Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights 01_ Jedi Twilight - Michael Reaves [0]
A Del Rey Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2008 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated.
All Rights Reserved. Used under authorization.
Excerpt from Star Wars: Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows copyright © 2008 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.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-79587-8
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
v3.1
For
Michael Meadows
acknowledgments
Once again, thanks go first and foremost to my editors: Shelly Shapiro at Del Rey and Sue Rostoni at LucasBooks, who asked me to walk on the wild side of Coruscant again; to Leland Chee and the other galactic wonks who never got tired of continuity questions; to Matt Stover and Steve Perry for the characters of Nick Rostu and Prince Xizor; and, as always, to George Lucas for the whole shebang.
dramatis personae
DAL PERHI; Black Sun Underlord (human male)
DARTH VADER; Dark Lord of the Sith (human male)
DEN DHUR; former HoloNet news reporter (Sullustan male)
EVEN PIELL; Jedi Master (Lannik male)
HANINUM TYK RHINANN; personal aide to Darth Vader (Elomin male)
I-5YQ; protocol droid
JAX PAVAN; Jedi Knight (human male)
KAIRD; Black Sun operative (Nediji male)
LARANTH TARAK; Jedi Paladin and freedom fighter (Twi’lek female)
NICK ROSTU; former brevet major, Republic army, freedom fighter (human male)
PRINCE XIZOR; Black Sun operative (Falleen male)
If droids could think, there’d be
none of us here, would there?
—OBI-WAN KENOBI
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.…”
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Part I - Life During Wartime
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Part II - As Above, So Below
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Part III - Feral City
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-six
About the Author
Also by this Author
Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Excerpt from Star Wars: Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows
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
PART I
LIFE DURING WARTIME
one
In the lowest levels, in the abyssal urban depths, of the ecumenopolis that was Coruscant, it was a rare thing indeed to see sunlight. For the inhabitants of the baroque and gleaming cloudcutters, skytowers and superskytowers—the latter reaching as much as two kilometers high—the sun was something taken for granted, just as were the other comforts of life. Since WeatherNet guaranteed that it never rained until dusk or later, the rich golden sunlight was simply expected, in the same way that one expected air to fill one’s lungs with every breath.
But hundreds of stories below the first inhabited floors of the great towers, ziggurats, and minarets, in some