[Legacy Of The Force] - 01(144)

Nelani drifted to the floor again and kept her own lit blade between them. “Who are you?”

He shrugged. “I doubt you’d know my birth name, but the other you may recognize. I am Darth Vectivus.”

Nelani waved a hand at the caverns around them and gave him a smirk. “The Master of all this.”

“Once, maybe. Now I’m merely a ghost. Or perhaps less.”

“What would be less?”

“A remnant. A sliver of a ghost.” He looked just a bit unsettled. “Even as I speak, I am unaware of myself. Of thinking, of decision making. Could I, in fact, be nothing?”

“No, I can feel you. Gleaming in the Force. Shining with the dark side.”

He shook his head. “That’s not me. That’s whomever I am connected to.”

“Connected to?”

Now it was his turn to wave around. “Every phantom you see here, every one you encounter, is connected to something that is distinctly real, distinctly alive-though possibly far, far away. Every time you struck a mynock, a living being somewhere suffered the pain and injury you inflicted.”

With his statement, a knot of sickness formed in Nelani’s stomach. “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not. You struck, and somewhere, some creature, perhaps a baby bantha, squealed in pain and was severed, killed before the disbelieving eyes of its mother-“

“Stop it.”

“Why? It’s the truth. Baby banthas are quite cute, you know. A terrible shame to see one cut in half.”

“You’re sick.”

“But perhaps it wasn’t cute little baby banthas. Perhaps it was piranha beetles. You wouldn’t mind cutting piranha-beetles in half, would you? Or perhaps Kowakian monkey-lizards.” He shook his head. “They say that every creature is cute when it is a baby. A mechanism of nature to help creatures reach the age of reproduction. But it’s not true of every species. Have you seen immature monkey-lizards? Ugliest little larvae in the galaxy.” He shuddered.

“What do I have to do to shut you up?”

“Oh, that’s simple. Kill me.” He took a bounding, gliding step forward. “Sweep your lightsaber blade across my neck, topple my head from my shoulders. The mynocks will go away, and you’ll be able to find your way back to your friends.” He landed only two meters from her and knelt before her. “Go ahead.”

“You can’t be that anxious to die.”

“I died centuries ago.” Darth Vectivus bowed his head. “So I won’t feel anything. Go ahead and strike.”

“And what about the life you say you’re connected to?”

Vectivus looked up again and grinned at her. “He or she will become a free-floating head, I’m afraid, rather to the surprise of everyone in the vicinity. ‘Why, look, Father, Mother’s performing a new trick. Mummy? Mummy?’ “

Nelani glared down at him. “Is this taunting necessary?”

“Yes, it is. To goad you into the action you need to perform.” Vectivus bared his neck for her again. “By killing one-whoever it is I’m attached to at the moment-you’ll save scores. Hundreds. Thousands. What you think of as the evil of my dark side teachings will not spread so far. So kill me.”

“No.”

“Would it help if I took on a more hateful form? A piranha-beetle in human guise?” Vectivus’s clothes shimmered and flowed. Suddenly he was in a full-coverage cloak and hood, his face in deep shadow. He reached up with suddenly white, suddenly wrinkled hands to pull back the hood and reveal the pallid, almost reptilian features of Emperor Palpatine, Darth Sidious, dead now for more than thirty-five years.

His voice, too, was Palpatine’s, insidious and cloying. “How about this? Could you strike this down?”

“Not while you’re connected to an innocent life.”

Palpatine rose and, shimmering as he did so, was Vectivus again by the time he was on his feet. His expression was sympathetic, but a bit pitying. “Jedi girl, you’re not strong enough to save lives. You’re not strong enough to sacrifice one to save many.”

“I could sacrifice myself to save many”

“Yes. But then you wouldn’t have to face the accusing eyes of the survivors of those you sacrificed. You don’t have that kind of strength.”

“That’s ruthlessness. Not strength.”

Vectivus laughed at her. “Strength that is never touched by ruthlessness is touchingly irresponsible. Perhaps you will be fortunate and never have to decide the fate of an innocent life.” He gestured at Nelani-no, beyond her, and she felt a pulse of Force energy in the distance behind her.