Kenobi
Page 1
BY JOHN JACKSON MILLER
Star Wars: Knight Errant Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories Overdraft: The Orion Offensive
Star Wars: Kenobi is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
© 2013 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or TM where indicated. All rights reserved. Excerpt from Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion: Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells copyright © 2013 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or TM where indicated.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book contains an excerpt from the upcoming book Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion: Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
eISBN: 978-0-345-54912-9
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Jacket art: Chris McGrath
Jacket design: Scott Biel
v3.1
To Kathy,
who made sure her kid brother saw the movie
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Dramatis Personae
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: The Oasis
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Part Two: The Killing Ground
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
Part Three: The Bright Center
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
Chapter Thirty-Five
Part Four: The Rift
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
About the Author
Excerpt from Star Wars: Empire and Rebellion: Razor’s Edge
Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Excerpt from Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories
Introduction to the Old Republic Era
Excerpt from Star Wars: Knight Errant
Introduction to the Rise of the Empire Era
Excerpt from Star Wars: Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
Introduction to the Rebellion Era
Excerpt from Star Wars: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor
Introduction to the New Republic Era
Excerpt from Star Wars: Heir to the Empire
Introduction to the New Jedi Order Era
Excerpt from Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Vector Prime
Introduction to the Legacy Era
Excerpt from Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal
Excerpt from Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast
Star Wars Novels Timeline
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I began developing the story that is Kenobi in 2006, when Jeremy Barlow, then my comics editor at Dark Horse, challenged me to write something that hadn’t been done as yet: Star Wars as a western. Fifty pages of notes later, I had a story better suited for a prose novel than a graphic novel, and so I shelved the project until the opportunity arose. It did in 2012, thanks to editors Shelly Shapiro and Frank Parisi.
Much has been written about life on Tatooine; somewhat less about Ben Kenobi’s time of exile. All those works were helpful, and I am appreciative to their authors.
My appreciation goes to Erich Schoeneweiss, Keith Clayton, and everyone at Del Rey, and to Jennifer Heddle, Pablo Hidalgo, and Leland Chee at Lucasfilm.
Finally, my thanks go to my wife and proofreader Meredith Miller, proofreader Brent Frankenhoff, and equestrian adviser Beth Kinnane. (There aren’t any horses on Tatooine, but there are saddles!)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Annileen Calwell, storekeeper
Orrin Gault, moisture farmer and entrepreneur
A’Yark, Tusken war leader
Kallie Calwell, Annileen’s daughter
Jabe Calwell, Annileen’s son
Mullen Gault, Orrin’s son
Veeka Gault, Orrin’s daughter
Wyle Ulbreck, moisture farmer
Leelee Pace, Zeltron artisan
Ben Kenobi, recent arrival
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.…
Until the time is right, disappear we will.
—YODA
Darkness has fallen on the galaxy. The Emperor has taken control of the Galactic Republic, aided by Anakin Skywalker, once one of the brightest of the Jedi Knights, charged with protecting the helpless. Having fallen to the dark side of the mystical Force, Anakin lives on as the Emperor’s ruthless enforcer, Darth Vader.
But hope also lives in the form of Anakin’s infant son—protected by Anakin’s friend and former mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kenobi flees with the baby to the remote world of Tatooine, where years earlier Anakin’s fall truly began when he vengefully massacred a native clan of Tusken Raiders.
Unaware of that event—and still believing that he killed Anakin in their desperate duel—Kenobi settles into a new role, watching over the child and his adoptive family, the Larses, from a distance. But hiding is difficult for one accustomed to action, and even desert Tatooine has those who require the help of a Jedi …
PROLOGUE
“IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO GO HOME, SIR.”
Wyle Ulbreck woke up and looked at his empty glass. “What’s that you say?”
The green-skinned bartender prodded the old human on the shoulder. “I said it’s time for you to go home, Master Ulbreck. You’ve had enough.”
“That ain’t what I meant,” Ulbreck said, rubbing the crust from his bloodshot eyes. “You called me ‘sir.’ And then ‘Master.’ ” He leered suspiciously at the barkeep. “Are you an organic—or a droid?”
The bartender sighed and shrugged. “This again? I told you when you asked earlier. My eyes are large and red because I’m a Duros. I called you what I did because I’m polite. And I’m polite because I’m not some old moisture farmer, deranged from too many years out in the—”
“Because,” the white-whiskered man interrupted, “I don’t do business with no droids. Droids are thieves, the lot of them.”
“Why would a droid steal?”
“T’give to other droids,” Ulbreck said. He shook his hea
d. The bartender was clearly an idiot.
“What would—” the bartender started to ask. “Never mind,” he said instead. He reached for a bottle and refilled the old farmer’s glass. “I’m going to stop talking to you now. Drink up.”
Ulbreck did exactly that.
To Ulbreck’s mind, there was one thing wrong with the galaxy: people. People and droids. Well, those were two things—but then again, wasn’t it wrong to limit what was wrong with the galaxy to just one thing? How fair was that? That was how the old farmer’s thinking tended to go, even when he was sober. In sixty standard years of moisture farming, Ulbreck had formed one theory about life after another. But he’d spent enough of the early years working alone—odd, how not even his farmhands wanted to be around him—that all his notions had piled up, unspoken.
That was what visits to town were for: opportunities for Ulbreck to share the wisdom of a lifetime. When he wasn’t getting robbed by diabolical droids pretending to be green bartenders.
They weren’t supposed to allow droids inside Junix’s Joint—that was what the ancient sign outside the Anchorhead bar said. Junix, whoever he was, was long since dead and buried in the sands of Tatooine, but his bar still stood: a dimly lit dive where the cigarra smoke barely covered the stink of farmers who’d been in the desert all day. Ulbreck seldom visited the place, preferring an oasis establishment closer to home. But having traveled to Anchorhead to chew out a vaporator parts supplier, he’d stopped in to fill his canteen.
Now, half a dozen lum ales later, Ulbreck began thinking about home. His wife was waiting for him there, and he knew he had better go. Then again, his wife was waiting for him there, and that was reason enough for him to stay. He and Magda had had a horrible fight that morning over whatever it was they’d fought about the night before. Ulbreck couldn’t remember what that was now, and it pleased him.
Still, he was an important man, with many underlings who would steal him blind if he was away too long. Through a haze, Ulbreck looked to the chrono on the wall. There were numbers there, and some of them were upside down. And dancing. Ulbreck scowled. He was no fan of dancing. Ears buzzing, he slid off the bar stool, intent on giving the digits a piece of his mind.
That was when the floor attacked him. Swiftly and scurrilously, intent on striking him in the head when he wasn’t looking.
It would have succeeded, had the hand not caught him.
“Careful, there,” said the hand’s owner.
Bleary-eyed, Ulbreck looked up the arm and into the hooded face of his rescuer. Blue eyes looked back at him from beneath sandy-colored eyebrows.
“I don’t know you,” Ulbreck said.
“Yes,” the bearded human responded, helping the old farmer back onto the stool. Then he moved a few paces away to get the bartender’s attention.
The brown-cloaked man had something in his other arm, Ulbreck now saw—a bundle of some kind. Alerted, Ulbreck looked around to see whether his own bundle was missing before remembering that he never had a bundle.
“This isn’t a nursery,” the bartender told the newcomer, although Ulbreck couldn’t figure out why.
“I just need some directions,” the hooded man responded.
Ulbreck knew many directions. He’d lived long enough on Tatooine to visit lots of places, and while he hated most of them and would never go back, he prided himself on knowing the best shortcuts to them. Certain that his directions would be better than those provided by a droid pretending to be a Duros, Ulbreck moved to intervene.
This time, he caught the railing himself.
Ulbreck looked back warily at the glass on the bar. “That drink ain’t right,” he said to the bartender. “You’re—you’re …”
The newcomer interjected cautiously, “You mean to say they’re watering the ale?”
The bartender looked at the hooded guest and smirked. “Sure, we always add the scarcest thing on Tatooine to our drinks. We rake in the credits that way.”
“Ain’t what I mean,” Ulbreck said, trying to focus. “You’ve done slipped somethin’ in this drink to put me out. So you can take my money. I know you city types.”
The bartender shook his bald head and looked behind him to his similarly hairless wife, who was washing up at the sink. “Close it up, Yoona. We’ve been found out.” He looked to the hooded stranger. “We’ve been piling customers’ bodies in the back room for years—but I guess that’s all over now,” he said jokingly.
“I won’t tell a soul,” the newcomer said, smiling. “In exchange for directions. And a bit of blue milk, if you have it.”
Ulbreck was puzzling through that exchange when the bartender’s expression turned to one of concern. The old farmer turned to see several young humans entering through the arched doorway, cursing and laughing. Through his haze, Ulbreck recognized the drunken rowdies.
The two in their twenties were brother and sister Mullen and Veeka Gault, hellion spawn of Ulbreck’s greatest competitor out west, Orrin Gault. And their cronies were here, too. Zedd Grobbo, the big menace who could outlift a loader droid; and, at just a little over half his size, young Jabe Calwell, son of one of Ulbreck’s neighbors.
“Get that kid out of here,” the bartender yelled when he saw the teenage tagalong. “Like I told the other guy, the day care’s around the block.”
At the reference, Ulbreck heard catcalls from the young punks—and he noticed his savior turning to face the wall with his bundle, away from the troublemakers. Veeka Gault shoved past Ulbreck and grabbed a bottle from behind the bar. She paid the Duros with an obscene gesture.
Her fellow hooligans had moved on to a helpless victim: Yoona, the bartender’s wife. Catching the startled Duros woman with a pile of empties on her tray, Zedd spun her around for sport, causing mugs to fly in all directions. One struck the shaggy head of a patron at a nearby table.
The Wookiee rose to register his towering disapproval. So did Ulbreck, who had disliked several generations of Gaults, and didn’t mind helping to put this generation in its place. He staggered to a table near the group and prepared to raise his objections. But the Wookiee had precedence, and Ulbreck felt the table he was leaning against falling anyway, so he decided to check things out from the floor. He heard a scuffling sound and only vaguely registered the arrival of the bartender’s wife, who scuttled into cover beside him.
The Wookiee backhanded Zedd, sending him across the room—and into the table of some people Ulbreck was pretty sure were thieves, even though they weren’t droids. He’d eyed the green-skinned, long-snouted Rodians all afternoon and evening, wondering when they’d harass him. He knew henchmen for Jabba the Hutt when he saw them. Now, their table upended, the thugs moved—chairs overturning as they shot to their feet and reached for their guns.
“No blasters!” Ulbreck heard the bartender yell as customers stampeded for the exit. The call didn’t do a bit of good. Trapped between advancing attackers, the Gaults, who had drawn their pistols when the Wookiee struck their comrade, began firing back at the Rodians. Young Jabe might have fired his weapon, too, Ulbreck saw, had the Wookiee not lifted him from the ground. The titan held the howling boy aloft, about to hurl him into a wall.
The bearded newcomer knelt beside Ulbreck against the bar and leaned across him toward the bartender’s wife. “Take care of this,” the man said, placing his bundle in her hands. Then he dashed into the fray.
Ulbreck returned his attention to the bar fight. Above him, the Wookiee threw Jabe at the wall. But somehow, boy and wall never met; as Ulbreck craned his neck to see, Jabe’s flailing body flew in an unnatural curve through the air and landed behind the bar.
Stunned, Ulbreck looked to see if Yoona had seen the same thing. But she was frozen in terror, eyes squeezed shut. Then a blaster shot struck the floor near them. She opened her eyes. With a scream, she shoved the bundle into Ulbreck’s hands and crawled away.
Ulbreck turned his own frightened eyes back to the brawl, expecting to see the Wookiee beating Jabe to a pulp.
He saw, instead, the hooded man—holding Jabe’s blaster and pointing it at the ceiling. The man fired once at the lightglobe suspended overhead. A second later, Junix’s Joint was in darkness.
But not silence. There was the Wookiee’s howl. The blaster shots. The shattered glass. And then there was the strange humming sound, even louder than the one in Ulbreck’s ears. Ulbreck feared to peer around the edge of the table shielding his body. But when he did, he could make out the silhouette of the hooded man, lit by a wash of blue light—and stray blaster bolts of orange, ricocheting harmlessly into the wall. Dark figures surged forward—the criminal Rodians?—but they fell away, screaming, as the human advanced.
Ulbreck slid back behind the table, trembling.
When quiet finally came, all Ulbreck could hear was a gentle rustling inside the blanket on his lap. Fumbling for the utility light he carried in his pocket, Ulbreck activated it and looked down at the bundle he was holding.
A tiny baby with a wisp of blond hair gurgled at him.
“Hello,” Ulbreck said, not knowing what else to say.
The infant cooed.
The bearded man appeared at Ulbreck’s side. Lit from below by the portable light, he looked kindly—and not at all fatigued by whatever he had just done. “Thank you,” he said, taking the child back. Starting to rise, he paused. “Excuse me. Do you know the way to the Lars homestead?”
Ulbreck scratched his beard. “Well, now, there’s four or five ways to get there. Let me think of the best way to describe it—”
“Never mind,” the man replied. “I’ll find it myself.” He and the child disappeared into the darkness.
Ulbreck rose now, turning the light onto the room around him.
There was no-good Mullen Gault, being revived by his no-good sister, as Jabe limped toward the open doorway. Ulbreck could just make out the Wookiee outside, evidently chasing after Zedd. The bartender was in the back, consoling his wife.
Jabba’s thugs lay dead on the floor.
The old farmer slumped back down again. What had happened in here? Had the stranger really taken on the toughs alone? Ulbreck didn’t remember seeing him with a weapon. And what about Jabe, who’d seemed to hang in the air before he dropped behind the bar? And what was that blasted flashing blue light?