Star Wars’ Old Republic Strikes Back in This Look Inside a New Anthology

The present Star Wars canon could also be embracing the time of the High Republic, which takes place 200 years earlier than the occasions of the flicks. But within the collection’ outdated EU, now the “Legends” of Star Wars fiction past the realm of canonicity, the Old Republic guidelines the roost. Last week, we noticed Darth Revan’s return in the Knights of the Old Republic remake, and now, one other Sith Lord contemplates battle in our sneak peek inside Star Wars Insider’s newest anthology.

io9 has a glance inside Star Wars Insider: Fiction Collection Vol. 2, the journal’s second assortment of traditional authentic fiction from a long time of storytelling. Since its launch, Insider has performed host to new adventures from iconic Star Wars writers from the peak of the outdated expanded universe all the way in which into the present period of canon—similar to Alan Dean Foster, Mur Lafferty, Alexander Freed, David J. Williams, and Mark S. Williams—together with ongoing quick tales set throughout the High Republic interval which have revitalized Insider as a house for brand spanking new bites of Star Wars storytelling.

But our look inside the newest assortment goes again 1000’s of years and into the Star Wars legends for a story from the world of Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic, the free-to-play MMORPG that itself is ready 1000’s of years earlier than the flicks, and 300 after the occasions of the beloved CRPG duology, Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, The Sith Lords. “The Third Lesson,” by Paul S. Kemp and that includes artwork from Marek Oko, follows Old Republic villain Darth Malgus. It’s set after the Sith Empire’s crushing rout from the planet Alderaan throughout the ongoing fireplace of the battle between the Old Republic and the Sith, as depicted in one of many sport’s cinematic trailers, “Hope.”

Check out an excerpt from “The Third Lesson” beneath, making its debut on io9—alongside extra of Oko’s paintings!

A haze of smoke hung within the air, the black residuum of the Imperial fleet’s pre-landing bombardment of Alderaan. Rage burned in Malgus, its seed grown from the phrase he stored listening to over Imperial communication channels: Retreat.

The Empire had misplaced Alderaan. Hours earlier than Malgus had walked its floor as a conqueror, however now…

Now sign fires dotted its floor, rallying factors for the Republic forces.

A counterattack was coming. Reports indicated a Republic fleet en path to Alderaan.

Retreat.

Retreat.

He clenched his fists so onerous it made his fingers ache. His respiration appeared like a rasp over wooden. His pores and skin stung from burns. A Republic commando had exploded a grenade in his face, and fight with a Jedi witch had broken his lungs. Lacerations and contusions made a grim mosaic on his flesh.

But he felt no ache. He felt solely anger.

Hate.

A way of frustration that made him need to shout.

His private shuttle roared low over the scorched panorama. Below him, buildings and our bodies smoldered within the ruins of an Alderaani city. Around him, Imperial ships prowled the sky, flying escort. He tried to unknot his fists, failed. He wished—

The presence of a light-side Force person bumped up towards his Force sensitivity, a sudden flare in his notion. He regarded down and out the viewport. He noticed nothing however charred ruins, rubbled buildings, burnt out autos. He pinched the comlink he wore.

“Turn us around.”

“My lord?” requested his pilot.

“Come about, cut speed to one quarter, and reduce altitude by one hundred meters.”

“Yes, my lord.”

As the shuttle wheeled round and slowed, Malgus overrode the safeties and lowered the touchdown ramp. Wind whipped into the cabin, carrying the odor of a charred planet, a planet Malgus had supposed to kill, however as an alternative had solely wounded.

Someone needed to pay for that.

He took the hilt of his lightsaber in hand and sank into the Force. The burned-out buildings beneath caught out of the scorched earth like rotted tooth, crooked and black.

“Slower,” he stated to the pilot.

He reached out by means of the Force, probing for the light-side presence he had felt.

At first there was nothing, and he puzzled if he had been mistaken, or if the light-side person had perceived Malgus and suppressed his energy. But then…

There.

He felt it as an irritation behind his eyes, an itch solely violence might scratch. He shed his cloak and stepped to the sting of the touchdown ramp. The wind pulled at him. Anger swelled in him, buoyed him up. The Force anchored him in place. He pinched his comlink once more.

“Hover above the ruins until I return.”

“Return, my lord? Where are you going? You’re seriously wounded.”

Malgus deactivated the comlink and leapt off the ramp into the open air. He ignited his blade as the bottom rushed as much as meet him. Using the Force to cushion the influence, he hit the bottom in a crouch.

He stood within the heart of a road pockmarked with craters and affected by damaged glass and overturned speeders. An aircar burned 10 meters from him, vomiting gouts of black smoke into the sky. Somewhere, a wind bell chimed furiously within the gusts.

“I’m here, Jedi!” Malgus shouted, his voice booming over the ruins.

Behind him, he heard the hum of an activating lightsaber, then one other.

He turned to see a male Zabrak, a Jedi, emerge from one of many burned-out buildings that lined the road. The blue line of a lightsaber glowed in every of his arms. He studied Malgus sidelong.

“Malgus,” the Jedi stated.

Malgus didn’t know the Jedi’s title and he didn’t care. The Zabrak was merely the main target of his anger, a handy goal for his rage.

Malgus fell into the Force, roared, and bounded down the road, his anger lending him velocity.

The Jedi held his floor. At twenty meters, the Jedi raised his lightsabers aloft to both facet and drew them each down with a flourish.

Too late the rumble of the falling buildings penetrated the haze of Malgus’s anger. An avalanche of duracrete and transparisteel crashed down on him from both facet of the road…

The creases on his father’s Imperial uniform regarded sharp sufficient to chop meat, however his tone was as gentle because the stomach that overflowed his trousers.

“Come with me, Veradun.”

Veradun adopted his father to the large menagerie they stored on the grounds of the household’s property. His father, a biologist within the Imperial Science Corps, collected animals from numerous worlds. The household had their very own personal zoo, financed by the Empire. Veradun had helped have a tendency the creatures since he’d been a small boy.

Shrieks, chitters, howls, and a pungent animal stink greeted their entrance. His father’s voice knifed by means of the noise.

“You know why I enjoy these animals so much?”

Veradun shook his head. He noticed himself mirrored within the lenses of his father’s eyeglasses.

“Because we can learn from them.”

“Learn what?”

His father smiled cryptically. “Come on.”

Father put a hand on his shoulder andsteered him by means of the maze of habitats, cages, and tanks, till they reached the transparisteel dice of the kouhun tank. A thick layer of sand, dotted with just a few unfastened rocks and a few unfastened fur, was all that was seen. The segmented arthropod, its physique so long as Veradun’s arm, lay hidden someplace beneath the sand of the tank. Veradun walked across the tank, making an attempt to identify any signal of the kouhun. Nothing.

Meanwhile, his father lifted a feeder rat from a close-by cage and held it over the kouhoun’s tank.

“I fed it earlier,” Veradun stated.

“I know.”

His father dropped the rat into the tank and it froze the second it hit the sand. It sniffed the air, whiskers twitching.

The sand close to it bulged.

The rat squealed with concern however earlier than it might transfer, the kouhoun erupted from the sand below it, seized the rodent in its scissor-like mandibles, and bit it in half. Blood spilled, portray the sand purple.

The kouhon crawled totally from the sand, its head all mandibles and useless black eyes. Dozens of pairs of legs propelled its segmented physique over the bloody bits of the rat. But it didn’t eat, and after a second it burrowed again into the sand, leaving the rat’s carcass unmolested.

“Why do you think it killed the rat?” his father requested. “It was not hungry. As you said, you fed it not long ago.”

“Instinct,” Veradun stated. “It’s a savage creature.”

“Good, Veradun. Good. Indeed, the kouhon kills for no reason. Does that make sense to you?”

“No, but… it’s an animal.”

His father kneeled to look Veradun within the face. “Right. And you’re not. The kouhon teaches us that senseless savagery is the province of animals, not men. Savagery is useful only if it’s controlled and put in service to an end. Do you understand?”

Veradun thought-about, nodded.

“The end is everything,” his father stated.

You’ll be capable to learn extra from “The Third Lesson” and different Star Wars tales when Titan Comics’ Star Wars Insider: Fiction Collection Vol. 2 hits cabinets on October 26.

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