by James Luceno
But not anymore. Not now. The bubble of security was gone, so suddenly, blown apart by a diving moon.
“Even Mara,” Han said, and Leia turned back to regard him, though he continued to stare straight ahead. “Her disease couldn’t kill her,” he went on. “I knew it wouldn’t. Even with the reports of those other people dying, she’d live, because the others weren’t in my bubble and she was. Mara was, and so she’d win out.”
“She will,” Leia insisted.
But Han wasn’t so sure of that anymore, not by a long shot. Suddenly he got the dread feeling that Mara was indeed terminal, and the realization that those others in his bubble, most notably his kids, weren’t exactly safe, either. With their efforts against the aliens, Jaina, Jacen, and Anakin had proven themselves worthy of the title Jedi Knight now, beyond anyone’s questioning. They had moved beyond Han’s control, and with or without that control, Han knew that they weren’t safe anymore.
The bubble was gone.
The alien threat had been all but eradicated, so it seemed.
But to Han Solo, the galaxy suddenly seemed a more dangerous place by far.
About the Author
R. A. Salvatore was born in Massachusetts in 1959. His first published novel was The Crystal Shard. He has since published more than two dozen novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Halfling’s Gem, Sojourn, The Legacy, and Starless Night. He makes his home in Massachusetts with his wife, Diane, and their three children.
BY R. A. SALVATORE
PUBLISHED BY DEL REY BOOKS
THE DEMON WARS
THE DEMON AWAKENS
THE DEMON SPIRIT
THE DEMON APOSTLE
STAR WARS: THE NEW JEDI ORDER
continues, as Han Solo reels from
unexpected—and incomprehensible—
loss and the alien Yuuzhan Vong move
relentlessly ahead with their plans to
conquer the galaxy …
STAR WARS
The New Jedi Order
Agents of Chaos I:
HERO’S TRIAL
by James Luceno
In bookstores now!
For a taste of HERO’S TRIAL,
please read on …
If the system’s primary was distressed by the events that had transpired on and about the fourth closest of its brood, it betrayed nothing to the naked eye. Saturating local space with golden radiance, the star was as unperturbed now as it was before the battle had begun. Only the conquered world had suffered, its punished surface revealed in the steady crawl of sunlight. Regions that had once been green, blue, or white appeared ash-gray or reddish-brown. Below banks of panicked clouds, smoke chimneyed from immolated cities and billowed from tracts of firestormed evergreen forests. Steam roiled from the superheated beds of glacier-fed lakes and shallow seas.
Deep within the planet’s shroud of cinder and debris moved the warship most responsible for the devastation. The vessel was a massive ovoid of yorik coral, its scabrous black surface relieved in places by bands of smoother stuff, lustrous as volcanic glass. In the pits that dimpled the coarse stretches hid projectile launchers and plasma weapons. Other, more craterlike depressions housed the laser-gobbling dovin basals that both drove the vessel and shielded it from harm. From fore and aft extended bloodred and cobalt arms, to which asteroidlike fighters clung like barnacles. Smaller craft buzzed around it, some effecting repairs to battle-damaged areas, others keen on recharging depleted weapons systems, a few delivering plunder from the planet’s scorched crust.
Farther removed from the battle floated a smaller vessel, black, as well, but faceted and polished smooth as a gemstone. Light pulsed through the ship at intervals, exciting one facet, then another, as if data were being conveyed from sector to sector.
From a roost in the underside of its angular snout, a gaunt figure, cross-legged on cushions, scanned the flotsam and jetsam a quirk of a gravitational drift had borne close to his ship: pieces of New Republic capital ships and starfighters, space-suited bodies in eerie repose, undetonated projectiles, the holed fuselage of a noncombat craft whose legend identified it as the Penga Rift.
In the near distance hung the blackened skeleton of a defense platform. Off to one side a ruined cruiser rolled end over end in a decaying orbit, surrendering its contents to vacuum like a burst pod scattering fine seeds. Elsewhere a fleeing transport, snagged by the spike of a bloated capture vessel, was being tugged inexorably toward the bowels of the giant warship.
The seated figure beheld these sights without cheer or regret. Necessity had engineered the destruction. What had been done needed to be done.
An acolyte stood in the rear of the command roost, relaying updates as they were received by a slender, living device fastened to his right inner forearm by six insectile legs.
“Victory is ours, Eminence. Our air and ground forces have overwhelmed the principal population centers and a war coordinator has installed itself in the mantle.” The acolyte glanced at the receiving villip on his arm, whose soft bioluminescent glow added appreciably to the roost’s scant light. “Commander Tla’s battle tactician is of the opinion that the astrogation charts and historical data stored here will prove valuable to our campaign.”
The priest, Harrar, glanced at the warship. “Has the tactician made his feelings known to Commander Tla?”
The acolyte’s hesitancy was answer enough, but Harrar suffered the verbal reply anyway.
“Our arrival does not please the commander, Eminence. He does not dismiss out of hand the need for sacrifice, but he asserts that the campaign has been successful thus far without the need for religious overseers. He fears that our presence will only confound his task.”
“Commander Tla fails to grasp that we engage the enemy on different fronts,” Harrar said. “Any opponent can be beaten into submission, but compliance is no guarantee that you have won him over to your beliefs.”
“Shall I relay as much to the commander, Eminence?”
“It is not your place. Leave that to me.”
Harrar, a male of middle years, rose and moved to the lip of the roost’s polygonal transparency, where he stood with three-fingered hands clasped at the small of his back—the missing digits having been offered in dedication ceremonies and ritual sacrifices, as a means of escalating himself. His tall slender frame was draped in supple fabrics of muted tones. A head cloth, patterned and significantly knotted, bound his long black tresses. The back of his neck showed vibrant markings etched into skin stretched taut by prominent vertebrae.
The planet turned beneath him.
“What is this world called?”
“Obroa-skai, Eminence.”
“Obroa-skai,” Harrar mused aloud. “What does the name signify?”
“The meaning is unknown at present. Though no doubt some explanation can be found among the captured data.”
Harrar’s right hand gestured in dismissal. “It’s a dead issue.”
A flash of weapons drew his eye to Obroa-skai’s terminator, where a yorik coral gunship was angling into the light, spewing rear fire at a quartet of snub-nosed starfighters that had evidently chased it from the planet’s dark side. The little X-wings were closing fast, thrusters ablaze and wingtips lancing energy beams at the larger ship. Harrar had heard that the New Republic pilots had become adept at foiling the dovin basals by altering the frequency and intensity of the laser bolts the fighters discharged. These four pursued the gunship with a single-mindedness born of thorough self-possession. Such fierce confidence spoke to qualities the Yuuzhan Vong would need to keep solidly in mind as the invasion advanced. Largely oblivious to nuance, the warrior caste would have to be taught to appreciate that survival figured as strongly in the enemy’s beliefs as death figured in the beliefs of the Yuuzhan Vong.
The gunship had changed vector and was climbing now, seemingly intent on availing itself of the protection offered by Commander Tla’s warship. But the four fighters were determined to have it. Breaking
formation, they accelerated, ensnaring the gunship at the center of their wrath.
The X-wing pilots executed their attack with impressive precision. Laser bolts and brilliant pink torpedoes rained from them, taxing the abilities of the gunship’s dovin basals. For every bolt and torpedo engulfed by the gravitic collapses the dovin basals fashioned, another penetrated, searing fissures in the assault craft and sending hunks of reddish-black yorik coral exploding in all directions. Stunned by relentless strikes, the gunship huddled inside its shields, hoping for a moment’s respite, but the starfighters refused to grant it any quarter. Bursts of livid energy assailed the ship, shaking it off course. The dovin basals began to falter. With defenses hopelessly compromised, the larger ship diverted power to weapons and counterattacked.
In a desperate show of force, vengeful golden fire erupted from a dozen gun emplacements. But the starfighters were simply too quick and agile. They made pass after pass, raking fire across the gunship’s suddenly vulnerable hull. Gouts of slagged flesh fountained from deep wounds and lasered trenches. The destruction of a plasma launcher sent a chain of explosions marching down the starboard side. Molten yorik coral streamed from the ship like a vapor trail. Shafts of blinding light began to pour from the core. The ship rolled over on its belly, shedding velocity. Then, jolted by a final paroxysm, it disappeared in a short-lived globe of fire.
It looked as if the X-wings might attempt to take the fight to the warship itself, but at the last moment the pilots turned tail. Salvos from the warship’s weapons crisscrossed nearby space, but no missiles found their mark.
His scarified face a deeply shadowed mask, Harrar glanced over his shoulder at the acolyte. “Suggest to Commander Tla that his zealous gunners allow the little ones to escape,” he said with incongruous composure. “After all, someone needs to live to speak of what happened here.”
“The infidels fought well and died bravely,” the acolyte risked remarking.
Harrar pivoted to face him fully, a bemused glint in his deeply set eyes. “Is that respect I hear?”
The acolyte nodded his head in deference. “Nothing more than an observation, Eminence. To earn my respect, they would have to embrace willingly the truth we bring them.”
A herald of lesser station appeared in the roost, offering salute by snapping his fists to opposite shoulders. “Belek tiu, Eminence. I bring word that the captives have been gathered.”
“How many?”
“Several hundred—of diverse aspect. Do you wish to oversee the selection for the sacrifice?”
Harrar squared his shoulders and adjusted the fall of his elegant robes. “I am most eager to do so.”
Introduction to the LEGACY Era
(40+ YEARS AFTER STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
The Yuuzhan Vong have been defeated, but the galaxy has been slow to recover from their depredations, with powerful worlds chafing at the economic burdens and military restrictions put upon them by the nascent Galactic Alliance, once-powerful species seeking to rise again, newly prosperous worlds testing their influence, and long-buried secrets coming to light. The result of all this instability is civil war. Faced with a Galactic Alliance that has fallen away from its values, Luke and the Jedi Order must decide where their loyalties lie—and so, too, must the heroes of the Rebellion.
While hostilities spread across the Core Worlds, lurking in the shadows is a Sith adept who wastes no time in taking advantage of the galactic chaos to wage a very personal war against the Skywalkers and the Solos. Luke will face terrible loss, Han and Leia will be tested as never before, and their daughter, Jaina, will learn just what it means to fulfill her destiny as “the Sword of the Jedi.” And even as the Galactic Alliance pulls the galaxy back from the brink of total disaster, the Skywalker–Solo clan will never be the same again.
The mop-up is difficult. Luke Skywalker is exiled from Coruscant, and while he and his son, Jedi Knight Ben Skywalker, set out on a quest to discover what caused such darkness to befall the galaxy and their family, Han and Leia are left to raise their granddaughter, Allana, and help shepherd the government back into some semblance of order. But little do any of them know that a long-lost tribe of Sith is making its way toward the Core, determined to fulfill their destiny of dominance over the galaxy … and that both Sith and Jedi are about to run headlong into a terrifying creature of untold Force abilities and an insatiable appetite for power …
If you’re a reader new to the Legacy era, here are four great starting points:
• Legacy of the Force: Betrayal, by Aaron Allston: The first in the nine-book Legacy of the Force series, setting the stage for galactic civil war and a fall to darkness.
• Millennium Falcon, by James Luceno: Han Solo’s famous freighter becomes a character in her own right as Han, Leia, their granddaughter Allana, and the droid C-3PO set out on an adventure that brings to light the ship’s colorful, mysterious past.
• Crosscurrent, by Paul S. Kemp: A remnant of the Old Republic comes into Luke Skywalker’s time in a tale of insane clones and time-traveling Jedi and Sith.
• Fate of the Jedi: Outcast by Aaron Allston: The nine-book Fate of the Jedi series blasts off with the new adventures of Luke and Ben Skywalker—Jedi Master and apprentice, father and son—in search of answers to a terrifying question.
Read on for Legacy of the Force: Betrayal by Aaron Allston and Crosscurrent by Paul S. Kemp.
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2007 Del Rey Books Mass Market Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Excerpt from Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines copyright © 2006 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
“In His Image” copyright © 2005 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization. “In His Image” by Karen Traviss first appeared in Vader: The Ultimate Guide, in April 2005. “Two-Edged Sword” copyright © 2006 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization. “Two-Edged Sword” by Karen Traviss first appeared in Star Wars Insider, Issue 85, in January 2006.
Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2006.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51048-8
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
v3.1
acknowledgments
Thanks are due to my partners-in-plotting Troy Denning and Karen Traviss, to my Eagle-Eyes (Chris Cassidy, Kelly Frieders, Helen Keier, Bob Quinlan, Roxanne Quinlan, and Luray Richmond), to Shelly Shapiro of Del Rey, to Sue Rostoni and Leland Chee of Lucas Licensing, and to my agent, Russ Galen.
Contents
Master - Table of Contents
Legacy of the Force: Betrayal
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Dramatis Personae
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
In His Image by Karen Traviss
Two-Edged Sword by Karen Traviss
dramatis personae
Aidel Saxan; Prime Minister, Corellia (human female)
Ben Skywalker (human male)
Brisha Syo (human female)
C-3PO; protocol droid
Cal Omas; Chief of State, Galactic Alliance (human male)
Cha Niathal; admiral, Galactic Alliance (Mon Calamari female)
Gilad Pellaeon; admiral, Supreme Commander of the Galactic Alliance (human male)
Han Solo; captain, Millennium Falcon (human male)
Heilan Rotham; professor (human female)
Jacen Solo; Jedi Knight (human male)
Jaina Solo; Jedi Knight (human female)
Kolir Hu’lya; Jedi Knight (Bothan female)
Leia Organa Solo; Jedi Knight; copilot, Millennium Falcon (human female)
Luke Skywalker; Jedi Grand Master (human male)
Lysa Dunter; ensign, Galactic Alliance (human female)
Mara Jade Skywalker; Jedi Master (human female)
Matric Klauskin; admiral, Galactic Alliance (human male)
Nelani Dinn; Jedi Knight (human female)