‘Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars’ New Excerpt Clashes With a Familiar Foe
Good News! Fans of Cal Kestis and the crew of the Stinger Mantis won’t have to wait until the April 28 release of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor to chew on new content. On March 17, as “luck” would have it, Sam Maggs’ new book, Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars, hits shelves. Today, Entertainment Weekly has released a new excerpt taking readers into the mind of Cere Junda as she and Cal battle a familiar Force-wielding adversary, the Inquisitor known as the Fifth Brother.
To better set the scene, here’s the official description of Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars:
Cal Kestis has built a new life for himself with the crew of the Stinger Mantis. Together, Cal’s crew has brought down bounty hunters, defeated Inquisitors, and even evaded Darth Vader himself. More important, Merrin, Cere, Greez, and faithful droid BD-1 are the closest thing Cal has had to a family since the fall of the Jedi Order. Even as the galaxy’s future grows more uncertain by the day, with each blow struck against the Empire the Mantis crew grows more daring.
“On what should be a routine mission, they meet a stormtrooper determined to chart her own course with the help of Cal and the crew. In exchange for help starting a new life, the Imperial deserter brings word of a powerful, potentially invaluable tool for their fight against the Empire. And even better, she can help them get to it. The only catch—pursuing it will bring them into the path of one of the Empire’s most dangerous servants, the Inquisitor known as the Fifth Brother.
“Can the Imperial deserter truly be trusted? And while Cal and his friends have survived run-ins with the Inquisitors before, how many times can they evade the Empire before their luck runs out?
And now, here is a piece of the excerpt:
Reaching out through the Force was second nature to Cere at this point in her life. It was as much one of her senses as sight or smell, a constant input and output from her energetic body that pulsed into the world around her, flowed through her mind, seeped out of her pores. She let her mind roll out through her palm, across the rapidly closing space between herself and the onrushing Inquisitor, into his lightsaber, and all at once time slowed.
Her nerves felt electrified as she rushed down each side of the sword, its blazing atoms searing her brain, and she willed it, just enough, not too much to get her into trouble, to hold.
She knew what Cal would see, from where he was getting back on his feet. He would see the Inquisitor slow like he was hitting a wall of water, his feet betraying his own orders to continue their forward motion. He would see the red lightsaber and its circular threat halt, frozen mid-spin, returning to its less dangerous form. He would watch the Inquisitor sweat as he tried to push back through the Force, to regain control over himself and over his lightsaber, and he would see the dawning fear on the Inquisitor’s face as he realized he was outmatched.
Cere had faced down Darth Vader himself and lived. She had come the closest any living soul ever had to ending the Sith’s reign of terror over the galaxy. She was possibly the most powerful remaining Jedi in existence.
And she wasn’t going to let this punk forget it.
She felt the pushback through the Force, the Inquisitor’s attempt at ruining her control, and bit down on her bottom lip. There was a way to end him through the Force, just like this, and it would be so easy. It would be an assured victory. To flow up from his lightsaber over his arms, to spill over his shoulders and creep around his neck before he even became suspicious, before he was even able to notice. All she’d have to do was curl her fingers into a claw as she squeezed the Force around his neck. She would watch the light drain from his eyes and she would know that the Mantis crew would be safe, that the future of the Jedi Order would be one step closer to assured.
Connecting to that energy—to the dark side—that was how she’d held out for so long against Vader.
She knew it, and Vader had, too.
But that was a slippery slope to nowhere good, and Cere didn’t have to go there ever again. Not against someone who pulsed back at her through the Force with raw emotion, all rage and spite and lack of control.
And, of course, one of the ways the dark side lied to you was by trying to convince you it was the only way. For in truth, it was Cere connecting to the light again that had allowed her to defeat Vader in that moment, after all.
She could feel that the Fifth Brother was getting ready to break. But she would use the light to break him first.
With a yell, Cere dropped her hand and the control over the Inquisitor’s lightsaber and movement and flung herself toward him, launching herself forward with her blue blade. It took him too long to realize he’d been freed; he wasn’t ready for her when she came at him in a flurry of swipes that put him on the defensive. With each clash of their weapons, Cere hit again and again, matching his style almost exactly, knowing that it would disconcert him and keep him off balance to see his own technique mimicked back at him, and more effectively.
“Want to finish this together?” Cal was beside her, lightsaber out and up at the ready, and the Inquisitor’s eyes were wide at the challenge of two Jedi at once, both bearing down on him with a ferocity he clearly hadn’t been expecting when he showed up to take down Cal on his own.
For the whole excerpt, head over to Entertainment Weekly. Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars will be published by Random House Worlds and released on March 7. Be sure to check out the first excerpt from the book in the meantime — you can find it here.
Zak is a musician and professor of music in Columbus, Ohio. He and his family share a love for Star Wars and can often be found printing 3d helmets, building lightsabers or watching their favorite show, The Mandalorian.
