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tals form. He nodded, satised. He had purged the weapon of its dark-side inuence and made it his own, Read on for an exciting memory. It seemed tat the same time honoring Relins excerpt from Star Wars: Riptide ting. by Paul and hung He deactivated the blade S. Kemp. it from his belt. Available October 25 from Del Rey Books. been He found it somewhat strange, the way he had able to remake the crystal. It was as though he had wiped away someones memory and replaced it with another. He oated in a place of warmth, quiet. Then . . . sensation from darkness, something from nothing. He heard the low, vibratory hum of engaging electronics. How did he know they were electronics? He seemed to know some things. His extremities began to tingle, then to itch, then to hurt, pinpricks of pain in his skin. The whine of a device sounded in his ear. Streaks of color ashed behind his eyelids, smears of green, red, blue. He heard a mechanical voice speaking, the sound dulled, as if spoken from far away or blocked by something. His vital signs are normal. He is becoming conscious. Can he hear us? said another voice. I do not know. Possibly. What will he know? He heard the slow bubbling of liquid. He had never noticed it before. All of the Iterations are implanted with basic knowledge roughly equivalent to that of a human adolescent. Otherwise they would be difcult to deal with when they awakened. It is easily overwritten by the Rakatan mindspear. Very good.

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His body awoke fully to sensation, and he became aware of himself. He was a man. Restraints held his arms and legs immobile. Something was in his mouth a tube. Adhesive strips kept his eyes closed. He tested his strength against the restraints. There was no give in them. Lets get him out, said the voice. Of course. The liquid in which he oated began to drain, gurgling away into some hole near his feet. He felt vulnerable as the level of the liquid decreased, exposing rst his head, then his chest, his legs. He imagined it was like being born, moving from warm and safe to cold and exposed. It felt strange to have his feet on the ground, supporting his weight. He was naked, shivering. Metallic latches released, a hiss sounded, and he heard a hatch or door open right before him. A blast of cold air goose-pimpled his wet skin. He opened his mouth to speak but gagged on the tube. Something took hold of it. Do not resist, said a mechanical voice, a medical droid. He didnt, and the droid pulled the tube from his body. It went all the way to his stomach, and he felt as if the droid was disemboweling him as it pulled the tube up through his esophagus. The moment it cleared his lips he coughed out a bit of liquid and gasped. The intake of air felt raw on his throat. His lungs burned. The smell of antiseptic lled his nostrils. He tried to speak, but his lips and tongue felt thick, his vocal cords tight. He managed only a grunt. You will be able to speak soon, said a soft, sibilant voice. You have never used your vocal cords before, or your lungs. Try to remain calm. He was still restrained, his eyes still sealed shut. He felt vulnerable.

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You are restrained for your own protection, said the soft voice. The implantation process is painful. I dont want you to damage yourself. The word painful stuck in his mind. He squirmed against the restraints, but they held him fast. You may go, One-Bee-Seven, said the voice. Yes, Master Nyss, replied the droid. He heard the whirring servos of a departing droid, the whisk of a door that opened and then closed. He was alone with Nyss, who had promised him pain. His heart was racing. Despite the cold, he was sweating, clammy. The smell of his own stink lled his nostrils. His breath was coming fast. You are afraid, said the voice. There is nothing to fear. You wont remember the pain. A hand closed on his jaw and he winced in anticipation of a blow. But a blow did not come. Instead he felt something warm and sharp pressed against his temple. He tried to turn his head away but could not. He grunted, terried; tried to blink open his eyes against the adhesive but failed. He felt a brief prick of pain, then pressure in his temple. A trickle of blood, warm like the uid in which hed lived for so long, wound down the side of his face. There really was no pain Then a shooting stab of agony exploded in his head. He shrieked, a prolonged, bestial wail that went on and on but did nothing to expiate the pain. The agony intensied, spreading from his temple to the rest of his head until it felt as if his skull were lled with molten metal that would burn forever. His entire body was as rigid as a rail, every muscle contracted. He could not stop screaming. He wanted to cut off his own head, to rip it from his neck and murder himself to end the unending, unendurable pain. But his hands were bound and he could not move.

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There was nothing left to him but to scream and scream and scream. Horror matched pain when he felt something squirming inside the scalding connes of his skull, writhing tendrils rooting through his brain, scraping against the underside of his braincase. He imagined worms burrowing through tissue, leaving a network of empty tunnels in their wake. He heaved as if to vomit, but his stomach contained nothing. Between heaves his screams turned desperate; he warred against the restraints, but they simply would not give. He railed, screamed, shrieked, heaved, knew that he must soon pass out or die, and . . . The pain vanished. Sweat soaked him. Every muscle in his body ached. His breath came hard and fast through a throat made ragged. Before he could speak, ask what had happened, a spark shower exploded in his brain and a gout of information poured in, washing away what preexisted it and lling the empty vessel of his mind. Memories ooded into the crevices of his empty recollection, making him anew, rebirthing him on the spot. He remembered himself. He had been born on Coruscant, and his parents had died in an accident when he was young. A voice was speaking to him from outside himself, but he could not understand it, could not move his attention from the rush of memories, his memories. After the death of his parents, he had turned inward, had become philosophical even as a child, and that internal focus had triggered his latent Force sensitivity. The voice continued to speak to him, soft, insistent. But he refused to acknowledge it. Instead he lived in the past, his past, watching faces and events stream by. Without any training, hed used his Force sensitivity to make a lightsaber for himself. Soon thereafter, his

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uncle had enrolled him in the Jedi Academy. Hed met Grand Master Luke Skywalker. The voice nally penetrated his perception. Do you hear me? it asked. He felt a hand tapping his cheeks but ignored it in favor of the memories. Hed fought the spirit of Marka Ragnos on Korriban, trying to redeem Rosh Penin. Open your eyes, the voice said, and tore the adhesive strips from his eyelids. He hesitated, unwilling to let himself slip from the realm of memory. Open them. He did, and even the dim light in the small, steelwalled room set them to watering. He blinked, his vision blurred. A gure stood before him, but he could make out little detail. I cannot see, he said. Your vision will improve quickly, the gure said. He looked around, down, trying to blink away the blurriness. He was in a transparisteel cloning tank. Traces of the pink suspension uid in which hed been oating puddled in the base of the tank. He stared at them while his vision cleared. Cables, hoses, and wires snaked out of the sides of the tank and connected to his body at arms, legs, torso, and head. Conduits connected a computer to the tank. He was surprised to see that he was not restrained, yet he still could not move. A man stood at the computer station. Not a manan Umbaran, thin, with skin so pale it looked white. He wore a tailored black cloak complete with a cowl, and the dimness in the room seemed to collect around him, intensify near him. The reected glow of the comp screen made his dark eyes glow red. He worked the keyboard with one hand. In his other he held a device that

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looked like a metal hilt or handle engraved with strange grooves and from which extended a spike of rigid laments, each of them far ner than even the nest hair. I cannot move, he said to the Umbaran, his voice coarse with disuse. The programming paralyzes most of your skeletonmuscular system until the . . . process is complete. I cannot feel the Force, he said. The Umbaran nodded. That is my doing. He did not know what to say to that. He did not remember ever being cut off from the Force. His gaze fell to the device the Umbaran held in his hand. The Umbaran noticed and held the device up for him to see. It is Rakatan, the Umbaran said. We think they used it to store and transfer their consciousnesses. Weve found caches of them here and there across the galaxy. We? he asked. The One Sith, the Umbaran replied. He realized his danger then. He was in the hands of an unknown faction of the Sith. He tried to fall into the Force but felt only emptiness. He was alone, powerless. The Sith had developed some new weapon by which they could separate a Jedi from the Force. He had to escape, report back. What do you want from me? Whats your name? You know my name. Jaden Korr. The Umbaran smiled. No. You are the Iteration. The word meant nothing to him. Im going to speak a phrase, the Umbaran said. And when I do, youll know what you are. He shook his head. Nothing the Umbaran said made sense, nothing about his situation made sense. How had he gotten here? He remembered very little after his graduation from the Jedi Academy. The Umbaran smiled, an expression more sinister

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than mirthful, and started to speak. He did not comprehend the words. He blinked and . . . knew. He was a clone of Jaden Korr. He was an agent of the One Sith. He was to inltrate the Jedi Order and be activated when the One Sith deemed the time right. I am . . . an agent of the One Sith. The Umbaran nodded. Yes. Why did you activate me now? Im not a member of the Jedi Order. No. But you will be. I dont understand. You will in time. Now, who are you? I am the Iteration. The Umbaran nodded, hit a key on the comp panel. The Iteration was able to move. At the same time, the darkness that seemed to hover around the Umbaran decreased somewhat and the Iterations connection to the Force returned in a rush of power that made him gasp. The Iteration took a step, another, ginger on limbs that had never before borne his weight. The cloning tank used electro-impulses to stimulate muscle development and growth, but he knew to take care with his rst steps. Behind the Umbaran, the door to the small chamber slid open and two gures in cowled cloaks strode in. Each towered over the Umbaran, over the Iteration, and both held electro-staffs in their sts. Their red hands featured scales and black claws. The cowls and dim light hid their faces, but the Iteration caught a suggestion of scaled eye ridges above reptilian eyes. Syll is awaiting him aboard my ship, the Umbaran said to them. Get him aboard and put him in stasis. Yes, my lord, the two answered, their voices deep and guttural. Stasis? the Iteration said. But I just . . . He struggled for the right word. . . . woke up.

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I needed to make sure you could withstand the shock of the awakening and the rst memory transfer. The rst? And if I wouldve died? The Umbaran shrugged. I wouldve used another. Another? Get him aboard, the man said to the guards. As the guards took him away, he asked over his shoulder, Why did you awaken me? What am I to do? Nothing, yet. Youre just along for the ride until I need you. Until you need me for what? Until I need you to iterate, the Umbaran said, and the Iteration imagined the thin line of a smug smile drawn across the Umbarans pale face. Soldier felt an odd sense of separation, a peculiar sense of otherness. A gulf opened in him, growing as the stolen ship blazed ever farther from the moon. The moon had been his birthplace, the place where he had spent his entire life. The place he had long ago grown to hate, but that was also his home. He felt as if his life up to that moment had been the before, and that he had just begun the after. But the after felt uncomfortably vast. Suddenly adrift in innite space, in innite possibilities, he felt as he always had when he was oating in one of Dr. Greens sensory deprivation tanksalone, unmoored from himself, a tiny ship bobbing across the surface of a limitless ocean. The frigid, unnamed moon and its cloning facility had been the Communitys home for decades. He and the other clones had been specimens for Imperial scientists, living in cages made of transparisteel, their existences an unending series of tests, questions, needles, training. It had been awful, but theyd had structure, purpose. Now they had neither.

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