Star Wars - 210 - Jedi Prince 01 - The Glove of Darth Vader (5 page)

"Chnooozbch kjiiiik?" beeped Artoo.

"Artoo wants to know how the hunting of Whaladons harms the ecology of your planet," Threepio translated.

"The Whaladons eat the little plants, or plankton, that grow at the surface of our oceans," Ackbar explained. "If those little plants spread and become too plentiful, as they breathe they could use up all the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere-the process of photosynthesis. Without carbon dioxide our planet would get much colder. You see, we need Whaladons to keep the amount of plankton in balance, or we Calamarians could wake up one day to find ourselves in an ice age!"

Admiral Ackbar’s attention was suddenly captured by a blip on his sonar unit. "Luke, have a look at this," he said in a serious tone. He pointed to a bright circle of luminous light on the sonar screen. "The only vessel of this size in these waters is Captain Dunwell’s submarine. Let’s see what he’s up to."

Cautiously the Calamarian minisub followed the huge, dark shape lurking dead ahead. Light from luminous coral began reflecting off the Whaladon-hunting submarine, making its dark form more visible. Luke could see that the vessel was like a vast self-propelled underwater fortress.

The Calamarian minisub followed it silently, navigating the same course at a safe distance to the rear. The small size and efficient antisonar system of the Calamarian minisub made it almost impossible for an enemy to detect, except at very close range. In the cramped cabin Luke Skywalker watched through the front porthole. Threepio was tightly strapped into the rear seat, beneath the emergency navigation controls, and Artoo was pushed up against the golden droid’s knees.

Luke could see the white form of Leviathor leading a group of Whaladons away from the path of the dreaded submarine. Then he choked with horror as he saw a swirling mass of foaming dark water, like an undersea tornado, moving straight toward Leviathor. Admiral Ackbar struggled to control his little sub as it vibrated wildly in the churning water. Luke watched as Leviathor tried to escape, but the whirlpool caught hold of Leviathor as the old white Whaladon fought for his life.

The suction pulled Leviathor backward, tail first. Then Leviathor spun around and around at a dizzying speed, while a huge door opened on the side of the Whaladon-hunting submarine. In a few moments Leviathor was sucked through the door and he vanished from sight.

THUUUU-WHOMP!

As the metal door slammed shut, claiming its prize catch, Luke could hear a dull thud pounding through the waves.

"This is a very sad day for Calamari," said Ackbar, shuddering. "Without Leviathor the Whaladons haven’t a chance now."

Luke’s mouth fell open as he saw another Whaladon trapped in the whirlpool. The Whaladon fell into the swirling hole, tumbling and twisting, then was quickly trapped inside another storage chamber.

Then a third Whaladon was trapped.

And a fourth.

Ackbar abruptly pushed the steering lever to the left. Their Calamarian minisub turned sharply away, then picked up speed.

"Surely there must be something we can do," said Threepio, nervously polishing his fingers. "Why, they’ve swallowed up four Whaladons in the last few minutes, including Leviathor."

"It looks hopeless," said Ackbar sadly.

Luke remembered all of the hopeless situations he had been in before. How many times in his life had he almost been ready to give up? But he never had. If there was any hope of saving the Whaladons, they couldn’t turn back now. So they kept following the Whaladon-hunting submarine as it went straight toward the dark Seascape Mountains.

Luke squinted, almost losing sight of the huge vessel as the shadows of the undersea cliffs concealed it. But he could still just barely make it out in the darkening waters. It cruised toward a large passageway between two rugged underwater cliffs.

"There are no Whaladons this way-destination unknown," said Admiral Ackbar, wondering where Captain Dunwell was headed.

It was a dangerous journey through the jagged mountains that stretched across the bottom of the sea. There were hot currents that bubbled up and shook their Calamarian minisub, and there were falling rocks that tumbled through the water and almost crushed them. When they finally emerged from a hollow space that formed a natural tunnel in the mountain, they reached a valley unlike any that Luke had ever seen. It was bathed in the soft green light of a luminous, flowery vine forest. Every few moments there were glints of color sparkling through the water, glows from alien eel creatures that lived and thrived in the depths of the Calamarian ocean. He stared in wonder at the eels and at the huge gleaming pearls, hundreds of them, inside the open mouths of the giant oysters on the valley floor.

Luke didn’t know what surprised him more-the number of oysters or their size. Any one of them was large enough to swallow him with one quick bite.

But the pearls and slithering eel creatures weren’t all that was gleaming. There was a glint from jagged edges that seemed to be scraps of metal.

Artoo’s domed top swiveled around and his little radar screen popped up as high as it could go. He tooted and whistled.

"Tweeeeez bziiiiii!"

"Well, I do believe you’re correct, Artoo," Threepio exclaimed. "It’s like a mine field. There are pieces of metal debris everywhere."

"It looks like something exploded," said Admiral Ackbar. "Luke, can your Artoo unit examine a piece of metal and determine its atomic structure?"

"fizoookch!" squawked Artoo.

"Affirmative, sir," Threepio explained.

"Let’s use the arm-scoop then," said Ackbar.

Skillfully handling the control for the underwater arm-scoop, the admiral extended a long rod that had a metal claw at its end. The claw grabbed a small piece of scrap metal, then the rod was pulled back into their minisub.

In a moment a narrow slot popped open on the floor near Luke’s right boot, revealing the piece of metal that the arm-scoop had just pulled out of the ocean. Luke reached for it. "Here you go, Artoo," he said, holding it in front of his little utility droid. "Take a quick reading on this."

"I’m especially interested to know whether it contains any doonium or phobium," said Ackbar.

"Gooooo-zizzz beee-zeeez!" beeped Artoo.

Threepio translated Artoo’s answer. The metal was six percent doonium, a very heavy element used by the Empire in most of its war machines. The metal was also three percent phobium.

"Phobium was mined by Emperor Palpatine on Gargon," said Ackbar. "And there’s only one thing I know of that he ever used it for: to coat the power core of the Death Star." Luke’s eyes widened in astonishment. "So then these are scraps from the power core of the exploded Death Star!" He stared through the front porthole again. The Whaladon-hunting submarine had stopped.

A small sub that Luke guessed was an emergency-escape vehicle exited the Whaladon-hunting submarine. But now it was being used for exploration, not for escape. Slowly and steadily it approached a large chunk of twisted scrap metal, one almost as large as an Imperial command speeder. Luke felt a shiver run up his spine as he suddenly realized what was about to happen.

CHAPTER 6

Ten Minutes to Self-Destruct

A hatch on the escape sub opened and Trioculus emerged alone, while Grand Moff Hissa and the others remained behind.

Trioculus wore a diving suit of the most advanced design, equipped with a helmet that had a miniature arc light. He took a supply of thermal detonators with him. KABRAAAA-AAM!

The thermal detonators blasted a hole in the side of the large chunk of the Death Star sprawled across the ocean floor. Then Trioculus pulled himself through the hole into the big, hollow piece of metallic debris. He adjusted the arc light on his helmet so that he could examine the crushed mechanical parts that surrounded him. He found a large lump that looked like the remains of a melted energy dish. He also found a maze of mashed turbolaser cooling tubes and ion equalizers, scorched and clumped together so that they were almost unrecognizable.

And then his third eye noticed three black fingertips sticking out from beneath a mashed ion deactivator.

He pushed aside the ion deactivator, and there it was: a five-fingered black gauntlet, in one piece, undamaged by heat or water.

In fact, the glove looked just as it must have looked when Darth Vader had worn it on his right hand!

Luke bit his lower lip as he kept staring through the front porthole of the Calamarian minisub. Using underwater macrobinoculars, he could see that the diver had three eyes-Trioculus! The Imperial tyrant was reentering the escape sub, and Luke wondered whether Trioculus had just found the glove of Darth Vader.

"Ackbar, can we catch up with that little sub before it gets back inside the Whaladon-hunting submarine?" Luke asked.

"I don’t see how," Ackbar replied somberly. "If we get too close, we’ll be discovered. One blast from their laser cannons and we’ll be finished."

"I say it’s time to retreat then," said Threepio.

Luke remembered the words of Yoda, his Jedi teacher: Luke, the coming fight is yours alone. There is no avoiding the battle-you cannot escape your destiny.

"We’re not going to retreat, Threepio," said Luke. He turned to the Calamarian fishman beside him. "Admiral Ackbar, is there any way we could signal Trioculus and communicate with him somehow?"

"You mean let him know that we’re here?"

"Exactly. If we surrender to him, then he’ll take us aboard to question us, right? But that will be the biggest mistake he’ll ever make."

"Or the biggest one we’ll ever make," said Ackbar. Another thought struck Luke. "The other thing we could do is attack."

"Attack!" exclaimed Threepio.

It was an old Jedi rule of thumb to attack when the odds were overwhelmingly against you, and when there was no other possible way to save your own life or the life of an ally. Luke had used that strategy aboard Jabba the Hutt’s skiff when Luke and his friends were about to be executed.

"Ackbar, let’s get closer to them," said Luke. "Full speed ahead."

"Full speed ahead," repeated Admiral Ackbar reluctantly.

"Oh, dear, I do hope you know what you’re doing, Master Luke," said Threepio in a whining voice. "Don’t say I didn’t warn you-"

Admiral Ackbar pushed hard on the overdrive booster, making their Calamarian minisub go at maximum speed.

FAZHOOOOM!

Their sub lurched forward in the water, then the power suddenly failed. It was totally dark.

"I tried to accelerate faster than we can go, triggering a systems shutdown," said Ackbar.

"Threepio, reach up and put your hand on the emergency control lever just above your head. And yank hard."

Threepio did as he was told. The backup generator turned on, and an emergency steering unit popped out of the ceiling, practically landing in Threepio’s lap.

"Just push up on that red knob, Threepio," Ackbar continued.

"Pushing as instructed," said Threepio. "Oh, dear."

"Now just hold it steady and steer us on a straight course. The main pilot control should automatically switch on again in about one minute."

"But I haven’t the faintest idea how to pilot this thing," Threepio protested.

"It’s easy, even a housekeeping droid could do it," said Ackbar. "Just hold that red knob steady."

Threepio tried his best, but the Calamarian minisub tilted on its side, then flipped upside down and plunged straight for the bottom. Then, just seconds before it was about to smash on some rocks, he pulled it out of its nosedive.

"Bzeeech! Chnooooch!" beeped Artoo frantically.

"Well, you try to steer it, then, if you think you’re so smart," said Threepio. "Hmmph.

’Even a housekeeping droid could do it’!"

At that moment the main pilot control switched back on and Admiral Ackbar took over once again.

"If I could make a suggestion, Master Luke," said Threepio, "I really think we ought to head back. We can return to see the sights down here some other time."

"Zgoonukooo!" squealed Artoo.

"Yikes!" shouted Threepio. "A giant squid!" He was right. Luke glanced out the front porthole and saw a squid larger than any he could ever have imagined. It had long, writhing, twisting tentacles with big, grotesque suction cups. The squid jetted through the water just overhead and passed them. Suddenly the Whaladon-hunting submarine created another whirlpool, which churned like an angry tornado, going right toward the squid.

FWISHHHHH!

The squid was caught in the whirlpool, but then so was the Calamarian minisub! Around and around they spun, tumbling and falling as they felt the whirlpool sucking them through the opening of a storage chamber right along with the giant squid.

"Oh, nooooo!" shouted Threepio. "Master Luke, we’re dooooomed!" No one aboard the Whaladon-hunting submarine even realized that the Calamarian minisub had been sucked into the hold along with the giant squid.

The crew members were more concerned with a game that had just begun, a gambling game known as sabacc. Sabacc was a card game that had become very popular in the casinos of Cloud City on Bespin, and now it was played by both humans and aliens on dozens of planets. A few Aqualish with big tusks began the game, and soon they were joined by others, as they crouched in the main corridor not far from the decompression chamber. But the game wasn’t going smoothly. The Aqualish began growling and pushing, calling each other cheaters and opening their mouths, flashing their teeth and tusks, even spitting at one another.

Trioculus, whose body had just returned to its normal pressure, came out of the decompression chamber. With his black uniform properly in place again, he turned his attention to the glove of Darth Vader.

The droid Emdee had cleaned away the grime and then brought the black glove back to his master, whose right hand trembled as he reached for it. Trioculus put the glove on slowly, regally, like a king setting a crown on his head. An image of Darth Vader flashed into Trioculus’s mind, and at that instant the evil of Vader seemed to pour through him like a sudden surge of power from the Dark Side.