It’s an enormous day for Star Wars’ prequel-prequel period. As The Acolyte prepares to drop on Disney+ at present, it’s not the one huge occasion for the Excessive Republic period to cope with this, because the transmedia publishing initiative’s newest novel prepares to hit cabinets—and we’ve bought a glance inside.
Tessa Gratton’s Temptation of the Power is the newest chapter of The Excessive Republic’s third climactic part—because the Jedi and the Republic grapple with the daring assaults of Marchion Ro and his piratical Nihil, after they’ve used devastating know-how generally known as the Stormwall to chop off an entire part of the galaxy—an occlusion zone trapping helpless worlds whereas the Nihil raid and plunder, and a zone that continues to develop throughout the galaxy as Ro expands the Stormwall additional and additional. As handfuls handle to flee the chaos from inside, and previous pals reunited, the Jedi are able to strike again—and save as many worlds as they’ll from the horrors of the Stormwall.
However earlier than we get into all of the lightsaber swinging and Nihil-fighting—and no matter comes of the reunion of Jedi Masters Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann after they spent a yr separated by the Stormwall—io9 has your first take a look at a mission of mercy, somewhat than dutiful fight. Learn on for an unique excerpt from Temptation of the Power beneath, as Jedi Knights Bell Zettifar and the wookiee Burryaga—huge week for wookiee Jedi!—survey the planet Oanne, on the sting of the Stormwall, and take a look at to determine what they’ll do to avoid wasting its individuals from being caught up in Ro’s chaos… amongst different issues.
For those who’d desire to listen to the snippet, we’ve additionally bought this unique preview of the Temptation of the Power audiobook, learn by Marc Thompson!
Excerpted with permission of Penguin Random Home Audio from Star Wars: Temptation of the Force by Tessa Gratton; Learn by Marc Thompson © 2024, Tessa Gratton, ℗ Penguin Random Home, LLC.
Burryaga and Bell had been on Oanne for 3 days, alongside a preliminary evacuation crew with the Republic Protection Coalition. Oanne was the one inhabited world in its system, largely left alone to exist and supply sure Republic pursuits with a selected fungus that grew on the roots of the planet’s geriatric nativity bushes and may very well be used as a really environment friendly electroconductor that didn’t depart a traceable signature. Just a few generations in the past, the Republic had made a commerce cope with the Elia-An colonies, welcoming them into the Republic. In return the Elia-An had requested for scientists to assist them perceive the symbiotic gestation they shared with their nativity bushes and try to type various preparations for offworld journey. There have been recordsdata and recordsdata of knowledge Burry had scanned on his solution to Oanne, gathered particularly by a Ho’Din specialist. However no person had efficiently created a synthetic and even momentary natal chamber for the Elia-An that mimicked their nativity bushes effectively sufficient for the individuals to breed.
Therein lay the issue dealing with the RDC and Jedi: Oanne was extraordinarily close to to the Stormwall’s present border, and there was each chance of Marchion Ro increasing the border once more quickly—within the haphazard, unpredictable approach he’d taken to doing since Grasp Avar Kriss’s escape. Oanne can be consumed. The Elia-An confronted a selection: stay and be occupied or massacred by the Nihil, or depart their homeworld.
Bell was decided to persuade them they need to depart, and he was positive that it could solely be momentary. Burry was much less sure.
“The Nihil may set hearth to your forests, that’s true,” Bell mentioned with a frown. “However when you’re right here, you’ll die, too. For those who evacuate with us, you’ve got an opportunity.”
“Doesn’t the Republic need us for our—” The translator droid stumbled over the title of the fungus.
Burry didn’t want to listen to it. “No,” he mentioned sharply in An-An, startling everybody.
Bell slid him a stunned look, however the medication artist tilted her head to search for and up at Burry.
Burry met her vivid-green gaze. The bristles alongside her neck rippled, shimmering green-blue to blue-green.
Gently, Bell mentioned, “Perhaps it’s true the Republic needs your mushrooms, however not me and Burryaga. We need to hold you secure.”
“Our forest can’t depart,” the drugs artist mentioned to Burry, her trill and growls each smooth and fairly.
Softening his Shyriiwook to raised replicate the An-An vocalizations, Burry advised her that the forest couldn’t be saved in any respect if the world fell to the Nihil.
The medication artist regarded unhappy. It wasn’t solely the colour of her bristles that mentioned so: Burry might really feel it radiating off her by means of the Power.
He glanced at Bell to see the slight pout of Bell’s decrease lip that the human bought each time he virtually understood a extra difficult sentence of Burry’s. Bell didn’t like how a lot he nonetheless relied on interpreters typically. Bell’s reliance didn’t trouble Burry, however his dedication to be taught stuffed Burry with heat. The primary time he’d realized Bell was learning Shyriiwook, Burry had burst into Bell’s little quarters and picked him up off the stool. There hadn’t been room within the bunk to twirl him round, however that didn’t cease Burry from attempting. His grasp, Nib Assek, had made the trouble for Burry so she might talk together with her Wookiee Padawan, however Bell didn’t have the identical type of impetus. Bell was only a good good friend and powerful Jedi who knew it confirmed respect and that there would at all times be nuances an interpreter would miss. Bell wished to grasp his good friend.
The medication artist reached out together with her seven-fingered forehand—the Elia-An had an additional set of arms that had been shorter with smaller claw-tipped fingers they used to hook into their nativity bushes—and patted Burry’s abdomen as excessive as she might attain. It was proper above his belt, the place the brown of his robes crossed. Then the drugs artist touched her personal abdomen over the interwoven strips of sashes that served as her clothes. She mentioned one thing the interpreter droid couldn’t translate. It sounded just like the Shyriiwook phrase for “chiming bells”: Arryssslesh.
Her title. Burry touched his abdomen the place she had. He answered her along with his title in his native language.
“Come,” she mentioned, waving over her shoulder as she trotted deeper into the forest.
Burry glanced down at Bell, then grabbed his good friend’s elbow and hauled him up. They adopted the drugs artist. The interpreter droid tromped after.
The forest thickened. This was a grove of nativity bushes, which had easy green-black bark that developed a single furrow up the middle as they aged. Most right here had been older, mother and father to generations of Elia-An. Their branches spiked upward like wine flutes fabricated from bright-blue filament, and their leaves, with the identical downy feathering that lined the Elia-An, shifted within the planet’s breeze. Between the nativity bushes, smaller flowering saplings grew, spreading towards each other right into a lacework of milky-white branches simply low sufficient that Burry needed to duck and stroll in a crouch. He tried to keep away from crushing the grasses alongside the slender Elia-An path, however his toes had been too massive. When the blades bent and broke, they smelled like spice and their nectar glimmered like star algae. It lit the forest from beneath, and Burry thought it was lovely.
Beside him, Bell mentioned, “It’s lovely.”
Burry roared a smooth settlement.
It was straightforward to grasp why the Elia-An didn’t need to abandon their forest, even for a short while. If the Nihil got here right here, they’d flip it into ashes and smeared nectar.
Burry tried to let go of the anger he felt when considering of the damaging dedication of the Nihil. Higher to relaxation on this lush forest teeming with the Power. It felt sturdy and linked, in the way in which of a wholesome ecosystem. Burry, empathic as he was, sensed the feelings of the nativity bushes. They had been extra like their sentient Elia-An counterparts than most bushes Burry had encountered. He questioned if any Power customers had tried to transplant the nativity bushes right into a starship’s arboretum. If the Power might talk to the bushes the need of letting go their roots right here, to outlive, that is perhaps an answer.
The medication artist introduced them right into a meadow full of bright-yellow bugs floating round—no, they had been seeds. Or bugs. Burry discovered himself purring barely in amusement. It didn’t matter. All the things right here was linked on extra than simply the extent of the Power.
“Ah, um,” Bell mentioned.
Burry glanced again. A number of of the insect seeds had settled in Bell’s hair like a string of jewels. Burry laughed softly and advised Bell he regarded very fairly. Bell grinned. It was good to have moments like this, reminded of those pockets of peace and wonder out right here subsequent to the Stormwall. They’d spent a lot time chasing and preventing, practically dying many times. The individuals right here on the perimeters of Republic area had been determined, and Burry had let himself really feel that, too. He was hyperaware of sudden adjustments, of the potential for every thing to blow up or crumble at a second’s discover. When he went to sleep, he at all times anticipated to be woken up with emergency alarms blaring.
On the far finish of the meadow was a nativity tree so massive round that six Wookiees with joined fingers couldn’t fairly encircle it. It had a number of seams, and round it a number of Elia-An sat in tiny nests of downy filaments with their eyes closed, their further limbs raised to hook into tendrils from the tree.
“It is a Grandfather tree,” the drugs artist mentioned by way of the droid. “This one now not nurtures our fruit however helps those that want to be mother and father pair with a youthful tree. The reminiscence on this Grandfather helps us find our seed-heart.”
Burry nodded, although he didn’t perceive the phrases completely.
In line with the Ho’Din scientist, probably the most correct description of the connection between the nativity bushes and the Elia-An was that the individuals had been the seeds to be cross-pollinated. The Elia-An moved from grove to grove, drifting with their communities to new bushes.
“Come,” the drugs artist mentioned once more. Burry went to her, and to his shock, she took his hand and positioned it on the nice and cozy, easy trunk of the Grandfather tree.
“We can not depart them,” she mentioned. The droid’s translation was impassive, however Burry might really feel the grief and certainty in Arryssslesh’s trill. He closed his eyes and leaned into the tree. The Grandfather tree was unhappy, too. It knew. It longed, it . . . Burry felt the pang of pleasure and sorrow together with one thing much less simply definable, however Burry thought it was like a promise of letting go. As if the Grandfather wished these Elia-An to go, to avoid wasting themselves.
He knew if he mentioned that, Arryssslesh can be even much less inclined to evacuate.
She put her small seven-fingered hand over the again of Burry’s, sandwiching him between her and the tree. Burry breathed deeply, and the Power thrummed all through him—all through the entire forest. It felt like residence to him. The Power was a galactic forest, leaves and branches and pillars and roots, the advanced array of animals and vines and lichen, fungi and viruses and worms that made up the number of the residing Power. This forest, particularly, had grown in a steadiness. Take one half away and the others can be bereft.
The Nihil had minimize off a part of the galaxy from the remainder with their Stormwall. In the event that they minimize by means of the Oanne system, Burry was undecided the Elia-An might ever get better.
They shouldn’t have to depart.
Bell stepped nearer and, asking permission along with his eyes, put his personal brown palm to the bark of the Grandfather tree.
Burry might really feel his good friend be a part of the connection extra immediately.
“Is it higher,” Bell requested gently, “to die collectively, or to reside aside with the hope of regrowing?”
Tiny spots on the Grandfather tree started to glow. They lit up in sequence, one after the opposite, a path of sunshine dashing up the traces of bark like capturing stars aiming excessive. Burry gasped. Bell laughed.
Arryssslesh’s bristles tipped with the identical gentle.
Burry understood. They had been one. There was no such factor as aside. Not proper now.
He actually wished to hug the entire tree, and so he did. He fell into the Power, into the rootwork and interlocking lace of the branches. He let himself have a second, this second, invited to attach with an intricate net of Power.
One thing—one thing not too removed from right here—drew his consideration by means of the layers of Power and emotion. A pull. A . . . starvation. It may very well be a dying nativity tree or a physique of water, one thing barely diseased perhaps. He’d ask Arryssslesh—she would know.
However first Burryaga pushed his consciousness towards it.
A harsh digital bleep minimize by means of his ideas.
Burry jerked again, and Bell flailed for his comlink. “Sorry,” Bell gasped. “Sorry.” He thumbed the alert off and stepped again from the tree. “That is Bell Zettifar. What’s going—”
“Jedi!” got here the tinny voice by means of the comlink. “You’re wanted again on the Tractate. There’s a misery name from the neighboring system and we—” The comlink distorted. They had been deep within the bushes, in spite of everything.
In his softened Shyriiwook, Burry promised Arryssslesh that they’d return, then he adopted Bell’s trot away from the Grandfather tree.
“I’m sorry, are you able to say that once more?” Bell insisted.
“It’s Drengir!”
Burry stopped in his tracks. Drengir—sentient, vicious, meat-eating plant monsters. Right here. On the Stormwall border.
“Burry, come on,” Bell mentioned, shock echoing in his voice.
They ran.
Reprinted from Star Wars: The Excessive Republic: Temptation of the Power by Tessa Gratton. © 2024 by Lucasfilm Ltd. Revealed by Random Home Worlds, an imprint of Random Home, a division of Penguin Random Home LLC.
Star Wars: Temptation of the Power hits bookshelves subsequent week on June 11.
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