{"product_id":"street-of-shadows-star-wars-legends-coruscant-nights-book-ii-isbn-9780345477545","title":"Street of Shadows: Star Wars Legends (Coruscant Nights, Book II)","description":"With the Jedi all but wiped out in the grim aftermath of Order 66, the Empire’s power seems unchecked. But one lone Knight continues to fight the good fight–against all odds and when all else fails.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDeep in the bowels of Coruscant, Jedi Jax Pavan ekes out a living as a private investigator, a go-to, can-do guy for the downtrodden. Now a mysterious Zeltron knockout named Deejah approaches Jax with a case that needs to be cracked: to find out who killed her artist lover Volette, brutally murdered hours after his triumphant unveiling of a dazzling new light sculpture with obvious links to lightsaber pyrotechnics.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinding Volette’s killer won’t be easy–too many secrets, too many suspects, and all kinds of motives. But with the droid I-5YQ’s help, and ex-reporter Den Dhur’s excellent snooping skills, the investigation is soon operating like a well-oiled machine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnfortunately, there’s a far more efficient machine hunting Jax. It’s a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as the clock starts ticking toward the final explosive showdown . . . to see who strikes first and who will die first.Michael Reaves received an Emmy Award for his work on the Batman television animated series. He has worked for DreamWorks, among other studios, and has written fantasy novels and supernatural thrillers. Reaves is the New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Coruscant Nights I: Jedi Twilight and Star Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, as well as the co-writer (with Steve Perry) of Star Wars: Death Star and two Star Wars: MedStar novels: Battle Surgeons and Jedi Healer. He lives in the Los Angeles area.one\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I think it’s safe to assume,” the droid said, “that we’ve been set up.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e A  fusillade of laser and particle beams erupted from across the room, aimed at the  five of them, as if to punctuate the statement. Den looked at Jax. “Aren’t you glad  your father gave him that neural upgrade?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Another series of beams struck the huge  hyper- condensor unit behind which they were hiding. They were protected for the  moment, Jax knew, but eventually, if the stormtroopers’ lasers and charged- particle  bursts kept hitting the unit, the duralumin housing would overheat, quite possibly  upsetting the stability of the ultracold Tibanna condensate within. Should that happen,  I-Five estimated the explosive factor as at least a 7.5, which would certainly vaporize  the building they were in, as well as a sizable chunk of the surrounding urban landscape.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “That’s only a rough estimate,” the droid explained. “There are too many variables  to factor for me to refine my—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Seven-point-five is more than enough for me,” Jax  assured him. “Den?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I’m good,” Den agreed. The little Sullustan was crouched beside  I-Five. “You definitely know how to motivate people,” he added to the droid.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Less  talk. More shooting,” Laranth said. The Twi’lek Paladin had a blaster in either hand  and was crouched near the far end of the unit. “I say we go—now.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jax couldn’t argue  with her logic. The longer they remained pinned down, the less chance of survival  they and their client had, not to mention however many hundreds of thousands of beings  would die if I-Five’s 7.5 scenario really was in the immediate future. Not that Jax  had any doubt of it. The droid had an annoying habit of being right just about all  the time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Okay,” he said. “Laranth, take the right; I-Five, the left. On my signal—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Hey, what about me?” Den asked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Stay here with the undersecretary.” Jax spared  a glance at the corpulent, trembling form crouched beside Den. Before the Empire  had superseded the Republic, Varesk Bura’lya had been a midlevel government official  assigned to the Bothan embassy on Coruscant. Immediately after the Republic’s fall,  he had become a fugitive, along with thousands of other representatives of various  species on the city-planet. True, no particular effort was being made to hunt them  down, and in a global metropolis that was home to literally trillions of sentient  beings, one stood a very good chance of living a lifetime (thousands of lifetimes,  in fact) without ever coming into contact with an enemy. But one overall characteristic  of the Bothan species was paranoia, and Bura’lya had no shortage of that. So he had  contacted the Coruscant resistance movement known as the Whiplash, and arranged for  safe passage offworld through the Underground Mag-Lev, a dangerous and circuitous  secret route that delivered enemies of the state to spaceports and sympathetic starships  via safe houses, private conapts, and other clandestine means.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jax Pavan, one of  the last surviving Jedi and a partisan of the Whiplash resistance, had been assigned  to help ferry the Bothan dignitary to freedom. All had gone well until they’d reached  the final checkpoint, in the dimly lit interior of a carbonite-processing plant.  Here they’d been greeted, not by the resistance members they’d expected, but instead  by a brace of Imperial stormtroopers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They were smart, he had to give them that.  Knowing that a droid was part of the party, they’d staged the attack in the depths  of the carbonite-cracking plant, taking advantage of the low-level background radiation  that would confuse I-Five’s bio- and energy sensors for the moment needed. They hadn’ t known that there would also be two Jedi to contend with, however. The Force had  warned Jax and Laranth of the trap, which is why four troopers now lay dead on the  floor. If the Bothan hadn’t, in his panic, gotten in the way, Jax was certain that  the rest of the troopers would also be dead by now, and Varesk Bura’lya would be  about to board the spice freighter Big Score and become a fading unpleasant memory  instead of hiding behind the hypercondensor unit, caterwauling about his imminent  demise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Now he looked up at Jax, the fleshy tendrils that protruded from his upper  cheeks quivering in fear. “You were hired to protect me!” he squealed, his voice  scraping unpleasantly along the Jedi’s nerves. “Your job was to help me escape from  this overbuilt rock! Is this what you call escape?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Well,” Den observed, “that  depends on how metaphysical a definition of escape you want to go with . . .”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Another  volley of beams struck their shelter, scorching the air and leaving the unpleasant  tang of ozone in Jax’s nostrils. There was no more time, he knew; they had to make  their move. He opened himself to the Force, letting it expand his awareness, feeling  its strands groping outward, beyond the bulk of the condensor unit, giving him an  accurate “picture” of the chamber they were in and highlighting the locations of  the eight concealed stormtroopers who had them pinned down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “On my mark,” he said  again. “. . . Go!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Laranth hurled herself from behind the right side of the condensor’ s bulk, blasters in both hands firing, her eyes as cold and hard as chips of comet  ice. I-Five burst from concealment on the left side, the lasers in his index fingers  zapping beams of coherent light at their adversaries. Jax let the Force lift him,  let it carry him up and over the huge, shielding slab, his vibro- sword parrying  the blasts as he landed, batting them back toward the astonished troopers. This was  much harder than it looked. The durasteel blade had been woven with cortosis, a mineral  strong enough to resist energy blasts, but its similarity to a lightsaber ended there.  A scarlet ray struck low on the blade, more by luck than by aim, and the vibrogenerator  in the hilt shorted out. Even through the insulation the jolt was painful. Jax knew  immediately what had happened, as did the troopers; they could see the blade’s edge  lose its high-speed blur. Jax dropped the weapon and extended both hands, palms-out,  in a Force strike that hurled three of the troopers back against a wall. Even as  he did so, however, he could sense another trooper lining up on him—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Laranth stepped  into the edge of his peripheral vision, firing her blaster. The beam struck the blast  meant for Jax. The air sizzled with multicolored ionized energies, flickering corposant  danced along his arms and momentarily wreathed his brow, and the sound was like a  thousand fire wasp nests being broken open at once.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jax’s vision was momentarily  dazzled by the pyro- technics. I-Five’s photoreceptors, fortunately, were not. The  droid fired rapidly, his laser blasts unerringly accurate. In a matter of moments  it was finished. The eight stormtroopers lay sprawled in various ungainly positions,  on the floor or across slurry pipes, con- trol consoles, and other large pieces of  industrial apparatus. The three hesitated a moment, wary of another possible attack.  Then Jax said, “It’s over. Stand down.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Laranth nodded and holstered her blasters.  The hard-bitten Gray Paladin’s connection to the Force had no doubt told her, just  as his had told Jax, that the immediate danger was past. Simultaneously the droid  lowered his arms. Jax knew that I-Five had swept the room for life signs and booby  traps with his sensors, and that the readings were null.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “That was exhilarating,”  I-Five said. “Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy the organic predilection for  violence and carnage? No? That might be because—I don’t.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jax grinned. “Okay,” he  said. “Let’s get our reluctant client to the spaceport and on that spice freighter  before anyone else shows up wanting to play.” He raised his voice. “Den! Secretary  Bura’lya! Let’s go!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was a moment of silence, and then Den’s voice came from  around the corner of the hypercondenser: “I’m afraid that might be a problem.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Jax  felt himself go cold. Had they come this far, only to have the being to whom they’ d promised safe passage die at the last minute? Had a stray energy bolt ricocheted  from a reflective surface somewhere in the room at just the right angle to kill the  undersecretary? Jax reached out with the Force, just as Den continued, “Bura’lya’ s fainted. And—” The Sullustan peered around from behind the unit, his nose wrinkled.  “I think he’s had an . . . accident.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I-Five said, “My olfactory sensor confirms  that Den is correct—assuming that had an accident in this case is a euphemism for—”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “It is,” Jax said. He sheathed his useless vibrosword and sighed. “Come on. Let’ s get him cleaned up before we put him on board.”New York Times bestselling author of Star Wars: Jedi Twilight","brand":"Random House Worlds","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302712987877,"sku":"NP9780345477545","price":7.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345477545.jpg?v=1767737427","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/street-of-shadows-star-wars-legends-coruscant-nights-book-ii-isbn-9780345477545","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}