trying to hold thoughts inside that kept slipping through her fingers.
"Qwi!" he shouted, and ran to her. Bending down, he took her wrist and
gently forced her to turn her head. He stared into her wide, blank eyes.
"What
happened?"
She didn't appear to recognize him, and Wedge's stomach sank with horror.
Qwi looked confused and devastated. She frowned as if searching her memory.
She shook her head slowly, then closed her big eyes, squeezing them tight as
she fought with her own thoughts. Tears ran down her cheeks, oozing in small
drops, then larger splashes as she bit her lip in furious concentration. She
blinked up at him again, finally finding the name that had eluded her.
"Widj? Wedge?" she said at last. "Is your name Wedge?"
He nodded numbly, and with another great weeping cry she threw herself
into his arms. He held her, feeling her body tremble with sobs. "What
happened?" he repeated. "Qwi, tell me!"
"I don't know." She shook her head, and featherlike hair flowed in a slow
wave from one shoulder to the other. "I barely know you. I can't remember.
My
mind feels so empty... filled with blank spots."
Wedge held her tight as she said, "I've lost everything. Most of my
memory, my life--is gone."
Kyp Durron returned to the fourth moon of Yavin in the heartbeat
stillness of the jungle night. Filled with a power he had decided to use to
its fullest, he felt ready to explode in an exhilarating outpouring of the
Force--but he could not let such childish demonstrations seduce him. He had
a
mission to accomplish, one that would affect the future of the entire
galaxy.
Without running lights or landing beacon, he brought the Z-95 Headhunter
he had taken from Mara Jade to a gentle rest on the slightly overgrown
landing
pad in front of the Great Temple. Kyp had no interest in reacquainting
himself
with the other weak Jedi trainees or even with the misguided and cowardly
Master Skywalker. He simply needed access to the ancient Massassi temples
Exar
Kun had designed as focal points for concentrating the power of the Sith.
Above him the night sky was lush with stars, and the stirrings of the
surrounding jungle wove a tapestry of hushed sounds. But the insects made
their music more quietly, and few large animals crashed through the
underbrush. The entire rain forest seemed stunned by Kyp's return.
Kyp tossed the oddly glittering black cape over his shoulders. Time to be
about his business.
Leaving the Headhunter fighter behind him, he approached the monolithic
ziggurat of the Great Temple. Rust-colored vermiform vines writhed out of
his
way, avoiding Kyp's footsteps, as if his entire body exuded a deadly heat.
Chisel-cut stone steps ran up the side of the pyramid. He set one foot in
front of the other, climbing slowly, listening to the soft echoes of his
breathing. Anticipation built within him.
In his mind Kyp heard cheering ghosts, saw visions like a videoloop from
four thousand years ago when Exar Kun had found the last resting place of
the
ancient Sith. Kun had rediscovered their teachings. He had built great
temples, establishing the Brotherhood of the Sith among disillusioned Jedi
Knights. Here on Yavin 4, Kun had used the Massassi people as expendable
resources, power conduits to redefine the chaos and corruption of the Old
Republic. He had challenged the foolish Jedi who followed their incompetent
leaders without thinking simply because they had sworn to do so....
Now Kyp would finish the battle, though the enemy was no longer the
incompetent, decaying Republic, but the fraudulent New Order and the
repressive Empire that had taken the Old Republic's place. While Master
Skywalker limited the training of his new Jedi Knights, Kyp Durron had
learned
more. Much more.
He reached the second tier of the ziggurat and paused to look down at the
insectile shape of his Z-95 fighter resting in the center of the landing
grid.
No one had yet stirred from inside the temple.
A pastel glow crept into the sky at the horizon as the rapid rotation of
the jungle moon brought planetrise closer. Kyp continued to climb the long
series of steps, staring toward the apex of the Great Temple.
Kyp had already struck his first blow by erasing dangerous knowledge from
the Imperial scientist, Qwi Xux. Only Qwi had known how to build another Sun
Crusher--but Kyp, using his bare hands and his newfound power, had torn that
knowledge from her brain and scattered it into nothingness. No one could
ever
find it again.
Next, he would apply a poetic justice that delighted his sensibility,
that made him thrill with revenge for all that the Empire had done against
him
and his family and his colony world. Kyp would resurrect the Sun Crusher
itself and use it to obliterate the remains of the Empire. He would be
accountable to no one but himself. He trusted no one else to make the hard
decisions.
Kyp reached the summit of the Great Temple just as the huge orange ball
of Yavin heaved itself over the horizon. Misty and pale, the gas giant
swirled
with tremendous storm systems large enough to swallow smaller worlds.
The temple's diamond-shaped flagstones covered the small observation
platform above the grand audience chamber. Vines and stunted Massassi trees
poked up from the corners of the old stones.
Kyp looke d skyward. The small plants and animals filling the jungles of
Yavin 4 were insignificant to him. They mattered nothing in the grand scheme
of what he was about to undertake. The importance of his vision far exceeded
the petty needs of any single planet.
As the sphere of Yavin rose into the sky, Kyp lifted his arms, and the
slick black fabric of his cape fell behind him. His hands were slender and
small, the hands of a young man. But inside, power sizzled through his
bones.
"Exar Kun, help me," Kyp said, closing his eyes.
He reached out with his mind, following the paths of the Force that led
to every object in the universe, drawing power from the cosmic focal point
of
the Massassi temple. He searched, sending his thoughts like a probe deep
into
the storm systems of the gas giant.
Behind him Kyp felt the black-ice power of Exar Kun arise, tapping into
hm and reinforcing his abilities. His own feeble exploratory touch suddenly
plunged forward like a blaster bolt. Kyp felt larger, a part of the jungle
moon, then a part of the entire planetary system, until he burrowed into the
heart of the gas giant itself.
Pale orange clouds whipped past him. He sensed pressure increasing as he
plummeted down, down to the incredibly dense layers near the core. He sought
the tiny speck of machinery, a small, indestructible ship that had been cast
away.
When he reached the bottommost levels of the atmosphere, Kyp finally
found the Sun Crusher. It stood out like a beacon, a bull's-eye in the
funneling field lines of the Force.
Size matters not, Master Skywalker had repeated. Kyp engulfed the Sun
Crusher with his mind, surrounding it, touching it with his limitless,
invisible hands. He thought about heaving it back up, dragging the Sun
Crusher
out of the depths of Yavin. But he discarded that thought.
Instead, with the assistance of Exar Kun, he used his innate skill to
power up the controls again, to move control levers, push buttons to alter
the
course stored in the Sun Crusher's memory, bringing it out of its
entombment.
Kyp continued to watch the weapon's progress, focusing on the sphere of
the enormous planet as it crested the misty treetops. The Sun Crusher
appeared
as a silvery dot, seeming no larger than an atom as it emerged from the
highest cloud layers and streaked across space toward the emerald-green moon
where Kyp waited.
He stared upward and waited, opening his arms to receive the
indestructible weapon.
The Sun Crusher approached like a long, sharp thorn of crystalline alloy,
cruising upright on its long axis. The toroidal resonance-torpedo launcher
hung at the bottom of the long hook. It looked beautiful.
The Sun Crusher descended through the jungle moon's atmosphere, straight
down--like a spike to impale the Great Temple. Kyp controlled it, slowed its
descent, until the superweapon hovered to a stop, suspended in front of him.
As the sky brightened with planetrise, the alloy hull of the Sun Crusher
seemed as pristine as a firefacet gem, scoured of all oxidation and debris
by
the intense temperatures and pressures at the core of Yavin. The Sun Crusher
looked clean, and deadly, and ready for him.
"Thank you, Exar Kun," Kyp whispered.
* * *
Luke Skywalker awoke from another series of nightmares. He sat bolt
upright on his pallet, instantly aware. He had felt a great disturbance in
the
Force. Something was not right.
He got up, moving cautiously as he sent out his thoughts to check on his
students Kirana Ti, Dorsk 81, the new Calamarian arrival Cilghal, Streen,
Tionne, Kam Solusar, and all the others. Nothing seemed amiss. They slept
soundly--almost too soundly, as if a net of sleep had been cast over them.
When he reached out farther, he was stunned to feel a cold, black
whirlpool of twisted Force around the peak of the temple. It stunned him.
Luke sprinted to the door of his chambers, hesitated, then stepped back
to retrieve his lightsaber. He marched down the corridors, smoothing his
fear
as he rode the turbolift to the upper levels of the ancient pyramid.
Calm, Yoda had said, you must remain calm.
But the sight that greeted him under the dawn sky nearly overwhelmed
Luke.
The Sun Crusher hung suspended over the temple, still steaming in the
morning air, resurrected from its tomb at the core of the gas giant. Kyp
Durron spun around to stare at Luke, his black cape swirling with the rapid
motion.
Stunned, Luke reeled backward. "How dare you bring that weapon back!" he
said. "It goes against all the Jedi knowledge I have taught you."
Kyp laughed at him. "You haven't taught me very much, Master Skywalker.
I've learned a great deal beyond your feeble teachings. You pretend to be a
great instructor, but you're afraid to learn for yourself."
He looked back at the Sun Crusher. "I will do what must be done to
eradicate the Empire. While I make the galaxy safe for everyone, you can
stay
here and practice your simple Jedi tricks. But they are no more than
children's games."
"Kyp," Luke said, keeping his voice even and taking a step toward him,
"you've been lured by the dark side, but you must return. You were deceived
and misled. Come back before its grip becomes too strong." He swallowed. "I
went over to the dark side once, and I came back. It can be done if you're
strong enough and brave enough. Are you?"
Kyp laughed in disbelief. "Skywalker, it's embarrassing for me to listen
to you talk. You are afraid to risk anything yourself, yet you want to call
yourself a Jedi Master. It doesn't work that way. You've stunted the
training
of your other Jedi candidates because of your own narrow-mindedness. Perhaps
I
should just defeat you here and now, and then I can take over their
training."
With trembling hands and a deep-seated dread in his heart, Luke reached
to his side and wrapped his hand around the slick handle of his lightsaber.
He
pulled it free, igniting it with the familiar snap-hiss. The brilliant green
blade extended, humming and ready for battle.
A Jedi could not attack an unarmed opponent, could not resort to violence
before all other avenues had been exhausted--but Luke knew the deadly
potential of his most talented student. If Kyp had fallen to the dark side,
he
could become another Darth Vader. Perhaps even worse....
"Don't make me do this," Luke said, raising his lightsaber, but unsure
what to do. He couldn't just cut down his student, who stood unarmed at the
top of the temple. But if he didn't...
"We have to send the Sun Crusher back," Luke said. "At one time you
yourself insisted that it should never be used."
"I spoke out of ignorance," Kyp said, "just as you do."
"Don't make me fight you," Luke said in a low voice.
Kyp made a dismissive gesture with one hand, and a sudden wave of dark
ripples splashed across the air like the shock front from a concussion
grenade.
crystals grew in feathery patterns around the handle. At the core of the
brilliant green blade a shadow appeared, a black disease rotting away the
purity of the beam. The humming blade sputtered, sounding like a sickly
cough.
The black taint rapidly grew stronger, swallowing up the green beam.
With a fizzle of sparks Luke's lightsaber died.
Trying to control his growing fear, Luke felt a sudden brush of cold
behind him. He turned to see a black, hooded silhouette--the image that had
impersonated Anakin Skywalker in Luke's nightmare... the dark man who had
lured Gantoris into a devastating loss of control.
Kyp's voice came as if from a great distance. "At last, Master Skywalker,
you can meet my mentor--Exar Kun."
Luke dropped his useless lightsaber and crouched. His every muscle
suddenly coiled and tensed. He rallied all the powers of the Force around
him,
seeking any defensive tactic.
With the Sun Crusher looming behind him, Kyp stretched out both hands and
blasted Luke with lightning bolts like black cracks in the Force. Dark
tendrils rose up from gaps in the temple flagstones, fanged, illusory vipers
that struck at him from all sides.
Luke cried out and tried to strike back, but the shadow of Exar Kun
joined the attack, adding more deadly force. The ancient Dark Lord of the
Sith
lashed out with waves of blackness, d
riving long icicles of frozen poison
into
Luke's body.
He thrashed, but felt helpless. To lose control to anger and desperation
would be as great a failure as if he did nothing at all. Luke called upon
the
powers that Yoda and Obi-Wan had taught him--but everything he did, every
skillful technique, failed utterly.
Against the full might of Kyp Durron and the forbidden weapons of the
long-dead spirit of Exar Kun, even a Jedi Master such as Luke Skywalker
could
not prevail.
The black serpentlike tentacles of evil force struck at him again and
again, filling his body with a pain like lava coursing through his veins. As
he screamed, his voice was swallowed by a hurricane from the dark side.
Luke cried out one last time and crumpled backward to the blessedly cool
flagstones of the Great Massassi Temple, as everything turned a smothering,
final black around him....
Near the center of the Cauldron Nebula, the two surviving Star Destroyers
hung poised and ready to launch their attack on Coruscant.
Admiral Daala stood tall on her bridge platform, filled with an
electrifying new self-confidence and det ermination. She had not slept in
the
past day.
Her officers sat at their stations, keyed up and anxious. A double
complement of stormtroopers marched up and down the Gorgon's halls, fully
armed and battle ready. They had had a decade of drills, and now they would
use their training to strike the greatest blow they could imagine for their
cause.
"Commander Kratas, report," Daala said.
Kratas snapped to attention, barking out his report. "All equipment and
weaponry have been transferred from the Basilisk to the Gorgon. Only a
skeleton crew of volunteers--all stormtroopers--remains on the Basilisk.
Captain Mullinore reports he is ready for his final mission."
Daala turned to the lieutenant at the comm station. "Patch me through to
Captain Mullinore."
The image of the Basilisk's captain appeared in front of her. The
hologram wavered, but the man himself seemed completely rigid and in
control,
looking stoic as he met Admiral Daala's emerald eyes. "Yes, Admiral," he
said.
"Captain, is your ship ready?" She paused, clasping her hands behind her
back. "Are you ready?"
"Yes, Admiral. We have reconfigured all weapons systems to increase power
to our shields. The stormtrooper crew has rigged the self-destruct mechanism