Emissary of the Void Read online

  *Emissary of the Void*

  *August 29, 2002*

  Best-selling novelist Greg Keyes (author of the Edge of Victory duology)

  writes an original serialized epic of The New Jedi Order. Originally found

  in the pages of Star Wars Gamer magazine, starwars.com presents the first

  three chapters of Emissary of the Void here to online readers. The story

  starts here and will continue online in the coming weeks, and then move to

  the Star Wars Insider, starting with issue #62 (due out on newsstands in

  October). To subscribe to the Star Wars Insider, the official publication of

  the Star Wars Fan Club,click here [1] .

  SRENGSENG BOOKS

  BONADAN

  Star Wars Insider and starwars.com Present

  *I: Battle on Bonadan*

  WELL, THAT'S INTERESTING, Uldir Lochett thought, as a pair of feminine legs

  in black tights came hurtling over his left shoulder. Above the tights he

  was vaguely aware of a dark yellow skirt and, even farther up, a young,

  determined face framed in short dark hair. But it was the feet that held his

  attention as they hit square in the center of the table at which he and his

  companions sat, shocking their drinks into brief suborbits. Then the feet

  were gone, propelling legs, yellow skirt, and all an estimated two meters up

  and one out toward the balcony above them. Searing flashes of weapon fire

  hissed by, and Uldir found his hand groping at an empty holster.

  'Stop her!'' Someone behind Uldir shouted.

  Two of his three companions, Uldir saw, were also reaching for weapons that

  weren't there. The third, a human woman with startling platinum hair,

  brushed a fleck of Corellian whisky from the long scar beneath her left eye.

  'I need a new drink,'' she noted, as another volley of yellow streamers

  seared by, striking the synthewood balcony the girl had managed to grab. The

  patrons of the In the Red cantina were diving away from the newly declared

  war-zone, but the music from the band continued to blare cheerfully over the

  sound of weapon fire.

  'I hate locals,'' Leaft growled, thumping the curled fist of his foot on the

  table and scowling as only a Dug can scowl.

  A glance over his shoulder confirmed what Uldir already suspected: The

  girl's pursuers were Corporate Sector Authority law enforcement, the only

  people on Bonadan allowed to carry weapons. From the color and intensity of

  their beams, he figured they were using a stun setting, and in any event

  their target was definitely the girl, who was now significantly above them,

  putting Uldir and his companions well out of the line of fire. He relaxed a

  little, settling his amber gaze on the girl as she heaved herself up,

  wondering what she had done to provoke such a strong reaction from the local

  constabulary.

  'Very impolite,'' Vook said, apparently agreeing with the Dug. His flat,

  noseless Duro face was unreadable, but his tone, as usual, was melancholy,

  as if even this put him in mind of his lost homeworld.

  'I hate vacations,'' Leaft said, thumping the table again.

  It wasn't exactly a vacation. A close scrape with a Yuuzhan Vong interdictor

  on the Hydian Way

  had left the transport the unlikely quartet shared with a

  sputtering hyperdrive and no shields at all. They had managed to limp to the

  Corporate Sector, a rimward territory still essentially neutral in the

  conflict between what remained of the free New Republic and the fierce

  extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong, who were gobbling it up system by system in

  their religious crusade of conquest. Left with nothing to do while repairs

  were effected, Uldir figured they could all use a little time off, and

  consequently the four soon found themselves on the galasol strip, a colorful

  collection of overpriced cantinas and casinos near the spaceport.

  The fleeing girl was dressed like the attendants Uldir had seen earlier that

  evening at the Blue-Shift Luck casino, but if she was really a game-girl,

  she was a nimble one. As he watched, she flipped over the balcony, twisting

  deftly between the several lines of fire directed at her, and crouched

  behind a now abandoned table. The CSA lawmen clustered below the balcony,

  firing up.

  'That's probably a mistake,'' remarked Vega Sepen, the platinum-crowned

  woman.

  'Tactically unsound,'' Vook agreed, gravely.

  'One unarmed short human against four corp-clowns,'' Leaft sneered. 'Not

  worth the price of admission.''

  'She's not that short,'' Uldir corrected, crossing his arms and lifting the

  square tip of his chin toward the balcony. 'She's a girl.''

  'Uh, oh,'' Vega murmured.

  'Don't discuss human gender,'' the Dug growled. 'The whole idea sickens me.

  Urr . . . Captain.'' He added that last a little sullenly, probably

  remembering one of the many formal reprimands he'd gotten lately from

  superiors.

  About that time, the table the girl was hiding behind suddenly came over the

  balcony rail. It hit three of the security men squarely and nicked the

  fourth. With a fierce grin, the girl turned and ran off across the upper

  level toward an exit.

  'She's getting away,'' Vook noticed.

  'Yeah,'' Uldir said. 'Maybe not.''

  Vega must have seen the expression on Uldir's face.

  'Not our fight,'' she cautioned. 'We're rescue fliers, not bounty hunters.''

  'Well, we can't fly without a ship, and I'm bored,'' Uldir said. 'Anyway,

  she owes me for these drinks.'' With that, he pushed back his chair, closed

  up his flight jacket, and leaped onto the table.

  'This won't turn out well,'' he heard Vook mournfully predict.

  Uldir followed the girl's example, launching himself from the table. He

  caught the balcony, swiftly pulled himself up and over and ran toward the

  exit through which she had vanished.

  The exit led to an upper story, open-air courtyard. There, beneath a rusty

  evening sky, he found a trail of angry and confused patrons cursing after

  his quarry as she clambered up the output cable of the ion shield that

  filtered Bonadan's polluted air into something approaching pleasant. Uldir's

  opinion of the young woman's athletic prowess rose another notch, offset by

  the growing suspicion that she was probably some sort of burglar or spy.

  Maybe she had stolen something from the casino, or had been attempting to.

  Whatever it was, he was determined to find out.

  He skipped to his right to avoid tripping over a fallen Rodian, but that

  brought him face-to-face with an immense Barabel male gnashing a set of very

  sharp teeth some half a meter above his own meter-and-a-half frame.

  'Sorry,'' Uldir grunted at the scaled tower.

  The Barabel's black reptilian face contorted. 'You insult me?'' He flexed

  his claws, and it occurred to Uldir that the Bonadan police couldn't

  confiscate natural weapons.

  The Barabel had teeth, claws, and sixty kilos on him. Uldir had his fists

  and the best unarmed combat training
the Search and Rescue Corps could

  provide.

  So he ran, dodging behind a stumbling-drunk Togorian as the Barabel took a

  swipe at him. The big lizard tried to correct for Uldir's sudden movement

  and instead hit the white-furred humanoid, who yowled and lurched to face

  her antagonist. Uldir thought he wouldn't mind seeing how that turned out,

  under ordinary circumstances, but once again he'd lost sight of the thief.

  He went up the cable hand-over-hand, pulling himself onto the rooftop. From

  here he couldn't see the galasol strip, but he could hear it in a blare of

  music -- Uldir and his companions had arrived during a sort of local

  festival thrown by one of the new execs of the corporate sector. They'd had

  to push their way through a parade dominated by floaters bearing likenesses

  of the various leaders of the CSA, distributing free gambling chits for

  adults and trinkets for the kids. His vantage now overlooked the uglier side

  of Bonadan, the warehouse district that lay behind the flashy facade of the

  strip.

  'How in the . . . ?'' Uldir began, then realized he was talking to himself,

  something he considered a bad sign. But how had she made that jump? It was

  four meters to the air lane the barges traveled in if it was a centimeter.

  She was running toward the next barge up, which was separated from its

  companion by only a meter or so, and the line of barges went on as far as

  the eye could see.

  'Carbon flush,'' he swore. If he could not make the jump, he'd lost her, but

  it sure wasn't worth seeing if he could make the jump, so that was that.

  He heard a hiss behind him and turned to see the Barabel coming up fast and

  decided it was worth finding out after all. He took ten paces and leaped

  with all of his might. At the last instant, he had the sudden sinking

  feeling he wouldn't make it, followed swiftly by the sinking feeling of

  gravity having a joke on him. He'd jumped long enough, but not high enough.

  He wouldn't even scrape the side of the barge going down.

  He almost didn't see the multi-sensor cable dangling in front of him, but at

  he last instant he did, and he wrapped his hands around it, wincing at the

  friction burn he produced killing his momentum. Swearing a silent thanks to

  whatever fates protected fools and starpilots, he started pulling himself

  up, ignoring the sibilant string of unintelligible curses the Barabel was

  howling after him.

  On top, he took a moment to catch his breath, and for an instant he stood

  awestruck by the evening. Bonadan's primary was a giant red egg yolk smeared

  against a stark ebony horizon of eroding hills and slag heaps. In the

  melting glare of that light, the plexisteel towers of the spaceport appeared

  to be molded of living lava. Plumes of black smoke drifted up from distant

  refineries, pancaking into clouds made luminous by the dying light of the

  sun, stretching shadow fingers toward the horizon of night. In the deep of

  the sky the actinic flares of ion drives winked here and there as ships

  arrived and departed. The ore train he stood on stretched far away, like

  some sort of magical path above the barren landscape.

  There was nothing admirable about the ecological mess the Corporate Sector

  Authority had made of a once-lush planet, but there was beauty in

  everything, even devastation. The Force was present even in a wasteland.

  The barges were strictly planetary, their anteriors open to the air. He

  didn't recognize the ore -- he hoped it wasn't radioactive -- but it

  certainly made for bad footing, so as he started after the girl, he ran

  along the raised metal lip of the barge. The narrowness of it didn't bother

  him -- as a boy the spaceports on Coruscant and pretty much everywhere else

  in the galaxy had been his playgrounds, and he'd spent many an hour doing

  far more foolish things on far more precarious surfaces.

  To his satisfaction, his quarry didn't seem to have noticed him yet. She was

  taking her time, certain she'd lost her pursuers. He jumped the meter to the

  next barge, and then the next, closing all the while, confidant that the

  steady hum of repulsorlifts would mask his approach. Besides, the girl had

  stopped now, lifting up her dress to reveal something taped to her leg. She

  began working at the adhesive, tearing it off in strips.

  _Ah-hah_, he thought. Now we'll see what you've stolen.

  When he came within five meters, however, the girl stopped what she was

  doing and spun on her heels to face him.

  'Stay there!'' she shouted over the thrum of the barges. 'I will defend

  myself.''

  'Oh, I'm sure of that,'' Uldir said. 'I saw what you did to law enforcement

  back in the cantina.''

  She lifted her chin, and he suddenly realized she was kind of pretty, with

  her dark eyes and short brown bangs. And young -- maybe younger than he. She

  certainly did not look like the glamorous ideal of a galasol game-girl --

  more like someone's kid sister playing dress-up.

  'What business is that of yours?'' she demanded, looking him over. 'That's

  not a CSA uniform.''

  'You owe me four drinks,'' he said. 'Besides, I just have this odd feeling

  you're up to no good.''

  'You're wrong there,'' the girl replied. 'You have no idea how wrong.''

  'Explain my error, then. I'll be happy to listen.''

  She smiled faintly. 'You don't need an explanation,'' she said.

  It occurred to Uldir that he really didn't. Now that he had met her, she

  seemed an honest sort. Whatever problem she had with the CSA was probably a

  misunderstanding. He shrugged and was starting to walk away when he got it.

  'Hey!'' he said, turning.

  A lump of ore thudded into his shoulder with enough force to knock him down.

  He bounced back up, fast, but she was already there. Now that he knew what

  she was, he wasn't surprised.

  Nor did he get a chance for more conversation. She was in midair, aiming a

  kick at his solar plexus.

  Training took over. Flying kicks were good for taking opponents off of

  speeders, or maybe if they were paralyzed, but they stunk against someone

  standing with balance and a little presence of mind. He spun aside and

  chopped at the back of her neck as she hurled past -- except she didn't hurl

  past. Instead, she touched down and pivoted, turning the kick into a wheel

  that caught him on the same target he'd been aiming for on her. He rolled

  with it, tumbling roughly over the ore, coming up to find her already on top

  of him. In her haste she had gotten sloppy, however, and he blocked her next

  kick and drove stiffened fingers into her midriff. She wheezed and fell back

  roughly onto the ore.

  'Listen -- ' he began, but before he could get more out, she gestured with

  her left hand, and another chunk of rock leapt up from about a meter away

  and popped him in the forehead. He sat down, hard.

  'Ow,'' he said, rubbing his head. 'You didn't have to do that. I'm -- '

  He noticed it before she did, maybe because she was stunned from his punch

  and maybe because she was concentrating on him. He dove toward her. She

  jerked her hands up defensively, but he caught them and hauled her to her

  feet just
as several white-hot flashes melted pits through the ore she'd

  been lying on.

  'Fliers!'' he shouted.

  Sure enough, five atmospheric security fliers were descending toward them,

  spraying blaster fire. Uldir suddenly found himself face-to-face with the

  girl, still holding both of her hands. She seemed to study him for about a

  nanosecond, then broke free and began running again. Uldir followed, blaster

  fire warming his heels.

  The girl ran to the edge of the barge, followed it for a few seconds, and

  then leaped out into space.

  'Wait!'' Uldir shouted. Too late. He came skidding to a halt, peering over,

  hoping she'd dropped onto some tall building, but there was nothing but a

  sixty-meter plummet to the drab, one-story duraplast outskirts of the

  spaceport.

  A bolt came near enough to curl his eyebrows, and he gathered that he had

  become a substitute target. Several more shots spanged around the barge's

  edge, and with a wordless curse he jerked back into motion, dropping back

  into the barge so he could use the raised lip as limited cover. His hand

  itched for his blaster, but that was still on his ship.

  The pilots were smart. Four stayed back, laying down a sort of perimeter of

  fire that kept him boxed on the barge. The fifth zoomed in lower, focusing

  on hitting him. He tried to clear his mind, feel the shots coming before

  they did, but his Jedi training had been mostly wasted -- he had no natural