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Star WarsGalaxy of Fear11Clonesby John WhitmanPROLOGUEDarth Vader approached the ancient Jedi ruins.Once, a Jedi fortress had stood here. But it had been abandoned long ago, centuries before the rise of the Empire. For a moment, Vader paused, remembering a time long ago, before he served the Emperor. A time when he had been a Jedi Knight...Behind him, his squad of stormtroopers hesitated, wondering why he had stopped.Vader shrugged off the memories of his old life. He was a Dark Lord of the Sith now. He served the Emperor.Vader had come to this planet in search of clues that might lead him to Luke Skywalker. The Rebels once had a secret base here, but like the Jedi ruins, it had been abandoned. The Dark Lord searched the abandoned Rebel base first. As expected, he found nothing of interest. Then Vader turned his attention to the nearby Jedi fortress.He sensed something here. Something important.He hoped it would lead him to Skywalker. Skywalker had managed to disappear after the destruction of the Death Star. In the moments before the battle station exploded, Vader had felt a disturbance in the Force, a disturbance that came from Skywalker. The Force was strong in him. Vader was determined to hunt him down.The Dark Lord knew the Force would lead Skywalker toward his destiny. The young Rebel would want to learn more about the Jedi. Without a teacher, he would search for remnants of Jedi history. He might visit ancient ruins.Just like these.Vader entered the fortress with the squad of stormtroopers close behind. Around them, broken stones and crumbling walls cast deep shadows. Vader noticed something strange about the ruins. The old fortress seemed quite small from the outside, but inside the wall, the area was much larger.Or at least it seemed that way. It might have been a clever design of the builders, or maybe a Jedi trick. Vader didn't care. With the dark side of the Force as his guide, he would not lose his way.Near the center of the ruins stood the only remaining building. The structure was round, like a tower, except that it wasn't very tall. Curiously, the tower seemed to have no door.Vader strode around the ancient building until he'd made a complete circle. There was no way inside.Vader considered. Maybe this place had been designed so that only Jedi could enter.The Dark Lord reached out with the Force. Ripples of dark-side energy rolled toward the building and, though he couldn't see it with his eyes, Vader felt the door with the Force. It was right in front of him. Still using the Force, Vader tried to push the door open, but it would not move. Behind his black mask, the Dark Lord frowned. He didn't know whether the door was locked or just frozen shut with age. He didn't care. Gathering the dark side around him, Vader shoved with his mind, and the hidden door exploded inward.The stormtroopers behind him jumped back, startled by his display of power, but Vader didn't hesitate. He strode forward into the circular room. Here, Vader sensed, lay the source of the disturbance.The Dark Lord stepped into the room, scanning it. There was something here...The faint click of metallic weapons reached his ears.Faster than thought, Vader drew and ignited his light-saber. In the same moment, small openings appeared in the walls and ceiling, and hidden blasters fired. Energy beams rained down on the Dark Lord and hissoldiers. Stormtroopers cried out as blaster bolts shattered their white armor. At least a dozen bolts streaked toward Vader himself. Moving faster than the eye could follow, Vader's lightsaber blocked them all.Except for one.The last blaster shot slipped past his saber and glanced off the Dark Lord's armored shoulder. Circuits snapped and sizzled. Looking down, Vader saw that the energy beam had sliced a thin hole in his armor and reached his skin. A tiny stream of blood trickled down his armor and dripped onto the stone floor. The Dark Lord let out a low growl and covered the wound with his gloved hand. The wound itself was only a scratch, but he relied on his armor's power to keep him alive. Now that it had been punctured, he would have to have it repaired.More blasters fired."Retreat," Vader ordered, backing out of the building. Only then did he realize that all his men were dead.Angrily, Vader waved one hand across the room. One by one, the hidden weapons exploded and sputtered as if struck by invisible lightning. The blaster fire stopped.The Dark Lord walked over to the wall and studied one of the small openings. Inside, the remains of a ruined blaster smoldered. By the looks of the device, the blaster weapons were as old as the building itself.Interesting, Vader thought. The blasters were an ancient booby trap-a trap that would have snared anyone less powerful.Something important must be buried in these ruins. Something very old and very valuable..He had just decided to investigate further when his comlink beeped urgently."What?" he demanded into the microphone.An Imperial officer aboard an orbiting Star Destroyer said, "One of our scouts just located a small Rebel outpost.""I'll return to the ship immediately," Vader replied. "Prepare for hyperspace."Vader took one last look at the Jedi ruins. The ruins, would have to wait. Rebels and the mystery they held, came first.Swirling away like a dark shadow, Darth Vader promised that he would return.CHAPTER 1Tash Arranda was lying on her back in the grass. Her eyes were closed and she was half asleep. She could feel the warm sun on her face and hear a soft breeze whisper around her. It was a perfect summer day on the planet Dantooine.Tash felt something tickle her arm, maybe a blade of grass blowing in the wind. Then she felt something sharp clamp down on her skin."Ouch!" she yelled, sitting up with a start.A snail hung from the soft inside part of her arm by its sharp teeth. She tried to shake it off, but it only bit harder. "Zak, help!"Tash's younger brother was already on his feet. Unlike Tash, who was only dozing, Zak had been deep in a nap, and he was bleary-eyed and confused."What is it?" he shouted. "Stormtroopers? Pirates?""Snails!" Tash shouted back.Now awake enough to see what was happening, Zak laughed. Tash usually looked so calm and organized, with her neat clothes and her blond hair pulled back into a tidy braid. But now there was grass stuck to her hair, and her arms were flapping around as she yelped. She looked like a clown in a holovideo. Zak laughed again."Don't laugh, help me!" she snapped.Zak swallowed another laugh and grabbed his sister's arm. "Here, you can't shake these snails off. You have to pry them loose."The snail was almost the size of his fist. Zak grabbed it by its squishy head and carefully pulled it off so that its teeth slid straight out of Tash's skin."Yuck," she said, checking the wound. It wasn't very deep. The snail's teeth were sharp but not very long.Zak tossed the snail into the grass. "There are more of them around here. Maybe we should move.""Where to?" Tash asked. "It's all the same."Tash was right. A huge prairie stretched out before them. Here and there, the grassy plain was spotted by groves of thorny bilba trees, and in the distance was a line of small hills. Over their heads floated a flock of fabools. Tash thought of them as birds, but they weren't birds, exactly. With their swollen round bodies and tiny wings, the fabools were more like living balloons that floated on the air currents, trying to avoid the bilba trees.Zak and Tash, along with their uncle Hoole, had been hiding out from agents of the Empire on the planet Dantooine. Months ago, they had stumbled upon an evil Imperial plot and, with the help of some Rebels named Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo, they had foiled it. Now the Emperor's agents wanted revenge.They'd spent weeks looking for a place to hide, only to find themselves in more and more trouble. But finally they'd reached Dantooine, a planet so far from the rest of the Empire that no one visited the place. Ever. It was a beautiful world, covered by blue oceans and plains of green grass. But there wasn't much else. There weren't any cities, although Hoole had mentioned that there was an abandoned Rebel base somewhere around. The only inhabitants were tribes of primitive nomadic humanoids called Dantari.Tash looked to her left, at a cluster of Dantari tents. When they'd arrived on Dantooine, Zak, Tash, and Hoole had made friends with one tribe of Dantari. The Dantari knew nothing about technology. Unaware that starships armed with blasters, ion cannons, and photon torpedoes traveled among the stars over their heads, the Dantari wandered across their prairies, using spears and stone axes to hunt the animals on the plains.For the first two weeks, Zak and Tash had loved it.Hoole had landed their starship, the Shroud, in an isolated spot in the hills to avoid scaring the natives. Hoole had equipped the Shroud with something called a slave circuit-a remote control device that would bring the ship to them wherever they might be.After a few days of watching the Dantari to make sure they weren't dangerous, the star travelers had cautiously approached the nearest tribe. Since all the natives had dark hair and wide, flat faces, they were fascinated by Tash's blond braid. Zak's hair was almost as dark as the Dantari's, but his smaller mouth and nose revealed him to be human.The Dantari saved their greatest fascination for Hoole.Tash and Zak's uncle was a different species altogether. From a distance, he might pass for human. But his skin was gray and his face and hands were elongated. He was obviously ... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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