Life Debt Read online

  Star Wars: Aftermath: Life Debt is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2016 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  ISBN 9781101966938

  ebook ISBN 9781101966945

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Christopher M. Zucker, adapted for eBook

  Cover art and design: Scott Biel

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chronology

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Prelude: Jakku, Three Decades Ago

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Interlude: Velusia

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Interlude: Coronet City, Corellia

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Interlude: The Annihilator

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part Two

  Interlude: The Alderaan Flotilla

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Interlude: Takodana

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part Three

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Interlude: Tatooine

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Part Four

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Interlude: The City of Binjai-Tin, Nag Ubdur

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Part Five

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Interlude: Darropolis, Hosnian Prime

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Interlude: Ryloth

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Epilogue: Three Decades Ago

  Dedication

  By Chuck Wendig

  About the Author

  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

  The Empire is in chaos. As the old order crumbles, the fledgling New Republic seeks a swift end to the galactic conflict. Many Imperial leaders have fled from their posts, hoping to escape justice in the farthest corners of known space.

  Pursuing these Imperial deserters are Norra Wexley and her team of unlikely allies. As more and more officers are arrested, planets once crushed beneath the Empire’s heel now have hope for the future. And no hope is greater than that of the Wookiees of Kashyyyk. Heroes of the Rebellion Han Solo and Chewbacca have gathered a team of smugglers and scoundrels to free Kashyyyk from its Imperial slavers once and for all.

  Meanwhile, the remnants of the Empire—now under the control of Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and her powerful, secret adviser—prepare to unleash a terrifying counterstrike. If successful, the New Republic may never recover, and anarchy will be loosed upon the galaxy in its greatest time of need…

  The boy runs. His footsteps echo across the hard, unforgiving ground. His feet have no shoes—they are wrapped in ratty bindings, the same bindings Mersa Topol uses to mend the wounds of those miners and scavengers who come to the anchorite nurse for succor. As such, the ground is rough beneath him. It bites through the thin cloth. It abrades. But he does not bleed, because his feet are tough even if many think him weak.

  Clouds of dust kick up with every step. Scree hisses across rock.

  The boy is chasing something: a pair of streaking contrails bisecting the dead sky. It comes from a ship that flew overhead, a strange ship like he had never seen. It gleamed black. Clean like shined, polished glass. He was out scrubbing solar arrays when he saw it pass overhead. One of the other orphan boys, Brev, said, “Look at the pretty ship, Galli.”

  Narawal, the girl with one dead eye, drew back her cracked and bleeding lips, responding with: “It won’t stay pretty for long. Nothing stays pretty here.” That, she says with some authority.

  The boy had to see. He had to see the pretty ship before Jakku ruined it. Before the stone winds scoured its hull, before the sun baked off its color. Anchorite Kolob told him to stay behind, finish his chores, but the boy would have none of that. He was compelled, as if by destiny.

  He ran. For one klick, then another, until his legs ached so hard they felt like clumps of cured, dried meat hanging from his hips. But now here he is, atop the Plaintive Hand plateau—an outcropping of bent, flat rock that the anchorites say is a holy place, a place the Consecrated Eremite considered home thousands of years before, when Jakku was supposedly a verdant, living place.

  Out there, down in the valley, he spies the ship. Sun trapped in its perfect steel, the bright and blinding bands stark even in the light of day.

  He thinks: I could stop here. In fact, he should stop here. The boy knows he should turn tail and go home, back to the habit house, back to his work and his contemplations and to the other orphans.

  And yet he remains compelled. As if something invisible is tugging him along—an unseen thread bound to his throat, leading him like a leash-and-collar. I will get a little closer. I won’t be missed.

  The boy creeps down the narrow switchback path leading into the valley. At the bottom, all that separates him from the ship are dozens of rocky outcroppings: spires of crooked red stone jutting up out of the sand like broken, bloodied teeth. He moves from stone to stone, hiding behind each. Trying to stay silent, silent like the skittermice that cross the desert when night falls and the ground cools.

  The ship roams into view. This is a ship that does not belong here. A dark mirror, long and lean, with swept-back wings and crimson windows. It sits, as silent and as patient as a perching raptor—like the vicious vworkka, the birds that swoop and eat the little skittermice.

  The boy scurries from stone to stone until he is close. Close enough to smell the ozone coming off it. Close enough to feel the warmth of the sun radiating from its hull. A heat haze rises above it, warping the air.

  Nothing moves. No sound comes from inside.

  I have seen enough. I should go.

  The boy remains rooted despite this thought.

  Finally, a shudder and a hiss. A ramp descends from the ship’s smooth underbelly. Vapor gases off into the heated air.

  A figure eases down the ramp. The boy almost laughs—this someone must certainly be lost given the way that he is dressed. A long purple cloak drags behind him. A tall hat sits poised upon the man’s head. Then the boy thinks: Some of the anchorites wear heavy robes like this, don’t they? They say it tests them. It is sacred to learn how to withstand the heat. It is necessary, they say, to shun pain and learn to live beyond its margins.

  Maybe this man is an anchorite. Though the anchorites avoid pretty, precious thing
s, don’t they? No material entanglements, they say. This ship, the boy believes, certainly qualifies as a material entanglement.

  As do the droids that follow swiftly thereafter. Six of them. Each upright on legs shining like black, sun-blasted glass. Antennas rise from insectile heads, and the man in the purple robe waves them on without a word. Mouthpieces vocalize a series of tones and clicks just before they step out onto the hard, sand-scoured rock. The boy watches as they place down black boxes—boxes that connect to one another with beams of green light, beams bright enough to see even in the day, beams that connect to one another and form a kind of frame.

  The man eases slowly down the ramp, his cloak whispering against the metal like sand blown across sheets of tin. “This is it. This is the space. Mark it and begin excavation. I will return.”

  One of the droids says, “Yes, Adviser Tashu.”

  There is a moment when the boy realizes that an opportunity has presented itself. He hates this world. He does not belong here. As the man in the purple robe returns up the ramp, he thinks: This is my chance. My chance to leave this place and never return. For a moment, he is frozen. Paralyzed by indecision. Affixed by the fear of uncertainty—he has no idea where this ship will go, or who that man is, or what they will do if they find him.

  But he knows this place is dead.

  The ramp begins to rise.

  And the boy, Galli, thinks: I must hurry. And hurry he does. Fast and quiet like the skittermice. He bounds across the sand in his bare feet and catches the lip of the ramp as it closes. Galli tucks his body up and in, crawling into the dark moments before the ship begins to take off.

  Leia paces.

  The Chandrilan sun burns a bright line around her drawn shades. In the center of the room sits a blue glass holoplatform—it remains quiet. She comes here every day at the same time waiting for a transmission. She should’ve heard from Han by now. He’s days past their scheduled talk and—

  The platform flickers to life.

  “Leia,” says a shimmering hologram as it resolves from erratic voxels into the form of her husband.

  “Han,” she says, stepping close into transmission range. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  The way he says it, though—something’s wrong. There’s a dark edge to his voice. In it she senses desperation. No, not just that. Anger lurks there, too. The anger isn’t pointed at her. Even from here her feelings reach out and find him, and she senses an anger turning inward, like a knife twisted toward one’s own belly. He’s mad at himself.

  She knows what he’s about to tell her.

  “I still haven’t found him,” Han says. Chewbacca is missing. Two months back, Han told her that he had a shot to do what the New Republic wouldn’t: liberate Chewie’s home planet of Kashyyyk from the chains of the Empire. She told him to wait, to think about it, but he said the time was now and that an old smuggler had info—a woman named Imra whom Leia told him not to trust.

  Turns out, she was right.

  “You still in the Outer Rim?” Leia asks.

  “Edges of Wild Space. I have a few leads, but it’s not looking good.”

  She pleads with him: “Come home, Han. I’m working on the Senate. If we can get them to vote, we can push on Kashyyyk—and maybe find Chewbacca and the others in the process. Testimony from a general like yourself will help to sway them—”

  “It didn’t sway them before.”

  “So we try again.”

  The hologram shakes its head. “That’s not who I am. I’m not a general. I’m just some pirate.”

  “Don’t say that. Everyone here knows how you led the Alliance team on Endor. They know you as a general, not as a—”

  “Leia, I resigned my commission.”

  “What?”

  “I have to do this my way. This is on me, Leia. I have my job to do and you have yours. You take care of the Republic. I’ll find Chewie.”

  “No, no, no, don’t you do this. I’ll come to you. Tell me where you are. Tell me what you need.”

  A slow, sad smile spreads across the face of his flickering transmission. “Leia, they need you there. I need you there, too. I’ll be all right. I’ll find Chewie. And then I’ll come home.”

  “You promise?”

  “I pro—”

  But the hologram suddenly shakes—Han turns his head sharply, as if surprised. “Han!” she calls.

  “Son of a—” he starts to say, but the image flickers again. “Under att—” But the words break up, and then the image dissolves and he’s gone.

  She feels her middle clench up. No. Again Leia paces, hoping he’ll come back, hoping that the interrupted transmission returns again and he tells her it was all a false alarm. She waits for minutes, then for hours, and then until night falls. The holoplatform remains dead.

  Her husband is out there. She doesn’t know where.

  And he’s in trouble.

  She has to find him. Good thing is, she knows just who to ask.

  The grav-raft slides through the mist. Alongside stand massive stone spires, black as night and straight as spears. Vigilant sentinels, their tips are carved to look like howling faces. Below, far below, glow rivers of swimmy green light—the glowing fungus of Vorlag’s cavernous interior.

  Jom Barell reaches out, grabbing a chain and pulling the raft along, hand-over-hand. These chains sit moored to octagonal eyebolts jutting out of each spire, connecting each of those dark sentinels to the next. The raft has no engines of its own, and so its motion through the mist is nearly silent except for the faint throb of its hoverpanels.

  “I don’t like this,” Jom says, his voice low.

  “What’s to like?” Sinjir Rath Velus asks, lying back across the flat of the raft, his arms crossed in front of him. “The mist is cold. The day is terrible. I’m sober as a protocol droid.” He sits up suddenly. “Did you know the Death Star had a bar? Ugly, austere little place—really like all Imperial architecture, ugh—and the selection of spirits was hardly commendable. But if you knew Pilkey, the drink-slinger, he would give you some of his ‘special batch’—”

  Norra Wexley interrupts him. “Everything is fine. Everything is going according to plan.” The essence of the plan is the same as it always is: Sneak in, capture their Imperial prey, bring him to justice on Chandrila. Of course, normally they’re not sneaking into the mountaintop fortress of a galactic slaver to do it…

  “Oh, yes,” Jom answers in a sarcastic growl. “It’s the idiot’s array right here, isn’t it? Our girl in there better be doing her job.”

  “She’s not our girl,” Sinjir says, snapping back. “She’s not even a girl, Barell. Jas is her own woman, and the kind who would gladly kick your tail off this raft for sprinkling your…mustache dander everywhere.”

  “What she is is a bounty hunter.” Jom grunts as he pulls the raft forward to the next stone pillar. “And I don’t trust bounty hunters.” Unconsciously his hand moves to his bushy mustache, which he quickly smooths down over his scowling mouth.

  “Yes, we know. We also know that you don’t trust ex-Imperials. We know that because you tell us. Constantly.”

  Jom turns his shoulder and sneers. “Should I? Trust you?”

  “After all this time? You could start.”

  “Maybe you don’t understand what the Empire meant to people like me, and why the Rebellion—”

  Norra again cuts them off. “We get it, Jom. We’re all on this boat together. In this case, literally. Look.” She points.

  To their starboard, a massive shape emerges from the mist above them—a black, mountainous shadow. The contours of a palace: spiraling towers and bulbous parapets. If they keep following the chain bolted to the rocks, they’ll begin to lift as they pull—up, up, up, to the front gates of this massive compound carved out of the top of a dormant volcano. It’s the home of Slussen Canker, aka Canker the Red, aka His Venomous Grace, Keeper of Men and Killer of Foes, the Prince and First Son of Vorlag, Master Scion Sluss
en Urla-fir Kal Kethin-wa Canker.

  Murderer. Slaver. Scumfroth.

  He’s not their target.

  Their target is an ex-Imperial vice admiral. A man named Perwin Gedde. He fled the Empire, absconding with a considerable bucket of credits—enough to keep him fat and happy and firmly ensconced with a crime lord like Slussen Canker. High on spice. Serviced by slaves. Living the good life. Living the protected life here in a well-defended volcano-top fortress. So well defended that marching right up to the front gate would be highly inadvisable. The front gate is protected by two slavering hroth-beasts. And two phase-turrets. And a pair of hroth-keeper guards. And a portcullis made of crisscrossing lasers—

  It doesn’t matter, because they’re not going that way, are they?

  They’re not taking the high road. They’re going low.

  As Jom eases the raft down two more stone pillars, he reaches back with his hand and shows his open palm—a silent request that Norra refuses to fulfill. Instead she says, “I can handle this. You don’t have to do everything, you know.”

  She pulls the grappling spike and screws it into the tip of the concussive pistol. Jom watches her with narrow eyes as she takes aim at the massive rock. “Give the signal,” she says.