Elzar’s shoulders heaved, seawater spluttering from his lungs. He was back on Ashla’s shore, salt drying on his skin, baked by the burning sun. He looked around, eyes still blurry, trying to focus on the golden sands that stretched out to either side of him, wingmaws circling in the sky above, ready to pick the flesh from his bones. But he wasn’t dead yet. None of them were.

He pushed himself up and stumbled back toward his Vector, gathering his robes as he went. He needed to get off Ashla. Needed to leave the Core. The Force had spoken. It had already answered his question, if only he had listened.

One name, a planet, where he would finally be able to put things right.

Valo.

CHAPTER ONE

The Rystan Badlands

A comet plowed into the ice field, setting off a devastating chain reaction. Asteroids and space rocks bounced off one another like billiard balls. The only difference here was that most of the balls weighed millions of tons and could crush a ship like an egg. Those that weren’t completely obliterated by the impacts were reduced to razor-sharp shards that only added to the wave of destruction.

No spacer entered the Rystan Badlands lightly. The ice field was filled with the twisted wreckage of cruisers that had attempted to run the gauntlet of colliding planetoids and failed. On a good day it was a dangerous, idiotic endeavor. On a bad day it was suicide.

Today was a very bad day.

The Squall Spider bucked as it weaved through the spinning rocks. The craft was small, barely larger than a shuttle, but it was fast and as maneuverable as any of the Jedi’s famed Vectors. In fact, anyone watching the strange arachnid-like craft could have been forgiven in thinking that a Jedi sat at the controls. Who else could have negotiated the ever-shifting starscape, weaving left and then right to avoid being pulverized by giant balls of ice? But the being in the pilot’s seat couldn’t have been further from a Jedi. The Jedi were the defenders of life and light the galaxy over. They lived for others, never for themselves, maintaining peace and harmony wherever they roamed. In short, they were heroes.

Udi Dis, on the other hand, had been born a Talortai but now only identified as a Nihil. As broad as he was tall, the avian had dedicated his life to piracy and plunder, taking what he wanted and decimating whatever was left. It wasn’t a noble life, but it was the only one he knew, and it had given him a place in the universe that had repeatedly spat in his face.