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“So that’s Jacen’s new Sith Order.” The strong voice had been replaced by a whisper, ragged, each word brought with pain. “Wiping out civilians … from a safe distance, and getting … a child to … kill an old man … just make sure … you can dismount from that … bloodfin of yours.”

“I can save you, Admiral. It’s not too late. The heart’s a resilient muscle.”

Tahiri couldn’t help it. Now she did lean her face into her hands, but closing her eyes did nothing but replace the current scene of the courtroom with the image of a dying old man.

“Go … rot somewhere else … villip.”

The sound of boots, as if someone were shifting uneasily.

“Is he gone?” asked one of the Moffs.

“Not yet.” Quille, treacherous Quille, she had never liked him and he had gotten what he deserved. But then, many would argue, Tahiri Veila would soon get what she deserved as well. “I’m not going to touch him, so we’re totally clean …”

A whisper from Pellaeon. “Quille.”

And then Tahiri realized with a start that the admiral had known he was being recorded. Who was on the other end? Who had leaked this to the prosecution? She glanced up quickly and saw that, while Eramuth was leaning heavily on his cane, his face, too, was alert. If they could figure out where this came from, who might have an agenda—

But Eramuth would be hoping that at least part of the recording was falsified, and Tahiri knew sickly that the recording had not been tampered with.

There came the sound of the door closing, and then silence.

Dekkon strode over and pressed a button.

It was over.

It was all over.

Read on for an excerpt from

Star Wars:® Fate of the Jedi: Vortex

by Troy Denning

Published by Del Rey Books

BEYOND THE FORWARD VIEWPORT HUNG THE GOSSAMER VEIL OF ASHTERI’S Cloud, a vast drift of ionized tuderium gas floating along one edge of the Kessel Sector. Speckled with the blue halos of a thousand distant suns, its milky filaments were a sure sign that the Rockhound had finally escaped the sunless gloom of the Deep Maw. And, after the jaw-clenching horror of jumping blind through a labyrinth of uncharted hyperspace lanes and hungry black holes, even that pale light was a welcome relief to Jaina Solo.

Or, rather, it would have been, had the cloud been in the right place.

The Rockhound was bound for Coruscant, not Kessel, and that meant Ashteri’s Cloud should have been forty degrees to port as they exited the Maw. It should have been a barely discernible smudge of light, shifted so far into the red that it looked like a tiny flicker of flame. Jaina could not quite grasp how they had gone astray.

She glanced over at the pilot’s station—a mobile levchair surrounded by brass control panels and drop-down display screens—but found no answers in Lando Calrissian’s furrowed brow. Dressed immaculately in a white shimmersilk tunic and lavender trousers, he was perched on the edge of his huge nerf-leather seat, with his chin propped on his knuckles and his gaze fixed on the alabaster radiance outside.

In the three decades Jaina had known Lando, it was one of the rare moments when his life of long-odds gambles and all-or-nothing stakes actually seemed to have taken a toll on his con-artist good looks. It was also a testament to the strain and fear of the past few days—and, perhaps, to the hectic pace. Lando was as impeccably groomed as always, but even he had not found time to touch up the dye that kept his mustache and curly hair their usual deep, rich black.

After a few moments, Lando finally sighed and leaned back into his chair. “Go ahead, say it.”

“Say what?” Jaina asked, wondering exactly what Lando expected her to say. After all, he was the one who had made the bad jump. “It’s not my fault?”

A glimmer of irritation shot through Lando’s weary eyes, but then he seemed to realize Jaina was only trying to lighten the mood. He chuckled and flashed her one of his nova-bright grins. “You’re as bad as your old man. Can’t you see this is no time to joke?”

Jaina cocked a brow. “So you didn’t decide to swing past Kessel to say hello to the wife and son?”

“Good idea,