Eaten Alive Read online

  Star Wars

  Galaxy of Fear

  01

  Eaten Alive

  by John Whitman

  source : IRC

  uploaded: 13.II.2006

  PROLOGUE

  The security door slid open with a hiss. A dark figure stepped into the

  laboratory, where a single scientist stood over an examination table. On the

  table, something was still alive.

  As the dark figure approached, the scientist did not turn around. Only

  two other beings in the entire galaxy had access to his hidden fortress, and

  he knew who had come to see him.

  "Welcome, Lord Vader," the scientist said.

  The figure covered in black armor took a step closer. His face was hidden

  behind a black, skull-like breath mask. He was Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the

  Sith, the cruel right hand of the Emperor of the galaxy. "Have you completed

  your research?"

  The scientist turned. In his hands he held a sharp, hooked instrument.

  Behind him, the creature on the table shuddered, then grew still.

  "Very nearly. The first five stages of my experiment are under way. Soon

  I will be able to complete the sixth and final stage. Then I shall provide the

  Emperor with the greatest power in the galaxy."

  "That claim has been made before," Vader said. "The Death Star was

  supposed to be the ultimate mechanical terror. It destroyed the planet

  Alderaan, but then the Rebels destroyed the Death Star."

  "Pah!" the scientist replied. "That battle station was a toy. My designs

  are not machines... I control the power of life itself. I will create the

  ultimate weapon for the Emperor."

  "The ultimate weapon," Vader cautioned, "is the Force."

  "Of course, of course."

  Vader stared at the scientist for a moment, his breath rasping through

  his mask like a threatening hiss. "You are running out of time. Already your

  work may have been discovered."

  The scientist scowled. "You mean by him? Don't worry about him. I will

  deal with him when the time comes."

  Vader raised one hand in caution. "If this secret should leak as did the

  secrets of the Death Star, the Emperor and I will be most displeased."

  Then the Dark Lord turned away.

  The scientist stared after the armored figure, his eyes burning a hole

  into Vader's back. Soon, he thought, very soon, he would have the power to

  destroy even Darth Vader. Then he would take his place at the Emperor's side.

  He turned back to his experiments. He lowered his hooked blade. On the

  table, the creature screamed....

  CHAPTER 1

  The attack came without warning.

  In a small quadrant of space, an X-wing starfighter altered its flight

  path slightly to avoid the massive red moon looming ahead. As it did, a twin-

  ion engine ship, or TIE fighter, appeared in the moon's shadow, its two solar

  panels glinting with reflected light. Streaking through the void, the TIE

  opened fire, its dual turbo-lasers spitting out streaks of flame.

  One of those laser shots creased the X-wing's hull. The X-wing's shields

  deflected most of the blast, and the shaken fighter banked away and

  accelerated to attack speed.

  Relentlessly the TIE fighter followed. Not only was the TIE fast and

  maneuverable, but the pilot had an added advantage. She knew her opponent. She

  eyed him coldly as he twisted and turned in an effort to shake off his

  pursuer. But she stuck with him, sparing only quick glances at her tactical

  display, waiting for her target to fall into her sights.

  She grinned. "You are mine."

  The fleeing X-wing made a sharp course adjustment and headed straight for

  the small red moon. That pilot knew who was behind him. It was the same enemy

  he had faced a hundred times. She was good. If he was going to survive, he

  would have to be better.

  "Try this," he challenged.

  The X-wing pilot aimed the nose of his ship at the moon. Instantly the

  moon's gravity grabbed hold of him, and his speed increased. At the last

  possible moment, the pilot veered away. Keeping just within gravity's reach,

  the X-wing pilot gunned his engines and scraped along the moon's atmosphere.

  The belly of his ship left a trail of flames in the air as the tiny ship

  looped around the moon.

  The effect was like a slingshot. Pulled forward by gravity, the X-wing

  hurtled around the moon's perimeter, far ahead of the pursuing TIE fighter. He

  came around the far side with his own lasers firing.

  But the TIE pilot was ready for him. "Oldest trick in the manual!" she

  gloated. She had changed her course to intercept her quarry before he

  completed his backdoor maneuver, blasting the X-wing with laser fire. The X-

  wing jerked hard left in a desperate roll. Laser bolts exploded around his

  ship, but amazingly, not a single shot hit him. Laughing, the X-wing pilot

  scooted past the TIE fighter, then curled around to continue the dogfight.

  "You are so lucky," the TIE pilot snapped.

  Suddenly a metallic hand as large as the red moon descended from the

  heavens to block the X-wing's path. But the starfighter passed right through

  it.

  The owner of the hand looked down at the holotable where the starfighter

  combat had taken place. He was D-V9-or Deevee for short-a silver droid

  designed to imitate the appearance and behavior of humans. Since his head and

  face were made of durasteel, the droid couldn't frown, but it gave the

  definite impression of doing just that. "Tash. Zak. Stop this ridiculous game.

  "

  The two pilots dropped their control disks, and the holographic

  starfighters, tiny in comparison to the droid looming over them, immediately

  froze in place. They hung in midair over the holotable, along with the

  computer-generated moon and planet that served as a playing field.

  The holotable was in a corner of a small lounge, which was in the forward

  compartment of a star cruiser called the Lightrunner, which was at that moment

  hurtling through hyperspace.

  The X-wing pilot stood up from the holotable. His name was Zak Arranda.

  He brushed back a lock of his messy brown hair and grinned at his opponent.

  The TIE fighter's pilot was his sister, Tash. At thirteen, she was a year

  older than her brother, and an inch taller. Her thick blond hair was arranged

  in a neat braid, and her lightly freckled face was turned down in a serious

  frown.

  "You are sooo lucky," she repeated.

  "That was prime!" Zak laughed. "And anyway it's not luck, it's skill."

  Tash wasn't convinced. "No one could have gotten away from that barrage.

  Besides, everyone knows all hologames are rigged so the Imperial ships have an

  advantage. The Empire would never let anyone else come out on top. But you

  always win." She shook her head. "I just don't get it."

  "What you will get," said the impatient droid beside her, "is dull-witted

  from playing hologames. They're an utter waste of time. Besides, it's time for

  your zoology lesson." The droid put h
is hands on his swivel-socketed hips and

  waited.

  "Lessons?" Zak groaned. "We're in the middle of hyperspace!"

  Deevee delivered the electronic version of a sniff. "There is no respite

  from learning."

  Or from bionic baby-sitters, Zak thought; aloud, he argued, "But

  hologames are educational. They improve hand-eye coordination and encourage

  quick thinking, and-"

  "And we're ready for lessons, Deevee," Tash interrupted.

  Not that she was very interested in zoology. She would much rather be

  reading one of her data files on Jedi lore or downloading information from the

  HoloNet. But sometimes it was good to set an example for a younger brother.

  Besides, she hated-really hated-being the Imperial TIE fighter-ever since

  the Empire had blown her and Zak's homeworld of Alderaan to bits. Zak and Tash

  had been away for two weeks and had returned home to find that, well, their

  home was gone. Their parents, friends, and neighbors were all killed in the

  explosion.

  Deevee punched a few commands into the holo-table's control panel.

  "Zoology lessons," the droid muttered to no one in particular. If he could

  have, he would have rolled his eyes. "I have the brain capacity of a

  supercomputer and I'm giving zoology lessons."

  Zak and Tash hardly noticed. Deevee had been complaining about his new

  job since the day they had come to live with Uncle Hoole.

  D-V9 was a class-one scientific research unit with an OmniTask computer

  brain fast enough to calculate and record ten million bits of information

  about alien cultures per second. He had been carefully designed to help his

  master, Hoole the anthropologist, with important research into cultures across

  the galaxy. He was the envy of every droid he knew-until six months ago, when

  he was stuck with the job of caretaker to two young orphans.

  Deevee didn't like his new assignment, and he reminded Zak and Tash of it

  every chance he got.

  At the droid's command, the star-battle program melted away and was

  replaced by a stream of holograms detailing various animals throughout the

  galaxy. The program settled on one odd image: an enormous, fanged beast,

  sitting without moving while three or four tiny birds fluttered in and out of

  its mouth. A recorded voice said: "One of the more unusual relationships in

  galactic nature is this one. The bloodthirsty rancor will kill everything it

  sees... except the gibbit bird, which roams freely inside the rancor's mouth.

  The rancor allows this because the gibbit birds pick the flesh from the

  rancor's jaws, and this helps keep the rancor's teeth clean..."

  Unfortunately, as the zoology lesson continued, Tash found herself

  drifting off. She was a good student, but science was not her favorite

  subject. Tash slipped a datapad out of her pocket and held it in her lap,

  where neither Zak nor Deevee could see it. She keyed in a command, and the

  screen lit up with lines of text.

  It was a story about the Jedi Knights.

  It was also illegal. Legends of the Jedi Knights had been banned by the

  Empire since before Tash was born. But one day Tash had come across a story

  uploaded onto the galaxywide communications service known as the HoloNet.

  Sitting at her desk in her room on Alderaan, Tash could sign on to the HoloNet

  and scan libraries on distant planets or talk to people on worlds light-years

  away. One day she discovered a coded message filed under a word Tash had never

  seen before: Jedi. It had taken her hours to break the code, but finally the

  file had unscrambled before her eyes.

  The story Tash discovered was written by someone code-named ForceFlow,

  and it told the history of the Jedi Knights, a group of people who used

  something called the Force to protect the galaxy from evil.

  According to the story, the Jedi Knights had been the guardians of the

  Old Republic for a thousand generations. The only weapon a Jedi carried, Tash

  had learned, was a lightsaber, a handheld weapon made of pure energy. But the

  Jedi used violence only as a last resort. Instead they relied upon a

  mysterious power known as the Force.

  Curious, Tash had sent a message to ForceFlow, hoping to learn more. But

  ForceFlow didn't respond, and his original story was erased from the Net.

  After that, Tash kept her eye out for any information on the Jedi. She

  visited libraries, scanned the Net, and talked to anyone who had a story about

  the Jedi or knew of the Force. She hoped to meet a Jedi someday. She hoped to

  be one someday. But soon after the first story was wiped from the Net, all

  information about the Jedi vanished from the public records. It was replaced

  by a single report, stamped with the Imperial seal, stating that the Jedi had

  died out when the Old Republic gave way to the Empire. According to the

  official reports, the Jedi were...

  "Extinct," Deevee droned. "Imagine that."

  Tash looked up from her datapad. D-V9 was standing beside the image of a

  flock of blue-winged birds. The image was fading, and Deevee was obviously

  wrapping up his commentary. She had missed the entire lesson.

  "Well, that's enough for today," the droid said. "There will be an exam

  on this lesson next week."

  Excused by their tutor, Zak and Tash escaped from the lounge. Tash looked

  at her brother and could see that she wasn't the only one who'd been

  daydreaming.

  "What's on your mind?" she said.

  "Home. Alderaan. Skimboarding in the park." Zak paused. "Mom and Dad. I

  miss them."

  "Me too," Tash said softly. Just thinking about her parents made her want

  to cry. But she was the older sister and couldn't cry in front of Zak. "Uncle

  Hoole's our family now."

  Zak sulked. "Not really. He's-"

  "Not even human," Tash finished.

  "Yeah, and he's-"

  "Only related to us because his brother married Aunt Beryl."

  "Right," said Zak. "I don't even-"

  "Know why he bothered to take us in?"

  "Stop that!" Zak glared at his sister. She had an annoying habit of

  finishing other people's sentences.

  "Sorry," his sister replied. She hadn't noticed she was doing it again.

  "But we've talked about Uncle Hoole before. He's not human-he's a Shi'ido.

  They believe all their relatives are part of their close family. So Hoole felt

  that he had to take us in when..." She could hardly say it. "When Mom and Dad

  died. We should be happy we get to live with someone who cares about us."

  "He never shows it. He always looks like he's going to a funeral."

  "You're just too hard on him." Tash argued harder than she believed. "He

  can be very friendly."

  "Oh, yeah?" Zak huffed. "Then what's his first name?"

  "Well, that's easy, his name is... I mean, I'm sure I've heard him...

  That is..." She stopped. Now that she thought about it, Uncle Hoole never had

  told them his first name. "Maybe he doesn't have a first name," she decided.

  "Maybe he's just Hoole."

  "Maybe," Zak said with a sudden gleam in his eyes, "he just doesn't want

  us to know. Maybe it's something secret. Maybe there's a price on his head!"

  "Zak Arranda, your imagination is galactic."

  "Mayb
e he's part of the Rebellion and that's why he moves around so much.

  "

  Tash was growing impatient. "Bring it in for a landing, Zak. He's an

  anthropologist. He goes to different planets to study the species that live

  there."

  "Sure, that's what he tells us. But if that's all there is, why does he

  keep his name a secret? I'm going to find out."

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "Easy. I'll check his cabin." Zak turned to go. "You can't do that! It's

  rude. Besides, what if he finds you?"

  "He won't find me," Zak said. "He's in the ship's library, doing

  research. He's always in the ship's library, doing research." Zak turned to

  go. "Want to help?"

  "No," Tash said firmly. "It's not something a Jedi Knight would do."

  "You're not a Jedi Knight."

  "I'm still not going."

  "Come on. It's not as though I'm going to dig through his personal files.

  I'm just going to glance at his desk to see if his name is on anything."

  His sister shook her head. "I'm going back to the cockpit to practice my

  piloting."

  "Suit yourself." Zak turned and hurried down the hall.