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But the energy weapons had only managed to clip one of his engines and damage part of his power array.

Qorl's TIE fighter spun out of control, away from the battle fleet. Even in his crash restraints, he was thrown from side to side inside his tiny cockpit. Qorl held on, expecting his ship to explode at any moment... all the while careening farther and farther away from the continuing space battle.

Still spinning, he saw that gravity had caught him. He was crashing again, plummeting toward the jungle moon ofyavin....

BRAKISS RACED HIS high-speed, one person shuttle away from Yavin 4 and streaked back toward his precious Shadow Academy. He punched the coded controls that would automatically open the launch-bay doors and provide him clear passage back into the safety of the Imperial training station.

The space battle did not concern him. It was just one other event that had gone wrong today.

His heart still pounded from his lightsaber battle with Skywalker down at the temple ruins. His thoughts spun, filled with the resonating words of his former Master.

Anger and despair swirled like an uncontrollable storm through his mind, through his emotions.

Every method he knew failed to bring his thoughts back to the cold, quiet levels he required to draw on his fullest powers.

Brakiss even attempted to use some of the hated calming techniques Skywalker had shown him back in his incognito student days-but nothing worked.

Everything was crumbling. His grandiose plans, his carefully trained Dark Jedi, the troops of the Second Imperium-it all faltered here on the verge of what should have been his greatest triumph, the hammer blow that would shake the galaxy. The destruction of the Jedi academy should have been a simple victory.

The Emperor would destroy Brakiss for this failure, but for now he could think only that the Emperor himself remained their last hope. Their only hope. Brakiss would accept his punishment later; for now he needed to do everything in his power to bring about a victory.

He brought his shuttle to dock in the nearly empty bay of the Shadow Academy, where not long ago rows of TIE fighters and TIE bombers had prepared for battle.

Tamith Kai had launched her armored battle platform, riding down from orbit with her stormtroopers and Zekles squad of dark warriors. They had been proud, confident, sure of crushing the hght-side Jedi....

Brakiss climbed stiffly out of his shuttle, ^ straightening his silvery robes, trying unsuccessfully to regain his dignity. Not wanting to be without a Jedi blade, he armed himself from a weapons alcove in the wall with another of the mass-produced lightsahers.

But how could he defend himself? He had seen Tamith Kai's battle platform plunge into the river, a flaming hulk of molten slag.

Zekles Dark Jedi had been routed, the TIE fighter squadrons mostly destroyed-and now Brakiss watched the Second Imperium's powerful new fleet being trounced by Rebel battleships that had appeared out of nowhere and had somehow deactivated the Imperial shields!

Brakiss strode out of the docking bay into the near-deserted Shadow Academy. All capable troops had been sent to the surface.

Only a few command teams remained here to keep the Imperial station secure.

The sterile corridors should have been hosting a victory celebration, but instead the place seemed like a tomb, an abandoned derelict. The Emperor must find some way to save them, Brakiss told himself, to turn the tide of battle so that the Second Imperium could rule the galaxy after all.

Palpatine had cheated death not once, but twice. After he had perished the first time aboard the second Death Star during the battle of Endor, he had managed to resurrect himself, using hidden clones to prolong his life. And though all those clones had presumably been destroyed, thirteen years later the Emperor was once again back from the dead-without an explanation this time.

Any man who accomplished such feats could surely manage to