Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights II Streets of Shadows - Michael Reaves [96]
Typho tensed. He knew he had but one shot at this. He had no illusions about his contemplated action. It had nothing to do with honor, with a fair fight. It was murder, pure and simple. He would have to strike from behind, swiftly and lethally, and from a distance with a blaster. It was murder, and murder for the most ignoble of motives—revenge.
He shrugged away the thought. He had come to terms months before with what he was doing and why. His soul might be irredeemably stained by his action tonight, but Padmé’s would find peace. That was all that mattered.
“I came as you specified.” Spreading his arms wide, Vader lifted his cloak. Darkness seemed to envelop the entire floor of the hangar. “Alone and unarmed.”
It was time to trust in the small clump of mummified skin cells resting in his pocket. Time to avenge the woman he’d loved.
Time to strike.
Typho stepped quickly from his place of concealment on the floor above Vader. He’d chosen the spot with care. Directly before him was a hole six meters wide, and framed squarely within it was the Dark Lord’s back.
Captain Typho raised his blaster and fired.
At first he thought the ionized gas cartridge in his blaster had backfired. It was as if a giant, invisible hand had snatched him up and hurled him with bone-breaking force against the far wall. Stunned, in shock, he watched Vader’s form levitate through the hole in the floor. The black boots touched down next to Typho’s broken body.
“How pathetic,” the Dark Lord commented. He stood towering over his adversary. “Did you really think you had the faintest hope of assassinating me? It’s been tried by far better than you.”
Typho coughed, feeling his insides grinding together like broken glass. Blood stained his shirt. “You lied,” he said, feeling the words lodge like stones in his throat.
“Did I? I told you I would come unarmed, and here I am,” Vader told him. “You mistake the dark side for a weapon—something extraneous. It isn’t—it is intrinsic. I could no more shed it than I could go about without my support suit.”
He stepped closer. “I will give you one more chance,” he rumbled, “to cease whatever game you’re playing and provide me with Pavan’s location.”
“Or what?” Typho spat a mouthful of bright red blood. “You’ve already killed me.”
“True. You will not last long in any event. But don’t underestimate the power of the dark side. It can ease your passage. There is still a little time—unless you squander it.” Vader stepped closer, bent to peer into Typho’s face. “Why have you made this foolish attempt on my life?” The deep synthesized voice echoed through the empty hangar level. “Not that a specific reason is required or expected. But I should like to know. Those who speak their last should speak something of value.”
He leaned closer at Typho’s beckoning, to hear his final words. Typho was fading fast. He concentrated every fiber of his being on remaining conscious for one final act.
“This … is for Padmé,” he rasped. And with a supreme effort, he spat a mouthful of blood directly into the surprised Dark Lord’s mask.
Vader’s reaction was not what he’d expected. After a frozen instant, ignoring the bloody spittle running down one plasteel cheek, he knelt and grabbed Typho by the hair, lifting the latter’s head and eliciting a cry of renewed pain from him.
“What?” The flare in the Force that raced through the hangar was enough to shake the foundations of the building. The Dark Lord actually seemed to grow, to expand and become more terrible in his rage than Typho would have believed possible.
“Padmé,” Typho mumbled. “Padmé Amidala. The woman I loved from afar, for years.” He coughed again, felt more red shearing in his chest. “She … never knew. She was too busy, too deeply engaged in the … service of her people to notice me.” Another bright scarlet flower bloomed from his mouth. “And I attended to my duty—I, Typho, captain of Naboo. But I … loved her. And