The Skywalker saga might be over, but don’t you think for a second that Star Wars is going anywhere fast. In case you haven’t heard, Disney has launched a brand new multimedia series that will be exploring the High Republic Era! The series is enlisting authors like Justina Ireland, Charles Soule and Cavan Scott to tell its stories through a variety of mediums, from middle grade novels to comic books.
The official Star Wars website describes the series like this:
Star Wars: The High Republic is set in an era when the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order are at their zenith, roughly 200 years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. This period on the Star Wars timeline will not overlap any filmed or planned Star Wars movies or series, giving creators a blank canvas and a vast amount of creative room. There will be new worlds, new foes, new heroes, and new adventures …
Official character art for Reath Silas!
Today, we have an excerpt from the latest book in the High Republic series, Into the Dark, which has been written by veteran young adult fiction author Claudia Gray. You might know Claudia from her Constellation, Spellcaster and Firebird YA sci-fi series, but she’s also penned many other Star Wars novels for Disney in recent years. Into the Dark takes up with Padawan Reath Silas, who’s being sent from the cosmopolitan galactic capital of Coruscant to the undeveloped frontier – and he couldn’t be less happy about it.
Meet Reath Silas
Reath Silas is a skilful Padawan who has had a somewhat privileged apprenticeship; his master, the great Jora Malli, is a member of the Jedi Council. Reath has spent a great deal of time on Coruscant in elevated diplomatic meetings, and prefers books and studying to the thrills and dangers of real adventure, which makes him reluctant to leave the familiar comforts of Coruscant for the frontier. Facing the great unknowns of the Frontier will put Reath to the test, and he will learn what he is really made of.
Into the Dark
For the first time since Master Jora had told him of their assignment to Starlight Beacon, Reath felt excited. An abandoned space station seemed likely to offer adventure without bugs, and some stories to tell his friends—whenever he got to see them again.
But Reath wasn’t going to think about that just yet. Finally, he could get back to living in the present moment, as a Jedi should. It had been too long.
Every second they traveled closer to the station, his fascination grew. The design was one he’d never seen before: Its center was a large sphere made of hexagonal plates of some transparent material. Heavy metal rings clustered on square-shaped tethers at its poles, with another metal ring stretching around its equator, which he estimated at roughly five hundred meters in diameter. One airlock was part of the sphere itself, but was unusable, mostly because it was both enormous and highly irregularly shaped, built to welcome some kind of ship none of them had ever seen before, perhaps because it had ceased to exist. Master Cohmac’s theory about the station’s abandonment seemed to be accurate, because signs of damage and wear were apparent—missing panels, a small chunk of one ring broken away. However, its power core must have remained strong, because light still shone from the transparent central globe. Their readings confirmed this as the Vessel got closer.
“Gravity, check,” Affie said. “Life systems, check. Atmosphere’s an oxygen/hydrogen mix, so we can go on board if we want to.”
Reath wanted to. “How long do you think that place has been abandoned? Decades? Centuries?”
“More like millennia, to judge by the tech,” Leox said, squinting as he studied the station. “That looks . . . familiar, but I can’t place why.”
“The Amaxines.” A thrill of recognition swept through Reath, bringing a smile to his face as he placed the familiar curved shapes and patterns of the metal. “That’s Amaxine technology!”
“Amaxine?” Affie wrinkled her nose. “Who are they?” Reath loved nothing more than a chance to explain. “They were ancient warriors—from really long ago, even before the Republic. Their fierceness in battle was supposedly unmatched. There are all these legends of how their scouts would appear almost out of thin air, signaling the troops to sweep in for attack.”
“What happened to them?” Affie asked.
“Apparently, when the Republic unified so much of the galaxy, the Amaxines weren’t willing to accept the peace. So they left the galaxy and flew into empty space, in search of another great war to fight.” Which didn’t make much sense, in Reath’s opinion, but he didn’t waste time judging a people who’d died out thousands of years before. Besides, the sheer thrill of this moment—seeing something that had once been only myth and legend suddenly come vividly alive—eclipsed everything else.
Leox drawled, “Now that you mention it, I believe I’ve heard some stories about the Amaxines, how they took off so long ago. But people have been here way more recently than that.”
Frowning, Affie asked, “How do you know?” Reath was glad she had, because that meant he didn’t have to.
“Preprogrammed coordinates.” Leox thumped the dash. “This system was in our navicomputer. I don’t know why, and neither does Geode, and neither do you—which is why I want you to ask your momma about this as soon as we get back to her. You’re the only one who might get a straight answer as to why Byne Guild ships all come programmed with a map that leads us out of hyperspace, straight to here.”
Reath turned his head, as though studying the read-outs more thoroughly, so he couldn’t see Affie’s face. The explanation was obvious: some kind of illegal trade, maybe something the Guild did on the side. It wouldn’t be easy for Affie to hear that, surely.
But there were other possibilities. The Guild might monitor illegal trade rather than engage in it—or even work against it, in an effort to eliminate corrupt competition. They didn’t have enough information to know.
For Reath, information had always been as vital as air, something he felt he could never accumulate enough of. However, he was realizing that not knowing everything created a certain . . . exhilaration.
Which was probably going to be brief. And wasn’t as good as actually being informed and prepared. Still, he’d take what enjoyment he could get.
A red light appeared on the Vessel’s console. Then another. Then all of them almost at once, glaring scarlet. Every single alert on the ship was sounding.
“Uh-oh,” Leox said. His usual calm was finally shaken. “We’ve got a solar flare incoming.”
Reath stared in the rough direction of the star, but it wasn’t visible at that angle. “When?”
Affie’s face had gone pale. “Four minutes.”
—Into the Dark (Star Wars: The High Republic: Book 3) by Claudia Gray (Hardie Grant Children’s Publishing) is out now.
Into the Dark
Star Wars: The High Republic
Padawan Reath Silas is being sent from the cosmopolitan galactic capital of Coruscant to the undeveloped frontier - and he couldn't be less happy about it. He'd rather stay at the Jedi Temple, studying the archives.
But when the ship he's traveling on is knocked out of hyperspace in a galactic-wide disaster, Reath finds himself at the centre of the action. The Jedi and their traveling companions find refuge on what appears to be an abandoned space station. But then strange things start happening...
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