mill_9780345519405_1p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 12/1/09 3:5
L o s t T r i b e o f t h e S i t h # 3
PA R A G O N
mill_9780345519405_1p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 12/1/09 3:5
L o s t T r i b e o f t h e S i t h # 3
PA R A G O N
JOHN JACKSON MILLER
D
L
BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK
mill_9780345519405_1p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 12/1/09 3:5
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith #3: Paragonis a work of fiction.
Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2010 Del Rey eBook Edition
Copyright © 2010 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Excerpt from Star Wars®: Fate of the Jedi: Backlashcopyright ©
2010 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DEL REY is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Star Wars®: Fate of the Jedi: Backlashby Aaron Allston. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
ISBN 978-0-345-51940-5
Printed in the United States of America www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
mill_9780345519405_1p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 12/1/09 3:5
Chapter One
4985 BBY
The water was as warm as it was every day, streaming from the marble slot high on the wall down onto Seelah’s body. There had been no refresher, no modern conve-niences for the Sith stranded on Kesh for fifteen standard years. But they had learned to live with what they had.
The glistening droplets of meltwater clinging to her brown skin had come from a glacier half a continent away. Keshiri uvak-fliers, their beasts laden with massive kegs, had ferried the water from that faraway place to the Sith’s mountain retreat. Rooftop attendants heated the water to her exact specifications, channeling it through a system thoroughly cleansed daily for mildew and other pollutants.
Below, Seelah meticulously raked at her wrist with pumice brought from the foot of the Sessal Spire, kilome-ters away. Keshiri artists had crafted the stones into pleasing shapes for her. The natives were more interested in appearance than function—but, in this, they had an ally.
Seelah looked with her usual disdain at the stall, con-structed for her personal use by her Sith brethren immediately after she’d moved into Commander Korsin’s chambers. The place was more a temple than a home.
mill_9780345519405_1p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 12/1/09 3:5
2
John Jackson Miller
Well, she couldn’t have everything. Not here.
Fifteen years. That’s what it was by the Keshiri cal-endar, too—although who could trust that? She stepped dripping from the shower, wondering where the time had gone. Not to her body, she saw in the colossal mirror—working glass was another thing the Keshiri were good at. Twice a mother and living on food suited for farm animals back home, and yet Seelah looked as fit as she ever had. It had taken work. But time was one thing she’d had.
“I know you’re here, Tilden,” Seelah said. Tilden Kaah, her Keshiri attendant, always stayed out of sight from the mirror, never remembering she could sense him through the Force. Now he stood by the doorway, averting his large opal eyes and presenting a robe in his shaking hands.
Fifteen years hasn’t changed him, either,Seelah thought with a silent chortle as she snatched the robe. But why shouldn’t he look? All that drab purple skin—to call it lavender was flattery. And white hair—the color of age and uselessness. If Keshiri had found other Keshiri beau-tiful before, it was only because they hadn’t yet seen the Sith.
And, besides, it was Tilden’s job to worship her. One of the younger high priests of the Keshiri faith—which recognized Seelah and her fellow Sith as ancient deities from the heavens—Tilden lived to follow her every-where. She rather enjoyed torturing him like this in the mornings. She was the sacrilege that started his day.
“Your son is hunting with the riders until tonight,”
he said. “Your daughter is in Tahv with the educators your people sent.”
“Fine, fine,” she said, discarding the gown he’d set out in favor of a brighter one. “Get to something important.”
“Milady is expected in the ward this afternoon for mill_9780345519405_1p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 12/1/09 3:5
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith:Paragon 3
the reviewing,” he said, looking up from his parchment. Finding her fully dressed and standing before the great window, he smiled gently. “Otherwise, you are at your leisure.”
“And the Grand Lord?”
“His Eminence, our savior from above, has begun his meetings with his advisers. The usual people, born on high like milady. His giant friend is there, too.” He looked down at his notes. “Oh, and the crimson manhas asked for an audience.”
“Crimson man?” Seelah’s gaze remained on the foaming ocean far below. “Ravilan?”
“Yes, milady.”
“Then I should go.” Seelah stretched mightily before turning abruptly to search for her shoes. Tilden had them. They were the only articles of clothing rescued from the crash of Omenthat she continued to use. The Keshiri still hadn’t figured out decent footwear.
“I—I didn’t mean to turn this into a working day so early,” Tilden stammered, fastening her shoes. “Forgive me. Were you finished bathing? I could have the min-ders recycle the water.”
“Relax, Tilden—I wantto go out,” she said, pinning back her dark hair with a sculpted bone clip, a gift from some local noble she couldn’t remember. She paused in the polished doorway. “But have the team step up the water deliveries—and have them bring it in from the far side of the mountain range. It’s better for the skin from over there.”
Seelah yawned. It wasn’t even high sun and the daily pantomime was already well under way. Commander Yaru Korsin, the Keshiri’s savior from above, sat in his old bridge chair, listening just as he used to on the command deck of Omen.But now the shattered wreck of the vessel lay behind him, sheltered in a part of the sturdy mill_9780345519405_1p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 12/1/09 3:5
4
John Jackson Miller
structure not used for habitation, and his battered chair was incongruously plopped in the middle of a marbled colonnade, stretching out hundreds of meters. Here, high in the open air of the Takara Mountains—recently renamed for his precious mother, wherever in blazes she was—Korsin held court.
The architecture and location made for a good show for the Keshiri townsfolk who occasionally flew up here. That was according to design. But it was also big enough to accommodate every foolish supplicant that Korsin wanted to cram into his day. Seelah saw Gloyd the gunner, Korsin’s “giant friend,” at the front of the line as usual.
The lumpy-headed Houk’s jowls quaked as he presented his latest crazed idea: using one of the surviving boring lasers that still had a charge to fire signals into space. Boringseemed the right word to Seelah—and Korsin didn’t appear enthralled, either. How long must Gloyd have been prattling before she arrived?
“It’ll work this time,” Gloyd said, mottled skin sweating. “All we’ve got to do is get the attention of a passing freighter. An observatory. Anything.” He wiped his forehead. Seelah never thought the genetic lottery had been kind to Houks to begin with. But now it looked as if age and sun were causing Gloyd’s hide to melt from his skull.