Star Wars - 210 - Jedi Prince 01 - The Glove of Darth Vader Read Free

spice-covered rocks.
    In the semidarkness Threepio asked Artoo to project Mon Mothma’s holographic map of the tunnel interior. "That’s upside down!" Threepio exclaimed. "Honestly, you don’t expect me to stand on my head to read that map, do you?"
    Artoo flipped his projection so that the map was right-side up. After studying it, Threepio plunged ahead. With every clattering step, he took Artoo closer and closer to Kessendra Stadium, which was at the very edge of the capital city of this Imperial slave planet.
    "Hurry-this way, Artoo!" said Threepio. "Mon Mothma’s map said the entrance to the stadium is somewhere down here!"
    "Dweep boooooweep," beeped Artoo, rolling along as fast as he could.
    "No, it isn’t my fault that we’re here," replied Threepio as he walked even faster. "We do have our orders, you know. Let’s just hope that nobody finds out who we really are. Otherwise, they’ll take us apart and use us for spare parts-or worse!" Threepio continued talking without pause, since droids never have to stop to catch their breath the way organic creatures do. "It’s positively horrifying. Half the Imperial officers in the galaxy are gathered together, practically right above our heads, and goodness knows what evil plans they’re making."
    Kessendra Stadium was the frequent site of gladiator games in which slaves fought to the death, while sportsmen from throughout the galaxy placed bets. Today, however, there would be no gladiator games.
    "Droot boopa zinnn," beeped Artoo.
    "I quite agree with you," replied Threepio, nodding his head. "I’d have thought they’d given up the war, too, when their second Death Star blew up, and when Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader died, and-Oh no!"
    Threepio walked into a metal column and clattered to the ground. "Now look what you made me do." He quickly picked himself up and checked his plating for dents. "You’re always distracting me, Artoo!"
    Artoo gave a singsong series of toots and whistles. "Reewooo dweet? Beeeeza zooon?"
    "No, there aren’t any droid-eating monsters down here. Now stop babbling and help me look for the entrance to the stadium and-Gracious! There it is back there! Why didn’t you tell me we’d passed it, you nearsighted hunk of tin!"
    "Vrrrr BEEEEEP!"
    "Well, the same to you!"
    Threepio cautiously opened the creaking metal door and sneaked out of the darkness, with Artoo rolling along behind him. The pink sky was so bright it nearly blinded Threepio’s eye-sensors.
    When his sensors cleared, Threepio could see that they were at the lower level of the stadium, where slaves and droids were gathered to listen to the speeches. All around them were green humanoid droids with menacing heads and barrel-shaped spice-mining droids, who looked just like Threepio and Artoo did in their disguises.
    Above them, in the comfortable bleacher seats that surrounded the pit of slaves, were so many Imperial officers and stormtroopers that at first they all seemed to blur together. Artoo raised a long-distance sensor to get a close-up view. Then the barrel-shaped droid began matching the faces he saw with the faces and names of the Imperial officers in his data banks.
    The crowd became quiet as a grand moff, one of the Empire’s regional governors, began to speak. The beady-eyed grand moff was bald and his teeth had been filed into sharp, spearlike points.
    "I am Grand Moff Hissa," he announced, just as Artoo figured out who he was. "And to my fellow grand moffs, and to the grand admirals, other officers, stormtroopers, bounty hunters, slavelords, and slaves, I bid you all Dark Greetings!
    "We have gathered here today to mark a new beginning," he continued, puffing out his chest proudly to display his brown uniform. "The destruction of our latest Death Star was but a temporary setback. The Rebels have yet to see the full fury of our power and our might. We are developing even more advanced weapons, and when we are done, we shall rule the entire galaxy and crush the