Crucible: Star Wars Read online

  “Now you’re scaring me,” Ben said. “What’s wrong?”

  Luke smiled. “Nothing’s wrong.” He clapped a hand on Ben’s shoulder, then turned toward the hatch. “And that’s a very good feeling right now.”

  Twenty-five

  Luke hung suspended in a whirling column of starflies that died—suddenly and all at once—then sank, dimming, into the darkness below. For an eternity, he floated motionless in the silent gloom, alone with his thoughts and the icy ache of his old wound. He found himself wondering whether he would ever see Ben again, wondering many things: how he would find Han and Leia, what the pain in his wound foretold, whether the Qrephs had stumbled across Mortis after all.

  The dark side swirled all around him—a hot, nettling breeze that burned his eyes and made him feel queasy. Something rustled nearby, unseen, and the air grew solid beneath his feet. Ebony shapes began to coalesce into tall stone pillars, which broadened at their bases and tops into the floor and ceiling of a vast, dank-smelling catacomb.

  In the distance Luke saw a pair of tiny golden haloes, located side by side and gradually shrinking and growing dim. He started after them, then ignited his lightsaber to see by and sent a thousand shadows whispering away. As he moved, the shadows began to glide across the floors and slide off pillars and hiss in behind him, always creeping in closer. Occasionally he paused to listen for words, but each time he stopped, the hissing faded to silence. Once, he turned to look and thought he glimpsed a dozen pale eyes watching him from beneath a line of dusky brows. But the shadows rustled back into the darkness so quickly he could not be certain whether they were real or imagined.

  After a few dozen steps, a golden radiance began to light the surrounding area. He looked down and discovered that his entire body had begun to glow—except where Abeloth had reached into his chest. There, Luke had a dark hole the size of his fist.

  He continued toward the distant haloes, hoping they might be Han and Leia. The two radiances appeared to be moving away, so Luke walked faster. The last of the shadows fell from the pillars, and the pillars turned white, then developed a papery bark and became tree trunks. When Luke looked up, he discovered an immense green forest canopy where moments before there had been cavern ceiling.

  After a few seconds, or hours—who could say?—the still-distant haloes grew larger and brighter as he began to gain on them. A mob of dark, amorphous masses appeared, trailing the two lights—and closing in fast. Luke deactivated his lightsaber and hung it from his equipment harness, then cupped his hands around his mouth to call out … and heard another lightsaber snap to life, directly behind him.

  “A Mandalorian Force-user?” Leia asked. “That’s … rare.”

  She was walking next to Han, passing through an open colonnade of vast proportions, with white pillars that rose a hundred meters into a sky of swirling blue haze. Vines were spiraling up the pillars literally before their eyes, flocks of brightly colored birds were swooping about their heads, and she was holding Han’s glowing, translucent hand and feeling happier than she had in a long time. They might be trying to hunt down a pair of super-genius mass murderers who wanted them dead, but at least they were doing it together. As long as they had that, they had everything.

  Han shook his head. “You’re missing the point,” he said. “Barduun was some sort of accident. He wasn’t born Force-sensitive, and he wasn’t one of their biot experiments. He was a normal guy who couldn’t use the Force at all—until after the Qrephs sent him in here. It’s like something got into him.”

  “Are you suggesting he was possessed?” Leia asked. She knew of other cases where a dark-side spirit had taken control of another being, but none that had involved a space–time-warping gate whose function she could barely fathom. “That’s a possibility, I suppose. But I don’t think we should leap to any conclusions.”

  “Who’s leaping?” Han asked. He waved his arm back toward the catacombs, which they had left some time ago. “You saw those shadows. Didn’t it seem like they were trying to get a little too friendly?”

  “Maybe,” Leia said. “Okay, let’s assume you’re right and they were dark-side spirits.” She turned to look back over her shoulder. “Are you saying the Qrephs came in here because they actually want to be possessed?”

  The entrance to the catacombs was no longer visible behind them. Instead, the vine-wrapped pillars in the distance had given way to white tree trunks and, above that area of the colonnade, the sky had changed into a rich green canopy. A distant figure—her brother, Luke she thought—stood amid the trees, pivoting away.

  Gliding through the forest, approaching the figure from three different sides, were a trio of dark, amorphous masses—banks of shadow that seemed to slip through the woods like an inky black fog.

  “The Qrephs are pretty arrogant,” Han continued, apparently unaware of what was happening behind them. “Maybe they think they can outsmart a few dark-side spirits.”

  Finally Han turned to look back, too, and just then a crimson lightsaber ignited within the middle shadow.

  Luke pivoted and sprang, launching himself into a series of cartwheels that sent him rolling through the forest like a wheel. His attacker emerged from the shadows, wild-eyed and fierce. She was a grotesque caricature of Vestara Khai, with huge brown eyes and a big oval head like a Columi’s. She came kicking and chopping, all anger and no skill.

  Still cartwheeling, Luke flicked his palm up. The Force rushed into him with wild, burning fierceness, then he unleashed a blast of energy so powerful it blew the flesh off her vanalloy skeleton—that was a surprise—and she tumbled away in pieces, her crimson blade tracing spirals through the darkness.

  Luke’s shoulder glanced off a tree. He hit the ground, off balance and disoriented, a little unnerved by the raw power he had just unleashed. The Force had swept into him with pure unshaped potential, and he had killed with it—more out of surprise than necessity.

  Too easy … too tempting.

  He heard the whir of a powerbody to his left and sensed danger to his right. He snapped the lightsaber off his harness and rolled over his shoulder, and the forest exploded into cannon fire from both directions. He whirled, trusting his hands to the Force, and began to send bolts pinging into the shadows that he now saw drifting in from his flanks. Once, he heard the crump of a bursting blaster-gas reservoir. Twice, he heard the thud-hiss of energy striking flesh. But every time he tried to dance out of harm’s way, the attacks intensified and forced him back into the crossfire.

  It was not good to be a luminous being fighting shadows.

  Then metal projectiles began to plink off stone, and Luke realized his attackers—the Qrephs, presumably, hiding inside their shadow clouds—had been attempting to wear him down with their first assault, hoping to catch him by surprise when they switched to a new tactic.

  And their strategy had worked.

  Luke hurled a blast of Force energy into the shadow cloud on his right, heard a powerbody drone and wood crackle. But the attacks continued from the left, and a string of sharp impacts climbed up his back—metal slugs flattening themselves against his vac-suit armor. The last one punched through and buried itself deep beneath his shoulder blade.

  Luke’s sword arm fell limp, and his guard went down. He sprang into an arcing Force dive. Two more slugs caught him in the neck and sent him spinning, and he crashed into a smooth white tree trunk.

  He landed in a heap at the foot of the tree, a curtain of pain and darkness already falling in around him.

  Han spotted Luke lying at the base of an immense tree trunk, his face distorted by pain. While Han’s body was still glowing brightly, Luke’s had faded to a pale sheen, and a river of blood was pouring from two holes in his neck.

  Han rushed to Luke’s side. “Hey there, buddy,” he said, kneeling. “Don’t you wor—”

  He stopped short when he saw the eyes. They were peering out at him from the wounds in Luke’s neck—big yellow eyes with slit pupils, trying in vain to blink
away the blood.

  Han set his blaster rifle aside, then opened the thigh pocket on Luke’s vac suit and pulled out the medkit.

  “You’re going to be just fine,” he continued. Better not to mention the yellow eyes. “Trust me.”

  Luke finally seemed to register Han’s presence and managed a weak smile, then his gaze drifted left and the smile faded.

  “Luke, stay with me, pal.” Han fumbled the kit open and searched for the big bacta bandage. “This is nothing. Remember Hoth? Hey, this is nothing, you hear me, Luke?” He found the bandage and ripped open the sterile wrapper. “Luke?”

  Leia, who had been advancing on Han’s flank, arrived behind him. “Han, trouble!”

  Han slapped the bandage over Luke’s neck wound, then traded the medkit for his blaster rifle and turned. Leia was now two steps to his left, looking over his head. She was holding her droning lightsaber in one hand and whipping the other hand forward in a pushing gesture, and Han heard something heavy go crashing through the forest behind him.

  But there was something behind her, too—a bank of shadow slipping through the trees and heading toward them. Han heard the hum of a blaster cannon powering up.

  “Go!” Han said. “I’ve got the one behind you.”

  “Okay!” Leia called, racing past. “Be careful!”

  As if that was going to happen.

  Hoping to draw fire away from Luke, Han was already springing off at an angle. He sent two blaster bolts screaming into the darkness, then dived into a somersault just before a stream of cannon fire answered his attack. He rolled into the shadow bank, came up, and found himself facing the blocky silhouette of an approaching powerbody.

  Han fired again. The powerbody pivoted and began to advance sidelong. Still firing, Han charged, listening to his bolts ping off the powerbody’s armor. The gaping mouth of a launch tube swung toward him.

  Han feigned a dive to his right. The launch tube swung in that direction and sent a mini-rocket streaking into the ground. Han dodged and rolled over his shoulder, then came up to find the powerbody swinging back so it could bring all its weapons to bear.

  Again, Han opened fire. This time he was close enough to see that Luke—or someone—had already reduced the powerbody to a pitted, charred, vapor-leaking wreck. Meanwhile, its pilot—Craitheus Qreph—looked even worse. In fact, Han had never seen blaster wounds so bizarre. A blue tumor was pulsing out of the hole in the Columi’s head, and thick, fleshy lips surrounded the gaping holes in his abdomen. One of his arms had been blasted off entirely, and he seemed to be growing a tail to replace it.

  But the powerbody’s cannon arm was still working. As it swung in Han’s direction, he continued to fire and sank two more bolts into Craitheus’s huge cranium.

  The Columi returned fire—after he was hit, with the smoke still rising from two fresh holes in his head.

  Impossible.

  Han’s leg went numb and flew out from beneath him. Then his entire gut erupted in fiery pain, and he felt himself being spun away.

  Automatic fire. It had to be, because Craitheus had to be dead.

  Han kept firing anyway, twisting around as he fell, putting bolt after bolt into the powerbody and the bighead’s brain. He wasn’t taking any chances—not when Leia would be the Columi’s next target.

  The muted boom of an exploding actuating motor rolled through the forest. Han hit the ground, awash with pain—as if a womp rat were clawing out his guts—and the acrid fumes of burning chemicals filled his nostrils.

  An eyeblink later, Craitheus’s powerbody crashed into a tree and exploded a second time. Mini-rockets began to shoot through the forest, tearing boughs from the trees and setting off a chain of distant detonations.

  Now Craitheus was dead.

  Han turned toward the sound of the second explosion and saw a powerbody lying wrecked and burning at the base of a splintered tree.

  He had to be.

  Leia advanced, spinning and leaping. Her body bent and pivoted as she sidestepped shrieking mini-rockets and ducked hissing fléchettes, and her lightsaber wove a basket of color as she batted cannon bolts back toward her shadow-cloaked attacker. She was one with the Force, her luminous golden body an eddy whirling in its wild current, her entire being a maelstrom of cold resolve and focused rage, of a single all-consuming purpose: to kill.

  Marvid had managed to right his powerbody after her latest blast of Force energy, and he was backing away from her in a crooked flight that left half his cannon bolts flying wild. An internal power cell just above his shoulder had exploded, leaving a jagged hole in the armored cover plate and coating half of Marvid’s head and body in corrosive chemicals. The resulting burns looked truly awful, with large diamond-shaped blisters that were healing into copper-colored lizard scales before Leia’s eyes.

  She was gaining on him fast, and they both knew it was only a matter of heartbeats before she closed the distance. She danced past a string of fléchettes, batted a cannon bolt aside, and Force-leapt across the last five meters. Then she was on him, her lightsaber angling down toward his head.

  A pair of tremendous booms shook the trees behind her, and Leia felt a terrible ripping in the Force as Han dropped. A cold wave of stunned disbelief boiled through her, and she must have hesitated, because suddenly Marvid was extending a new arm, pressing its rounded end against her abdomen. Deep inside the Qreph’s powerbody, a low hum began to build.

  “You lose, Jedi,” Marvid said. “I—”

  Leia was already pivoting, sliding along the mysterious arm and bringing her lightsaber down on Marvid’s collarbone. The blade crackled, filling the air with blood and smoke and sparks as it sliced down through vanalloy and flesh.

  The low hum became a thrum. The front half of Leia’s vac suit simply melted away, and the skin on her abdomen began to blister and char. She turned to dive away, and her insides exploded into a volcano of boiling pain.

  Han lay on the forest floor, groaning in agony, for hours, days, maybe even a week. He had a char hole in his gut the size of a Wookiee’s fist, and his leg was one big fiery ache from the knee up. From the knee down, he felt only a cold throbbing numbness that would have scared him to death—had he not been pretty sure he was already dead.

  Because nobody could take this much pain for this long and live through it.

  But it couldn’t have been that long. Han could still hear Marvid wailing as Leia’s lightsaber growled and sparked its way through the Columi’s powerbody, and he had been listening to exactly the same sounds from the moment he hit the forest floor.

  Maybe this was what happened when someone died. Maybe a dead guy’s mind simply went into a closed loop, and he spent eternity remembering his last moment in life.

  No fair.

  That wasn’t how Han wanted to spend eternity. He wanted to spend it holding Leia’s hand and recalling the good times—their wedding in Cantham House on Coruscant, their honeymoon watching the Corphelion Comets, the births of their children, all those years of living and fighting and loving together … everything. That was how he wanted to spend eternity—not lying around on some forest floor, groaning his guts out.

  The eternal moment ended with a low, reverberating thrum.

  Leia screamed and thudded to the ground someplace behind him, then her lightsaber fell silent—and so did she.

  Han forced himself to stop groaning and to listen, and he heard an anguished moan in a voice so soft and distorted he could recognize it only as female—and there was only one female it could be. He wanted to call out Leia’s name, to hear her tell him that it was somebody else moaning and she was fine, but his mouth refused to obey. Every time he opened it to call her name, all that came out was the sound of his own pain.

  The radiance began to fade from Han’s body, and the shadows started to whisper toward him, coming in closer, eating away at the small ring of light that still surrounded him.

  We can help.

  The words were so low and wispy that Han could not be
sure whether he was really hearing them or just imagining them in the rustle of the shadows around him.

  We can save you.

  Yeah? Han tried to speak the word aloud … and discovered that it was work enough just to think it. What’s it going to cost me?

  The shadows said nothing, but they remained nearby, whispering through the trees, turning the trunks from pale to dark wherever they passed. Han recalled the shadow he had glimpsed during the sabacc game with Barduun and wondered if this was where it had come from, if the Mandalorian had been through the gate before him and been foolish enough to accept what the shadows offered.

  Han closed his eyes and listened. He could still hear the woman moaning.

  Leia.

  He dragged the heel of his uninjured leg across the forest floor and felt himself turn. A good sign. Dead men couldn’t turn themselves—at least not outside the monolith.

  But in here, who knew? Han was starting to think that time and space were something that existed only inside sentient minds. And if that was true, maybe it was true of life and death, too. Maybe time and space, life and death, were just the lenses through which sentient minds perceived existence.

  Leia continued to moan. Han used his leg to turn himself farther … and then his eyes were open and he was looking at Leia, a luminous being curled into a fetal position, rocking back and forth and moaning in agony. A few meters beyond her lay Marvid, a smoking heap of powerbody and flesh, motionless and cloaked in shadow. And Han could see Luke, too, still slumped at the base of the tree where he had fallen, but holding his head up and glowing with a deep golden light.

  Han’s gaze went back to Leia. He wanted to end her anguish even more than his own—would suffer his anguish for eternity, as long as hers finally ended.

  We can help her.

  The shadows came whispering in again, this time so close that they had completely eaten the ring of light that surrounded him, so close that they seemed to be drawing the radiance out of his own body.