Hookay, where to begin. The Glove of Darth Vader was published in 1992, which puts its release just a year after Heir To The Empire, which is widely considered to be one of the best things ever written set in the Star Wars universe. As opposed to The Glove of Darth Vader, which is the beginning of one of the most batshit. And that’s even considering that this is a book for children. Let’s begin with the cover.
Anyone saying they don't know his work at this point will be slapped.
Hang on, did the Star Wars universe already intersect with the Trek universe?
Anyway, I just want to reiterate something: All books I talk here about were part of official Star Wars continuity until 2014’s Purge. This cannot be stressed enough. Because with how fucking nuts this is about to get, I’m very surprised that none of the main cast was depicted in later books waking up in pants shitting terror after flashing back to this madness. And I am not kidding when I say that some of the insanity you are about to experience was later cemented into place by later books and articles. Someone involved with the writing process of these books really wanted them to be considered official canon. And we’ll get to that, I promise.
Ok, I freely admit I’m stalling. *sigh* No turning back now.
Now, I could just read the prologue, bu-u-u-u-u-t…..
You get all that? Good because I’m not playing it again.
Anyway, it seems that in the wake of the destruction of Death Star II, the Rebellion has chosen to move back to Yavin 4. You know, that place that Death Star I came a pubic hair away from blowing up in the first movie? The place that the Empire totally knows about? Are we operating under the logic that “It’ll be the last thing they expect!”?
Anywho, Luke is with Artoo and Threepio, putting new casings on them.
Actually, what’s going on is that the droids are being sent undercover to an Imperial meeting on the planet Kessel. Actually, I should rephrase that. It’s not an Imperial meeting, summit, or team building retreat. Are you ready to hear what it’s actually called?
There’s no way you’re ready.
A Mofference.
Mofference.
“The Kessel droid head Luke was holding had a punched-in, evil-looking face.”
I seriously can’t be the only one seeing that as an old-school Cylon face, can I? Well, Luke-
BZZZZZZZT!
YAH! Oh, right. The authors have a thing for sound effects in their books. And I don’t mean that there’s greeting card style sound chips throughout, no, instead we are damned with a massive amount of onomatopoeia. So I will introduce each one of those effects as written, just so you all can know what reading this book is really like. Especially seeing as every single one of Artoo Detoo’s noises is reproduced in truly annoying detail.
You're all gonna suffer with me.
So that particular sound is Luke signalling the repair crews to start putting on Threepio’s new Kessel styled Otterbox, and that done, he packs the droids off to have a meeting with the Senate Planetary Intelligence Network.
They seriously called their spy agency “Spin”.
Yeah, well, WRONG!!!
WHY DOES LEIA LOOK LIKE COUNSELOR TROI???
It's like every single page of this thing contains something even more batshit than the last! Anyway the information that they really want is about the “Prophets of the Dark Side”. And where do I fucking begin with these assholes? I could spend an hour, no joke, talking about how badly they were introduced, retconned, and forced into official canon. Well, I guess we’ll just cover this as we go. So the “Supreme Prophet” Kadann has a blog, because everyone knows his prophecies. Most important is his latest one, which reads as follows:
After Palpatine’s fiery death
Another leader soon comes to command the Empire
And on his right hand he does wear
The glove of Darth Vader!
Hey, that’s the title of the book!
Ok, so apparently, when Palpatine was rebuilding Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith, he made Vader’s right hand glove out of an indestructible material. Because he could do that now. Couldn’t make the whole suit indestructible, that’d just be silly. Nah, we’re just gonna do one glove. And not even the left hand, which is traditionally the sinister hand, nope, gonna go with the right. So I guess it’s a precursor to the crossguard lightsaber that everyone except Stephen Colbert hates.
Well, naturally when Death Star II went kablooey, the glove would’ve been ejected into space, so they think that the Mofference is to reveal that someone has the glove.
Well, it’s a better introductory plot than trade negotiations, I’ll give it that. Now we follow Han and Leia as he escorts her back to her quarters, and apparently because Lando is back in charge of Cloud City, he has offered Han a lease on some property, so Han won’t be coming back because “I’ve always dreamed of having a place of my own, and I figure it’s about time Chewie and I built my dream sky house.”
“I am Grand Moff Hissa, 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!”
"For many years you have heard rumors that the Emperor had a son. Today I am authorized to inform you that the Emperor did indeed have a son-a son who shall be our new chosen one!"
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This putz. |
And yet, this is still going to get dumber.
“My father, the Emperor, had many powers of the Dark Side. But without three eyes he could never achieve perfection. It was known by the ancients that a Dark Lord with three eyes has a secret strength possessed by none other. And so it is my destiny to rule over my father’s Empire and bring us the glory that he never achieved!”
Back in 2006, Abel G. Pena was commissioned to write a history of the Sith for Star Wars Insider. You can find the article easily enough, it's called "Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties". And I'm gonna read a little quote from it now. Get ready.
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| Yo. |
That's right. In order to make any sort of fucking sense out of this series, Pena introduced a three-eyed Sith Lord who founded the Prophets of the Dark Side which show up in this series.
One moment please.
*sigh* Anyway, a bunch of Imperial clowns point out that there's some Grand Admiral named "Grunger" who's laid claim to the throne, and the Prophets said that in order to rule, Trioc has to have the Glove of Darth Vader. So Trioc decides to do as dear old dad would do:
So, Trioc, Hissa, and a medical droid go back to Trioc's "Black Metal" palace (EEEEEVIIIILLLL!!!), to have lunch with a bunch of Moffs and Admirals. Here we are told of the rare delicacy "Whaladon", and I'd like to remind everyone that this was indeed canon for a very long time. You see, Whaladon meat was a "rare delicacy" that was "believed to be a source of strength".
"Whaladons were huge whale-like creatures, mammals that lived only in the oceans of the watery planet Calamari. They were highly intelligent and wise, and it was against the laws of Calamari to kill them. Still, a huge, illegal Whaladon hunting operation existed in Calamari’s waters. In fact, even though Whaladons were an endangered species, there were more Whaladon hunters on Calamari than ever before, led by Captain Dunwell, a trusted friend of the Central Committee of Grand Moffs."
My friends, welcome to the dirty little secret behind the Jedi Prince series: a bunch of PSA's that had Star Wars stuff crapped all over them. I'm not even joking. Each book in this series has some sort of environmental message jammed into it for the kiddies.
Anyway Trioc demands that his gaggle of bootlickers find him the Glove of Darth Vader. And I for one would like to highlight the absolutely darling earrings the fellow on the right there is wearing. Because some times an evil Governor/Admiral just wants to feel pretty. Trioc's bootlicker lackeys try to point out that space is pretty damn big, so where would they start looking?
I dunno, probably THE PLANET THAT DEATH STAR II BLEW UP OVER?!? But oh no, just wait until we get the real location. It's far stupider. Then they all argue about where they should set up their new Imperial Homeworld, and start shouting out film locations. Not joking at all, Mos Eisley Spaceport, Cloud City, and Hoth are all offered as potential locations. Then one of them starts saying that the whole thing is pointless and until they find the Glove, there's no point to choosing a base, so Hissa shoots him dead.
Ok, your boss can shoot lightning, let the guy use it. But then again, what's the point of being the boss unless you can delegate?
Elsewhere Artoo and Threepio are still looking for a way out, and we're treated to:
"Tzoooooot gniiiiizba!" Artoo beeped in frustration.
"Chpeeeeeeez phoooooch!" tooted Artoo.
"Pchoook ftiiiiz mebutung knuzush!" Artoo beeped noisily.
Were the authors being paid by the word? Or letter, possibly?
Anyway, the droids are wandering down "Slavelord Boulevard", because this books is three blocks away from anything even approaching subtlety, when all of a sudden Luke turns up in a landspeeder, picks them up, and drives them to a waiting ship that is piloted by...Admiral Ackbar. Because when you have a deep cover spy mission, it's important to have the leader of your military drive the fucking getaway car. Fuck, at least Trioc seems to know how to delegate, so points to him on that one.
Then Artoo spouts out "Bzzz tzzzt gniiiz bzheeep dzz dzooop!", which means there are probe droids after them, so they probably should take the long route back to Yavin IV or something.
Back on Kessel, Trioc has decided to hold off on moving headquarters anywhere because he's in a pissy mood, so now he's hunting "fefze beetles", with Hissa "congratulating him enthusiastically" after each kill.
Then because he's the boss, it's time for pointless bureaucracy! Trioc and Hissa go and sign for a delivery of more Whaladon meat. Yep. This happens.But it's important because there's a message from Captain "What the fuck am I doing in a Star Wars book" Dunwell.
Back on Kessel, Trioc has decided to hold off on moving headquarters anywhere because he's in a pissy mood, so now he's hunting "fefze beetles", with Hissa "congratulating him enthusiastically" after each kill.
Then because he's the boss, it's time for pointless bureaucracy! Trioc and Hissa go and sign for a delivery of more Whaladon meat. Yep. This happens.But it's important because there's a message from Captain "What the fuck am I doing in a Star Wars book" Dunwell.
"Dark Greetings, Lord Trioculus!"
Yep, even the glorified fisherman is a Dark Side worshiping loon. His message boils down to telling Trioc to come to the "Whaladon Processing Center" on Calamari, because he has a surprise for him. Uh, Trioc, you're Emperor, he's a Captain, you *can* pull rank if you want.
POV Change! Now we're with...oh god..."Leviathor", a very large Whaladon.
As it turns out, the Whaladons are fully sentient beings. Yep, got language and everything. He's having an internal soliloquy about how so many Whaladons have died, that their bones litter the ocean floor, and seriously authors if you have that big a chip on your shoulder about whaling go join that show on Discovery whose name I can't be bothered to look up. You know the one, they made fun of it on South Park.
Back to Luke, the Droids, and Ackbar. They're on "Command Speeder 714-D", and that's how the writers keep referring to it; not as "the speeder" or "the ship", it's always fucking "Command Speeder 714-D".They're trying to decide where to hold up and get the data on Trioc back to the Rebellion, and Ackbar suggests Calamari because of plot convenience. So they go to the "Domed City of Aquarius", which just happens to be where Leviathor was hanging out, and listen to him...sing.
And so they listen to his lament about the hunting of Whaladons and I would just like to remind everyone reading that, yes...
Elsewhere on Calamari, Trioc has arrived in his ship that's nifty enough to go in space and the water. Dunwell wants to have parades and shit to announce his presence, but Trioc thinks that's stupid and oh lord do I have to agree. So his ship docks - with a GRONNNNNNG no less - and Dunwell escorts Trioc to his office, which is right past the killing floor.
So once there, Dunwell tells Trioc that they found wreckage from an explosion in the..."Valley of the Giant Oysters". So, uh....debris from Death Star II made it all the way to Calamari, did it? Uh huh, okay, yeah sure NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.
Allow me to share the map that writers for the Expanded Universe used.
Ok, now notice that green circle on the left hand side? That's Endor. That's where Death Star II blew up. Guess where Calamari is. I'll give you a hint, I circled in in blue.
NO. FUCKING. WAY. Sorry, moron writers, but that is impossible as the explosion was ONE YEAR AGO. They try to bullshit some explanation about "buckles in space" or black holes or some stupid shit, but NNNNNNNNNOPE.
Anyway, apparently the piece they found was about the size of a Y-Wing, and Dunwell shows Trioc an x-ray scan of it. Trioc decides to be all mystical and shit, and only looks at it using his third eye and sees the image of a glove. Which of course must be Vader's indestructible glove because nothing else could have survived that blast!
...except of course the large piece of wreckage that is apparently holding the glove. So with a KRR-RR-AAAAAAANG! (apparently the sound a submarine makes leaving dock), Trioc and Dunwell are on their way.
Meanwhile, Luke and Ackbar are done listening to the whale songs, and R2 is telling Luke, through 3PO, all about the meeting in the stadium they witnessed. They're actually not transcribing R2's beeps this time, which makes me more happy than you can know, but yeah, that won't last.
As they head into the Calamarian office of SPIN (they have one of those on Mon Calamari too?) Luke finds himself annoyed by the Empire for lying for so long about the Emperor's son. "Just thinking about it made Luke shake his head in frustration. How could anyone believe anything the Empire said, when the Empire changed the "official truth" day by day to suit its convenience?" Um, they also destroy planets, enslave whole races, and now, even more so than usual for some reason, are the embodiment of pure evil. Maybe we could focus on that, and not on denials of a bastard child as the worst thing they do.
Luke and Ackbar then start the process of contacting Mon Mothma, but that's a little too plot advancing for us to read, so instead we follow R2 and 3PO into a droid repair shop. 3PO gets a whole new head, which looks the same as his old one, only shinier! R2 also gets back to normal. 3PO stands in the mirror thinking he's so pretty, and R2 spins in circles he's so damn happy. So, that makes 2 different bromances we've been subjected to, and I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Then all 4 of them get into an underwater ship and head down to the ocean floor. Ackbar says they've sent the message about Trioculus to Mon Mothma, but instead of following up on all that (new Emperor, Empire possibly rising again, untold destruction ahead) he's going to take them somewhere to show them the problem with the Whaladons first hand. Where is he taking them? Why, to Captain Dunwell's Whaladon Processing Center, of course. So, let me get this straight. They know where the guy kills Whaldons? That species you're afraid is gonna get genocided? Annnd you're doing what exactly to stop it??
"Chnooozbch kjiiiik?" beeped Artoo.
Oh hell.
"Artoo wants to know how the hunting of Whaladons harms the ecology of your planet," Threepio translated.
Well, he's the only fucking one. Ackbar goes on for a while on his anti-whaling message the authors are force feeding us, about how everything is connected and without the Whaladons Mon Calamari might wind up in an Ice Age. The whole thing only makes sense if you realize he's talking about Earth. But then he's interrupted, thankfully, by a blip on his sonar unit. Turns out the only other ship in the area is Captain Dunwell's submarine, so they decide to see what he's up to. So their tiny sub sneaks up behind Dunwell's massive fuck-off fortress of a submarine. They also see Leviathor, who is moving closer to Dunwell's submarine. Because he's an idiot. And because we needed conflict. A giant whirlpool kicks up, because Dunwell's ship has these turbine things that suck in Whaladons. Levaithor then gets sucked up. So that's at least funny.
THUUUU-WHOMP!
That, however is annoying. Ackbar talks about how this is a sad day for Calamari, while I just can't believe that this book is now almost primarily about whaling. A Star Wars book. Whaling. Luke is also, by the way, watching this happen from his tiny sub. Is there really nothing he could do with the Force to stop it? I mean, he watches as Leviathor gets caught, then another, then a third, then a fourth. He's just sitting here watching the whole time. I mean, his "mouth fell open" but that's about it. 3PO asks if there's anything they can do, but Ackbar says it's hopeless. This is the guy who lead the fleet that took down the second Death Star, mind you. Big ship? Hopeless. Luke thinks about all the hopeless situations he's been in before, and how he's never given up before, and they follow the ship. Dunwell's ship goes between two mountains, and Ackbar lets this gem out, "There are no Whaladons this way-destination unknown." Which sounds more like a computer said it than an Admiral. So I guess they don't know what Dunwell's up to. They see massive oysters lining the sea bed, but in between these they see some jagged metal. (Finally, we're moving the fuck on with the "plot".)
"Tweeeeez bziiiiii!"
Artoo is now, apparently, saying something about how it looks like a mine field. They want R2 to examine the "atomic structure" of one of the pieces of metal, so they use a mechanical arm to grab a piece. Ackbar is, "especially interested to know whether it contains any doonium or phobium". Doo or pho what now? Turns out the metal is six percent doonium, and 3 percent phobium. Which apparently is important.
"Phobium was mined by Emperor Palpatine on Gargon," said Ackbar. "And there’s only one thing I know of that he ever used it for: to coat the power core of the Death Star."
Really? That's the only thing it was ever for? Ever? Then why did you bring it up? Why would you have any reason to believe pieces of the Death Star would wind up out here? And if Phobium could "coat the power core of the Death Star" it sounds pretty useful. Unless by coating you just meant painting.
Luke is shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that this metal is from the Death Star. They also watch a smaller sub leave Dunwell's ship and head towards the largest piece of metal. Luke feels a "shiver run up his spine" as he suddenly realized what was about to happen. Um, what does he think is going to happen? Because right now it looks like Dunwell is heading towards a piece of scrap metal. Maybe he's just low on building materials?
Trioc emerges from a hatch on the small sub inside an underwater suit, which is "of the most advanced design". So I guess it has all kinds of blinking lights and other Star Wars-y stuff. He also brings some thermal detonators. (Would those work underwater? Fuck it, already stopped caring.)
KABRAAAA-AAM!
Guess so. He blasts a whole in the side of the metal, while some how not blowing himself up. I don't know how. He then pulls himself through the opening.
Into what looks like it might have been a bathroom or kitchen on the Death Star? Seriously, where did they have tile floors? Oh well. There he finds the glove. (Sorry, should I have made that more dramatic?)
There we go. Then we're back with Luke, who is watching this through macrobinoculars. And he's shocked to see the guy has 3 eyes! The hero of the galaxy puts together that this must be Trioculus. Trioc is heading back to the big ship, and Luke asks if they can get closer, and Ackbar says that they can't without being seen. Luke seems fine with this, as he asks if they can communicate with Trioc. He figures if they surrender, they'll be on the ship at least. He's pretty much assuming they won't just blow him up. Then we get this, "It was an old Jedi rule of thumb to attack when the odds were overwhelmingly against you". No it's not. That's not only not a rule of thumb of the Jedi, it's also retarded. "No, no, I can't attack yet, the odds are too good." But they do it anyway, and move closer.
FAZHOOOOM!
Ugh. Then the power in the sub shuts down because Ackbar is an idiot. Wait, what I meant was he "tried to accelerate faster than we can go, triggering a systems shutdown." Like I said, he was an idiot. They have 3PO...3PO...use the backup steering wheel.
"Bzeeech! Chnooooch!" beeped Artoo frantically.
I agree, with R2. This is dumb. Then the power comes back on, and Ackbar starts piloting again. So this part of the scene had absolutely no point. Good to know. Then...oh god a giant squid! I'm not kidding. They find a giant squid. Because why the fuck not.
FWISHHHHH!
Dunwell's ship sucks up the squid. So there was no point in that either. Oh wait, our heroes are getting sucked up too. But no one on Dunwell's ship notices this, because the crew members are more concerned with playing sabacc. So no one is paying attention to what they're sucking up? Do they just press the button every couple minutes and sift through sea trash later? Damn, Leviathor is a bigger idiot than I thought. Trioc, however, is out of his underwater space-y suit and is examining the glove. He puts it on slowly, and as he does an image of Darth Vader flashes in his mind, and he seems to feel the evil of Darth Vader flow into him. Apparently he was keeping it in his glove. Oh, so I guess when Luke cut off Vader's hand, he was actually freeing him from his evil! Man, this book is making me see the trilogy in a whole new light! Sorry.
They walk to Dunwell's cabin, but on the way they run into a group of gambling Aqualish. Trioc gets mad at them and throws up his gloved hand at the Aqualish closest to him. And to his amazement, nothing happens. "The glove didn’t work for him the way it had worked for Darth Vader, who had been able to choke the life-breath out of his victims by pointing the glove in their direction." Um, he does know that wasn't the glove, right? That the Force was doing that? I mean, the guy can shoot lightning out of his hands, you'd think he would have a basic understanding of the Force. Well, he gets bored trying that, so he just zaps the dude with lightning instead.
Once they get to Dunwell's cabin, Trioc says he's annoyed because, well:
IT'S. A. FUCKING. GLOVE!!!!
Grand Moff Hissa points out that at least it's a symbol of evil, and now that he has it he can properly claim to be the new Emperor. But Trioc is pissy and says he doesn't care about symbols, he wanted the power of Vader. Really? This is what we're going with? He wanted the glove so he could choke people from a few feet away? That's reason enough for it to be the name of the book? Then we get this paragraph, which is so dumb I can barely think about it. Hissa says that Trioc needs to be patient, and to remember that the lightning doesn't actually flow out of his finger tips like it did with Palpatine (...wait...don't do it...) and that the medical droid Emdee "had to implant a cybernetic device inside of you so that you could appear to have the lightning power. But if you use it too many times, all that electricity could prove fatal to you."
I...um...oh fuck. He doesn't actually have lightning power? He just did that in order to make everyone think he did?
Everybody got that? He's a sham, and we have no reason to give a shit anymore. Hissa says that the Emperor's real son, Triclops (Wait, who the hell was Palpatine fucking?) is hopelessly insane, and that they had to choose Trioculus, because the rumors already spoke of the son having three eyes. So there you go. He's not just a villain with three eyes, he's a villain because he has three eyes. Emdee then puts something inside each of the glove's fingers so that when Trioc presses his fingers together, it will let out a high pitch sound only heard by the one it's pointed at. That will make them fall down, their eardrums will explode, and their brains will disintegrate.
That last feeling, I think I understand.
Luke, Ackbar, and the droids are now inside their minisub which is inside the holding chamber with a unconscious giant squid, and Luke decides they need to get out. And fast! But how? How could they possibly get out...oh wait, Ackbar raised their minisub to the top of the chamber, attached it to a port hole, and they're out. That was, indeed, fast. Well, Luke is out. Ackbar is staying behind in case they need to "make a quick escape." R2 and 3PO are coming though. Of course they are.
While walking down the corridor, Luke sees the chamber with Leviathor, who is "flapping his tail aimlessly, moaning sadly." Above the chamber, he also sees Captain Dunwell, who is holding a blaster. "Luke recognized Dunwell immediately from the WANTED holograms that Ackbar had projected for him." Wait, when did that happen? I don't remember that, but my eyes may have just breezed over it if it was in the middle of an anti-whaling rant.
"The captain was stroking his beard." To be fair, it is hard to not do that when you have a beard. Turns out Dunwell's listening in on the conversation between Trioculus, Hissa, and Emdee, because he bugged his own quarters. You know, just in case the new head of the Empire ever stopped by. "And Trioculus, in his haste to find a private place to talk, had forgotten to have Grand Moff Hissa check for any listening devices." They really seem to be going out of their way to make me not have any respect for Trioculus as a villain. I mean, they don't need to try that hard. His name is Trioculus, and he has three eyes. He's already a party joke. Anyway, now Dunwell knows Trioculus' lightning is full of shit.
Suddenly he glances up and sees Luke, R2, and 3PO. He shoots two blasts and one of them hits R2, which sends "the little droid spinning around and around in a circle." Luke "instantly" draws his lightsaber, although it's not that instantly if R2 was just hit. He hits the blaster with it, which flies out of Dunwell's hand.
Dunwell asks who this guy with the lightsaber is, and Luke replies, ""I’m asking the questions and giving the orders now, Captain," said Luke. "And here’s order number one." (Wow, how do they manage to nail the dialogue so well?) Luke's order is to hook them (I'm assuming he means R2) up to the ship's master control system. Dunwell says he'd rather die than help them, but then Luke uses his Jedi mind trick to make him take them to a computer terminal.
When they get there and R2 hooks in, Luke tells him to figure out how to crack the codes, then let all the Whaladons free. Dunwell says he'll never be able to crack the codes, which gets a "Gaaaaaz booop dweeet!" from Artoo. (I can't get over how incredible this dialogue is) 3PO says it'll be no problem, because Vader's codes were always more complicated, and those never took R2 more than 15 seconds.
Luke tells R2 that, actually, before freeing the Whaladon's, check to see if the ship has a self destruct. Dunwell says it doesn't, R2 says it does (actually, he says, "Zuuuuung! Galooooop!" but you get the idea), and Luke says to set it to self destruct in (he thinks for a while) 10 minutes, because, "that should do it," said Luke. "And if it doesn’t, well then we’re all history." Then a lot of alarm bells start going off, so I guess the sneak around part of their mission is over.
Then Luke remembers the Whaladons, and asks R2 to free them. But R2 can't find out how. So Luke really fucked up there by setting the ship to blow up before finding out how to free them. Suddenly Trioculus appears at the end of the hallway! He tells Luke that he's doomed, and raises his gloved hand. Luke grabs Dunwell and holds him up in front of him, so Dunwell gets hit with the sonic blast. Dunwell gasps (I guess that means his brain desintigrated? Nah, he's fine) and Luke throws him into Trioculus (how close are they, exactly?). R2 says ("Jeeep booo poooooz!") he found out how to free the Whaladons, and the doors in their chambers open.
Trioc shoots lightning at Luke, and Luke deflects it with his lightsaber. Trioc thinks that maybe he should stop using it, because it will eventually kill him, but thinks, nah, and just intensifies it. He also aims it differently so it goes around Luke's lightsaber. Luke crumples to the ground, writhes around, and eventually stops moving. Trioc turns to Dunwell and demands he gets his key card to the escape sub. He takes it, but when he turns back, Luke is on his feet. (You know, electricity probably should hurt more than that. Especially if this time he stopped movi-ah fuck it.) Luke is running away, back to his minisub. "You may have escaped from Emperor Palpatine, but I shall destroy you, Skywalker!" Trioculus shouted. "You have my promise!" Apparently that's what passes for scary in this book.
They get back to their sub, and sail away. Luke turns around and sees Leviathor and the other escaped Whaladons swimming away from the sub (and hopefully away from this book series).
Trioc gets to the escape sub, and he and Dunwell fight over who gets in first. Trioc gets in first, but as he does, he feels a pain in his forehead (doesn't he have an eye in the middle of that?) and suddenly everything goes black. Then he's fine and steps in. If it seems like I'm breezing by this, it's because that's what the book does. He practically passes out, then he's fine, and they move on.
Trioc stops Dunwell from getting on board, and says that a Captain should go down with his ship. Dunwell is mad, but Trioc doesn't care and hits him with the sonic blast from the glove. Dunwell hits the floor, presumably now with a brain made of mush. The escape sub sails away, just as the big sub explodes. "An evil smile spread across Trioculus’s face as he clenched his gloved right hand into a fist. That hand no longer twitched. It now felt strong, invincible-and ready to rule the galaxy!"
...except of course the large piece of wreckage that is apparently holding the glove. So with a KRR-RR-AAAAAAANG! (apparently the sound a submarine makes leaving dock), Trioc and Dunwell are on their way.
Meanwhile, Luke and Ackbar are done listening to the whale songs, and R2 is telling Luke, through 3PO, all about the meeting in the stadium they witnessed. They're actually not transcribing R2's beeps this time, which makes me more happy than you can know, but yeah, that won't last.
As they head into the Calamarian office of SPIN (they have one of those on Mon Calamari too?) Luke finds himself annoyed by the Empire for lying for so long about the Emperor's son. "Just thinking about it made Luke shake his head in frustration. How could anyone believe anything the Empire said, when the Empire changed the "official truth" day by day to suit its convenience?" Um, they also destroy planets, enslave whole races, and now, even more so than usual for some reason, are the embodiment of pure evil. Maybe we could focus on that, and not on denials of a bastard child as the worst thing they do.
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| "Shit, he's dangling a fish! LYNCH THE BASTARD!" |
Luke and Ackbar then start the process of contacting Mon Mothma, but that's a little too plot advancing for us to read, so instead we follow R2 and 3PO into a droid repair shop. 3PO gets a whole new head, which looks the same as his old one, only shinier! R2 also gets back to normal. 3PO stands in the mirror thinking he's so pretty, and R2 spins in circles he's so damn happy. So, that makes 2 different bromances we've been subjected to, and I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
Then all 4 of them get into an underwater ship and head down to the ocean floor. Ackbar says they've sent the message about Trioculus to Mon Mothma, but instead of following up on all that (new Emperor, Empire possibly rising again, untold destruction ahead) he's going to take them somewhere to show them the problem with the Whaladons first hand. Where is he taking them? Why, to Captain Dunwell's Whaladon Processing Center, of course. So, let me get this straight. They know where the guy kills Whaldons? That species you're afraid is gonna get genocided? Annnd you're doing what exactly to stop it??
"Chnooozbch kjiiiik?" beeped Artoo.
Oh hell.
"Artoo wants to know how the hunting of Whaladons harms the ecology of your planet," Threepio translated.
Well, he's the only fucking one. Ackbar goes on for a while on his anti-whaling message the authors are force feeding us, about how everything is connected and without the Whaladons Mon Calamari might wind up in an Ice Age. The whole thing only makes sense if you realize he's talking about Earth. But then he's interrupted, thankfully, by a blip on his sonar unit. Turns out the only other ship in the area is Captain Dunwell's submarine, so they decide to see what he's up to. So their tiny sub sneaks up behind Dunwell's massive fuck-off fortress of a submarine. They also see Leviathor, who is moving closer to Dunwell's submarine. Because he's an idiot. And because we needed conflict. A giant whirlpool kicks up, because Dunwell's ship has these turbine things that suck in Whaladons. Levaithor then gets sucked up. So that's at least funny.
THUUUU-WHOMP!
That, however is annoying. Ackbar talks about how this is a sad day for Calamari, while I just can't believe that this book is now almost primarily about whaling. A Star Wars book. Whaling. Luke is also, by the way, watching this happen from his tiny sub. Is there really nothing he could do with the Force to stop it? I mean, he watches as Leviathor gets caught, then another, then a third, then a fourth. He's just sitting here watching the whole time. I mean, his "mouth fell open" but that's about it. 3PO asks if there's anything they can do, but Ackbar says it's hopeless. This is the guy who lead the fleet that took down the second Death Star, mind you. Big ship? Hopeless. Luke thinks about all the hopeless situations he's been in before, and how he's never given up before, and they follow the ship. Dunwell's ship goes between two mountains, and Ackbar lets this gem out, "There are no Whaladons this way-destination unknown." Which sounds more like a computer said it than an Admiral. So I guess they don't know what Dunwell's up to. They see massive oysters lining the sea bed, but in between these they see some jagged metal. (Finally, we're moving the fuck on with the "plot".)
"Tweeeeez bziiiiii!"
Artoo is now, apparently, saying something about how it looks like a mine field. They want R2 to examine the "atomic structure" of one of the pieces of metal, so they use a mechanical arm to grab a piece. Ackbar is, "especially interested to know whether it contains any doonium or phobium". Doo or pho what now? Turns out the metal is six percent doonium, and 3 percent phobium. Which apparently is important.
"Phobium was mined by Emperor Palpatine on Gargon," said Ackbar. "And there’s only one thing I know of that he ever used it for: to coat the power core of the Death Star."
Really? That's the only thing it was ever for? Ever? Then why did you bring it up? Why would you have any reason to believe pieces of the Death Star would wind up out here? And if Phobium could "coat the power core of the Death Star" it sounds pretty useful. Unless by coating you just meant painting.
Luke is shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that this metal is from the Death Star. They also watch a smaller sub leave Dunwell's ship and head towards the largest piece of metal. Luke feels a "shiver run up his spine" as he suddenly realized what was about to happen. Um, what does he think is going to happen? Because right now it looks like Dunwell is heading towards a piece of scrap metal. Maybe he's just low on building materials?
Trioc emerges from a hatch on the small sub inside an underwater suit, which is "of the most advanced design". So I guess it has all kinds of blinking lights and other Star Wars-y stuff. He also brings some thermal detonators. (Would those work underwater? Fuck it, already stopped caring.)
KABRAAAA-AAM!
Guess so. He blasts a whole in the side of the metal, while some how not blowing himself up. I don't know how. He then pulls himself through the opening.
 |
| Ok, now Trioc just looks like one of the Centurions. Anyone else remember those toys? Fuck, I'm old. |
He pushed aside the ion deactivator, and there it was: a five-fingered black gauntlet, in one piece, undamaged by heat or water.
In fact, the glove looked just as it must have looked when Darth Vader had worn it on his right hand!
FAZHOOOOM!
Ugh. Then the power in the sub shuts down because Ackbar is an idiot. Wait, what I meant was he "tried to accelerate faster than we can go, triggering a systems shutdown." Like I said, he was an idiot. They have 3PO...3PO...use the backup steering wheel.
"Bzeeech! Chnooooch!" beeped Artoo frantically.
I agree, with R2. This is dumb. Then the power comes back on, and Ackbar starts piloting again. So this part of the scene had absolutely no point. Good to know. Then...oh god a giant squid! I'm not kidding. They find a giant squid. Because why the fuck not.
FWISHHHHH!
Dunwell's ship sucks up the squid. So there was no point in that either. Oh wait, our heroes are getting sucked up too. But no one on Dunwell's ship notices this, because the crew members are more concerned with playing sabacc. So no one is paying attention to what they're sucking up? Do they just press the button every couple minutes and sift through sea trash later? Damn, Leviathor is a bigger idiot than I thought. Trioc, however, is out of his underwater space-y suit and is examining the glove. He puts it on slowly, and as he does an image of Darth Vader flashes in his mind, and he seems to feel the evil of Darth Vader flow into him. Apparently he was keeping it in his glove. Oh, so I guess when Luke cut off Vader's hand, he was actually freeing him from his evil! Man, this book is making me see the trilogy in a whole new light! Sorry.
They walk to Dunwell's cabin, but on the way they run into a group of gambling Aqualish. Trioc gets mad at them and throws up his gloved hand at the Aqualish closest to him. And to his amazement, nothing happens. "The glove didn’t work for him the way it had worked for Darth Vader, who had been able to choke the life-breath out of his victims by pointing the glove in their direction." Um, he does know that wasn't the glove, right? That the Force was doing that? I mean, the guy can shoot lightning out of his hands, you'd think he would have a basic understanding of the Force. Well, he gets bored trying that, so he just zaps the dude with lightning instead.
Once they get to Dunwell's cabin, Trioc says he's annoyed because, well:
 |
| "When Darth Vader pointed this glove, he had the power to choke his victims," he said. "The glove is useless if it no longer has that power." |
IT'S. A. FUCKING. GLOVE!!!!
Grand Moff Hissa points out that at least it's a symbol of evil, and now that he has it he can properly claim to be the new Emperor. But Trioc is pissy and says he doesn't care about symbols, he wanted the power of Vader. Really? This is what we're going with? He wanted the glove so he could choke people from a few feet away? That's reason enough for it to be the name of the book? Then we get this paragraph, which is so dumb I can barely think about it. Hissa says that Trioc needs to be patient, and to remember that the lightning doesn't actually flow out of his finger tips like it did with Palpatine (...wait...don't do it...) and that the medical droid Emdee "had to implant a cybernetic device inside of you so that you could appear to have the lightning power. But if you use it too many times, all that electricity could prove fatal to you."
I...um...oh fuck. He doesn't actually have lightning power? He just did that in order to make everyone think he did?
|
| "Never forget," Trioculus said with a blaze of anger in all three of his eyes, "that when the Central Committee of Grand Moffs proposed to me that I be the one to declare himself the Emperor’s son, you grand moffs swore you would keep the plot a secret. And in turn I agreed that when I became Emperor, I would share my rule with the Central Committee of Grand Moffs." |
Everybody got that? He's a sham, and we have no reason to give a shit anymore. Hissa says that the Emperor's real son, Triclops (Wait, who the hell was Palpatine fucking?) is hopelessly insane, and that they had to choose Trioculus, because the rumors already spoke of the son having three eyes. So there you go. He's not just a villain with three eyes, he's a villain because he has three eyes. Emdee then puts something inside each of the glove's fingers so that when Trioc presses his fingers together, it will let out a high pitch sound only heard by the one it's pointed at. That will make them fall down, their eardrums will explode, and their brains will disintegrate.
That last feeling, I think I understand.
Luke, Ackbar, and the droids are now inside their minisub which is inside the holding chamber with a unconscious giant squid, and Luke decides they need to get out. And fast! But how? How could they possibly get out...oh wait, Ackbar raised their minisub to the top of the chamber, attached it to a port hole, and they're out. That was, indeed, fast. Well, Luke is out. Ackbar is staying behind in case they need to "make a quick escape." R2 and 3PO are coming though. Of course they are.
While walking down the corridor, Luke sees the chamber with Leviathor, who is "flapping his tail aimlessly, moaning sadly." Above the chamber, he also sees Captain Dunwell, who is holding a blaster. "Luke recognized Dunwell immediately from the WANTED holograms that Ackbar had projected for him." Wait, when did that happen? I don't remember that, but my eyes may have just breezed over it if it was in the middle of an anti-whaling rant.
"The captain was stroking his beard." To be fair, it is hard to not do that when you have a beard. Turns out Dunwell's listening in on the conversation between Trioculus, Hissa, and Emdee, because he bugged his own quarters. You know, just in case the new head of the Empire ever stopped by. "And Trioculus, in his haste to find a private place to talk, had forgotten to have Grand Moff Hissa check for any listening devices." They really seem to be going out of their way to make me not have any respect for Trioculus as a villain. I mean, they don't need to try that hard. His name is Trioculus, and he has three eyes. He's already a party joke. Anyway, now Dunwell knows Trioculus' lightning is full of shit.
Suddenly he glances up and sees Luke, R2, and 3PO. He shoots two blasts and one of them hits R2, which sends "the little droid spinning around and around in a circle." Luke "instantly" draws his lightsaber, although it's not that instantly if R2 was just hit. He hits the blaster with it, which flies out of Dunwell's hand.
 |
| Wait, he just...bats it away? With the sword that can shear through virtually anything? LIGHTSABERS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! |
When they get there and R2 hooks in, Luke tells him to figure out how to crack the codes, then let all the Whaladons free. Dunwell says he'll never be able to crack the codes, which gets a "Gaaaaaz booop dweeet!" from Artoo. (I can't get over how incredible this dialogue is) 3PO says it'll be no problem, because Vader's codes were always more complicated, and those never took R2 more than 15 seconds.
Luke tells R2 that, actually, before freeing the Whaladon's, check to see if the ship has a self destruct. Dunwell says it doesn't, R2 says it does (actually, he says, "Zuuuuung! Galooooop!" but you get the idea), and Luke says to set it to self destruct in (he thinks for a while) 10 minutes, because, "that should do it," said Luke. "And if it doesn’t, well then we’re all history." Then a lot of alarm bells start going off, so I guess the sneak around part of their mission is over.
Then Luke remembers the Whaladons, and asks R2 to free them. But R2 can't find out how. So Luke really fucked up there by setting the ship to blow up before finding out how to free them. Suddenly Trioculus appears at the end of the hallway! He tells Luke that he's doomed, and raises his gloved hand. Luke grabs Dunwell and holds him up in front of him, so Dunwell gets hit with the sonic blast. Dunwell gasps (I guess that means his brain desintigrated? Nah, he's fine) and Luke throws him into Trioculus (how close are they, exactly?). R2 says ("Jeeep booo poooooz!") he found out how to free the Whaladons, and the doors in their chambers open.
Trioc shoots lightning at Luke, and Luke deflects it with his lightsaber. Trioc thinks that maybe he should stop using it, because it will eventually kill him, but thinks, nah, and just intensifies it. He also aims it differently so it goes around Luke's lightsaber. Luke crumples to the ground, writhes around, and eventually stops moving. Trioc turns to Dunwell and demands he gets his key card to the escape sub. He takes it, but when he turns back, Luke is on his feet. (You know, electricity probably should hurt more than that. Especially if this time he stopped movi-ah fuck it.) Luke is running away, back to his minisub. "You may have escaped from Emperor Palpatine, but I shall destroy you, Skywalker!" Trioculus shouted. "You have my promise!" Apparently that's what passes for scary in this book.
They get back to their sub, and sail away. Luke turns around and sees Leviathor and the other escaped Whaladons swimming away from the sub (and hopefully away from this book series).
Trioc gets to the escape sub, and he and Dunwell fight over who gets in first. Trioc gets in first, but as he does, he feels a pain in his forehead (doesn't he have an eye in the middle of that?) and suddenly everything goes black. Then he's fine and steps in. If it seems like I'm breezing by this, it's because that's what the book does. He practically passes out, then he's fine, and they move on.
Trioc stops Dunwell from getting on board, and says that a Captain should go down with his ship. Dunwell is mad, but Trioc doesn't care and hits him with the sonic blast from the glove. Dunwell hits the floor, presumably now with a brain made of mush. The escape sub sails away, just as the big sub explodes. "An evil smile spread across Trioculus’s face as he clenched his gloved right hand into a fist. That hand no longer twitched. It now felt strong, invincible-and ready to rule the galaxy!"
 |
| Pictured: Evil Smile |
We now get back to Luke who is back on Yavin 4, specifically in the "Alliance Senate". Do they need a Senate? Are they deciding on a lot of laws, with them still being a Rebel organization? Well, anyway, they have one, and Luke's there. He just finished giving a full report on...whatever they did this book. SPIN congratulates them on not dying, I guess.
Then the day of the Whaladon Concert (the what now?) arrives, and they're all back on Mon Calamari, seated in the "aquatheater" in the Domed City of Aquarius.
"The program of Whaladon songs was spectacular. It included a water ballet, Whaladon folk melodies, classical Whaladon songs, and an opera Leviathor had composed that told the legendary story of how he had become the Whaladon leader many years ago by helping the Whaladons survive an undersea volcanic eruption."
And if I have to read the word "whaladon" one more goddamned time, I'm gonna go harpoon an orca. Oh, and remember:
Luke, however, can't focus on the concert. Probably because it's a bunch of whales doing an opera. Instead he thinks about Trioculus. "Luke was unable to banish from his mind Trioculus’s parting words: 'I shall destroy you, Skywalker! You have my promise!'"
 |
| "And smell my finger!" |
And that's the end of this book. So let's sum up what happened. C-3PO and R2-D2 went on a spy mission, Luke and Ackbar saved some whales, and we met Trioculus, who may or may not actually have Dark Side powers, uses fake Force lightning, says he's the Emperor's son but isn't, and found the Glove of Darth Vader. That was the entire book.
Oh, and Han and Chewie went off to build a honeymoon suite. Just. Just wow.
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