Star Wars_ X-Wing 06_ Iron Fist - Aaron Allston [152]
Donos glanced back. Approaching them was an old man, his hair a wispy white, his body so sparse of flesh that he seemed skeletal, but there was nothing menacing about the smile he was turning on Lara.
Behind him a dozen meters but coming at a trot was a middle-aged woman, overweight and matronly, her expression anxious. “Father,” she called, and she sounded out of breath. “Not again.”
The old man reached Lara, seized her hand, pumped it vigorously. “Edallia, it’s been so long. Did you ever marry that boy? Did you graduate? What have you been doing?”
Lara tried unsuccessfully to extricate her thoroughly shaken hand. “Sir, I don’t—I’m not—”
“I’m so sorry.” That was the daughter. Reaching her father, she took his hand, forcing him to give up his grip on Lara’s. “He’s … confused. He doesn’t always remember where he is. Or when.”
“It’s all right,” Lara said, but she looked a little shaken.
The old man said, “Child, I must introduce Edallia Monotheer. One of my best pupils.”
His daughter asked, “When?”
He looked confused. “What?”
“When was she one of your best pupils?”
The old man looked back at Lara, his eyes wavery, uncertain. “Why, it’s been thirty, thirty-five years.”
“Look at her, father. She’s not thirty years old.”
The old man leaned in close to Lara’s face and peered. “Edallia?”
Lara shook her head, and though she maintained a cheerful smile, Donos decided that it was forced. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m Lara.”
“Oh.” The old man drew back and looked around. “Where is she, then?”
“Maybe farther up the exhibition, Father. You go look. I’ll be along.”
With a courteous, if distracted, nod to the Wraiths, the old man began to walk back the way he’d come.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said. “He was once with Old Republic Intelligence, so he likes to come here day after day. He was shot on a mission shortly after the Emperor came to power.” She indicated a place just in front of her temple. “He hasn’t been the same since.”
“It’s not a problem,” Lara said. “He was very nice.”
“Thank you for understanding.” The woman turned and trotted along in her father’s wake.
Lara turned and bumped into Face and Dia, who had returned during the conversation. “Oops.”
Face looked at her intently. “Gerwa Patunkin?”
“No.”
“Totovia Lampray?”
“No.” She smiled. “Stop it.”
“Dipligonai Phreet?”
“Shut up.” She pushed past him, laughing, and headed for the exit. “Let’s get that drink. I need it.”
“Moploogy Starco?”
“Face, I’m going to shoot you.”
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