The creature thought for a moment. “One big ship, which carries cargo, carries passengers. It has big guns on it, and meets other ships up in the sky, to load and unload them, sometimes.”
Just as Han had thought. He hadn’t encountered a true combat vessel, but rather a heavily armed lighter. Bad, but not as bad as he’d thought. But the creature wasn’t finished. “We will need more,” it said; “more weapons, more help.”
“Consult your clergyman,” Han suggested dryly, helping Chewie replace the deckplates. “Or fix up a deal through your own channels, like this run. I’m out; you won’t see me again. I’m just doing business.”
The creature cocked its head at him, as if trying to understand. Han thrust aside the thought of what life must be like in a forced-labor camp, a driven, joyless existence if ever there was one. That was a common pattern in the Corporate Sector, naive outworlders lured by false promises, signing on only to become prisoners once they reached the compounds. And what could these few fugitives hope to accomplish?
The luck of the draw, he reminded himself. Hits off the Cosmic Deck didn’t always make things Right, but Right wouldn’t fill an egg timer on Tatooine. You played the cards you got, and Han Solo liked to be on that end of things with the largest profit margin.
But Chewie was staring down at him. Han sighed; the big lug was a good first mate, but a soft touch. Well, the tip about the Authority ship was worth something—a hint, maybe, a useful lesson. Han snatched the carbine from the leader irritably.
“Just remember this, you’re prey. Got me? You’ve got to think like prey, and use your brains.”
The creature understood and moved closer, standing on tiptoe to see what Han was doing with the carbine.
“It’s got three settings, see? Safety, single shot, and constant fire. Now, the Security Police here use those riot guns, right? Sawed-off, two-handers? They’re real fond of using constant fire, because they can afford to waste power, just hosing it around. You can’t. What you do is, lock all your carbines on single shot. And if you get into a firefight at night or in the deep jungle where visibility’s poor, shoot at the constant-fire sources. You’ll know it’s none of your people, so it must be Security Police. You’ve got to start using your brain.”
The creature looked from the man to the carbine and back again. “Yes,” it assured him, retrieving the weapon, “we will remember. Thank you.”
Han sniffed, knowing how much they still had to learn. And they’d have to learn it on their own, or the Authority would grind them under its vast heel. And on how many worlds, he asked himself, was the Authority doing just that?
His thoughts were interrupted by distant sounds of blaster fire off in the jungle. The creature had moved to the hatch, with its carbine leveled at them. “I am sorry,” it told them, “but we had to test some of the weapons here, now, to make certain they work.”
It lowered the carbine and fled down the ramp, heading for the jungle. So much for world-saving. “I take it all back,” Han said to Chewie as they leaned on the open hatch. “They might do all right at that.”
Their long-range sensors had been knocked out by the destruction of the Falcon’s dish antenna on the approach run. The ship would have to make a blind lift-off, taking her chances on running into trouble.
Han and Chewbacca stood atop the Falcon for nearly an hour, straining to patch the damaged antenna mount. Han didn’t begrudge the time; it had been a worthwhile effort and, if nothing else, had given the fugitives time to leave the rendezvous area. Because, sure as stink in a spacesuit, the Falcon’s lift-off would be plotted and its point of origin thoroughly searched.
They could wait no longer. The first lightening of the sky would bring every flitter, skimmer, and armed gig the local Authority officials could lay hands on, in a tight visual search grid. Chewbacca, sensing Han’s mood, made a snarling comment in his own language.
Han lowered his macrobinoculars. “Correct. Let’s raise ship.”
They adjourned below, buckled in, and ran through a pre-flight—warming up engines, guns, shields. Han declared, “I’m betting that lighter will be holding low, where his sensors will do him the most good. If we come up any distance away from him, we can outrun him and dive for hyperspace.”
Chewbacca yelped. Han poked him in the ribs. “What’s eating you? We just have to play this hand out.” He realized he was talking to hear himself. He shut up. The Millennium Falcon lifted, hovering for just a moment as her landing gear retracted. Then Han tenderly guided her up through the opening in the jungle’s leafy ceiling.
“Sorry,” he apologized to his ship, knowing what abuse she was about to take. He fired her up, stood her on her tail, and opened main thrusters wide. The starship screeched away into the sky, leaving the river steaming and the jungle smoldering. Duroon fell away quickly, and Han began to think they had the problem licked.
Then the tractor beam hit.
The freighter shook as the powerful, pulling beam fixed on her. High above, the Authority captain had played it smart, knowing he was looking for a faster, more maneuverable foe. Having outwitted the smuggler, he now brought his ship plummeting down the planet’s gravity well, picking up enough speed to compensate for any dodge the Falcon might try in her steep climb. The tractor pulled the two ships inexorably into alignment.
“Shields-forward, all. Angle ’em, and get set to fire!” Han and Chewbacca were throwing switches, fighting their controls, struggling desperately to free their ship. In moments it became clear their actions were futile.
“Ready to shift all deflectors astern,” Han ordered, bringing his helm over. “It’ll have to be a staring match, Chewie.”
The Wookiee’s defiant roars shook the cockpit as his partner swung the freighter onto a new course, straight at the enemy vessel. All the Falcon’s defensive power was channeled to redouble her forward shields. The Authority ship was coming at them at a frightening rate; the distance between ships evaporated in seconds. The Authority lighter, making hits at extreme range, jounced the two around their cockpit but did no major damage.
“Hold fire, hold fire,” Han chanted under his breath. “We’ll train all batteries aft and kick him going away.” The controls vibrated and fought in their hands as the Falcon’s engines gave every erg of effort. Deflector shields struggled under a salvo of long-range blaster-cannon fire, lances of yellow-green annihilation. The Falcon ascended on a column of blue energy as if she lusted for a fiery double death in collision with her antagonist. Rather than fight the tractor beam, she threw herself toward its source. The Authority ship came into visual range and, a moment later, filled the Falcon’s canopy.
At the last instant, the warship’s captain’s nerve gave. The tractor faded as the lighter began a desperate evasion maneuver. With reflexes that were more like precognition, Han threw everything he had into an equally frantic bank. The two ships’ shields couldn’t have left more than a meter or two between them in that blindingly fast near miss.
Chewbacca was already shifting all shields aft. The Falcon’s main batteries, trained astern, hammered at the Authority vessel at close range. Han scored two hits on the lighter, perhaps no more than superficial damage, but a moral victory after a long, bad night. The Authority ship rocked. Chewbacca howled, and Han exulted, “Last licks!”
The lighter plunged downward, unable to halt her steep dive quickly. The freighter bolted out of Duroon’s atmospheric envelope, out into the void where she belonged. Far below her, the Authority vessel was just beginning to pull out of her dive, all chance of pursuit lost.
Han fed jump data into the navicomputer as Chewbacca ran damage checks. Nothing irreparable, the Wookiee decided, but everything would have to have a thorough going-over. But Han Solo and Chewbacca the Wookiee had their money, their freedom, and, for a wonder, their lives. And that, Han thought, should be enough for anyone, shouldn’t it?
The starship’s raving engines carved a line of blue fire across infinity. Han engaged the hyperdrive
. Stars seemed to fall away in all directions as the ship outraced sluggard Light. The Millennium Falcon’s main drive boomed, and she disappeared as if she’d never been there.
THE OLD REPUBLIC
(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.
But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.
The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and his dark side warriors a direct invasion route into the Republic’s central worlds. This war resulted in the first destruction of the Sith Empire—but it was hardly the last. For the next four thousand years, skirmishes between the Republic and Sith grew into wars, with the scales always tilting toward one or the other, and peace never lasting. The galaxy was a place of almost constant strife: Sith armies against Republic armies; Force-using Sith Lords against Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights; and the dreaded nomadic mercenaries called Mandalorians bringing muscle and firepower wherever they stood to gain.
Then, a thousand years before A New Hope and the Battle of Yavin, the Jedi defeated the Sith at the Battle of Ruusan, decimating the so-called Brotherhood of Darkness that was the heart of the Sith Empire—and most of its power.
One Sith Lord survived—Darth Bane—and his vision for the Sith differed from that of his predecessors. He instituted a new doctrine: No longer would the followers of the dark side build empires or amass great armies of Force-users. There would be only two Sith at a time: a Master and an apprentice. From that time on, the Sith remained in hiding, biding their time and plotting their revenge, while the rest of the galaxy enjoyed an unprecedented era of peace, so long and strong that the Republic eventually dismantled its standing armies.
But while the Republic seemed strong, its institutions had begun to rot. Greedy corporations sought profits above all else and a corrupt Senate did nothing to stop them, until the corporations reduced many planets to raw materials for factories and entire species became subjects for exploitation. Individual Jedi continued to defend the Republic’s citizens and obey the will of the Force, but the Jedi Order to which they answered grew increasingly out of touch. And a new Sith mastermind, Darth Sidious, at last saw a way to restore Sith domination over the galaxy and its inhabitants, and quietly worked to set in motion the revenge of the Sith …
If you’re a reader new to the Old Republic era, here are three great starting points:
• The Old Republic: Deceived, by Paul S. Kemp: Kemp tells the tale of the Republic’s betrayal by the Sith Empire, and features Darth Malgus, an intriguing, complicated villain.
• Knight Errant, by John Jackson Miller: Alone in Sith territory, the headstrong Jedi Kerra Holt seeks to thwart the designs of an eccentric clan of fearsome, powerful, and bizarre Sith Lords.
• Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, by Drew Karpyshyn: A portrait of one of the most famous Sith Lords, from his horrifying childhood to an adulthood spent in the implacable pursuit of vengeance.
Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the Old Republic era.
CHAPTER 1
SHIGAR KONSHI FOLLOWED the sound of blasterfire through Coruscant’s old districts. He never stumbled, never slipped, never lost his way, even through lanes that were narrow and crowded with years of detritus that had settled slowly from the levels above. Cables and signs swayed overhead, hanging so low in places that Shigar was forced to duck beneath them. Tall and slender, with one blue chevron on each cheek, the Jedi apprentice moved with grace and surety surprising for his eighteen years.
At the core of his being, however, he seethed. Master Nikil Nobil’s decision had cut no less deeply for being delivered by hologram from the other side of the galaxy.
“The High Council finds Shigar Konshi unready for Jedi trials.”
The decision had shocked him, but Shigar knew better than to speak. The last thing he wanted to do was convey the shame and resentment he felt in front of the Council.
“Tell him why,” said Grand Master Satele Shan, standing at his side with hands folded firmly before her. She was a full head shorter than Shigar but radiated an indomitable sense of self. Even via holoprojector, she made Master Nobil, an immense Thisspiasian with full ceremonial beard, shift uncomfortably on his tail.
“We—that is, the Council—regard your Padawan’s training as incomplete.”
Shigar flushed. “In what way, Master Nobil?”
His Master silenced him with a gentle but irresistible telepathic nudge. “He is close to attaining full mastery,” she assured the Council. “I am certain that it is only a matter of time.”
“A Jedi Knight is a Jedi Knight in all respects,” said the distant Master. “There are no exceptions, even for you.”
Master Satele nodded her acceptance of the decision. Shigar bit his tongue. She said she believed in him, so why did she not overrule the decision? She didn’t have to submit to the Council. If he weren’t her Padawan, would she have spoken up for him then?
His unsettled feelings were not hidden as well as he would have liked.
“Your lack of self-control reveals itself in many ways,” said Master Nobil to him in a stern tone. “Take your recent comments to Senator Vuub regarding the policies of the Resource Management Council. We may all agree that the Republic’s handling of the current crisis is less than perfect, but anything short of the utmost political discipline is unforgivable at this time. Do you understand?”
Shigar bowed his head. He should’ve known that the slippery Neimoidian was after more than just his opinion when she’d sidled up to him and flattered him with praise. When the Empire had invaded Coruscant, it had only handed the world back to the Republic in exchange for a large number of territorial concessions elsewhere. Ever since then, supply lines had been strained. That Shigar was right, and the RMC a hopelessly corrupt mess, putting the lives of billions at risk from something much worse than war—starvation, disease, disillusionment—simply didn’t count in some circles.
Master Nobil’s forbidding visage softened. “You are naturally disappointed. I understand. Know that the Grand Master has spoken strongly in favor of you for a long time. In all respects but this one do we defer to her judgment. She cannot sway our combined decision, but she has drawn our attention. We will be watching your progress closely, with high expectations.”
The holoconference had ended there, and Shigar felt the same conflicted emptiness in the depths of Coruscant as he had then. Unready? High expectations? The Council was playing a game with him—or so it felt—batting him backward and forward like a felinx in a cage. Would he ever be free to follow his own path?
Master Satele understood his feelings better than he did. “Go for a walk,” she had told him, putting a hand on each shou
lder and holding his gaze long enough to make sure he understood her intentions. She was giving him an opportunity to cool down, not dismissing him. “I need to talk to Supreme Commander Stantorrs anyway. Let’s meet later in Union Cloisters.”
“Yes, Master.”
And so he was walking and stewing. Somewhere inside him, he knew, had to be the strength to rise above this temporary setback, the discipline to bring the last threads of his talent into a unified design. But on this occasion, his instincts were leading him away from stillness, not toward it.
The sound of blasterfire grew louder ahead of him.
Shigar stopped in an alley that stank like a woodoo’s leavings. A swinging light flashed fitfully on and off in the level above, casting rubbish and rot in unwanted relief. An ancient droid watched with blinking red eyes from a filthy niche, rusted fingers protectively gathering wires and servos back into its gaping chest plate. The cold war with the Empire was being conducted far away from this alley and its unhappy resident, but its effects were keenly felt. If he wanted to be angry at the state of the Republic, he couldn’t have chosen a better place for it.
The shooting intensified. His hand reached for the grip of his lightsaber.
There is no emotion, he told himself. There is only peace.
But how could there be peace without justice? What did the Jedi Council, sitting comfortably in their new Temple on Tython, know about that?
The sound of screams broke him out of his contemplative trance. Between one heartbeat and the next he was gone, the emerald fire of his lightsaber lingering a split instant behind him, brilliant in the gloom.
LARIN MOXLA PAUSED to tighten the belly strap on her armor. The wretched thing kept coming loose, and she didn’t want to take any chances. Until the justicars got there, she was the only thing standing between the Black Sun gangsters and the relatively innocent residents of Gnawer’s Roost. It sounded like half of it had been shot to pieces already.
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