Crucible: Star Wars

by Troy Denning

  Then the blast-tinting went black, though not quickly enough to spare Leia a moment of flash blindness as another turbolaser strike—this one much closer than the first—erupted. Her shoulders hit crash webbing as the shock wave bucked the Falcon. Again her pulse stopped, and she hung suspended in that last infinitely long instant between life and atomization, and she did not realize she was still holding her triggers open until the synthetic rumble of the targeting computer announced the destruction of a TIE interceptor.

  Leia cursed and released the triggers, struggling to blink the blast-dazzle from her eyes and not quite able to believe they had survived the strike.

  “Sorry! I didn’t mean—”

  Chewbacca cut her off with an astonished yawl.

  “The Chimaera hit it?” Leia gasped. “By mistake?”

  “To make a point.” Han’s laser cannons opened up again. “She didn’t like her TIEs being pushed around.”

  Leia checked her display and found the last two interceptors weaving wildly as they rushed for the Falcon’s forward quarter. She swung her turret around but was too distracted to open fire safely. Something here did not make sense.

  “Pellaeon would never destroy his own interceptor,” she said. “The Empire is too short of good fighters.”

  “A lesson the survivors’ll never forget.” Han’s cannon bolts were dancing around the lead TIE in a tightening web of light. “If there are any.” Finally, the interceptor had no place left to maneuver and flew into a dash of laser energy, exploding in a white cloud of fire and light. “He’s using us as a training mission. I hate that.”

  “Han, you said don’t hit—”

  “Change of plans.” Han began to fire at the last TIE. “Now we make it cost them.”

  Leia joined in, forcing the TIE into Han’s stream of fire. It bobbed and weaved in ever-smaller oscillations, but maintained discipline and continued on course—no doubt mindful of the lesson the Chimaera had delivered earlier.

  Finally, it turned directly toward the Falcon, and the space beyond bloomed into brilliant smears of color as it opened fire. Leia kept her eyes fixed on the targeting display and held her triggers down, spraying bolts at the interceptor in tightening spirals, trying not to think about how large its image was growing, or how her display kept dimming, or why the turret’s blast-tinting had gone black.

  Finally, the TIE had no room left to maneuver. The pilot broke high, his wings and spherical cockpit rotating so smoothly that Leia did not realize he had changed attitude until the cannon bolts stopped coming.

  “He’s yours!” Han yelled over the intercom. “Roll me up, Chewie!”

  Leia raised her cannons and thumbed the automatic lead active, but the TIE was already too far ahead. She managed only a few more shots before the computer designated it out of range.

  “That’s it, he’s been recalled,” Han said. “They aren’t going to give us any more trouble.”

  Leia checked the tactical display and saw the assault shuttle still trailing them. No match for the Falcon’s speed, it was out of range and steadily falling farther behind, but it was coming.

  “You’re sure about that?” Leia asked.

  “I’m sure. Experience isn’t much good to dead pilots.”

  “What about assault troopers?”

  As Leia spoke, the shuttle broke off pursuit and angled for the planet. Chewbacca was quick to parallel its course, keeping the shuttle between them and the Star Destroyer, now traveling more or less in the direction they wanted to go. Leia kept waiting for the shuttle to turn toward the Chimaera, to weave or bob or try anything to give the turbolasers a clear shot, but it only continued its dive toward the planet, still angling in the Falcon’s direction.

  Leia swung her turret around, unsure whether she should thank the shuttle pilot or open fire.

  Han figured it out before she did. “Chewie, cut behind them! Go sandside, fast!”

  Chewbacca didn’t ask why. He brought the Falcon around so sharply that Leia had to close her eyes against the starspin, and then Han began yelling for her to bring her guns to bear.

  Leia opened her eyes again and wished she hadn’t. Space was flying past the canopy in a flashing whirl of stars and sand as Chewbacca spiraled toward Tatooine. She still had no idea what Han wanted her to be ready for, but she focused on the display and swung her cannons toward the assault shuttle.

  Half a dozen blips appeared at the edge of the tactical screen, and her heart had barely finished falling before the interceptor symbols confirmed what Han had realized two moments before. Another flight of TIEs was coming fast from the blind side of the planet.

  Leia forced her attention back to the firing display. With the Falcon gyrating so wildly, the turret broke into a nauseating whirring spin-dance as the servomotors struggled to keep the shuttle centered in the crosshairs.

  “I have a lock.” Noticing that Han had not yet opened fire, she asked, “Should I—”

  “Not yet,” Han said. “Chewie, see that sandstorm? The really big one?”

  An affirming grunt came over the intercom. Leia glanced out and saw only dizzying smears of yellow and stars whirling against a violet backdrop and felt instantly sick to her stomach. She fixed her gaze on the targeting display and hoped she was wrong about why Han had pointed out the sandstorm.

  The Falcon shuddered and slowed abruptly. Leia wondered if they could have reached the outer edge of the atmosphere so soon, but there was still too much darkness outside, then Han was cursing and asking no one in particular if all the Chimaera’s pilots had a death wish. She saw the assault shuttle tumbling around the tactical display like a flitnat, connected to the Falcon by the invisible ribbon of a tractor beam that was pulling the two vessels slowly, steadily closer.

  “Now, Han?”

  “Not yet,” Han said. “Chewie, launch the—”

  A soft thud reverberated through the Falcon as two concussion missiles shot from their tubes, riding the tractor beam toward the shuttle. “Now, sweetheart!”

  Leia squeezed the triggers. The turret shook as the quad lasers loosed their fury. The center of the targeting display erupted into a dazzling glow, and her canopy darkened to black as the shuttle returned fire. All non-essential systems diverted power to the shields, and an ominous silence fell over the Falcon. She tried to aim down the tractor beam, but with the Falcon reeling half out of control, Leia was doing well just to hit the thing.

  Then the missiles vanished into the glow. The tractor beam twinkled out of existence, and the brightness behind the crosshairs dissolved into a fading starburst.

  Chewbacca wrenched the Falcon out of her tumble and dived straight for Tatooine. The tactical display showed the interceptors closing, but they remained well out of range. Leia brought her turret around and finally found the sandstorm Han had pointed out to Chewbacca—a raging swirl of amber that covered a tenth of the planet’s visible surface. Even from space, she could see clouds of turbulence eddying up far above the primary plane of the storm.

  Chewbacca sent the Falcon corkscrewing into a new helix of evasion. Leia checked her tactical display and found the TIEs still out of range and likely to stay that way. They could not cut off the Falcon without entering the atmosphere, a prospect even slower than taking the long route around the planet. Nor was the Chimaera, still sitting in a remote orbit, near enough to launch another boarding mission. There was only one thing the Star Destroyer could do to block the Falcon.

  A bright line of turbolaser strikes erupted ahead, trying not to hit the Falcon but to force her toward the approaching TIEs. Chewbacca flew directly at the nearest blossom. The shields crackled with sapphire energy as they passed through the dissipation turbulence; then the Falcon was plunging into Tatooine’s atmosphere, bucking wildly and engulfed in entry flame.

  Han was instantly out of his seat, half tumbling and half climbing up the access corridor as Chewbacca struggled to control the ship at an air velocity approaching meteoric. The Chimaera did not fire into th
e atmosphere—no doubt because the captain believed the Falcon was about to crash anyway.

  “Stay put.” Han started toward the main hold. “Pellaeon’s got to be as mad as a rancor. Those TIEs may follow us down.”

  “So where are you going?”

  “Flight deck,” he said. “When we slip into that sandstorm—”

  “Into the sandstorm?” Leia started to object, but saw the TIEs dropping into the atmosphere and knew they had no choice. “Okay, Han. Just don’t—”

  “Hit anything,” Han finished. “I know.”

  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 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:

  • 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 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?

  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 im
age 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.”

  “Thank you, Threepio!” Mara and Leia said together.

  “And the closest they have been for a decade previous,” the droid had to slip in, as the women turned back to their conversation.