Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [0]
The Gamorrean hurled a table at him, which Luke bisected, then struck at him with an ax at the same moment a ricocheting blaster bolt caught Luke glancingly on the shoulder. Either the blaster was turned fairly low or its power cell was nearly exhausted, but the jolt of it knocked him, gasping and confused, to the floor. He rolled, his vision blurring, blacking. Cut at the Gamorrean, who’d been joined by a friend, also wielding an ax—double vision? Luke wondered cloudily, but he took off one assailant’s arm and tried to get to his feet and out the door. He couldn’t—his head was swimming too badly for him to figure out why—and he could only slash upward at his remaining assailant, cleaving in half the table that slammed down on him before it could crush his bones.
The cold sick weakness of shock and the sensation of something being wrong with the gravity …
Then the Klaggs were gone, leaving a shambles of blood and broken furniture. Luke stayed conscious just long enough to switch off his lightsaber.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published May 1995
Bantam paperback edition/July 1996
CHILDREN OF THE JEDI
A Bantam Spectra Book
SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Copyright © 1995 by Lucasfilm Ltd.
®, TM, and © 1995 by Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. Used under authorization. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information address: Bantam Books.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-5214.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79633-2
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1745 Broadway, New York, New York 10019.
v3.1
For
Anne
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
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
About the Author
Also by this Author
Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Excerpt from Star Wars: Darksaber
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
Chapter 1
Poisoned rain speared from an acid sky. The hunter scuttled, stumbled a dozen yards before throwing himself under shelter again. A building, he thought—hoped—though for a second’s blinding terror the curved shape lifted, writhing, into a toothed maw of terror from which darkness flowed out like the vomited stench of rotting bones. Serpents—tentacles—twisting arms reached down for him with what he would have sworn were tiny cobalt-blue hands … but the burning rain was searing holes in his flesh, so he closed his eyes and flung himself among them. Then for a clear moment his mind registered that they were blue-flowered vines.
Though the stink of his own flesh charring still choked his nostrils and the fire scorched his hands, when he looked down at them his hands were whole, untouched. Realities shuffled in his mind like cards in a deck. Should those hands be stripped away to bone? Or should they sport a half dozen rings of andurite stone and a thin scrim of engine grease around the nails?
In what reality were those fingers limber, and where did he get the notion a moment later that they were twisted like blighted roots and adorned with hooked nails like a rancor’s claws?
He didn’t know. The sane times were fewer and fewer;