Apocalypse

Many people contributed to this book in ways large and small. I would like to thank them all, especially the following: Andria Hayday, for her invaluable suggestions and creative support; James Luceno, Leland Chee, Pablo Hidalgo, Keith Clayton, Erich Schoeneweiss, Scott Shannon, Frank Parisi, and Carol Roeder for their fine contributions during our brainstorming sessions; Shelly Shapiro and Sue Rostoni, for
everything
, from their remarkable patience to their insightful markups to their great ideas; Jennifer Heddle, for her contributions to
Apocalypse
and her graceful arrival in the final stages of a long and exciting series; Jason Fry, for our email brainstorming regarding the “Celestial overlap” in our two projects—I really wish that chapter had made it into the
Essential Guide to Warfare
!; my fellow
Fate of the Jedi
writers, Aaron Allston and Christie Golden, for being such a blast to work with; Laura Jorstad, for her usual attention to fine detail; all of the people at Lucasfilm and Del Rey who make writing
Star Wars
so much fun; and, finally, to George Lucas for sharing the galaxy far, far away with us all.

T
HE STARLINER SWUNG INTO ORBIT AROUND THE PLANET
C
ORUSCANT
, and beyond the observation bubble appeared the glittering expanse of a billion golden lights. Through a thousand centuries of strife, those lights had continued to shine. Nothing had dimmed their brilliance—not the Rakatan enslavement, not the tyranny of the Empire, not the chaos of civil war. And they continued to shine now, in this new age of creeping shadow, when enemy impostors ruled the Galactic Alliance and Sith Lords slept in the Jedi Temple itself. But all those gleaming lights made Jaina Solo wonder whether Coruscant’s trillion residents actually cared who won the coming war—whether it mattered that they were living under Sith rule, so long as those billion lights continued to shine.

The answer came to her almost instantly, in the form of a dark tinge in the Force that could only mean
Sith
. Jaina shifted her gaze to the interior of the starliner, where a teeming mass of passengers hung floating in their transit harnesses, tethered to the walls of the EconoClass
hold. Floating down the central access aisle was a Coruscanti Immigration inspector, his zero-g motility pack emitting small hisses as he twirled in slow-motion cartwheels, demanding identichips and ten-credit “expediting fees.” Behind him followed a pair of Bothan escorts, their snouts wrinkling in disdain each time their superior solicited another bribe.

Jaina would have liked to believe the inspector was merely a greedy Sith Saber trying to line his pockets, but she knew better. Vestara Khai, newly defected from the Lost Tribe of Sith, had warned the assault teams to take nothing for granted. In her briefings, Vestara had emphasized that the Sith were not stupid. After insinuating themselves in the Galactic Alliance Senate, they would have moved quickly to take control of the Coruscanti Immigration Service and other key bureaucracies. They would expect the Jedi to be coming, and they would be on the lookout for infiltrators—and petty extortion was an ideal cover for someone trying to identify enemy agents.