by John Whitman
scurried into the shadows beside the staircase and held her breath.
Two Rebels came down. They were identical, clones of the same person.
"There's no way she could have found her way down here," said the first clone.
"The leader ordered us to check everywhere," said clone number two.
"Fine. Then ask the droid if it's seen anything," said the first clone.
"Why? All that droid'll do is scan us and say it already has our genetic
material."
"Ask it anyway."
While they were bickering, Tash slipped out of the shadows and hurried up
the stairs just before the trapdoor closed. She was back in the round room.
Tash poked her head outside. She could hear a few distant voices, but
nothing nearby. She guessed that the clones had swept through the ruins right
on her heels. When they couldn't find her, they'd fanned out onto the prairie,
hoping to track her down.
As quietly as possible, Tash made her way through the maze of the ruins.
She needed to form a plan, and to do that she needed someplace to hide,
someplace where she could think. Suddenly she heard steady, unhurried
footsteps approaching around a nearby corner. She pressed herself into the
shadow of a fallen stone and listened as the footsteps grew closer.
A tall figure appeared, dressed in a long robe, with a concerned look on
his gray face.
"Uncle Hoole!" Tash said in an excited whisper. She jumped out of the
shadows and raced toward him.
"Tash," Hoole said calmly.
"Thank the Force," she said. She collapsed into his arms. Hoole caught
her and held her on her feet. "I'm so glad you got away!"
Hoole looked down at her. "I didn't get away. At least, the original
Hoole didn't." His grip tightened. "And neither will you."
CHAPTER 14
Hoole was a clone, too!
Tash tried to jerk her arms free, but the clone Hoole's grip was too
strong.
"Don't bother struggling," the clone said. "Or I'll shape-change into a
creature strong enough to crush you like a blumfruit."
Tash stopped struggling. "Please, let me go."
"No. Come with me." The clone started to drag her into the ruins.
The clone spoke like Hoole. It even had his inflection. If it was that
much like Hoole, maybe she could reason with it.
"Uncle Hoole," she said. "Please, it's me, Tash. You don't have to do
what Vader says. Think a minute!"
The clone Shi'ido looked at her with disdain. "Do not be foolish. I am
Hoole, but not the Hoole you know. Our leader has taken care of that. I am
everything that is strong about Hoole, with none of his petty weaknesses. I am
invincible."
Just as he finished the word, something hard slammed down on his skull
and the Hoole clone dropped to the ground like a sack of nerf wool. As he
fell, Tash turned to see who had sneaked up behind them.
"Zak!"
Her brother stood holding a chunk of stone block in his hand and grinning
from ear to ear. "That'll teach Vader," Zak joked. "I like Uncle Hoole, but
one's enough to deal with."
"Where were you?" Tash asked.
"Caught," her brother explained. "I found some computer records that told
me what was going on, and Vader's clones grabbed me before I could tell Uncle
Hoole. The real one, that is." He tapped the unconscious clone Hoole with his
toe. "But I guess you and Uncle Hoole caused some commotion near the bridge.
When everyone started chasing you, I was able to get free."
"Have you seen the real Uncle Hoole?" she asked.
"No," Zak answered. "But I hope he escaped."
"We've got to find him!" Tash said.
"First things first," Zak said. He pulled something out of his pocket and
held it out for Tash.
"The remote control for the ship!" Tash cheered.
Zak answered, "Yep. You call the Shroud. I'm going to see if I can find
anything useful in this clone's pockets."
"Right," Tash said. She took the remote control from Zak's hands. She
knew the security code. Hoole had given it to both of them just to be safe.
She punched in the first few digits.
Then she stopped.
"Zak?" she said.
"Yeah?" her brother answered. He was busy searching through the pockets
of the clone Hoole's robe, finding nothing.
"Why didn't you just call the ship after you escaped?"
Zak stopped his searching and looked up. "I wanted to find you and make
sure you were all right. You know, good brother stuff"
"You could have found me more easily with the scanners on board the
Shroud," Tash pointed out.
Zak scratched his head. "I guess you're right. I didn't think about it."
Tash clenched her teeth. Since when did Zak not think about using
technology?
Tash handed the remote activator back to Zak. "Why don't you call the
ship?"
Zak stared down at the remote without taking it. "Why? You could have
done it by now."
"No," she insisted. "You do it."
Zak sighed and looked at her as if she were a disobedient child. "Oh,
well, we'll just have to do this the hard way."
As he spoke, several dozen figures stepped out of the shadows cast by the
huge stones and appeared from around corners. Tash looked at them and
swallowed a startled cry. Looking back at her were dozens of images of
herself, and dozens of versions of Zak.
An army of clones.
As one, the massed clones surged forward.
Just as she had when the earlier clone hurled the rock, Tash felt herself
move without thinking. Instead of running, she jumped up onto a stone wall to
her left. Somehow she found a foothold and scrambled to the top. But as she
did, she lost her grip on the remote activator, and it clattered back down to
the ground.
"No!" she said, but she couldn't stop. Already some of the clones were
trying to follow her up the wall.
Tash tried to lower herself down the other side as she heard a Tash clone
say, "She won't get far without her ship. Spread out! Let's find her."
Hanging from the edge of the wall, Tash looked down. The ground seemed
far away. How had she jumped so high?
Hurry! she told herself. The clones would be coming around the end of the
wall at any moment.
But Tash couldn't make herself let go. The ground seemed as far away as
the stars. Steeling herself, she promised she would count to three, then let
go.
But she didn't have to. The wall was old and decayed by weather. Before
she could loosen her grip, a whole section of the top gave way. Tash fell,
hitting the ground hard. She felt gravel and stone rain down on her. She felt
larger stones batter her shoulders. She felt something heavy slam into her
head.
Then she didn't feel anything at all.
Tash woke with a sneeze. Every time she tried to breathe, dust filled her
nose. And as she woke, she realized just how hard it was to breathe at all.
She opened her eyes. Darkness surrounded her. She was lying down, but
something heavy lay on top of her. With effort, she pushed herself up to a
sitting position and felt a mound of sand and gravel slide off her arms and
> down into her clothes. Her head rang, and she felt a lump throbbing behind her
ear.
Near her head lay a small chunk of stone. And only a few centimeters in
front of her face sat another chunk, much bigger and very jagged.
She had fallen off the wall when it collapsed. The debris had followed
and one of the stone chunks had knocked her out. If it had been the larger
piece... She didn't want to think about it.
Tash climbed to her feet, using the wall for support. Twilight was
approaching. This had to be the longest day of her life.
She was covered in dust, and she could feel more sand sliding down the
inside of her clothes. The clothes she wore startled her. Why was she wearing
this jumpsuit? Where were her own clothes? She couldn't remember changing...
but her head felt as if it would explode, and she couldn't think very clearly.
Tash listened. For a moment she heard nothing. No sounds of pursuit, no
shouting voices. All was quiet.
Then she heard the crying. It came faintly at first, then more loudly.
Walking on tiptoes, Tash followed the sound. Slowly, cautiously, she peeked
around a corner.
She saw herself sitting on a chunk of stone, her knees drawn up to her
chest, sobbing. This Tash wasn't wearing a jumpsuit. She was wearing Tash's
own white overshirt and trousers.
What was going on here?
Tash thought she ought to run, but she was too weak from her fall. If the
clones were going to capture her at this moment, there wasn't much she could
do about it.
Instead, she staggered toward the other Tash. "Why are you crying?" she
asked.
The other Tash jumped as though she'd been stung. As soon as she saw
Tash, she backed away, pleading, "Don't hurt me; please don't hurt me!"
Tash shook the cobwebs out of her head. "I'm not going to hurt you. Tell
me why you're crying."
The other Tash sobbed, "Because they're going to find me."
"Who?"
"The clones," the other girl answered.
Tash blinked. "But you're a clone."
"No, I'm not," the other girl said, "I'm the real Tash Arranda!"
CHAPTER 15
"You're not the real Tash," Tash said to her twin.
"Of course I am," the other girl said. "Don't you think I'd know if I
were a clone?"
"I guess you don't know," Tash said, "because, I'm sorry to tell you, I'm
the real Tash."
The other girl sobbed. "Don't be ridiculous. Look at you."
Tash shrugged. "We look alike."
"But your clothes," the other Tash insisted. "You're wearing a jumpsuit
just like the rest of them. And I'm wearing my own clothes."
Tash scowled. What was happening? The blow to her head was making the
last few minutes all run together.
"There she is!" someone yelled.
Tash turned around to see a horde of Arranda clones charging at them. It
was too late to run. All she could do was brace herself against the mob.
But all the Zak and Tash clones parted and flowed around her, descending
on the Tash who sat on the rock. The crying Tash let out a shriek, then
vanished behind a pile of bodies.
It was over in a few seconds. Tash barely had time to register the
swarming clones before they backed away from their victim.
Tash saw herself lying, unmoving, on the ground. There was no life in
her. Tash let out a strangled yell and backed away in horror. It was like a
nightmare, seeing her own body dropped into the dust.
One of the Zaks looked at her, then at one of the Tashes. "Could we have
gotten the wrong one?" he asked.
"The clothes," another Zak groaned. "We forgot about the clothes."
Tash didn't wait to hear the answer. She was off and running again.
If it hadn't been for the confusing design of the original Jedi fortress,
Tash would have been captured in the first few minutes. But there were so many
twists and turns, so many dead ends caused by toppled stones, that one wrong
turn took her pursuers down a completely different path. Still, they kept up
the chase. Now and then one of the clones would spot her down a corridor, but
she was able to stay one step ahead, climbing over a wall or ducking between
two fallen pillars, and slip away. She was trying to make her way to the edge
of the ruins, but every time she reached the edge, one of her enemies would
spot her, forcing her back into the maze.
Tash ran, but her steps began to slow. The throbbing in her head was
subsiding, but the memory of the other Tash lingered. Why had the other Tash
claimed to be the real thing? It was ridiculous, of course. Tash knew who she
was. Yet the other girl had seemed certain. And she was wearing the right
clothes.
Tash tried to remember changing her clothes. Hadn't she put on a
jumpsuit? Maybe. Or maybe not.
Once Tash opened her mind to doubt, the confusion of the day poured in.
She allowed a terrible thought to creep in. Am I a clone?
"Ridiculous," she said out loud.
That's what the other clone said, too.
"But I'm not a clone," she insisted. "Besides, all the clones are loyal
to Vader. I'm not."
Maybe the cloning process is imperfect, the doubting part of herself
replied. Maybe you're an imperfect clone.
Tash tried to push the doubt from her mind. She was who she was. Nothing
could change that. But the clones seemed to feel exactly the same way.
Tash stopped. She heard voices approaching, but she didn't move. Would it
matter if she were a clone? Wouldn't she be the same person?
No, she realized. A clone wouldn't have her experiences, her life. A
clone wouldn't feel the way she felt, wouldn't know what it was like to lose a
mother and father.
At the thought of her mother and father, Tash put her hand to her chest.
She felt something hard and firm beneath her fingertips.
Her pendant.
Tash pulled at the chain around her neck until the pendant slid free of
her jumpsuit. Vader could clone her body. He could even scan her mind. But he
couldn't copy everything. Not Tash's love for her parents. No clone could feel
that way.
In a split second, Tash recalled her earlier wish to talk with her
parents, to ask them how she would know her true self. Now she knew what they
would have told her. Emotions like love and kindness and caring-the same
feelings that allowed her to use the light side of the Force-would help her
see herself clearly.
But Tash's resolution came a little too late. Vader's clones had found
her.
Zaks and Tashes surrounded her. Tash saw instantly that flight was
impossible. So she didn't run. She tucked the pendant back into her jumpsuit.
Then she charged full speed into the mob of clones.
CHAPTER 16
Tash plunged into the of the clone army. She pushed her way through until
she was in the very middle of the crowd.
Then she grabbed the nearest clone Tash by the wrist and shouted, "I've
got her! I've got her!"
"Good work!" one of the Zaks yelled.
"Huh?" said the other Tash, trying to pull away.
"Help me! She's a fighter!" Tash screamed. Several clones grabbed at
the
captured Tash clone.
"All right!" said a Zak clone. "Let's get her back to the leader. He'll
want to question her with the others."
The cloned Tash protested, but her struggles only convinced the others
that she was their target. They grabbed her arms and legs and lifted her off
the ground. As she kicked and fought with them, they carried her out of the
ruins.
Tash followed, hiding her smile.
The small clone army hurried across the bridge and into the Rebel base.
Tash followed them up to the central building, the one that housed the mock
starship.
Inside, Tash saw that two pilot chairs had been pulled out of the ship
and set up on the floor. Zak and Uncle Hoole had been strapped into these
chairs. Both of them were dressed in clone jumpsuits. Their own clothes, Tash