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At the foot of one of the pods stood Yaqeel, whose sensitive Bothan nose began to wrinkle and twitch as Allana, Anji, and Bazel drew near. For a moment, it looked as though Yaqeel was going to make some sort of wisecrack about the way they smelled, or at least ask where they had been. But Yaqeel simply took Bazel’s hand and drew him over to stand beside her.

Allana took Anji and went to stand between her grandparents, who merely pressed in close and did not even think to ask why she smelled so bad. Han even mussed her dirty hair.

“Glad you made it, kid.”

Allana looked up and spotted a tear on his cheek. She smiled and looked back to the Horns. “Me, too.”

Cilghal and Tekli pressed something on the pods, and a high-pitched whine started to rise from them. The black carbonite casing began to melt away from the bodies of Jysella and Valin Horn, and Allana felt a sudden wave of joy rippling through the Force.

“Me, too,” she repeated, in a voice so soft no one heard.

Read on for an excerpt from

Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction

by Aaron Allston

Published by Del Rey Books

CORUSCANT, JEDI TEMPLE

INFIRMARY LEVEL

The medical readout board on the carbonite pod flickered, then went dark, announcing that the young man just being thawed from suspended animation—Valin Horn, Jedi Knight—was dead.

Master Cilghal, preeminent physician of the Jedi Order, felt a jolt of alarm ripple through the Force. It was not her own alarm. The emotion was the natural reaction of all those gathered to see Valin and his sister Jysella rescued from an unfair, unwarranted sentence imposed not by a court of justice but by Galactic Alliance Chief of State Daala herself. Had they some to see these Jedi Knights freed and instead become witness to a tragedy?

But what Cilghal didn’t feel in the Force was the winking out of a life. Valin was still there, a diminished but intact presence in the Force.

She waved at the assembly, a calming motion. “Be still.” She did not need to exert herself through the Force. Most of those present were Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights who respected her authority. Not one of them was easily panicked, not even the little girl beside Han and Leia.

Standing between Valin’s and Jysella’s gurneys with her assistant Tekli, Cilghal concentrated on the young man lying to her right. His body still gleamed with a trace of dark fluid: all that remained of the melted carbonite that had imprisoned him. He was as still as the dead. Cilghal pressed her huge, webbed hand against his throat to check his pulse. She found it, shallow but steady.

The readout board flickered again and the lights came up in all their colors, strong, the pulse monitor flickering with Valin’s heartbeat, the encephaloscan beginning to jitter with its measurements of Valin’s brain activity.

Tekli, a Chadra-Fan, her diminutive size and glossy fur coat giving her the aspect of a plush toy instead of an experienced Jedi Knight and physician, spun away from Valin’s gurney and toward the one beside it. On it lay Jysella Horn, slight of build, also gleaming a bit with unevaporated carbonite residue. Tekli put one palm against Jysella’s forehead and pressed the fingers of her other hand across Jysella’s wrist.

Cilghal nodded. Computerized monitors might fail, but the Force sense of a trained Jedi would not, at least not under these conditions.

Tekli glanced back at Cilghal and gave a brisk nod. All was well.

The pulse under Cilghal’s hand began to strengthen and quicken. Also good, also normal.

Cilghal moved around the head of the gurney and stood on the far side of the apparatus, a step back from Valin. When he awoke, his vision would be clouded, and perhaps his judgment as well. It would not do for him to wake with a large form standing over him, gripping his throat. Violence might result.

She caught the attention of Corran and Mirax, parents of the two patients. “That was merely an electronic glitch.” Cilghal tried to make her tones reassuring, knowing her effort was not likely to succeed—Mon Calamari