REBECCA MOESTA is the co-author, with Kevin J. Anderson, of the series of STAR WARS adventures for young readers, Young Jedi Knights. She is currently the co-editor of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Forum. She holds a master of science degree in business administration from Boston University and works as a technical writer and editor at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
DANIEL KEYS MORAN claims he has never done anything or been anywhere interesting. He is the author of the wildly popular Tales of the Continuing Time, and does in fact very much resemble the character Trent from those books, except that he is handsomer, wittier, and a much better basketball player.
He is extremely pleased to have named, six years after the fact, the Cantina Bar song from Star Wars. It’s now called, of course, “Mad About Me.”
JERRY OLTION has published stories in most of the major science fiction magazines and various anthologies. His story “The Love Song of Laura Morrison” won the Analog reader’s choice award for best short story of 1987. His novels include Frame of Reference (Questar 1987) and two books, Alliance and Humanity, in the Isaac Asimov’s Robot City series. His short-story collection, Love Songs of a Mad Scientist, was published by Hypatia Press. He is also the originator of the Jerry Oltion Really Good Story Award for achievement in science fiction and fantasy.
JUDITH and GARFIELD REEVES-STEVENS have been a writing team since 1986. In education, they are authors of a series of science and technology textbooks for children, as well as interactive reading and writing computer programs. In fiction, they have written three Star Trek novels, the first novel in the Alien Nation series, and have created their own action-adventure fantasy series in The Chronicles of Galen Sword. Their other writing credits range from comic books to episodes of Beyond Reality, The Legend of Prince Valiant, and Batman: The Animated Series. For the 1994–95 television season, the Reeves-Stevenses have helped develop and are executive story editors for the animated science fiction series Phantom 2040, a futuristic updating of Lee Falk’s classic costumed hero.
In 1977, at age twenty-three, JENNIFER ROBERSON spent her entire summer in a movie theater. The ritual was simple: She and a friend would find a “rookie,” haul him or her off to the theater, and relive vicariously the thrill of viewing Star Wars for the first time. This ritual served two purposes: It provided a fix for Roberson’s addiction, and it got others hooked as well.
Seven years later DAW Books published her fantasy novel, Shapechangers, the first volume in an eight-book series tided Chronicles of the Cheysuli. Roberson has also published the Sword-Dancer saga as well as short fiction in magazines, anthologies, and collections, and a bestselling historical reinterpretation of the Robin Hood legend emphasizing Marian’s point of view, tided Lady of the Forest. Her projects have included a hardcover political intrigue-fantasy trilogy, Shade and Shadow, and a historical novel set in seventeenth-century Scotland.
Intending to target the young-adult market, KATHY TYERS started writing science fiction in 1983. Bantam Books asked her to rewrite her space adventure Firebird as an adult release in 1986. Her other books include Fusion Fire (1988), Crystal Witness (1989), Shivering World (1991), Exploring the Northern Rockies (1991), and, forthcoming, The Springhill Aliens. The 1994 release of STAR WARS: The Truce at Bakura marked her return to space opera for all ages.
A flutist and Irish harper, Kathy performs and records semiprofessionally with her husband, Mark. They have one son and live in Bozeman, Montana.
MARTHA VEITCH is a writer and stained-glass artist.
TOM VEITCH wrote STAR WARS: Dark Empire and STAR WARS: Tales of the Jedi for Dark Horse Comics. He also collaborated with Kevin J. Anderson on STAR WARS: Dark Lords of the Sith, a series continuing the saga of the ancient Jedi begun in Tales of the Jedi.
DAVE WOLVERTON is the author of several novels, including STAR WARS: The Courtship of Princess Leia, Serpent Catch, Path of the Hero, and On My Way to Paradise. In 1986 he won the grand prize for the Writers of the Future contest. He has worked as a prison guard, missionary, business manager, editor, and technical writer.
TIMOTHY ZAHN grew up near Chicago, studied physics in college and grad school, and spent the first forty years of his life in the Midwest. With such a background, it was practically inevitable that he would settle placidly into a standard respectable middle-class profession and standard respectable middle-class life.
Somewhere along the way, he took an unlikely off-ramp.
Writing science fiction as a hobby to relax from long bouts of work on his doctoral-thesis project probably would have stayed a hobby—except that in 1979 his advisor suddenly died, leaving him with a project that wasn’t going anywhere. So in 1980 he took a deep breath and set off on a full-time writing career.
Since then he has published over a dozen novels and over fifty short stories, including the Hugo-winning novella “Cascade Point.” The publication of his STAR WARS novels altered his life from one of comfortable obscurity to one of international bemusement. It also permitted him to exchange the corn fields of Illinois for the ocean beaches of Oregon.
About the Author
Kevin J. Anderson is the author of nearly 100 novels, 48 of which have appeared on national or international bestseller lists; he has over 22 million books in print in thirty languages. He has won or been nominated for the Nebula Award, Bram Stoker Award, the SFX Reader’s Choice Award, and New York Times Notable Book.
Anderson has coauthored eleven books in the Dune saga with Brian Herbert, as well as the new original novel, Hellhole. Anderson’s popular epic SF series, The Saga of Seven Suns, is his most ambitious work, and he has completed a sweeping fantasy trilogy, Terra Incognita, about sailing ships, sea monsters, and the crusades. As an innovative companion project to Terra Incognita, Anderson cowrote (with wife Rebecca Moesta) the lyrics for two ambitious rock CDs based on the novels. Performed by the supergroup Roswell Six for ProgRock Records, the two CDs feature performances by rock legends from Kansas, Dream Theater, Asia, Saga, Rocket Scientists, Shadow Gallery, and others.
His novel Enemies & Allies chronicles the first meeting of Batman and Superman in the 1950s; Anderson also wrote The Last Days of Krypton. He has written numerous Star Wars projects, including the Jedi Academy trilogy, the Young Jedi Knights series (with Moesta), and Tales of the Jedi comics from Dark Horse. Fans might also know him from his X-Files novels or Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son.
By KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Star Wars:
The Jedi Academy Trilogy
Darksaber
Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina (editor)
Tales from Jabba’s Palace (editor)
Tales of the Bounty Hunters (editor)
The Young Jedi Knights series (with Rebecca Moesta)
Dune series (with Brian Herbert)
The Prelude to Dune trilogy
The Legends of Dune trilogy
The Road to Dune
Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Paul of Dune
The Winds of Dune
The Sisterhood of Dune
X-Files:
Ground Zero
Ruins
Antibodies
DC Universe:
The Last Days of Krypton
Enemies & Allies
Original Novels:
The Saga of Seven Suns series
The Terra Incognita trilogy
Hellhole (with Brian Herbert)
The Star Challengers series (with Rebecca Moesta)
The Crystal Doors trilogy (with Rebecca Moesta)
Frankenstein: Prodigal Son (with Dean Koontz)
Captain Nemo
The Martian War
Hopscotch
Blindfold
Resurrection, Inc.
Climbing Olympus
Ill Wind (with Doug Beason)
Ignition (with Doug Beason)
Assemblers of Infinity (with Doug Beason)
The Trinity Paradox (with Doug B
eason)
Virtual Destruction (with Doug Beason)
Fallout (with Doug Beason)
Lethal Exposure (with Doug Beason)
Landscapes (collection)
Dogged Persistence (collection)
Blood Lite (editor)
Blood Lite II: Overbite (editor)
Blood Lite III: Aftertaste (editor)
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.
1
FLIGHT DECK, IMPERIAL-CLASS STAR DESTROYER STEEL TALON, POLAR ORBIT, PLANET DESPAYRE, HORUZ SYSTEM, ATRIVIS SECTOR, OUTER RIM TERRITORIES
The alert siren screamed, a piercing wail that couldn’t be ignored by any being on board with ears and a pulse. It had one thing to say, and it said it loud and clear:
Scramble!
Lieutenant Commander Villian “Vil” Dance came out of a deep sleep at the blaring alarm, sat up, and leapt from his rack to the expanded metal deck of the Ready Room quarters. Save for the helmet, he already wore his space suit, one of the first things an on-call TIE pilot learned to do was sleep in full battle gear. He ran for the door, half a step ahead of the next pilot to awaken. He grabbed his headgear, darted into the hall and turned to the right, then sprinted for the launching bay.
It could be a drill; there had been plenty of those lately to keep the pilots on their toes. But maybe this time it wasn’t. One could always hope.
Vil ran into the assembly area. A-grav on the flight deck was kept at slightly below one g, so that the pilots, all of whom were human or humanoid, could move a little faster and get to their stations a little sooner. The smell of launch lube was acrid in the cold air, and the pulsing lights painted the area in bright, primary flashes. Techs scrambled, getting the TIE fighters to final-set for takeoff, while pilots ran toward the craft. Vil noticed that it was just his squad being scrambled. Must not be a big problem, whatever it was.
Command always said it didn’t matter which unit you got. TIE fighters were all the same, down to the last nut and bolt, but even so, every pilot had his or her favorite ship. You weren’t supposed to personalize them, of course, but there were ways to tell—a scratch here, a scuff mark there … after a while, you got to where you knew which fighter was which. And no matter what Command said, some were better than others—a little faster, a little tighter in the turns, the laser cannons a hair quicker to fire when you touched the stud. Vil happened to know that his assigned ship this rotation was Black-11, one of his favorites. Maybe it was pure superstition, but he breathed just a little easier, knowing that particular craft had his name on it this time around.
The command officer on deck, Captain Rax Exeter, waved Vil over.
“Cap, what’s up? Another drill?”
“Negative, Lieutenant. A group of prisoners somehow managed to take over one of the new Lambda-class shuttles. They’re trying to get far enough away to make the jump to hyperspace. That isn’t going to happen on my watch. The ID codes and tracking will be in your fighter’s computer. Don’t let ’em get away, son.”
“No, sir. What about the crew?” Vil knew the new shuttles carried only a pilot and copilot.
“Assumed dead. These are bad guys doing this, Dance—traitors and murderers. That’s reason enough to cook them, but we do not want them getting away to tell anybody what the Empire is doing out here, do we?”
“No, sir!”
“Go, Lieutenant, go!”
Vil nodded, not bothering to salute, then turned and ran. As he did, he put his helmet on and locked it into place. The hiss of air into his face was metallic and cool as the suit’s system went online. It felt very comforting. The vac suit’s extreme-temp-resistant weave of durasteel and plastoid, along with the polarizing densecris helmet, were the only things that would protect him from hard vacuum. Suit failure could make a strong man lose consciousness in under ten seconds, and die in under a minute. He’d seen it happen.
TIE fighters, in order to save mass, had no defensive shield generators, no hyperdrive capability, and no emergency life-support systems. They were thus fragile, but fast, and that was fine with Vil. He’d rather dodge enemy fire than hope it would bounce off. There was no skill in piloting some lumbering chunk of durasteel; might as well be sitting with your feet up at a turbolaser console back on the ship. Where was the fun in that?
The TIE tech had the hatch up on Black-11 as Vil arrived at the gantry above the ship. It was the work of an instant to clamber down and into the fighter’s snug cockpit.
The hatch came down and hissed shut. Vil touched the power-up stud, and the inside of the TIE—named for the twin ion engines that drove it—lit up. He scanned the controls with a quick and experienced eye. All systems were green.
The tech raised his hand in question. Vil waved back. “Go!”
“Copy that, ST-One-One. Prepare for insertion.”
Vil felt his lips twitch in annoyance. The Empire was determined to erase all signs of individuality in its pilots, on the absurd theory that nameless, faceless operators were somehow more effective. Thus the classification numbers, the anonymous flight suits and helmets, and the random rotation of spacecraft. The standardizing approach had worked reasonably well in the Clone Wars, but there was one important difference here: neither Vil nor any other TIE pilot that he knew of was a clone. None of the members of Alpha Squad had any intention of being reduced to automata. If that was what the Empire really wanted, let them use droid pilots and see how well that worked.
His musing was interrupted by the small jolt of the cycling rack below the gantry kicking on. Vil’s ship began to move toward the launching bay door. He saw the tech slip his own helmet on and lock it down.
Already the bay pumps were working full blast, depressurizing the area. By the time the launch doors were open, the air would be cycled. Vil took a deep breath, readying himself for the heavy hand of g-force that would push him back into the seat when the engines hurled him forward.
Launch Control’s voice crackled in his headphones. “Alpha Squad Leader, stand by for launch.”
“Copy,” Vil said. The launch doors pulled back with tantalizing slowness, the hydraulic thrum of their movement made audible by conduction through the floor and Black-11’s frame.
“You are go for launch in five, four, three, two … go!”
Outside the confines of the Star Destroyer, the vastness of space enveloped Lieutenant Vil Dance as the ion engines pushed the TIE past the last stray wisps of frozen air and into the infinite dark. He grinned. He always did. He couldn’t h
elp it.
Back where I belong …
The flat blackness of space surrounded him. Behind him, he knew, the Steel Talon was seemingly shrinking as they pulled away from it. “Down” and to port was the curvature of the prison planet. Though they were in polar orbit, Despayre’s axial tilt showed more of the night side than day. The dark hemisphere was mostly unrelieved blackness, with a few lonely lights here and there.
Vil flicked his comm—though it came on automatically at launch, a good pilot always toggled it, just to be sure. “Alpha Squad, pyramid formation on me as soon as you are clear,” he said. “Go to tactical channel five, that’s tac-fiver, and log in.”
Vil switched his own comm channel to five. It was a lower-powered band with a shorter range, but that was the point—you didn’t want the enemy overhearing you. And in some cases, it wasn’t a good idea for the comm officer monitoring you back on the base ship to be privy to conversations, either. They tended to be a bit more informal than the Empire liked.
There came a chorus of “Copy, Alpha Leader!” from the other eleven pilots in his squad as they switched over to the new channel.
It took only a few seconds for the last fighter to launch, and only a few more for the squad to form behind Vil.
“What’s the drill, Vil?” That from Benjo, aka ST-1-2, his second in command and right panelman.
“Alpha Squadron, we have a Lambda-class shuttle captured by prisoners. They are running for hyper. Either they give up and come back, or we dust ’em.”
“Lambda-class? That’s one of the new ones, right? They have any guns?”
Vil sighed. That was Raar Anyell, a Corellian like Vil himself, but not somebody you’d want to hold up as a prime example of the human species. “Don’t you bother to read the boards at all, Anyell?”
Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina Page 38
