Meet the enigmatic leader in this preview of the Phase II YA novel.
StarWars.com Team
Not everyone views the Force like the Jedi and Sith.
Phase II of Star Wars: The High Republic is almost here, kicking off with Justina Ireland and Tessa Gratton’s Path of Deceit, arriving October 4. The YA novel goes back 150 years before the events of Phase I, introducing two new Jedi Knights — Zallah Macri and her Padawan, Kevmo Zink — as they head to an Outer Rim world, Dalna, to investigate the missionary group called the Path of the Open Hand. The Path members believe the Force is owned by no one, and not to be wielded in the manner of the Jedi Order.In StarWars.com’s exclusive reveal of the prologue from Path of Deceit, a treasure hunter comes to Dalna for a meeting with “the Mother” — leader of the Path of the Open Hand who is seeking objects connected to the Force…
Radicaz Dobbs, known as Sunshine to his friends and far worse to his enemies, landed his decrepit pleasure yacht in the docking yard on Dalna, a nothing planet in a nowhere part of space. The frontier was full of hardship and scarcity, but Sunshine had never seen such a terrible docking yard. The area was little more than a mudhole, and the dockmaster hadn’t bothered giving him coordinates but instead mumbled through the staticky comms something that sounded like “Set it down anywhere” as Sunshine cleared the upper atmosphere. “Anywhere” being a large open area that looked like the aftermath of a bantha herd migration. As Sunshine set down his ship, the Scupper, he wondered just how there could be a collector of rare Force-related artifacts in such a miserable outpost. But he did not think on it too long. Credits were credits, no matter where they came from.
The ship touched down without incident, and thanks to its decrepit appearance it wouldn’t attract much attention, not even in the most pitiful excuse for a dockyard Sunshine had ever seen. And if the dockmaster did a random inspection, they would find nothing amiss. The inside of the Scupper was no more impressive than the outside. The deck was old and scuffed, and there was a peculiar smell that never really came out, no matter how many times Sunshine had his maintenance droid, DZ-23, scrub the walls. But the disrepair hid powerful sublight engines, a number of coded safes, and a cutting-edge databank and navicomputer. Sunshine liked to keep ahead of the competition, no matter the role he was playing.
Once Sunshine had landed the ship and tucked away some of the rarer artifacts destined for better buyers, he packed up the remaining items and wrapped them carefully before placing them in a knapsack. He wouldn’t take in all his loot at once, only a few items at a time. He might be rather new at fencing items, it being just one of the many things he did to get by, but he was a quick study. It was a rathtareat-rathtar galaxy, and Sunshine was determined to stay off the menu.
He was just about ready to go when there was a sudden pounding on the outside of his ship. Sunshine punched in the code and the boarding ramp lowered, the stabilizing legs at the end settling with a squelching sound that made Sunshine shudder. When he peered down to see who had been hammering the side of his ship, he saw a massive Nautolan dressed in strange blue-and-gray robes, blue paint smeared across his brow and decorating his hands and bare arms. But that wasn’t the most noticeable thing about the man: his head tentacles had been shorn away, leaving behind blunted and unnatural stumps. It was a brutal reminder that despite the man’s kind smile, the galaxy, and its citizens, could be very, very violent.
“You must be Sunshine,” the Nautolan said, holding his palms to the sky and bowing low. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance. You may call me the Herald.”…
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