Star Wars_ Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor Part 19

"Worse," Luke said. "He infected me with the truth."

"Huh?"

"That it's all a joke. Not even a funny one. A pointless, stupid waste. A spark of suffering extinguished to eternal nothingness."

He could see that Nick didn't understand. That really, he couldn't understand. How could he? And how could Luke explain? What words could he use to share the Dark? What words could ill.u.s.trate the hideous illusions that came from being raised by loving parents who seemed to really believe in the ideals of the Old Republic, who'd acted like they'd honestly thought that the Jedi had been real heroes, instead of hidebound, ruthless enforcers of the will of the Republic's rulers. How could he explain the pointless cruelty of the universe-where you had to just stand with your arms restrained by stormtroopers and watch as the Death Star destroyed your homeworld for no real reason at all...

Wait, Luke thought. His breath went short. "Oh, no," he said out loud. "Oh, no, no, no... this can't be happening!"

That flash he'd just had wasn't a memory.

It was a vision. Of the future.

What? Nick said. "Skywalker, talk to me!"

Luke shook himself as if throwing off a dream. "It's not we inside the stone," he said. "It's not me hanging in the Dark at the end of the Universe. It's her. It's going to be her."

"Her who?"

"Leia," Luke said. "My sister."

"You have a sister?"

Luke nodded. "And Blackhole's found her."

R2-D2 fell through darkness.

Fell was not entirely the right word for what had transpired since the stone beneath his treads had suddenly melted away and dropped him and Chewbacca through the tunnel's floor. It was more akin to some sort of bizarre carnival ride, with sudden stops and sideways slippages and all manner of other contortions of downward progress that R2's internal vocabulation data simply did not have words for.

For that matter, darkness wasn't entirely accurate either. While a human eye would see nothing but featureless black, for R2, it wasn't dark at all; his internal sensors could register a substantial span of the electromagnetic spectrum, several hundred thousand times wider than the tiny human range they referred to as "visual light." The entire downward fall/slide/lurch/b.u.mp/twist/jolt process was alive with all manner of electromagnetic radiation; of particular interest to R2 were the intermittent flickers of a magnetic field signature that was very similar in frequency to that emitted by the nervous systems of many oxygen-breathing organics. It looked like the rock was thinking.

Not only that, it looked like the rock was thinking with a number of distinct minds, which seemed to have some sort of self-reinforcing phase relations.h.i.+p, a.n.a.logous to the process in social insects by which discussion leads to consensus.

Which was a development that R2 would have liked to investigate more thoroughly, but he was currently preoccupied by constantly recalibrating his internal gyromagnetic stabilizer to keep himself from landing, when he did eventually land, on his damaged locomotor arm; this ongoing recalibration owing to the bewildering unpredictability of the s.h.i.+fting magnetic fields-took up most of R2's processing capacity.

Another slide, two bounces, and one last tumble brought R2 to a brief halt, as he fetched up against Chewbacca's short ribs hard enough to make the Wookiee grunt and wheeze for breath; then the stone opened beneath them for a final time and dropped them another three point six meters, which left the two of them unceremoniously deposited on the smooth stone floor of yet another cavern.

R2 activated a pair of manipulators to shove himself off Chewbacca-which elicited a groan of protest from the half-stunned Wookiee-and righted himself on the cavern floor. There was human-visible light in this cavern, though the light source swung so violently from side to side and up and down that shadows whirled and blended and parted again so swiftly that R2's photoreceptor lens couldn't pa.r.s.e the scene; he cycled back to his previous EM sensor band and began to make sense of the situation.

The human-visible light source was revealed to be none other than the glow rod, which was being wielded as an improvised club by Han Solo to swat at a ma.s.s of vaguely humanoid shapes while he shouted, "Back off! I'll bash any one of you who takes one more step! Back off!"

R2 a.s.sumed that Captain Solo was either highly agitated or speaking in the confusing idiomatic human code that C-3P0 referred to as metaphor, because it was certainly clear-to R2's sensors, at any rate-that these humanoid shapes to which he spoke did not actually have legs, much less feet, and thus were already certain, regardless of threat or instruction, never to take one more step. It was also entirely clear to R2 that these humanoid shapes were not, in fact, creatures at all, at least not as his programing generally understood the term.

These shapes were only nominally humanoid, in the sense of being generally upright and having a vaguely head-shaped k.n.o.b on top, as well as a pair-several had more-of arms; these shapes grew upward from the very stone of the cavern itself, more like animated stalagmites than actual living things, but they moved as though directed by some type of consciousness, and they clearly exhibited that peculiar electromagnetic field signature R2 had noted during his precipitous descent. A quid scan of his data files for any reference to this type of apparently mineral life-form came up blank... except for one provisional reference that he had preserved in his short-term cache because he had no internal referent to guide him in choosing where to file it.

It was the recording of Aeona Cantor, when her companion had asked what they should do "if whoever shows up isn't a Jedi": Then we take their stuff and leave'em to the Melters.

R2 found this to be a satisfactory correlation, and he consequently created a new file tagged with the keywords MINDOR, MINERAL LIFE-FORM (MOTILE), and MELTERS.

This entire process, from Han Solo's shout to R2-D2's filing decision, took only .674 of a standard second, which left R2 plenty of time for a full systems self-check and operational verification while Chewbacca was still rolling to his feet and drawing breath for a Wookiee war whoop.

Chewbacca's war cry was followed by a headlong charge against the Melters-that these were the "Melters" in question seemed undeniable-that crowded in upon Han Solo and Princess Leia. There was an astonished howl of pain when flesh-and-bone Wookiee fist met stone Melter "head." This was followed by a blue-crackling energy discharge-which R2 noted was a.n.a.logous in wavelength and intensity to a charge from a blaster on its maximum stun setting-from the Melter in question. Chewie howled again and went staggering back until he b.u.mped into another Melter and an additional energy discharge cut short the howl and folded the now-unconscious Wookiee like a retracting manipulator.

R2 continued to watch with detached interest as Han Solo shouted uChewie!" and threw himself against the ma.s.s of Melters, whose response was several bursts of that same energy that almost instantly dropped Han Solo twitching on the ground beside his copilot. However, the collapse of Han Solo apparently triggered a similar human emotional response from Princess Leia, who shouted to Han and leapt toward the Melters-and in the .384 seconds she was actually in the air, R2 called up an array of highly specialized subprocessors that had been originally installed as a customized aftermarket modification by the Royal Engineers of Naboo and later extensively refitted and programmed with a very specific set of behaviors by a particularly gifted tinkerer, who'd had, in his day, a justified reputation as the finest self-taught improvisational engineer the galaxy had ever produced: Anakin Skywalker.

Turbojacks deployed powerfully from the bottoms of R2's locomotors, kicking him through the air directly into the ma.s.s of Melters. His ant.i.tamper field sizzled to life with an unusually loud discharge crackle; based on the extraordinary drain on his internal power supply, R2 was able to calculate that the ant.i.tamper field was currently operating at triple strength, which was actually beyond its theoretical limit, owing to potentially lethal effects. R2 also noted that when a nearby Melter reached for him with a stone pseudo-arm, the touch of his triple-strength ant.i.tamper field instantly liquefied the electrocrystalline structure of the Melter's stone body... as well as those of the four Melters nearest to it.

With a fierce Thooperoo HEEE!, which was his closest approximation of a Wookiee war whoop, R2-D2 waded into the Melters, sparking them to slag on every side. As long as he had a single remaining erg in his energy supply, he would allow no harm to come to Princess Leia.

He did, however, note one particular flaw in this determination, which was that his level of energy output had already outstripped the self-regeneration capacity of his energy supply, and so that single remaining erg situation was, as C-3P0 might say, no mere metaphor. And the walls and floor just kept on humping into lumps that would become new Melters.

For a brief flicker of a millisecond, R2-D2 experienced a power spike in a tiny audio loop in one specific memory core: he heard C-3P0's voice exclaim We're doomed.

CHAPTER 14.

Nick trotted along the curving cavernway after Luke, his breath going short. How was it that every time he met a Jedi, the guy turned out to be some kind of nikkle nut? Skywalker had gone from brown dwarf to nova just like flipping a switch. Now Nick could barely keep up with him. "Take it easy, huh? Unless you want me to just, y'know, wait for you here. Which would be fine. Between you and me, I could use a nap."

"No time." Skywalker kept going. "You said Blackhole needs somebody who can use the Force. My twin sister's just as strong as I am-but she doesn't have my training. Once he gets his paws on her..."

Now he did stop, and turned back to Nick, and the bleak fury in his eyes brought a sudden twist of fear to Nick's gut. "I won't let that happen," Luke said grimly. "That's all. I won't. No matter what I have to do."

"Uh..."

But Luke had already turned and was jogging away.

"Shee, kid. Two minutes ago, things were going pretty good and I could barely gel you to talk. Now everything's going wrong, and you're making the jump to lightspeed without bothering to board a s.h.i.+p!"

"Yeah, funny how that works," Luke said. "I guess I can handle things going wrong in the world. I'm used to it. I can do something about it. It's when things go wrong in here..." He rapped the side of his head with his knuckles as if he were knocking to get in. "...that's where the problem is."

"The crystals."

"I don't know. All I know is that it makes me want to die. No. Not die. Just... stop."

"You know what makes me want to just stop?" Nick said. "Running. Especially running in ten kilos of floor-length fraggin' robe."

"You want to stay here? Go ahead. I'm sure Blackhole will be happy to make you another crown."

"Are you this nice to everybody, or am I just special?" Nick sighed and kept on going after him. His time as Shadowsp.a.w.n was hazy, but not so hazy he couldn't figure out which way they were going. "Um, Skywalker? This is not the way out of here."

Luke didn't even slow down. "That's because we're not leaving. I came here to put a stop to all this, even before I knew what was going on. Now that I know, I'm not going anywhere till it's over."

"Over how?"

"However."

"I guess you must be a real Skywalker after all," Nick said, wheezing a little as he caught up. "This is just the kind of stunt Anakin would have pulled. But I didn't know he had kids."

"Neither did he," Luke said grimly. "You knew my father?"

"Knew of him, more like. Met him a few times. He debriefed me once, after an op. So you really are his son, huh?"

"Is that so hard to believe?"

It wasn't easy to shrug while running in robes, but Nick managed. "He was tall."

"I'm told I favor my mother," Luke said dryly, and for a second Nick thought he was going to smile. But only for a second. "You knew my father in the Clone Wars?"

"Kid, in the Clone Wars, everybody knew him. He was the greatest hero in the galaxy. When he died, it was like the end of the universe." Nick's gut twisted again at the memory. "It b.l.o.o.d.y well was the end of the Republic."

Luke stopped. He looked like something hurt. "When he... died?"

Nick came to a halt gratefully, bending over with hands on his knees while he tried to catch his breath. "Way I heard it, he was the last Jedi standing in the Temple Ma.s.sacre-when Vader's Five Hundred First went in and killed all the Padawans."

"What?"

"That's where your father was killed: defending children in the Jedi Temple. He was not only the best of the Jedi, he was the last. n.o.body ever told you the story?"

Luke's eyes were closed against some inexpressible pain. "That's .. . not the way I heard it."

"Well, y'know, I wasn't there, but..."

"And I am the last of the Jedi. I was trained by Ben Ken.o.bi." Nick's jaw dropped. "You mean Obi-Wan? I thought that was, y'know, just more holothriller gunk. Ken.o.bi's alive?"

"No," Luke said softly. "Who are you?"

"Me? n.o.body. n.o.body special," Nick said. "I was an officer in the GAR-the old Grand Army of the Republic-but I didn't get along real well with the new management, know what I mean?"

"An officer?" Luke frowned. "Special enough. The Alliance could have used you. The New Republic still can. What have you been doing for the past twenty-five years?"

"Hiding from Vader, mostly. He's the management I didn't get along with."

"You can stop hiding. Vader's dead."

"What, just like in the show? That's good news."

"If you say so. The Emperor died the same day." Nick tapped his head and grimaced. "I haven't exactly been keeping up with the news. Did you kill him?"

"What? No. No, I didn't kill either of them."

"Not exactly like in Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge, huh?"

"No," Luke said, even more softly. "Not like that at all. But they are dead. That part's true." He lifted his head as if he was listening to something Nick couldn't hear. An instant later, a now round of shock waves rattled the cavernway. "When this is over, you and I need to sit down together for a long, long talk."

Nick's breathing had barely started to ease. "I'm ready to sit down now."

"When this is over," Luke repeated. "For now, we run."

"I was afraid you were gonna say that..." But Nick was already talking to Skywalker's retreating back. He wheezed a sigh, hiked up his robe, and went after him. He could hear, coming from up ahead now, the thunder-roll of explosions that were shaking the whole mountain. "Where are we going in such a hurry?"

"I'll show you."

They rounded another curve and ahead, the tunnel ended in a narrow ledge. Above the ledge was night, and stars, and streaks of X-wings hurtling down for strafing runs. Below the ledge was a long, long drop down the inner bowl of a huge, ancient caldera that was studded with impact craters and lit by the burning remains of crashed starfighters from both sides. The far rim had crumbled, and much of it still glowed dully with residual heat from the explosions that had shattered it; through the gaps Nick could see, far down the curve of the volcanic dome, turbolaser towers swiveling and pumping gouts of disintegrating energy into the sky.

"Uh," he said, hanging back from the edge. "Maybe I'll just wait up here."

"Maybe you won't."

"Have I mentioned that I've got, y'know, a minor issue about heights?"

"I'm sorry about that," Luke said seriously. "But you're coming along. I have a feeling I'll need you."

"But listen-you're going after your sister, right? Who's going after Cronal? Somebody's gonna have to take him out."

"And you're volunteering to play a.s.sa.s.sin?"

Nick c.o.c.ked his head. "The crystals in my head... I can feel him, sort of. I can find him. I can take him out."

"I believe you. But no. That's final."

"It may be the only way to save your sister. Not to mention you."

Luke sighed. "And what happens if he gets to her before you get to him? What happens if she doesn't have somebody like you around to break her out of the treatment, the way you saved me?"

"Then we'll just have to..." The look on Luke's face stopped Nick cold. "Uh. Yeah, I can see your problem with that. I guess I'd better be extra fast."

"I guess you'd better do what you're told."

"Hey, news flash, General Skywalker-I'm not one of your soldiers."

"Hey, news flash, Lord Shadowsp.a.w.n," Luke said, a faint smile on his lips but only bleak darkness in his eyes. "You're a prisoner of war."

"Aw-aw, c'mon, you're not serious..."

"You said you knew Jedi," Luke said. "Ever win an argument with one?"

Nick sighed. "Where to?"

"There." Luke pointed down into the caldera. "Right there."

Nick squinted. It looked like featureless rock scattered with wreckage. "What's the big deal about right there?"