[Junior Jedi Knights] -05(18)

Anakin nodded.

“You go that way then; we’ll take the stairs.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Tahiri groaned. “Not the stairs. I can’t take any more stairs.”

ArtooDetoo, who had just caught up with them, tweedled and buzzed noisily.

“Oh, no!” Tahiri said. “Artoo isn’t in any condition to climb stairs.”

Anakin looked at Artoo.

“You’ll have to go with Uldir then,” he said, pointing toward the tunnel the older boy had taken. ArtooDetoo beeped in agreement and rolled off down the tunnel. As he and Tahiri began the climb up the stone staircase, Anakin gritted his teeth for a second, trying not to think of how sore his legs were going to be. The stairs offered no landings or flat areas on which to rest, or even any railings to hold on to, and there was a steep drop on either side of the solid rock staircase.

“Didn’t-your grandfather-ever hear-of turbolifts?” Tahiri gasped as they climbed.

Anakin nodded.

“Sure. We just-haven’t found them-yet,” he panted.

When they finally reached the top of the steps, Anakin’s and Tahiri’s legs shook with exhaustion, and perspiration streamed down their faces. Before them was a single doorway. Tahiri leaned against the cool stone wall beside it, catching her breath while Anakin studied the door. With its rounded corners, armor plating, and multiple locks, the door looked as if it belonged on some ancient treasure vault.

“If Orloc’s up here, there’s nowhere else he could have gone,” Anakin said.

“Is the door locked?” Tahiri asked.

To their surprise, it wasn’t. It opened easily at Anakin’s touch. Anakin and Tahiri each tossed a packet of food rations inside to test for booby traps. No lasers fired, no trapdoors opened, no holographic guard beasts snapped and snarled. Neither of them was prepared for what they saw when they stepped inside. A spacious chamber greeted them. Elegantly simple, the room held no ornaments of any kind. The floor and walls and ceiling were tiled completely with glossy black stone. Low benches of the same black stone reflected purplish light from the glowpanels set into the walls every few meters.

“What’s this?” Tahiri asked, pointing to a raised platform that held a huge tube made of black plasteel. Wires and hoses snaked out from the cylinder in all directions. She ran a hand along its smooth side and found some sort of control panel.

“This looks like the tubes they use to bury dead people in space,” Anakin said.

Tahiri pushed a button, and the cylinder split open with a whoosh.

Anakin gasped. He and Tahiri exchanged astonished locks.

“This must have been his… his bedroom,” Anakin said.

“You mean he slept in there?” Tahiri asked. “But why would he need all those connectors and hoses?”

Anakin remembered what his parents and his uncle Luke had told him.

“My grandfather’s body was so damaged and scarred that he needed machines to keep him alive.” Anakin shuddered. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be reminded of all the evil things his grandfather had done, or that he had been almost half machine before he died. Seeing another control panel in the lid of the bed unit, Anakin guessed Darth Vader must have used it to open or close the chamber. He reached out to touch the keypad on that control panel to shut the cylinder again, but it didn’t close. For a moment nothing happened, and then an image flickered in the air, hovering over the center of the bed. Something clicked and whirred, and a tiny hologram appeared, no bigger than Anakin’s hand. Tahiri grabbed Anakin’s arm, a look of amazement on her face.

“Why would Darth Vader keep a hologram of Master Skywalker?”

Anakin opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The little hologram of a young Luke Skywalker turned in a slow circle, so that they could see it from every angle.

“I think…,” Anakin finally said, “I think it’s because Luke was his son.”

“Then why isn’t there a hologram of your mother when she was Princess Leia?” Tahiri asked. “She was his daughter, wasn’t she?”

Anakin frowned and nodded.

“But Darth Vader didn’t know about her until just before he died. He knew about Uncle Luke for a long time, though.” Anakin felt a lump form in his throat. “My mom keeps holograms of me and Jacen and Jaina on her desk at work, and Dad has one of me and the twins in the Millennium Falcon. I think Darth Vader was just doing the same thing.”

“So maybe he wasn’t all bad,” Tahiri said in a soft voice.

“You may be right,” Anakin whispered. “Uncle Luke was the one who helped him turn back from the dark side before he died, you know.”