Star Wars_ Coruscant Nights III_ Patterns of Force - 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: 978-0-307-79589-2
www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
v3.1
For
Christopher Drozd
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; a big shout-out to Maya Bohnhoff; and, as always, to George Lucas for the whole shebang.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Dramatis Personae
Epigraph
Prologue
Part I - Sins of the Father
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
Part II - The Ties That Bind
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
About the Author
Also by this Author
Introduction to the Star Wars Expanded Universe
Excerpt from Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact
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
Darth Vader; Sith Lord and Emperor Palpatine’s enforcer
Dejah Duare; empath, ex-partner of light artist Ves Volette (Zeltron female)
Den Dhur; ex-journalist (Sullustan male)
Haninum Tyk Rhinann; ex-assistant to Darth Vader (Elomin male)
I-5YQ; sentient protocol droid
Jax Pavan; Jedi Knight (human male)
Kajin Savaros; untrained Force adept (human male)
Laranth Tarak; Gray Paladin (Twi’lek female)
Pol Haus; police prefect (Zabrak male)
Probus Tesla; Inquisitor (human male)
Thi Xon Yimmon; leader of the Whiplash (Cerean male)
Tuden Sal; Whiplash associate (Sakiyan male)
Your focus determines your reality.
—MASTER QUI-GON JINN
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away …
prologue
The voices rose and fell around him, but he paid them little attention now. He had tried to be attentive initially, but hearing the word smuggled had spun Haninum Tyk Rhinann off into his own private mental debriefing, on a mystery he sought to unravel for reasons of his own. The case the others were discussing—the murder of an insignificant being involved in smuggling a particularly nasty variety of spice—was of importance only to the local prefect of police, Pol Haus. Which was another way of saying that, cosmically as well as locally, it was of no importance at all.
Rhinann was almost tempted to stick his fingers in his hairy ears to block out the grating sound of the prefect’s voice. There had been a time, back when he’d been the personal aide-de-camp to Darth Vader himself, when even letting such a thought cross his mind, even allowing the existence of admission of such poor etiquette, would have made all four of his stomachs turn acidic. Now he honestly had to admit that he didn’t care. He wished he had self-sealing earflaps like the Lesser Houdoggin of Klatooine, so that he could shut out the sound of the prefect as easily as closing his eyes allowed him to blot away the offensive sight of him.
A poorer excuse for