Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II by Sean Williams

Master. Starkiller had been Darth Vader’s weapon, aimed squarely at the Emperor’s enemies, and nothing, he had sworn, would stand in his way. Only at the last minute had he swerved aside, deflected by Juno’s love from his former purpose, to another he had been unable to complete. He was no one’s weapon now but his own, but he still felt an echo of that remorse, that nagging feeling that killing wasn’t the answer, despite the calm acceptance he felt while waging war on Kota’s captives. Trained for violence, remade in violence, he struggled with the concept that anything other than violence might constitute a solution to any problem, but he was willing even in the heat of his familiar battle trance to entertain the possibility.
    The crowd noise grew steadily louder as he approached the barracks-chanting, roaring, filled with mob fury. The weapons fire concentrated on him intensified, too. Jump troopers equipped with jetpacks were beginning to converge on his location. He angled toward a slender tower connected to the barracks by several high-rise accessways. When he was within leaping distance, he jumped for one of its transparisteel viewing platforms, lightsabers stabbing ahead of him. The window shattered.
    He rolled across the platform and came up running for the stairs. Bystanders leapt out of his path, waving their upper limbs and screaming for help. They were extravagantly dressed, and few of them were Neimoidians. Humans vastly outnumbered aliens. They didn’t look like Imperial officers, though.
    Starkiller ground his teeth together as he entered what looked like nothing so much as a casino. That was why there were so many extra ships around the Imperial compound: the potentate was running a decidedly non-official credit-making venture on the side. He was no different from the many Starkiller had rooted our for Darth Vader while still in the service of the Empire. Venal, self-serving, and cruel, they squeezed their minions with an iron grip while at the same time currying favor from those like them higher up the chain.
    The Empire’s well-being was no longer his concern, but the galaxy as a whole would be better off if he took another corrupt Imperial down along the way.
    He could feel the crowd’s roar through the soles of his feet. He was close now, very close. The casino’s defenses were tight but no match for him. What he couldn’t fight through, he simply destroyed. At the final juncture, he guided a sky-tram off its tracks and into the side of the building, tearing a hole large enough for an army to burst through. He jumped into the maelstrom of sparks and molten metal and ran to where he could sense Kota, still fighting for his life in the potentate’s theater of death.
    One long, straight corridor led to a double door made of durasteel. It was guarded by six stormtroopers. Starkiller didn’t bother stopping to fight them. With a gesture, he pushed them aside, then burst open the doors.
    The full-throated roar of the crowd hit him hard, like a physical blow. He slowed to a walk as he passed through the door and found himself in a giant stone arena-a combat zone painted red with blood, exactly as he had seen in his vision. The steep sides were full of spectators, but only a handful were present in the flesh. The rest attended via hologram. Their blue, flickering fists, claws, or tentacles were upraised, chanting in numerous languages at once.
    Starkiller didn’t understand what they were saying, but he could work out the gist of it. “Kill, kill, kill!”
    In the center of the arena, surrounded by a legion of dead and wounded assailants, was Rahm Kota. One fist was wrapped tightly around the throat of a dying stormtrooper. His green lightsaber blazed as he raised it to deliver the killing blow. Starkiller felt the stirring of another memory: he had been in such positions before, tossed into arenas and forced to kill everyone who came against him. That was for training, though. He didn’t think