Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 03_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [53]
Exar Kun had also been betrayed by his supposed partner, the warlord Ulic Qel-Droma. Now Han had betrayed Kyp. Master Skywalker had also betrayed him by failing to teach the appropriate lessons … appropriate defenses against Exar Kun. In his head the voice of the Sith Lord shouted for him to kill Han Solo, to destroy the enemy. To let his anger flow through and be strong.
It overwhelmed Kyp. He squeezed his dark eyes shut, unable to watch as his hands gripped the control levers for launching the torpedo. He primed the system. The screens blinked with warning signals, which he disregarded.
He needed to destroy something. He needed to kill those who had betrayed him. His fists gripped the firing handles. His thumbs rested on the launch buttons, squeezing, ready—
Squeezing—
And then the haunting voice of Exar Kun rose to a wail in his mind, an utterly forlorn scream as if he were being torn out of this universe and exiled to another place entirely, where he could torment Kyp Durron no more.
Kyp snapped backward in his control seat as if an invisible tow cable had been severed. His arms and head dangled like a puppet with suddenly snipped strings. The cool wind of freedom whistled through his mind and body. He blinked his eyes and shuddered with revulsion at what he had been about to do.
The Millennium Falcon still gripped the Sun Crusher in its tractor beam. As Kyp saw the battered old ship, Han Solo’s prize possession, he felt a tidal wave of despair.
Kyp reached out to the energy torpedo controls and vehemently canceled the firing sequence. The plasma generator flickered and faded as the energy died away.
Without the presence of Exar Kun inside him, Kyp felt isolated, suddenly in free fall—but independent.
He opened the communication channel but couldn’t form words for a few moments. His throat was dry. It felt as if he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in four thousand years.
“Han,” he croaked, and said louder, “Han, this is Kyp! I …” He paused, not knowing what next to say—what else he could say.
He hung his head and finally finished, “I surrender.”
17
The Twi’lek Tol Sivron still felt jangled from his horrendous passage through the Maw, escaping from the Rebel invasion force and riding the gravity between black holes.
His long head-tails tingled with a rush of impressions, delighted to see that the information he had long ago stolen from Daala’s secret files—the list of tortuous safe routes through the black hole cluster—had been accurate. If the course map had been the least bit imprecise, he and his retreating crew would not be alive now.
The Death Star prototype lurched under full power as it emerged safely from the cluster, but just as it sped away from the sinuous, brilliant gases, the propulsion systems fizzled and went off-line.
Sparks showered from panels as the stormtrooper captain shut down the engine power and rerouted systems. Yemm attempted to use a manual fire-extinguishing apparatus to squelch flames licking out of a nearby console, but he succeeded only in short-circuiting the intercom systems.
Golanda and Doxin flipped furiously through repair manuals and design specifications.
“Director,” the stormtrooper captain said, “we have successfully broken free from the Maw, though the strain has caused a good deal of damage.”
Doxin looked up, scowling. “I remind you that this was a nonhardened prototype, never meant to be actually deployed.”
“Yes, sir,” the stormtrooper said in an inflectionless voice. “As I was about to say, I believe the damage can be repaired in only a few days. It is a simple matter of bypassing circuits and reinitializing computer systems. I believe after this shakedown the prototype will be in much better shape for combat.”
Tol Sivron