Read an Excerpt from the New Star Wars ‘Guardians of the Whills’ Novel

Chirrut and Baze have recently been entered into the Star Wars canon in ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but the book from creator Greg Rucka adds his take on the characters for his all new novel, Gaurdians of The Whills. Read on for more details…

 

“My apologies, my apologies,” Chirrut said. He bent out of view, apparently searching the ground in front of him. “My stick, I seem to have dropped it.”

 

While Rogue One: A Star Wars Story took place shortly before the events in the original 1977 ‘Star Wars’ film, the new book is set in the years leading up to the ‘Rogue One’ movie when the Empire came to take over the planet of Jedha. Guardians of the Whills chronicles the adventures of Baze Malbus and Chirrut Imwe as they attempt to resist the Empire forces on Jedha and defend the Holy City and its conquered people.

 

The excerpt shared from Entertainment Weekly’s exclusive is an early part of the novel that depicts a chance encounter between Baze/ Chirrut and the Empire’s Stormtoopers. Can Baze and Chirrut protect the people of Jedha and take a stand against the Empire?

 

 

Also, an interesting nugget is revealed about Baze Malbus:

 

It made him angry, but there was still enough Guardian of the Whills in him that he did not want to kill in anger. His balance had been lost long ago, and whether or not the Force was still truly with him, Baze knew that he was no longer with the Force. But he would not kill in anger, not if he could at all help it.
The Imperials made it very hard to commit to that, sometimes.

 

From a canon standpoint, it adds another level to the Star Wars lore.

 

Read an excerpt from Star Wars: “Guardians of the Whills” below:

 

 

Excerpt from ‘The Guardians of the Whills‘ by Greg Rucka

 

The reason the Imperials garrisoned their troops aboard the Star Destroyer was for security, nothing more. A garrison on the ground gave any insurgency a possible target; a garrison floating in orbit was untouchable, a sign that opposition to the Empire was futile, and doomed to ultimate failure.

 

But this created its own set of problems. Troops on deployment needed to be supplied. They needed water, and water was in short supply on Jedha. They needed food, and local food could be poisoned, could be tainted, or could simply be inedible. They needed medical supplies to tend their wounded, be those wounds courtesy of the fledgling and scattered—and, many said, highly ineffective—insurgency or any of a myriad of other hazards. They needed ammunition, because a stormtrooper whose blaster ran dry was as useful as another kilogram of sand in the Jedha desert.

 

This meant that the Empire needed supply caches throughout the Holy City, secured locations that could serve as depots to reequip and rearm troopers on patrol. Thus, the Empire had exchanged one obvious target—a garrison—for multiple smaller ones, with the logic being that the loss of an occasional cache was insignificant in the face of the continued existence of the larger Imperial presence.
The Zeta that Baze watched land was on a resupply run for these caches, or so Denic, Baze’s contact, had assured him. The information hadn’t been given out of the goodness of Denic’s heart. She’d made it very clear that should any of the resupply cargo, say, fall off the back of a speeder, she expected a cut. Specifically, she wanted any weapons and ammunition that might be recovered.

 

This was fine by Baze. Weapons and ammunition weren’t what he and Chirrut were after.

 

He waited until Chirrut was off the roof and down on the street before moving himself. Baze was a big man, a strong man, but he knew how to move himself with speed when needed, and with purpose at every moment. While Chirrut’s movements had flow, Baze’s had direction. He vaulted from rooftop to rooftop, clearing one block and then the next, pausing only for an instant to check on the progress of the resupply. The Imperials had loaded the cargo crates onto the back of an armored landspeeder, a contingent of five stormtroopers responsible for its security. One had the driver’s yoke, with another crewing the mounted repeating blaster; the remaining three rode outboard, weapons at the ready, keeping watch.

 

Baze reached the edge of another rooftop and leapt without breaking stride, this time not to the roof of the adjacent building but instead down to the street. He landed heavy and hard, felt the ground stab back at him, sending pain through his legs to his knees. There had been a time when such a jump wouldn’t have given him even the slightest discomfort. There had been a time when he had called himself a Guardian of the Whills, and others had, too. There had been a time when his faith in the Force had been as unshakable and constant as Chirrut’s.

 

He had been a younger man, then.

 

He drew himself back up to his full height and checked the E-5 in his hands. He’d modified the weapon himself, trying to draw more power from it, and his efforts had been successful enough that even a glancing shot from the carbine would send a stormtrooper to the ground, and a direct hit could punch a hole through armor and the soldier within it. The trade-off had come in two parts. The first was its ammo capacity. The weapon ate charges, and ate them quickly.

 

The second was that there was no longer a stun setting.

 

For the full excerpt go to Entertainment Weekly

 

Guardians of the Whills is available for purchase now. You can order it here.

 

 

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6 thoughts on “Read an Excerpt from the New Star Wars ‘Guardians of the Whills’ Novel

  • May 3, 2017 at 4:35 pm
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    Pretty good read. I do like Greg Rucka as a writer and I also enjoyed Churrit(favorite character in RO, next to Krennic) as well as Baze and I look forward to checking this out. 🙂

  • May 3, 2017 at 5:48 pm
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    I got Rebel Rising on Audible the other day and I’ve enjoyed it enough so far. I was hoping there would be an audiobook for this book at some point. I tend to listen to the YA books then read the others.

  • May 3, 2017 at 6:11 pm
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    His writing style is horrible.

    • May 3, 2017 at 6:14 pm
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      I like his style, it’s more mature than one would expect from a children book.

    • May 3, 2017 at 7:27 pm
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      Why do you say that?

  • May 4, 2017 at 3:48 am
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    Interesting timing for this release.

    #notmyguardians

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