General Willard still lay in the corridor where she and Sian had left him. Leia knelt beside him, overbalanced when her head swam at just the wrong moment, but managed not to fall on him. He was still breathing, and when she carefully felt his skull she found blood and a lump but nothing more alarming. She looked around, realizing she had misplaced Han at some point, but he arrived a moment later with a medkit.
He knelt on Willard’s other side, tearing the kit open. “You look like hell, Princess.”
“I know that, thank you.” Leia reached for the diagnostics scanner, and Han handed her a coldpack instead. Maybe that was best. The small readout on the scanner just looked like a green blur to her at the moment. She put the pack against the lump on the general’s temple and was relieved when he stirred a little and murmured something. She said, “That’s a good sign.”
“Here.” Han was trying to hand her another coldpack.
“I don’t know where else he’s hurt yet,” Leia said, exasperated.
“It’s for you.” When she stared at him, Han said, slowly and clearly, “Put it on your head.”
“Oh.” Leia pressed it against the side of her face and winced in relief. The chill revived her a little, the darkness that hovered at the edges of her vision receding as the vertigo faded. Which was a good thing, because Sian and Jerell, General Willard’s aide, were hurrying down the corridor toward her.
“Your Highness!” Jerell said, sounding horrified. “The general—”
“He’s alive,” Leia told him. “He was knocked out when the first blast hit. Who is the ranking officer on board?”
Jerell was a slim, pale human, another Alderaan survivor, and he looked very young at the moment. Uneasily, as if all too conscious of giving bad news, he said, “You are, Your Highness.”
“Right.” That’s what I was afraid of, Leia thought grimly. Han aimed the diagnostics scanner at her, then frowned at the results. Leia pretended to ignore him. She was fairly certain she had a concussion, but she didn’t have time for it just now. “I need a status report on the damage and the wounded. Are all the crew accounted for?”
Still watching her worriedly, Jerell said, “Yes, Your Highness. There’s seven wounded including General Willard. Mostly burns from when a panel in the engineering compartment and a laser cannon operating console exploded.” He glanced at the sealed door to the bridge compartment again and swallowed hard. “Captain Denlan and Lieutenant Esrai are the only dead.”
That was almost half the crew injured. Leia needed to see the medic and find out exactly how bad it was. Minor burns and breaks could be dealt with on board, but if they needed to get to a medical facility, finding one that wasn’t under Imperial control could be …
“Should I prepare a transmission to the Independence?” Jerell said.
“I’ll do that.” Leia made herself focus on the here and now. She hoped it hadn’t looked as if she had zoned out for a moment there. “Someone told the Imperials where we were coming out of hyperspace. I’m not convinced it wasn’t someone in the fleet.”
“An Imperial agent?” Sian asked.
Jerell frowned, startled and apparently offended. “There can’t be. Our security is too thorough.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” Han put in. Leia would have rolled her eyes, but her head hurt too much. Jerell was one of the officers in charge of secure communications, and Han knew it.
“It’s far more likely to be someone involved with this merchant Davit.” Jerell glared at Han. “Maybe you’re more used to civilian traders and criminals who don’t have any loyalty—”
Han started to reply, but Leia interrupted with, “Jerell, if you have to make that kind of slight, don’t do it in front of me. Han, you know exactly what you’re doing, please stop. Sian—”
“I didn’t say anything. Your Highness,” Sian said.
Leia extended her hand. “You can help me up.”
As Sian hauled her to her feet, Leia added, “You’re on watch in auxiliary control until I can find someone to help you. And be sure you take care of your nose.”
“Take care of my—” Sian touched her nose and winced. “Right.”
Commander Degoren leaned back in his seat, his jaw so tight with suppressed anger it made his teeth ache. The rebel ship had vanished into hyperspace, a dissipating ion trail the only trace left behind. He had never cared for commanders who raged or threw ranting fits, so he just made himself say flatly, “That’s unfortunate.”
The crew at the bridge consoles didn’t cringe outwardly, but he could read the tension in the set of their shoulders. They knew as well as he did that if Degoren had to report to his superiors that he had lost this chance, a quick execution was the best they could hope for. The worst was a long, slow execution in the form of a transfer to a post on whatever hellhole the Empire currently sent its disposable personnel to.
Sorvir, his second in command, said, “If we’d had more time to prepare—”
Degoren cut him off. “Yes, because excuses always impress Sith Lords.” Even when the excuses were true. The Imperial agent hadn’t been able to get a transmission out until it was almost too late, and theirs had been the only ship within range. They hadn’t even had time to summon the surveillance ship they worked with in this sector. It was several systems away at this point, acting as a decoy for a smuggling operation they had been on the point of breaking up before they had received these emergency orders. He shook his head. “All we can do is wait for another contact.”
From what Degoren understood, the agent had been in deep cover for a long time, waiting for the right opportunity. The fact that Degoren’s customs corvette had been the closest Imperial ship able to respond was both a blessing and a curse. If Degoren succeeded, the reward would be unimaginable. Advancement in the Empire had been something he had always wanted but that had always seemed just out of reach. But if he failed to capture Princess Leia Organa, the punishment would also be unimaginable.
He didn’t intend to fail.
STAR WARS—The Expanded Universe
You saw the movies. You watched the cartoon series, or maybe played some of the video games. But did you know …
In The Empire Strikes Back, Princess Leia Organa said to Han Solo, “I love you.” Han said, “I know.” But did you know that they actually got married? And had three Jedi children: the twins, Jacen and Jaina, and a younger son, Anakin?
Luke Skywalker was trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. But did you know that, years later, he went on to revive the Jedi Order and its commitment to defending the galaxy from evil and injustice?
Obi-Wan said to Luke, “For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire.” Did you know that over those millennia, legendary Jedi and infamous Sith Lords were adding their names to the annals of Republic history?
Yoda explained that the dreaded Sith tend to come in twos: “Always two, there are. No more, no less. A Master, and an apprentice.” But did you know that the Sith didn’t always exist in pairs? That at one time in the ancient Republic there were as many Sith as Jedi, until a Sith Lord named Darth Bane was the lone survivor of a great Sith war and created the “Rule of Two”?
All this and much, much more is brought to life in the many novels and comics of the Star Wars expanded universe. You’ve seen the movies and watched the cartoon. Now venture out into the wider worlds of Star Wars!
Turn the page or jump to the timeline of Star Wars novels to learn more.
PRECIPICE
1
5,000 years BBY
“Lohjoy! Give me something!” Scrambling to his feet in the darkness, Captain Korsin craned his neck to find the hologram. “Thrusters, attitude control—I’ll even take parking jets!”
A starship is a weapon, but it’s the crew that makes it deadly. An old spacer’s line: trite, but weighty enough to lend a little authority. Korsin had used it himself on occasion. B
ut not today. His ship was being deadly all on its own—and his crew was just along for the ride.
“We’ve got nothing, Captain!” The serpent-haired engineer Lohjoy flickered before him, off-kilter and out of focus. Korsin knew things belowdecks must be bad if his upright, uptight Ho’Din genius was off-balance. “Reactors are down! And we’ve got structural failures in the hull, both aft and—”
Lohjoy shrieked in agony, her tendrils bursting into a mane of fire that sent her reeling out of view. Korsin barely suppressed a startled laugh. In calmer times—half a standard hour ago—he’d joked that Ho’Din were half tree. But that was hardly appropriate when the whole engineering deck was going up. The hull had ruptured. Again.
The hologram expired—and all around the stocky captain warning lights danced, winked, and went out. Korsin plopped down again, clutching at the armrests. Well, the chair still works. “Anything? Anybody?”
Silence—and the remote grinding of metal.
“Just give me something to shoot at.” It was Gloyd, Korsin’s gunnery officer, teeth shining in the shadows. The half smirk was a memento from a Jedi lightsaber swipe years earlier that just missed taking the Houk’s head off. In response, Gloyd had cultivated the only wit aboard as acidic as the commander’s own—but the gunner wasn’t finding much funny today. Korsin read it in the brute’s tiny eyes: Death in combat’s one thing. But this is no way to go.
Korsin didn’t bother to look at the other side of the bridge. Icy glares there could be taken as a given. Even now, when Omen was crippled and out of control.
“Anybody?”
Even now. Korsin’s bushy eyebrows flared into a black V. What was wrong with them? The adage was right. A ship needed a crew united in purpose—only the purpose of being Sith was the exaltation of self. Every ensign an emperor. Every rival’s misstep, an opportunity. Well, here’s an opportunity, he thought. Solve this, someone, and you can flat-out have the blasted comfy chair.
Sith power games. They didn’t mean much now—not against the insistent gravity below. Korsin looked up again at the forward viewport. The vast azure orb visible earlier was gone, replaced by light, gas, and grit raining upward. The latter two, he knew, came from the guts of his own ship, losing the fight against the alien atmosphere. Whatever it was, the planet had Omen now. An uncontrolled descent from orbit took a long time, surprisingly long. More time to contemplate your destruction, his father had always said. But the way the ship was shaking, Korsin and his crew might be robbed even of that dubious privilege.
“Remember,” he yelled, looking at his entire bridge crew for the first time since it had started. “You wanted to be here!”
And they had wanted to be there—most of them, anyway. Omen had been the ship to get when the Sith mining flotilla gathered at Primus Goluud. The Massassi shock troops in the hold didn’t care where they went—who knew what the Massassi even thought half the time, presuming they did at all. But many sentients who had a choice in the matter picked Omen.
Saes, captain of the Harbinger, was a fallen Jedi: an unknown quantity. You couldn’t trust someone the Jedi couldn’t trust, and they would trust just about anyone. Yaru Korsin, the crew members knew. A Sith captain owning a smile was rare enough, and always suspect. But Korsin had been at it for twenty standard years, long enough for those who’d served under him to spread the word. A Korsin ship was an easy ride.
Just not today. Fully loaded with Lignan crystals, Harbinger and Omen had readied to leave Phaegon III for the front when a Jedi starfighter tested the mining fleet’s defenses. While his crescent-shaped Blade fighters tangled with the intruder, Korsin’s crew made preparations to jump to hyperspace. Protecting the cargo was paramount—and if they managed to make their delivery before the Jedi turncoat made his, well, that was just a bonus. The Blade pilots could hitch back on Harbinger.
Only something had gone wrong. A shock to the Harbinger, and then another. Sensor readings of the sister ship went nonsensical—and Harbinger yawed dangerously toward Omen. Before the collision warning could sound, Korsin’s navigator reflexively engaged the hyperdrive. It had been in the nick of time …
… or maybe not. Not the way Omen was giving up its vitals now. They did hit us, Korsin knew. The telemetry might have told them, had they had any. The ship had been knocked off-course by an astronomical hair—but it was enough.
Captain Korsin had never experienced an encounter with a gravity well in hyperspace, and neither had any of his crew. Stories required survivors. But it felt as though space itself had yawned open near the passing Omen, kneading at the ship’s alloyed superstructure like putty. It had lasted but a fraction of a second, if time even existed there. The escape was worse than the contact. A sickly snap, and shielding failed. Bulkheads gave. And then, the armory.
The armory had exploded. That was easy enough to know from the gaping hole in the underside of the ship. That it had exploded in hyperspace was a matter of inference: they were still alive. In normal space, all the grenades, bombs, and other pleasantries, the Massassi, were taking to Kirrek would have gone up in a flourish, taking the ship with it. But instead the armory had simply vanished—along with an impressive chunk of Omen’s quarterdeck. The physics in hyperspace were unpredictable by definition; instead of exploding outward, the breached deck simply left the ship in a seismic tug. Korsin could imagine the erupting munitions dropping out of hyperspace light-years behind the Omen, wherever it was. That would mean a bad day for someone!
Might as well share the pain.
Omen had shuddered into realspace, decelerating madly—and taking dead aim at a blister of blue hanging before a vibrant star. Was that the source of the mass shadow that had interrupted their trip? Who cared? It was about to end it. Captured, Omen had skipped and bounced across the crystal ocean of air until the descent began in earnest. It had claimed his engineer—probably all his engineers—but the command deck still held. Tapani craftsmanship, Korsin marveled. They were falling, but for the moment they were still alive. “Why isn’t he dead?”
Half mesmerized by the streamers of fire erupting outside—at least the Omen was belly-down for this bounce—Korsin only vaguely grew aware of harsh words to his left. “You shouldn’t have made the jump!” stabbed the young voice. “Why isn’t he dead?”
Captain Korsin straightened and gave his half brother an incredulous stare. “I know you’re not talking to me.”
Devore Korsin jabbed a gloved finger past the commander to a frail man, still jabbing futilely at his control panel and looking very alone. “That navigator of yours! Why isn’t he dead?”
“Maybe he’s on the wrong deck?”
“Yaru!”
Jokes weren’t going to save Boyle Marcom today, the captain knew. Marcom had been guiding ships through the weirdness of hyperspace since the middle of Marka Ragnos’s rule. Boyle hadn’t been at his best in years, but Yaru Korsin knew a former helmsman of his father’s was always worth having. Not today, though. Whatever had happened back there, it would rightfully be laid at the navigator’s feet.
But assigning blame in the middle of a firestorm? That was Devore all over.
“We’ll do this later,” the elder Korsin said from the command chair. “If there is a later.” Anger flashed in Devore’s eyes. Yaru couldn’t remember ever seeing anything else there. The pale and lanky Devore little resembled his own ruddy, squat frame—also the shape of their father. But those eyes, and that look? Those could have been a direct transplant.
Their father. He’d never had a day like this. The old spacer had never lost a ship for the Sith Lords. Learning at his side, the teenage Yaru had staked out his own future—until the day he became less enamored of his father’s footsteps. The day when Devore arrived. Half Yaru’s age, son to a mother from a port on another planet—and embraced by the old veteran without a second thought. Rather than find out how many more children his father had out there to vie for stations on the bridge, Cadet Korsin appealed to the Sith Lords for another assignme
nt. That had not been a mistake. In five years, he made captain. In ten, he won command of the newly christened Omen over an accomplished rival many years his senior.
His father hadn’t liked that. He’d never lost a ship for the Sith Lords. But he’d lost one to his son.
But now losing the Omen was looking like a family tradition. The whole bridge crew—even the outsider Devore—exhaled audibly when rivulets of moisture replaced the flames outside the viewport. Omen had found the stratosphere without incinerating, and now the ship was in a lazy saucer spin through clouds heavy with rain. Korsin’s eyes narrowed. Water?
Is there even a ground?
The terrifying thought rippled through the minds of the seven on the bridge at once, as they watched the transparisteel viewport bulge and warp: Gas giant!
Yes, it took a long time to crash from orbit, presuming you survived reentry. How much longer, if there was no surface? Korsin fumbled aimlessly for the controls set in his armrest. Omen would crack and rupture, smothered under a mountain of vapors. They shared the thought—and almost in response, the straining portal darkened. “All of you,” he said, “heads down! And grab something … now!”
This time, they did as told. He knew: Tie it to self-preservation, and a Sith would do anything. Even this bunch. Korsin clawed at the chair, his eyes fixed on the forward viewport and the shadow swiftly falling across it.
A wet mass slapped against the hull. Its sprawling form tumbled across the transparisteel, lingering an instant before disappearing. The captain blinked twice. It was there and gone, but it wasn’t part of his ship.
It had wings.
Startled, Korsin sprang from his seat and lurched toward the viewport. This time, the mistake was certifiably his. Already stressed before the midair collision, the transparisteel gave way, shards weeping from the ship like shining tears. A hush of departing air slammed Korsin to the deck plating. Old Marcom tumbled to one side, having lost hold of his station. Sirens sounded—how were they still working?—but the tumult soon subsided. Without thinking, Korsin breathed.
Kenobi Page 37
