Star Wars - Thrawn Trilogy - The Last Command 03

  "Yet I am here."

  "Yes," Luke nodded. "You are. But not Jorus C'baoth. You see, you're his clone."

  C'baoth's whole body went rigid. "No," he said. "No. That can't be."

  Luke shook his head. "There's no other explanation. Surely that thought has occurred to you before."

  C'baoth took a long, shuddering breath . . . and then, abruptly, he threw his head back and laughed.

  "Watch him," Mara snapped, eyeing the old man warily over the throne's armrest. "He pulled this same stunt on Jomark, remember?"

  "It's all right," Luke said. "He can't hurt us."

  "Ah, Skywalker, Skywalker," C'baoth said, shaking his head. "You, too? Grand Admiral Thrawn, the New Republic, and now you. What is this sudden fascination with clones and cloning?"

  He barked another laugh; and then, without warning, turned deadly serious. "He does not understand, Jedi Skywalker," he said earnestly. "Not Grand Admiral Thrawn—not any of them. The true power of the Jedi is not in these simple tricks of matter and energy. The true might of the Jedi is that we alone of all those in the galaxy have the power to grow beyond ourselves. To extend ourselves into all the reaches of the universe."

  Luke glanced at Mara, got a shrug and puzzled look in return. "We don't understand, either," he told C'baoth. "What do you mean?"

  C'baoth took a step toward him. "I have done it, Jedi Skywalker," he whispered, his eyes glittering in the dim light. "With General Covell. What even the Emperor never did. I took his mind in my hands and altered it. Re-formed it and rebuilt it into my own image."

  Luke felt a cold shiver run through him. "What do you mean, rebuilt it?"

  C'baoth nodded, a secret sort of smile playing around his lips. "Yes—rebuilt it. And that was only the start. Beneath us, down in the depths of the mountain, the future army of the Jedi even now stands in readiness to serve us. What I did with General Covell I will do again, and again, and again. Because what Grand Admiral Thrawn has never realized is that the army he thinks he is creating for himself he is instead creating for me."

  And suddenly Luke understood. The clones growing down in that cavern weren't just physically identical to their original templet. Their minds were identical, too, or close enough to be only minor variations of the same pattern. If C'baoth could learn how to break the mind of any one of them, he could do the same to all the clones in that group.

  Luke looked at Mara again. She understood, too. "You still think he can be saved?" she demanded grimly.

  "I need no one to save me, Mara Jade," C'baoth told her. "Tell me, do you really believe I would simply stand by and allow Grand Admiral Thrawn to imprison me this way?"

  "I didn't think he'd asked your permission," Mara bit out, stepping away from the throne. "There's nothing here for us, Skywalker. Let's get out of here."

  "I did not grant you permission to leave," C'baoth said, his voice suddenly loud and regal. He raised his hand, and Luke saw that he was holding a small cylinder. "And you shall not."

  Mara gestured with her blaster. "You're not going to stop us with that," she said with thinly veiled contempt. "A remote activator has to have something to activate."

  "And so it does," C'baoth said, smiling thinly. "I had my soldiers prepare it for me. Before I sent them outside the mountain with the weapons and orders for my people."

  "Sure." Mara took a step back toward the stairs, throwing a wary glance at the ceiling above her as her left hand found the guardrail that separated the raised section of the throne room from the lower level. "We'll take your word for it."

  C'baoth shook his head. "You won't have to," he said softly, pressing the switch. In the back of Luke's mind, something distant and very alien seemed to shriek in agony—

  And suddenly, impossibly, he felt a surge of awareness and strength fill him. As if he were waking up from a deep sleep, or stepping from a dark room into the light.

  The Force was again with him.

  "Mara!" he snapped. But it was too late. Mara's blaster had already wrenched itself from her grip and been flung back across the room; and even as Luke leaped toward her C'baoth's outstretched hand erupted into a brilliant blaze of blue-white lightning.

  The blast caught Mara square in the chest, throwing her backward to slam into the guardrail behind her. "Stop it!" Luke shouted, getting in front of her and igniting his lightsaber. C'baoth ignored him, firing a second burst. Luke caught most of it on his lightsaber blade, grimacing as the part he missed jolted through his muscles. C'baoth fired a third burst, and a fourth, and a fifth—

  And then, abruptly, he lowered his hands. "You will not presume to give me commands, Jedi Skywalker," he said, his voice strangely petulant. "I am the master. You are the servant."

  "I'm not your servant," Luke told him, stepping back and throwing a quick look at Mara. She was still pretty much on her feet, clutching the guardrail for support. Her eyes were open but not fully aware, her breath making little moaning sounds as she exhaled between clenched teeth. Laying his free hand on her shoulder, wincing at the stink of ozone, Luke began a quick probe of her injuries.

  "You are indeed my servant," C'baoth said, the earlier petulance replaced now by a sort of haughty grandeur. "As is she. Leave her alone, Jedi Skywalker. She required a lesson, and she has now learned it."

  Luke didn't answer. None of her burns seemed too bad, but her muscles were still twitching uncontrollably. Reaching out with the Force, he tried to draw away some of the pain.

  "I said leave her alone," C'baoth repeated, his voice echoing eerily across the throne room. "Her life is not in danger. Save your strength rather for the trial that awaits you." Dramatically, he lifted a hand and pointed.

  Luke turned to look. There, silhouetted against the shimmering galaxy holo, stood a figure dressed in what looked like the same brown robe C'baoth was wearing. A figure that seemed somehow familiar . . .

  "There is no choice, my young Jedi," C'baoth said, his voice almost gentle now. "Don't you understand? You must serve me, or we will not be able to save the galaxy from itself. You must therefore face death and emerge at my side . . . or you must die that another may take your place." He lifted his eyes to the figure and beckoned. "Come," he called. "And face your destiny."

  The figure moved forward toward the stairs, unhooking a lightsaber from his belt as he came. With the blaze of light from the hologram behind him, the figure's face was still impossible to make out.

  Luke stepped away from Mara, a strange and unpleasant buzzing pressure beginning to form against his mind. There was something disturbingly familiar about this confrontation. As if he were about to face someone or something he'd faced once before . . .

  Abruptly, the memory clicked. Dagobah—his Jedi training—the dark side cave Yoda had sent him into. His brief dreamlike battle with a vision of Darth Vader . . .

  Luke caught his breath, a horrible suspicion squeezing his heart. But no—the silent figure approaching him wasn't tall enough to be Vader. But then who . . . ?

  And then the figure stepped into the light. . . and, too late, Luke remembered how that dream battle in the dark side cave had ended. Vader's mask had shattered, and the face behind it had been Luke's own.

  As was the face that gazed emotionlessly up at him now.

  Luke felt himself moving back from the steps, his mind frozen with shock and the buzzing pressure growing against it. "Yes, Jedi Skywalker," C'baoth said quietly from behind him. "He is you. Luuke Skywalker, created from the hand you left behind in the Cloud City on Bespin. Wielding the lightsaber you lost there."

  Luke glanced at the weapon in the clone's hands. It was his, all right. The lightsaber Obi-wan had told him his father had left for him. "Why?" he managed.

  "To bring you to true understanding," C'baoth said gravely. "And because your destiny must be fulfilled. One way or another, you must serve me."

  Luke threw a quick glance at him. C'baoth was watching him, his eyes glowing with anticipation. And with madness.

  And in that
moment, the clone Luuke struck.

  He leaped to the top of the stairway, igniting his lightsaber and slashing the blue-white blade viciously toward Luke's chest. Luke jumped to the side, whipping his own weapon up to block the attack. The blades came together with an impact that threw him off balance and nearly tore the lightsaber from his grip. The clone Luuke jumped after him, lightsaber already swinging to the attack; reaching out to the Force, Luke threw himself backwards, flipping over the guardrail and onto one of the raised guard platforms rising from the lower part of the throne room floor. He needed time to think and plan, and to find a way past the distraction of the buzzing in his mind.

  But the clone Luuke wasn't going to give him that time. Stepping to the guardrail, he hurled his lightsaber downward at the base of the platform Luke was standing on. It wasn't a clean hit—the blade probably sliced through only half of the base—but it was enough to throw the platform into a sudden tilt. Reaching out again to the Force, Luke did another backflip, trying to reach the overhead catwalk that spanned the throne room five meters behind him.

  But the distance was too great, or else his mind too distracted by the buzzing to properly draw on the Force. The back of his knee hit the edge of the catwalk, and instead of landing on his feet he flipped over to slam into it on his back.

  "I did not wish to do this to you, Jedi Skywalker," C'baoth's voice called out. "I do not wish it still. Join me—let me teach you. Together we can save the galaxy from the lesser peoples who would destroy it."

  "No," Luke said hoarsely, grabbing a support strut and pulling himself up as he fought to catch his breath. The clone Luuke had retrieved his lightsaber now, and was starting down the stairs toward him.

  The clone. His clone. Was that what was causing this strange pressure in his mind? The close presence of an exact duplicate that was itself drawing on the Force?

  He didn't know, any more than he knew what C'baoth's purpose was in throwing the two of them together. Obi-wan and Master Yoda had both warned him that killing in anger or hatred would lead toward the dark side. Would killing a clone duplicate of himself do the same thing?

  Or had C'baoth meant something entirely different? Had he meant that killing his own clone would drive Luke insane?

  Either way, it wasn't something Luke was anxious to find out firsthand. And it occurred to him that he really didn't have to. He could drop off the far side of the catwalk, get to the turbolift he and Mara had come up on, and escape.

  Leaving Mara here to face C'baoth alone.

  He raised his eyes. Mara was still leaning against the guardrail. Possibly not fully conscious. Certainly in no shape to travel.

  Setting his teeth together, Luke pulled himself to his feet. Mara had asked him—begged him—to kill her rather than leave her in C'baoth's hands. The least he could do was to stay with her to the end.

  Whether it was her end . . . or his.

  The explosion drifted up from the cavern below like a distant thunderclap, clearly audible and yet curiously dampened. "You hear that, Chewie?" Lando asked, leaning back to throw a cautious look over the edge of their work platform. "You suppose something down there blew up?"

  Chewbacca, his hands full of cables and leads as he dug in and around the support lattice of the equipment column, growled a correction: it hadn't been one large explosion, but many simultaneous small ones. Small blasting disks, or something of equally low power. "You sure?" Lando asked uneasily, peering at the cloning tanks on the balcony one level beneath where they were working. This didn't sound like any normal malfunction.

  He stiffened. Thin wisps of smoke could be seen now, rising lazily into the air above the nutrient pipes feeding into the tops of the cloning tanks. A lot of wisps of smoke, and they seemed to be rising in a reasonably regular pattern. As if something in each cluster of Spaarti cylinders had blown up . . .

  There was the muffled clink of metal on metal behind him. Lando twisted around, to find Threepio stepping gingerly from the bridge onto the work platform, his head tilted to look down into the cavern. "Is that smoke?" the droid asked, sounding like he wasn't sure he really wanted to know.

  "Looks like smoke to me," Lando agreed. "What are you doing here?"

  "Ah . . ." Resolutely, the droid looked away from whatever was happening below. "Artoo has found the schematics for that equipment column," he said, offering Lando a data card. "He suggests that the negative flow coupler on the main power line might be worth investigating."

  "We'll keep that in mind," Lando said, sliding the data card into his data pad and throwing a quick look over the platform railing as he handed the data pad to Chewbacca. He and the Wookiee weren't all that visible against the drab colors of the equipment column and the rocky cavern ceiling two meters above them, but Threepio would stand out like a lump of gold on a mud flat. "Now get out of here before someone spots you."

  "Oh," Threepio said, stiffening a little more than usual. "Yes, of course. Also, Artoo has located the source of the comlink jamming in this vicinity. Captain Solo requested that if we found that—"

  "Right," Lando interrupted him. Was that someone moving behind one of the banks of Spaarti cylinders on the next level down? "I remember. You and Artoo go ahead. And take the Noghri with you."

  The droid seemed taken aback. "Artoo and me? But sir—"

  And with a sound like a spitting tauntaun, a brilliant ripple of blue flashed upward from the cloning balcony below.

  "Stun blast!" Lando barked, dropping flat on the work platform and feeling the heavy thud as Chewbacca landed beside him. A second stun blast rippled out, ricocheting off the column above his head as he yanked out his blaster. "Threepio, get out of here."

  The droid didn't need any encouragement. "Yes, sir," he called over his shoulder, already scuttling away down the bridge.

  Chewbacca growled a question. "Over there somewhere," Lando told him, gesturing with his blaster. "Watch it, though, they're bound to have more moving in."

  A third stun blast slammed uselessly into the underside of the work platform, and this time Lando spotted the soldier skulking behind one of the cloning cylinders. He fired twice, dropping the Imperial to the floor and making a mess of the cloning cylinder itself. Behind him, another blue ripple sizzled by overhead, followed a split second later by the heavy bark of Chewbacca's bowcaster.

  Lando grinned tightly to himself. They were in trouble, but not nearly as much as they could have been. As long as they were sitting up next to all this critical equipment, the Imperials didn't dare use anything stronger than stun settings on them. But at the same time, the Imperials themselves had absolutely no cover down there on the balconies except the cloning tanks. Which meant all they really could do was stay there, probably not bothering their targets any, and get themselves and a lot of valuable equipment blown to bits.

  Or else they could simply come one level up and blast away at them from an angle where the heavy metal of the work platform wouldn't keep getting in their way.

  From the other side of the equipment column, Chewbacca rumbled: the Imperials were pulling back. "Probably coming up here," Lando agreed, glancing around their level at the doors lining the outer walkway. They looked pretty strong, probably only a step or two down from warship-type blast doors. If Han and the Noghri had done a good job of sealing them off, they ought to hold off even a determined group of stormtroopers for a while.

  Except for the door to the pump room that Artoo had been working in. Han would have left that one open for them to get out through.

  Lando grimaced; but there was nothing for it. Bracing his gun hand against the bottom section of the railing, he took careful aim at the door's control box and fired. The box cover flashed and crumpled, and for a couple of seconds he could see a faint sputtering of sparks through the smoke.

  And that was that. The Imperials were locked out. And he and Chewbacca were locked in.