Star Wars - 148 - The Force Unleashed II by Sean Williams

Author:Sean Williams [Williams, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Space Warfare, Star Wars Fiction, Space Opera, General, Darth Vader (Fictitious Character), Science Fiction, Imaginary Wars and Battles, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780345511546
Google: z2c2QwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0345511549
Publisher: LucasBooks
Published: 2010-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

* * *

They were met at Nordra by outliers of the fleer and given the coordinates they needed. Kota quizzed them about recent traffic. There had been some, but nothing suspicious. Juno herself had come through less than a day earlier.

Starkiller felt all his hopes and fears magnify at that simple confirmation of fact. She was close, so very close. Soon he would be with her. What happened after that, only time and fate would tell.

The squad's freighter wasn't far behind the Rogue Shadow. For all its lopsided engines, it could clearly hold its own. The convoy of two headed off toward the nebula, scanners peeled for anything out of the ordinary. Slowly, slowly, the kaleidoscopic view shifted ahead of them.

"This is taking too long, " Starkiller said through grinding teeth. "I'm using the hyperdrive. "

"The mass shadow of the nebula..."

"I don't care. " His hands flew across the controls. "The others can come the long way if you want. "

"They'd better. None of them is as good a pilot as you. "

Starkiller acknowledged the compliment with a brisk nod. When the navicomp was ready, he sat for a moment with his hands on the controls.

71

"I've been thinking, " he said slowly, "about the Alliance. "

"About your place in it?"

He shook his head. "About what it should do next. If I give you the nav coordinates and schematics for a secret cloning facility on Kamino-everything needed to launch a successful assault- will that go some way toward helping them believe in me again?"

Kota chewed this over. "The facility where Vader claims you were made?"

"If his claims are true, then Kamino is much more of a threat than any ordinary stormtrooper factory. "

"Maybe. But the Alliance couldn't pull off an attack like this without your help. "

"They'll have to, " he said. He activated the drives. Realspace smeared and stretched, vanished into the paradoxical light of hyperspace. "They wouldn't trust me to lead anything yet, anyway. "

"I would. "

"The Alliance is more than just you and your militia, Kota. "

Instead of being offended, the general grinned. "If what you saw comes to pass, you'll be glad you picked us up. "

Starkiller acknowledged that, but his mind was unchanged. Judging by everything he'd learned from Kota, the Alliance didn't need someone to lead them into battle. It needed to find strong leadership among the leaders it already had.

The ship shook, disturbed by the widely distributed mass of the nebula. He gripped the console, urging it to fly straight by the force of his will. This had to work. He had to arrive on time. There was simply no other option.

The Rogue Shadow exploded our of hyperspace, rumbling wildly. He corrected its trim automatically, firing retros even as he searched the scopes for the fleet. The sky was a mess of glowing gas and light. The scanners picked up two minor asteroid fields, a distant protostar with a single gas giant, and, finally, a small scattering of starships.

He brought the ship about, ion engines blazing.

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