The Rise of Skywalker Read online

  Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker 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 © 2020 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 HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  ISBN 9780593128404

  International edition ISBN 9780593158418

  Ebook ISBN 9780593128411

  randomhousebooks.com

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

  Cover art: Andrée Wallin

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Del Rey Star Wars Timeline

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Photo Insert

  Acknowledgments

  By Rae Carson

  About the Author

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

  The dead speak! The galaxy has

  heard a mysterious broadcast,

  a threat of REVENGE in the

  sinister voice of the late

  EMPEROR PALPATINE.

  GENERAL LEIA ORGANA

  dispatches secret agents to

  gather intelligence, while REY,

  the last hope of the Jedi, trains

  for battle against the diabolical

  FIRST ORDER.

  Meanwhile, Supreme Leader

  KYLO REN rages in search

  of the phantom Emperor,

  determined to destroy any

  threat to his power….

  CHAPTER 1

  Rey sat cross-legged, eyes closed. She didn’t remember rising off the ground, but she was vaguely aware that somehow she’d ended up floating. Pebbles and small boulders hovered around her, like a field of asteroids orbiting their sun. The Force flowed through her, buoyed her, connected her to everything. The lush rain forest moon of Ajan Kloss was teeming with life. She could feel every tree and fern, every reptile and insect. A few strides away in a hidden den, a small furry creature groomed its litter of four kits.

  “That’s it, Rey,” came Leia’s voice, deep and soothing as always. “Very good. Your connection becomes stronger every day. Can you feel it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now reach out. If your mind is ready, you’ll be able to hear those who have come before.”

  Rey inhaled through her nose and sent her awareness into the void. Peace and calm were key, Leia always said. She reached, she searched, she felt the breeze on her cheeks, she smelled loamy soil, damp from the recent rain.

  “Be with me, be with me, be with me,” she murmured. But she heard…nothing except wind in the trees and chirruping insects.

  “Rey?”

  She didn’t want to admit that she was failing, so instead she said, “Why did you stop training with Luke?” Her words came out too harsh, almost like a challenge.

  Leia took it in stride. “Another life called to me.”

  Eyes still closed, Rey asked, “How did you know?”

  “A feeling. Visions. Of serving the galaxy in different ways.”

  “But how did you know those visions were true?” Rey pressed.

  “I knew.” She heard the smile in Leia’s voice.

  Rey didn’t understand how Leia could be so sure. Of anything.

  “I treasured each moment I spent with my brother,” Leia added. “The things he taught me…I use them every day. Once you touch the Force, it’s part of you always. Over the years, I continued to learn, to grow. There were times on the Senate floor when the meditations I’d practiced with Luke were the only thing that kept me from causing a galactic incident.”

  Rey frowned. Leia didn’t need patience. She could have made anyone do anything she wanted, with the power of the Force. Surely she’d been tempted?

  “Was Luke angry? When you quit?” She hoped Leia noticed that she could talk and float at the same time now. That was progress, right?

  Leia paused to consider. “He was disappointed. But he understood. I think he held out hope that I’d return to it someday.”

  Rey almost laughed. “He should have known better.” Once Leia made a decision, it was for keeps.

  “I gave him my lightsaber to convince him otherwise. Told him to pass it on to a promising student someday.” But Leia’s voice had grown tight. Rey sensed she was holding something back.

  “Where’s your lightsaber now?”

  “No idea. Now stop trying to distract me,” Leia said. “Reach out.”

  Rey refocused and emptied her mind of worries, just as Leia had taught her. She cast out her awareness. Opened herself to anything the Force might want to tell her. Tentatively, she called for him: Master Skywalker?

  Nothing, nothing, and more nothing.

  “Master Leia, I don’t hear anyone.”

  “Let go of all thought. Let go of fear. Reach out. Invite the Jedi of the past to be with you.”

  “Be with me…be with me…” She waited all of a second, maybe two. “They’re not with me.” Rey made a noise of exasperation, then flipped herself neatly to land on the ground. Rocks toppled around her.

  “Rey,” Leia said. The general could put so much into a single word: chastisement, acceptance, amusement, fondness. Maybe that’s why she’d become such a powerful leader. “Be patient.”

  “I’m starting to think it’s impossible. To hear the voices of the Jedi who came before,” Rey said, striding toward Leia.

  Her Master always managed to look neat and tidy, no matter how muddy their makeshift base got. Her hair was pulled back into a circlet of braids, and she wore a quilted vest over a brown tunic. Alderaanian jewelry always dangled from her earlobes, wrapped her wrists and fingers. Her eyes were bright and knowing, as always, but Rey had noticed that her movements had slowed recently, as though her bones ached.

  Leia’s face held a hint of a smile. “Nothing’s impossible.”

  Rey grabbed her blast helmet and leapt to her feet. “Nothing’s impossible…” she echoed, trying to believe it. “I’m going to run the training course. That I can do.” Rey needed to run. Or maybe hit something.

  Leia handed her Luke’s lightsaber. Rey took it reverently. Then she dashed into the jungle. BB-8 rolling after her.

  * * *

  —

  Leia watched Rey sprint away, a hint of a smile on her lips. Training the girl always filled her with pride, but also misgiving. Rey was both a wonderful and an exasperating student. Frustrated with anything she didn’t pick up quickly, completely unaware how fast she did pick things up.

 
She wasn’t one to judge, though. Leia had exasperated Luke just as much. Besides, there was something about growing old that made her connection with the Force even stronger. When the body began to fail, the mind reached out, unencumbered by physical ability. The truth was, Leia couldn’t run through the jungle if she wanted to. Peace and calm came easily because her body craved them.

  Then again, perhaps Leia had never been young. By the time she’d reached the age Rey was now, she was leading a rebellion.

  Rey could be a great leader someday, and she would be, if Leia had anything to do with it. The girl had darkness inside her, just like Ben. But Leia would not make the same mistakes she had with her son. She would not give in to fear—neither of the darkness rising within her pupil nor of her own questionable qualifications as a teacher. Most important, she would never send Rey away.

  Leia turned and began walking back toward the base. She reached out a hand and let her fingers trail through the ferns and broad-leafed creepers that lined her path. Ajan Kloss held so many good memories. Years ago, she’d trained here with Luke, who had declared it “Nice Dagobah.” He’d claimed it was as wet, warm, green, and overflowing with life as the planet where he’d trained with Yoda—except it didn’t smell bad.

  She stepped into a clearing. To her right, a large tree with a massive trunk reached for sunlight, spreading a canopy of branches that shaded the clearing, keeping anything else from growing except ground creeping ferns and low, sparse grass. Leia had trained right here, in this very spot. She reached out and touched the tree trunk reverently. A large bole of bark had formed around an old wound. It was almost sealed shut.

  Leia had been the one to damage the tree. She’d swung for Luke with her lightsaber and missed, slashing into the tree trunk instead. This tree had been healing itself for more than two decades.

  Oh, Luke, I hope I’m doing this right, she thought. Leia was no Jedi Master, but she had learned from the best. And not just from Luke; over the years she’d occasionally heard the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi through the Force, and even more rarely, that of Yoda. Some days it had felt as though she’d learned from the Force itself. She was first and foremost a politician and a general, but she had accepted her Jedi legacy and embraced it as best she could.

  And maybe that’s exactly what Rey needed: training in the Force not from a formal Master, but rather someone grounded in the everyday minutiae of life and survival. Obi-Wan had failed to keep Vader from the dark side. Luke had failed the same way with Ben. She could not fail Rey.

  Insects sang as she walked. Birds warbled overhead, and tiny amphibians trilled their mating calls. Odd how such a raucous place could be so peaceful. The noise was so loud, so ever-present, and so soothing, it was almost as perfect as silence.

  Many years ago, not long after the Battle of Endor, she’d discovered the meditative power of sound. She and Luke had stolen away for some training, and somehow she’d ended up standing on her hands while Luke slung good-natured taunts her way. Even with help from the Force, her shoulders had started to burn, her arms wobble. They’d already spent the last hour sparring with their lightsabers, and her body was exhausted.

  “You know,” Luke had said, his voice smug, “when I did this on Dagobah, Yoda was sitting on my feet.”

  He said that a lot back then. When I did this on Dagobah…It was obnoxious and completely unhelpful. So Leia reminded him, “You’re being obnoxious and completely unhelpful.”

  “I also did it one-handed,” he added

  He was trying to provoke her, to teach her a lesson about anger and impatience, and all that nonsense. Luke had forgotten that his student was a superb strategist who’d already benefited from a royal education. Leia would not be provoked.

  Instead, she considered. She reached out to the Force, let it flow through her like blood in her veins. A tiny insect began rubbing its mandibles together, whistling a sweet, high song.

  Some instinct guided her, and Leia focused on the sound. It was beautiful, pure, ethereal—completely untethered to the worries of leadership and teaching, failure and learning.

  With focus, and with delight, Leia raised herself off the ground. She floated upside down, feet pointed to the sky. After a moment, she lifted her arms and held them parallel to the ground.

  But she was just a student, new to the ways of the Force, and when she came back to herself, fully realized what she’d done, she whipped her hands back down lest she fall.

  She did it just in time. Her form collapsed, and she found herself kneeling in mud. No matter. She’d do better next time.

  Leia looked up to find Luke staring at her, mouth open.

  “Did you ever do that with Yoda?” she couldn’t resist asking.

  He shook his head wordlessly.

  “I can do better,” she insisted. “Float longer.”

  Luke found his voice. “You’re going to make me a better teacher,” he said.

  Not the response she’d expected. “What do you mean?”

  He reached down, helped her up. “Your footwork is terrible,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, your lightsaber craft is coming along, but…you do other things. Naturally.” His face turned apologetic. “What I mean is, you’re exceptional. Just…different.”

  Then he had smiled, with that wide farm-boy grin that had stayed with him all the way up until the night of Ben’s betrayal.

  Leia shook off the memory with effort. Memories were coming fast and vivid these days.

  She was glad for this one, though. It would be the key to training Rey. Leia and Rey were different, the last remnants of a dead Order, and together, they would carve a new path.

  * * *

  —

  Thick green foliage whipped past Rey as she ran, the flag in her hand flashing red with each pump of her arms. She bounded over tangled ferns, dodged hanging vines. Sweat soaked her collar, and her thighs burned with effort.

  Even so, running through the jungle was not harder than running ankle-deep in desert sand. She could do this all day.

  Rey had already taken out the first two training remotes and captured the flags they guarded. She had leapt a massive gorge, fought blindly over a ravine while balanced on a tightrope made of vines, traversed a thin ridge high above the jungle canopy. Now the course had her doubling back, where she encountered BB-8. He warbled at her.

  “One to go,” she said. “C’mon!”

  The final remote eluded her because it was faster. Trickier. More droid than remote. She’d told Leia she wanted a challenge today, and Leia had delivered.

  BB-8 sped after her, beeping complaints every time he had to dodge a tree root. Rey hid a smile. She was continually impressed by how well the little droid kept up with her, whether they were running the sands of Jakku, the rocky trails of Takodana, or the jungles of Ajan Kloss. His maneuverability made him the perfect training companion.

  He bleated a warning.

  “I see it, Beebee-Ate.” She slid to a halt.

  The spherical remote had stopped and now hovered midair as if waiting for her, or maybe taunting her. It was different from the other two she’d taken out, a wicked red shell surrounding shining metal firing ports. It hummed dark and low; she felt that hum deep in her chest.

  Rey unhooked Luke’s reforged lightsaber from her utility belt. Ignited it. Bluish light glowed against the leaves around her as she stared the remote down. She was going to destroy this thing.

  Suddenly a blast shot out from one of the ports. Stinging pain exploded in her upper arm. Rey resisted the urge to clutch her arm or even grunt in pain. She deserved it, after all. She hadn’t been ready. Determination is not the same as readiness, Leia would say.

  Well, she wasn’t one to make the same mistake twice. The next time it fired, she whipped up her lightsaber to deflect the blast and sent it flying into the trees.

  She didn’t even ha
ve a chance to congratulate herself before another blast hit her in the chest. Of course multiple ports meant multiple blasts. She had to focus.

  She breathed deep through her nose. Reached out to the Force.

  The training remote started to buzz around her, flashing angry red as it slung stinging darts in a dizzying array, but she let instinct take over and whirled her lightsaber with equally dizzying speed, deflecting every single attack.

  Connecting to the Force came easily these days. So easily it was like breathing. But the peace, the calm that Leia was always going on about eluded her. So even though she could counter the remote’s every move, she couldn’t find her opening for attack. Patience, she imagined Leia saying. Wait for your moment…

  The remote was behind her, then in front of her, then high above her head, darting through the air like a buzzing fly, and if she could just smash it…

  The remote sped away and she tore after it. It stopped again, fired a few bolts to goad her. Teeth gritted, she swung her lightsaber. The remote dodged, and her blade missed, slicing through a tree trunk; sparks and leaves and bark splinters rained down as the tree toppled, smashing jungle foliage on its way down.

  She leapt over the downed trunk after the remote. Swung again. The remote swooped around as if anticipating the arc of her blade, barely evading when the lightsaber slid through another tree as if it were made of butter.

  A roiling dark cloud of frustration grew inside her.

  She hardly realized what she was doing as raw instinct took over. Rey threw her lightsaber, winging it like a propeller through the air at the red remote. It dodged, and the lightsaber sliced through yet another tree. The remote screamed as it dived for her head, but this time she was ready.

  She reached with the Force for a downed branch. It flew into her hand. She anticipated the exact angle of attack, and she whipped up the branch and thrust it into the remote, spearing it against a nearby tree trunk.