Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II by Sean Williams Page B

controls of the two-seater R-22 Spearhead interceptor she’d found waiting for her in the Solidarity’s hangar bay. How long did she have to wait before she gave the mission up as a waste of time? She had better places to stew over her lot than the back side of this sterile dustbowl.
    At least, she told herself, PROXY was working properly now. The damage to his holographic camouflage systems that had frozen him in the image of his former Master had been successfully repaired by R2-D2. Only occasionally now did he adopt one of his many stored templates-including Juno’s-but most of the time he was just his skinny metal self, with glowing yellow eyes and an unflinching desire to serve her. The latter was the one remaining fragment of his primary programming, given to him by his deceased Master. The rest had been burned out of him by the Core on Raxus Prime.
    “Ten more minutes, ” she said, “and that’s it. Princess or no Princess. “
    “Will we attempt this mission on our own, Captain Eclipse?”
    She had been giving that a lot of thought. “Dac won’t save itself. “
    But she wasn’t Starkiller, and she didn’t want to become him. All her life, she had been part of a system. It suited her, the hierarchy of command and her place in it. Yes, she argued sometimes, and she especially didn’t like being reprimanded, but on the whole she preferred it to going alone. Nothing had made her happier than when the Rebel Alliance firmed up its command structure, with Bel Iblis providing strategic and tactical advice, Bail Organa or his daughter supplying access to crucial resources and intelligence, and Mon Mothma presenting the public face of the Alliance to those beings who required inspiration. The Alliance fleer didn’t have a Supreme Commander per se-it didn’t actually have much of a fleet to speak of yet, just a ragtag accumulation of ships-but the fact that a vacancy existed had reassured her. Someone would eventually step up to fill it, she had been certain.
    And for a while, the system had worked. Orders filtered down from one commander or another, and the Alliance had held intact. Now, though, with Bail Organa absent and something of a schism developing between Mon Mothma and those of a more military bent, including Bel Iblis, nothing was certain anymore. Who exactly did tell Juno where her duties lay? Did the leaders have to take a vote now before making any kind of decision? If Leia Organa felt compelled not to take sides while her father was absent, what happened next time there was an emergency and the Alliance needed to act quickly?
    These thoughts circled endlessly through Juno’s mind as she waited.
    It was an improvement, she supposed, over wishing Starkiller would come back to shake everyone back into line.
    “I have detected an approaching vessel, ” said PROXY.
    Juno was instantly alert. “Where?”
    Information on the screens in front of them enabled her to locate the tiny dot in the endless starscape. It grew brighter by the second until the blocky outlines of a cargo shuttle became identifiable. Markings on its hull identified it as belonging to a small mining company on the inward face of the moon. It had no visible weapons, no shield, and offered no explanation for its presence. As it neared the surface of the moon, the cargo hatch on its port side opened wide, revealing nothing at all within.
    Juno’s hands rested on the R-22’s controls, ready to fire or flee as circumstances demanded.
    Dust puffed as the cargo shuttle touched gently down. From the brightly lit interior unfolded a reticulated loading arm. It pointed once at her starfighter, then once into the shuttles hold. Juno examined the prospect with a critical eye.
    “We could shoot our way out of there if we had to, right?” she asked PROXY.
    “I foresee few difficulties on that score, ” said the droid. “There appears to be no armor on the inside of the shuttle, and its crew space is small. “
    “Lucky we didn’t come in