Part 24 (2/2)
”Interesting,” he said. ”I read your intention even as you were forming it. Not as a current in your positronic matrix, but as an emotion. You were protecting what you hold dear. You truly are a remarkable machine.”
”Forgive me for not being gracious enough to thank you for the compliment,” said I-Five.
”Understand me, tin man. If you do not release the bota to me, I will force you to watch as I destroy Jax Pavan and Laranth Tarak. There will be nothing left for you to protect.”
There was a strange psychic reverberation that seemed to come from everywhere at once. In the wake of it, Jax felt Laranth's mental touch and glanced at her. Vader had released her from the grip in which he'd held her and she was staring at Jax fixedly. When his gaze met hers she made a subtle gesture, her eyes dipping toward the tip of her right lekku, which, lying over her shoulder, nudged the belt at the waist of her tunic.
He understood the message immediately-she had the bota. Laranth was I-Five's secret accomplice. Which made perfect sense. She was accessible to the team but no longer part of it, and she was, of all Jax s a.s.sociates, the most completely trustworthy.
Jax's mind scrambled for an epiphany. Holding Laranth's gaze, he gave her the tiniest nod and a little nudge with the Force.
Her eyes widened in disbelief.
Jax opened his mouth to speak when a force like a giant invisible fist struck him and hurled him back against the wall. He was pinned there, spitted, while every nerve ending in his body exploded and burst into flame. A scream was wrenched from his throat before he could stop it.
”Stop it!” laranth snarled at Vader. ”I have the bota!”
Vader let Jax go, and he collapsed to the floor in a heap. He lay against the wall, watching as Vader relieved Laranth of her shackles and dropped the s.h.i.+eld. The Twi'lek reached down to a pocket on her belt andremoved the skinpopper containing the single dose of bota extract. She held it our to Vader.
He took it and reactivated her cell in one fluid movement. Caught once more in the field, Laranth was slammed to the floor.
Again, Jax felt that peculiar quiver of dread in the Force, but had no time to question it. Vader had moved to stand over him.
”And now, if you would return the pyronium ...”
There was no sense in prevaricating. If he pretended not to have it, Vader would simply turn him inside out and take it. He reached into the Inquisitor's cloak, fielded it from the inner pocket of his vest, and handed it over.
”And lastly, the Sith Holocron.” Again, Vader held our a gloved hand.
Jax shook his head. ”I don't have it.”
”He's telling the truth,” I-Five interjected quickly. ”Jax gave that to another member of our team who is... no longer with us.”
”Oh yes, the Sull.u.s.tan muck raker. Where is he?”
”On his way to his homeworld by now, I should think.”
The gloved hand clenched into a fist, making Jax steel himself for the continued Haying of his nerves. He was surprised when Vader simply shrugged off the inconvenience, as if the Sith Holocron were of little importance.
Of course, Jax's epiphany could be pure wishful thinking. His a.s.sumption that Vader would need the holocron to tell him how to use the power of the pyronium might be a false one. He thought Vader a man of supreme hubris, but who knew-maybe he was merely confident and would simply know how to use the pyronium once he had an unfettered connection to the Force.
Jax glanced at Dejah. Her face was that of a zealot in the throes of meditative rapture. Rhinann, too, seemed utterly focused on Darth Vader as the Dark Lord looked down at the two items in his hands.
”You can have no conception of what you have given me,” he told Jax. His tone was exultant. ”The bota will purify and exponentially increase my connection to the Force, a transformation that will be maintained and strengthened by the energy latent in the pyronium. The Sith Holocron contained instructions written long ago by Darth Ramage, a Sith scientist, which would have been a useful addition to the combination, but not essential. I will simply have to divine what the connection is between these two forces.”
”How did you find out I had them?” Jax asked. He picked himself up off the floor with some care, his nerve endings still feeling the sting of remembered agony.
”I knew you had come into possession of one of the items-and when I traced the tangled history of Lorn Pavan's droid, I knew there was a good chance you had the bota as well. As for the other, it was mere suspicion on my part. Thank you for confirming it.”
He swung back to circle around I-Five next, the skinpopper of bota in one hand, the pyronium in the other. ”And this creature; a sentient droid? I am curious to know how such a feat was accomplished.”
”That knowledge,” said I-Five, ”is lost even to me. I doubt you'd figure it out.”
Vader shrugged off the droid's scorn. ”No matter.
When I have made use of this, I suspect I will possess even that knowledge.”
He stepped carelessly back to the center of the room as if to pose before the great transparent expanse of the window, still considering the objects in his hands. He looked at his Inquisitor and said, ”You are blessed, Probus Tesla. Today you will witness my utter triumph.”
Before Jax could guess what he meant to do, Vader had emptied the contents of the skinpopper into a receptacle on his chest plate.
”Master!” cried Tesla, starting forward.
The Dark Lord held out a hand to stay him. ”Merely an a.n.a.lysis, Tesla. I would not be so foolish as to...”
Vader stopped abruptly. His helmeted head tilted back in surprise. ”What-?”
He was quiet, almost contemplative. ”Interesting...,” he said softly. ”I seem to have somehow...”
Then he stiffened, as in sudden pain. Of a moment, his armored form was covered with crackling blue energy. The Dark Lord began to jerk spasmodically as the energy intensified.
Jax quickly sloughed the Inquisitor's robe and ignited his Sith blade. Neither Vader nor anyone else in the room seemed to notice.
The Dark Lord continued to stand, rooted to the spot, staring at the frenetic patterns of light that chased over and around him. A shock wave of Force hit Jax then, a sense of intensity beyond anything he'd ever experienced. For a fleeting moment he understood what was happening, realized he was experiencing the faintest echo of the unimaginable connection that Vader was feeling-the connection with the Cosmic Force.
Jax raised his lightsaber. This was the time to act.
He had no chance. Locked in some sort of dark fugue, Darth Vader began hurling Force energy in every direction at once, as if he fought an army of swarming enemies. But the blows were random, spasmodic, striking the walls, the ceiling, the floors. It was as if the Force struck through him, using the Dark Lord as a puppet-or, more appropriately, as a weapon.
One of the first volleys struck the control room window, shattering its vast expanse into myriad tiny shards. They ballooned outward and fell like a rain of deadly stars to the ground. A tattered console chair tore from the floor and went flying at I-Five. It caught him on the right shoulder and flung him backward, pinning him against the rear wall of the room and crus.h.i.+ng his cha.s.sis. The durasteel frame of the chair embedded itself in the ferrocrete, effectively pinning I-Five there.
The KM field around Laranth fell and the pulse emitter that had been scrambling her Force sense dropped from her lekku to the floor. Freed, she dived for Kaj, who huddled in a corner by the window, quaking, pale, and seemingly helpless.
Rhinann scurried for cover behind a ruined control console. Dejah still stood in the center of the room, a mere meter and a half from the heart of the storm. Her face was rapt, smiling, her large eyes bright with pleasure.
”Dejah!” Jax shouted at her. ”Dejah, get out of the way!”
She turned back to give him a coy glance over one shoulder, then advanced even closer to the embattled Sith, lifting her arms as if to embrace him. She was embraced by the Force instead-a burst of Vader's unstable power hurled her across the chamber, to impact with bone-breaking force against the wall. Jax didn't need the Force to tell him she was was dead.
He had no time to be stunned. He struggled to parry the random blasts, but Vader's instability was roiling the Force so badly, a few blasts got through. One was enough to crush the third inquisitor.
Jax finally resorted to shouting, ”Laranth! Cloak him!”
She tried. She attempted to envelop Vader in a bubble of seamless Force energy, but she, too, found handling the Force as difficult as Jax had. He felt her frustration as broken threads of quivering energy.
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