The Essential Novels

by James Luceno

  He smiled, thinking he had found his answer, after all. He looked at Marr, seeing in Marr so much of himself when Kyle Katarn had agreed to take Jaden as Padawan.

  “I will teach you more about the Force, Marr.”

  Marr sat up on an elbow. “You will?”

  Jaden nodded, thinking of Kyle. Had his Master known that breaking down certainty was the only thing that might save Jaden from darkness in the long run? He suspected Kyle had known exactly that.

  “You may come to wish you’d never learned from me.”

  Khedryn walked in, cursing, hot caf splashing over the rims of the cups. He distributed the caf, took a long sip, sighed with satisfaction.

  “This is the life, gentlemen,” he said to Jaden and Marr. “An open sky filled with opportunities for rascals.”

  Jaden chuckled, looked out the viewport, and grew serious. “There be dragons.”

  “What does that mean?” Marr asked.

  “We will see,” Jaden answered, and drank his caf.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Paul S. Kemp is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Star Wars: Crosscurrent, as well as nine Forgotten Realms fantasy novels and many short stories. When he’s not writing, he practices corporate law in Michigan, which has inspired him to write some really believable villains. He digs cigars, single malt scotch, and ales, and tries to hum the theme song to Shaft at least once per day. Paul Kemp lives and works in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, with his wife, twin sons, and a couple of cats.

  By Paul S. Kemp

  Star Wars: Riptide

  Star Wars: The Old Republic: Deceived

  Star Wars: Crosscurrent

  THE EREVIS CALE TRILOGY

  Twilight Falling

  Dawn of Night

  Midnight’s Mask

  THE TWILIGHT WAR

  Shadowbred

  Shadowstorm

  Shadowrealm

  Read on for an excerpt from Drew Karpyshyn’s

  Star Wars: The Old Republic: Annihilation

  The air inside the cave was cool, but a thin sheen of perspiration coated Satele Shan’s skin. The hard, uneven stone dug into her back and shoulders through the blanket she lay on. She shifted and twisted to escape the discomfort, the dim light of glow sticks casting the shadow of her writhing limbs into a grotesque dance on the far wall.

  “Try to remain still, Satele.”

  Master Ngani Zho, the mentor who had brought her to the sanctuary of this cave, spoke softly, but his deep voice still resonated in the close confines of their hidden refuge.

  Outside, the galaxy was engulfed by war. The Sith, ancient enemies of the Jedi Order long thought extinct, had returned to threaten the existence of the Republic that had stood for thousands of standard years.

  Satele Shan had seen the horrors of this war firsthand, battling with her fellow Jedi alongside the soldiers of the Republic against the enemy hordes. She had seen worlds burn. She had seen friends die. She had suffered more than she ever imagined she could and survived. Yet the pain she experienced now was something entirely different.

  There is no emotion, there is peace.

  The mantra of the Jedi helped her focus, and she closed her eyes as she tried to draw on the Force to calm herself. But her body refused to obey her mind, and instead of a slow pattern of inhale–exhale, her breath continued to come in ragged, rapid gasps.

  The Masters at the Jedi academy had never prepared her for this. How could they?

  “Satele! Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  Her eyes snapped open in response to Ngani Zho’s voice. Gritting her teeth while another wave of agony washed over her, she could only nod in reply, her fingers clenching his hand as she tried to draw the strength to sustain herself through this ordeal.

  “We’re almost done, Satele. Just one more push.”

  The final contraction felt like it was ripping her apart, but she followed her Master’s instructions and pushed despite the pain. Satele screamed, and then suddenly the pain was gone. An instant later the loud cries of a child—her child—filled the cave.

  “It’s a boy, Satele,” Master Zho said as he cut the umbilical. “You have a son.”

  Satele had known the child she carried was male for months; she had felt him through the Force as his life grew stronger within her. But hearing the words spoken aloud somehow made this all feel more real. She had brought life into a galaxy overwhelmed with death.

  “Here, Satele,” Master Zho whispered, holding the infant out to her.

  Exhausted, she struggled to find enough strength to reach out with her weary arms. Ngani had wrapped the babe in a swaddling blanket; warm and enveloped as he had been in the womb, he was no longer crying.

  Pulling the child close to her chest, she couldn’t help but wonder what destiny the Force had chosen for her son. She had no doubt his path would be a difficult one, for in these dark times no path was easy. What role would he play in the fate of the galaxy?

  She knew her own role well enough: Satele Shan, hero of the Republic, paragon of the Jedi Order. Strong in the Force. She was a champion of the light; a symbol; an icon.

  The rank and file saw her as the embodiment of everything the Jedi and the Republic stood for. And that was why she had been forced to hide her pregnancy. For the first months it had been simple—the loose-fitting Jedi robes had easily covered the swelling of her belly. But in the later months a more elaborate ruse was necessary.

  She couldn’t have done it without Master Zho’s help. When her condition became impossible to conceal and she had been forced to go into hiding, he had told the Jedi Council and the leaders of the Republic military that he had sent Satele on a vital mission—something he could not speak of for fear of endangering her life. Given Master Zho’s impeccable reputation, none had questioned him.

  Now, however, the mission was over. It was time for her to return; the Republic had fought too long without their champion. The Sith Empire’s relentless advance had gone too far. She could no longer ignore the Republic’s need.

  “Are you sure about this, Satele? You don’t want to reconsider?”

  Satele looked down at the baby resting so peacefully in her arms, and realized she would treasure this moment for the rest of her life. Whenever she was scared or alone or consumed by grief, she could draw on the memory of the first time she held her son.

  In the early stages of her pregnancy, she’d struggled against her maternal feelings as she’d felt the life growing inside her. She had tried to rationalize her protective instincts as nothing more than a biological imperative—an evolutionary mechanism to ensure the propagation of the species. But as the weeks and months passed, she realized her love for her unborn child was more than just biology and hormones. The emotional bond was real, and her desire to do anything—take any risk or commit any act—to protect her son was almost overwhelming.

  She would do everything in her power to protect him—even terrible, violent things. She would put his needs above all others, even if it meant an entire planet must suffer to spare him pain. Given her position and power, this was unacceptable.

  “You promised you would take him,” Satele said softly, gazing down into the child’s wide, wondering eyes.

  “I will,” Ngani assured her. “If that’s still what you want.”

  “What I want has nothing to do with it,” she muttered as she reluctantly handed the child back to her Master. “For the sake of the galaxy, this is what must be.”

  As he took the child from her arms, the moment of greatest joy she would ever know ended. The child began to whimper, so Ngani stood up and began to cross quickly back and forth across the cave’s uneven floor. The movement seemed to settle the child, much to Satele’s relief.

  “And you’re sure you don’t want to tell the father?” her Master asked as he paced.

  “No. He’s a good man but, there is darkness in him.”

  Ngani nodded, accepting her decision.

  “What’s his name?”
he asked.

  Satele was momentarily taken aback. He had never asked her the father’s name before, and she had never offered it. Then she realized he was talking about the baby.

  “You are going to raise him,” she said with a shake of her head. “You should choose his name.”

  The Jedi Master stopped pacing and fixed her with a glare she remembered from her days as a Padawan.

  “You’re his mother. His name should come from you.”

  Satele turned her head to the side and closed her eyes as exhaustion washed over her.

  “Theron,” she murmured. “His name is Theron.”

  Theron shan walked quickly through the packed streets of Nar Shaddaa’s Promenade. His unassuming features—pale skin, brown hair, brown eyes, average build—allowed him to blend easily into the crowd. The cybernetic implants visible around his left eye and right ear were his most distinguishing features, but he wasn’t the only one sporting them on Nar Shaddaa, and they typically didn’t draw unwanted attention.

  The Hutt-controlled moon was a landscape of unfettered urban sprawl, marked by towering skytowers crammed too close together and gaudy, glowing billboards that dominated the horizon as far as the eye could see in every direction. Sometimes called Little Coruscant, it was hard to accept Nar Shaddaa as a true homage to the Republic capital world; in Theron’s eyes it was more akin to a grotesque parody.

  Coruscant had been designed with an eye to aesthetics: there was a pleasing flow to the cityscape and a consistent and complementary style to the architecture. The city was carefully divided into various districts, making it easy to navigate. The pedestrian walks were crowded but clean, the endless stream of airspeeders overhead stayed within the designated traffic lanes. On Coruscant, there was an unmistakable sense of order and purpose. At times, Theron found it positively stifling.

  Here on the Smugglers’ Moon, however, it was a glorious free-for-all. Run-down residential buildings were scattered haphazardly among seedy-looking commercial structures; factories abutted restaurants and clubs, with no regard for the toxic clouds of filth spilling out over the patrons. With no traffic rules in force, airspeeders and swoop bikes darted and dived in seemingly random directions, sometimes flying so low the pedestrians ducked and covered their heads.

  As Theron turned a corner, he realized someone was following him. He hadn’t actually seen anyone on his tail, but he could sense it. He could feel eyes watching him, scoping him out, measuring him as a target.

  Master Ngani Zho, the Jedi who’d raised him, would probably have claimed Theron’s awareness came through the Force. But despite coming from a long line of famous Jedi, Theron wasn’t one of the Order. In fact, he had no special connection to the Force at all.

  What he did have was a decade’s worth of experience working for Republic Strategic Information Service. He’d been trained to notice minute details; to be hyperaware of his surroundings at all times. And even though his conscious mind was distracted by the details of his coming mission, his subconscious one had instinctively picked up on something that had triggered alarms in his head. He knew better than to ignore them. Careful not to break stride, turn his head, or doing anything else that might tip off his pursuer, Theron used his peripheral vision to scan the area.

  At street level, everything was a chaotic mishmash of bright, flashing colors. A constant assault from an army of pink, purple, green, and blue signs and billboards provided perfect camouflage for whoever might be following him. Fortunately the intensity of the inescapable neon was muted by the layer of grime that clung to every surface—a reminder of the unchecked pollution in the atmosphere that would eventually transform Nar Shaddaa into an uninhabitable wasteland.

  It wasn’t easy to pick someone who looked suspicious out from the crowd. The population of the Smugglers’ Moon was as varied, unpredictable, and seedy as the surroundings. In the years since the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant, the Hutts had remained staunchly neutral in the ongoing cold war between the Republic and the Sith Empire, making Nar Shaddaa a common gathering place for criminal elements from all corners of the galaxy: Black Sun slavers, Rodian pickpockets, Twi’lek hustlers, Chevin stim dealers. Any and all illicit activities were tolerated on Nar Shaddaa, provided the Hutts got their cut.

  Still, there were those too greedy or stupid to cut the Hutts in on their action. When that happened there were consequences. Things got messy.

  Is that what this is about? Theron wondered. Is Morbo on to me? Did he send someone to take me out?

  He passed by the statue of Karragga the Unyielding that dominated the Promenade. Though he’d been to Nar Shaddaa many times, he couldn’t help but pause for a second and shake his head in disbelief: a thirty-meter-tall Hutt made of solid gold was too ostentatious to ignore. Shaking his head also gave him a chance to quickly glance from side to side to catch a glimpse of someone darting into a doorway off to his left. He didn’t get a good look at whoever it was, but the sudden movement was unnatural enough to stand out.

  Someone working alone. Could be a mugger. Or a trained assassin.

  Theron was on a tight schedule; it was time to force the action. He turned down a narrow side street, leaving the worst of the crowds—and the relative safety they provided—behind. Off the main thoroughfare there were fewer neon lights and more shadowy corners. If his tail was going to try something, this was the perfect place to make a move.

  A slight buzzing of the cybernetic implant in his right ear alerted him to an incoming transmission. There was only one person who knew his private frequency. Theron had to take the call.

  “Accept incoming,” he whispered. Louder, he said, “Director.”

  “Theron.” The head of Strategic Information Service, as he so often did, sounded annoyed. “Where are you?”

  “I’m on vacation,” Theron replied. “I put in for some R and R. Remember?”

  Theron realized the Director’s call could work to his advantage. Whoever was following him would think he was distracted, vulnerable. All he had to do was pretend to be oblivious while listening for his stalker to creep up close, then suddenly turn the tables.

  “Vacation, huh?” the Director grumbled in his ear as Theron continued farther into the deserted alley. “That’s funny, because I have a report that one of our field agents has been spotted snooping around on Nar Shaddaa.”

  “Are you keeping tabs on me?”

  “What are you doing on Nar Shaddaa?” the Director demanded.

  “Maybe I just like the climate.”

  “Smog clouds and acid rain? Not likely. You’re up to something.”

  Well, right now I’m about to be ambushed in a dark alley, Theron thought.

  Out loud, he said, “I’m taking care of some personal business.”

  “What’s Teff’ith mixed up in now?” the Director asked with a sigh.

  Even though he couldn’t see the man on the other end of the call, Theron could picture his boss rubbing his temples in exasperation.

  “Teff’ith’s not a bad kid,” Theron insisted. “She just tends to fall in with the wrong crowd.”

  “Guess that explains how she ended up working with you,” the Director grumbled.

  Theron had stopped walking, and was standing with one hand up to the cyberlink in his ear, staring straight ahead.

  Might as well be wearing a sign that says, come and get me! Time to make your move, whoever you are.

  “Ngani Zho saw something special in her,” Theron said to the Director.

  “I know Master Zho raised you, but by the time he met Teff’ith he was … troubled.”

  You almost said crazy, didn’t you?

  “She has key underworld contacts,” Theron explained, “and she knows how to handle herself in a tough spot. We might need a favor from her someday. I’m just looking out for a potential asset.”

  “What makes you think she’d ever help us? Didn’t Teff’ith say she’d kill you if she ever saw you again?”

  “Then I’ll make su
re she doesn’t see me.”

  “I hate to do this, Theron,” the Director said with another sigh. “But I’m ordering you to pull out of Nar Shaddaa. It’s for your own good.”

  Theron felt the unmistakable shape of a vibroblade’s tip pressing up against his back and a deep voice growled, “Move and you’re dead!” in his other ear.

  “You worry too much,” Theron told the Director, keeping his voice light. “Everything’s under control.” In a whisper he added, “Disconnect,” and the comlink in his ear shut down.

  “Get your hands up!” his unseen assailant snarled.

  Theron slowly raised his arms in the air, silently cursing himself for letting his assailant get so close.

  Never even heard him coming. Was I really that sloppy, or is he that good?

  “Lose the piece.”

  The words were in Basic, but the voice was definitely not human—too deep, too rumbling. The speaker was large, but without turning around there was no way for Theron to pin down what species he was dealing with.

  The comlink in his ear buzzed again, but this time Theron ignored the Director’s call. He clicked his teeth together twice, temporarily shutting the cybernetics off so he could focus on getting out of the alley alive.

  “I said lose the piece!”

  The order was accentuated by a jabbing of the blade against Theron’s back. Reaching down slowly, Theron slid his blaster pistol from the holster on his hip and let it drop to the ground. He briefly considered making a move; there were a dozen ways he could try to surprise and disarm his opponent. But without knowing exactly who or what he was facing, it was too risky.

  Patience. Analyze the situation. Wait for your chance.

  “Those are some fancy wrist guards you got. Maybe have a poison dart or a pinpoint blaster built in, right? Lose ’em.”