Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Ascension

by Christie Golden

  And he understood the full disaster that was about to unfold.

  Abeloth and the Lost Tribe of the Sith had come to Coruscant—and were running the Galactic Alliance.

  ABOARD THE JADE SHADOW

  Vestara thought at first that part of her was forcing the numbness upon her. That perhaps what she had done was so heinous, so abominable, she couldn’t let herself feel the true impact of the choice she had made only a few hours earlier. Because she felt certain that she should be racked with guilt, horror, and self-loathing, and … she wasn’t.

  The whole thing had taken on the quality of a dream. A bitter smile curved her lips at the irony as she lay staring up at the ceiling of the Jade Shadow, her thoughts racing as fast as the ship itself. A dream; a nightmare caused by the rhak-skuri? No, there was no such convenient and exonerating excuse for what she had done.

  She, Vestara Khai, had murdered a Jedi Knight. And she had done so coldly, deliberately, and with full knowledge of her choice. It couldn’t even really be said that her act was as merciful as simple murder. Vestara had not merely executed Natua Wan. She had knocked off the Falleen’s mask, knowing that doing so would cause Natua to experience the terrifying hallucinations, and that the Jedi Knight’s horror would placate the rhak-skuri.

  Vestara’s mask had been firmly in place the whole time.

  The creature had wanted Ben, and she was not willing to let it have him. There was no other choice.

  But that thought was as pleasant a fiction as telling herself she had been affected by the rhak-skuri’s pheromones. There was always a choice. She and Natua could have stood side by side, a Jedi Knight and a future Jedi Knight, fighting the creature. Maybe they could even have defeated it.

  But she hadn’t taken that road. And even now, Vestara wasn’t wishing she had.

  Search her feelings and thoughts as she might, she knew that given the same set of circumstances, she would make the same decision again. And she also knew that Ben, if he ever knew about it, would despise her for that choice. He would rather have died, horribly and in the grip of madness, than have an innocent’s blood on his hands.

  Vestara supposed that it was a good thing the blood was on her hands. Ben need never know.

  Never know that she had turned her back on the Jedi path and embraced the Sith method of handling such a painful decision.

  She heard again the creature hissing in her mind and turned over, at last feeling something, even if it was vague unease. It had called her. It had wanted her to come with it.

  Vestara hadn’t. Again, a choice, and she had chosen to stay with Ben.

  She punched the pillow angrily. What did any of this matter? She had done what she had done—she had saved Ben. She did this because she had wanted to stay with him and become a Jedi.

  And then she realized the bitter, inevitable, unforgiving illogic of the thought.

  She would never be a Jedi. She would never learn to think like them. Never learn to think like Ben. Even at a point in her life when Vestara had thought she knew what she wanted, she had so easily, so familiarly, chosen the Sith way of getting it.

  Vestara had never desired anything so badly in her life as to be with Ben Skywalker. And yet, the full spectrum of the love he offered her terrified her on some level. He was willing to give completely, utterly of himself, and she knew that so much vulnerability would destroy her. If he would only turn to the dark side …

  He could never be a Sith. He would never learn to think like them; never learn to think like her.

  So be it, then. Vestara Khai was a Sith, and as she lay looking at the stars streaking past her window, she made a Sith’s choice. She would stay with Ben, as long as she was able to. She would give him all she could of her heart, which would never be enough for him. She would do these things until one day, when their paths inevitably diverged, lovers would become enemies.

  And then, when that day came, her heart would break into a thousand pieces as she killed him.

  About the Author

  CHRISTIE GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling author of nearly forty novels, including Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen and Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Allies. Other media tie-in works include launching the Ravenloft line in 1991 with Vampire of the Mists, more than a dozen Star Trek novels, and the Warcraft novels Rise of the Horde, Arthas, and The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm.

  www.christiegolden.com

  By Christie Golden

  Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Ascension

  Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Allies

  Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Omen

  Ravenloft: Vampire of the Mists

  Ravenloft: The Enemy Within

  Star Trek Voyager: The Murdered Sun

  Instrument of Fate

  King’s Man and Thief

  Star Trek Voyager: Marooned

  Invasion: America

  Star Trek Voyager: Seven of Nine

  Invasion America: On the Run

  Star Trek the Next Generation: The First Virtue (with Michael Jan Friedman)

  A.D. 999 (as Jadrien Bell)

  Star Trek Voyager: The Dark Matters Trilogy, Book 1: Cloak and Dagger

  Star Trek Voyager: The Dark Matters Trilogy, Book 2: Ghost Dance

  Star Trek Voyager: The Dark Matters Trilogy, Book 3: Shadow of Heaven

  Star Trek Voyager: Endgame (with Diane Carey)

  Warcraft: Lord of the Clans

  Star Trek Voyager: No Man’s Land

  Star Trek: The Last Roundup

  Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming

  Star Trek Voyager: The Farthest Shore

  On Fire’s Wings

  Star Trek Voyager: Spirit Walk, Book 1: Old Wounds

  Star Trek Voyager: Spirit Walk, Book 2: Enemy of My Enemy

  In Stone’s Clasp

  Warcraft: Rise of the Horde

  StarCraft: The Dark Templar Series, Book 1: Firstborn

  StarCraft: The Dark Templar Series, Book 2: Shadow Hunters

  Under Sea’s Shadow (eBook format only)

  Warcraft: Beyond the Dark Portal (with Aaron Rosenberg)

  Warcraft: Arthas: Rise of the Lich King

  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.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Star Wars®: Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse

  by Troy Denning

  Coming soon from Del Rey Books

  THE PILLARS STOOD SCATTERED ACROSS THE DISTANT MOUNTAINSIDE, their pale shafts cropping out of the blue-gray dust like cliffs of w
hite larmelstone. They looked a hundred stories tall, and whatever mysterious edifice they had been erected to support remained hidden beneath a kilometer-high mound of silt. No road crossed the endless sweep of scrub-dotted plain that surrounded the dust-mountain, and no craft was to be seen streaking across the orange sky above it. And yet, the pillars were the sole hint of civilization in the Reo System—in the whole Maraqoo Sector—so this had to be the place.

  Raynar Thul eased the landspeeder forward. Though he had played an important part in several recent Jedi missions, he did not feel ready for this one. Master Skywalker had asked him to return to the Killik Colony he had once led as the Joiner UnuThul. But Raynar had literally not been himself back then. He had been a wounded combat survivor who had allowed himself to become lost in the shared mind of a Killik hive. It was an experience that had totally destroyed his sense of identity and left his mind a shattered wreck, and Raynar continued to feel tenuous and incomplete in his recovery.

  But now the Jedi were facing an enemy as enigmatic as she was powerful, and their only hope of survival was to coax some answers from the jumbled hive-minds of Killiks. Someone had to convince them to reveal everything they knew about the mysterious Celestials they had once served, and Raynar was the only Jedi who could do it. So he had accepted the assignment and promised to succeed … even if it meant losing the mind he had spent eight long years trying to reassemble.

  As the landspeeder drew closer to the mountain of dust, Raynar saw that the giant pillars were decorated with reliefs of winged beasts and horned fiends. Twined around the feet of these figures were ropy shapes that might have been serpents or vines.

  Lowbacca, two-and-a-quarter meters of Wookiee, hunched in the front passenger seat with his knees in his chest, growled the opinion that the vines were a good sign.

  “I quite disagree, Master Lowbacca,” C-3PO said, speaking from directly behind the Wookiee. “In this context, the tendrils are symbols of inevitable destruction. If the ruins weren’t so obviously deserted, I would suggest that we turn around immediately and erase them from our memory chips.”

  “I think Lowie means that we’re in the right place,” Tekli said. Sitting in the passenger seat behind Raynar, the furry little Chadra-fan was probably the only one in the crowded landspeeder who was even remotely comfortable. “The vines suggest that we’ve finally found a hive with a direct association to Abeloth. But the winged figures are something new. Is there a record of ophidian grotesques appearing with other symbols?”

  “Not in my data banks,” C-3PO assured her. “And I have cached every available reference to the subject. In fact, I have available two point three million articles and seven point one million images—”

  Lowbacca interrupted with an impatient rumble.

  “No, I would not prefer to ride on the stowage cover,” C-3PO replied. “Do you have any idea what all this dust would do to my servomotors?”

  Lowbacca rumbled again.

  “I am not experiencing a problem with my vocabulator, Jedi Lowbacca,” C-3PO answered. “And even if I were, I assure you that more dust would only make it worse.”

  Raynar chuckled, glad to have his friends along to keep his mind off his fears. Officially, Master Skywalker had assigned Tekli and Lowbacca to the mission as its medic and technical officer. But Raynar was pretty sure their most important duty was to keep him sane—at least, he hoped it was. C-3PO was on loan to serve as a translator, so it wouldn’t be necessary for Raynar to become a Joiner again just to communicate with the Killiks. Whether it was part of Master Skywalker’s plan or not, the droid had also acted as a constant annoyance—and a diversion. The three Jedi had been living in close quarters for over a month now, and C-3PO had given them a handy place to redirect any irritation they felt with one another. It was a job at which the droid had never failed to excel.

  The landspeeder was still a kilometer away from the mountain when dark specks began to appear in the spaces between exposed pillars. At first, the flecks seemed to be some sort of decoration, but as the companions drew closer, the shapes grew more square-like, then swelled into distant window openings. A path appeared in the dust at the base of the mountain, running through a narrow channel toward a tall black arch that looked a lot like an open gateway.

  Deciding the black arch was a gateway, Raynar turned toward it and felt a cold prickle of danger-sense race up his neck. He expanded his Force-awareness and felt something much nearer, a huge hungry presence moving toward the landspeeder almost as fast as the landspeeder was moving toward the mountain.

  The sensation made no sense. There was a steady breeze blowing across the plain, raising a thin veil of smoke-blue dust that hung about a meter above the ground. But visibility was still close to three hundred meters, and the presence was a lot nearer than that. Raynar brought the landspeeder to a halt.

  “I feel it, too,” Tekli said. “Something is eager to get at us, before we reach the mountain.”

  Lowbacca groaned a question.

  “Well, I can’t see anything except the back of your enormous and furry head,” C-3PO answered. “Perhaps I would be of more use if you didn’t insist on making the droid ride in the back.”

  “I don’t think it’s an illusion,” Tekli said, ignoring C-3PO and replying to Lowbacca. “It can be sensed only through the Force. And any illusion that can be sensed only through the Force won’t turn away many threats.”

  Lowbacca moaned his agreement, and the hungry presence continued to draw nearer. Raynar popped the canopy latch on his side of the landspeeder—and then saw the soil settling and understood. He put the landspeeder in reverse and pushed the throttles to maximum.

  Too late.

  Twenty meters ahead, a giant pair of serrated pincers burst from the ground and spread apart, revealing a slimy red maw about twice as wide as the speeder. The maw led into a long sinuous throat lined by concentric rings of spines. Out of the depths of this cavern shot a spray of gray, ropy tongues that slapped down on the front end of the vehicle. The pincers snapped shut against the body, burying their tips deep in the side panels.

  The landspeeder started to slide forward. Raynar pushed the throttles past maximum to overload, clear to the end of the lever guides. The vehicle continued to slide toward the fang-filled maw.

  “Out!” Raynar yelled.

  Lowbacca popped the latch on his side. He exploded from his seat so swiftly that he caught the canopy bubble on his neck and shoulders, snapping it off at the hinges. Tekli yelled that she was also free. By then, Raynar was already pushing off the steering wheel, using the Force to send himself tumbling out of the landspeeder. He came down five meters away, landed on one foot, then cartwheeled two full rotations before he finally brought his momentum under control.

  When he looked back, the maw had engulfed the landspeeder almost to the passenger compartment and was dragging it down into the dusty pit from which it had emerged. Still in the back, C-3PO was leaning away from the ropy tongues, waving both arms at Raynar.

  “Jedi Thul, why are you just standing there? Please do something quickly!”

  The landspeeder passed over the edge of the pit and tipped forward.

  C-3PO pointed down into the pit. “I suggest that you kill it now!”

  Killing the creature was out of the question—and not only because of its size. Instead, Raynar extended a hand and used the Force to lift the droid out of the landspeeder—then found himself struggling against Lowbacca, who’d had the same idea.

  Raynar released his Force-grasp. C-3PO went sailing, then hit Lowbacca in the chest, bounced off, and landed in the dust at the Wookiee’s feet.

  Lowbacca dropped his chin and studied the droid for a moment, then moaned a question.

  “I could not possibly know that yet,” C-3PO replied. “I’m still running my diagnostics!”

  Lowbacca shrugged and set the droid on his feet, then growled and rubbed his chest.

  “It’s not my fault my elbow gave you a bruise,” C-3PO said. “I
was merely trying to minimize my own damage.”

  The shriek of folding metal sounded from the pit. Raynar stepped to the edge and, through a veil of blowing blue dust, saw a huge heart-shaped head poking out of the bottom. It was rolling the crumpled landspeeder around in its mandibles, using its mouth to tear off pieces and crush them into meter-wide spheres—which it quickly found unpalatable and spat out.

  A small hand grasped Raynar’s arm and tried to pull him away from the pit. He pulled back just hard enough to stay where he was, and Tekli stepped to his side.

  “Raynar?” Tekli whispered. “Is it really wise to stand where that thing can see you?”

  Raynar shrugged. He wasn’t sure what that thing was, but there was a reasonable chance it was some variety of Killik. He took a deep breath, both calming himself and filling his lungs, then raised both forearms in greeting.

  “Thuruht?” he called.

  The insect stopped chewing and pushed its head another meter out of the pit, revealing a huge bulb that was probably a vestigial eye. The ground trembled beneath Raynar’s feet, and he felt a faint rumbling deep in his stomach.

  “Oh my!” C-3PO said, speaking from three meters away. “She would like to know who is asking, and why you are disturbing her work.”

  Raynar smiled as much as the flesh of his burn-scarred face allowed. “Tell her I’m an old friend,” he said. “UnuThul needs help.”

  “Jedi Thul, I’m not sure that’s wise,” C-3PO said. “Killiks rarely cooperate with liars, and you haven’t been UnuThul for quite—”

  Lowbacca growled, warning C-3PO to be careful about what he said.

  Raynar glanced over at the droid. “Tell her, Threepio.”

  Before C-3PO had a chance to obey, the ground trembled again. The droid cocked his head, then said, “As it happens, that won’t be necessary. Thuruht comprehends Basic quite well. She has invited us to the Celestial Palace.”