And he could still glimpse Tuskens he didn’t want to see, solid ghosts, running for cover in the forest of falling droids as white armored troopers charged, fired, and even vibrobladed them. He sprinted after one: but Rex now stood right in front of him, smashing the butt of his DC-15 rifle hard down on a battle droid’s fragile neck as it lay struggling to get up. Rex was almost casual. The clone hammered the droid right-handed as he reached into his belt pouch with his left hand to grab a reload. He barely paused as he snapped the new energy pack into its housing and started firing again. Another droid turned on him—perhaps to aid its fallen comrade, perhaps not—and got a faceful of blasterfire.
Anakin struggled to shut out the memory of the Tusken Raiders. They vanished. But in the melee he saw a tall gold figure with long black claws; a Blood Carver called Ke Daiv. He’d killed him, too, years ago.
It’s not darkness.
I’m not dark.
This isn’t anger—
It was okay; they’d always told him so. He was fighting to save his men, and if he did terrible things out of compassion, out of love, then he wasn’t turning to the dark side. That was the Jedi way.
For my mother. For my men. For Padmé.
His body carried on anyway. He swung his blade through metal bodies as easily as if he were cutting grass. Rex and the clone troopers fought as hard as he did, as pumped with adrenaline as he was, too desperate to feel their own natural fear—and yet at that moment they felt unlike him in the Force, devoid only of that singular crazed frenzy, that throat-closing … rage.
I’m not turning dark.
This has to be done.
Don’t stop to think: it’ll get you killed.
Anakin shook off the doubt, but it scared him more than death. He charged past Rex into the next rank of droids, almost choking on smoke and flying dust. The thing within swept him along the way it had when he wiped out the Tusken village for his mother’s murder, a strangely cold frenzy, equally consuming, equally animal in its intensity.
He went on killing. Somehow it didn’t matter that those who fell before his lightsaber this time were droids. It was all the same to him. He leaped from octuptarra to octuptarra, driving his blade deep into each droid’s sphere as he went. He felt that he could keep going for eternity, never running out of this—
Not rage. Not rage.
Whatever it was, he had to let it out.
The droids were crushed against one another, unable to maneuver. Clones pressed in on them, firing point-blank into their weak points. Shrapnel flew, peppering noisily against clone armor.
“Anakin!” Obi-Wan yelled. He whirled his lightsaber around his head and took out two battle droids in one sweep, cut in half at the waist joint. “Come on!”
Anakin suddenly ran out of droids. The cacophony of battle noise stopped. He was now face-to-face with Kenobi, and they were standing on a carpet of dismembered and shattered droids. A sudden silence descended on the battlefield, the kind that left Anakin’s ears ringing.
“Are you okay, Anakin?” Kenobi was staring into his face as if he’d seen something.
Anakin took a deep, steadying breath. For a moment, Tuskens, Blood Carvers, and enemy droids were all gone. “Yes, Master.” He turned to check how many of his men were wounded. “Rex? Let’s evac as many as we can while we—”
But it was just a lull in the storm. The sound carried from farther up the road, that chunk-chunk-chunk again.
Another wave of droids.
“We’re going to need reinforcements, fast,” Anakin said.
Kenobi looked up as if he expected a ship to appear on demand. “I still can’t get a comlink signal through to the admiral. Must be atmospheric conditions.”
“Let’s get these guys out, anyway,” Rex said wearily. A trooper was calling for a medic; two men picked their way through the droid debris to a fallen man Anakin could see only as a tangle of limbs. There were at least a dozen troopers down. “Come on—I said, let’s get these guys clear! Move it!”
The clones had been heavily outnumbered, but they were human—agile, motivated, and smart. The droids were just machines. They fell victim to their sheer numbers and inflexibility in every sense. Stick them in a tight spot, and they couldn’t avoid one another’s arc of fire, or even move. They had no room to fight the way they were programmed to. They couldn’t use a rifle as a club like Rex would, or drop a grenade into a hatch and jump clear like Sergeant Coric, or care enough about their brothers’ lives to fight like crazy men, or even think. They were machines. Just dumb machines.
I just destroyed machines. I didn’t kill.
Anakin felt as if he were sobering up after a drinking spree, but he’d never been drunk. The moment left him disoriented and embarrassed in a way he didn’t understand. He shook himself out of it. More droids were coming, and there were wounded men to evacuate. He rushed to check the casualties with Kenobi and Rex, helping those he could, moving those he couldn’t.
Chunk-chunk-chunk.
“Patience, clankers,” Rex muttered, hauling a trooper by his shoulders into the shelter of a doorway. Anakin took the man’s legs. “I’ll get back to you soon.”
And then the metallic marching stopped. Anakin strained to listen; the close explosions must have affected his hearing. But he wasn’t imagining it. He could see them now, a line of metal statues seeming to wait for orders.
The droid advance had ground to a halt.
“Let’s hope that doesn’t mean they’re moving long-range artillery into position,” Kenobi said. He wiped the back of his glove across his mouth, smearing dust and droid oil across his beard. The wretched things scattered debris and fluids for meters when hit. “We can’t take much more of this.”
Anakin heard it even before he felt it. It was a very distinctive sound, pure music. He looked up at the same moment Rex did, and what he saw was possibly even more wonderful than it sounded. It was so arresting that he almost missed the droids up ahead doing a sudden, crisp about-turn and marching away again.
An armed Republic shuttle banked above the street and veered off toward the plaza.
“That’s more like it,” Rex said. His shoulders sagged slightly, a blend of relief and fatigue. “They don’t like the odds now.”
Anakin turned to Kenobi, trying to look unmoved. He wanted to cheer. But it wasn’t a very Jedi thing to do. “They’re pulling back, Master. Looks like the reinforcements have made them see sense. Come on, Rex, let’s give them a proper welcome.”
“Where’s the cruiser?” Rex asked, tapping his finger against the side of his helmet as if having comm problems. “I’m not picking up anything within landing range.”
“It’ll be here,” Kenobi said, exuding energy. As always, he seemed—felt—invigorated by a fight. Anakin wondered if he had those frenzied killing moments too. Kenobi hooked his lightsaber to his belt and jogged toward the plaza, where they’d set up a landing area. “Time for reinforcements, supplies, and perhaps my new Padawan.”
Anakin’s stomach sank a little. Dead weight. It distracted him from his brush with darkness—not darkness, no—and he seized it. A change of problem really was as good as a rest. “This isn’t the time or the place to train a Padawan, Master. They’re a liability.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Kenobi picked up speed. He broke into a steady run and pulled ahead. “You weren’t. Most of the time, anyway …”
“Most?”
“The best way to learn is on the job, after all. You should ask Master Yoda for your own Padawan, Anakin. You have a lot to teach. I really think you should.”
“No, thanks.” Anakin glanced at Rex and raised an eyebrow to Kenobi’s back. The captain shrugged. “I’ll teach when I think I’ve got experience worth passing on. And a learner would slow me down. We don’t have the luxury of time at the moment.”
Anakin could have sworn Rex was amused. He couldn’t see his face behind that T-shaped visor, but he noticed a slight dip of the chin and felt his mood in the Forc
e. Then the man gave him a discreet thumbs-up.
Anakin winked. Thanks, Rex.
The gunship touched down between two cannon emplacements, and the ramp went down. But no fresh clone troopers disembarked, or even supply droids steering fully-laden repulsors and ammunition crates.
A little female Togruta stepped onto the plaza instead. A tiny girl. A child.
Kenobi stood transfixed. “What’s that youngling doing here? Where’s the ship? Where’s Hunter?”
The little Togruta drew herself up to her full height—which wasn’t saying much—and craned her neck to look up at Kenobi. “Master Yoda was worried that you hadn’t reported in, and he couldn’t reach you, so he sent me with a message.”
“Sent you?” Kenobi said. “So where’s the cruiser? Where are our reinforcements? Our support?”
“The ship dropped me off. Master Yoda wants you to return to the Temple right away. There’s an emergency.”
“Funny, we’ve got one of those too, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Anakin gestured over his shoulder at the palls of smoke still rising into the air. He didn’t dare look at Rex in case the dismay rising in his throat was contagious. After the blissful relief of the droid retreat, the realization that they were still under siege slapped him back hard. There was no end in sight, no resupply, no comm to Padmé to let her know he was fine. “Are you telling me they never got our signals asking for help?”
“I don’t think they did. Perhaps we can relay a message via the cruiser that brought me.”
“And who are you?”
“I’m Padawan Ahsoka Tano,” she said.
“Ah, my new apprentice.” Kenobi gave her a polite bow, as if grateful to salvage at least something from the situation. “Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end.”
Ahsoka looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, then smiled as if she’d nailed it on with grim determination just to keep their spirits up.
“No, Master, I’m not your assigned Padawan.” She turned to Anakin and bowed. “I’m yours, Master Skywalker.”
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 over
rule 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?
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