Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 01_ Betrayal - Aaron Allston [195]
He stood up and swept the saber as he had swept it so many times before in such a short life. Cuis’s head hit the floor. The sound of the impact was surprisingly loud: heads were heavy parts of the human body. A technician slumped against the wall, hand pressed to his mouth. The salutary lesson would be spread by horrified gossip: Darth Vader would be obeyed, or the consequences would be unimaginable.
Sa Cuis had served everyone’s purpose but his own, whatever that had been. He was timely propaganda, an excellent clone template, and the tool by which Vader had grown. It was fitting that the essence of Cuis would survive in a unique way and serve the Empire.
It was the least Vader owed a professional man, an honorable man who wouldn’t betray his Master.
“But why a hired killer?”
Lekauf had relaxed a little in the seat facing Vader in the shuttle. He was curious, Vader knew, not arguing. He wanted to learn from him. That meant he would watch the man carefully, despite the self-sacrificing loyalty he had shown earlier.
“He’s absolutely loyal to his ideals,” said Vader. “His clones won’t have his memories, but I’m confident they’ll have the same courage and loyalty, and their ideals will simply be the ones I provide for them. Loyalty to the Emperor.” He wondered when he might retire to the privacy of his cabin to take some nutrients. “And his Force powers will be exceptionally valuable in the field.”
Lekauf gave the faintest impression of a man teetering on the brink of asking a dangerous but obvious question. He was an officer who had been around Palpatine’s inner military circle long enough to know—probably—who Cuis was. Vader could almost hear his thoughts.
Was it the Emperor who sent him?
It wasn’t a good idea to ask that or answer it. But if rumor ever spread, he would have to deal with any suggestion that Vader didn’t have the Emperor’s confidence. Ordinary men couldn’t be expected to fully understand the relationship between a Sith Master and his apprentice. They would mistake the attempt on Vader’s life for vengeance or rivalry, not a necessary hard lesson.
They were like regular Jedi in that respect. A Dark Jedi would understand far better. It was a shame about Cuis, but he was a more powerful tool now he was dead than he ever was in his lifetime.
Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.
A Jedi philosophy: a good one, too, if providing only half of the picture, as their sanctimonious way always did. Vader realized he had feared losing Palpatine’s…approval.
He no longer feared that. He’d let himself taste anger again—a reminder of its flavor was enough to refocus him—and then he was reassured that the Sith way was the reality of the Force. Anger was a necessary path. It could even motivate ordinary men to great things. It had its function, a reaction placed in living beings for the purpose of survival.
Vader examined the detail in the handle of his lightsaber, almost not seeing it. Jedi had—yet again—helped him learn more about the Sith path: it would have sickened them. But it was yet another elegant lesson, if he needed one, that the dark and the light side were inseparable, necessary to each other.
He defocused a little, surprised that he could still do such a thing with his artificially assisted eyes. The detail in the lightsaber’s hilt appeared to shift, turning convex surfaces into concave ones, creating a new image.
It was all a matter of how you looked at it. The hilt had not changed at all. And that was it: that was the fundamental weakness of Jedi.
Vader thought of the optical illusion that so amused him as a child. It was the simple silhouette of a white urn that then became the black profiles of two identical people staring at each other, then snapped back to the urn again as his mental focus changed.
Some youngsters could see only the urn; others, only the faces. Vader could always see both, at will.
Ah, he could remember without pain now. He could recall moments from his past. But could no longer feel who he had been, and something within him said that was a mercy to