Star Wars_ Rise And Fall Of Darth Vader Part 9

Leaving the detention cell, he went to report to Grand Moff Tarkin in the Death Star control room. Vader said, "Her resistance to the mind probe is considerable. It will be some time before we can extract any information from her."

Just then, Admiral Motti approached Tarkin and informed him that the Death Star was finally fully operational. Tarkin looked to Vader and said, "Perhaps she would respond to an alternative form of persuasion."

"What do you mean?" asked Vader. "I think it's time we demonstrated the full power of this station," Tarkin said. Turning to Motti, he commanded, "Set your course for Alderaan."

"With pleasure," Motti replied with an evil smile. Realizing what Tarkin intended, Vader surveyed the man with new respect. The Dark Lord had done many horrendous and unpardonable things, but it seemed that Tarkin - at least in this situation - was even more diabolically inventive. However, Vader had one concern with Tarkin's scheme. "Alderaan is one of the foremost of the inner systems," Vader said. "The Emperor should be consulted."

"Do not think to challenge her!" Tarkin snapped. "You are not confronting Tagge or Motti now! The Emperor has placed me in charge of this affair with a free hand, and the decision is mine! And you will have your information that much sooner."

Vader had long suspected that Grand Moff Tarkin was insane, but it was not until Tarkin had addressed him just then, without a trace of fear, that Vader was left without a doubt. Vader said, "If your plan serves our purpose, it will justify itself."

"The stability of the Empire is at stake," Tarkin said. "A planet is a small price to pay."

Released from her cell and brought to Grand Moff Tarkin in the Death Star control room, Princess Leia stood against Darth Vader's chest with her eyes fixed on a wide viewscreen that displayed the planet Alderaan. After Tarkin threatened to destroy her homeworld unless she revealed the location of the Rebel base, she told them that the Rebels were on Dantooine. However, Tarkin was determined to prove that the Empire was prepared to use the Death Star without the slightest provocation.

There were billions of people on Alderaan, including Bail Organa, and they were all about to die. As the battle station's superlaser powered up, Vader felt the Princess quivering with fear.

You brought this upon yourself, he thought.

The green-beamed superlaser fired at Alderaan, blowing the entire world to oblivion.

CHAPTER 16.

After the Princess was returned to her cell, Vader met with Tarkin in the Death Star conference room. Tarkin said, "What of the search for the plans?"

"I am convinced that the Princess sent them down to the planet Tatooine with a pair of droids. A short time ago, a starship made a highly illegal blastoff from the Mos Eisley s.p.a.ceport on Tatooine after her crew exchanged fire with a squad of stormtroopers. The ship then entered hypers.p.a.ce, evading pursuit. The droids in question were thought to be aboard her."

Tarkin grimaced. "And our stormtroopers were outfought, our Starfleet evaded? How is this possible? Whose ship was it?"

"That is difficult to say," Vader said. "She had false identification markings and a forged registration. Moreover, she was an extremely fast and elusive vessel, probably one of the smugglers who congregate in that region."

An Imperial officer entered the conference room and reported that scout ships had traveled to Dantooine but discovered only the remains of a Rebel base that had been deserted for some time. After the officer left, Tarkin exploded with rage.

"She lied!" Tarkin snarled. "She lied to us!"

As much as Vader respected Tarkin's indifference to ma.s.s murder, the Grand Moff s rattled outburst indicated that Princess Leia had clearly won this particular battle of wills. Unable to resist driving a splinter into Tarkin's demented psyche, Vader said, "I told you she would never consciously betray the Rebellion."

Tarkin scowled at Vader. "Terminate her ... immediately!"

Vader moved across the conference room to a communications console. With his helmet facing the comlink, he said, "Detention Area Security. Schedule the prisoner in cell 3187 for execution in one standard hour."

"Yes, Lord Vader," answered a voice from the comlink.

Glaring at Vader's back, Tarkin said, "I said immediately, Lord Vader."

Vader was about to respond when a comlink buzzed on the table in front of Tarkin. He pushed a b.u.t.ton and said, "Yes?"

From the comlink, an Imperial officer announced, "We've captured a freighter entering the remains of the Alderaan system. Its markings match those of a ship that blasted out of Mos Eisley."

Processing the information, Vader hypothesized, "They must be trying to return the stolen plans to the Princess. She may yet be of some use to us."

Vader proceeded to Death Star Docking Bay 327, where a tractor beam had deposited the captured ship. Entering the large hangar, Vader recognized the battered vessel as an old Corellian YT-1300 stock light freighter. He also noted its customized features, including illegal military-grade blaster cannons and an absurdly large top-of-the-line sensor dish on the port side.

Definitely a smuggler's ship, Vader thought as he walked past the squad of stormtroopers who were guarding the ship.

A gray-uniformed Imperial captain and a pair of stormtroopers stepped down the ship's landing ramp. Stopping before Vader, the captain said, "There's no one on board, sir. According to the log, the crew abandoned ship right after takeoff. It must be a decoy, sir. Several of the escape pods have been jettisoned."

"Did you find any droids?"

"No, sir," the captain replied. "If there were any on board, they must also have been jettisoned."

"Send a scanning crew aboard," Vader ordered. "I want every part of the ship checked."

"Yes, sir."

Vader looked up at the ship's hull. "I sense something ... a presence I've not felt since .. ." Since Mustafar. Then it hit him. Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi. . . He's alive!

Nearly an hour after the freighter had been captured, Grand Moff Tarkin was at his usual place in the conference room when Darth Vader announced: "He is here."

"Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi!" Tarkin said with disbelief. "What makes you think so?"

"A tremor in the Force," Vader answered. "The last time I felt it was in the presence of my old Master."

"Surely he must be dead by now."

"Don't underestimate the power of the Force."

"The Jedi are extinct," Tarkin insisted. "Their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that's left of their religion." A signal chimed from the comlink at the console in front of Tarkin's seat. Tarkin pressed a console b.u.t.ton and said, "Yes?"

From the comlink, a voice said, "We have an emergency alert in detention block AA-23."

"The Princess!" Tarkin exclaimed. "Put all sections on alert!"

"Obi-Wan is here," Vader said. "The Force is with him."

"If you're right, he must not be allowed to escape."

"Escape is not in his plan," Vader said knowingly. "I must face him - alone." He turned for the door. As large as the Death Star was, he knew he would find the elusive Jedi Master.

But first, he would make certain that a homing device was placed on the captured freighter. Although he was confident that Obi-Wan wouldn't leave the Death Star, he was actually counting on the possibility that the Princess would.

Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi, wearing a dirty-brown desert robe with a large cloak, had bypa.s.sed numerous stormtroopers and sophisticated security sensors by the time Vader sighted him, entering the dimly illuminated, gray-walled access tunnel that led back to Docking Bay 327. Vader stood in plain sight, holding his red-bladed lightsaber at the ready, blocking Obi-Wan's path to the captured freighter.

He looks so old, Vader thought, but knew better than to a.s.sume that the white-bearded Obi-Wan had weakened with age. As Vader moved slowly toward the hooded interloper, Obi-Wan activated his own blue-bladed lightsaber.

"I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan," Vader said, edging closer to the elderly Jedi. "We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete."

Obi-Wan a.s.sumed an offensive stance.

"When I left you," Vader continued, "I was but the learner; now I am the master."

"Only a master of evil, Darth," Obi-Wan said.

Although Vader had not expected Obi-Wan to address him by the obsolete name of Anakin Skywalker, it was most unusual for anyone to call him by his Sith Lord t.i.tle alone. Vader thought, He's trying to confuse me!

Obi-Wan moved fast, lunging at Vader with his weapon, but the Dark Lord blocked the attack with ease. There was a loud electric crackle as their lightsabers made contact. Undeterred, Obi-Wan made a swift series of strikes, but each was parried by Vader.

"Your powers are weak, old man," Vader said.

"You can't win, Darth," Obi-Wan said, making Vader wonder if perhaps Obi-Wan was taunting him by refusing to address him properly. With incredible self-a.s.surance, Obi-Wan added, "If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."

"You should not have come back," Vader said.

Their lightsabers clashed again and again, and their duel carried on until they were just outside Docking Bay 327. As they moved toward the door that led directly into the hangar that contained the captured freighter, Vader heard the approaching footsteps of stormtroopers running toward his position. Vader's blade was crossed with his opponent's when Obi-Wan threw a glance into the hangar. Vader kept his eyes riveted on the Jedi. You won't get away from me this time!

Unexpectedly, Obi-Wan raised his lightsaber before him and closed his eyes. His expression was serene.

Vader could hardly believe it. He's surrendering! Without mercy, Vader swung hard with his lightsaber, slicing through Obi-Wan's form. He fully expected to hear the satisfying sound of Obi-Wan's rained body collapsing upon the polished floor, and so was astonished to see only the Jedi's robe and lightsaber at his feet. Obi-Wan's body had completely vanished.

"No!" a voice shouted from the hangar. Suddenly, the hangar was filled with the rapid reports of many blasters firing at the same time.

Vader heard the shout and the blasters but he paid them no attention. Astonished, he stared at Obi-Wan's weapon and empty robe, then prodded the clothes with his boot. Where is he? How could he vanish? What sort of trickery is this?

From the hangar, over the din of the blaster fight, Vader heard Princess Leia call out, "Come on! Come on! Luke, it's too late!"

Vader had no interest in stopping Princess Leia, nor did he wonder who "Luke" might be. But he couldn't let them get away too easily. Turning away from Obi-Wan's fallen robe and lightsaber, he headed for the hangar. But before he could reach the doorway, a man's voice in the hangar shouted, "Blast the door, kid!"

There was a small explosion outside the doorway, and the two blast doors slid out from the walls to seal off the hangar. Moments later, Vader heard the freighter's engines roar to life, carrying the ship out of the hangar and away from the Death Star.

It had been Vader's idea to plant the homing device on the freighter, and to allow the Princess to escape so she would unwittingly lead the Imperials to the secret Rebel base. Vader had been confident that his plan would work. And yet as he picked up Ken.o.bi's light-saber, he realized that he was now less certain of what the future held.

It was determined that the freighter had traveled to Yavin 4, the same moon where Anakin Skywalker had dueled Asajj Ventress during the Clone Wars. First Tatooine, now Yavin 4, Vader thought. Despite his devotion to the power of the dark side of the Force, he had the nagging sense that his past was coming back to haunt him.

Once the Death Star arrived in the Yavin system and was within thirty minutes' range of destroying the moon with the Rebel base, Vader's confidence returned.

"Today will be a day long remembered," he told Tarkin in the Death Star control room. "It has seen the end of Ken.o.bi. It will soon see the end of the Rebellion."

INTERLUDE.

By the time the Imperial tactical officers had determined that the stolen technical readouts revealed a vulnerable area of their battle station, dozens of Rebel starfighters had already begun their a.s.sault on the Death Star. Tarkin and most of his men had regarded the enemy ships as nothing more than a temporary nuisance, but Darth Vader had felt his confidence shift again as the battle progressed. Vader had never considered the Death Star as anything more than a deadly, oversized toy, but because the expensive superweapon was necessary for the Emperor's schemes, he had been duty-bound to protect it.

And he had failed.

Now, as the Super Star Destroyer Executor arrived in the Endor system, he thought back on what had happened at Yavin four years ago.

With Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi's lightsaber clipped to his belt like a trophy, he had flown his bent-winged prototype TIE fighter to defend the Death Star. None of the Rebel pilots had been a match for him until he had caught up with a single X-wing fighter in the Death Star's equatorial trench. Despite the fury of the s.p.a.ce battle, Vader had easily sensed that the Force was strong with this one X-wing pilot. Vader had been about to fire at his evasive target when an unexpected blast from above damaged his own ship and sent him spinning out into s.p.a.ce. He had but a millisecond to see that he had been attacked by the same freighter that had led the Death Star to Yavin.

And then the Death Star had exploded. The resulting shock wave had sent his TIE fighter tumbling further and faster from Yavin. It had not taken him long to regain control of his ship, but because the freighter's attack had crippled his hyperdrive and communications systems, it was some time before he reached an Imperial outpost. Vader had used that time to think about the droids that Princess Leia had sent to Tatooine, and the freighter that had transported Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi to the Death Star. Vader had wondered, How long was Obi-Wan on Tatooine. And why?

Had he been in contact with Owen and Bern Lars?

Did Princess Leia know that he was alive, and that the droids would find him there?

And the Rebel pilot who was so strong with the Force ... where had he come from?

The Emperor had not been pleased to learn of the loss of the Death Star, but he had not faulted Vader After all, Vader had nothing to do with the battle station's flawed design. While Palpatine's propaganda architects had launched a campaign to discredit the Rebel Alliance by denying that a moon-sized Imperial battle station ever existed, Vader had conducted his own investigation to identify the Rebel pilot who had destroyed the Death Star, and devised a plan to lure the Rebels to the Starship Yards ofFondor.

Vader had failed to capture the Rebel spy who took the bait at Fondor, but through the Force, Vader had sensed that the spy was the pilot who had eluded him at the Death Star, and that this individual had indeed been a disciple of Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi.

Eventually, he had learned the pilot's name.

CHAPTER 17.

Luke Skywalker.

According to munic.i.p.al records obtained from the settlement of Anchorhead on Tatooine, that was the name on the registration for a T-16 skyhopper owned by a human male pilot who had lived at the Lars homestead and was approximately nineteen standard years old.

Luke Skywalker.

According to a Kubaz freelance spy in Mos Eisley, that was the name on a s.p.a.ceport Speeders sales record for the landspeeder that had been purchased from a young man who later left on the Millennium Falcon, the Corellian freighter that had also carried Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi to the Death Star.

Luke Skywalker.

According to a captured Rebel whom Darth Vader interrogated on the planet Centares, that was the name of the X-wing pilot who had destroyed the Death Star.

Luke Skywalker.