“You’re all right now?”
“Soon will be. The Force is a strong healer.” His smile slipped, edging into darkness. “I heard about Rojo. We all did, of course. Hestizo, I’m … so very sorry.”
She nodded, and for a moment neither of them spoke. There were times when no amount of speech could convey the heart’s grief, and silence was the most articulate response. After a time, she felt Bennis tentatively reaching for her hand.
“Come, I have something to show you.”
She followed him through the long greenhouse, past familiar plants and species, their stalks and branches leaning up over her, some whispering her name, along with the other Jedi who were at work here. Up ahead she saw the incubation chamber. Bennis opened the hatchway, and they stepped inside.
Hestizo?
She stopped and looked at the Murakami orchid rising up in front of her, its petals wide, practically quivering with expectation and excitement, and she smiled.
Hello there.
Hestizo, I’ve heard much about you, let us talk, we shall—
“The second of its species,” Bennis said. “It arrived here just this morning. Suffice it to say, it’s been anticipating your return here with great enthusiasm.”
“I’m sure,” she said, reaching out to touch the flower’s petals.
You were with my seed-brother, the orchid said, arching toward her. Is that true?
Yes, I was, she told it, and thought about the voice of the first orchid, the one that she still heard in her mind. I still am, in a way. He saved my life.
Really?
Bennis smiled again, the indulgent smile of a proud parent, and gave the orchid a small pat. “Easy,” he said. “There will be plenty of time for that once Hestizo has settled back in with us, I’m sure.”
“Actually …” Zo met his eyes. “I wanted to speak to you about that.”
“Oh?”
“I’m going to go away for a while.”
Bennis waited.
“I’m considering returning to the Jedi Temple at Coruscant to continue my studies. Not that I don’t love it here, of course, but I feel—there is more for me to learn.”
He paused for a moment, then nodded as if he’d expected no less. “I had a feeling you might say that.”
“When I was away, I saw things …” Zo drew in a breath and held it until she was fairly certain that her voice was steady again. “You have heard about what happened on Odacer-Faustin?”
“Some,” Bennis admitted, “yes.”
“I have nightmares about it now. I probably will for months. And I think …” She shook her head. “… what if it isn’t over? What if the Sickness that Darth Scabrous created … got out somehow?”
Bennis didn’t respond, just gazed back at her steadily, until Zo sighed and managed a thin smile. “I made a friend, an unlikely ally—a mechanic, actually. Named Pergus Frode. He’s a good pilot. He’ll take me to Coruscant. From there …” She shrugged. “Who knows?”
“I hope you’ll stay in touch.” And then, with absolute sincerity: “Hestizo?”
“Yes?”
“May the Force be with you.”
Zo smiled at that old refrain, words that she’d heard all her life, whose meaning she was still learning to understand on a personal level. “And with you.”
They stood together for a moment without speaking. Zo reached down and brushed her fingers gently over the orchid, then turned and walked out of the incubation chamber, through the research level where she’d spent so much of her adult life. She didn’t hurry. She knew that when she arrived at the hangar, Frode would be waiting for her with the ship, ready to take her back to Coruscant, and whatever might be waiting for her there. The mechanic would be good traveling company, she sensed—there was a low-key air about him that bespoke dozens of untold stories, events that had made up his life and taken him to the unlikely destination of Odacer-Faustin. She felt herself already beginning to trust him.
Making her way toward the turbolift that would take her up and away from all this, Zo thought about taking one last look back at the plants, the greenery that made her life here. This was the world she knew. Perhaps she should reconsider, give herself time to recover her bearings before moving on to something else.
The doors of the lift opened, and she stepped inside, finger hovering over the button just long enough to take in a last, fragrant breath of the vegetative life she was leaving behind.
That was enough.
The future was scary, but you couldn’t avoid it, anymore than you could outrun the past.
She pushed the button and didn’t look back.
Acknowledgments
When your debts run as deep as mine, there’s the tendency to say, “You know who you are,” but when you’re dealing with something of this magnitude, that doesn’t quite cover it.
For all their guidance, inspiration, and encouragement all along the way, I owe much appreciation to my agent, Phyllis Westberg at Harold Ober Associates, my editor, Shelly Shapiro, along with Erich Schoeneweiss, Keith Clayton, and the rest of my Del Rey/Random House family.
At Lucasfilm, major kudos to Sue Rostoni and Leland Chee for saving my bacon within the universe of continuity and the Holocron. And of course, to George Lucas, for knocking my socks off when I was seven years old and instilling a sense of awe from which I never recovered.
I want to extend a special thanks to the 501st Legion, whose generosity and commitment made the Death Troopers book tour unforgettable—especially the Southern California Garrison, the Golden Gate Garrison, the Cloud City Garrison, the Midwest Garrison, the Bloodfin Garrison in Indianapolis, the Great Lakes Garrison, and Garrison Carida in my own backyard—you guys rock. And an extra loud shout-out to the Empire State Garrison, who came to Manhattan on a hot summer day to shoot Del Rey’s Death Troopers trailer and didn’t forget the blood … or the beer.
To everybody who came out to say hi on the tour, or plunked down your money to buy any of my books, thank you. Without you, this whole enterprise would start and end on my desktop.
As always, I have to reserve my greatest thanks for my family: my amazing kids, and my wife, Christina. Your love, encouragement, and profound sense of the ridiculous are constant reminders of the everyday magic, which is the most important kind of all. A guy couldn’t ask for more.
About the Author
JOE SCHREIBER is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Star Wars: Death Troopers, as well as Chasing the Dead, Eat the Dark, and No Doors, No Windows. He was born in Michigan but spent his formative years in Alaska, Wyoming, and Northern California. He lives in central Pennsylvania with his wife, two young children, and several original Star Wars action figures. www.scaryparent.blogspot.com
By Joe Schreiber
Star Wars: Red Harvest
Star Wars: Death Troopers
No Doors, No Windows
Chasing the Dead
Eat the Dark
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 kn
ow 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/Purge
THE NIGHTS WERE THE WORST.
Even before his father’s death, Trig Longo had come to dread the long hours after lockdown, the shadows and sounds and the chronically unstable gulf of silence that drew out in between them. Night after night he lay still on his bunk and stared up at the dripping durasteel ceiling of the cell in search of sleep or some acceptable substitute. Sometimes he would actually start to drift off, floating away in that comforting sensation of weightlessness, only to be rattled awake—heart pounding, throat tight, stomach muscles sprung and fluttering—by some shout or a cry, an inmate having a nightmare.
There was no shortage of nightmares aboard the Imperial Prison Barge Purge.
Trig didn’t know exactly how many prisoners the Purge was currently carrying. He guessed maybe five hundred, human and otherwise, scraped from every corner of the galaxy, just as he and his family had been picked up eight standard weeks before. Sometimes the incoming shuttles returned almost empty; on other occasions they came packed with squabbling alien life-forms and alleged Rebel sympathizers of every stripe and species. There were assassins for hire and sociopaths the likes of which Trig had never seen, thin-lipped things that cackled and sneered in seditious languages that, to Trig’s ears, were little more than clicks and hisses.
Every one of them seemed to harbor its own obscure appetites and personal grudges, personal histories blighted with shameful secrets and obscure vendettas. Being cautious became harder; soon you needed eyes in the back of your head—which some of them actually possessed. Two weeks earlier in the mess hall, Trig had noticed a tall, silent inmate sitting with its back to him but watching him nonetheless with a single raw-red eye in the back of its skull. Every day the red-eyed thing seemed to be sitting a little nearer. Then one day, without explanation, it was gone.
Except from his dreams.
Sighing, Trig levered himself up on his elbows and looked through the bars onto the corridor. Gen Pop had cycled down to minimum power for the night, edging the long gangway in permanent gray twilight. The Rodians in the cell across from his had gone to sleep or were feigning it. He forced himself to sit there, regulating his breathing, listening to the faint echoes of the convicts’ uneasy groans and murmurs. Every so often a mouse droid or low-level maintenance unit, one of hundreds occupying the barge, would scramble by on some preprogrammed errand or another. And of course, below it all—low and not quite beneath the scope of hearing—was the omnipresent thrum of the barge’s turbines gnashing endlessly through space.
For as long as they’d been aboard, Trig still hadn’t gotten used to that last sound, the way it shook the Purge to its framework, rising up through his legs and rattling his bones and nerves. There was no escaping it, the way it undermined every moment of life, as familiar as his own pulse.
Trig thought back to sitting in the infirmary just two weeks earlier, watching his father draw one last shaky breath, and the silence afterward as the medical droids disconnected the biomonitors from the old man’s ruined body and prepared to haul it away. As the last of the monitors fell silent, he’d heard that low steady thunder of the engines, one more unnecessary reminder of where he was and where he was going. He remembered how that noise had made him feel lost and small and inescapably sad—some special form of artificial gravity that seemed to work directly against his heart.
He had known then, as he knew now, that it really only meant one thing, the ruthlessly grinding effort of the Empire consolidating its power.
Forget politics, his father had always said. Just give ’em something they need, or they’ll eat you alive.
And now they’d been eaten alive anyway, despite the fact that they’d never been sympathizers, no more than low-level grifters scooped up on a routine Imperial sweep. The engines of tyranny ground on, bearing them forward across the galaxy toward some remote penal moon. Trig sensed that noise would continue, would carry on indefinitely, echoing right up until—
“Trig?”
It was Kale’s voice behind him, unexpected, and Trig flinched a little at the sound of it. He looked back and saw his older brother gazing back at him, Kale’s handsomely rumpled, sleep-slackened face just a ghostly three-quarter profile suspended in the cell’s gloom. Kale looked like he was still only partly awake and unsure whether or not he was dreaming any of this.
“What’s wrong?” Kale asked, a drowsy murmur that came out: Wussrong?
Trig cleared his throat. His voice had started changing recently, and he was acutely aware of how it broke high and low when he wasn’t paying strict attention. “Nothing.”
“You worried about tomorrow?”
“Me?” Trig snorted. “Come on.”
“ ’S okay if you are.” Kale seemed to consider this and then uttered a bemused grunt. “You’d be crazy not to be.”
“You’re not scared,” Trig said. “Dad would never have—”
“I’ll go alone.”
“No.” The word snapped from his throat with almost painful angularity. “We need to stick together, that’s what Dad said.”
“You’re only thirteen,” Kale said. “Maybe you’re not, you know …”
“Fourteen next month.” Trig felt another flare of emotion at the mention of his age. “Old enough.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Well, sleep on it, see if you feel different in the morning …” Kale’s enunciation was already beginning to go muddled as he slumped back down on his bunk, leaving Trig sitting up with his eyes still riveted to the long dark concourse outside the cell, Gen Pop, that had become their no-longer-new home.
Sleep on it, he thought, and in that exact moment, miraculously, as if by power of suggestion, sleep actually began to seem like a possibility. Trig lay back and let the heaviness of his own fatigue cover him like a blanket, superseding anxiety and fear. He tried to focus on the sound of Kale’s breathing, deep and reassuring, in and out, in and out.
Then somewhere in the depths of the levels, an inhuman voice wailed. Trig sat up, caught his breath, and felt a chill tighten the skin of his shoulders, arms, and back, crawling over his flesh millimeter by millimeter, bristling the small hairs on the back of his neck. Over in his bunk the already sleeping Kale rolled over and grumbled something incoherent.
There was another scream, weaker this time. Trig told himself it was just one of the other convicts, just another nightmare rolling off the all-night assembly line of the nightmare factory.
But it hadn’t sounded like a nightmare.
It sounded like a convict, whatever life-form it was, was under attack.
Or going crazy.
He sat perfectly still, squeezed his eyes tight, and waited for the pounding of his heart to slow down, just please slow down. But it didn’t. He thought of the thing in the cafeteria, the disappeared inmate whose name he’d never know, watching him with its red staring eye. How many other eyes were on him that he never saw?
Sleep on it.
But he already knew there would be no more sleeping here tonight.
2/Meat Nest
IN TRIG’S OLD LIFE, BACK ON CIMAROSA, BREAKFAST had been the best meal of the day. Besides being an expert trafficker in contraband, a veteran fringe dweller who cut countless deals with thieves, spies, and counterfeiters, Von Longo had also been one of the galaxy’s greatest unrecognized breakfast chefs. Eat a good meal early, Longo always told his boys. You never know if it’s going to be your last.
Here on the P
urge, however, breakfast was rarely edible and sometimes actually seemed to shiver in the steady vibrations as though still alive on the plate. This morning Trig found himself gazing down at a pasty mass of colorless goo spooned into shaved gristle, the whole thing plastered together in sticky wads like some kind of meat nest assembled by carnivorous flying insects. He was still nudging the stuff listlessly around his tray when Kale finally raised his eyebrows and peered at him.
“You sleep at all last night?” Kale asked.
“A little.”
“You’re not eating.”
“What, you mean this?” Trig poked at the contents of the tray again and shuddered. “I’m not hungry,” he said, and watched Kale shovel the last bite of his own breakfast into his mouth with disturbing gusto. “You think the food will be any better when we get to the detention moon?”
“Little brother, I think we’ll be lucky if we don’t end up on the menu.”
Trig gave him a bleak look. “Don’t give ’em any ideas.”
“Hey, lighten up.” Kale wiped his mouth on his sleeve and grinned. “Little guy like you, they’ll probably just use you for an appetizer.”
Trig put his fork down again with a snort to show that he got the joke. Although he couldn’t have articulated it, his big brother’s easygoing bravado—so obviously inherited from their old man—made him downright envious. Kale wasn’t wired for fear. It just didn’t stick to him somehow. The only thing that ever really seemed to trouble him was the prospect of not getting another helping of whatever the COO-2180s behind the lunch counter had been slopping onto the inmates’ trays.
Out of nowhere, from the ridiculous to the sublime, Trig found himself thinking about his father again. Their final conversation hung in his memory with stinging vividness. Just before he’d passed away in the infirmary, the old man had reached up, clutched Trig’s hand in both of his, and whispered, “Watch over your brother.” Caught off-guard, Trig had just nodded and stammered out that he would, of course he would—but soon afterward he realized that his dad, in his final moments, must have been confused about which son he was talking to. There was no reason he’d ask Trig to look after Kale. It would be like assigning the safekeeping of a wampa to a Kowakian monkey-lizard.
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