The Force Unleashed (14 page)

The broadcast ended with a loud click, almost drowned out by the sound of

blasterfire and the station shaking around her. The cries of stormtroopers dying

made her more determined than ever to get away before whatever had killed them found

her, but she could make no greater effort than she already was.

Exhausted, she sagged weakly in the locks, sucking in air that tasted of smoke and

blood. It was getting warmer, too, which couldn't be a good sign. The flexing of the

walls had to be more than just turbulence. If something had gone terribly wrong and

the station's orbit had been disturbed, the commotion could come from thermal

expansion-not dangerous in itself, but lethal if they came too close to the source.

Executed, killed by the thing that had escaped from Vader's lab, or burned alive:

those appeared to be the only choices open to her. After all her years of loyal

service and everything she had done in the name of the Empire, and despite the

constant lip service paid by Palpatine to notions of justice and the public good,

this was where she had ended up. All her dreams of advancement shattered. Her life

in ruins.

She wondered what her father would think of her now, if he could see her and hear

her side of the story. What faith could he possibly have in a system that turned on

her for no reason? What did anyone owe an Emperor who condemned her for obeying

orders?

But she knew she could never have convinced him to believe the truth, just as she

knew she could never have talked to him about the doubts that had stirred in her

after Callos-and not just about Vader's handling of that affair. The official story

of her mother's death was that she had been killed in crossfire. What if the Empire

had been as heavy-handed on Corulag as the Black Eight had been on Callos?

For the thousandth time she saw her bombs striking home on the planetary reactor,

the brilliant explosions lighting up the jungle. Only as she pulled up out of her

run and sped for orbit did she note the chain reaction her strikes had caused. The

stricken reactor was belching pollutants into the atmosphere and spewing megaliters

of caustic chemicals from vast underground stores into the canals that fed it with

fresh water. She could practically see the living surface of Callos recoil from the

poisons she had inadvertently released. A cold, sick feeling began to blossom in her

gut.

That feeling only became worse on her return to her base ship. Amid the backslapping

of her Black Eight pilots, she had felt a growing urgency to check telemetry data

gathered by the ship. Prom the privacy of her quarters she had watched, appalled at

the light of the reactor burning on beneath a spreading pall of deadly smoke.

Lightning flashed under the dense mushroom cloud, starting fires and catalyzing

deadly chemical reactions. Nearby river systems were soon utterly choked with

biological debris.

Trying to keep her voice level, she had commed a friend with a background in

environmental science. He had seen the data. His projections were dire.

"It's a runaway chain reaction for certain," he said. "I hope you got a close look

at those forests while you were down there. They won't be there six months from now,

and they're never coming back."

A whole biosphere destroyed-for what? This wasn't just because Callos had dared

wriggle in the Emperor's grip. Neither was it solely because she had requested a

degree of clemency from the campaign's director: Lord Vader. The Emperor was less

interested in punishing, she had begun to suspect, than setting an example.

The terrible thing about examples was that there didn't have to lie anyone left

alive afterward. A ruin told the story as effectively as an eyewitness-perhaps more

so, for the ringing silence left in the wake of such an outrage only served to

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impress the Emperor's boot heel even more deeply into the galaxy.

No protests. No alarm bells. No warnings.

What had the Empire come to?

Perhaps, she had dared to think, the Empire had always been like this.

Before she could follow that line of thought to any kind of conclusion, orders had

come from Vader to report to the Executor for a new duty. Glad to be absolved of any

further involvement in genocide-or so she had hoped-she had said nothing of her

misgivings and moved on, mistakenly thinking that, by some small miracle, she had

avoided becoming snarled in the Empire's gargantuan workings, as Callos had been,

and Starkiller, and perhaps her mother, too, all those years ago.

So many lives, ground under the treads of the Imperial ma chine.

Hers barely seemed worth worrying about, sometimes. But still she asked, in her

darkest hours, Why me? What had the Dark Lord seen in her that made her suited to

the assignment to Starkiller?

Not her conscience, surely. Nor her sunny disposition . . . "Hold it right there!"

Her head came up at the sound of blasterfire closer than it had been before. Bits of

droid blew past her door, smoking from their severed joints. The voice of the

station commander, a man she hail only met once and intensely disliked, bellowed a

second time over the cacophony.

"You're not leaving this ship alive, lab rat!"

The unmistakable buzz of a lightsaber rose up from the chaos. She raised her chin

higher, straining to see past the door frame.

No. It couldn't be.

The head of a stormtrooper bounced past her cell, neatly severed from the rest of

its body. The armor glowed in a red oval where it had been smoothly truncated

through the neck.

Perhaps .. . ?

She shook her head, telling herself she had to be hallucinating because of the heat

and failing atmosphere control. It had been so long since she had last felt hope.

She didn't dare give in to it now.

Still, she didn't take her eyes off the entrance to her cell, just in case she was

wrong.

She was sure she could get used to the idea this time.

The apprentice pressed forward through a hail of blasterfire, his progress hampered

by the need to protect PROXY as well as himself. The droid was adept at dueling him,

but was not programmed to fight Imperials. Blasterfire came from all directions as

troopers by the dozens rushed forward to replace those he had already dealt with.

Their determination to kill him seemed out of all proportion to their situation.

Surely falling into the sun was more important than dispatching one escaped invalid.

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But gradually, by overhearing their panicky comments to one another, he realized the

much darker truth: that their fear of him came from rumors spread regarding his

innate monstrosity, the worst of Darth Vader's experiments, which, if it got loose,

would kill them all in some horribly depraved way. The rumor was a contingency

prepared in case he rejected his Master's offer of a new alliance. Either way, he

would have to fight his way oil the ship before he could even start to think about

what came next.

At the announcement that all the escape pods had been jettisoned empty, the

apprentice looked over his shoulder at the droid cowering behind his spinning blade.

"PROXY? Did you launch those pods?"

"Of course, master. It pays to be thorough."

He resisted an impatient retort. "How much time do we have?"

"Just a few moments."

PROXY didn't sound worried at all. The apprentice wished he shared the droid's

confidence. He had taken long enough to fight his way through halls of preserved

biological specimens to the escape pod launching point. There was still one series

of corridors to negotiate before they reached the air lock leading to the Rogue

Shadow. Driving two stormtroopers ahead of him with the threat of Sith lightning, he

pressed resolutely on.

The prison detainment area was broad and hard to defend, but a squad of troopers

gamely made a go of it. Taking cover wherever they could, they fired in rapid bursts

from several directions at once, hoping to find a chink in his defense. There was

none. His new green blade whirled with astonishing effectiveness. It and the

apprentice were one-as though his supposed death had never happened. He felt strong,

powerful, deadly.

A weapon refashioned by Darth Vader to bring ruin upon the Emperor and his minions .

. .

The leader of the squad cast insults and aspersions over the blasterfire, as though

that could possibly distract him. The apprentice let the dark side flow through him,

buoyed up by his anger-at the squad leader, at the time passing so quickly, at the

Emperor-and calmly mowed down anyone who stood in his path.

When the last had fallen, PROXY tapped him on his shoulder.

"Master, hurry. We're rapidly approaching the sun. Life support will be overwhelmed

any moment now."

"Wait," he said, raising a gloved hand. "What about-?"

Even as he looked around at the entrances to the cells, he saw her. Juno was hanging

in a magnetic lock with blood dripping from her right wrist, dressed in the scruffy

remains of an Imperial uniform. Her hair was unkempt and her skin dirty. Her eyes

were wide with shock, taking in not just him but the ruin he had wreaked on the

stormtroopers as well. Juno . . .

"It's..." She struggled for words. "-really you!"

I le understood her hesitation. She couldn't call his name because he didn't have

one.

"Master," said PROXY, cutting between them. He pointed with one metal hand toward an

air lock at the far end of the chamber. "We're almost there! Hurry!"

The sound of klaxons had reached a fever pitch. The ship swayed underneath him as

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gravitational control began to waver. The air was almost unbreathable. Even if they

left now, there might barely be enough time to prep the ship and get away.

Juno's face was a picture of desperation.

He didn't move. Was this a trap? He could see no sign of deception in her face, just

fear.

"Master, hurry!" PROXY tugged on his sleeve and whispered urgently. "She is part of

your past life now. Leave her behind, as Lord Vader commanded!"

He pulled himself free, deciding with his heart rather than his head. "I can't. You

go ahead and prepare the ship for launch. We'll follow as soon as we can."

"But, master..."

"Just do it, PROXY! That's my command."

The droid tottered off through the air lock while the apprentice deactivated his

lightsaber and looked around for the magna lock generator. It had to be there

somewhere, a big one, sufficient to power all the restraints in all the cells. The

air was becoming fumy and thick, and the flashing lights made it hard to

concentrate. Thick bundles of cables snaked along the walls and under metal grilles.

He traced them as best he could to their source, a large boxy structure fixed to a

wall two doors along.

He didn't have time to perform a thorough investigation. It was the right size, so

he would have to chance it. Raising both hands, he sent a wave of lightning through

it, causing it to blacken and smoke. Current surged along the wires, sending out

showers of sparks. Juno cried out in sudden pain.

Changing tactics, he stilled the lightning, clenched his hands into fists, and

ripped the box out of the wall with one single, un compromising wrench. The

machinery inside exploded, filling the air with clouds of acrid debris. Juno cried

out again, but this time in relief.

He hurried to her, finding his way via the Force through the impenetrable air. She

was on her hands and knees, struggling CO find her feet on the uneasy floor. She

clutched at him when he burst out of the smoke and pulled her upright. She weighed

almost nothing.

"I saw you die," she said, staring at him with naked disbelief. "But you've come

back."

Rather than make her walk, he picked her up and hurried toward the air lock.

"I have some unfinished business," he said curtly, not knowing where to begin.

"Vader?" she asked, then folded into a series of choking coughs.

"Don't worry about him," he told her. The air lock led into a narrow umbilical.

Fresh air blew toward him from ahead. Heat radiated through the walls. He ducked his

head and hurried toward safety.

"I've been branded a traitor to the Empire," she told him. "I can't go anywhere, do

anything..."

"I don't care about any of that. I'm leaving the Empire behind." He put all the

reassurance he could find into his voice. She had to believe him without question.

"And I need a pilot."

She buried her face in his shoulder as the familiar walls of the Rogue Shadow

enfolded them. Barely had he crossed the threshold than the air lock door slammed

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shut on the Empirical and explosive bolts severed the umbilical.

"Welcome aboard, master," came the voice of the droid from the cockpit.

Assuming Juno wouldn't be up to flying just yet, the apprentice called ahead of

them, "Get us out of here, PROXY!"

"Yes, master."

The sublight engines instantly engaged, and they were away.