a ten-thousand-year-old stalagmite.

  According to their custom, the Twi’lek people had exiled Tol Sivron and the other three members of the head-clan into the blasted deserts of the dayside to face the heat storms and the scouring wind.

  They had resigned themselves to death, but Tol Sivron had convinced the other three that if they worked together, they could survive, perhaps eke out an existence in an uninhabited cave farther down the spine of mountains.

  The others had agreed, clinging to any hope; and then, as they slept that night, Tol Sivron had killed them all, taking their meager possessions to increase his own chances of survival. Covering himself with thick layers of garments stripped from the dead bodies of his companions, he had trudged across the fiery landscape, not knowing what he was searching for.…

  Tol Sivron had thought the glittering ships were mere mirages until he stumbled into the encampment. It was a rugged training base and refueling station for the Imperial navy, frequented by smugglers but supported by the Empire.

  Tol Sivron had met a man named Tarkin there, an ambitious young commander who already had several ships and who intended to make the small outpost on Ryloth a strategically important refueling station in the Outer Rim.

  Over the years, Tol Sivron had worked for Tarkin, proving himself to be an unparalleled manager, a
skillful arranger of the complex business that Tarkin—then Moff Tarkin, then Grand Moff Tarkin—had under way.

  Sivron’s career had culminated in his directorship of Maw Installation—which he had now fled in the face of a Rebel invasion. If Tarkin was still alive, the embarrassing retreat would no doubt figure negatively in Tol Sivron’s next performance appraisal.

  He had to do something to make up for it, posthaste.

  “Director,” Yemm said, interrupting his thoughts. “I think the comm system is functioning again. It will be ready to use as soon as I log the modifications into its maintenance record.”

  Sivron sat up. “At least something works around here.”

  Yemm entered numbers into one of the computer stations and nodded his horned head at Tol Sivron. “Ready, Director.”

  “Turn it on,” he said. “Let me speak to the crew.” His last words echoed through the speakers, startling him. He cleared his throat and leaned closer to the voice pickup on the pilot’s chair.

  “Attention, everyone! Hurry with those repairs,” he snapped into the intercom. His voice sounded like the commands of a deity as he spoke through all levels. “I want to destroy something as soon as possible.” He switched off.

  The stormtrooper captain turned to him. “We will do our best, sir. I should have final repair estimates within a few hours.”

  “Good, good.” He stared across the open emptiness of space, looking at all the possible starpoint targets.

  Tol Sivron had in his possession one of the most devastating weapons in the galaxy. But it remained untested. For now.

  18

  The second timed detonation occurred just as Wedge Antilles and his assault squad charged into the Maw Installation’s power-reactor complex. Shaped charges planted by a sabotage crew exploded at the base of the reactor’s cooling towers, shutting down the enormous generator that powered the facilities, the laboratories, the mainframe computers, and life-support systems.

  Wearing mottled brown-and-gray body armor, Wedge had led his assault team across the connector-tube catwalks to the power asteroid. But just as the squad entered, gouts of gray smoke spurted through the tunnels, carrying dust and debris along with a hot wind.

  Wedge shook his head to clear his ringing ears. He climbed to his knees and then to his feet again. “I need an assessment of the damages,” he shouted. “Quick!”

  Three of the leading soldiers raced down the hall only to encounter a group of Maw Installation personnel fleeing the wreckage. The saboteurs were led by a one-armed brute of a man with purplish-green skin and a sour expression.

  Wedge’s team snapped up their weapons, training the barrels of their blaster rifles on the saboteurs, who halted with a clatter like machine components locking into place. The one-armed man skidded to a stop and looked around wildly. The rest of his crew glared at the New Republic soldiers.

  “Drop your weapons!” Wedge said.

  The large brute raised his single hand, palm outward, to show that he carried no weapons. Wedge was surprised to see that the others were also unarmed.

  “It’s too late to stop anything,” the one-armed man said. “I am Werrnyn, Division Leader for Plant Operations. Accept my surrender. My team and I would appreciate it if you’d get us off this rock before the whole thing explodes.”

  Wedge pointed to four of his soldiers. “Use binders, see that the prisoners are secured. We’ve got to get that power reactor functioning again, or we’ll have to evacuate.”

  The Maw saboteurs did not resist as the squad took them into custody, though Wedge’s men looked confused about how to apply binders to Wermyn’s single arm.

  Wedge and the technicians proceeded cautiously into the reactor housing. The heat struck him like a sandwhirl during the hot season on Tatooine. The air smelled thick with acrid lubricants, molten metal, and charred high-energy explosive.

  Red warning lights flooded the chamber, reflecting from whistling jets of steam like droplets of flying blood. Laboring pumps and engines thudded with a pounding beat that made Wedge’s skull ache. A large reactor component had been slagged, left with ragged, dripping edges.

  He squinted as the techs ran forward, yanking handheld detectors from their belts to study radiation leaks. One trotted up to Wedge. “Both the primary and the backup cooling pumps have been destroyed. Our friend Werrnyn was right. He has initiated a meltdown, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. We can’t fix this equipment.”

  “Can we shut down the reactor?” Wedge said.

  “It’s been locked on, and the controls are destroyed,” the tech answered. “I suppose there’s a chance we could reroute and rig up temporary systems in an hour or two, but if we shut the reactor down, we also terminate power and life support to the Installation.”

  Wedge looked around the wreckage as his stomach sank. With his boot he kicked a broken piece of plasteel shielding. It clattered hollowly across the floor until the throbbing engines swallowed the sound.

  “I didn’t lead this strike force just to let all the scientists and the Death Star get away while the whole Installation is destroyed under my feet.” He drew a deep breath and tapped his fingers together in an attempt to concentrate, as Qwi often did, though he wasn’t sure it worked.

  Then he yanked the comm link from his hip and gripped it, toggling on the frequency for the flagship Yavaris. “Captain,” he said, “get me some engineering experts right away. We need to rig up emergency cooling pumps for the main power reactor.

  “I know we don’t have much equipment, but our hyperdrive cooling systems shouldn’t be too dissimilar to what this reactor uses. Take one of the corvettes off line and remove the engine pumps. We’ve got to get something working down here to hold us until we can remove everything of value.”

  The two technicians looked up at Wedge and smiled. “That just might work, sir.”

  Wedge ushered them back to where the prisoners were held, vowing not to let the Imperials win so easily.

  Qwi Xux felt like a stranger in her own house. She walked timidly into the room she had identified as her former laboratory, expecting something to jump out at her, memories to come flooding back.

  The illumination came on, shedding a cold white glow on the design apparatus, her computer terminals, her furniture. This place had been her home, the center of her life for more than a decade. But it looked like a foreign land to her now. She stared in amazement and sighed.

  See-Threepio whirred as he followed her into the room. “I still don’t know why I’m here, Dr. Xux. I can assist you in assimilating the leftover data, but I’m a protocol droid, not a slicer. Perhaps you should have brought my counterpart Artoo-Detoo? He’s much better at this sort of thing than I am. He is a fine model, but a bit too headstrong for a droid, if you catch my meaning.”

  Qwi ignored him as she stepped farther into the room, walking on tiptoes. Her skin felt cold and clammy. The air smelled stale, empty. She trembled as she ran her fingers along the cool synthetic stone of the thick support pillars. She caught a flash of distant memory—a ragged Han Solo tied to this pillar, barely able to hold his head upright after the “deep interrogation” Admiral Daala had performed on him.…

  Qwi went over to the lab table, picked up her spectral-analysis sensors, materials-properties analyzers, stress and strain simulators, and a holographic 3-D design projector that glittered darkly under the bright lights.

  “My, this appears to be a completely adequate workspace, Dr. Xux,” Threepio said. “Spacious and clean. I’m sure you accomplished a great deal here. Believe me, I’ve seen far more cluttered research areas in facilities on Coruscant.”

  “Threepio, why don’t you take an inventory of the equipment you see,” Qwi told him, just to keep the droid quiet so she could think. “Pay particular attention to any demonstration models you find. Those could be significant.”

  Qwi discovered a small musical keypad lying half-hidden in a pile of printouts and handwritten notes. Beside the keypad stood the milky
eye of a powerless computer terminal.

  She switched the terminal on, but the screen demanded her password before it would allow her access to her own files. So much for that.

  Qwi picked up the musical keypad and cradled it. The instrument felt familiar and yet alien. She touched a few of the keys and listened to the soft, high notes that issued from it. She remembered standing in the shattered debris of the Cathedral of Winds, picking up a fragment of one of the windpipes and blowing a slow, mournful melody through it. The winged Vors had snatched the flute from her, insisting that there be no more music until the cathedral itself was rebuilt.…

  But this keypad held her own music. Qwi vaguely recalled using it, but she couldn’t quite picture for what. A flickering image came to mind, like a slick, wet fruit that slipped from her fingers every time she tried to grasp it—setting the keypad down, suspecting she might never come back.… She winced, drew a breath, and tapped her fingers together, trying to think.

  Han Solo! Yes, she had left everything untouched as she attempted to rescue Han and escape with the Sun Crusher.

  She let her long blue fingers dance across the musical keys. Her mind remembered no particular sequence, but her body knew. Her hands moved by habit, tapping out a quick loop of melody. She smiled—it seemed so familiar to her.

  When she finished the sequence of notes, her computer screen winked, PASSWORD ACCEPTED. She blinked her indigo eyes, astonished at what she had done.

  ERROR, the computer printed. MAIN DATABASE UNAVAILABLE … SEARCHING FOR BACKUPS. FILES DAMAGED.

  Qwi suspected Tol Sivron might have destroyed the computer core before fleeing in the Death Star prototype. But she must have left something stored within the temporary memory of her own terminal.

  RECOVERED FILES FOLLOW, the screen said.