The Force Unleashed (8 page)

toward him and blinked its enormous photoreceptors in barely restrained hostility

"You dare invade the Jedi Temple?" boomed a voice from its armor-plated chest. "You

dare challenge the Jedi in our home?"

Before he could point out the stark obviousness of the situation-that the Jedi were

virtually nonexistent and that this hardly constituted their home-the massive golem

lunged for him. Constructed around the body of a heavy-lifting labor droid, it

sported numerous appendages apart from the two holding the axes. Each was tipped

with a different weapon, whirring, rasping, and sizzling. The racket it made as it

charged was even more fearsome than its aspect.

The apprentice dodged away and temporarily lost his footing as the floor buckled

underneath the thing's weight. Igniting his lightsaber, he slashed one of the

reaching appendages clean off and batted another aside with a firm telekinetic

punch. Recovering his balance, he sent a wave of lightning rippling across its

corroded carapace, but that barely slowed it down.

One of the vibro-axes slid over his head and the other came down to slice him

vertically in two. He threw himself backward barely in time, then lunged forward to

slash at anything that looked like a weak point before the axes could come around

again. Cauterized limbs rained about him, clutching at him with fading electrical

spasms. He rolled between the trunk-like legs to avoid another devastating double ax

blow. His lightsaber scored a deep cut up the gargantuan's back as he rose to his

feet.

Yellow sparks flew across the room. The golem's insides groaned and bellowed as it

turned, trying to get him back in its sights. Arms reached for him and he sliced

them off, one by one. Ducking under the swinging blades, he sent bolt after bolt of

lightning into the massive wound he had made, while battering it with panels ripped

from the walls and hurled with every iota of energy he could muster.

Finally it weakened. Listing heavily on its left side and missing one of its axes,

it staggered ponderously backward across the foyer. Both its photoreceptors were

dark; sparks poured in a Me.uly stream from a hole in the rear of its head. Although

fighting blind and barely possessing any control over its primary motivators, it

still tried to kill him. Growling servomotors kept the sole remaining ax sweeping

backward and forward, as though he Blight stumble into it by accident. One heavy

foot stamped at the floor in a vain attempt to unbalance him. All it succeeded in

doing was tangling itself in junk and swaying dangerously close to tipping right

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over.

The apprentice took the opportunity to finish it off. Again he pushed with the full

power of the Force, blowing its body off its tangled leg and hurling it through the

far wall. He followed it, just in case it still had any fight left in it. Striding

confidently through i In' gaping rent in the foyer wall, he found himself in a place

he had thought never to enter, even in a bizarrely re-created form such as this.

In the heart of the junk Jedi Temple was a junk High Council Chamber, complete with

mannequins of long-gone Jedi Masters. The apprentice knew all their names; they were

burned into his brain, those enemies the Emperor had defeated during the final days

of the Clone Wars. They sat on thrones or stools or ordinary chairs, as taste or

biological form demanded. Their dead eyes stared at him as he stalked after the

fallen golem.

The golem had collapsed in the center of the circular room, streaming smoke and

steam from its joints. Fetid wind poured though the shattered windows overlooking

endless vistas of waste, making a faint moaning sound. The apprentice maintained a

state of extreme concentration. Kazdan Paratus had yet to make his move. He would be

ready for the fugitive Jedi when he did.

Then a strange thing happened. The droid golem's dead weight shifted slightly. A

hiss came from a seam down its front. With a groan, its armor plating opened. Four

long, spidery arms emerged,tipped with manipulators salvaged from four very

different droids. The manipulators gripped the body of the dead golem and hauled a

tiny gray figure into the light.

"Kazdan Paratus," said the apprentice. "At last."

The minuscule being looked at him with darting, paranoid eyes. A member of the

Aleena species, he was short and large skulled, with bright eyes and long, agile

fingers. The harness affixing him to the strange, mechanical arms allowed him free

movement with his lightsaber-a double-bladed pike with one blade significantly

longer than the other. He raised it as the limbs' function turned from arms to legs

and raised him to full human height.

"Sith trash," he hissed in a voice that was high-pitched but full of contempt.

"Don't worry, Masters. I'll defend you!"

The apprentice didn't know who he was talking to until a clamor rose from the seated

mannequins and, as one, the junk Jedi Council woke.

Paratus lunged while the apprentice was momentarily distracted. The pike left a

shallow cut down his left forearm before he could repulse the strange creature's

attack. Part flesh and part machine, the renegade Jedi Master was proficient with

the Force, and quick with it as well. Every blow the apprentice tried to make was

instantly blocked by either end of the whirling pike. As fast as he lunged or

retreated, the mechanical legs outpaced him. Paratus hopped around the dilapidated

chamber like a deranged jumping spider.

Outside his droid golem shell, however, Paratus was more vulnerable to Sith

lightning. What he couldn't absorb into the junk metal burned him and left him

writhing in pain. The apprentice sent bolt after bolt hurtling into the tiny figure.

It almost seemed that the fight would be over before it had really begun.

Then something struck him from behind, breaking his concentration and knocking his

lightsaber from his hand. He turned, ducking robotic limbs and a sudden swipe from

the light-pike. The mannequin of Plo Koon had risen from its chair and attacked him,

holding a vibroblade in a crude approximation of the long-dead

I'll Master's renowned lightsaber style. The Way of the Krayt Dragon, it had once

been called. It looked ridiculous now in the hands of a patchwork droid.

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Still, it had taken him by surprise. The apprentice acknowledged the gambit before

blowing the mannequin to pieces and reaching out for his fallen lightsaber. The hilt

arrived in his hand Inst in time to deflect another blow from Paratus, fully

recovered from the waves of Sith lightning he had just endured.

This time the apprentice was ready for the attacks from behind. One at a time, or

occasionally in pairs, the mannequins moved in to distract him.

Mace Windu and Coleman Kcaj he dismembered. Kit Fisto he melted. Anakin Skywalker

and Obi-Wan Kenobi he smashed together and hurled out the window. Ki-Adi-Mundi he

blasted with lighting before doing the same to Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Shaak

Ti. Stass Allie he beheaded with a single stroke of his lightsaber. Yoda he picked

up with the Force and used as a missile m strike Paratus through his flailing

artificial limbs.

Kazdan Paratus moaned as each junk Master fell, mourning them as though they were

actually alive. When the last one went down, he was actually weeping.

The apprentice reached out and caught the Jedi Aleena in a light Force grip.

Paratus's artificial arms crumbled, unable to resist his power. Lifting the

diminutive alien into the air, the apprentice swung his captive from side to side,

smashing him into the window frames and roof until rubble rained down on them both.

He deflected the worst of it from himself and saved the damage for Paratus. Soon the

aging Jedi was too weak to fight, but still the apprentice continued battering him.

He remembered what had happened with Rahm Kota at the very last. Wherever that

strange hallucination had come from, he would not permit a repeat.

Finally, the Jedi Master's strength was spent. The apprentice let him drop to the

ground, where he was pinned by an avalanche of junk falling through the ceiling.

Clearly dying, he lay faceup and closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry, my Masters," he lamented. "I've tailed you." With those words, he

expired.

For a moment the apprentice felt pity. But he quickly swallowed it down. Undoubtedly

mad, Paratus was still a Jedi. His freedom had come to an end, along with his life.

Then a nimbus of glowing Force energy rose up from the Jedi's body and spread out

around the apprentice. Sparkling, scintillating, it vanished with a silent rush into

the walls of the junk structure.

The apprentice stepped away from the body, unnerved and ready for anything.

But that appeared to be the end of it.

He raised his comlink. "Juno, I'm done here."

"I have a lock on your location, Starkiller. On my way."

The whining of the starship's engines was loud by the time he retraced his steps

through the foyer and out onto the surface of the junk world. The Rogue Shadow

swooped smoothly out of the sky. Catching the ramp sure-footedly, he retreated

gratefully inside.

* * *

As they reached for orbit, he watched the Temple retreat behind him until the

outline of its ludicrous grandeur was barely discernible among the surrounding junk

hills. He could have knocked the ridiculous toy castle down around Kazdan's ears

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with one Force push. If only it had been so easy for his Master to erase the Jedi

from the galaxy. Years after the Purge, here he was continuing that great work.

Perhaps it would be finished in his lifetime. Perhaps he had already killed the last

of the remaining Jedi. Perhaps now his Master would regard him as truly worthy.

He retired to his shadowy meditation chamber to tend to his wounds and restore his

strength. Instead of meditating, however, he devoted an hour to repairing Kazdan

Paratus's light-pike, snapped in two when he had clutched the tiny Jedi Master so

hard. Trying to repair it, at least. No matter how painstakingly he worked, he

couldn't realign the focusing crystals with the lens assembly. Nor could he make the

emitter matrix conned to the power conduit. Like everything on Raxus Prime, the pike

had become worthless junk.

Or, he told himself, there was something getting in the way of his concentration.

Is it my new pilot? he wondered. She was quick and efficient, as she should be, but

she also made an effort to come across as lighthearted, and that was having an

effect on him he hadn't foreseen. He had praised her good work after Nar Shaddaa and

had felt glad to be aboard after finishing off Kazdan Paratus. Praise and gladness

were not encouraged by followers of the dark side. The Emperor help him if they were

developing a rapport.

He would deal with his new emotions as he had dealt with other challenges he had

faced. At the same time, he would watch her closely. Rapports weren't one-sided

things. If her feelings of bonhomie became stronger and she couldn't keep her

sociability under control, he would have to take action.

As he pondered what form that action might take, the sound of heavy breathing rose

up behind him. The pieces of the light-pike fell apart and scattered across the

floor. The apprentice sensed rather than saw a darker shadow enter the chamber. He

looked up expectantly.

There was no face visible in the silhouette of the Dark Lord, I mi that had never

made a difference.

"Kazdan Paratus is dead, Master."

The domed head, blacker than night, nodded. "Then there is but one more test before

you can fulfill your destiny." One more. Would there always be one more? "Master, I

am ready now."

"You have defeated a tired old man and an outcast." Anger cracked like a whip in

Darth Vader's vocoderized voice. "You will not be ready to face the Emperor until

you have faced a true Jedi Master."

The apprentice squared his jaw, thinking of the pathetic imitations he had faced in

the junk Temple. "Who?"

"Master Shaak Ti-one of the last of the Jedi Council." Then was a grudging respect

in his Master's voice, mixed with naked contempt. "She is training an army on

Felucia. You will need the full power of the dark side to defeat her. Do not

disappoint me."

"No, Lord Vader. I will not."

The robed shadow dissolved into static. The hologram fell away, revealing PROXY's

skinny frame beneath. The droid shuddered, and the apprentice was instantly at his

side to steady him.

Together the two of them left the meditation chamber to give Juno the news of their

third and most deadly mission.

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As a teenager Juno had imagined her future life as a pilot, cruising the heavy

traffic of Coruscant's skylanes, ferrying important dignitaries to and from

meetings, blowing insurgents from the sky with single, well-aimed pulses from her

laser cannon.

Trawling around the Outer Rim with Darth Vader's surly emissary and his