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  Star Wars: Brotherhood 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 © 2022 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 Circle colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9780593358573

  International edition ISBN 9780593499153

  Ebook ISBN 9780593358580

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook

  Cover art: Laura Racero

  Cover design: Scott Biel

  ep_prh_6.0_140105736_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Star Wars Novels Timeline

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: Ruug Quarnom

  Chapter 2: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 3: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 4: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 5: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 6: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 7: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 8: Mill Alibeth

  Chapter 9: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 10: Ruug Quarnom

  Chapter 11: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 12: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 13: Ruug Quarnom

  Chapter 14: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 15: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 16: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 17: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 18: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 19: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 20: Ruug Quarnom

  Chapter 21: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 22: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 23: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 24: Mill Alibeth

  Chapter 25: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 26: Asajj Ventress

  Chapter 27: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 28: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 29: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 30: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 31: Ruug Quarnom

  Chapter 32: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 33: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 34: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 35: Asajj Ventress

  Chapter 36: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 37: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 38: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 39: Mill Alibeth

  Chapter 40: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 41: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 42: Ruug Quarnom

  Chapter 43: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 44: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 45: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 46: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 47: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 48: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 49: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 50: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 51: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Chapter 52: Anakin Skywalker

  Chapter 53: Mill Alibeth

  Chapter 54: Obi-Wan Kenobi

  Epilogue: Ruug Quarnom

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Mike Chen

  About the Author

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

  The CLONE WARS have erupted. Caught off guard by the quickly expanding conflict, the overwhelmed Jedi Order has rushed the advancement of Padawans to better integrate into the Grand Army of the Republic and assist the war effort.

  Newly promoted Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker is increasingly torn between his growing duties to the Republic and his secret marriage to Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo. With his Knighting, his mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi has been elevated to the Jedi Council under the rank of Jedi Master.

  As dark forces push the Jedi further toward their transformation from guardians to soldiers, Anakin and Obi-Wan find themselves on equal footing yet opposing paths, each pondering the meaning of peace and justice during a time of war…

  CHAPTER 1

  RUUG QUARNOM

  Cato Neimoidia was a world of mist.

  High above that mist, cliffs and branches poked through, carved at all angles into immense mountainous spires. The thick stone of the planet’s largest rock arches and peaks loomed, casting shadows in a seemingly infinite stretch before being absorbed into the dense vapor below. Between, over, and on top of these natural wonders hung gilded cities with ornate towers and reflective sidings, structures suspended as bridges between massive colossal ridges.

  But Cato Neimoidia did have something beneath all of that, a foundational layer at the base of the thick fog. On normal days, taking the journey from Cato Neimoidia’s bridge cities to the surface meant a gradual descent into an ever-thickening blanket of white.

  Today, however, was not a normal day.

  Because today, something had gone terribly wrong. And the lower the shuttle flew, the more the milky hue of the mist darkened as harsh streams of blackened ash mixed in.

  Ruug Quarnom had seen destruction all her life. As an elite commando of the Neimoidian Defense Legion, she’d dealt with explosives and blasterfire, rockets and shrapnel. And death—so much death, most of it by her own doing courtesy of the custom sniper rifle that felt like an extension of her own limbs.

  Murder and destruction. That was her life for so many years, doing the will of her government to carve out a better place for Neimoidians in the galaxy. Even now, in her new “assignment” as a royal guard for Cato Neimoidia’s capital city of Zarra, her goal remained the same: the protection of her people.

  Ruug had taken the assignment in good faith, even though she knew it had been for questioning the judgment of the Trade Federation, a perspective considered dissent by those who held much more sway than a military grunt. Such good faith was being challenged right now, in a time when the galaxy dared to rip itself in two.

  “Look at that,” said the voice of her young partner next to her. Ketar Nor’s mouth opened, holding a thought in limbo as a thick dull gray began to envelop their craft, visibility coming and going from the cockpit of their patrol ship. “It’s worse than I imagined.”

  A steady hand. And open eyes. That was the only way to approach this. Not only for the flight to the surface, but to understand just what had occurred—and why. The call for all available security to go beneath the mist came so fast that Ruug piloted their craft on a direct downward path, leaving the port of a neighboring city and abandoning a scheduled prisoner transfer to plunge through the mist. They hadn’t even been informed of what they were investigating, just that an emergency so catastrophic had occurred that everyone within a two-hundred-kilometer radius was requested—no, ordered—to drop their tasks and go.

  Details filled in over comm chatter. A bomb. No, several bombs. A building collapsed—no, an entire plaza.

  No. Despite the speculation on the comms, the reality of the situation became clearer with each passing second.

  And it was far beyond what anyone
could have ever guessed.

  An entire portion of the bridge city, the neighborhood known as Cadesura. Blocks and streets of Neimoidian civilization severed within an instant, the structural supports that fastened the district to the rest of Zarra evaporated in a blink.

  All those people. All that life, dropped straight downward through the mist of Cato Neimoidia to a sudden violent fate, dirt and rock mashing into alloys and flesh.

  But why?

  Cato Neimoidia is neutral, Ruug thought. Despite the recent chaos of Geonosis, despite the use of Trade Federation battle droids, the war stayed an arm’s length away. Viceroy Nute Gunray led a splinter faction to ally with the Confederacy of Independent Systems; the Trade Federation proper was free from the influence of Count Dooku and his Separatist ideals. Senator Lott Dod made sure of that with his place within the heart of Republic politics.

  But here, on the surface, Ruug’s eyes told her everything she needed to know. The twisted shrapnel of once-elegant structures now reduced to cracked and broken material, scattered into countless pieces. As their shuttle approached, the devastation amplified with each passing second. What appeared as a lump of rubble gradually formed into the jagged debris of buildings and bridges; closer still, as Ruug maneuvered the craft for a flat place to land, details came to life.

  Not just the destruction of structures. But within the fallen wreckage, bodies. So many bodies, of so many ages, from so many walks of life. Bodies bent into impossible positions, thrown into places they shouldn’t have been due to the chaos of gravity pulling an entire district to the surface.

  And through it all, so much smoke, the massive plume of gray from above breaking down into individual currents of black the farther down they went, streams feeding a river of death. Ruug stepped out, flecks of ash landing on her dark-green skin, and even amid the cool air of the planet’s base, heat poked through in every direction from the endless fires entwining in and through and over what used to be mighty structures.

  “Who…” Ketar started, swiveling his view all around. He blinked as he took in the horrific possibilities, his mouth open. “How…”

  Ruug had seen Ketar driven by emotions on the job before, sometimes anger and sometimes fear—fear that he tried to hide, but she knew better. It came with an innocence, the type that only shattered after killing someone. For better or worse, such actions callused over fear, layers thickening with each successive murder. Yet the frozen expression on his face right now displayed his mix of emotions clearly, a grief stemming from a deeper well than he’d ever let on.

  “Steady, Ketar,” she said, moving next to him. From a mound of rubble above, arms waved, along with a cry that someone had been found alive. “They need our help.”

  “The Republic,” Ketar growled, his long fingers bending into a single shaking grip. “The Republic did this. They’re blaming us for Nute Gunray.”

  “We don’t know that. And right now, it doesn’t matter.” Which was wrong, of course. The culprit behind this did matter, and whoever they were, they needed to be brought to justice. But there was a time and place for retribution. “Focus. They called us here to help people. That’s what we need to do.”

  Though Ketar faced the team screaming for help from the top of the rubble, their pleas seemed invisible to him. Instead, he stared blankly ahead, like everything was a hologram glitching in and out.

  But it wasn’t. This was real, any doubt erased by the harsh burning odors entering her smell glands beneath her eyes. “Ketar,” Ruug said quietly.

  “You’re right,” he said, suddenly nodding. His demeanor shifted, his catatonia abruptly swapped for movement with a very swift and direct purpose. The young guard grabbed his bag of medical supplies and ran off, as if a single person with a small case of bacta and synthflesh might make a difference.

  Ketar’s youth carried an expected naïveté, an earnest desire to do right by his people. Ruug knew better; an individual had limitations, no matter how dedicated they were. She pulled out a small metallic circle, then clicked a button to generate a holographic map of the region. Around her, other transports landed: medical personnel, security officers, government officials, and people who simply wanted to help. So many of Ruug’s fellow Neimoidians zigged and zagged—some lifting up debris, some screaming into comms for help, and some pacing, head buried in hands. Droids of all sizes soared, a mix of small surveillance units flying in between larger rescue droids that dropped extinguishing chemicals, fire by fire.

  No matter which direction she turned, her vision filled with devastation, all on a far greater scale than she could ever remember. She understood Ketar’s urge to dash off with bacta, the feeling that one person might be able to somehow fix all of this.

  In a way, Ketar was right. They had to start somewhere.

  Because even though Cato Neimoidia was neutral, it had been gravely wounded. And someone had to pay.

  But who?

  CHAPTER 2

  ANAKIN SKYWALKER

  Anakin Skywalker stood as he always did, feet planted slightly wider than his hips in a balanced stance, arms behind him with his hands clasped at the small of his back.

  Hand, actually. One of his limbs remained his organic arm, part of the flesh and blood born of Shmi Skywalker and raised under the unflinching desert suns of Tatooine.

  The other hand was metal and wire and sensors, a synthetic extension that moved nearly-but-not-quite the way he intended. Not perfect yet, but he was getting better at it. And though the textures of the mechanical replacement were so unnatural that he covered it with a glove, his wife never treated its touch as anything but his own, at least in the short time they were able to be together following his duel with Count Dooku.

  His wife. Where was she right now? Senator Padmé Amidala, always meeting with people or talking with people or talking about people. She’d returned to Coruscant and was likely heading to the Senate District, a single beacon of hope dashing somewhere through this massive structure of a planet.

  Anakin closed his eyes while Jedi Master Mace Windu continued to talk to the assembled, the latest group of recently promoted Jedi Knights. For a thousand generations, the Jedi had their traditions of trials and ceremony, of ascending rank and recognizing achievement.

  But that was before Geonosis. Before the Clone Wars started, before an oath to be peacekeepers somehow evolved overnight into roles as soldiers and commanders—an overlap the clones themselves couldn’t quite comprehend, leading to the informal title of “general” on the battlefield. Anakin had always imagined his Knighting to be a significant life milestone, a sea change in his heart and mind. Enough time had passed since the official transition that his once-short hair had started to grow out, and now this ceremony felt more like a procedural step, a footnote to go along with the bigger issues facing the galaxy. This gathering, filled with ceremony in the shadow of the Jedi Temple training courtyard, seemed simply unimportant, so much so that an urge tugged at Anakin to go, to fast-forward the cadence of the galaxy itself so he could finally reunite with his wife tonight.

  He had, after all, a keepsake to deliver within the small pouch buckled to his belt.

  Master Windu walked the perimeter of the courtyard under the shadow of the Great Tree, Anakin standing with the rest of the new Jedi Knights while behind them, current Padawans observed. To his left, D’urban Wen-Hurd, the Tholothian notable throughout training for her twin shoto lightsabers. To his right, Keer Stenwyt, Olana Chion, and several others. Across the courtyard stood their mentors, at least the ones available: Moragg Bomo, a Kel Dor with black tunic and blue-tinted goggles, Siri Tachi, Ma-Dok Risto, and more.

  And of course, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the newest member of the Jedi Council. Sort of. After the loss of Coleman Trebor at Geonosis, various Jedi rotated into his Council position. No one would say if this method was permanent or if the rotations were simply temporary assignments, something born out of necessi
ty given the push and pull of the war. Either way, the Council had recently picked Obi-Wan for a rotation. In turn, Obi-Wan approached every task with his usual seriousness, even treating this glorified speech like a war decision. Anakin didn’t need the Force to feel the weight of his former Master’s stare. Behind his back, Anakin’s fingers balled into fists, the synth-net neural interface of the mechno-arm reacting the same way as his real hand did. And yet, it didn’t. Just as with his organic hand, the mechanical fingers pressed in frustration, but no emotion came from the gesture on that side, no tiny ripple through the Force to yet again give away his feelings to Obi-Wan.

  It was merely a limb. Functional, even stronger than flesh and bone, but not a true part of him.

  “You are Jedi Knights.” Master Windu’s voice boomed out as he paced back and forth, as if to call any waning attention back to his intimidating form. “Responsibility. Peace. Discipline. You are the examples the galaxy looks to. Your successes will carry through the Republic and beyond. As will your mistakes. Your choices will matter, helping the Jedi maintain order during a time of discord.” The Master paused, his lips pursed in thought. Anakin figured Mace had given a form of this speech several times now since Geonosis, but perhaps this time he tried his hand at improvisation. “The younglings look up to you. Your choices matter to them. And some of you will receive Padawans of your own. Your choices”—Mace enunciated each word with heightened diction—“will matter to them as well.”