Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 08_ Edge of Victory 01_ Conquest - J. Gregory Keyes [112]
Anakin shook his head. “I don’t hate the Yuuzhan Vong, Corran. My time with them helped me to understand them. More than ever, I think they must be stopped, but I promise you, I do not hate them. I can fight them without anger.”
“I hope what you say is true, but anger is a quick-change artist and a trickster. More often than not, you don’t see it for what it is.”
“Thanks,” Anakin said. “I appreciate the advice.”
Corran again looked slightly skeptical. Then he motioned toward the droids. “These droids were a good idea. I’d be happy to help you repair that one.”
“That’s okay. Like I said, I have plenty of time on my hands.”
Corran smiled. “Getting a little deck fever?”
“I’m ready to get back out there, if that’s what you mean. But Tahiri still needs me.”
“You’re a good friend to her, Anakin.”
“I haven’t been. I’m trying to be.”
“Tahiri won’t get over her ordeal in a few months. She needs more time. I think she’ll understand if you have to go.”
Anakin dropped his gaze from Corran’s. “I promised her I would stay a while, and that’s what I’m going to do. But it’s hard, knowing what’s going on out there. Knowing my friends and family are fighting while I’m here doing nothing.”
“But you aren’t doing nothing; you just said it yourself. You’re still a part of the defensive effort. Protecting the Jedi students is important. Jumping randomly around the galaxy is probably the safest thing we can do, but there’s no telling when the Yuuzhan Vong or one of their sympathizers will pick up our trail. If they do, we’ll need everyone we can get.”
“I guess so. I’m just so restless.”
“You are,” Corran agreed. “I’ve noticed you’ve been kind of itchy. That’s why I was looking for you, in fact.”
“Really? What for?”
“We need supplies. Obviously, if we’re trying to keep our location secret we can’t take the only red Star Destroyer in the galaxy into an inhabited system. I was going to take one of the transports out. I thought you might like to go. Hopefully it will be a boring trip, but—”
“Yes,” Anakin said. “I’ll do it.”
“Good. I could use a copilot. I’ll meet you in the docking bay tomorrow, say after morning meal?”
“Great. Thanks, Corran.”
“No problem. See you then.”
THE OLD REPUBLIC
(5,000–33 YEARS BEFORE STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE)
Long—long—ago in a galaxy far, far away … some twenty-five thousand years before Luke Skywalker destroyed the first Death Star at the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope … a large number of star systems and species in the center of the galaxy came together to form the Galactic Republic, governed by a Chancellor and a Senate from the capital city-world of Coruscant. As the Republic expanded via the hyperspace lanes, it absorbed new member worlds from newly discovered star systems; it also expanded its military to deal with the hostile civilizations, slavers, pirates, and gangster-species such as the slug-like Hutts that were encountered in the outward exploration. But the most vital defenders of the Republic were the Jedi Knights. Originally a reclusive order dedicated to studying the mysteries of the life energy known as the Force, the Jedi became the Republic’s guardians, charged by the Senate with keeping the peace—with wise words if possible; with lightsabers if not.
But the Jedi weren’t the only Force-users in the galaxy. An ancient civil war had pitted those Jedi who used the Force selflessly against those who allowed themselves to be ruled by their ambitions—which the Jedi warned led to the dark side of the Force. Defeated in that long-ago war, the dark siders fled beyond the galactic frontier, where they built a civilization of their own: the Sith Empire.
The first great conflict between the Republic and the Sith Empire occurred when two hyperspace explorers stumbled on the Sith worlds, giving the Sith Lord Naga Sadow and