Now she strode confidently toward him, looking determined and holding her unlit lightsaber. Forcing himself to stand, Narsk fell on his hairy face. His right leg was sprained, perhaps broken.
And the needler was gone.
Narsk squirmed in panic as he heard the familiar hum from above. He clawed at the roadbed, desperate to avoid the moment he’d so often delayed. This had always been a danger; the risk that came with being special. All those jobs, and any one could have ended like this, with a flash of crimson—
Green.
Green!
Narsk’s eyes widened. The lightsaber was green.
“Jedi?” Narsk rolled over and looked at the woman’s eyes. Hazel. Wide, alert, focused—but on the right side of madness.
A Jedi. He couldn’t believe his luck. A Jedi? Here?
He’d heard a single Jedi had recently been on the loose in Sith space. One who had challenged Odion during the Chelloa affair—and who had lately given Daiman fits. Narsk had never met any Jedi, but he knew their reputation—and he knew he never could have hoped to have been discovered by anyone better on Darkknell.
“You’re her,” Narsk began. “Aren’t you? You’re Kerra Holt.”
The woman didn’t answer. Kneeling, she frisked him. In no position to resist, Narsk scanned her face more closely. Yes, it matched the images he’d seen. He licked his pointed teeth. He knew what to do.
“I’m on your side,” Narsk said. “I want to destroy Daiman, too.”
Ignoring him, the woman pawed at the stealth suit. Amazingly to Narsk—and seemingly so to her—the Mark VI had no rips, although it now had grit to go with its golden splotches. Stepping away with Narsk’s pouch, she found the datapad inside.
Eyes skimming the screen, she spoke. “You work for Lord Odion.”
Narsk was startled. Her voice was low and rough, not much more than a whisper. “Odion?” he responded. “What makes you think that? Maybe I’m a revolutionary.”
“There are no revolutionaries on Darkknell,” she said, voice rising as she deactivated the datapad. “And if there were, they wouldn’t be stealing military secrets.” Holding the datapad where Narsk could see it, she casually flipped the device into the air and bisected it with a sudden flick of her lightsaber.
Narsk gulped. All that work!
“All that work for Odion,” she said, catching his thought.
“Yes,” he said. No sense denying it now, he realized; he might as well hit her with some truth. “I was working for Odion. But I’m not an Odionite. It’s just a job.”
“That’s worse,” Kerra said, looking down. “You’re an enabler.” She nearly spat the word, causing Narsk to flinch. She yanked his bag from the ground and stepped back.
Narsk forced himself to stand, painful as it was. “Fine,” he said, clearing his throat. “You’ve denied Odion the knowledge. But the important thing is to deny Daiman the knowledge—and the warship he’s building. And we can do that. Look here, I can show you—”
Narsk stepped toward her and his bag, only to have her raise the lightsaber between them again. “I don’t work with Sith,” she said.
“I told you, I’m not Sith.” He gestured toward the pouch. “Look in the bag. You’ll see.”
The human deactivated her weapon and reached inside. Seeing her recognize the detonator control for what it was, Narsk flashed a toothy smile. “You see? We have the chance to do something important against Daiman.” He began to reach for the controller. “And all I ask is that I be allowed time to—”
“No.” In a single, liquid motion, the woman looked back up Manufacturers’ Way, pointed the detonator, and pressed the button.
A flash and a rumble came from the far end of the avenue. Two kilometers away, the opaque skin of the Black Fang heaved for a split second before erupting outward. Metal shards ripped free from the structure, desperate to escape. Thunder followed fire, more than enough noise and light to wake all Xakrea.
Narsk brought a bruised hand to his long nose in horror. They must have powered up the centrifuge again, he thought. Fully armed and fueled, Convergence would have exploded in an outward spiral. He’d thought that was a possibility before he planted his explosives, but he had always planned to be aboard a freighter lifting off from Darkknell before pressing the button.
Not gawking like an idiot on a skybridge with a Jedi.
“You fool!” Narsk yelled. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
The woman regarded the blaze with mild satisfaction. “Yes.”
Narsk wilted, forgetting the pain in his leg. He looked to the rooftop plazas at either end of the skybridge. No authorities were here yet, but they soon would be. And still, the Jedi seemed pleased with herself.
Idiot, Narsk thought. No wonder the Sith ran the Jedi out of the Outer Rim. He barked at her. “Is that it? Are we done here?”
“No,” she said, igniting her lightsaber and waving it in his direction. “Strip.”
The woman neatly slipped the folded Mark VI back into Narsk’s bag—although neither suit nor bag was particularly neat anymore, smeared and stinking of paint. “You’ve really made a mess of this thing,” she said. “Is this stuff permanent?”
“I don’t know,” Narsk snarled. He didn’t care about the suit anymore. The real authorities were out, screaming in their airspeeders toward the cauldron that was the testing center. And here he was: naked, but for his shorts, sitting in a garbage bin in a shadowy section of the plaza. The woman had marched him there, taken the stealth suit, and bound his wrists.
It was not where he wanted to be with Sith on the way.
“How can you do this? You know what they’ll do to me if they catch me!” Seeing her beginning to close the lid, Narsk grew more frantic. “You can’t do this! You Jedi are supposed to be about fair play and decency! You’re supposed to be a Jedi!”
The woman paused. “What?” Kerra Holt said, suddenly miffed. “I’m not locking it.”
The lid snapped shut above him.
RISE OF THE EMPIRE
(33–0 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW
HOPE)
This is the era of the Star Wars prequel films, in which Darth Sidious’s schemes lead to the devastating Clone Wars, the betrayal and destruction of the Jedi Order, and the Republic’s transformation into the Empire. It also begins the tragic story of Anakin Skywalker, the boy identified by the Jedi as the Chosen One of ancient prophecy, the one destined to bring balance to the Force. But, as seen in the movies, Anakin’s passions lead him to the dark side, and he becomes the legendary masked and helmeted villain Darth Vader.
Before his fall, however, Anakin spends many years being trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi. When the Clone Wars break out, pitting the Republic against the secessionist Trade Federation, Anakin becomes a war hero and one of the galaxy’s greatest Jedi Knights. But his love for the Naboo Queen and Senator Padmé Amidala, and his friendship with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine—secretly known as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious—will be his undoing …
If you’re a reader looking to jump into the Rise of the Empire era, here are five great starting points:
• Labyrinth of Evil, by James Luceno: Luceno’s tale of the last days of the Clone Wars is equal parts compelling detective story and breakneck adventure, leading directly into the beginning of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
• Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover: This masterfully written novelization fleshes out the on-screen action of Episode III, delving deeply into everything from Anakin’s internal struggle and the politics of the dying Republic to the intricacies of lightsaber combat.
• Republic Commando: Hard Contact, by Karen Traviss: The first of the Republic Commando books introduces us to a band of clone soldiers, their trainers, and the Jedi generals who lead them, mixing incisive character studies with a deep understanding of the lives of soldiers at war.
• Death Troopers, by Joe Schreiber: A story of horror aboard a Star Destroyer that you’ll need t
o read with the lights on. Supporting roles by Han Solo and his Wookiee sidekick, Chewbacca, are just icing on the cake.
• The Han Solo Adventures, by Brian Daley: Han and Chewie come to glorious life in these three swashbuckling tales of smuggling, romance, and danger in the early days before they meet Luke and Leia.
Read on for an excerpt from a Star Wars novel set in the Rise of the Empire era.
FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WINDU
In my dreams, I always do it right.
In my dreams, I’m on the arena balcony. Geonosis. Orange glare slices shadow from my eyes. Below on the sand: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker, Senator Padmé Amidala. On the rough-shaped stone within reach of my arm: Nute Gunray. Within reach of my blade: Jango Fett.
And Master Dooku.
No. Master no more. Count Dooku.
I may never get used to calling him that. Even in dreams.
Jango Fett bristles with weapons. An instinctive killer: the deadliest man in the galaxy. Jango can kill me in less than a second. I know it. Even if I had never seen Kenobi’s report from Kamino, I can feel the violence Jango radiates: in the Force, a pulsar of death.
But I do it right.
My blade doesn’t light the underside of Fett’s square jaw. I don’t waste time with words. I don’t hesitate.
I believe.
In my dreams, the purple flare of my blade sizzles the gray hairs of Dooku’s beard, and in the critical semisecond it takes Jango Fett to aim and fire, I twitch that blade and take Dooku with me into death.
And save the galaxy from civil war.
I could have done it.
I could have done it.
Because I knew. I could feel it.
In the swirl of the Force around me, I could feel the connections Dooku had forged among Jango and the Trade Federation, the Geonosians, the whole Separatist movement: connections of greed and fear, of deception and bald intimidation. I did not know what they were—I did not know how Dooku had forged them, or why—but I felt their power: the power of what I now know is a web of treason he had woven to catch the galaxy.
I could feel that without him to maintain its weave, to repair its flaws and double its thinning strands, the web would rot, would shrivel and decay until a mere breath would shred it and scatter its strings into the infinite stellar winds.
Dooku was the shatterpoint.
I knew it.
That is my gift.
Imagine a Corusca gem: a mineral whose interlocking crystalline structure makes it harder than durasteel. You can strike one with a five-kilo hammer and do no more than dent the hammer’s face. Yet the same crystalline structure that gives the Corusca strength also gives it shatterpoints: spots where a precise application of carefully measured force—no more than a gentle tap—will break it into pieces. But to find these shatterpoints, to use them to shape the Corusca gem into beauty and utility, requires years of study, an intimate understanding of crystal structure, and rigorous practice to train the hand in the perfect combination of strength and precision to produce the desired cut.
Unless you have a talent like mine.
I can see shatterpoints.
The sense is not sight, but see is the closest word Basic has for it: it is a perception, a feel of how what I look upon fits into the Force, and how the Force binds it to itself and to everything else. I was six or seven standard years old—well into my training in the Jedi Temple—before I realized that other students, full-grown Jedi Knights, even wise Masters, could sense such connections only with difficulty, and only with concentration and practice. The Force shows me strengths and weaknesses, hidden flaws and unexpected uses. It shows me vectors of stress that squeeze or stretch, torque or shear; it shows me how patterns of these vectors intersect to form the matrix of reality.
Put simply: when I look at you through the Force, I can see where you break.
I looked at Jango Fett on the sand in the Geonosian arena. A perfect combination of weapons, skills, and the will to use them: an interlocking crystal of killer. The Force hinted a shatterpoint, and I left a headless corpse on the sand. The deadliest man in the galaxy.
Now: just dead.
Situations have shatterpoints, like gems. But those of situations are fluid, ephemeral, appearing for a bare instant, vanishing again to leave no trace of their existence. They are always a function of timing.
There is no such thing as a second chance.
If—when—I next encounter Dooku, he will be the war’s shatterpoint no longer. I can’t stop this war with a single death.
But on that day in the Geonosian arena, I could have.
Some days after the battle, Master Yoda had found me in a meditation chamber at the Temple. “Your friend he was,” the ancient Master had said, even as he limped through the door. It is a peculiar gift of Yoda’s that he always seems to know what I’m thinking. “Respect you owed him. Even affection. Cut him down you could not—not for merely a feeling.”
But I could have.
I should have.
Our Order prohibits personal attachments for precisely this reason. Had I not honored him so—even loved him—the galaxy might be at peace right now. Merely a feeling, Yoda said.
I am a Jedi.
I have been trained since birth to trust my feelings.
But which feelings should I trust?
When I faced the choice to kill a former Jedi Master, or to save Kenobi and young Skywalker and the Senator … I let the Force choose for me. I followed my instincts.
I made the Jedi choice.
And so: Dooku escaped. And so: the galaxy is at war. And so: many of my friends have been slaughtered.
There is no such thing as a second chance.
Strange: Jedi I am, yet I drown in regret for having spared a life.
Many survivors of Geonosis suffer from nightmares. I have heard tale after tale from the Jedi healers who have counseled them. Nightmares are inevitable; there has not been such a slaughter of Jedi since the Sith War, four thousand years ago. None of them could have imagined how it would feel to stand in that arena, surrounded by the corpses of their friends, in the blazing orange noon and the stench and the blood-soaked sand. I may be the only veteran of Geonosis who doesn’t have nightmares of that place.
Because in my dreams, I always do it right.
My nightmare is what I find when I wake up.
Jedi have shatterpoints, too.
Mace Windu stopped in the doorway and tried to recover his calm. An arc of sweat darkened the cowl of his robe, and his tunic clung to his skin: he’d come straight from a training bout at the Temple without taking time to shower. And the brisk pace—almost a jog—he’d maintained through the labyrinth of the Galactic Senate had offered no chance for him to cool off.
Palpatine’s private office, in the Supreme Chancellor’s suite beneath the Senate’s Great Rotunda, opened before him, vast and stark. An expanse of polished ebonite floor; a few simple, soft chairs; a flat trestle desk, also ebonite. No pictures, paintings, or decorations other than two lone statues; only floor-to-ceiling holographic repeaters showing real-time images of Galactic City as seen from the pinnacle of the Senate Dome. Outside, the orbital mirrors would soon turn their faces from Coruscant’s sun, bringing twilight to the capital.
Within was only Yoda. Alone. Perched solemnly on his hoverchair, hands folded around the head of his stick. “On time you are,” the ancient Master observed, “but barely. Take a chair; composed we must be. Serious, I fear this is.”
“I wasn’t expecting a party.” Mace’s boot heels clacked on the polished floor. He pulled one of the soft, plain chairs closer to Yoda and sat beside him, facing the desk. Tension made his jaw ache. “The courier said this is about the operation on Haruun Kal.”
The fact that of all the members of the Jedi Council and the Republic High Command, only the two senior members of the Council had been summoned by the Chancellor, implied that the news was not good.
These two senior member
s could hardly have appeared more different. Yoda was barely two-thirds of a meter tall, with skin green as Chadian wander-kelp and great bulging eyes that could sometimes seem almost to take on a light of their own; Mace was tall for a human, less than a hand’s breadth short of two meters, with shoulders broad and powerful, heavy arms, dark eyes, and a grim set to his jaw. Where Yoda had let his sparse remnants of hair straggle at random, Mace’s skull was smooth-shaven, the color of polished lammas.
But their greatest difference perhaps lay in the feel of the two Jedi Masters. Yoda emanated a sense of mellow wisdom, combined with the impish sense of humor characteristic of the true sage; but his great age and vast experience sometimes made him seem a bit removed, even detached. Nearing nine hundred years of age led him to naturally take the long view. Mace, in contrast, had been elevated to the Jedi Council before his thirtieth birthday. His demeanor was exactly opposite. Lean. Driven. Intense. He radiated incisive intellect and unconquerable will.
As of the Battle of Geonosis, which had opened the Clone Wars, Mace had been on the Council for more than twenty standard years. It had been ten since anyone had last seen him smile.
He sometimes wondered privately if he would ever smile again.
“But it is not the planet Haruun Kal that brings you in a sweat to this office,” Yoda said now. His tone was light and understanding, but his gaze was sharp. “Concerned for Depa, you are.”
Mace lowered his head. “I know: the Force will bring what it will. But Republic Intelligence has reported that the Separatists have pulled back; their base outside Pelek Baw is abandoned—”
“Yet return she has not.”
Mace knotted his fingers together. A breath brought his voice back to its customary deep, flat dispassion. “Haruun Kal is still nominally a Separatist planet. And she’s a wanted woman. It won’t be easy for her to get offworld. Or even to signal for extraction—the local militia use all kinds of signal jamming, and whatever they don’t jam they triangulate; whole partisan bands have been wiped out by one incautious transmission—”
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