Into the Void: Star Wars (Dawn of the Jedi) (54 page)

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.”

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 Yuuzhan 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:

Read on for an excerpt from a
Star Wars
novel set in the New Jedi Order era.

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?

Perhaps, Leia had to admit, but in looking at Jaina and those simmering dark eyes,
she could take vicarious pleasure.

Another twinge—jealousy?—caught her by surprise, as Mara and Jaina erupted into laughter
over some joke Leia had not overheard. But she pushed the absurd notion far from her
mind as she considered her sister-in-law, Luke’s wife and Jaina’s tutor—at Jaina’s
own request—in the ways of the Jedi. Mara was not a substitute mother for Jaina, but
rather a big sister, and when Leia considered the fires that constantly burned in
Mara’s green eyes, she understood that the woman could give to Jaina things that Leia
could not, and that those lessons and that friendship would prove valuable indeed
to her daughter. And so she forced aside her jealousy and was merely glad that Jaina
had found such a friend.

She started onto the bridge, but paused again, sensing movement behind her. She knew
before looking that it was Bolpuhr, her Noghri bodyguard, and barely gave him a glance
as he glided to the side, moving so easily and gracefully that he reminded her of
a lace curtain drifting lazily in a gentle breeze. She had accepted young Bolpuhr
as her shadow for just that reason, for he was as unobtrusive as any bodyguard could
be. Leia marveled at the young Noghri, at how his grace and silence covered a perfectly
deadly fighting ability.

She held up her hand, indicating that Bolpuhr should remain out here, and though his
usually emotionless face did flash Leia a quick expression of disappointment, she
knew he would obey. Bolpuhr, and all the Noghri, would do anything Leia asked of them.
He would jump off a cliff or dive into the
hot end of an ion engine for her, and the only time she ever saw any sign of discontentment
with her orders was when Bolpuhr thought she might be placing him in a difficult position
to properly defend her.

As he was thinking now, Leia understood, though why in the world Bolpuhr would fear
for her safety on her sister-in-law’s private shuttle was beyond her. Sometimes dedication
could be taken a bit too far.

With a nod to Bolpuhr, she turned back to the bridge and crossed through the open
doorway. “How much longer?” she asked, and was amused to see both Jaina and Mara jump
in surprise at her sudden appearance.

In answer, Jaina increased the magnification on the forward screen, and instead of
the unremarkable dots of light, there appeared an image of two planets, one mostly
blue and white, the other reddish in hue, seemingly so close together that Leia wondered
how it was that the blue-and-white one, the larger of the pair, had not grasped the
other in its gravity and turned it into a moon. Parked halfway between them, perhaps
a half a million kilometers from either, deck lights glittering in the shadows of
the blue-and-white planet, loomed a Mon Calamari battle cruiser, the
Mediator
, one of the newest ships in the New Republic fleet.

“They’re at their closest,” Mara observed, referring to the planets.

“I beg your indulgence,” came a melodic voice from the doorway, and the protocol droid
C-3PO walked into the room. “But I do not believe that is correct.”

“Close enough,” Mara said. She turned to Jaina. “Both Rhommamool and Osarian are ground
based, technologically—”

“Rhommamool almost exclusively so!” C-3PO quickly added, drawing a scowl from all
three of the women. Oblivious, he rambled on. “Even Osarian’s fleet must be considered
marginal, at best. Unless, of course, one is using the Pantang Scale of Aero-techno
Advancement, which counts
even a simple landspeeder as highly as it would a Star Destroyer. Perfectly ridiculous
scale.”

“Thank you, Threepio,” Leia said, her tone indicating that she had heard more than
enough.

“They’ve both got missiles that can hit each other from this close distance, though,”
Mara continued.

“Oh, yes!” the droid exclaimed. “And given the proximity of their relative elliptical
orbits—”

“Thank you, Threepio,” Leia said.

“—they will remain within striking distance for some time,” C-3PO continued without
missing a beat. “Months, at least. In fact, they will be even closer in two standard
weeks, the closest they will be to each other for a decade to come.”