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L o s t T r i b e o f t h e S i t h # 1
P R E C I P I C E
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L o s t T r i b e o f t h e S i t h # 1
P R E C I P I C E
JOHN JACKSON MILLER
D
L
BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK
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Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith # 1: Precipiceis a work of fiction.
Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2009 Del Rey eBook original
Copyright © 2009 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
Excerpt from Star Wars®: Fate of the Jedi: Omencopyright © 2009
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: Omenby Christie Golden. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
ISBN 978-0-345-51938-2
Printed in the United States of America www.starwars.com
www.delreybooks.com
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Chapter One
5,000 years BBY
“Lohjoy! Give me something!” Scrambling to his feet in the darkness, Commander Korsin craned his neck to find the hologram. “Thrusters, attitude control—I’ll take parking jets!”
A starship is a weapon, but it’s the crew that makes it deadly.An old spacer’s line: trite, but weighty enough to lend a little authority. Korsin had used it himself on occasion. But not today. His ship was being deadly all on its own—and his crew was just along for the ride.
“We’ve got nothing, Commander!” The serpent-haired engineer flickered before him, off-kilter and out of focus. Korsin knew things belowdecks must be bad if his upright, uptight Ho’Din genius was off-balance.
“Reactors are down! And we’ve got structural failures in the hull, both aft and—”
Lohjoy shrieked in agony, her tendrils bursting into a mane of fire that sent her reeling out of view. Korsin barely suppressed a startled laugh. In calmer times—half a standard hour ago—he’d joked that Ho’Din were half tree. But that was hardly appropriate when the whole engineering deck was going up. The hull had ruptured. Again.
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The hologram expired—and all around the stocky commander, warning lights danced, winked, and went out. Korsin plopped down again, clutching at the armrests. Well, the chair still works.“Anything? Anybody?”
Silence—and the remote grinding of metal.
“Just give me something to shoot at.” It was Gloyd, Korsin’s gunnery officer, teeth shining in the shadows.
The half smirk was a memento from a Jedi lightsaber swipe years earlier that just missed taking the Houk’s head off. In response, Gloyd had cultivated the only wit aboard as acidic as the commander’s own—but the gunner wasn’t finding much funny today. Korsin read it in the brute’s tiny eyes: One close call is all.
Korsin didn’t bother to look at the otherside of the bridge. Icy glares there could be taken as a given. Even now, when Omenwas crippled and plummeting out of control.
“Anybody?”
Even now.Korsin’s bushy eyebrows flared into a black V. What was wrongwith them? The adage was right. A ship needed a crew united in purpose—only the purpose of being Sith was the exaltation of self. Every ensign an emperor. Every rival’s misstep, an opportunity. Well, here’s an opportunity,he thought. Solve this, someone, and you can flat-out have the blasted comfy chair.
Sith power games. They didn’t mean much now—not against the insistent gravity below. Korsin looked up again at the forward viewport. The vast azure orb visible earlier was gone, replaced by light, gas, and grit raining upward. The latter two, he knew, came from the guts of his own ship, losing the fight against the alien atmosphere. Whatever it was, the planet had Omennow. A jolt, and more screams. This wouldn’t last long.
“Remember,” he yelled, looking at them for the first time since it had started. “You wantedto be here!”
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Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith:Precipice 3
* * *
And they had—most of them, anyway. Omenhad been the ship to get when the Sith mining flotilla gathered at Primus Goluud. The Massassi shock troops in the hold didn’t care where they went—who knew what the Massassi even thoughthalf the time, presuming they did at all. But many sentients who had a choice in the matter picked Omen.
Saes, captain of the Harbinger,was a fallen Jedi: an unknown quantity. You couldn’t trust someone the Jedi couldn’t trust, and they would trust just about anyone.
Yaru Korsin, the crewmembers knew. A Sith captain owning a smile was rare enough, and always suspect.
But Korsin had been at it for twenty standard years, long enough for those who’d served under him to spread the word. A Korsin ship was an easy ride.
Just not today. Fully loaded with Lignan crystals, Harbingerand Omenhad readied to leave Phaegon III for the front when a Jedi starfighter tested the mining fleet’s defenses. While the crescent-shaped Blades tangled with the intruder, Korsin’s crew made preparations to jump to hyperspace. Protecting the cargo was paramount—and if they managed to make their deliv-ery before the Jedi turncoat made his,well, that was just a bonus. The Blade pilots could hitch back on Harbinger.
Only something had gone wrong. A shock to the Harbinger,and then another. Sensor readings of the sister ship went nonsensical—and Harbingeryawed dangerously toward Omen. Before the collision warning could sound, Korsin’s navigator reflexively engaged the hyperdrive. It had been in the nick of time . . .
. . . or maybe not. Not the way Omenwas giving up its vitals now. They did hit us,Korsin knew. The telemetry might have told them, had they had any. The mill_9780345519382_3p_all_r1.qxp:8p insert template 4/28/09
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ship had been knocked off-course by an astronomical hair—but it was enough.
Commander Korsin had never felt an encounter with a gravity well in hyperspace, and neither had any of his crew. Stories required survivors. But it felt as though space itself had yawned open near the passing Omen,kneading at the ship’s alloyed superstructure like putty.
It lasted but a fraction of a second, if time even existed there. The escape was worse than the contact. A sickly snap, and shielding failed. Bulkheads gave. And then, the armory.
The armory had exploded. That was easy enough to know from the gaping hole in the underside of the ship.
That it had exploded in hyperspace was a matter of inference: they were still alive. Grenades, bombs, and all the other pleasantries his secondary cargo, the Massassi, were taking to Kirrek would have gone up in a theatrical flourish, taking the ship with it. But instead the armory had simply vanished—along with an impressive chunk of Omen’s quarterdeck. The physics in hyperspace were unpredictable by definition; instead of exploding outward, the breached deck simply left the ship in a seismic tug. Korsin could imagine the erupting munitions dropping out of hyperspace light-years behind the Omen,wherever it was. That would mean a bad day for someone!