Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights II Streets of Shadows - Michael Reaves [0]
A Del Rey Books Mass Market Original
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: 978-0-307-79588-5
www.starwars.com
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v3.1
For
Jim Bertges
acknowledgments
Once again, thanks go first and foremost to my editors: Shelly Shapiro at Del Rey and Sue Rostoni at LucasBooks, who invited 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; and, as always, to George Lucas for the whole shebang.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
The Star Wars Novels Timeline
Dramatis Personae
Prologue
Part I - Planet Noir
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
Part II - Rites of Passage
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
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
About the Author
Also by this Author
Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Excerpt from Star Wars: Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force
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
dramatis personae
Aurra Sing; bounty hunter (female humanoid)
Baron Vlaçan Umber; art patron (male Vindalian)
Baroness Kirma Umber; noblewoman (female Vindalian)
Darth Vader; Sith Lord (male human)
Dejah Duare; artist’s assistant (female Zeltron)
Den Dhur; Whiplash partisan, former reporter (male Sullustan)
I-Five; protocol droid
Jax Pavan; Whiplash partisan, former Jedi Knight (male human)
Laranth Tarak; Whiplash partisan, former Jedi Knight (female Twi’lek)
Pol Haus; sector police prefect (male Zabrak)
Typho; Naboo captain, security specialist (male human)
Ves Volette; light sculptor (male Caamasi)
prologue
Planet Naboo, 19 BBY
Padmé had never known how much he loved her.
She had died, as far as he knew, in a lonely, far-off place, on a planet that, if not the hell envisioned by the superstitious beliefs of sundry worlds, certainly came close. That was as far as he’d traced her final journey: to Mustafar, a globe still in the throes of creation, where rivers of fire and molten rock stitched across a landscape of basalt and obsidian, and where specially designed heat-resistant droids mined the lava flows for rare and precious minerals. A terrible place, a world of eternal darkness, of soot-filled skies and mephitic gases. No one deserved to die in such a place, especially not Padmé. If she had to die, she should have spent her last hours on a world of sunlight and song, like their mutual homeworld of Naboo, a world of green and blue, not black and red.
But she had gone to Mustafar, gone after the Jedi Anakin Skywalker, on a mission so secret, she’d said, that not even her bodyguard could accompany her. And he, believing that she would be protected under the aegis of the Jedi, had let her go.
And had never seen her again—alive.
Captain Typho, once head of security for the Consular Branch of the Naboo Senate, castigated himself for his decision as he stood with the rest of the mourners, watching the flower-covered casket