Book 0 - The Dark Lord Trilogy Read online

  Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil; Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith; and Star Wars: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader are works of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Del Rey Books Trade Paperback Original

  Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil copyright © 2005

  by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.

  Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith copyright © 2005

  by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.

  Star Wars: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader copyright © 2005

  by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.

  All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey Books,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  The stories contained in this work were

  originally published separately as follows:

  Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil was originally published in hardcover

  in the United States by Del Rey Books,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005.

  Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith was originally

  published in hardcover in the United States by Del Rey Books,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005.

  Star Wars: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader was originally

  published in hardcover in the United States by Del Rey Books,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005.

  DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon

  is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79591-5

  www.starwars.com

  www.delreybooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Star Wars®: Labyrinth of Evil Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Star Wars®: Episode III Revenge of the Sith™ Dedication

  Introduction - The Age of Heroes

  Part One - Victory Chapter 1 - Anakin and Obi-Wan

  Chapter 2 - Dooku

  Chapter 3 - The Way of the Sith

  Chapter 4 - Jedi Trap

  Chapter 5 - Grievous

  Chapter 6 - Rescue

  Chapter 7 - Obi-Wan and Anakin 2

  Part Two - Seduction Chapter 8 - Fault Lines

  Chapter 9 - Padmé

  Chapter 10 - Masters

  Chapter 11 - Politics

  Chapter 12 - Not from a Jedi

  Chapter 13 - The Will of the Force

  Chapter 14 - Free Fall in the Dark

  Chapter 15 - Death on Utapau

  Chapter 16 - Revelation

  Part 3 - Apocalypse Chapter 17 - The Face of the Dark

  Chapter 18 - Order Sixty-Six

  Chapter 19 - The Face of the Sith

  Chapter 20 - Chiaroscuro

  Chapter 21 - A New Jedi Order

  Star Wars®: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Part I - The Outer Rim Sieges Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part II - The Emperor’s Emissary Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part III - Imperial Center Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part IV - Kashyyyk Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  About the Author

  Also by this Author

  Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe

  Excerpt from Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction

  Introduction to the Old Republic Era

  Introduction to the Rise of the Empire Era

  Introduction to the Rebellion Era

  Introduction to the New Republic Era

  Introduction to the New Jedi Order Era

  Introduction to the Legacy Era

  Star Wars Novels Timeline

  A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY.…

  For my loving aunt and uncle

  Rosemary and Joe Savoca

  And for my earliest mentors,

  Pat Mathison, who was forever urging me

  to tell him stories,

  and Richard Thomas, who introduced me

  to science fiction,

  Ian Fleming, and Thomas Pynchon

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Heartfelt thanks to Shelly Shapiro, Sue Rostoni, and Howard Roffman, for remaining in my corner throughout this project; to George Lucas, for responding to my many queries; to Matt Stover, for providing additional material and creative inspiration; to Dan Wallace, for sending me an early version of his Prequel Era chronology; to Haden Blackman, for graciously yield
ing some of the Big Moments; to the staff of the Hotel Casona, in Flores, Guatemala, for keeping the espressos coming; and to Karen-Ann and Jake, for granting me the time and space to daydream.

  Darkness was encroaching on Cato Neimoidia’s western hemisphere, though exchanges of coherent light high above the beleaguered world ripped looming night to shreds. Well under the fractured sky, in an orchard of manax trees that studded the lower ramparts of Viceroy Gunray’s majestic redoubt, companies of clone troopers and battle droids were slaughtering one another with bloodless precision.

  A flashing fan of blue energy lit the undersides of a cluster of trees: the lightsaber of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

  Attacked by two sentry droids, Obi-Wan stood his ground, twisting his upraised blade right and left to swat blaster bolts back at his enemies. Caught midsection by their own salvos, both droids came apart, with a scattering of alloy limbs.

  Obi-Wan moved again.

  Tumbling under the segmented thorax of a Neimoidian harvester beetle, he sprang to his feet and raced forward. Explosive light shunted from the citadel’s deflector shield dappled the loamy ground between the trees, casting long shadows of their buttressed trunks. Oblivious to the chaos occurring in their midst, columns of the five-meter-long harvesters continued their stalwart march toward a mound that supported the fortress. In their cutting jaws or on their upsweeping backs they carried cargoes of pruned foliage. The crushing sounds of their ceaseless gnawing provided an eerie cadence to the rumbling detonations and the hiss and whine of blaster bolts.

  From off to Obi-Wan’s left came a sudden click of servos; to his right, a hushed cry of warning.

  “Down, Master!”

  He dropped into a crouch even before Anakin’s lips formed the final word, lightsaber aimed to the ground to keep from impaling his onrushing former Padawan. A blur of thrumming blue energy sizzled through the humid air, followed by a sharp smell of cauterized circuitry, the tang of ozone. A blaster discharged into soft soil, then the stalked, elongated head of a battle droid struck the ground not a meter from Obi-Wan’s feet, sparking as it bounced and rolled out of sight, repeating: “Roger, roger … Roger, roger …”

  In a tuck, Obi-Wan pivoted on his right foot in time to see the droid’s spindly body collapse. The fact that Anakin had saved his life was nothing new, but Anakin’s blade had passed a little too close for comfort. Eyes somewhat wide with surprise, he came to his feet.

  “You nearly took my head off.”

  Anakin held his blade to one side. In the strobing light of battle his blue eyes shone with wry amusement. “Sorry, Master, but your head was where my lightsaber needed to go.”

  Master.

  Anakin used the honorific not as learner to teacher, but as Jedi Knight to Jedi Council member. The braid that had defined his earlier status had been ritually severed after his audacious actions at Praesitlyn. His tunic, knee-high boots, and tight-fitting trousers were as black as the night. His face scarred from a contest with Dooku-trained Asajj Ventress. His mechanical right hand sheathed in an elbow-length glove. He had let his hair grow long the past few months, falling almost to his shoulders now. His face he kept clean-shaven, unlike Obi-Wan, whose strong jaw was defined by a short beard.

  “I suppose I should be grateful your lightsaber needed to go there, rather than desired to.”

  Anakin’s grin blossomed into a full-fledged smile. “Last time I checked we were on the same side, Master.”

  “Still, if I’d been a moment slower …”

  Anakin booted the battle droid’s blaster aside. “Your fears are only in your mind.”

  Obi-Wan scowled. “Without a head I wouldn’t have much mind left, now, would I?” He swept his lightsaber in a flourishing pass, nodding up the alley of manax trees. “After you.”

  They resumed their charge, moving with the supernatural speed and grace afforded by the Force, Obi-Wan’s brown cloak swirling behind him. Victims of the initial bombardment, scores of battle droids lay sprawled on the ground. Others dangled like broken marionettes from the branches of the trees into which they had been hurled.

  Areas of the leafy canopy were in flames.

  Two scorched droids little more than arms and torsos lifted their weapons as the Jedi approached, but Anakin only raised his left hand in a Force push that shoved the droids flat onto their backs.

  They jinked right, somersaulting under the wide bodies of two harvester beetles, then hurdling a tangle of barbed underbrush that had managed to anchor itself in the otherwise meticulously tended orchard. They emerged from the tree line at the shore of a broad irrigation canal, fed by a lake that delimited the Neimoidians’ citadel on three sides. In the west a trio of wedge-shaped Venator-class assault cruisers hung in scudding clouds. North and east the sky was in turmoil, crosshatched with ion trails, turbolaser beams, hyphens of scarlet light streaming upward from weapons emplacements outside the citadel’s energy shield. Rising from high ground at the end of the peninsula, the tiered fastness was reminiscent of the command towers of the Trade Federation core ships, and indeed had been the inspiration for them.

  Somewhere inside, trapped by Republic forces, were the Trade Federation elite.

  With his homeworld threatened and the purse worlds of Deko and Koru Neimoidia devastated, Viceroy Gunray would have been wiser to retreat to the Outer Rim, as other members of the Separatist Council were thought to be doing. But rational thinking had never been a Neimoidian strong suit, especially when possessions remained on Cato Neimoidia the viceroy apparently couldn’t live without. Backed by a battle group of Federation warships, he had slipped onto Cato Neimoidia, intent on looting the citadel before it fell. But Republic forces had been lying in wait, eager to capture him alive and bring him to justice—thirteen years late, in the judgment of many.

  Cato Neimoidia was as close to Coruscant as Obi-Wan and Anakin had been in almost four standard months, and with the last remaining Separatist strongholds now cleared from the Core and Colonies, they expected to be back in the Outer Rim by week’s end.

  Obi-Wan heard movement on the far side of the irrigation canal.

  An instant later, four clone troopers crept from the tree line on the opposite bank to take up firing positions amid the water-smoothed rocks that lined the ditch. Far behind them a crashed gunship was burning. Protruding from the canopy, the LAAT’s blunt tail was stenciled with the eight-rayed battle standard of the Galactic Republic.

  A gunboat glided into view from downstream, maneuvering to where the Jedi were waiting. Standing in the bow, a clone commander named Cody waved hand signals to the troopers on shore and to others in the gunboat, who immediately fanned out to create a safe perimeter.

  Troopers could communicate with one another through the comlinks built into their T-visored helmets, but the Advanced Recon Commando teams had created an elaborate system of gestures meant to thwart enemy attempts at eavesdropping.

  A few nimble leaps brought Cody face-to-face with Obi-Wan and Anakin.

  “Sirs, I have the latest from airborne command.”

  “Show us,” Anakin said.

  Cody dropped to one knee, his right hand activating a device built into his left wrist gauntlet. A cone of blue light emanated from the device, and a hologram of task force commander Dodonna resolved.

  “Generals Kenobi and Skywalker, provincial recon unit reports that Viceroy Gunray and his entourage are making their way to the north side of the redoubt. Our forces have been hammering at the shield from above and from points along the shore, but the shield generator is in a hardened site, and difficult to get at. Gunships are taking heavy fire from turbolaser cannons in the lower ramparts. If your team is still committed to taking Gunray alive, you’re going to have to skirt those defenses and find an alternative way into the palace. At this point we cannot reinforce, repeat, cannot reinforce.”

  Obi-Wan looked at Cody when the hologram had faded. “Suggestions, Commander?”

  Cody made an adjustment to the wrist projector, and a 3-D sch
ematic of the redoubt formed in midair. “Assuming that Gunray’s fortress is similar to what we found on Deko and Koru, the underground levels will contain fungus farms and processing and shipment areas. There will be access from the shipping areas into the midlevel grub hatcheries, and from the hatcheries we’ll be able to infiltrate the upper reaches.”

  Cody carried a short-stocked DC-15 blaster rifle and wore the white armor and imaging system helmet that had come to symbolize the Grand Army of the Republic—grown, nurtured, and trained on the remote world of Kamino, three years earlier. Just now, though, areas of white showed only where there were no smears of mud or dried blood, no gouges, abrasions, or charred patches. Cody’s position was designated by orange markings on his helmet crest and shoulder guards. His upper right arm bore stripes signifying campaigns in which he had participated: Aagonar, Praesitlyn, Paracelus Minor, Antar 4, Tibrin, Skor II, and dozens of other worlds from Core to Outer Rim.

  Over the years Obi-Wan had formed battlefield partnerships with several Advanced Recon Commandos—Alpha, with whom he had been imprisoned on Rattatak, and Jangotat, on Ord Cestus. Early-generation ARCs had received training by the Mandalorian clone template, Jango Fett. While the Kaminoans had managed to breed some of Fett out of the regulars, they had been more selective in the case of the ARCs. As a consequence, ARCs displayed more individual initiative and leadership abilities. In short, they were more like the late bounty hunter himself, which was to say, more human. While Cody wasn’t genetically an Advanced Recon Commando, he had ARC training and shared many ARC attributes.

  In the initial stages of the war, clone troopers were treated no differently from the war machines they piloted or the weapons they fired. To many they had more in common with battle droids poured by the tens of thousands from Baktoid Armor Workshops on a host of Separatist-held worlds. But attitudes began to shift as more and more troopers died. The clones’ unfaltering dedication to the Republic, and to the Jedi, showed them to be true comrades in arms, and deserving of all the respect and compassion they were now afforded. It was the Jedi themselves, in addition to other progressive thinking officials in the Republic, who had urged that second- and third-generation troopers be given names rather than numbers, to foster a growing fellowship.

  “I agree that we can probably reach the upper levels, Commander,” Obi-Wan said at last. “But how do you propose we reach the fungus farms to begin with?”