[bksvol-discuss] Re: Star Wars books
- From: Grandma Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 01:52:43 -0800 (PST)
Also wanted--The Unifying Force (Star Wars: The New
Jedi Order, Book 19) by James Luceno has been on the
Wish List for a while.
G.Cindy
--- Tracy Carcione <carcione@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At the end of the Star Wars book I just validated is
> a list of other Star
> Wars books. I thought I'd post the list, and what I
> see, at a quick
> glance, that Bookshare already has. If some Star
> Wars fan sees one they
> fancy that we don't have, maybe someone will be
> moved to scan it.
> Offhand, I notice we have book 3 of the Corellian
> series, but not 1 or 2.
>
> Ignore the page numbers that are still in the list.
>
>
> Bookshare has:
> New Rebellion
> Rogue Squadron #1
> The Approaching Storm
> Showdown at Centerpoint (book 3 in Corellian series)
> The Truce at Bakura
> Heir to the Empire
> Dark Force Rising
> The Last Command
>
>
>
> THE TRUCE AT BAKURA by Kathy Tyers
> Setting: Immediately after Return of the Jedi
> The day after his climactic battle with Emperor
> Palpatine and the
> sacrifice of his father, Darth Vader, who died
> saving his life, Luke
> Skywalker helps recover an Imperial drone ship
> bearing a startling message
> intended for the Emperor. It is a distress signal
> from the far-off
> Imperial outpost of Bakura, which is under attack by
> an alien invasion
> force, the Ssi-ruuk. Leia sees a rescue mission as
> an opportunity to
> achieve a diplomatic victory for the Rebel Alliance,
> even if it means
> fighting alongside former Imperials. But Luke
> receives a vision from
> Obi-Wan Kenohi revealing that the stakes are even
> higher: the invasion at
> Bakura threatens everything the Rebels have won at
> such great cost.
>
> STAR WARS: X-WING
> by Michael A. Stackpole
> ROGUE SQUADRON
> WEDGE'S GAMBLE
> THE KRYTOS TRAP
> THE BACTA WAR
> Setting: Three years after Return of the Jedi
> Inspired by X-wing, the bestselling computer game
> from LucasArts
> Entertainment Co., this exciting series chronicles
> the further adventures
> of the most feared and fearless fighting force in
> the galaxy. A new
> generation of X-wing pilots, led by Commander Wedge
> Antilles, is combating
> the remnants of the Empire still left after the
> events of the STAR WARS
> movies. Here are novels full of explosive space
> action, nonstop adventure,
> and the special brand of wonder known as STAR WARS.
> In this very early scene, young Corellian pilot
> Corran Horn faces a tough
> challenge fast enough to get his heart pounding- and
> this is
>
> 391
>
> only a simulation! [P.S.: "Whistler" is Corran's
> R2 axtnimech droid]:
> The Corellian brought his proton torpedo targeting
> program up and locked
> on to the TIE. It tried (o break (he lock, but
> turbolasur fire from the
> Komlev boxed it in. Corran's heads-up display went
> red and he triggered
> the torpedo. "Scratch one eyeball."
> The missile shot straight in at the fighter, but the
> pilot broke hard to
> port and away, causing the missile to overshoot the
> target. Nice flying!
> Corran brought his X-wing over and started down to
> loop in behind the TIE,
> but as he did so. the TIE vanished from his forward
> screen and reappeared
> in his aft are. Yanking the stick hard to the right
> and pulling it back,
> Corran wrestled the X-wing up and to starboard, then
> inverted and rolled
> out to the left.
> A laser shot jolted a tremor through the simulator's
> couch. Lucky thing I
> had all shields aft! Corran reinforced them with
> energy from his lasers,
> then evened them out fore and aft. Jinking the
> fighter right and left, he
> avoided laser shots coming in from behind, but they
> all came in far closer
> than he liked.
> He knew Jacc had been in the bomber, and Jacc was
> the only pilot in the
> unit who could have stayed with him. Except for our
> leader. Corran smiled
> broadly. Coming to see how good I really am.
> Commander Antilles? Let me
> give you a clinic. "Make sure you're in there solid,
> Whistler, because
> we're going for a little ride."
> Corran refused to let the R2's moan slow him down. A
> snap-roll brought the
> X-wing up on its port wing. Pulling back on the
> stick yanked the fighter's
> nose up away from the original line of flight. The
> TIE stayed with him,
> then tightened up on the arc to close distance.
> Corran then rolled another
> ninety degrees and continued the turn into a dive.
> Throttling back, Corran
> hung in the dive for three seconds, then hauled back
> hard on the stick and
> cruised up into the TIE fighter's aft.
> The X-wing's laser fire missed wide to the right as
> the TIE cut to the
> left. Corran kicked his speed up to full and broke
> with the TIE. He let
> the X-wing rise above the plane of the break, then
> put the fighter through
> a twisting roll that ate up enough time to bring him
> again into the TIE's
> rear. The TIE snapped to the right and Corran looped
> out left.
> He watched the tracking display as the distance
> between them grew to be a
> kilometer and a half, then slowed, fine, you want to
> go nose to nose? I
> 've got shields and you don't. If Commander Antilles
> wanted to commit
> virtual suicide, Corran was happy to oblige him. He
> tugged
>
> 392
>
> the stick back to his sternum and rolled out in an
> inversion loop. Coming
> at you!
> The two starfighters closed swiftly. Corran centered
> his foe in the
> crosshairs and waited for a dead shot. Without
> shields the TIE fighter
> would die with one burst, and Corran wanted the kill
> to be clean. His HUD
> flicked green as the TIE juked in and out of the
> center, then locked green
> as they closed.
> The TIE started firing at maximum range and scored
> hits. At that distance
> the lasers did no real damage against the shields,
> prompting Corran to
> wonder why Wedge was wasting the energy. Then, as
> the HUD's green color
> started to flicker, realization dawned. The bright
> bursts on the shields
> are a distraction to my targeting! I better kill him
> now!
> Corran tightened down on the trigger button, sending
> red laser needles
> stabbing out at the closing TIE fighter. He couldn't
> tell if he had hit
> anything. Lights flashed in the cockpit and Whistler
> started screeching
> furiously. Corran's main monitor went black, his
> shields were down, and
> his weapons controls were dead.
> The pilot looked left and right. "Where is he,
> Whistler?"
> The monitor in front of him flickered to life and a
> diagnostic report
> began to scroll by. Bloodred bordered the damage
> reports. "Scanners, out;
> lasers, out; shields, out; engine, out! I'm a
> wallowing Hutt just hanging
> here in space."
>
> THE COURTSHIP OF PRINCESS LEIA
> by Dave Wolverton Setting: Four years after Return
> of the Jedi
> One of the most interesting developments in Bantam's
> Star Wars novels is
> that in their storyline. Han Solo and Princess Leia
> start a family. This
> tale reveals how the couple originally got together.
> Wishing to strengthen
> the fledgling New Republic by bringing in powerful
> allies, Leia opens
> talks with the Hopes consortium of more than sixty
> worlds. But the
> consortium is ruled by the Queen Mother, who, to
> Han's dismay, wants Leia
> to marry her son. Prince holder. Before this
> action-packed story is over,
> Luke will join forces with holder against a group of
> Force-trained
> "witches" and face a deadly foe.
>
> 393
>
> HEIR TO THE EMPIRE DARK FORCE RISING THE LAST
> COMMAND
> by Timothy Zahn
> Setting: Five years after Return of the Jedi
> This bestselling trilogy introduces two legendary
> forces of evil into the
> Star Wars literary pantheon. Grand Admiral Thrawn
> has taken control of the
> Imperial fleet in the years since the destruction of
> the Death Star, and
> the mysterious Joruus C'baoth is a fearsome Jedi
> Master who has been
> seduced by the dark side. Han and Leia have now been
> married for about a
> year, and as the story begins, she is pregnant with
> twins. Thrawn's plan
> is to crush the Rebellion and resurrect the Empire's
> New Order with
> C�baoth's help--and in return, the Dark Master
will
> get Han and Leia 's
> Jedi children to mold as he wishes. For as readers
> of this magnificent
> trilogy will see, Luke Skywalker is not the last of
> the old Jedi. He is
> the first of the new.
> The Jedi Academy Trilogy:
> JEDISEARCH
> DARK APPRENTICE
> CHAMPIONS OF THE FORCE
> by Kevin J. Anderson Setting: Seven years after
> Return of the Jedi
> In order to assure the continuation of the Jedi
> Knights, Luke Skywalker
> has decided to start a training facility: a Jedi
> Academy. He will gather
> force-sensitive students who show potential as
> prospective Jedi and serve
> as their mentor, as Jedi Masters Obi-Wan Kenohi and
> Yoda did for him. Han
> and Leia's twins are now toddlers, and there is a
> third Jedi child: the
> infant Anakin, named after Luke and Leia's father.
> In this trilogy, we
> discover the existence of a powerful imperial
> doomsday weapon, the
> horrifying Sun Crusher--which will soon become the
> centerpiece of a
> titanic struggle between Luke Skywalker and his most
> brilliant Jedi
> Academy student, who is delving dangerously into the
> dark side.
>
> 394
>
> CHILDREN OF THE JEDI by Barbara Hambly
> Setting: Eight years after Return of the Jedi
> The Star Wars characters face a menace from the
> glory days of the Empire
> when a thirty-year-old automated Imperial
> Dreadnought comes to life and
> begins its grim mission: to gather forces and
> annihilate a long-forgotten
> stronghold of Jedi children. When Luke is whisked
> onboard, he begins to
> communicate with the brave Jedi Knight who paralyzed
> the ship decades ago,
> and gave her life in the process. Now she is part of
> the vessel, existing
> in its artificial intelligence core, and guiding
> Luke through one of the
> most unusual adventures he has ever had.
> In this scene, Luke discovers that an evil presence
> is gathering, one that
> will force him to join the battle:
> Like See-Threepio, Nichos Marr sat in the outer room
> of the suite to which
> Cray had been assigned, in the power-down mode that
> was the droid
> equivalent of rest. Like Threepio, at the sound of
> Luke's almost noiseless
> tread he turned his head, aware of his presence.
> "Luke?" Cray had equipped him with the most
> sensitive vocal modulators,
> and the word was calibrated to a whisper no louder
> than the rustle of the
> blueleaves massed outside the windows. He rose, and
> crossed to where Luke
> stood, the dull silver of his arms and shoulders a
> phantom gleam in the
> stray flickers of light. "What is it?"
> "I don't know." They retreated to the small dining
> area where Luke had
> earlier probed his mind, and Luke stretched up to
> pin back a corner of the
> lamp-sheath, letting a slim triangle of
> butter-colored light fall on the
> purple of the vulwood tabletop. "A dream. A
> premonition, maybe." It was on
> his lips to ask, Do you dream? but he remembered the
> ghastly, imageless
> darkness in Nichos's mind, and didn't. He wasn't
> sure if his pupil was
> aware of the difference from his human perception
> and knowledge, aware of
> just exactly what he'd lost when his consciousness,
> his self, had been
> transferred.
> In the morning Luke excused himself from the
> expedition Tomla El had
> organized with Nichos and Cray to the Falls of
> Dessiar, one of the places
> on Ithor most renowned for its beauty and peace.
> When they left he sought
> out Umwaw Moolis, and the tall herd leader listened
> gravely to his less
> than logical request and promised to put matters in
> train to fulfill it.
> Then Luke descended to the House of the Healers,
> where Drub McKumb lay,
> sedated far beyond pain but with all the perceptions
> of agony and
> nightmare still howling in his mind.
>
> 395
>
> "Kill you!" He heaved himself at the restraints,
> blue eyes glaring
> furiously as he groped and scrabbled at Luke with
> his clawed hands. "It's
> all poison! I see you! I see the dark light all
> around you! You're him!
> You're him!" His back bent like a bow; the sound of
> his shrieking was like
> something being ground out of him by an infernal
> mangle.
> Luke had been through the darkest places of the
> universe and of his own
> mind, had done and experienced greater evil than
> perhaps any man had known
> on the road the Force had dragged him . . . Still,
> it was hard not to turn
> away.
> "We even tried yarrock on him last night," explained
> the Healer in charge,
> a slightly built Ithoriiin beautifully tabby-striped
> green and yellow
> under her simple tabard of purple linen. "But
> apparently the earlier doses
> that brought him enough lucidity to reach here from
> his point of origin
> oversensitized his system. We'll try again in four
> or five days."
> Luke gazed down into the contorted, grimacing face.
> "As you can see," the Healer said, "the internal
> perception of pain and
> fear is slowly lessening. It's down to ninety-three
> percent of what it was
> when he was first brought in. Not much, I know, but
> something."
> "Him! Him! HIM!" Foam spattered the old man's
> stained gray beard.
> Who?
> "I wouldn't advise attempting any kind of mindlink
> until it's at least
> down to fifty percent. Master Skywalker."
> "No," said Luke softly.
> Kill you all. And, They are gathering . . .
> "Do you have recordings of everything he's said?"
> "Oh, yes." The big coppery eyes blinked assent. "The
> transcript is
> available through the monitor cubicle down the hall.
> We could make nothing
> of them. Perhaps they will mean something to you."
> They didn't. Luke listened to them all, the
> incoherent groans and screams,
> the chewed fragments of words that could be only
> guessed at, and now and
> again the clear disjointed cries: "Solo! Solo! Can
> you hear me? Children .
> . . Evil . . . Gathering here . . . Kill you all!"
>
> 396
>
> DARKSABER by Kevin J. Anderson Setting: Immediately
> thereafter
> Not long after Children of the Jedi, Luke and Han
> learn that evil Hutts
> are building a reconstruction of the original Death
> Star--and that the
> Empire is still alive, in the form ofDaala, who has
> joined forces with
> Pellaeon, former second in command to the feared
> Grand Admiral Thrawn. In
> this early scene, Luke has returned to the home of
> Obi-Wan Kenobi on
> Tatooine to try and consult a long-gone mentor:
> He stood anxious and alone, feeling like a prodigal
> son outside the
> ramshackle, collapsed hut that had once been the
> home of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
> Luke swallowed and stepped forward, his footsteps
> crunching in the
> silence. He had not been here in many years. The
> door had fallen off its
> hinges; part of the clay front wall had fallen in.
> Boulders and crumbled
> adobe jammed the entrance. A pair of small,
> screeching desert rodents
> snapped at him and fled for cover; Luke ignored
> them.
> Gingerly, he ducked low and stepped into the home of
> his first mentor.
> Luke stood in the middle of the room breathing
> deeply, turning around,
> trying to sense the presence he desperately needed
> to see. This was the
> place where Obi-Wan Kenobi had told Luke of the
> Force. Here, the old man
> had first given Luke his lightsaber and hinted at
> the truth about his
> father, "from a certain point of view," dispelling
> the diversionary story
> that Uncle Owen had told, at the same time planting
> seeds of his own
> deceptions.
> "Ben," he said and closed his eyes, calling out with
> his mind as well as
> his voice. He tried to penetrate the invisible walls
> of the Force and
> reach to the luminous being of Obi-Wan Kenobi who
> had visited him numerous
> times, before saying he could never speak with Luke
> again.
> "Ben, I need you," Luke said. Circumstances had
> changed. He could think of
> no other way past the obstacles he faced. Obi-Wan
> had to answer. It
> wouldn't take long, but it could give him the key he
> needed with all his
> heart.
> Luke paused and listened and sensed- -
> But felt nothing. If he could not summon Obi-Wan's
> spirit here in the
> empty dwelling where the old man had lived in exile
> for so many years,
> Luke didn't believe he could find his former teacher
> ever again.
> He echoed the words Leia had used more than a decade
> earlier,
>
> 397
>
> beseeching him, "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi," Luke
> whispered, "you're my only
> hope."
> THE CRYSTAL STAR
> by Vonda N. Mcintyre
> Setting: Ten years after Return of the Jedi
> Leia 's three children have been kidnapped. That
> horrible fact is made
> worse by Leia's realization that she can no longer
> sense her children
> through the Force! While she, Artoo-Detoo, and
> Chewbacca trail the
> kidnappers, Luke and Han discover a planet that is
> suffering strange
> quantum effects from a nearby star. Slowly freezing
> into a perfect crystal
> and disrupting the Force, the star is blunting
> Luke's power and crippling
> the Millennium Falcon. These strands converge in an
> apocalyptic threat not
> only to the fate of the New Republic, but to the
> universe itself.
>
> The Black Fleet Crisis
> BEFORE THE STORM
> SHIELD OF LIES
> TYRANT'S TEST
> by Michael P. Kube-McDowell
> Setting: Twelve years after Return of the Jedi
> Long after setting up the hard-won New Republic,
> yesterday's Rebels have
> become today's administrators and diplomats. But the
> peace is not to last
> for long. A restless Luke must journey to his
> mother's homeworld in a
> desperate quest to find her people; Lando seizes a
> mysterious spacecraft
> with unimaginable weapons of destruction; and
> waiting in the wings is an
> horrific battle fleet under the control of a
> ruthless leader bent on a
> genocidal war.
> Here is an opening scene from Before the Storm:
> In the pristine silence of space, the Fifth Battle
> Group of the New
> Republic Defense Fleet blossomed over the planet
> Bessimir like a
> beautiful, deadly flower.
> The formation of capital ships sprang into view with
> startling suddenness,
> trailing fire-white wakes of twisted space and
> bristling with weapons.
> Angular Star Destroyers guarded fat-hulled fleet
> carriers, while the
> assault cruisers, their mirror finishes gleaming,
> took the point.
>
> 398
>
> A halo of smaller ships appeared at the same time.
> The fighters among them
> quickly deployed in a spherical defensive screen. As
> the Star Destroyers
> firmed up their formation, their flight decks
> quickly spawned scores of
> additional fighters.
> At the same time, the carriers and cruisers began to
> disgorge the bombers,
> transports, and gunboats they had ferried to the
> battle. There was no
> reason to risk the loss of one fully loaded--a
> lesson the Republic had
> learned in pain. At Orinda, the commander of the
> fleet carrier Endurance
> had kept his pilots waiting in the launch bays, to
> protect the smaller
> craft from Imperial fire as long as possible. They
> were still there when
> Endurance took the brunt of a Super Star Destroyer
> attack and vanished in
> a ball of metal fire.
> Before long more than two hundred warships, large
> and small, were bearing
> down on Bessimir and its twin moons. But the
> terrible, restless power of
> the armada could be heard and felt only by the
> ships' crews. The silence
> of the approach was broken only on the fleet comm
> channels, which had
> crackled to life in the first moments with encoded
> bursts of noise and
> cryptic ship-to-ship chatter.
> At the center of the formation of great vessels was
> the flagship of the
> Fifth Battle Group, the fleet carrier Intrepid, She
> was so new from the
> yards at Hakassi that her corridors still recked of
> scaling compound and
> cleaning solvent. Her huge realspace thruster
> engines still sang with the
> high-pitched squeal that the engine crews called
> "the baby's cry."
> It would take more than a year for the mingled
> scents of the crew to
> displace the chemical smells from the first
> impressions of visitors. But
> after a hundred more hours under way, her engines'
> vibrations would drop
> two octaves, to the reassuring thrum of a seasoned
> thruster bank.
> On Intrepid'* bridge, a tall Dornean in general's
> uniform paced along an
> arc of command stations equipped with large
> monitors. His eye-folds were
> swollen and fanned by an unconscious Dornean
> defensive reflex, and his
> leathery face was flushed purple by concern. Before
> the deployment was
> even a minute old, Etahn A'baht's first command had
> been bloodied.
> The fleet tender Afiazi had overshot its jump,
> coming out of hyperspace
> too close to Bessimir and too late for its crew to
> recover from the error.
> Etahn A'baht watched the bright flare of light in
> the upper atmosphere
> from Intrepid^s forward viewstation, knowing that it
> meant six young men
> were dead.
>
> 399
>
> THE NEW REBELLION by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
> Setting: Thirteen years after Return of the Jedi
> Victorious though the New Republic may be. there is
> still no end to the
> threats to its continuing existence- this novel
> explores the price of
> keeping the peace. First, somewhere in the galaxy,
> millions suddenly
> perish in a blinding instant of pain. Then, as Leia
> prepares to address
> the Senate on Coruscant, a horrifying event changes
> the governmental
> equation in a flash.
> Here is that latter calamity, in an early scene from
> The New Rebellion:
> An explosion rocked the Chamber, flinging Leia into
> the air. She flew
> backward and slammed onto a desk, her entire body
> shuddering with the
> power of her hit. Blood and shrapnel rained around
> her. Smoke and dust
> rose, filling the room with a grainy darkness. She
> could hear nothing.
> With a shaking hand, she touched the side of her
> face. Warmth stained her
> cheeks and her earlobes. The ringing would start
> soon. The explosion was
> loud enough to affect her eardrums.
> Emergency glow panels seared the gloom. She could
> feel rather than hear
> pieces of the crystal ceiling fall to the ground. A
> guard had landed
> beside her, his head tilted at an unnatural angle.
> She grabbed his
> blaster. She had to get out. She wasn't certain if
> the attack had come
> from within or from without. Wherever it had come
> from, she had to make
> certain no other bombs would go off.
> The force of the explosion had affected her balance.
> She crawled over
> bodies, some still moving, as she made her way to
> the stairs. The
> slightest movement made her dizzy and nauseous, but
> she ignored the
> feelings. She had to.
> A face loomed before hers. Streaked with dirt and
> blood, helmet askew, she
> recognized him as one of the guards who had been
> with her since Alderaan.
> Your Highness, he mouthed, and she couldn't read the
> rest. She shook her
> head at him, gasping at the increased dizziness, and
> kept going.
> Finally she reached the stairs. She used the remains
> of a desk to get to
> her feet. Her gown was soaked in blood, sticky, and
> clinging to her legs.
> She held the blaster in front of her, wishing that
> she could hear. If she
> could hear, she could defend herself.
> A hand reached out of the rubble beside her. She
> whirled, faced it,
> watched as Meido pulled himself out. His slender
> features were covered
> with dirt, but he appeared unharmed. He saw her
> blaster and
>
> 400
>
> cringed. She nodded once to acknowledge him, and
> kept moving. The guard
> was flanking her.
> More rubble dropped from the ceiling. She crouched,
> hands over her head to
> protect herself. Small pebbles pelted her, and the
> floor shivered as large
> chunks of tile fell. Dust rose, choking her. She
> coughed, feeling it, but
> not able to hear it. Within an instant, the Hall had
> gone from a place of
> ceremonial comfort to a place of death.
> The image of the death's-head mask rose in front of
> her again, this time
> from memory. She had known this was going to happen.
> Somewhere, from some
> part of her Force-sensitive brain, she had seen
> this. Luke said that Jedi
> were sometimes able to see the future. But she had
> never completed her
> training. She wasn't a Jcdi.
> But she was close enough.
>
> The Corellian Trilogy:
> AMBUSH AT CORELLIA
> ASSAULT AT SELONIA
> SHOWDOWN AT CENTERPOINT
> by Roger MacBride Alien
> Setting: Fourteen years after Return of the Jedi
> This trilogy takes us to Corellia, Him Solo s
> homcworld. which Han has not
> visited in quite some time. A trade summit brings
> Han, Leia, and the
> children- -now developing their own clear
> personalities and instinctively
> learning more about their innate skills in the
> Force--into the middle of a
> situation that most closely resembles a burning
> jime. The Corellian system
> is on the brink of civil war, there are New Republic
> intelligence agents
> on a mysterious mission which even Han does not
> understand, and worst of
> all, a fanatical rebel leader has his hands on a
> superweapon of
> unimaginable power- -and just wait until you find
> out who that leader is!
> Here is an early scene from Ambush that gives you a
> wonderful look at the
> growing Solo children (the twins are Jacen and
> Jaina, and their little
> brother is Anakin):
> Anakin plugged the board into the innards of the
> droid and pressed a
> button. The droid's black, boxy body shuddered
> awake, it drew in its
> wheels to stand up a bit taller, its status lights
> lit, and it made a sort
> of triple beep. "That's good," he said, and pushed
> the button again. The
> droid's status lights went out, and its body slumped
> down again. Anakin
> picked up the next piece, a motivation actuator. He
> frowned at
>
> 401
>
> it as he turned it over in his hands. He shook his
> head. "That's not
> good," he announced.
> "What's not good?" Jaina asked.
> "This thing," Anakin said, handing her the actuator.
> "Can't you telfi The
> insides part is all melty."
> Jaina and Jacen exchanged a look. "The outside looks
> okay," Jaina said,
> giving the part to her brother. "How can he tell
> what the inside of it
> looks like? It's sealed shut when they make it."
> Anakin, still sitting on the floor, took the device
> from his brother and
> frowned at it again. He turned it over and over in
> his hands, and then
> held it over his head and looked at it as if he were
> holding it up to the
> light. "There," he said, pointing a chubby finger at
> one point on the
> unmarked surface. "In there is the bad part." He
> rearranged himself to sit
> cross-legged, put the actuator in his lap, and put
> his right index finger
> over the "bad" part. "Fix," he said. "Fix." The dark
> brown outer case of
> the actuator seemed to glow for a second with an odd
> blue-red light, but
> then the glow sputtered out and Anakin pulled his
> finger away quickly and
> stuck it in his mouth, as if he had burned it on
> something.
> "Better now?" Jaina asked.
> "Some better," Anakin said, pulling his finger out
> of his mouth. "Not all
> better." He took the actuator in his hand and stood
> up. He opened the
> access panel on the broken droid and plugged in the
> actuator. He closed
> the door and looked expectantly at his older brother
> and sister.
> "Done?" Jaina asked.
> "Done," Anakin agreed. "But I'm not going to push
> the button." He backed
> well away from the droid, sat down on the floor, and
> folded his arms.
> Jacen looked at his sister.
> "Not me," she said. "This was your idea."
> Jacen stepped forward to the droid, reached out to
> push the power button
> from as far away as he could, and then stepped
> hurriedly back.
> Once again, the droid shuddered awake, rattling a
> bit this time as it did
> so. It pulled its wheels in, lit its panel lights,
> and made the same
> triple beep. But then its holocam eye viewlens
> wobbled back and forth, and
> its panel lights dimmed and flared. It rolled
> backward just a bit, and
> then recovered itself.
> "Good morning, young mistress and masters," it said.
> "How may I surge you?"
> Well, one word wrong, but so what? Jacen grinned and
> clapped his hands and
> rubbed them together eagerly. "Good day, droid," he
> said. They had done
> it! But what to ask for first? "First tidy up this
> room,"
>
> 402
>
> he said. A simple task, and one that ought to serve
> as a good test of what
> this droid could do.
> Suddenly the droid's overhead access door blew off
> and there was a flash
> of light from its interior. A thin plume of smoke
> drifted out of the
> droid. Its panel lights flared again, and then the
> work arm sagged
> downward. The droid's body, softened by heat, sagged
> in on itself and
> drooped to the floor. The floor and walls and
> ceiling of the playroom were
> supposed to be fireproof, but nonetheless the floor
> under the droid
> darkened a bit, and the ceiling turned black. The
> ventilators kicked on
> high automatically, and drew the smoke out of the
> room. After a moment
> they shut themselves off, and the room was silent.
> The three children stood, every bit as frozen to the
> spot as the droid
> was, absolutely stunned. It was Anakin who recovered
> first. He walked
> cautiously toward the droid and looked at it
> carefully, being sure not to
> get too close or touch it. "Really melty now," he
> announced, and then
> wandered off to the other side of the room to play
> with his blocks.
> The twins looked at the droid, and then at each
> other.
> "We're dead," Jaeen announced, surveying the
> wreckage.
>
>
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>
>
WISH LIST (called Requested Additions To The Bookshare Collection)is available
at
http://people.delphiforums.com/jamiecalton/Book_Requests.htm
http://www.friendsofbookshare.org/
http://studentpages.alma.edu/~07jmyate/book_requests.htm
www.jbrownell.com for miscellaneous and useful threads
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