SW0224 Force 01 Force Unleashed 01 (v5) by Sean Williams

Author:Sean Williams [Williams, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 31

A RAIN OF ASH BEGAN to fall minutes after the apprentice had signed off from Juno and Kota. He ignored it, concentrating instead on navigating the desolation that was the newly rearranged surface of Raxus Prime. The area around the cannon’s remains was a wasteland, blasted flat by the impact. Only a small mountain of wreckage stood out of the steaming plain, at the exact center of impact. All around that central peak, in a perfect circle, stood crater walls many meters high, upon one of which he had woken, buried under a layer of warped plastic sheets. Fragments of cannon and Star Destroyer ticked and pinged as they cooled. Some had sparked fires, which the smothering ash now extinguished. Everywhere was the smell of exhumed decay and burning foulness.

PROXY’s signal led over the crater wall and deeper into the wastelands. He spared no second pursuing it, passing droids and other scavengers struggling to free themselves from mounds of trash. An eerie silence had fallen in the wake of the explosion, and even now sound seemed nervous of returning to its former levels. Settling rubbish tinkled and groaned. Droids called feebly, in startled bursts of obscure machine languages. The occasional cry from a human or alien throat signaled that some of the planet’s organic scavengers had also survived the shock waves.

Before long he heard the first shots from a blaster rifle and knew that everything was returning to normal on the lawless world.

The bleakness of that understanding perfectly matched the knife wound in his heart from Kota’s blunt words.

PROXY isn’t your friend anymore.

The one loyal companion he’d had in his entire life had turned on Juno and run off into the junkyard. What other explanation could there be beyond the Core’s evil influence? That made perfect sense—and he didn’t want to think that PROXY had noticed changes in him that the droid was now running from. He didn’t want to contemplate PROXY’s hurt at the presence of Juno in his life. He didn’t dare imagine that PROXY could sense the swelling bubble of self-doubt that had formed when he had experienced his strange epiphany on Kashyyyk.

It was, however, impossible to ignore entirely: just minutes after he had invoked the name Galen in an attempt to gain strength, PROXY had vanished. It didn’t matter whether the attempt had worked or not. He had made it, and that spoke of fault lines forming and spreading through the person he had always imagined himself to be.

He was Darth Vader’s secret servant, capable of moving Star Destroyers with nothing but his will—yet what else was he? Was he a freedom fighter, a friend, a lover? Was he still the master PROXY was programmed to serve?

Ash stuck to his wet cheeks and formed muddy streaks that he didn’t wipe away. Urgency consumed him. He had to find PROXY before the Core absorbed him completely, sucking all the details of his Master’s plans and transmitting them to the Emperor. And worse, leaving the once-loyal droid scrabbling in garbage like any other scavenger.

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