Reen put a hand on Mander’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. He’s with me.”
The Bothan was having trouble handling the loadlifter, and as he tried to get the walker under control it grazed one of the already-burning roof supports. The support groaned menacingly, and parts of the roof and skylight started to cascade down around them.
“About time you showed up!” bellowed Reen at the pilot of the stumbling walker. “Now get us out of here before this place comes down around us.”
The Bothan got the loadlifter under something like control, and brought one of the large pallet-hands level to the floor. Reen grabbed on, and Mander leapt ahead of her, turning to help her up. Then the pair gripped the sides of the lifter as the Bothan maneuvered it toward the doors through a tunnel of the now-flaming warehouse. The large door was still almost completely shut, but at the last moment the Bothan spun the lifter around and slammed through it backward, smashing the door off its hinges.
Then they were outside, tromping through the alleys. The loadlifter got clear of the worst of the fire, and set the pair down. The Bothan himself slid down from the side of the now-smoking control pit. Whatever the Bothan had done to get it working had set its internal electronics on fire.
“I thought you Jedi were never supposed to be surprised,” said Reen.
“I was distracted,” said Mander, trying to keep the irritation within himself out of his voice. She was right. Despite her presence, he should have noticed their assailants creeping into their positions.
In the distance there were shouts and klaxons. The local authorities were responding to the fire, and the flames were clear along the roofline now.
“We need to be elsewhere,” said Reen. “A pity we didn’t get one of the Rodians alive.”
“We found the poison that they used on your brother,” said Mander. “And we know that they’re willing to kill to cover their tracks. For the moment, that’s enough.”
Dejarro of the Bomu clan made his way through the Swokes Swokes bazaar, past the hucksters selling memorial mementos and purified ointments and funeral wreaths. Past the stalls of seers and spiritualists who, for a small fee, would contact the spirits of the recently interred and, for a slightly larger fee, confirm that they were resting comfortably and satisfied with their funeral arrangements. Dejarro squeezed his way among the lumbering forms of the Makem Te inhabitants, his own Rodian frame unlikely to win any shoving match. He kept one hand inside his jacket, tightly gripping his heavy prize, fearful that something else would go wrong.
The word had come down that afternoon: Koax, the one-eyed Klatooinian, had arrived on the planet, bearing with her both the goodwill of her master, the Spice Lord, and the lordship’s demands that the assigned task had been completed.
Dejarro of the Bomu clan carried both good news and bad along with his package, and it was a good question which of the three was the heaviest weight.
At the fourth street, at the alchemical shop, he turned right and made for a singularly empty shop that displayed funeral wrappings but had never seemed to succeed in selling any of them. The Swokes Swokes behind the counter, scarred from many regenerations, just nodded to him as he passed through. Dejarro had been here before. The Rodian climbed the iron spiral staircase to a windowless upper storage room.
The room was lit by a single bulb, hanging from a noose-like cord. Koax was waiting for him, surrounded by racks of long-sleeved robes, used to dress the dead before interment or cremation. To Dejarro, it felt like they were surrounded by silent witnesses to hear his report. There was a low table between the two of them.
The Klatooinian herself was lean and muscular, thinner than most of her species. She was dressed in dark red spacer’s slacks and a vest, and kept a set of ceremonial throwing knives on her belt alongside her blaster. Dejarro knew the Klatooinians were mostly traditionalists, favoring the old weapons and ways. Koax apparently kept the affectations of the past alongside the more effective present.
The Klatooinian’s face was thin as well, but what took Dejarro aback was the crater where one eye had once been. Some would have worn a patch, or had a plate bolted to their skull to hide the deformity, but Koax set a glowing red gem deep into her empty socket. The Rodian wondered if the gem allowed the Spice Lord’s agent to see into alien frequencies or tell if someone was lying. The idea chilled Dejarro to the bone.
“Waajo koosoro?” asked the Klatooinian in fluid Huttese. Have you brought it?
Dejarro nodded and pulled the prize from beneath his jacket. It was a thin cylinder fitted with a worn, comfortable grip along one side. It was heavier than Dejarro had thought it would be, particularly since he had seen it used with fluid, almost effortless grace. Heavy enough to hold the soul of a man, he had thought at the time.
He placed the lightsaber on the table between them.
Koax looked down at the device with her good eye, but did not reach out for it. The red gem set deep into her skull kept a bead on Dejarro, who waited to be dismissed or questioned.
“Were there any problems?” asked the Klatooinian.
“We found it on the street,” said Dejarro, his voice sounding a little strained in the dusty dead air. “Not too far from the body.”
“Did anyone see you take it?” She was still examining the deactivated blade before her.
“I don’t think …” And Koax looked up at him, her gemstone eye blazing for a moment. “No! No. No one saw it. It went better than we had planned. I had the wine delivered, and we were prepared to move in when he started a fight by himself. Once he went out the window, we were afraid we had lost him. That he had used some sort of Jeedai trick to escape us. That he could fly away. But when we got to the bottom of the building, there he was, dead, and the item was right beside him, just as you see it now.”
Koax grunted an affirmation, then said, “We?”
“The other members in good standing of the Bomu clan,” said Dejarro. “Trusted family all. We would have taken the body itself, but the local law was already coming down on us. As it was, I grabbed the lightsaber and kept it, until I heard from you. Kept it safe, like you ordered.”
“Did you turn it on?” asked Koax, almost casually.
“No, no,” Dejarro assured her. “I don’t know if it still works or not. I just followed your orders. Drug the Jeedai. Take his lightsaber. Bring it to you. Nothing about figuring out if it worked.”
Koax gave a throaty chuckle and reached out to the lightsaber, grasping its short hilt and activating the blade. It sprang like a genie from the bottle, a bolt of brilliant blue-white, accompanied by a flash of radiant thunder. The empty robes that hung around them threw back deep shadows, doubling their number.
Koax moved the blade back and forth, and it looked to Dejarro as if the blade fought her, like it had its own inertia—its own spirit—resisting her control, fighting her grip. Koax seemed to feel it as well, and frowned, then thumbed off the blade. At once the upper storage room was plunged back into a dim light, which to the Rodian seemed even darker than before.
“Good,” said Koax, and reached for her belt. Despite himself, Dejarro’s hand twitched toward his own weapons belt, but the Klatooinian instead brought out a vial tucked between her belt and her dun-colored flesh. Koax smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile. She had made Dejarro flinch, and understood in an instant how much the Rodian trusted her.
How much he feared her.
Koax set the vial on the table. Even in the dim light Dejarro could see that it was tightly packed with purplish crystals, deeper in hue than any he had seen before.
“Pure,” said Koax. “None of that diluted garbage that reaches the street. Cut it, share, use it, I don’t care. We’re done.”
Dejarro looked at the vial, then up at the Klatooinian, then nodded, reached out, and snagged the vial. He tucked it into an inner pocket and said, “There’s something else.”
Koax’s eyebrow, the one above the gem-set socket, jerked upward slightly. “Something else?”
“It took you a while to contact us,” said Dejarro. “While we were waiting, there was another.”
“Another?” Koax repeated, her voice careful, trying to draw the story out.
“Another Jeedai,” said the Rodian. “Came to the restaurant. Talked to the staff. Tracked us back to the warehouse.”
Koax held her hands out, palms outward. “Didn’t you think to burn out the warehouse and move your supplies, just to prevent that possibility?”
“We were in the process … that is, we intended to. But we didn’t think he would get here before you,” managed Dejarro.
Koax frowned and looked at the empty table once more. “Tell me what happened.”
“We ambushed him,” said Dejarro quietly. “Ambushed the Jeedai.”
“Did you kill him?” said Koax, and her intent was clear in the tone of her question: One dead Jedi on Makem Te was a casualty. Two would attract more attention than the Spice Lord would want.
“We lost a lot of people. The Jeedai … he had backup, and he …” Dejarro froze when Koax transfixed him with the ruby eye.
“Did you kill him?” she repeated.
“No,” said Dejarro, looking away. “There was a firefight. The warehouse caught fire in the battle.”
“Too little, too late,” said Koax. “You should have torched the place the night the first Jeedai died.”
Dejarro nodded. “We didn’t want to lose the stock. We had a lot of funeral supplies there.”
Then Koax did something that Dejarro did not expect. She laughed. It was a full-throated, hearty, honest laugh, the laugh of someone confronted by the basic stupidity of the galaxy. “You kill a Jeedai, then are surprised to find another one comes looking for him. You let this new Jeedai uncover your operation, resulting in a firefight and setting the warehouse ablaze, and you’re worried about the stock?”
Dejarro himself managed a sickly chuckle and said, “We’re tapped out now, except for …” He tapped the vial in his pocket with his palm.
“I see,” said Koax, pulling her features back into a stern repose. “So you need …”
“More of the hard spice. More Tempest,” said Dejarro. “We can make it up to you. Just a little advance. Enough to keep the regulars stocked up. We did what you asked for. We didn’t expect the Jeedai to bring backup.”
“I don’t think the Spice Lord will be happy about this development. Do you think that’s the case?” asked Koax.
“If you want, I can talk to the Spice Lord,” said Dejarro. “Explain things.”
“The Spice Lord has more important matters to deal with than talking to street-level dealers,” said Koax. “That is why the Spice Lord has me.” She skewered him with her good eye, and a silence grew between the two.
“So.” Dejarro’s throat was dry now. “Do you think you could do something about this?”
“Yes, I think I could,” she said. “I think I could warn the Spice Lord that there is another Jeedai. One with allies. I could also find out who these allies are, and tell you. Is that what you would want?”
Dejarro nodded. “The Jeedai killed my clanbrothers and clansisters,” he said. “We need vengeance on their behalf.”
“Consider it done,” said Koax. “You have my word—the Bomu clan will get its vengeance against this Jeedai. But I will warn you, if the Jeedai killed so many of your clan just at the outset, there will be more lives lost before you get your vengeance.”
Dejarro nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, yes, we know. It is the price you pay for vengeance.” The Rodian turned to leave the Klatooinian with her prize.
“One last thing,” said Koax, and Dejarro froze in his tracks, turning slightly.
“I will have to tell the Spice Lord that we have this problem because the Bomu clan neglected to cover its tracks sufficiently,” said Koax. “And I will have to report that I have taken appropriate action.” The Klatooinian’s hand drifted to her weapons belt.
Dejarro pulled his blaster, and if Koax had been going for her own, he would have beaten her to the draw. Instead, the Klatooinian pulled one of her throwing blades, and in a graceful, almost casual flick of the wrist, planted it deeply in the Rodian’s neck from five paces away. Dejarro went down, gurgling.
Koax liked to think that last noise was an attempt at an apology.
The Spice Lord’s agent knelt over the dead Rodian and pulled the small vial—the last pure sample of Tempest on Makem Te—from Dejarro’s inside pocket. Then she pulled one of the death robes from its hooks and draped it solemnly over the body.
“Another victim of this new Jeedai,” said Koax. “But I am good to my word, and will gladly throw as many of your clan in his way as I need to.” She let out a deep sigh.
“But first,” continued the one-eyed Klatooinian, “I will have to send a message to the Spice Lord, presenting the bad news. And let me tell you, Rodian, that you got off easy in that you had to deal with me instead of the one I serve.”
Introduction to the NEW JEDI ORDER Era
(25–40 YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
A quarter century after A New Hope and the destruction of the Death Star, the galaxy is free of wide-scale conflicts—but the New Republic must contend with many regional brushfires. And Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Order faces its own growing pains: Some New Republic officials want to rein in the Jedi, leading Luke to wonder if the Jedi Council should be restored.
On the planet Rhommamool, Leia Organa Solo, Mara Jade Skywalker, and Jaina Solo meet with a mysterious rabble-rouser named Nom Anor. Anor rejects Leia’s diplomatic entreaties, but she’s more disturbed by what she finds when she reaches out to him in the Force: nothing. It’s as if he isn’t there.
Anor is a secret agent of the Yuuzhan Vong, powerful warriors from another galaxy who regard technology as blasphemous, relying on biological constructs to serve as their starships, weapons, and communicators. Long ago, a devastating war destroyed much of the Yuuzhan Vong’s galaxy and cut them off from the Force, sending their clans across the intergalactic void in search of a new home. Now they are at the edge of the Star Wars galaxy, ready to invade.
As head of the New Jedi Order, Luke is central to the galaxy’s defense; Leia’s skills as a former Chief of State and respected political adviser are also called on. The five-year war shakes the galaxy to its foundations. Technologically advanced worlds within the Yuuzhan Vong invasion corridor are subjected to the newcomers’ biotechnology and altered into strange hybrids combining what they had been with the new Yuuzhan Vong ecosystem. Entire species are enslaved—or eradicated. The New Republic is ill prepared to meet the extragalactic threat, with regional rivalries, political dissension, and concern over the Imperial Remnant limiting the effectiveness of its military response. Wrangling in the Senate snarls the war plans, as do disagreements between planetary fleets and armies, while assassination and war thin the ranks of the New Republic’s leaders. Officers and pilots who battled for so long against the Empire, such as Admiral Ackbar and Wedge Antilles, work feverishly to figure out how to outmaneuver their new enemies.
The invasion sorely challenges the Jedi, as well. Some take it upon themselves to meet the Yuuzhan Vong threat head-on, disdaining foot-dragging by politicians—and some of those skirt the dark side of the Force, giving in to their anger and fear as the Yuuzhan Vong ruin worlds and lives. The Yuuzhan Vong come to recognize the Jedi as the biggest threat to their plans, and begin hunting them down using New Republic traitors and bioengineered killers. At the forefront of the war against the Jedi are the Solo children—now teenagers and Jedi Knights in their own right. By the time the war is over, the Solo family will never be the same again.
The other heroes of the Rebellion, too, face personal struggles and tragedies. Luke fears for the life of his wife, Mara—infected with a Yuuzhan Vong–engineered disease—and for that of his newborn son, Ben, hunted by the Jedi’s enemies. Han and Leia’s losses are even harder to bear, as their oldest friends and children risk everything to stop the Yuuzh
an Vong.
If you’re a reader looking to explore the epic tale of the Yuuzhan Vong war and the era of Luke’s New Jedi Order, the best place to start is with the first book in the series:
• The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime, by R. A. Salvatore: The first novel in the series introduces the pitiless Yuuzhan Vong and immediately makes clear that the heroes of the Rebellion are in mortal danger.
Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars Legends novel set in the New Jedi Order era.
ONE
Fraying Fabric
It was too peaceful out here, surrounded by the vacuum of space and with only the continual hum of the twin ion drives breaking the silence. While she loved these moments of peace, Leia Organa Solo also viewed them as an emotional trap, for she had been around long enough to understand the turmoil she would find at the end of this ride.
Like the end of every ride, lately.
Leia paused a moment before she entered the bridge of the Jade Sabre, the new shuttle her brother, Luke, had built for his wife, Mara Jade. Before her, and apparently oblivious to her, Mara and Jaina sat comfortably, side by side at the controls, talking and smiling. Leia focused on her daughter, Jaina, sixteen years old, but with the mature and calm demeanor of a veteran pilot. Jaina looked a lot like Leia, with long dark hair and brown eyes contrasting sharply with her smooth and creamy skin. Indeed, Leia saw much of herself in the girl—no, not girl, Leia corrected her own thoughts, but young woman. That same sparkle behind the brown eyes, mischievous, adventurous, determined.
That notion set Leia back a bit, for she recognized then that when she looked at Jaina, she was seeing not a reflection of herself but an image of the girl she had once been. A twinge of sadness caught her as she considered her own life now: a diplomat, a bureaucrat, a mediator, always trying to calm things down, always working for the peace and prosperity of the New Republic. Did she miss the days when the most common noise around her had been the sharp blare of a blaster or the hiss of a lightsaber? Was she sorry that those wild times had been replaced by the droning of the ion drives and the sharp bickering of one pride-wounded emissary after another?
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