Let's Read: Star Wars - Planet of Twilight!

Oh boy, more Callista bullshit! However, this was the end of her for a loooooooooooooong time. Yeah, she comes back later, but as of this we are officially DONE with the Luke/Callista romance! This calls for a dance party! WOOOOOO!

Literally my reaction upon realizing Callista was gone.

The story starts off with the death of nobody we've ever heard of on a ship called the Adamantine. Seriously, the first line is The first to die was a midshipman named Koth Barak. It then launches in to a discussion of a political situation that we've also never heard of before--Princess Leia, who is the Chief of State at this time, is on her way to some talk with some guy (Seti Ashgad)

I love his little spit-curl. It's adorable.

who holds no official position in the Rational Party of Nam Chorios because an official meeting means they recognize that the Rational Party exists. Or so I gather.

Anyway, Redshirt Koth is dead after this non-meeting took place, people start to panic because sudden virulant illness in an enclosed environment is seriously something to worry about, and someone yells "Festering groats!" It turns out there are no signs of illness present, so we have some kid dead for no damn good reason.

Cut to the non-meeting, where Leia is described as fragile-looking, Seti Ashgad tries to use his height to be intimidating, and we discover that Ashgad's home world of Nam Chorios is basically space Australia, Palpatine having sent his political opponents there. And that Seti Ashgad is a Seti Ashgad in a long line of Seti Ashgads, or at least that there was an original dumped off by Palpatine because fuck those guys. Also, some mysterious person sent Leia a message telling her not to meet with Ashgad, which she completely ignored. We're introduced to "native" Chorians, who are weird little brown people who may or may not smell funny. And they're dirt-farming conservatives who like cult faith healers, says Ashgad.

So it looks like the Rationalists want the crazy cult people to not control the planet's gun supply any more, and they want modern technology and all the benefits thereof, and they don't want their leaders to be people who get high and "have conversations with rocks."

And then Leia wonders what a message that said "Don't go to this meeting, don't trust Seti Ashgad, don't even go near this sector" really meant. Well gee, Leia, I would think that it was all pretty self-explanatory. Anyway, she looks out the window into space and half the lights of the Adamantine go out.

Back on the Adamantine, a Mon Calamari crewman (read: Admiral Ackbar without the promotions) drops dead, and the ship's medical droid informs the captain that bacta, the miracle cure-all of the Star Wars universe, makes people affected by sudden-drop-dead-itis die faster. Out in the hallways, more people are dropping dead left and right, and the captain decides that this has something to do with Seti Ashgad.

And we're back to politics, with Ashgad yelling at Leia that the Rationalists are not strip-mine happy capitalists, and many exclamation points are used while he rants. Leia has some flashback to her childhood and crying to Bail Organa about a court case regarding vampires.

Wait, what?

Ok, now, one of the short stories in Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina, we are introduced to the Anzati, who are sometimes called "Snot Vampires" because they use tendrils to go up a person's nostrils and eat their brains or essence or something, I dunno, they call it "soup". At any rate, it's a nickname. This fucking thing just introduced actual goddamned vampires, called "Garhoons", which may be one of the dumbest goddamn names I've ever heard of and I've seen Lady in the Water.

Seriously Shyamalan, Narfs??

It will please you all to know that this is the only mention of the Garhoons ever.

Then she reminds Ashgad that his world isn't even a part of the New Republic anyway, so what do you want them to do? Ashgad seems to accept her offer of an investigatory team and has his bodyguards (who are very expensive droids covered in fake skin, aka "synthdroids") lead her out. Leia's Noghri bodyguards (for those of you who did not read the Thrawn trilogy, they're a bunch of tiny cat-lizard ninjas who call her "Lady Vader" and protect her with their lives) are suspicious, and so is Leia when she realizes that Backwater Australia Cult Land would not have any way to get these really expensive thingies.

Apparently Luke also has received one of these "Do not trust Seti Ashgad" messages, except his is from Callista and he got his in a music box. Then he reminisces gooily about them sightseeing, because maybe a change of location is what someone needs when they can't feel the Force any more, he feels sad remembering her breaking up with him because his stupid idea didn't work, and there's some part where her voice is described as "warm, boyish, [and] husky." And then he comes to the conclusion that she's on Nam Chorios. Leia shows up, because Luke is on a nearby non-infected ship, and they talk about Callista some more. More discussion about the politics of Backwater Australia Cult Land, and then Leia tells Luke that there's someone leaking information high up in the New Republic government, and that Callista probably knows about it. I'm not sure why, maybe it's explained later. And then Luke ditches Artoo and Threepio and takes off.

Leia gets pissy because Luke told her to practice her lightsaber, goes into the politics of an honor guard (according to some splinter political group they're "a form of servile humiliation"), and starts thinking some more about splinter New Republic political groups. And then suddenly she gets really dizzy and passes out. The Chorian from the meeting (whose name is Dzym)

This is how much anyone cares about Dzym. This is literally the only picture I can find of him

comes in followed by Seti Ashgad, who tells Dzym to "release her," and then they kidnap Leia while Threepio yells. And we learn that normally programmed droids can't attack people, which is pretty much bullshit everywhere else, considering Artoo has zapped more people than I can count in not only the movies but the books as well.

Seriously, Artoo is a little sadist with that thing. I'm surprised he didn't whistle the equivalent of "CALL ME DADDY" while shocking people.

Threepio finds more dead/dying bodies and decides that it must be something called the Death Seed plague, and Threepio, Artoo, and some honor guard kid named Marcopius take a scout craft out. And then the kid dies, and it's anticlimactic and I'm getting sort of bored already.

Leia wakes up, feeling the Force and remembering Alderaan. She starts hallucinating that Bail is there, and Anakin Skywalker shows up and starts killing shit, and then her own kids join him and apparently she has some sublimated distrust and fear of Jedi or something. There's some memory about her talking with a drug addict, and I suppose we're supposed to think of the Force as a drug. She wakes up again, that Dzym guy walks in and puts her out again with his Chorian voodoo or whatever he does.

Luke feels shit in the Force, moons about Callista again for the fifth time in fifty pages, and crash-lands on Nam Chorios. Guess that wasn't just like Beggar's Canyon back home, huh?

Leia wakes up again and sees Ashgad's pilot (who I don't remember mentioned at all before this), a guy named Liegeus Sarpaetius Vorn, who tells her that she's crazy for seeing Dzym around. Ashgad and Dzym come back and apparently Threepio was right, they're releasing the Death Seed plague all over the damn place. Also there's a Hutt there now, a twelve-meter-long non-fat Hutt named Beldorian (THE SPLENDID! OF THE RUBY EYES!). I don't know how it's possible to be a non-fat Hutt, but there you go.

Oh, like this I guess.

And yes, he has a lightsaber. We'll be getting to that little bit of insanity soon enough.

 Anyway, they plan to give General Rieekan ("We hate to lose you, Solo" guy from the beginning of Empire Strikes Back) the plague, and cause general chaos in the New Republic governing Council. Oh, and we learn that these guys are idiots because they didn't search Leia, who is hiding her lightsaber somewhere in her crazy voluminous outfit.

So Leia starts angsting over lightsabers and the Force and almost starts crying thinking about Artoo, who is the galaxy's mechanical Lassie analogue. We learn that she apparently has a cast-iron stomach and is one of the few diplomats who can deal with Hutts, whose BO is like unto rotting ass. And there are bugs her room! They bit her while she was passed out! While she's busy noticing insects and re-hiding her lightsaber, she hears Ashgad and Dzym arguing about her--apparently Ashgad wants Dzym nowhere near her.

"She is a Jedi, Lord," murmured Dzym, and there was a note in his voice, a dreamy greediness, that twisted Leia's stomach with nauseated panic. "I was only seeking to keep her under control."
"I know what you were seeking to do," replied Ashgad shortly.

Ew. Back to Luke, who is about to be rushed by crazy cultists while he tries to get out of the tangled wreckage of his B-wing. And he's hiking through the desert, and he's hiking through the desert, and he's looking for water and nothing really happens except that he commits vehicular larceny.

Now we're on to Threepio, who, out of respect for the dead redshirt from last chapter, plays a service for the dead on fast-forward so as not to waste time before they come out of hyperspace. I suppose the kid's last act was to program a jump or something. Threepio's dialogue here consists of nothing but repeating whatever Artoo just said, except bitchier. Could be worse--Hambly could have decided to write out every bit of Artoo's beeping like some others. Anyway, they come out of hyperspace to find that the station they wanted to arrive at is under attack. Threepio serves as exposition-bot again, because the vast majority of the time it seems like authors can't figure out what the hell to do with him.

Luke makes the decision to use the brakes instead of the Force to stop the speeder he stole in the previous chapter. Apparently the speeder sucks so he had to use the Force to get it to clear a bunch of crystals, too. After he gets the crappy speeder to stop, he notices that the nearby cliffs seem to be producing lightning, and it feels crazy weird in the Force. He starts wondering why exactly he can feel the Force so strongly here, because this is a dead planet and the Force comes from life.

There is life here, thought Luke, suddenly aware of it, sure of it. Life somewhere.

I'm relatively sure that the large number of cultists he just escaped and the livestock he released so that he could steal a speeder count as life, but that's just me. Luke decides to ditch his stolen goods and walk, because that's what Yoda would want him to do! Shortly into his walk, he meets some kid named Arvid Scraf hanging out on another speeder, introduces himself as Owen Lars, drug smuggler extraordinaire, and hitches a ride back to his stolen speeder and crashed B-wing through the crystal canyons. They chat about cultists, and Arvid talks about how they seem to have some kind of hive mind, or act like they do.

When they get back to the crappy-ass speeder, Luke finds a bug digging into his leg, and we're treated to a fairly gross description of Luke pinching it out. Arvid assures him that they're normal and just die and get absorbed into the body. Ew again. They're called drochs, and sunlight kills them.

Also, they're kinda gross. I assumed they just looked like roaches, but nnnnnope.

When Arvid and Luke get back to the B-wing crash site, it's been stripped clean by the cultists and Arvid offers to let Luke hang out back at his place for the night.

While they're driving, they see some lights that Arvid decides is a gun station. Luke is instructed to grab a rifle for no reason that is immediately obvious to me since the way these have been described I'm picturing big things like the ion cannons from The Empire Strikes Back. Luke reaches out in the Force and feels violence and anger--stuff you'd expect if someone's shooting at something else, but he's surprised. (Luke has so far not impressed me in this book.) Luke ends up not using the rifle, and they get into a little village and meet the folksy denizens, like a water seller and a woman who sells crystals off-world. Crystal vendor seems to be the person that Luke would talk to about getting off-world again. Her or Seti Ashgad. The folksy villagers are attacking a speeder with rocks and sticks. Again, don't ask me why. I presume it has something to do with either the cult or the planet's prison colony history. Someone with grenades comes in and saves the day, because blowing things up is usually better than throwing rocks, unless you're an Ewok. We meet Arvid's aunt, because we haven't been hammered over the head with the A New Hope Luke comparisons enough yet. Some fat guy explains what the hell just happened: the villagers were pissed because the crazy cult wanted to blow up a shipment of droid parts and other such technological stuff meant for making life easier, because these cultists hate progress. Fat guy is of the opinion that if the cultists want to blow up droids, than the cultists should do droid work, and then gets mad when someone accuses him of being in favor of slavery re: some species called Bandies. Fat guy thinks they're animals, Luke informs him that they really are people, Luke loses a potential fan. Arvid's aunt starts talking about a Force storm that came through, which sounds like if a poltergeist and a tornado had an invisible angry baby. Luke decides that his presence is what caused the Force storm, which may have some truth to it since it occurred at about the time he was crashing on the planet. After some more talking, Luke realizes that everyone in this village (who are referred to as Newcomers; the cultists are called Oldtimers) is armed with the latest of weapons.

Han and Chewie make their first appearance in the book. We're exactly a hundred pages in, which is a hundred pages too much. Han is bitchy because Leia isn't home, Chewie is swimming with the baby Solos and having his arm hair braided by baby Jaina, and Anakin is in a pink confinement bubble. I like the idea that Han would put his youngest kid in the equivalent of a futuristic hamster ball. Also, the Solos are vacationing in one of the villas where Palpatine used to stash his concubines. I know that a dictator's whorehouse is exactly where I want to bring my kids on spring break.

And then Han starts thinking about Callista.

The face of Luke's beloved--the soft oval contours, the strong chin and full, decisive lips, the rain-colored eyes that were at once so old and so innocent--returned to his mind. The light, husky alto voice that was like a teenage boy's and the gawky grace of her long-boned body.

Ok, seriously, please stop comparing Callista to a teenaged boy. Second of all, Han, is there anything you'd like to tell us?

Threepio brings the dead body of Yeoman Marcopius to Some Guy on Some Ship, fills in Captain Some Guy's rudeness with mental "please" and "thank you"'s, is a generally boring and humorless dick and expositionbot. Artoo informs everyone that plague has broken out on a few other planets. The droids get pressed into working on Captain Some Guy's ship, which we are informed is small and sucks but is full of a whole lot of shit that will sell for a lot of credits, so this guy is not shady at all. Threepio very adroitly realizes that Captain Some Guy is less than a law-abiding citizen.

Mon Mothma has come to visit Han and talk about the space Australia crisis. Han has a nonsense thought about Rip "Iron One" Calkin (DAMN YOU, BARBARA HAMBLY) and screwing Leia on a fur rug. Thankfully he doesn't actually say any of this out loud, so Mon Mothma keeps talking about shit that actually matters, like General Rieekan possibly having the plague that everyone else is getting in other parts of the book. The idea of having star charts altered to remove planets is brought up five years before Attack of the Clones came out, so there's that. Han apparently keeps hard copy star charts on hand just in case, so why the hell couldn't the Jedi Council? Whatever, on with the book. Han suggests faking footage of Leia so that they can pretend she's still around until everything gets solved, but apparently it's already been tried and failed. Han decides to round up a posse to go after Leia (and also Luke since he was missing too, but he's not in charge of running a government and voting and stuff.)

Threepio is protesting his hijacking by namedropping. Captain Some Guy doesn't give a shit, and also lobotomizes Artoo. Captain Some Guy--whose real name is Bortrek but I don't care--doesn't give a stang about regulations and fancy names, and has an ex-wife and says things like stang and festering a lot. Also it seems he really, really wants to fuck robots.

"And they can make 'em like a man or a woman or whatever. Doesn't matter. They got a steel skeleton, they grow synthflesh over top of it, and as long as they got that little hunk of crystal in their skulls, that can listen to the Central Controller, they're yours. And boy, wouldn't I like to have one shaped like Amber Jevanche." He named the newest holo star popular on Coruscant, a woman of whom Threepio had also heard Captain Solo speak highly, though to his knowledge Captain Solo had never met the young lady.

He proceeded to describe, in great anatomical detail, exactly what acts of sexual congress he would have such a synthdroid perform, though Threepio was somewhat at a loss to why any human would wish to couple with a machine, and went on to expound his philosophy of Man's Needs and Man's Rights--meaning, Threepio gathered, his own immediate desires irrespective of the wishes of the other party.

Amen, Space Pope. Amen.

Holy shit, Threepio's section just became hilarious. I reserve the right to reinstate my previous rant about Hambly's inability to write him, though. Anyway, the guy keeps on and on, until he passes out and Threepio realizes that Artoo has been removing the oxygen from the room, thus saving Threepio from being cornholed by a horny space pirate.

But, since Threepio's kind of dumb, he insists that Artoo not suffocate Horny Captain Some Guy, who proceeds to threaten them for three pages and I have ceased to care again.

Back to Luke, who is trying to stalk Callista, and talking to the Folksy Villagers about Jesus the Force. He's sitting in a tavern called the Blue Blerd of Happiness and I hate Barbara Hambly a little more, and then even more when he goes into full-blown "I AM SO SAD" mode over Callista.

The Death Seed has been released. Whatever the Death Seed is, it's pissing Leia off something terrible. Also, the pilot, Liegeus, has told her that she is ordered to stand in the sun for fifteen minutes a day, which can't have anything to do with any deadly schemes, oh no. Also he has a synthdroid, which I can't remember if I mentioned before, and I really hope he isn't screwing it since its skin seems to be rotting. But Dzym might be fucking it.

"You would prefer that I took a little pleasure, a little expense, at your expense rather than theirs?"

Leia's pretty sure that they're drugging her water, since they're always checking it, so she's started pouring it out and is settling for being dehydrated on a horribly hot and dry world. Good going, I guess? I dunno. So Liegeus comes back and lets it be known that he knows that Leia is eavesdropping when she's supposed to be doped up, Liegeus is effectively a prisoner too, and Leia seems to be getting Stockholmed into liking him. Better him than Dzym the possible robot rapist, I guess.

Back with Luke, the hicks, and stalking Callista. He meets someone who may or may not be a Jedi calling herself "Taselda. Of the Knights." And then he ogles her, because she is high-breasted and long-legged and please god don't tell me Luke's gonna have sex with her because I don't think I can take it. Also her house is crawling with droches. Exterminators are unknown in a galaxy far, far away. Talseda says that she's Callista's new teacher, and Luke almost dry-humps her then and there. (I'm exaggerating.) Talseda gives Luke a glass of wine and says that she'll take Luke to see Callista, who is living in a cave now or some shit. As Luke gets up, he sees Talseda's feet and is horribly repulsed because oh god her toenails are yellow and overgrown and she has Yoda toes, but then no wait, they're fine, and wasn't that wine awesome and now he can think better! Great, Talseda gave Luke Jedi roofies or something. Talseda gets worried because Luke only has a blaster with him, and also droches are crawling in and out of her clothes, but Luke's so anxious to see Callista again that he doesn't even care.

Talseda distracts him from noticing the droches further by telling him a story about the old Jedi, and how Beldorian (OF THE RUBY EYES! THE SPLENDID!) the Hutt used to be a Jedi....and yeah, I guess Hutts aren't Force-resistant like everyone thought, Jabba just had a really good will save.

Which means that Watto and the Toydarians are the only species immune to Force suggestions. Just let that sink in for a moment.

Anyway, I guess Beldorian (THE SPLENDID! OF THE RUBY EYES!) sucked too bad to even build his own lightsaber. Beldorian became like Regina George in Mean Girls instead, and drove off poor Talseda like Janis Ian but with no fabulous gay friend to hang out with her. And then the metaphor continues with Seti Ashgad swooping in like Lindsay Lohan's character whose name I can't remember and ousting Beldorian. Also, at some point Beldorian (and now Ashgad) has her lightsaber because they're SO MEAN and they BRUISED HER ARM YOU GUYS.

Luke is falling for this poor-me story hook, line, and sinker, and he's all up for going to get Talseda's lightsaber back. But then Talseda says that she (eta: and by "she" I mean Callista, this is the trade-off for writing this while drunk) spoke his name, when he'd introduced himself as Owen Lars, and he realizes that she's drugged him, which everyone else realized about the time that he started thinking that she was awesome and beautiful despite being gross and covered in the space equivalent of roaches. He goes back to Talseda's house to confront her, and... finds her eating droches. And then a bunch of villagers start throwing rocks at him. Not the crazy lady pulling roaches off of her own arm and eating them, the guy standing there with a "What the fuck is wrong with you" look on his face. Whatever, it makes as much sense as anything here.

They drive him off, calling him a murderer and "the Evil One," but some policemen (well, a policeman and a police-Ithorian) step in and keep the villagers from braining Luke with freaking huge rocks. While talking about how crazy the villagers were, Luke finds out that Callista showed up in town months before and got herself kidnapped. Or made friends with her kidnappers. Or left. And then Luke gets sad. Again.

Back with Leia, she's pretending to be stoned to fool a droid, remembering how one of her classmates was stoned all the time and this is still Star Wars right? I didn't just jump off the deep-end with that Mean Girls metaphor? The droid is from Beldorian (THE SPLENDID! OF THE RUBY EYES!), who wants to meet with Leia.

I feel I should explain the constant (THE SPLENDID! OF THE RUBY EYES!) thing. Fucking everyone, including himself, constantly refers to him in those terms. So you know what? If I gotta suffer, so do the rest of you fuckers. But I feel like mixing it up a bit.

Turns out Beldorian (THE RUBY SPLENDID!) favors piercings. He has gold rings on his fingers, and pierced into his folds, and even has a little ruby lip stud.

Jesus, and I thought Ziro from The Clone Wars was flamboyant.

Anyway, he reminisces about his old Kubaz chef who used hormones and enzymes to turn insects into fancy dishes. Believe it or not, this is actually an important plot point. Then he eats a droch. Somehow, it's less gross when a Hutt does it. He then tells Leia basically the same sob story Taselda told Luke, but with the roles reversed. He has Leia try an insect that was allowed to grow and mature far longer than it should have before being made into a dish, and Leia admits that it's pretty good, thinking about how Kubaz chefs are renowned for doing things like this.He then hints at the weird Force properties of the planet before Liegeus interrupts, hustling Leia away before Beldorian (OF THE SPLENDID!) can fuck with her head. In return the Hutt uses the Force to give Liegeus a migraine. Because I guess the Force can do that now?

It's amazing how much use that line gets in regards to the EU.

Liegeus then mentions something about when Ashgad first came to the planet, and Leia suddenly realizes that Ashgad Jr isn't a Junior at all, it's the same guy Palpy banished a decade or two ago.

Elsewhere while trying to find Leia, Han and Lando find some crash survivors and get shot at by itty bitty ships.

Back on Nam Chorios, Leia and Liegeus are making small talk. Turns out one thing he does is "holo-faking", and Beldorian (THE RUBY OF THE SPLENDID EYES!) is making him transfer his vast collection of Hutt porn from space-betamax to space-DVD and I swear to god I am not making that shit up.

"...Beldorian has drafted me into editing and transferring his formidable library of Huttese pornography."

And now I shall never sleep again. He then goes to meet with Ashgad, and Leia eavesdrops, hearing them talking about loading boxes "both kinds", and that Ashgad is leaving the house for a few days, so Leia is basically alone with Liegeus, Beldorian (SPLENDID RUBY OF THE EYES!), and Dzym, which Hambly makes very sure to emphasize how terrifying Dzym is compared to the Hutt.

Luke is now talking to someone named Umolly, and she's describing how the crystals on the planet, which they call Spooks for some reason, are being sold to some company that zaps them with ions and turns them into receivers of some kind. She demonstrates the process, and Luke feels a scream in the Force as it's done.

Luke then goes to a rally Ashgad's throwing, where he shows a holo of Leia basically saying that all the Newcomers on the planet can go fuck themselves. Luke recognizes it as fake basically because there are Noghri in the video, and Leia never had the Noghri make an appearance during a meeting. Which I actually buy, if only because having a bunch of cat ninjas referring to the Chief of State as "Lady Vader" publicly would be a PR nightmare.

Han, Chewie, and Lando have dropped off the crash survivors on a planet where the native inhabitants are addicted to cake mix. Seriously, they're described as constantly sucking on sponges infused with "zwil", a cake flavoring agent.

Sadly, they do show up again in the EU. Why?

Han and Lando find out about the spreading plague. NEXT SCENE.

Threepio and Artoo are trying to raise funds by performing in a bar called...The Wookiee's Codpiece.

Some Chadra-Fan pays for a round of classical music, then claims that Threepio and Artoo belong to an acquaintance of his to prevent the bartender from stealing them. They spot Han, and nothing comes of it. NEXT SCENE!

Because yes, it's the return of ADHD theater!

Seriously, 9 out of 10 EU authors needed an industrial-sized prescription.

Trying to figure out what's going on, Luke helps pick up a load of weapons that were dropped off for the settlers. In the drop he finds weapons belonging both to Leia's Honor Guard and Leia herself. NEXT SCENE!

Leia decides she absolutely needs to escape because THEY RELEASED THE DEATH SEED. Seriously, every five or so paragraphs, the book just reiterates this point and it's fucking annoying. Liegeus turns up to give Leia some non-drugged water and a comlink because he's going to be working on Ashgad's ship, and if Dzym turns up she can call Liegeus to rescue her. She asks Liegeus who and or what Dzym is, and all Liegeus can tell her is that "he's a native of this world". Leia calls bullshit, because there are no natives to this planet. After he leaves, Leia jury-rigs the comlink to work as a radio key for the electronic lock on her door, and I'll admit it, Hambly does do a good job justifying how Leia knows how to do this: Winter (her aide and former high-ranking rebel) taught her one day during the Rebellion when they were in hiding, just as a useful life skill. I buy it.

She hits the right combination, ties her lightsaber to her leg, and starts exploring. She passes by a room where Beldorian (RUBY THE SPLENDID EYES OF!) is complimenting his new Kubaz chef on engineering new insect snacks. Again, not exaggerating in the least, THIS IS AN IMPORTANT PLOT POINT.

She also discovers the controls for Ashgad's synthdroids, and the more I read the word synthdroid, the more I picture Fallout 4.

You know what, headcanon accepted.

She's amazed that Ashgad has two dozen of the things. At a nearby computer, she prints up all of Ashgad's plans before going on to explore more.

And then we hit Lovecraft territory.

In a dark lower hallway, Leia's using her lightsaber as a light source, and finds a hall literally covered with drochs, all in various stages of development. At one end, there's an oversized one the size of a pittin cat (I refuse to use that stupid word) that resembles a crab. Except it has mouths on its claws.

One of the larger drochs drops onto Leia and bites her. She carefully lightsabers that one, but the rest are starting to swarm at her. Feeling weak, Leia races back to her room, lays in the fading sunlight which makes her feel better, hides her printouts and lightsaber again, then passes out.

Elsewhere, Threepio has disguised himself as an Adeptus Mechanus from Warhammer 40k. Seriously, the book describes needless tubes attached to a leather mask on his face, wearing robes, and his metallic points needlessly click and clank.

For reference. Subtract the Doc Ock arms and that's basically what Threepio looks like right now.

Leia's now reading her files, unlocking most of Ashgad's plan. Basically, he's setting things up for the Loronar Corporation and a faction of the Empire to basically stripmine the planet for the spook crystals to make synths and a new weapon system called "Needles" which are basically blasters with hyperdrives controlled by the same technology. Also, THEY RELEASED THE DEATH SEED YOU GUYS. She also finds the plans for Ashgad's ship, the Reliant...

Gah, Joke Paradox!

..which has an abnormal amount of shielding for some reason. She grabs a thermos of clean water, then breaks out again to go into Ashgad's quarters, where she calls up everything he has on the Death Seed, and maps of the area. She decides to blast the synth control unit, but hears Ashgad, Liegeus, and Dzym nearby. She peeks around the corner and sees that Liegeus is accusing Dzym of Death Seeding Leia because he found her unconscious and barely breathing in her room. They resolve to check on her, Liegeus leading the way, but Ashgad holds Dzym back, saying he needs help...and that's when Leia realizes that Ashgad has mysteriously gotten older in the last 2 days. Dzym opens his tunic and, again, we enter Lovecraft country.

....below his neck, his skin changed. It was hard, chitinous, catching green and amber glints - broken and blotched, too, all over Dzym's bare chest and shoulders, with tubes and orifices and groping little mouth nodules that had no business on a human form...Ashgad bent his head down. He pressed his mouth to the dark, chitinous chest...

So yeah, Dzym is basically Wilbur Whately from The Dunwich Horror. Sort of. The actual answer is actually fucking hilariously stupid. Apparently getting some biddy from Dzym de-ages Ashgad, and they leave. Leia lightsabers the control unit and beats feet.

Luke wakes up to hear Leia calling him in the Force, and decides to raid Ashgad's house. NEXT SCENE.

Artoo and Threepio run into the Chadra-Fan again. And I'm going to skip almost all of Artoo and Threepio's adventures for the next few chapters because they are ENTIRELY POINTLESS. Seriously, it's just the same fucking thing over and over and OVER again. Fuck.

Leia's still escaping through the desert because THEY RELEASED THE DEATH SEED YOU GUYS!!!, and makes it to a gun station. And guess who happens to be at the gun station?

No.

Fuck, I wish.

Yyyep, we're back to the Callista show!

Callista explains first that because Luke doesn't hunger after power and doesn't understand those who do, that's why she left. What.Ok, she explains further that because she's literally desperate to touch the Force again, she can be manipulated and is a prime candidate for the Dark Side, so unless she can get the Light Side back to herself, she can't be with Luke for fear of dragging him back into the Dark Side. Ok, that I can understand, and it's a far better rationalization than "YOU HAVE TO HAVE JEDI CHILDREN BECAUSE SPACE EUGENICS".

Luke breaks into Ashgad's and almost immediately runs into a horde of drochs, led by another of the cat-sized ones.  Because the fucking things are so small, he can't really effectively lightsaber them all, so he just uses the Force to grab them all and crush them against the walls.

Of course, Luke using the Force causes another Force Storm elsewhere near Leia and Callista, and we finally get some answers about the drochs. Turns out, they are the Death Seed, and the sunlight refracting through the large tsil crystals generates a kind of radiation that kills them. The rest of what the fuck is going on is that the little drochs can actually transfer life force that they drink from people to the bigger ones...somehow...and that makes the bigger ones even bigger and more intelligent. The bigger ones can even control the little ones. Figured out where this is going yet?

Back to Luke, who's now in another room swarming with drochs, and Liegeus lying on the floor. Luke hides while Dzym walks in. He shoos away most of them from Liegeus, and Luke sees his ungloved hand for the first time as he grabs the cat-sized droch.

It was, in fact, a sort of mouth, orifices gaping on the palm and at the ends of the fingers...

Ew. Dzym uses his freaky mouth hand to feed on the big one for a bit before taking a bite out of it with his face mouth. Then Dzym drags his ungloved hand across Liegeus' face, leaving little bites everywhere. Luke decides 'fuck this' and grabs Dzym with the Force and throws him. Dzym actually is able to lash back with the Force, but Luke notes that it feels untrained and "secondhand", piecing together that Dzym got it from someone else.

Dzym runs, and Liegeus and Luke make a run for it.

Callista confirms to Leia what we've all realized by now: Dzym is a droch. A vastly overgrown droch that's over two hundred years old, but still a droch.

Back over to Liegeus and Luke and we get the rest of Dzym's origin story. Basically, Beldorian's (RUBY SPLENDID OF EYES THE) former Kubaz chef - you know, the one who mutated bugs into delicacies? - was trying to breed a super droch delicacy...and ended up with Dzym, who killed the chef, then enslaved Beldorian (THE OF EYES SPLENDID RUBY!) and Ashgad to him. Like I said, hilariously fucking stupid. Liegeus confirms that the Reliant is ready for take-off, and it will be not only carrying the spook crystals, but also Dzym and an army of drochs to feed off of every planet he can.

Han and Lando contact a holo-faker to make up a video of Leia calling for military assistance in the Chorios system because the Imperials are making their move. NEXT SCENE.

Liegeus confirms to himself that Luke is Leia's brother, and says that for a short time Beldorian (THE!) had Callista for a time, and Luke suspects that from feeding slightly off her Dzym got his minor Force powers. Liegeus tries to tell Luke to let Callista go, relating his own sob story about a young woman he loved and couldn't let go.

We will meet her. And it will be just fucking dumb. Actually, we already met her. See if you can guess the answer!

Luke then has a dream about Stormtroopers giving Jawas lobotomies, then cramming new brains into their heads and popping the Jawas into Stormtrooper armor.

And Leia has a dream where two versions of her are wearing the slave-kini she wore at Jabba's, although one version is acting all Empress-like and the other is just a sobbing, puling mess. I have no idea why the author decided to put both of them in the slave-kini, but whatever.

Other than to be a little something for the fellas reading the book I guess.

Anyway, Empress Leia demands regular Leia give her lightsaber to one of them, and Leia refuses to give it to either of them, thereby accepting her Force powers or some shit, I dunno, this has never been an issue in her character before.

When she wakes up, Callista gives her some instruction in the Force, and some lightsaber training. Then one of the local Amish types tells them that Ashgad's moving on one of the gun stations to open himself a flight corridor. Beldorian (OF!) (Sorry, I'm running out of combinations.) is with Ashgad, generating a Force storm to assist.

Ok, we can return to Artoo and Threepio now. They're on a planet that's been decimated by the Death Seed (THEY RELEASED IT!!!), and Threepio is very worried because an Imperial craft is landing. They're all wearing environmental suits, and when they remove the hoods, Threepio is horrified to discover that one of them is...

NO.

Yep. Guess who's back again??

Back over to Luke again, he and Liegeus confront the folks attacking the gun station, where Luke tries to tell them that they've all been had, that Ashgad's just using them all. Leia appears with her stolen files, and 99.99% of the people in attendance become outraged at Ashgad. While they rant about his betrayal, Luke and Leia share a hug, and Leia fills in Luke that Ashgad Junior is actually Ashgad Senior because that was an important loop the author left open.

Ashgad's only remaining loyalist grabs some grenades and blows up the gun station, dying in the process. Luke and Leia grab a speeder to go after Ashgad and Dzym before they can make a run for it. Callista pops up briefly to say hi to Liegeus.

Daala hacks into Artoo to find out what the fuck has been happening in this book. And it turns out she has a small fleet again...but they're all settlers sick to death of all the Imperial/Republic nonsense. And it turns out that the Moff that Ashgad's been working with was a big stinky cheater at the Imperial Academy, so Daala decides that he's gotta die.

Luke and Leia arrive back at Ashgad's, and Luke starts fixing a Z-95 Headhunter in order to take down the Reliant which is just taking off. And apparently is slow as fuuuuuck. Beldorian (SPLENDIFEROUS!) charges with his lightsaber (purple if you were wondering), and Leia starts duelling him.

Wait, did Jabba have teeth? WHY DOES IT HAVE FANGS???

Leia struggles a bit because Beldorian (RUBY!) uses his whole body as a weapon, constantly trying to slam her with his tail. As he preps for another tail-slap, Leia slices him open, disemboweling him completely. Luke has finished fixing the ship and just knows who taught Leia to fight like that. He takes off, gets a shot off at Ashgad, only to be shot down by the Imperials. He's able to walk away from the crash, and suddenly he's talking to the crystals all over the planet using the Force.

Because they've secretly been alive the whole time. He puts the rest together for us: his dream was representative of what's been happening. The realignment of the spook crystals effectively lobotomizes them, allowing them to be used in the synths and Needles. But the planetary crystals can still talk to the others, so Luke tells them to tell the Needles-spooks to blow the Reliant to hell, and he'll retrieve every single spook crystal in the galaxy and return them to the planet. So they do, killing Ashgad, Dzym, and the boxes of drochs they were carrying.

Ok, home stretch.

Daala's little fleet and Han's group chased off the Imperials off-screen, and had time to observe all the Needles suddenly "malfunction" and crash back to the planet in an organized pattern. Daala asks Han if Leia will leave her and her colonists alone, and Han says he's pretty sure she will. Han and Leia then reunite and Leia fills Han in on the Death Seed, and how some of the crystals on the planet have agreed to be removed in order to eliminate the plague on planets and ships.

Oh, and Leia's gonna blackmail Loronar into returning the crystals by threatening to reveal that they were the ones that RELEASED THE DEATH SEED and slapping them with hardcore sanctions.

Luke sees Callista at a distance, and waves goodbye. Thank. Fucking. God. DANCE PARTY!

Yeah, she'll return. Eventually. But in the meantime, WOOOOO!

The end...wait, why are there still two pages left?

Leia, Han, Luke, and for some reason Liegeus travel to meet with Daala aboard her ship and just as Daala is greeting Leia she sees Liegeus and...

Oh god.

Daala and Liegeus used to be a thing. She is the one Liegeus couldn't let go of. And they literally spend the last page of the book making out. Because GOD FUCKING HATES ME.



I just...fuck it....

I think that's a good way to sum up this book.

Fuck. But we are done with both Callista and Daala (thank fucking god).

Wait, Daala becomes a major player in later books?


SHE BECOMES WHAT?!