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Young Jedi Knights

Book 7

The Fall of the Diversity Alliance

Shards of Alderaan

by Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta

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To Marina Fitch and Mark Budzcolleagues, fellow dreamers, and friends ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Lillie E. Mitchell for her flying fingers, which continue to transcribe our dictation; Sue Rostoni at Lucasfilm for watching over all the details, in conjunction with Lucy Wilson and Allan Kausch, to keep these stories in line with other Star Wars adventures; Dave Dorman: or s won r:u cover art, book after book after book; Mike Famham for all the unexpected U-turns; Ginjer Buchanan and the folks at Berkley/Boulevard for their wholehearted support and encouragement; Bill Smith and West End Games for background material; and Jonathan MacGregor Cowan for being our most avid and insistent test reader and brainstormer.

MORNING MISTS CLUNG to the rubble of the Great Temple, making the huge stone blocks dangerously slippery as the repair crews set to work.

In the aftermath of the battle against the Shadow Academy, the jungle moon of Yavin 4 had been wounded and scarred.

But now all of Luke Skywalker's new Jedi Knights worked together to heal.

.. to rebuild.

Jaina Solo, already sore and sweaty from hours of hard work, climbed to the top of a fallen stone block and surveyed the wreckage around her.

Surely the damage couldn't be as bad as it looked from here....

The ancient temples had withstood the jungle's best efforts to tear them down for thousands of years. Two decades earlier, the Great Temple had served as a secret base during the Rebellion's initial struggles against the Empire. Years later, Jaina's uncle Luke had established his Jedi academy in the abandoned pyramid-making the small world a target for the remnants of the Empire once again.

Ancient as the temples were, the recent attacks by the Second Imperium and the Shadow Academy had been the most devastating the great monuments had ever suffered.

Although the battle had taken its toll, the survivors of Master Skywalker's academy worked day and night-not with despair, but hope.

They had defeated the dark side of the Force. Now they had time to rebuild, to make everything stronger, because their enemy had been vanquished.

Halfway up the remains of the stairstepped temple, cleanup crews climbed scaffolding made from saplings lashed together in a design Jaina herself had helped create. Clusters of Jedi students cleared battle debris from their headquarters while waiting for crews of New Republic engineers, architects, and laborers to arrive from Coruscant.

Tossing her head to keep her straight brown hair from getting in her eyes, Jaina stood watching for a moment with her hands on her narrow hips. She brushed a palm across her forehead to wipe away perspiration.

Out in the surrounding jungles, other Jedi trainees hunted for shards of carved stone blasted from the Great Temple, cataloguing them so the pieces could be reassembled properly.

The task of rebuilding seemed enormous.

Jaina found it hard to believe so much destruction could be caused by a single person.

An Imperial commando had crept into the grand audience chamber during the height of battle, secretly planted his powerful explosives, and blown up the topmost levels of the Great Ibmple, killing himself in the process.

Debris had pelted the battle-weary Jedi trainees, who had thought the day's devastation over.

Including Zekk, she thought with a pang.

The rain of shrapnel had seriously injured Jaina's friend-turned-enemy, Zekk, who had been threatening Jaina with his lightsaber at the time.

Only after the blast did she realize that Zekk had actually saved her and the others... by preventing them from going into the temple he knew was doomed to explode.

Zekk had received medical attention at Lando Ca@ssian's GemDiver Station, b ut had suffered a relapse on his return to Yavin 4. Jaina wondered if the dark-haired young man had simply been overwhelmed by the weight of his own gloom and guilt