by John Whitman
realized, must have been taken by clones. In front of each of them stood a
droid similar to the one Tash had seen in the cloning chamber. Vader stood
over the two droids, making adjustments to their circuits.
One of the Zak clones approached Vader. "My lord, we've caught the other
one."
Vader looked up from his work. "I don't need her. I've decided to use a
mindscan to get the information I need. Dispose of her."
The clones nodded and turned away. The captured Tash clone redoubled her
struggles, but more hands grabbed her. In the commotion, the real Tash slipped
behind the landing gear of the derelict starship to watch.
"You have given me an invaluable gift," Vader said to Zak and Hoole. "The
cloning technology is a powerful tool. With it I can create an instant army of
clones. The mindscan that accompanies the cloning process allows me to
instantly imbue each clone with a personality. But at first I had little to
work with. Only the handful of DNA samples I could scrape together from this
abandoned station. They were only skin and hair samples, with no mind-scans to
accompany the genetic growth. The result was a race of idiots. I left them to
their own devices. I had tried several times to capture Dantari from which to
make clones, but they proved too elusive. And then you arrived."
Hoole struggled against his bonds. Vader turned to him. "This is your
last warning. If you attempt to shape-change, I'll crush the boy with a single
thought."
Hoole became still. Vader continued. "Now you have provided me with your
DNA and a complete mindscan. With similar scans of the boy and girl, I was
able to clone the girl, and that clone allowed me to lure the Dantari into a
trap. With the Dantari DNA, I can build a race of powerful soldiers and
slaves."
Hiding behind the landing gear, Tash realized what had happened. The
cloning machinery was set up beneath the round room. Their minds were scanned
when they entered the room, and the mindscan was stored by the droids. Then,
somehow, Vader had acquired samples of their DNA. She didn't know how he'd
done it, but it would have been easy. With the mindscan and the genetic
material, Vader had created his clones.
"Now all I need," the Dark Lord said, "is your ship. Then I will be able
to leave this accursed planet. I want the code to your remote activator."
"We won't tell you," Zak said defiantly.
"I don't intend to ask," the Dark Lord said. "I will take the
information. A simple adjustment to the mind-scanners of these processing
droids should make them nearly as effective as the probe on a torture droid.
And even more painful."
Vader flipped a switch on each droid. Blue beams of light shot from the
droids' faces and fell on Zak and Hoole. Both captives immediately winced in
pain and fought against the straps that held them down.
Tash knew she had to do something. But she also knew that Vader could
squash her like a bug. Maybe if she moved fast enough, she could surprise him
She never had a chance to find out. A dark figure suddenly stepped out of
the shadows. The figure had broad shoulders and carried a stone ax. Tash
recognized him immediately.
"Offworlder!" Maga bellowed. "Free my people!"
Vader laughed. "Another primitive savage for my labor camps."
"I am the garoo of my people," Maga growled, advancing toward the Dark
Lord of the Sith.
"You are an insect," Vader replied. He raised one hand, and Tash felt the
dark side of the Force churn outward. Maga was hurled through the air and
slammed against the wall. Growling, the Dantari stubbornly climbed to his
feet.
"You are strong," Vader said. "This should prove interesting." He took a
step toward Maga and raised his hand again. Again, Maga was hurled like a rag
doll across the room.
Tash saw her chance. She bolted forward, reaching the two mindscanning
droids in a few steps, and shut them down with a quick motion.
"Tash!" Zak said weakly. "Prime..."
"Is Vader distracted?" Hoole demanded.
"Yes," Tash replied, seeing him with Maga in his grip.
Instantly, Hoole's body seemed to melt. The straps that held him tight
went limp as the Shi'ido transformed into a small monkey-lizard and slipped
out of the bonds. By the time Tash had freed Zak, Hoole had recovered his own
shape. Vader was still toying with Maga.
"Come on!" Tash said.
"The remote activator," Hoole whispered.
"Looking for this?"
They all looked up. Standing before them was another Hoole, holding the
small black datapad that would summon the Shroud.
"Give me that," the real Hoole said threateningly.
"I'm afraid not," said the clone Hoole. "This belongs to Hoole. And I am
Hoole."
"We shall see," the real Hoole said.
The two Hooles surged toward one another, but they moved so quickly that
Tash could hardly follow. Her uncle shifted into the shape of a many-horned
lizard, while the other Hoole transformed into some sort of giant snake. But
by the time they clashed, each of them had morphed two or three more times,
until the two combatants were a quivering mass of shrieking, shape-changing
flesh.
Tash was awestruck. She had never seen her uncle so enraged, nor had she
ever seen two Shi'ido fight. No wonder Hoole always remains so calm, she
thought.
"Tash," Zak said urgently.
"What?" she asked. "I'm trying to watch, so we know which Hoole is which.
"
"I think we have bigger problems," Zak rasped. "Look."
She followed his gaze to the entryway. There, in the fading light of the
long afternoon, stood another Dark Vader.
CHAPTER 17
Unlike the Vader they had already met, this Vader's armor was real. And
he was accompanied by two stormtroopers in white armor. Vader strode forward.
His black face mask swiveled, taking in the scene for a moment. Then he turned
to his troopers.
"You two," he said. "I want all these prisoners taken alive. Set your
blasters for stun." Then Vader turned back to the Arrandas.
"You," he said, recognizing Zak and Tash. "You children seem determined
to interfere in my affairs. I shall make sure that never happens again." Tash
and Zak both started to back away, but Vader held up one finger and they both
froze, held in place by the power of the dark side.
Vader glanced at the two Hooles locked in mortal combat. "Enough," the
Dark Lord commanded.
Tash felt ripples of the dark side extend outward and grasp the two
Shi'ido. They were dragged apart as though by invisible hands. "I see the
mystery of the Jedi ruins has been discovered. Cloning technology.
Interesting," the Dark Lord mused. "I shall have to-"
Vader stopped. His black mask was no longer pointed toward Zak or Tash or
either of the two Hooles. He had seen his clone.
Without a word, Vader let his dark power fall away from his prisoners as
he focused all his attention on the other Vader.
The other Vader sensed his twin's attention. He forgot about Maga and
allowed the battered Dantar
i to collapse to the floor. The two Vaders squared
off in the center of the huge room. Tash sensed the power of the dark side
swirling around them like an invisible mist.
The sheer power of the two Dark Lords meeting was irresistible, and Tash
felt herself drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
"A clone of me," the real Vader growled. "You must be destroyed.".
"I am. Darth Vader!" the cloned Vader said. "You cannot defeat me."
The clone Vader lunged forward, surprising the real Vader with a physical
assault.
But Vader slapped his opponent's hands away. At the same time, a
container in one corner of the room rose of its own accord and hurtled toward
the Vader clone. The clone ducked away just in time.
As the two Vaders circled each other, Tash tried to keep track of them.
One, she knew, wore imitation armor, probably built from scrap metal lying
around the Rebel base. But in the dim light of the hangar, it was difficult to
tell which was which.
The two stormtroopers seemed to agree. They stood still, awestruck, and
one of the Hooles sensed this. Shifting into the form of a wampa ice beast, he
swiped one giant paw across the side of the trooper's head, knocking him out
and sending his blaster rifle clattering across the room. As the other trooper
turned, surprised to see a monster appear out of nowhere, the other Hoole
caught him from behind. Shifting into a dewback's shape, he whipped his thick
tail around, sending the trooper sprawling. His blaster clattered across the
ground, stopping right at Tash's feet.
She picked it up and pointed-at two identical Hooles.
"Tash, this may be our only chance," one of the Hooles said. "I have the
remote. Let's go."
"Do not listen to him, Tash!" the other Hoole said. "He is the clone."
"Zak?" Tash said, looking for help. She kept pointing the blaster at one
Shi'ido and then the other.
Her brother shook his head. "I don't know what to do. But we'd better do
it fast. One of those Vaders will win, and then he's coming after us."
One of the Hooles said, "I did not have the remote activator. He did. I'm
the real Hoole."
"No," said the other. "I took it from him. I am the real Hoole."
"What do we do?" Zak asked. "How do we tell them apart?"
Tash stared at them both. The two Hooles looked exactly alike, their
long, gray faces staring at her with dark, stern eyes. She knew that the
mindscan would have given the clone Hoole most, if not all, of the real
Hoole's memories, so she couldn't test him that way.
A large figure loomed behind her. Tash's heart skipped a beat, thinking
one of the Vaders was after her. When she turned, however, she saw the bruised
figure of Maga. "I must free my people," he said weakly.
"They're locked in the computer room," Zak said. "We heard the clones
talk about it. It's the building closest to the bridge."
Maga gave a faint nod and staggered toward the door.
"Wait!" Tash said. She recalled how Maga had stared at her, judging her.
"Maga, please. Help us. Which Hoole is the real one?"
Maga shrugged. "You are the garoo of your tribe," he said to Tash. "Learn
to see. Learn to hear." He limped out of the room.
"Tash, we are wasting time," one of the Hooles said. "Give me the
blaster. Then we can get the remote activator and leave this place."
"Shoot him, Tash," said the other. "The Vaders will not keep each other
busy for long."
The two Vaders were still fighting. It was as if a storm had erupted
inside the room. Both were using the dark side to hurl empty cargo containers,
pieces of equipment, even parts of the ship, at one another. The force of
their battle would soon bring the building down. The fight wouldn't last much
longer.
Tash remembered the two clones of herself that she'd met. Both had known
everything she had known. But they were still different from her. One had been
angry, almost evil. The other had appeared frightened and defeated. The real
Tash had been bothered by the sense of the dark side, but the first clone must
have been totally absorbed by it. Later, Tash had been frightened by the army
of clones, but the second clone had been petrified.
So they weren't exactly like her. They couldn't have the same feelings.
They hadn't had the same experiences, just memories of those experiences. The
feelings attached to them were absent.
"There's no way to tell you apart," she said, raising the blaster. "I'll
just have to shoot you both."
"What?" one of the Hooles shouted. "No!"
That Hoole lunged forward, and Tash fired. On Vader's orders, the
troopers had set their blasters on stun, and the stunbolt slammed into that
Hoole, dropping him to the ground.
The other Hoole raised an eyebrow.
Tash grinned. "Uncle Hoole?"
"Of course," he said. He bent down and picked up the remote activator
still clutched in the other Hoole's hands. Zak was impressed. "How did you
know?"
Tash shrugged. "Clones don't really understand feelings that well. The
real Hoole would have known I couldn't shoot him, but the clone wouldn't know
that. I knew he would believe my threat, and try to stop me."
Thrrummm!
Behind them, a lightsaber had activated. Tash turned in time to see the
two Vaders locked together, their hands grappling with the hilt of a single
lightsaber. Muscles strained. Vibrations of the Force swirled around them like
wind in a thunderstorm. Suddenly, one of the Vaders twisted, throwing the
other off his feet. The standing Vader raised the lightsaber and stalked
forward.
"Let's get out of here," Tash said.
They left the room just as the triumphant Darth Vader brought his saber
crashing down.
EPILOGUE
In the darkness, Tash, Zak, and Hoole lay hidden in the grass. Night had
fallen over Dantooine, and stars filled the sky. A low whine filled the air as
the Shroud, responding to Hoole's remote activator, approached. It was moving
slowly, and keeping low to the ground to avoid Imperial scanners. They were
far from the Rebel base by now, but they could still see bright lights shining
there. Vader's troops had set up huge glowpanels to light their investigation.
"Will they find us?" Zak asked.
"I do not think so," Hoole replied. "Whatever Vader came here for, I do
not think he was expecting a battle, or a search. Besides, with all the
Dantari and the clones running around the area, the Imperials would have a lot
of ground to cover, just to find the three of us."
Maga had freed the rest of his tribe. Generations of tradition had told
him to avoid the ruins, but Maga could not abandon his people. Like a true
leader, he had faced his fear, helping Tash and the others in the process.
As Zak, Tash, and Hoole fled the Rebel base, they'd seen the Dantari
hurrying across the bridge and out onto the prairie. A few of the clones had
tried to stop them, but without the guidance of their leader, they were
powerless.
"Where'd the cloning technology come from?" Zak asked.
"It was here all the time, hidden beneath the ruins,"
Tash explained. She told them the story Maga had told her, about
offworlders with power who had visited the ruins.
Hoole considered. "There was a great deal of cloning activity in the
past. Perhaps the Jedi were trying to bring it under control. When Dantooine
was abandoned, the equipment was left behind."
Zak shook his head. "But cloning technology takes years. These clones
were made at hyperspeed."
"It was the mindscan," Tash guessed. "Remember the weird feeling we all
had the first time we entered the round room? We were being scanned. Later, I
heard the droids in the lab saying that my mindscan had already been
harvested. The scans must have allowed the clones to be grown quickly and
programmed with instant memories."
"Except for the Rebel clones," Hoole added, "for which no scans were
available."
"Okay, so now we know how the Vader clone made clones," Zak said. "He
just scraped up skin samples, hair, anything he could find from the Rebel
base, and from us. But how did the Vader clone get cloned in the first place?"
Hoole shrugged. "We'll never know."