Star Wars - 215 - Jedi Prince 06 - Prophets of the Dark Side

Star Wars

Jedi Prince

Book 6

Prophets of the Dark Side

by Paul Davids and Hollace Davids

updated : 11.XI.2006

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The Rebel Alliance

Luke Skywalker

Han Solo

Ken

See-Threepio (C-3P0)

Princess Leia

Chewbacca

Dee-Jay (DJ-88)

Artoo-Detoo (R2-D2)

The Empire

Trioculus

Grand Moff Hissa

Zorba the Hutt

Supreme Prophet Kadann

Defeen

Grand Moff Muzzer

High Prophet Jedgar

Triclops

source : IRC

upload : 18.IX.2006

The Adventure Continues...

It was an era of darkness, a time when the evil Empire ruled the galaxy. Fear and terror spread across every planet and moon as the Empire tried to crush all who resisted-but still the Rebel Affiance survived.

The headquarters of the Alliance Senate are located in a cluster of ancient temples hidden within the rain forest on the fourth moon of Yavin. It was the senate that now led the valiant fight to establish a new galactic government, and to restore freedom and justice to the galaxy. In pursuit of this quest, Mon Mothma, the Rebel Alliance leader, organized the Senate Planetary Intelligence Network, also known as SPIN. SPIN conducts its perilous missions with the help of Luke Skywalker and his pair of droids known as See-Threepio (C-3P0) and Artoo-Detoo (R2-D2). Other members of SPIN include the beautiful Princess Leia Organa; Han Solo, the dashing pilot of the spaceship Millennium Falcon; Han’s copilot Chewbacca, a hairy alien Wookiee; and Lando Calrissian, the former governor of Cloud City on the planet Bespin.

Lando now runs a space theme park known as Hologram Fun World. He had been forced to abandon his post as Governor of Cloud City after gambling away his position to Zorba the Hutt, a sluglike alien who is the father of the deceased gangster Jabba the Hutt. Luke Skywalker and his twin sister Princess Leia follow the path of the Jedi. The Jedi Knights, an ancient society of brave and noble warriors, believed that victory comes not just from physical strength but from a mysterious power called the Force. The Force lies hidden deep within all things. It has two sides, one side that can be used for good, the other side a power of absolute evil.

Guided by the Force, and by the spirit of his first Jedi teacher, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker was led to the legendary Lost City of the Jedi. Deep underground on the fourth moon of Yavin, the Lost City proved to be the home of a twelve-year-old boy named Ken, said to be a Jedi Prince. Ken had no human friends and had never before left the Lost City to journey aboveground. He knew nothing of his origins-only that he had been brought to the Lost City by a Jedi Knight in a brown robe-and had been raised from early childhood by a loyal group of caretaker droids who had once served the ancient Jedi Knights. Ken has since left the underground city and joined Luke and the Rebel Alliance. With the Empire’s evil leaders, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, now destroyed, a new era has begun. A bitter feud developed between Kadann, the Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side, and Trioculus, a three-eyed tyrant who was formerly Supreme Slavelord of the spice mines of the planet Kessel.

An impostor, Trioculus falsely claimed to be Emperor Palpatine’s son. With help from Kadann and the Imperial grand moffs, Trioculus was aided in his rise to power so they could all share the rule of the Empire. Trioculus eventually failed in his rule and Kadann wrested control of the Empire for himself, although the grand moffs remained loyal to Trioculus.

The evil Emperor Palpatine did have a three-eyed son-Triclops, whose existence was kept secret. For most of Triclops’s life, he remained a prisoner of the Empire, locked away in Imperial insane asylums. Eventually he escaped from the Imperial Reprogramming Institute on the planet Duro and denounced his father’s Empire. After being discovered by Luke Skywalker, Ken, and Han Solo, he took refuge with the Rebel Alliance. While Trioculus and the grand moffs were feuding with Kadann, they also had a dispute with Zorba the Hutt. Trioculus eventually defeated Zorba by tossing the old Hutt into the Mouth of Sarlacc at the Great Pit of Carkoon on Tatooine, expecting to be rid of him at last. But still Zorba survived when the Sarlacc spit him out, unable to digest the slimy Hutt’s sluglike body.

Having also captured Princess Leia, Trioculus tried to turn her to the Dark Side, wanting to marry her and make her the Queen of the Empire. However, his plans were thwarted by a clever Alliance plan and a new Rebel weapon-the Human Replica Droid, which was a lifelike droid built to resemble the Princess. It fired lasers from its eyes, striking Trioculus in the chest and wounding him.

Safely rescued from the Imperial Moffship, Princess Leia and Han Solo intend to resume their wedding plans, but not by eloping at Hologram Fun World as they attempted before. Instead, it will be a formal ceremony at the Alliance Senate. Everything should proceed according to plan-as long as they steer clear of the ruthless tyranny of Supreme Prophet Kadann and his Prophets of the Dark Side!

CHAPTER 1

The Final Hour

Grand Moff Hissa steered across the security observation room inside the Imperial Moffship, riding his hover-chair on a cushion of air. He swiftly approached the motionless body that was lying on the floor. Hissa, who had accidentally lost his arms and legs in a pool of toxic waste on the planet Duro, could hear the sounds of shouts and scuffling coming from the corridor on the other side of the locked door. Imperial officers were growing anxious and quarrelsome, as rumors about the fate of Trioculus, their three-eyed leader, spread throughout the spaceship.

Trioculus, who was mortally wounded but still alive, reached up from where he lay, grasping onto one of Hissa’s artificial metallic arms. Those arms had been taken from an Imperial assassin droid and fastened to the stumps at Hissa’s shoulders. It had proven impossible for the medical droids to attach artificial legs at the grand moff’s corroded hipbone; therefore he would be confined to the hover-chair for the rest of his days.

"Hissa," Trioculus groaned, "those foul Rebels have assassinated me-I’m dying." Cold sweat dripped down Grand Moff Hissa’s neck as he stared in shock at Trioculus’s horrible wounds. "This is a black day for the Empire, my Dark Lordship," Hissa said. Grand Moff Hissa glanced away, noticing the remains of the Rebel Alliance’s secret weapon. The weapon, known as a Human Replica Droid, was a robot so lifelike that it had actually fooled Trioculus and Grand Moff Hissa into thinking it was the real Princess Leia. The grand moffs had stared in shock as fiery green laser rays burst from the Human Replica Droid’s eyes, striking Trioculus at close range.

Now the droid’s smoldering remains lay crumpled on the chamber floor, incinerated by blasts from Imperial laser pistols. Grand Moff Hissa grimaced as he inhaled. The room was filled with the scent of burned synthetic flesh and smoking scorched hair, mixed with the foul odor of melted droid microcircuits.

"Hissa," Trioculus gasped, "when I am gone, beware of Kadann. He will turn on you next, because you remained loyal to me until my death, rather than to him." Trioculus spoke slowly in a strained, rasping voice. "He will use his authority as Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side ... to oppose you with all his power and strength."

"Let him oppose us, then," Hissa said, nodding. "We’ll fight back, even if it means an all-out civil war for the Empire. That black-bearded dwarf has proven to be even more of a scoundrel than Zorba the Hutt."

"Zorba, yes . . . we dropped Zorba into the Great Pit of Carkoon," Trioculus recalled in a weakening voice, "sent him plunging into the hungry Mouth of Sarlacc-a fitting end for that slimy slug. Curse him!"

"And curse Kadann and his Prophets of the Dark Side," Grand Moff Hissa added.

"Yes," Trioculus agreed. "But let the darkest curse of all . . . fall upon Luke Skywalker. Promise me that . . . that you grand moffs," Trioculus struggled to speak, as the gasps between his words grew louder, ". . . that you will destroy that Jedi Knight once and for all." Trioculus’s three eyes blinked and then half closed, as though staring off into the distance.

"It shall be done," Grand Moff Hissa said.

And then Trioculus exhaled, closing his three eyes for the last time. A chill swept through the gray, dark room. For a frozen, shuddering moment, all was silent. In a ceremony held before the officers and crew of the Moffship, the grand moffs placed Trioculus’s lifeless body into a cremation chamber.

The fires of the chamber raged. When all that was left of Trioculus was a small pile of ashes, the grand moffs put equal amounts of his remains into four small canisters. Four Imperial missile probes were prepared, each probe containing one of the canisters of Trioculus’s ashes. Then the probes were blasted away, zooming off into space in four directions from the Moffship to the north, south, east, and west-where they would travel to the farthest reaches of the galaxy in honor of their Imperial leader. Trioculus was not the only three-eyed mutant who had a strong influence on the Empire. Perhaps even more important than Trioculus, and certainly more strange, was Triclops. Until recently Triclops had been an inmate in a ward for insane prisoners at the Imperial Reprogramming Institute on the planet Duro. Luke Skywalker rescued him on Duro, and then, for security reasons, sent Triclops to the fourth moon of Yavin to the headquarters of the Senate Planetary Intelligence Network, known as SPIN. There he was kept under observation and armed guard.

Soon after, the secret was out: Triclops, not Trioculus, was the long-lost son of the dead, evil Emperor Palpatine. That gave Triclops a legal claim to be the heir to the Imperial throne, the new ruler of the Empire. And that made him extremely dangerous, despite his previous claims to believe in peace, disarmament, and an end to all war. Triclops slept much of the time, as if he were the victim of some unexplained sleeping sickness or powerful spell from the Dark Side. At the moment, the task of monitoring and observing Triclops fell upon Princess Leia. For the past few days she had also been busy studying the secret Jedi files Luke had brought back from his last trip to the Lost City of the Jedi. In her spare moments, Leia also worked on organizing her wedding to Han Solo, which was shaping up to be a much bigger event than they had planned. Seated at a viewing screen in the SPIN conference room, Leia continued to monitor Triclops. She turned to glance at her brother, Luke Skywalker, who had just dropped by to discuss the matter.

"We’ve allowed Triclops to move freely about the first-level basement of the Senate building," Leia said, pointing to the screen. "He’s sleepwalking again-it’s as if he’s in a trance. Look, Luke-he’s gone to the storage area, and he’s snooping around the old defense files."

"It’s looking more and more like he is an Imperial spy after all," Luke said with a frown.

"I’m afraid all of his sincere-sounding statements about hating the Empire may be nothing more than an act."

From the moment Luke and the others had met him, Triclops claimed to be an enemy of the Empire that his father, Emperor Palpatine, had commanded. Triclops opposed the now-deceased Darth Vader and all Imperial forces. According to Triclops, his opposition to the Empire was the reason he had been shut away inside Imperial insane asylums for his entire life. The Empire would not tolerate anyone who favored peace and disarmament, or who questioned its objectives, and Triclops was considered a great threat. But Luke always questioned whether Triclops was telling the truth. The Rebel Alliance had discovered that Triclops had been kept alive by the Empire for one reason and one reason only: because he was a mad genius who often spoke aloud in his sleep, developing formulas and designs for new weapons systems.

"Yesterday we ran a medical examination on Triclops," Leia explained. "He appears to have in his mouth an Imperial implant of some sort in his right upper molar. This is no ordinary dental filling. It goes directly through the root of the tooth, into his brain. In fact, the implant seems to pick up the electromagnetic signals of his brain. Apparently it can broadcast Triclops’s thoughts to the Imperial probe droids that have been invading our airspace."

"Is this a two-way system?" Luke asked. "Can the implant be used by the Empire to send electromagnetic signals into Triclops’s brain?"

"That’s a good question," Leia commented. "The answer seems to be yes, but only while he’s in a state of very sound sleep."

Luke and Leia continued to watch the screen in the SPIN conference room, as Triclops disconnected an alarm and broke into a file storage bin.

"He certainly wants something desperately," Princess Leia said. "Do you think we should call in the sentries now?"

"Wait a moment," Luke cautioned.

They continued to watch calmly, knowing that Triclops’s search of those particular files would gain him nothing of value. But as they exchanged worried glances, each was thinking the same thing: having Triclops in their midst might prove to be dangerous. EEEE-AAAA-EEEE-AAAA . . . !