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

by Kevin J. Anderson

  More explosions from the Gorgon’s attack pounded through the thick walls, but those noises were soon drowned out by the growling purr of the shuttles’ repulsorlift engines.

  Chewbacca raised the heavily armed ship off the floor and guided it down the launching corridor. Atmosphere-containment fields sealed behind them just before the heavy launch doors opened into space like a huge vertical mouth.

  Threepio linked up to the guidance computers and the directional programming of all five assault shuttles. Behind them identical vehicles flew in a tight formation, picking up speed. “This is rather exhilarating,” Threepio said.

  Chewbacca punched at the controls until the shuttle rocketed like a projectile through the launch doors and away from the Installation’s protective shield.

  Above, swarms of starfighters streamed from the Corellian corvettes. The frigate Yavaris began to fire on the Star Destroyer as Daala continued to rain turbolaser bolts upon the Installation. From the lower bay doors of the Gorgon, squads of TIE fighters streaked out like spooked mynocks from a cave.

  Chewbacca powered up his weapons systems, and Threepio linked into their preprogrammed attack patterns. The five assault shuttles from Maw Installation plunged into the heart of the burgeoning space battle.

  “Oh, my!” Threepio said.

  31

  When Leia answered the summons at the door to her quarters in the rebuilt Imperial Palace, she saw it was the deepest hour of the bustling night. For a moment she had a thrilled thought, that Han might have come back from Kessel already. But when she rubbed sleep from her eyes and opened the door, she found her brother Luke standing there. She paused a moment, utterly astonished, and then rushed forward to embrace him.

  “Luke! When did you come to Coruscant?” Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of another young man standing off to the side in the dim corridor. She recognized the tousled dark hair of Kyp Durron; his eyes were deep-set and averted, no longer the brash teenager that Han had rescued from the spice mines of Kessel.

  “Oh, Kyp,” she said in a flat, unemotional voice. Seeing the young man unnerved her. He had been Han’s dear friend, a companion through enjoyable adventures—but Kyp had also gone over to the dark side, paralyzed Luke, killed millions of people, turned on Han.…

  Kyp’s face and eyes looked old now, exhausted from the traumas he had endured—and caused. Leia had seen eyes like those only once before: on her brother after he had faced the knowledge that Darth Vader was his own father. But Kyp had been through a hell as deep as Luke’s had been.

  A small courier droid shot down the hall, blinking red lights to warn others to clear the way as it propelled itself along on urgent business, even this late at night.

  With a flush of embarrassment Leia remembered her manners. “Please, come in.”

  From the back room Winter emerged, gliding forward on silent bare feet, wearing only a loose sleeping garment. Winter appeared ready for action lest some other danger throw itself upon the children. She bowed her head formally when she saw Luke. “Greetings, Master Skywalker,” she said.

  Luke smiled and nodded to her. “Hello, Winter.”

  Winter backed into her chambers. “I’ll just check on the children,” she said. She vanished, giving them no chance to say anything else.

  Leia looked from Kyp to Luke again, feeling deep weariness behind her eyes, behind her head. She had been relying on too many stimulant drinks, spending too much time negotiating with other Council members, sleeping too little.

  Luke closed the door behind him as he and Kyp entered the common room. Leia remembered when her brother had trained her in this room, trying to unlock her Jedi potential. Now, though, she sensed that Luke had a much more ominous agenda.

  “Is Han here?” Kyp blurted, looking around the quarters.

  Leia noticed that he still wore the black cape Han had given him as a gift; but now Kyp seemed to carry it as a symbol over a light jumpsuit, a reminder to himself of what he could become.

  “He’s gone off to Kessel with Lando,” Leia said, a tired smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Lando wants to try running the spice mines.”

  Kyp frowned uncertainly. Luke sat down on one of the self-conforming cushions and leaned forward, weaving his fingers together. He directed his intense gaze at Leia. “Leia, we need your help,” he said.

  “Yeah, I figured that out,” Leia answered with a touch of irony. “I’ll do everything I can, of course. What do you need?”

  “Kyp and I have … made our peace. He has the potential to be the greatest of the Jedi I am training, but there’s one thing he must do before I can consider him completely absolved.”

  Leia swallowed, already afraid of what he might say. “And what is this ‘one thing’?”

  Luke did not flinch. “The Sun Crusher must be destroyed. Everyone in the New Republic knows that. But Kyp must do it himself.”

  Leia simply blinked, unable to say anything. “But … how can he destroy it?” she finally said. “As far as we know, it’s indestructible. We already dropped it into a gas planet’s core, but Kyp”—she turned her exaggerated gaze on the young man—“managed to retrieve it. I don’t suppose even dropping it into a sun would have made much difference.”

  Kyp shook his head. “No, I could have recovered it just as easily.”

  Leia looked helplessly at Luke, spreading her hands. “So what else—?”

  “Kyp and I will fly the Sun Crusher back to the Maw. He will set the autopilot and drop it down one of the black holes. Quantum armor or no quantum armor, it will be obliterated. There’s no more definite way of erasing something from this universe.”

  Kyp piped up. “I know the Sun Crusher must be taken away from both the Empire and the New Republic. I … Dr. Xux no longer has any memory of how to reconstruct it. The galaxy will never need to fear such a threat again.” His posture stiffened, his chin rose, his eyes grew alive again. The guilt and pain were replaced with a look of pride and determination.

  Luke placed a hand on the young man’s forearm, and Kyp fell silent, content to let Luke continue.

  “Leia, I know you’ve been appointed the new Chief of State. You can make this happen.” He leaned forward, speaking to her with the idealistic, boyish energy she remembered from years before. “You know I’m right.”

  Leia shook her head, already afraid of the enormous diplomatic battle she would have to face at the mere mention of Luke’s preposterous request.

  “There’ll be a lot of heated discussion. Most of the Council members are going to refuse to let Kyp get within sight of the Sun Crusher again. What’s to stop him from rampaging around the galaxy and blowing up more star systems? Can they take that risk? Can we?”

  “They have to take that risk,” Luke said. “It must be done. And I’ll be there with him.”

  Leia bit her lip. Her brother could be so forceful. She knew him well enough that she wasn’t simply awed by what the Jedi could do … but she was confident that Luke could follow through on his claim.

  “Do you know what you’re asking?” she said in a soft, pleading voice.

  “Leia, just as I had to face our father, this is a test Kyp must complete. Tell the Council that if he passes this test successfully, Kyp Durron could become the most powerful Jedi Knight of this generation.”

  Leia sighed and stood up. “All right. I’ll try—”

  Kyp interrupted her and said, “There is no try: do or do not.” Then he allowed himself a wry smile, gesturing toward Luke. “At least that’s what he always says.”

  32

  Han Solo gritted his teeth as he yanked on the Falcon’s controls. The modified light freighter flew up and around in a tight backward loop. The blinding flash of the Death Star’s superlaser faded to a glowing streak as the rubble of Kessel’s moon mushroomed in a rapidly expanding cloud.

  “That was gonna be my garrison!” Lando cried. His voice cracked. “First Moruth Doole, now a Death Star—this deal is getting worse all t
he time.”

  Mara Jade, her face hard as chiseled stone, quickly leaned between Han and Lando in the two cockpit seats and shouted into the comm unit. “This is Mara Jade. All ships report. How many did we lose? Did the evacuation order go out on time?”

  One of the cool-voiced Mistryl guards responded. “Yes, Commander Jade,” the warrior woman said. “We scrambled at first sign of the intruder. All but two ships made it away from the base. One more was struck and destroyed by the flying debris.”

  Mara nodded grimly. “Then we still have enough of a fighting force,” she said.

  “Fighting force!” Han said. “Against that thing? To do what? It’s a Death Star, not a cargo freighter.” He looked through the overhead viewport and saw the skeletal prototype over Kessel. The superweapon seemed to be brooding over the destruction it had just caused.

  “But, Han,” Lando pleaded, “we’ve got to do something before it blows up the planet, too. Think of all the spice down there.”

  Mara grabbed the comm again. “Attack formation gamma,” she said. “We’re going to head out and pound that Death Star.” She turned to Han and lowered her voice. “If it’s just a prototype, my guess is they won’t have the defenses the real Death Star had, no squadrons of TIE fighters, no turbolaser fortifications across the surface. That’s what did the most damage to your Rebel fleets, wasn’t it?”

  “Not entirely,” Lando said. “The second Death Star used its superlaser against a few of our capital ships.”

  Mara pursed her lips as she thought. “Then we’ll just have to keep them busy. I don’t think that superlaser can be very effective at targeting small moving objects.”

  “I don’t like the odds on that,” Lando said.

  “Never quote me the odds,” Han said, hunching over the panel and guiding the ship into position.

  “Who, me?” Lando said, raising his eyebrows. “I’m a sucker for lost causes.”

  The Millennium Falcon soared into the vanguard of the smugglers’ attack formation. Han was impressed to see the assortment of large and small ships fall into a perfect pattern, as if they were trained and regimented. The motley bunch must have a great deal of respect for Mara Jade, he realized; as a rule, smugglers were notoriously independent and took orders from no one.

  One of the other ships, an insectile Z-95 Headhunter—the type of ship Mara herself often flew—streaked in beside the Falcon. Its pilot spoke over the open channel. “This is Kithra. I’ll take the right-hand prong, Shana will take the left. You fly center, Falcon, and we’ll hit the Death Star in all three places at once.”

  Han recognized the no-nonsense voice of another Mistryl guard. How many had she brought along with her?

  “Agreed, Kithra,” Mara said. She turned to look at Han. “Well, Solo, ready to lead the attack?”

  “I never intended to take the Falcon against a Death Star,” he groaned, even as he prepared for battle. “I was just giving Lando a lift to Kessel.”

  “Think of it as an added bonus,” Mara said.

  “Come on, Han,” Lando urged, “before that Death Star fires again.”

  “Good thing Leia’s not here,” he muttered. “She’d probably succeed in talking me out of this.”

  As the ships converged on the skeletal behemoth, the superlaser struck once more, scorching the fabric of space with emerald fire—but the beam passed through the scattered ships descending upon it, causing no damage.

  “Shields up,” Han said, “for whatever good it’ll do against that.”

  On either side of the Falcon two segments of the smuggler fleet peeled off like the skin from a rustle snake: one prong led by Kithra in her Headhunter, the other headed by Shana in an angular blockade runner, a clunkier forerunner of the Falcon’s light-freighter design.

  The smuggler ships drove in, energy cannons blazing, drawing a deadly tracery of fire across the superstructures and girders of the enormous sphere.

  Han launched three proton torpedoes into the labyrinth of cross beams and supports as they charged toward the enormous construction. A few reinforced girders glowed molten as projectiles and energy beams hit.

  “It’s going to take us a year to chop away at this thing,” Han said, firing from the Falcon’s forward weaponry.

  “I never claimed this was going to be easy,” Mara said.

  Tol Sivron’s head-tails twitched. He squinted his black beady eyes at the oncoming small ships. They appeared so trivial, their weapons systems so minor. “I can’t believe they’re attacking us,” he said. “What do they think they’re going to accomplish?”

  At the tactical station the stormtrooper captain spoke through his white helmet. “If I might point out, Director, this battle station is for proof-of-concept only. It was never designed to defend itself against multiple small threats. In fact, the Death Star was meant to house over seven thousand TIE fighters, not to mention thousands of surface turbolasers and ion cannons and an escort of several Imperial-class Star Destroyers. We have none of these.

  “Individually, those Rebel ships may be only a minor threat, but together they can harry us for an extended period and, if we are unlucky, cause significant structural damage.”

  “You mean we don’t have any fighters of our own?” Tol Sivron said with stern disapproval. “That was poor planning. Who wrote that section of the procedure? I want to know right now.”

  “Director,” the stormtrooper said with a tinge of exasperation in his filtered voice, “that doesn’t matter at the moment.”

  “It matters to me!” Tol Sivron said. He turned toward demon-faced Yemm, who was already scouring the records.

  “It appears that Dr. Qwi Xux was responsible for that section, Director,” Yemm said. “She devoted much of her time to the operation and performance of the superlaser, giving short shrift to tactical considerations.”

  Sivron sighed. “I see we’ve found a flaw in our approval system. Such weak spots should never have been allowed to pass through the progress reports and review meetings.”

  “Director,” Doxin said, “let us not allow this to overshadow the marvelous performance of the Death Star superlaser itself.”

  “Agreed, agreed,” Sivron said. “We should have a meeting immediately to discuss the implications of—”

  The stormtrooper captain stood up from his station. “Director, we must establish certain priorities right now! We are under attack.”

  An outside explosion made the Death Star framework around the control chamber vibrate.

  “That’s three direct hits with proton torpedoes,” the stormtrooper said. “So far.”

  As Sivron watched, four Z-95 Headhunters swooped out of the superstructure, their rear engines blazing.

  “Well, then fire again with our laser,” Tol Sivron said. “Maybe we can hit one of them this time.”

  “The power core is only half-charged,” Doxin pointed out.

  Sivron whirled and parted his lips to show pointed teeth. “Isn’t that good enough to knock out a few little ships?”

  Doxin blinked his piggish eyes as if he hadn’t considered the possibility. “Why, yes, sir—yes, it is. Ready to fire.”

  “At your convenience, Division Leader,” Sivron said.

  Eagerly, Doxin spoke into the intercom, commanding the gunners to fire. After a few seconds the incredible beam of light seared out; side lasers converged at a focal point and coalesced into a laser battering ram that plowed through the fringe of the oncoming cluster of fighters, vaporizing one old blockade runner in the vanguard of the left prong. Another ship was damaged by the backwash of the blast, but the attacking forces spread out and disappeared into the superstructure like parasites, firing again.

  “Did you see that?” Doxin said with obvious pleasure. “We hit one!”

  “Hooray,” Golanda said sourly from her seat. Her voice carried absolutely no enthusiasm. “Only about forty more to go, and you can’t even fire the superlaser again for fifteen minutes.”

  “Director, if I may make a su
ggestion,” the stormtrooper captain said. “We have successfully tested the prototype laser, but to stay here any longer would serve no purpose. To endure unnecessary damage to this fine weapon is folly. We should protect the Death Star so we may present it intact to the Imperial authorities.”

  “And what do you suggest doing, Captain?” Tol Sivron said. He dug his long claws into the armrests.

  “We should withdraw to the Maw cluster. I doubt these small ships will follow. We are not highly maneuverable, but we can build up considerable speed. Note that we don’t need to go all the way back to the Installation, just to the opposite side of the cluster where we can hide.” The captain paused, then said slowly, “Once there, you will have time to hold a lengthy meeting, to decide what to do. You can … discuss the whole situation by committee if you like.”

  Tol Sivron brightened. “Good idea, Captain. See to it. Let’s head out of here as fast as we can.”

  The stormtrooper captain fed in a new course for the prototype. The huge open-framework sphere wheeled about on its axis and accelerated away from Kessel, cumbersome but picking up speed as it left the flurry of other ships behind.

  After the blaze from the Death Star’s third blast faded, Han Solo rubbed sparkles out of his eyes, seeing distorted colors. “That was too close,” he said. “The fringe of the beam fried our forward shields.”

  Shana’s old blockade runner had been destroyed, and some ships now flew off in retreat. “We have to regroup,” Kithra’s voice came over the comm system.

  “I think we should just get out of here,” Han said.

  “Look!” Lando interrupted as the arching framework of the Death Star spun about and began to accelerate away from Kessel. “We’ve got it on the run.”

  “For now,” Mara said, “but it may just be retreating long enough to recharge its power core so it can strike again.”

  “Kessel won’t be safe while that thing is out there,” Lando said. “Han, we’ve got to go in. Let’s take the Falcon all the way to the power core.”