Star Wars: The New Jedi Order – Agents Of Chaos Hero’s Trial

The Robotech Series (as Jack McKinney, with Brian Daley)

The Black Hole Travel Agency (as Jack McKinney, with Brian Daley)

A Fearful Symmetry

Illegal Alien

The Big Empty

Kaduna Memories

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: The Mata Hari Affair

The Shadow

The Mask of Zorro

Río Pasíon

Rainchaser

Rock Bottom

Star Wars: Cloak of Deception

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos: Jedi Eclipse

Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force

Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil

Star Wars: Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader

Star Wars: Millennium Falcon

Merciless attacks by an invincible alien force have left the New Republic reeling. Dozens of worlds have succumbed to occupation or annihilation, and even the Jedi Knights have tasted defeat. In these darkest of times, the noble Chewbacca is laid to rest, having died as heroically as he lived–and a grief-stricken Han Solo is left to fit the pieces of his shattered life back together before he loses everything: friends, family, and faith.

Refusing help from Leia or Luke, Han becomes the loner he once was, seeking to escape the pain of his partner’s death in adventure … and revenge. When he learns that an old friend from his smuggling days is operating as a mercenary for the enemy he sets out to expose the traitor. But Han’s investigation uncovers an even greater evil: a sinister conspiracy aimed at the very heart of the New Republic’s will and ability to fight–the Jedi.

Now Han must face down his inner demons and, with the help of a new and unexpected ally, honor Chewbacca’s sacrifice in the only way that matters–by being worthy of it.

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I want to extend heartfelt thanks to those who kept me on track and loaned a hand along the way: Dan Wallace, who knows the expanded universe better than anyone; Rob Brown, whose suggestions helped shape chapter 7; and Alex Newborn, who steered me to a new character for chapter 14. Thanks, too, to Mike Kogge, Matt Olsen, Eelia Goldsmith Henderscheid, Enrique Guerrero, and Kris Boldis for their keen commentaries; fellow authors Robert Salvatore, Mike Stackpole, and Kathy Tyers for their detail work; and Shelly Shapiro, Sue Rostoni, and Lucy Autrey Wilson, without whom The New Jedi Order would never have taken shape. Finally, infinite gratitude to my late friend and collaborator, Brian Daley.

Nom Anor; executor (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Malik Carr; commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Reck Desh; Peace Brigade mercenary (male human)

Droma; spacer (male Ryn)

Elan; priestess (female Yuuzhan Vong)

Harrar; priest (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Belindi Kalenda; New Republic Intelligence (female human)

Raff; battle tactician (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Roa; captain, Happy Dagger (male human)

Major Showolter; New Republic Intelligence (male human)

Luke Skywalker; Jedi Master (male human)

Mara Jade Skywalker; Jedi Master (female human)

Anakin Solo; Jedi Knight (male human)

Han Solo; captain, Millennium Falcon (male human)

Leia Organa Solo; New Republic ambassador (female human)

Tla; commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)

Vergere; Elan’s familiar (female Fosh)

IF THE SYSTEM’S primary was distressed by the events that had transpired on and about the fourth closest of its brood, it betrayed nothing to the naked eye. Saturating local space with golden radiance, the star was as unperturbed now as it was before the battle had begun. Only the conquered world had suffered, its punished surface revealed in the steady crawl of sunlight. Regions that had once been green, blue, or white appeared ash-gray or reddish-brown. Below banks of panicked clouds, smoke chimneyed from immolated cities and billowed from tracts of firestormed evergreen forests. Steam roiled from the superheated beds of glacier-fed lakes and shallow seas.

Deep within the planet’s shroud of cinder and debris moved the warship most responsible for the devastation. The vessel was a massive ovoid of yorik coral, its scabrous black surface relieved in places by bands of smoother stuff, lustrous as volcanic glass. In the pits that dimpled the coarse stretches hid projectile launchers and plasma weapons. Other, more craterlike depressions housed the laser-gobbling dovin basals that both drove the vessel and shielded it from harm. From fore and aft extended bloodred and cobalt arms, to which asteroidlike fighters clung like barnacles. Smaller craft buzzed around it, some effecting repairs to battle-damaged areas, others keen on recharging depleted weapons systems, a few delivering plunder from the planet’s scorched crust.

Farther removed from the battle floated a smaller vessel, black, as well, but faceted and polished smooth as a gemstone. Light pulsed through the ship at intervals, exciting one facet, then another, as if data were being conveyed from sector to sector.

From a roost in the underside of its angular snout, a gaunt figure, cross-legged on cushions, scanned the flotsam and jetsam a quirk of a gravitational drift had borne close to his ship: pieces of New Republic capital ships and starfighters, space-suited bodies in eerie repose, undetonated projectiles, the holed fuselage of a noncombat craft whose legend identified it as the Penga Rift.

In the near distance hung the blackened skeleton of a defense platform. Off to one side a ruined cruiser rolled end over end in a decaying orbit, surrendering its contents to vacuum like a burst pod scattering fine seeds. Elsewhere a fleeing transport, snagged by the spike of a bloated capture vessel, was being tugged inexorably toward the bowels of the giant warship.

The seated figure beheld these sights without cheer or regret. Necessity had engineered the destruction. What had been done needed to be done.

An acolyte stood in the rear of the command roost, relaying updates as they were received by a slender, living device fastened to his right inner forearm by six insectile legs.

“Victory is ours, Eminence. Our air and ground forces have overwhelmed the principal population centers and a war coordinator has installed itself in the mantle.” The acolyte glanced at the receiving villip on his arm, whose soft bioluminescent glow added appreciably to the roost’s scant light. “Commander Tla’s battle tactician is of the opinion that the astrogation charts and historical data stored here will prove valuable to our campaign.”

The priest, Harrar, glanced at the warship. “Has the tactician made his feelings known to Commander Tla?”

The acolyte’s hesitancy was answer enough, but Harrar suffered the verbal reply anyway.

“Our arrival does not please the commander, Eminence. He does not dismiss out of hand the need for sacrifice, but he asserts that the campaign has been successful thus far without the need for religious overseers. He fears that our presence will only confound his task.”

“Commander Tla fails to grasp that we engage the enemy on different fronts,” Harrar said. “Any opponent can be beaten into submission, but compliance is no guarantee that you have won him over to your beliefs.”

Harrar, a male of middle years, rose and moved to the lip of the roost’s polygonal transparency, where he stood with three-fingered hands clasped at the small of his back—the missing digits having been offered in dedication ceremonies and ritual sacrifices, as a means of escalating himself. His tall slender frame was draped in supple fabrics of muted tones. A head cloth, patterned and significantly knotted, bound his long black tresses. The back of his neck showed vibrant markings etched into skin stretched taut by prominent vertebrae.

“The meaning is unknown at present. Though no doubt some explanation can be found among the captured data.”

A flash of weapons drew his eye to Obroa-skai’s terminator, where a yorik coral gunship was angling into the light, spewing rear fire at a quartet of snub-nosed starfighters that had evidently chased it from the planet’s dark side. The little X-wings were closing fast, thrusters ablaze and wingtips lancing energy beams at the larger ship. Harrar had heard that the New Republic pilots had become adept at foiling the dovin basals by altering the frequency and intensity of the laser bolts the fighters discharged. These four pursued the gunship with a single-mindedness born of thorough self-possession. Such fierce confidence spoke to qualities the Yuuzhan Vong would need to keep solidly in mind as the invasion advanced. Largely oblivious to nuance, the warrior caste would have to be taught to appreciate that survival figured as strongly in the enemy’s beliefs as death figured in the beliefs of the Yuuzhan Vong.

The gunship had changed vector and was climbing now, seemingly intent on availing itself of the protection offered by Commander Tla’s warship. But the four fighters were determined to have it. Breaking formation, they accelerated, ensnaring the gunship at the center of their wrath.

The X-wing pilots executed their attack with impressive precision. Laser bolts and brilliant pink torpedoes rained from them, taxing the abilities of the gunship’s dovin basals. For every bolt and torpedo engulfed by the gravitic collapses the dovin basals fashioned, another penetrated, searing fissures in the assault craft and sending hunks of reddish-black yorik coral exploding in all directions. Stunned by relentless strikes, the gunship huddled inside its shields, hoping for a moment’s respite, but the starfighters refused to grant it any quarter. Bursts of livid energy assailed the ship, shaking it off course. The dovin basals began to falter. With defenses hopelessly compromised, the larger ship diverted power to weapons and counterattacked.

In a desperate show of force, vengeful golden fire erupted from a dozen gun emplacements. But the starfighters were simply too quick and agile. They made pass after pass, raking fire across the gunship’s suddenly vulnerable hull. Gouts of slagged flesh fountained from deep wounds and lasered trenches. The destruction of a plasma launcher sent a chain of explosions marching down the starboard side. Molten yorik coral streamed from the ship like a vapor trail. Shafts of blinding light began to pour from the core. The ship rolled over on its belly, shedding velocity. Then, jolted by a final paroxysm, it disappeared in a short-lived globe of fire.

It looked as if the X-wings might attempt to take the fight to the warship itself, but at the last moment the pilots turned tail. Salvos from the warship’s weapons crisscrossed nearby space, but no missiles found their mark.

His scarified face a deeply shadowed mask, Harrar glanced over his shoulder at the acolyte. “Suggest to Commander Tla that his zealous gunners allow the little ones to escape,” he said with incongruous composure. “After all, someone needs to live to speak of what happened here.”

Harrar pivoted to face him fully, a bemused glint in his deeply set eyes. “Is that respect I hear?”

The acolyte nodded his head in deference. “Nothing more than an observation, Eminence. To earn my respect, they would have to embrace willingly the truth we bring them.”

A herald of lesser station appeared in the roost, offering salute by snapping his fists to opposite shoulders. “Belek tiu, Eminence. I bring word that the captives have been gathered.”

“Several hundred—of diverse aspect. Do you wish to oversee the selection for the sacrifice?”

Harrar squared his shoulders and adjusted the fall of his elegant robes. “I am most eager to do so.”

The transport gullet’s diaphanous seal opened on an immense hold, packed to the bulkheads with captives taken on and in the skies above Obroa-skai. Harrar’s entourage of personal guards and attendants moved into the hold, followed by the priest himself, perched atop a levitated cushion, one leg folded beneath him, the other dangling over the edge. The throbbing heart-shaped dovin basal that kept the cushion aloft answered to Harrar’s quiet prompts, attracting itself to the hold’s vaulted ceiling when the priest called for greater elevation, drawing itself toward one or another distant bulkhead when Harrar wished to be borne forward, backward, or to either side.

Well illuminated by bioluminescent patches that rashed the walls and ceiling, the hold had been sectioned off into a score of separate inhibition fields, arranged in two parallel rows and maintained by larger dovin basals. Pressed shoulder to shoulder in each field stood scholars and researchers from a host of worlds, humans and others—Bothans, Bith, Quarren, and Caamasi—all jabbering at once in a welter of tongues, while black-clad wardens armed with amphistaffs supervised the winnowing process. Meant for coralskipper sustenance rather than living cargo, the immense space reeked of natural secretions, blood, and sweat.

Harrar hovered on the cushion, surveying the scene with hooded eyes. His retainers fell back so that he could proceed directly down the center aisle and inspect prisoners to both sides. In order to reach the first pair of inhibition fields, however, the priest was obliged to circumvent a large access shaft that had been filled to overflowing with confiscated droids, hundreds of them, heaped together in a mound of entangled limbs, appendages, and other mechanical parts.

When Harrar ordered a halt alongside the small mountain of machines, those droids that constituted the summit began to tremble under his scrutiny. With a whirring of strained servomotors, domed, rectangular, and humaniform heads swiveled, audio sensors perked up, and countless photoreceptors came into sharp focus. A momentary avalanche sent several machines screeching and tumbling to the base of the pile, far belowdecks.

Harrar’s intrigued gaze fell on a contorted protocol droid whose upper right arm boasted a band of colored cloth. He commanded the cushion to bring him within reach of the immobilized machine. “Why are some of these abominations affecting garments?” he asked his chief attendant.

“They appear to have functioned as research assistants, Eminence,” the attendant explained. “Obroa-skai’s libraries could be accessed only by those who had contracted with trained researchers. The symbol depicted on the machine’s armband is that of the so-called Obroan Institute.”

Harrar was aghast. “Do you mean to say that serious researchers consorted with these things as equals?”

Harrar’s expression changed to one of contempt. “Allow a machine to think of itself as an equal and it will soon come to consider itself superior.” He reached out, tore the armband from the droid’s arm, and threw it to the deck. “Include a representative sampling of these monstrosities in the sacrifice,” he ordered, “and incinerate the rest.”

“We’re done for,” a muffled synthetic voice whined from deep within the pile.

Living arms of sundry lengths, colors, and textures reached imploringly for Harrar as the cushion carried him toward the closest inhibition field. Some of the prisoners begged for mercy, but most fell silent in stark apprehension. Harrar regarded them indifferently, until his eyes happened on a furred humanoid, from whose bulging brow emerged a pair of ringed, cone-shaped horns. Bare hands and feet were hardened by physical labor, but the calluses belied a deep intelligence evidenced in the creature’s limpid eyes. The humanoid wore a sleeveless sacklike garment that fell raggedly to the knees and was cinched at the waist by a braided cord fashioned from natural fiber.

Harrar indicated the belted sackcloth. “Your attire befits a penitent more than a scholar. Which are you?”

“I am both, and I am neither,” the Gotal said with purposeful ambiguity. “I am an H’kig priest.”

Harrar twisted spiritedly on the cushion to address his retinue. “Good fortune. We have a holy one in our midst.” His gaze returned to the Gotal. “Tell me something of your religion, H’kig priest.”

“Ah, but I, too, am a performer of rituals. As one priest to another, then.”

“Yes, but to what end? To ensure bountiful harvests, to escalate yourself, to secure a place in the afterlife?”

“One among many. And what of the truth the Yuuzhan Vong bring you? Aver that you recognize our gods and I may be inclined to spare your life.”

The Gotal stared at him dispassionately. “Only a false god would thirst so for death and destruction.”

“I have no fear of a death suffered in the cause of truth, the alleviation of suffering, or the abolishment of evil.”

“Suffering?” Harrar leaned menacingly toward him. “Let me tell you of suffering, priest. Misery is the mainstay of life. Those who accept this truth understand that death is the release from suffering. That’s why we go willingly to our deaths, for we are the resigned ones.” He scanned the captives and raised his voice. “We ask no more of you than we do ourselves: to repay the gods for the sacrifices they endured in creating the cosmos. We offer flesh and blood so that their work might endure.”

“Acts that raise calluses,” Harrar said in disdain. “If this is all that is expected of you, it’s no wonder your gods have abandoned you in your time of need.”

Murmurs of fellowship moved through the throng of captives, reticently at first, then with mounting conviction.

Harrar regarded the disparate faces below him: the labrous and the thin-lipped, the rugose and the smooth, the hairless and the hirsute, the horned and the furrowed. In their home galaxy, the Yuuzhan Vong had attempted to eradicate such diversity, prompting wars that had raged for millennia and had claimed the lives of peoples and worlds too numerous to count. This time, though, the Yuuzhan Vong planned to be more circumspect, destroying only those peoples and worlds necessary to complete the cleansing.

The Gotal took a moment to answer. “The Jedi Knights are the trustees of peace and justice.”

The Gotal grinned faintly. “It is something you will never touch. Although if I didn’t know better, I would swear you were sprung from its dark side.”

“And which are you with regard to us? Are you so sure you embody the light?”

Harrar deliberated. “Then this struggle is more than some petty war. This is a contest of gods, in which you and I are but mere instruments.”

The Gotal held his head high. “That may be so. But the final judgment is already decided.”

Harrar sneered. “May that belief comfort you in your final hour, priest—which, I assure you, is close at hand.” Again he addressed the multitudes. “Up until now your species have faced only Yuuzhan Vong warriors and politicians. As of today know that the true architects of your destiny have arrived.”

He beckoned his entourage forward. “This Force is a strange, stubborn faith,” he said quietly as one of his attendants came alongside the dovin basal cushion. “If ever we’re to rule here, we need to understand just how it binds these myriad beings together. And we need to vanquish the Jedi Knights, once and for all.”

IN A GALAXY fraught with wonders, the convergence of columnar tree trunks and forking branches that supported the Wookiee city of Rwookrrorro enjoyed a place of special honor. Viewed from above against its backdrop of fathomless forest, the city appeared to have been rescued from the planet’s harsh underworld and submitted to Kashyyyk’s scudded sky as an example of nature and technology in consummate poise.

At the outskirts of the city, distant from the circular buildings that rose from its spongy floor and scaled the trunks of the giant trees themselves, atop a massive fallen branch that spanned several treetops, a ceremony was in progress, enacted in observance of nature’s timeless cycle of life and death.

The participants, including two dozen Wookiees and humans of both sexes, were arranged in a loose circle around a wooden table that happened also to be circular. Some stood, others sat on their haunches or on the ground, but all wore solemn expressions, save for the group’s only nonliving members, the droids C-3PO and R2-D2, whose alloy countenances remained, in all circumstances, essentially neutral.

C-3PO stood with his bulbous head tilted slightly to one side and his arms bent at angles rarely adopted by the life-form after which he had been modeled. To the droid the rigid posture seemed entirely natural, a consequence of the way he was put together and the ever-changing demands of the servomotors that permitted him to gesticulate and move about. Beside him, R2-D2 stood still as a fixture, locomotion struts planted firmly on the fallen wroshyr tree branch and center tread retracted.

In passing, C-3PO noted that the view from the fallen branch was really quite extraordinary. Fog was thick in the treetops, concealing the nearest of the Wookiee nursery rings and diffusing the morning light as might a prism. The view could even be said—though certainly not by him—to be breathtaking.

[We gather in memory of Chewbacca: honorable son, beloved mate, devoted father, loyal friend and comrade in arms, champion and clan uncle to all of us in spirit, if not in the traditional way.]

The Wookiee speaker was called Ralrracheen, though C-3PO had often heard him referred to simply as Ralrra. He was tall and aged, even for his arboreal species, but it wasn’t the graying muzzle that distinguished him so much as his curious speech impediment. On any other occasion C-3PO would have been tasked to serve as translator and interpreter, but none of the humans present had need of his polyglot faculties that particular morning.

[In Chewbacca, the defiant flame burned brightest,] Ralrra went on, black nose twitching and long arms dangling at his sides. [On Kashyyyk or farr afield on distant worlds, he was never less than courageous and incorruptible—a Wookiee with heart enough for ten and eagerr strength enough forr fifty.]

Chewbacca had died six standard months earlier, during an ill-fated rescue attempt on the planet Sernpidal, after it had been targeted for destruction by the Yuuzhan Vong. The fact that it hadn’t been possible to retrieve his body was a source of sorrow to all, for had Chewbacca been returned to Kashyyyk a funeral would have been held—though for honor family members only. What Wookiees did with their dead remained a closely guarded secret. Some experts speculated that the dead were cremated; others, that they were either buried within tree knots or lowered by kshyy vines into the murky depths from which the species had risen. Still others claimed that the dead were hacked to pieces with sacred ryyyk blades and scattered on select wroshyr branches to be carried off by predatory katarns or kroyie birds.

C-3PO understood that he may not have been allowed to attend the funeral, in any case. Everyone attending the memorial was a member of Chewbacca’s extended family, but it was unlikely that the affiliation applied to him—much less to his counterpart, R2-D2. For all their espousal to machines, intelligent and otherwise, flesh and bloods could be extremely proprietary about matters of kinship and family.

Close to Ralrra squatted Chewbacca’s father, Attichitcuk, along with Chewbacca’s auburn-furred sister, Kallabow. Alongside them sat Chewbacca’s widow, Mallatobuck, and their son, Lumpawarrump, who had taken the name Lumpawaroo—Waroo for short—on the successful completion of his rite of passage. Interspersed among the Wookiee contingent stood assorted friends, kin-brothers, cousins, nieces, and nephews—Lowbacca among the latter, a Jedi Knight.

The humans numbered only six: Master Luke, Mistress Leia, Master Han, and the three Solo offspring, Anakin, Jacen, and Jaina. Conspicuously absent was Lando Calrissian, who, much to Master Han’s disquiet, had sent word that unexpected—and unspecified—developments would prevent his attending. Master Luke’s wife, Mara, might have attended if a sudden relapse in her mysterious malady hadn’t forced her to remain on Coruscant.

The exquisitely carved table at the center of the circle rested on a carpet of wroshyr tree leaves, its pedestal base entwined with dark-green kshyy vines and its round top strewn with kolvissh blossoms, wasaka berries, Orga root, and the glossy yellow petals of the syren plant. The cool air was redolent with the aroma of smoldering tree-resin incense.

[Here on Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s mettle made itself known at an early age,] Ralrra continued. [With his late friend Salporin]—he paused to glance at Salporin’s widow, Gorrlyn—[Chewbacca left the nursery ring to venture down along the Rryatt Trail to the Well of the Dead, in the heart of the Shadow Forest. Armed only with a ryyyk blade, he braved mock shyrr, jaddyyk moss, needlebug, trap-spinnerr, and shadow-keeperr to harvest strands from the heart of the flesh-eating syren, thus earning the right to wearr a baldric, carry a weapon, and confirm the name he chose to be known by. Here, too, Chewbacca ventured into the great Anarrad pit—not once or even twice, but five times, taking down the taloned katarn on three of those hunts and once receiving a wound from the beast in return.] Ralrra indicated a spot on his shaggy torso. [Here, on the left side of his chest.

[In preparation for his marriage, which took place atop this very branch, Chewbacca descended to the fifth level and there with bare hands captured a quillarat and presented it to Malla as an expression of his love. And when it came time for Waroo’s initiation, Chewbacca was steadfast in his support and encouraging of his son’s quest of the scuttle grazerr.]

While some of Chewbacca’s accomplishments on his homeworld were familiar to C-3PO, his memory lacked anything in the way of corroborative data, so he summoned recollections of his own experiences with the Wookiee and was immediately inundated with a rapid-fire sequence of images, some of them dating back twenty-five standard years.

His first sight of Chewbacca, standing like a cinnamon-colored tower outside Docking Bay 94 in the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine … Chewbacca as a sore loser in dejarik holoboard contests … Chewbacca on Bespin’s Cloud City, incorrectly reattaching C-3PO’s head after it had been used by Ugnaughts as a plaything in a game of Wookiee in the Middle … Master Han’s assertion that Chewbacca was always thinking with his stomach … The many, many times Chewbacca was referred to as “flea-bitten furball,” “overgrown mophead,” “walking carpet,” or “noisy brute,” occasionally by C-3PO himself—in imitation of humans, of course—and always with affection, given Chewbacca’s scrupulous character and great size.

A sudden flutter gripped C-3PO, and he found that he was unable to summon additional recollections. An unnatural and most discomfiting heat surged through his circuitry, prompting him to run a diagnostic program, which ultimately left the source of the glitch unrevealed.

[Natural curiosity compelled Chewbacca to leave Kashyyyk at an early age, but like all of us he was soon enslaved by the Empire. Fortunately, Chewbacca regained his freedom at the hands of a man of like strength and honorr—ourr revered brotherr Han Solo. And in the company of Han Solo, to whom he had pledged his life, Chewbacca was to play a crucial role in the Rebellion, and in the events that led eventually to the downfall of Emperor Palpatine.]

C-3PO focused his photoreceptors on Master Han, whose eyes were red-rimmed and narrowed, and whose right hand Mistress Jaina had taken between her own. The dark-blue military-style trousers Master Han was wearing were similar to the tattered pair he had attempted to preserve for posterity, but which only the previous day had proved incapable of conforming to Master Han’s slightly increased waistline and had torn irreparably. Present during the incident—the cause of no small measure of vexation to Master Han—C-3PO had assisted in affixing to the outside seams of the replacement trousers twin embellishments known as Corellian Bloodstripes.

Across from the father and daughter stood Master Jacen and Mistress Leia, her head resting on her elder son’s shoulder and her cheeks glistening with tears. Near them squatted Master Anakin, brooding and withdrawn, along with Master Luke, certainly no stranger to death, having lost both his natural and adoptive parents, as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, two of his Jedi mentors.

[Chewbacca went on to become a soldierr in the New Republic,] Ralrra boomed and rumbled. [He aided in Kashyyyk’s liberation afterr the Battle of Endorr. But he remained first and foremost devoted to Han Solo, as friend and indebted protectorr, and as guardian to Han Solo’s spouse and three children.] Ralrra turned to Han. [It was Chewbacca’s honorr to have been able to come to his friend’s rescue on several occasions, even as recently as the crisis involving the Yevetha, when he freed Han Solo from imprisonment aboard a Yevethan warship.]

Once more C-3PO tightened the focus of his photoreceptors on Master Han, who lowered his head in abject grief, as Jaina stroked his shoulders. Master Han’s relationship with Chewbacca was similar to C-3PO’s with R2-D2, though it seemed at times that the two droids had been together even longer than had the human and the Wookiee.

R2-D2 must have been regarding Master Han, as well, for the astromech suddenly rotated his monocular receptor to C-3PO and warbled tremulously, almost as if he, too, had picked up an enigmatic flutter.

The past several months had afforded ample opportunities to study humans in grief, but for all his observations he was no closer to understanding the process than he had been before Chewbacca’s death on that dreadful world. All living beings eventually died, when not from the effects of age, then as the result of accidents or illnesses almost too myriad to catalog. Death was in some ways analogous to deactivation or memory erasure, but in fact it was something quite different, a total ceasing-to-be—the end to all adventuring, indeed. In the face of that revelation, C-3PO felt compelled to wonder if he hadn’t been wrong all along about his lot in life. If, as he so often declared, droids were made to suffer, what then of flesh and bloods?

As constructed, C-3PO was incapable of shedding tears or enduring heartbreak, as it was called, but his programming did allow him to experience sorrow of a sort, if not nearly to the depth experienced by humans and other living beings. And it was suddenly clear that sorrow was the source of the flutter that continued to plague him. Try as he might, he could not summon a sound thought, and with each glance at Master Han his dismay increased.

As the one closest to Chewbacca—and perhaps because he was a very human being—Master Han seemed to be suffering the most, alternating between anguish and rage, despondency and agitation. The man C-3PO had once dismissed as impossible was now deeply distraught, as unreachable as if he were encased in carbonite, and there seemed nothing C-3PO could do to put the matter right. Being fluent in millions of forms of communication did not guarantee an understanding of human behavior, let alone human emotions. C-3PO was only a droid, after all, and not very knowledgeable about such things.

There had been an incident during Master Han’s courtship of then Princess Leia when Master Han had had occasion to place a hand on C-3PO’s arm and say, “You’re a good droid, Threepio. There’s not many droids I like as much as I like you.” He had gone on to ask C-3PO’s advice on matters of the heart, and C-3PO had gladly provided a poem for Master Han to use as ammunition in his contest with Prince Isolder for the princess’s hand.

But curse my metal body, C-3PO said to himself. Why hadn’t his maker equipped him with the necessary programming to come to Master Han’s aid now? Instead, all he could offer was mindless philosophizing!

[Adventure is as alluring and potentially dangerous a thing as the heart of the syren plant,] Ralrra roared plaintively. [But even Chewbacca’s final act was one of sacrifice, giving his life to save someone dearr to him.] The aged Wookiee looked at young Anakin, then at Master Han and Mistress Leia. [And as everr he kept his claws retracted in battle. Now, in the same way the branches of the wroshyr seek out and support one anotherr, Chewbacca’s spirit merges with and gives sustenance to ourr own, strengthening us forr the challenges we have yet to confront.]

Warfare had figured in C-3PO’s existence for so long that a new invasion shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But there was something different about the Yuuzhan Vong and the harrowing war they were waging on a galactic scale. It wasn’t merely that they didn’t distinguish among species or among worlds—New Republic, Imperial Remnant, or nonaligned—or even that their biotic warships and weapons packed such awesome destructive power. What worried C-3PO most was that this most recent conflict was one in which not even droids were spared. And that meant that, like it or not, he might yet arrive at a true understanding of grief and death.

The circular table was covered with foodstuffs—bowls of xachibik broth, barbecued trakkrrrn ribs, forest-honey cakes, salad garnished with rillrrnnn seeds, and flasks of wines, juices, and liquors. Humans and Wookiees were conversing in groups, recounting tales of Chewbacca’s exploits that brought laughter, tears, or moments of sober reflection. The breeze had picked up, stirring leaves and enlivening wind chimes.

Han sat dejectedly on a short-legged wooden stool, resting his elbows on his knees. “Y’know, I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I think I actually envy Threepio.”

Jaina followed her father’s gaze to where the droid was standing with his squat counterpart, looking completely at a loss. “It’s better not to have a heart, you mean.”

“At times like this, anyway.” Han exhaled wearily and ran his right hand down over his face.

Jaina motioned to the table. “Let me get you something to eat, Dad. You must be starved.”

Han brightened slightly and reached for her hand. “You help yourself, I’m fine.”

“Positive.” He gestured with his chin. “Get going. Eat enough for the both of us.”

Reluctantly, Jaina headed for the table. Han watched her for a long moment as she mingled with her siblings, Luke, and Lowbacca. Observing them, he wondered what he might do if he could use the Force the way the Jedi did. Would he remain on the light side, or would he avail himself of the sinister powers of the dark side to teach the Yuuzhan Vong a thing or two about vengeance? Violent and ghastly images blossomed in his mind like explosions, but he put a quick end to them. He had had months of such images already, and they had come to nothing. No amount of vengeful thinking was going to bring Chewie back.

He glanced at his hands and found them balled into fists. While he’d spent the past six months isolated and incapacitated, often in the dark or secreted inside a tapcaf on Coruscant, the Jedi had at least been taking the fight to the enemy, and that was exactly what he needed to do.

He berated himself silently, then took a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. Loosening his hands, he slapped his thighs in a gesture of finality and got to his feet. He was starting out for the table when Mallatobuck and several other members of Chewbacca’s family approached him. Malla was cradling a meter-long wooden box.

Han’s brows knitted. He set the box down on the stool and unlatched its finely wrought metal clasp. Inside, snug in a bed of cushioning material was a beautifully carved bowcaster, its marked and blemished skeleton stock polished to a deep brown gleam. An artfully disguised magnetic accelerator, the weapon propelled explosive quarrels at extremely high speeds. This one was equipped with a sighting scope and a recocking mechanism few human hands would be capable of operating.

“I recognize this,” Han said, nodding. He compressed his lips to trap a moan fighting to escape him. “It’s one of the first I ever saw him make.”

Malla hooted. [Chewbacca fashioned it shortly after we married—while you were here. He fashioned better versions in his time, but this one retains the warmth and power of him.]

Han hefted the weapon. “I feel it.” He turned and hugged Malla, his head barely reaching her chin. “I’ll treasure it.”

Waroo handed Han a carry pouch made of hide. [This also belonged to my father. I know he would have wanted you to have it.]

Han placed the curve-bottomed pouch over his shoulder, knowing full well that it would hang down past his knees. Malla, Waroo, Lowbacca, and the rest boomed their delight in earsplitting yowls. Jaina returned with a plate of food in time to join in the laughter.

“If Chewie could see you now,” she said, grinning for the first time all day.

Han backhanded a tear from his left eye, smiled, and put his arm around his daughter’s waist. “The big lug would bust a gut.”

Jowdrrl, Chewbacca’s chestnut-colored female cousin, growled something to Malla that Han didn’t catch. Seeing Han’s inquisitive expression, Malla explained. [Jowdrrl is wondering when you and your family will be returning to Coruscant.]

Han and Jaina traded shrugs. “I hadn’t thought about it,” Han said. “Tomorrow sometime, I suppose.”

Jowdrrl lowed in elaboration. [I ask only because Dryanta and I need a small measure of time to prepare.]

Han’s features mirrored his bewilderment. “Prepare for what? Are you coming to Coruscant with us?”

Chewbacca’s father, Attichitcuk, yaupped in a meaningful way. [Jowdrrl and Dryanta are arranging the feast for Waroo and Lowbacca’s farewell.]

Han’s jaw came unhinged. He glanced from one Wookiee to the next in rising dismay. “But—but you can’t. Chewie’s dead. All debts are off.”

Attichitcuk issued a sustained, bass-register growl. [Death may have extinguished my son’s defiant flame, but our debt to you continues until yours is extinguished.]

Her lower lip between her teeth, Jaina placed a comforting hand on her father’s arm, only to have it shrugged off. Han was shaking his head back and forth.

“No, no, I can’t accept this. Chewie saved my life ten times over. He died saving Anakin’s life.” His agitation increased as he spoke. “Besides, I’m the one who owes all of you a life debt.” He cut his eyes to the dark-brown son of Dewlannamapia. “Your mother was kinder to me than my own.” He searched out Gorrlyn. “Your husband, Salporin, gave his life protecting Leia from Noghri assassins.” He appealed to Jowdrrl and Dryanta. “Your cousin Shoran died aboard the Pride of Yevetha saving me!”

[As you would have died for them,] Attichitcuk rumbled, nearly showing his fangs. [A life debt is just that.]

Malla, too, was glowering at Han. [You would not defame Chewbacca’s memory by refusing to allow his debt to be honored.]

Jaina swallowed audibly. “Dad doesn’t mean any dishonor.” She glanced at her father. “Right, Dad?”

Han stared at her, mouth still ajar. Malla’s vibrato growl had summoned a memory of a day following the wedding when Han had tried to persuade Chewie into remaining behind with his bride rather than accompanying him back to Nar Shaddaa. He thought, too, of Groznik, a Wookiee who had attached himself to the Rogue Squadron pilot Elscol Loro, wife of a man named Throm to whom Groznik was life-debted.

“Right, right,” he said at last, looking from Jaina to Malla. “I’d cut off my arm before I’d dishonor Chewie’s memory in any way. You know that. It’s just that …”

“It’s just that I’m not ready.” He shook his head as if to clear it, then looked up at Attichitcuk and the others. “Chewie’s still alive for me. I can’t just allow him to be … replaced. You’ve gotta understand that. He was more than a protector. He was my closest friend.”

After what seemed an eternity, Chewbacca’s father nodded his huge head. [Then time we’ll grant you. The life debt involves more than simply providing shelter from bodily harm. It succors the spirit, as well.]

HOLOGRAPHIC IMAGES OF star systems and entire galactic sectors pirouetted in a blue-gray shaft of projected light. Flashing overlays showed hyperspace lanes that linked far-flung regions of space. The pressure of a fingertip against a touch screen was sufficient to conjure information on individual worlds, stars, or lightspeed routes. Dots of artificial light expanded to reveal data on native species and cultures, planetary topography, population statistics, and in some cases defense capabilities.

“It disheartens me to have to subject you to inert technology, Eminence,” Commander Tla’s tactician apologized, “but we have yet to discover a way to separate the data from the metallic shells that sustain them. And until our villips have had a chance to absorb the captured information, we have no choice but to make do with some of the enemy’s own machines. Each has been cleansed and purified, but I’m afraid there is simply no disguising their vacuity of spirit.”

Though repulsed by the devices that had been conveyed to him, Harrar granted the tactician absolution. “To abhor a thing in ignorance is to fear it. A deeper understanding of machine nature will only firm my resolve to see machines exterminated.” He waved his abbreviated hand. “Proceed.”

The tactician, Raff, inclined his tattooed head in a bow, then raised a bony, gloved hand to the animated hologram. “As you can see, Eminence, we have here nothing less than a portrait of the galaxy. In broad strokes to be sure, and yet detailed enough to aid us in our push toward the Core.”

His protected forefinger made contact with the touch screen, and a representation of the Obroa-skai and neighboring star systems took shape in the cone of light.

Scrawniness wasn’t confined to the tactician’s hands. Rail-thin wrists poked from the voluminous sleeves of his robe, and a spindly neck protruded like a baton from the robe’s high and equally spacious collar. Pledged in service to Yun-Yammka, the god of war, Raff had a mouth that was a black-stained maw, featuring an outsize tooth that sometimes wreaked havoc with the clarity of his speech. But it was his powers of rumination and analysis that counted most. Frequent rapport with war coordinators and dovin basals kept him abreast of nearly all aspects of the war, from details on individual New Republic warships to combat casualty statistics. In keeping with his abilities, his hairless and distended cranium was adorned with etchings suggestive of the eddies and convolutions of the enhanced brain contained within.

“Unfortunately, the bulk of the liberated data is historical in nature and of dubious value. Obroa-skai dedicated itself to preserving cultural documents in the original languages and access formats.” The tactician gestured toward a levitated pallet stacked with blood-smeared durasheet texts, data cards, and other storage contrivances, waiting to be slagged by holy fire. “Thus the need for such an endless array of decryption and translation devices. Even so, our assault on the library world was justified. Ultimately—and once rendered in villip speech—these documents will yield a wealth of information regarding the psychological makeup of many of these species, and that knowledge will be crucial to our maintaining control over conquered territories.”

A male attendant, barefoot and sheathed in a long tunic, climbed the rough-hewn yorik coral steps of the command platform to place plates of food and a carafe of amber-colored liquid on the low table that separated the priest and the tactician. His pointed chin was etched in deep purple to suggest a beard, and the sacs under his closely set eyes were fully tattooed. His forehead sloped sharply back from a prominent brow and was in the same way covered with signs and designs.

At the base of the platform a lone figure waited patiently in the shadows. Harrar bade the attendant prepare libations for himself, the tactician, and the figure below. He sipped his drink while he considered the tactician’s appraisal of the spoils of battle.

Generations of travel in intergalactic space had taken a toll on many Yuuzhan Vong vessels—warships and world-ships alike. Where their interiors had once been warmed by sumptuous curtains and carpets, and the monotony of their decks balanced by rich mosaic inlays, an austere coldness now prevailed. The vaulted ceilings of communal spaces were still supported by ornamental columns, but their surfaces were grazed, marred, and cheerless. The bioluminescent growths that provided oxygen and light didn’t thrive as they once had, and often flickered like guttering candles. Even the grotto-like spaces reserved for the elite had a forlorn aspect.

“What do the seized documents have to say about the Jedi?” Harrar asked after a moment.

“Curiously little, Eminence. One senses that data on the Jedi were either purposely withheld from the library or systematically purged.”

Harrar set his drink down. “The distinction is significant. Which interpretation do you favor?”

“The latter. Since the libraries are replete with philosophical documents of all variety, why disallow studies on the Jedi?”

“Perhaps it is the Jedi who disallow such documentation,” Harrar suggested. “Perhaps they are more secretive than we realize.”

“That would explain the lack of iconography attached to them, along with the fact that the Force does not appear to be the manifestation of a supreme being.”