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  Adraas tried to use his own power to defend himself but Malgus pushed through it and took telekinetic hold of Adraas’s throat.

  Adraas gagged, the capillaries in his wide eyes beginning to pop. Malgus’s power lifted Adraas from the floor, his legs kicking, gasping.

  Malgus stood directly before Adraas, his hate the vise closing on Adraas’s trachea.

  “You and Angral caused this, Adraas. And the Emperor. There can be no peace with the Jedi, no truce.” He clenched his fist. “There can be no peace, at all. Not ever.”

  Adraas’s only answer was continued gagging.

  Seeing him there, hanging, near death, Malgus thought of Eleena, of Adraas’s description of her. He released Adraas from the clutch of his Force choke.

  Adraas hit the ground on his back, gasping. Malgus had a knee on his chest and both his hands on his throat before Adraas could recover. He would kill Adraas with his bare hands.

  “Look me in the eyes,” he said, and made Adraas look at him. “In the eyes!”

  Adraas’s eyes showed petechial hemorrhaging but Malgus knew he was coherent.

  “You called her a mongrel,” Malgus said. He removed his gauntlets, took Adraas by the throat, and began to squeeze. “To my face you called her that. Her.”

  Adraas blinked, his eyes watering. His mouth opened and closed but no sound emerged.

  “You are the mongrel, Adraas.” Malgus bent low, nose-to-nose. “Angral’s mongrel and you and those like you have mongrelized the purity of the Empire with your pollution, trading strength for a wretched peace.”

  Adraas’s trachea collapsed in Malgus’s grip. There was no final cough or gag. Adraas died in silence.

  Malgus rose and stood over Adraas’s body. He pulled on his gloves, adjusted his armor, his cloak, and walked out of the manse.

  The rising sun peeked over the mountains on Dantooine, and the thin clouds at the horizon line looked to have caught fire. Shadows stretched over the valley, gradually receding as the sun rose higher. The trees whispered in a breeze that bore the scent of loam, decaying fruit, and the recent rain.

  Zeerid stood in the midst of the damp dirt and tall grass, under the open sky, and faced the fact that he had no idea whatsoever about what he should be doing.

  Probably sowing seeds, he supposed, or grafting vines, or testing the soil or something. But it was all a guess. He glanced around as if there might be someone nearby whom he could ask for assistance, but the next nearest farm was twenty klicks to the west.

  He was on his own.

  “Same as always,” he said to himself with a smile.

  After getting clear of Coruscant, he’d flown to Vulta, scooped up Nat and Arra, and fled deeper into the Outer Rim. There, he’d sold Razor and its cargo on the black market and, with the credits he’d earned, bought Nat her own home and bought him and Arra an old vineyard—long unused for growing—from an elderly couple.

  He’d become a farmer, of sorts. Or at least a farm owner. Just as he’d told Aryn he would.

  Thinking of Aryn, especially her eyes, made him smile, but the smile curled down under the weight of bad memories.

  He had never seen her again after leaving Coruscant. For a time he’d tried to learn what had happened to her, but a search of the HoloNet turned up nothing. He knew, however, that Darth Malgus had lived. He presumed that meant Aryn had not, and he’d been unable to tell Arra why Daddy sometimes cried.

  And he still secretly hoped the presumption was wrong, that she’d escaped somehow, remembered who she was.

  He thought of her every day, her smile, her hair, but especially her eyes. The understanding he saw in them had always drawn him to her. Still did, though he was drawn only to her memory now.

  He hoped she had found whatever she’d been seeking before the end.

  He looked around his new estate, at the large home he and Arra rattled around in, at the various outbuildings that held equipment he did not know how to operate, at the row upon row of trellises that lined the fallow vine fields, and he felt … free.

  He owed no one anything and The Exchange would never find him, even if they somehow realized that he was still alive. He owned land, a home, and had enough credits left over to hire a crew that could help him turn the land into a decent winery within a year or two. Or maybe he’d convert the farm and grow tabac. Months earlier, he could not have imagined such a life for himself.

  Grinning like a fool, he sat down in the center of his plot of dirt and watched the sunrise.

  A black dot above the horizon drew his eye.

  A ship.

  He watched it, unconcerned until it started to get larger. He could not yet make out its lines, but he could see its course.

  It was heading in his direction.

  A flash of panic seized him but he fought it down. His eyes went to the house, where Arra slept. He turned his gaze back to the ship.

  He disliked unidentified ships descending from the sky in his direction. They always reminded him of the gully jumper he’d watched crash into the Jedi Temple. They always reminded him of Aryn.

  “They could not have found us,” he said. “It is nothing.”

  The ship grew still larger as it closed the distance. It was moving fast.

  From the tri-winged design he made it as a BT7 Thunderstrike: a multi-use ship common even out on the Rim. He stood as it closed. He could hear the deep bass hum of its engines.

  “Daddy!”

  Arra’s voice turned his head around. She had come out of the house and sat in the wooden swing chair on the covered porch of the house. She smiled and waved.

  “The rain’s gone!” she said.

  “Get in the house, Arra!” he shouted, pointing at the door.

  “But Daddy—”

  “Get inside right now.”

  He did not bother to see if she complied. The ship probably had not seen him yet. The trellises and their veins of browning vines would have concealed him from an airborne viewer. He ducked low and darted toward the edge of the field, sheltering as best he could behind one of the trellises. He pulled some dead vines from it so that he could look through to the open area at the edge of the field where the ship was likely to put down.

  If it was coming to his farm.

  He spared a glance back at the house and saw that Arra had gone back inside. He reached down to his ankle holster and pulled out the E-3 he kept there, then reached around to the small of his back for the E-9 he kept there. He chided himself for not wearing his ordinary hip holster with its twin BlasTech 4s. Arra disliked seeing the weapons, so he’d taken to wearing only those he could carry in concealed holsters. But little E-series popguns would have trouble doing much to someone in ablative armor.

  Again, if the ship was coming to his farm.

  The ship came into view, and he noted its lack of markings. Not a good sign. It slowed, circled the farm, and he tried to make himself small. Its engines slowed and its thrusters engaged. It was coming down.

  He cursed, cursed, and cursed.

  Tension coiled within him but he still felt the habitual calm that always served him well in combat. He reminded himself not to shoot until he knew what he was facing. It was possible that whoever was in the Thunderstrike intended him no harm. Another local, maybe. Or an official in an unmarked ship.

  But he doubted it.

  If they were agents of The Exchange, he wanted to take at least one alive, to find out how they’d tracked him down.

  The ship set down, its skids sinking into the wet ground. The engines wound down but did not turn off. He could see the pilot through the transparisteel canopy—a human man in the jacket, helmet, and glasses that seemed to be the bush pilot uniform out on the Rim. He was talking to someone or someones in the rear compartment, but Zeerid could not see who.

  He heard the doors on the far side of the ship slide open, then close. He still could not see anyone. The ship’s engines wound back up slightly, the thrusters engaged, and it started to lift off. He gave it a fe
w seconds to get up in the air and engage its engines fully then stepped out from behind the trellis.

  A single figure walked toward his home, a human woman with short hair, dressed in baggy trousers and a short coat. He leveled both blasters at her back.

  “Do not take another step.”

  She stopped and held out her hands to either side.

  He started to circle so he could see her face.

  “Are you going to shoot at me every time we meet?”

  The sound of her voice stopped him in his tracks, sent his heart racing, stole his breath. “Aryn?”

  She turned, and it was her. He could not believe it.

  The first words out of his mouth were ridiculous. “Your hair!”

  She ran her hand through her shorn hair. “Yeah, I needed a change.”

  He heard the seriousness in her tone and answered in kind as he walked toward her. His legs felt unsteady under him. “I know what you mean.”

  She smiled softly, and it was the same as it had ever been, as warm as the rising sun.

  “I looked everywhere for you,” she said. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “I looked for you, too,” he said. “But there was nothing. I watched every holo story about the Jedi. It said they were leaving Coruscant …”

  Her expression fell. “I resigned from the Order, Zeerid.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “You what?”

  “I resigned. Like I said, I needed a change.”

  “I thought you meant your hair.”

  She smiled at that, too, then indicated the blasters with her eyes. “Are you going to put those away?”

  He felt himself color. “Of course. I mean, yes. Right.”

  He holstered both his weapons, hands shaking. “How did you find me?”

  “You said you’d become a farmer on Dantooine.” She held her arms out to the side, indicating the landscape. “And here you are.”

  “And here I am.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, anticipating his concern. “No one else could find you. Just me.”

  “Just you. Just you.”

  He was smiling stupidly, echoing her words, and probably looked like a fool. He didn’t care. She was smiling, too, and he could take no more.

  “Stang, Aryn!” he said. He ran toward her and scooped her into his arms.

  She returned his embrace and he pulled her tighter, felt her body against his, inhaled the smell of her hair. He enjoyed the moment then held her at arm’s length.

  “Wait, how did you … get off Coruscant? Malgus—”

  She nodded. “We reached an understanding, of sorts.”

  He wanted to ask about the Twi’lek but was afraid of the answer. Perhaps she felt his emotional turmoil, or perhaps she knew him well enough to anticipate the question.

  “Even after you left I did not hurt her. Eleena, I mean. I left her with Malgus. I don’t know if I did her any favors, though.”

  He hugged her again, more relieved than he would have expected. “I’m glad, Aryn. I’m glad you did that. And I’m glad you’re here.”

  Tears leaked from his eyes. He was not sure why.

  She pushed him back and studied his face. “What is it? You’re upset.”

  Words pushed up his throat but he kept them behind his teeth. He remembered the air lock on Razor, but shook his head. Vrath was his weight to carry.

  “It’s nothing. I’m just glad to see you. An understanding with Malgus? What does that mean?”

  “He let me go.”

  “He what?”

  Aryn nodded. “He let me go. I still don’t understand why. Not fully.”

  “Are you … still hunting him?”

  A shadow passed over Aryn’s expression, but her soft smile brightened her face and chased it away. She put her fingers on a necklace she wore. A stone hung from a silver chain. Zeerid thought it was a Nautolan jewel of some kind.

  “No, I’m not hunting him. When I faced him I felt his hate, his rage.” She shuddered, wrapped her arms around her slim body. “It was like nothing I’d encountered in a Sith before. He lives in a dark place. And I … did not want to follow him there.”

  Zeerid understood better than she knew. He lived in his own dark place.

  “You don’t want to carry that,” he said to her, to himself.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want to carry that.”

  He shook off the darkness and forced a smile. “Will you be staying for a while?”

  Before Aryn could answer, Arra’s voice carried from the house. “Daddy! Can I come out now?”

  He waved her out and she threw open the door, bounded across the porch, down the stairs, and across the swath.

  Aryn grabbed him by the arm. “She’s running, Zeerid.”

  “Prosthetics,” he said, and his eyes welled anew to see her running toward him with Aryn at his side.

  When Arra reached them, she stopped before them, out of breath, her curly hair mussed, her eyes curious and her smile wide. She extended a small hand, all serious. “Hello. My name is Arra.”

  Aryn knelt down to look her in the eye. Taking her hand, she said, “I’m Aryn. Hello, Arra. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “You have pretty eyes,” Arra said.

  “Thank you.”

  Zeerid spoke his hopes aloud. “I think Aryn is going to stay with us for a while. Won’t that be nice?”

  Arra nodded.

  “Aren’t you, Aryn? Staying for a while?”

  Aryn rose and Zeerid’s hopes rose with her, fragile, ready to be dashed. When she looked at him and nodded, he grinned like a fool.

  “Do you like to play grav-ball?” Arra asked her.

  “You can teach me,” Aryn said.

  “How about some food?” Zeerid said.

  “Race you!” Arra said, and sprinted for the house.

  Zeerid and Aryn fell in behind her, all three of them laughing, free.

  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

  Introduction to the RISE OF THE EMPIRE Era

  (67–0 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)

  This is the era of the Star Wars prequel films, in which Darth Sidious’s schemes lead to the devastating Clone Wars, the betrayal and destruction of the Jedi Order, and the Republic’s transformation into the Empire. It also begins the tragic story of Anakin Skywalker, the boy identified by the Jedi as the Chosen One of ancient prophecy, the one destined to bring balance to the Force. But, as seen in the movies, Anakin’s passions lead him to the dark side, and he becomes the legendary masked and helmeted villain Darth Vader.

  Before his fall, however, Anakin spends many years being trained as a Jedi by Obi-Wan Kenobi. When the Clone Wars break out, pitting the Republic against the secessionist Trade Federation, Anakin becomes a war hero and one of the galaxy’s greatest Jedi Knights. But his love for the Naboo Queen and Senator Padmé Amidala, and his friendship with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine—secretly known as the Sith Lord Darth Sidious—will be his undoing …

  If you’re a reader looking to jump into the Rise of the Empire era, here are five great starting points:

  • Labyrinth of Evi
l, by James Luceno: Luceno’s tale of the last days of the Clone Wars is equal parts compelling detective story and breakneck adventure, leading directly into the beginning of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.

  • Revenge of the Sith, by Matthew Stover: This masterfully written novelization fleshes out the on-screen action of Episode III, delving deeply into everything from Anakin’s internal struggle and the politics of the dying Republic to the intricacies of lightsaber combat.

  • Republic Commando: Hard Contact, by Karen Traviss: The first of the Republic Commando books introduces us to a band of clone soldiers, their trainers, and the Jedi generals who lead them, mixing incisive character studies with a deep understanding of the lives of soldiers at war.

  • Death Troopers, by Joe Schreiber: A story of horror aboard a Star Destroyer that you’ll need to read with the lights on. Supporting roles by Han Solo and his Wookiee sidekick, Chewbacca, are just icing on the cake.

  • The Han Solo Adventures, by Brian Daley: Han and Chewie come to glorious life in these three swashbuckling tales of smuggling, romance, and danger in the early days before they meet Luke and Leia.

  Read on for Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss, Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader by James Luceno, and Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber.

  Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Del Rey® Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2004 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.

  All Rights Reserved. Used under authorization.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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