Gregory Roarke - agent for the ultra-secret Icarus Group - has received a new assignment: locate a teleportation portal on a backwater colony world. But what should be a an easy assignment leads to a string of murders, and a race against an alien enemy.
Gregory Roarke-former bounty hunter, former Trailblazer, current agent for the ultra-secret Icarus Group-has received a new assignment: locate a suspected but as-yet undiscovered teleportation portal on the backwater colony world of Alainn.
The rival Patth are also searching for the device, and have considerably more resources at their disposal. Fortunately, Roarke has Selene and her incredibly sensitive Kadolian sense of smell. On paper, it should be a straightforward enough job.
But that was before there was a murder in the small town of Bilswift . . . and another one . . . and the discovery that the Patth are already on the scene and have narrowed the search to a heavily forested area in the hills and mountains east of town.
Most disturbing of all is the discovery that one of Selene's people, a Kadolian teenaged boy named Tirano, is working at one of Bilswift's fish markets. A boy who may have lost his parents before his proper socialization was completed. A boy who may be connected to both the murders and the Patth.
A boy who may be the potentially dangerous wild card that the Kadolians call changelings.
Hoping to take possession of a new alien star-hopping portal, Roarke and Selene are tasked with transporting an assassin, who is herself being targeted.
For years Gregory Roarke and his Kadolian partner Selene worked as crocketts, combing through the atmospheres of uninhabited worlds for places that might be colonized or hold valuable resources. Now, they work for the Icarus Group, a top-secret government organization hunting for portals created by a long-vanished alien race, portals that can teleport a person hundreds or thousands of light-years in the blink of an eye.
Usually, those hunts are long and tedious. But Roarke has now been handed an intriguing offer. A criminal boss, Robertine Cherno, will hand over a hitherto unknown portal to the Icarus Group in exchange for Roarke and Selene agreeing to transport a passenger named Nikki across the Spiral.
There's only one catch. Nikki is a professional, high-priced, highly feared assassin. And she's on the job.
That would have been bad enough. But when the alien Patth also move to gain possession of the portal, bad quickly promises to go to worse.
Especially when it becomes clear that Nikki herself is being hunted by someone.
It's up to Roarke and Selene to untangle the mysteries and get to the truth before they become someone's collateral damage.
A NEW NOVEL IN THE ICARUS SERIES FROM NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF THE ADMIRAL THRAWN STAR WARS NOVELS TIMOTHY ZAHN
For years Gregory Roarke and his Kadolian partner Selene worked as crocketts, combing through the atmospheres of uninhabited worlds for places that might be colonized or hold valuable resources. Now, they quietly work for the Icarus Group, a top-secret government organization hunting for portals created by a long-vanished alien race, portals that can teleport a person hundreds or thousands of light-years in the blink of an eye.
Roarke and Selene are searching one such possibility when they find that someone appears to be stalking them. They evade their pursuers and return to find that a man named Easton Dent has been searching the Spiral's databases for the names Gregory Roarke and Icarus.
Roarke reluctantly agrees to meet with him. But that first contact is cut short, and hours later Roarke is arrested and accused of Dent's murder.
More importantly to Roarke's Icarus Group overseers, that brief meeting also confirms that Dent was in recent contact with a portal.
But the alien Patth are also searching for such portals, and they are also on the trail. It's now a race . . . and the Patth have resources and ruthlessness far beyond anything Roarke and Selene can match.
On an epic voyage far beyond the Republic, the Jedi will confront their most extraordinary enemy-and test the limits of honor and sacrifice against their most devastating challenge.
The Clone Wars have yet to erupt when Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth petitions the Senate for support of a singularly ambitious undertaking: the dream of Outbound Flight. Six Jedi Masters, twelve Jedi Knights, and fifty thousand men, women, and children will embark-aboard a gargantuan vessel, equipped for years of travel-on a mission to contact intelligent life and colonize undiscovered worlds beyond the known galaxy.
Unknown to the famed Jedi Master, the launch of the mission is secretly being orchestrated by an unlikely ally: the evil Sith Lord Darth Sidious, who has his own reasons for wanting Outbound Flight to move forward.
Yet Darth Sidious is not the mission's most dangerous challenge. Once underway, the starship crosses paths at the edge of Unknown Space with the forces of the alien Chiss Ascendancy and a brilliant mastermind named Thrawn. Even Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, aboard Outbound Flight with his young Padawan student Anakin Skywalker, cannot help to avert disaster. What begins as a peaceful Jedi mission is violently transformed into an all-out war for survival against staggering odds-and the most diabolical of adversaries.
The specter of the menacing Grand Admiral Thrawn looms over Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker as they embark on a journey to recover an important piece of Jedi history.
Sometimes it seems a Jedi's work is never done, and Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker know this only too well. Despite the bond they share in the Force, the Jedi Master and his wife are still learning the ropes of being a couple after three years of marriage-and struggling to find time together between the constant demands of duty. But all that will change when they're united on an unexpected mission: They must pool their exceptional skills to combat an insidious enemy and salvage a part of Jedi history.
Whatever may await, the Skywalkers will not face it alone. Joining them on the strange and solemn journey are an officer of the post-Palpatine Empire escorted by a detachment of Imperial stormtroopers; a party of diplomats from a gentle alien species that reveres the fallen Jedi for saving them from bloodthirsty conquerors; and a New Republic ambassador who harbors his own mysterious agenda.
Soon enough, suspicion, secrecy, and an unknown saboteur run rampant aboard the isolated ship. But the gravest danger lies within the derelict walls of Outbound Flight, buried for half a century on a desolate planetoid. As the marooned hulk yields up stunning revelations and unexpected terrors to its visitors, Luke and Mara find all that they stand for-and their very existence-brutally challenged. The ultimate test will be surviving the deathtrap carefully laid by foes who are legendary for their ruthlessness, and determined to complete the job Thrawn began: exterminating the Jedi.
NEW SCIENCE FICTION SERIES FROM THE CREATOR OF THE COBRA SERIES AND STAR WARS' ADMIRAL THRAWN.
There wasn't much money to be made as a Trailblazer, searching out new worlds for possible development. Still, it was safer than the bounty hunter career that had cost Gregory Roarke his left arm six years ago. And thanks to his Kadolian partner Selene's ultrasensitive sense of smell, they occasionally discovered a medically promising seed or spore they could sell under the table. It was a quiet life, uneventful and mostly legal.
Until Roarke was approached by two men with a proposal: track down a mysterious woman named Tera and, through her, locate a secret project called Icarus.
The challenge was intriguing. The unlimited budget was tempting. But Roarke had a more personal reason to accept the job.
The chance for long-delayed payback.
From Timothy Zahn, Hugo Award winner and New York Times bestselling author of two landmark Star Wars® series, comes an original new tale featuring a renegade space pilot, his unusual alien partner, and an unknown cargo that can change the course of galactic history.
Jordan McKell has a problem with authority. Unfortunately for him, the iron-fisted authority of the powerful Patthaaunutth controls virtually every aspect of galactic shipping. In order to survive, Jordan ekes out a living dabbling in interstellar smuggling for outlaw concerns that represent the last vestiges of free trade in the galaxy. So when Jordan and his partner, Ixil--an alien with two ferret-like "outhunters" linked to his neural system--are hired by a mysterious gentleman to fly a ship and its special cargo to Earth, they jump at the job.
Caution has never been one of Jordan's strong suits. But this time he may have taken on more than even he can handle. The ship, Icarus, turns out to be a ramshackle hulk, the ragtag crew literally picked up off the street, and the cargo so secret, it's sealed in a special container that takes up most of the cramped and ill-designed ship. As if that weren't bad enough, it looks like the authorities already suspect something is afoot, there's a saboteur aboard, and the Icarus appears to be shaking apart at the seams.
It doesn't seem as if things could get any worse. That is, until a beautiful crew member helps McKell uncover the true nature of the cargo he's carrying. With his enemies closing in on the lumbering Icarus, the unknown saboteur still aboard, and authorities on Earth pressured to turn them in, McKell and Ixil become fugitives. Their only chance is to stay one step ahead of their pursuers as they try to make it home.
A bold and epic novel filled with unrelenting action and a good dose of humor, The Icarus Hunt is a wild hyperspace romp through the galaxy.
THE EPIC FIGHT FOR INDEPENDENCE ON OUR MOON HAS BEGUN!
The Lunar colony is a mining colony with only internal security capabilities. Nobody had even considered that there might soon arise a need to defend the colony from the Earth! But that day has come. Something has been uncovered on the Moon. Something important. Something . . . alien.
The Lunar colonists perceive this great discovery as their own. Finders keepers and possession being nine-tenths of the law is how things are on the Moon. But as far as the governments of the Earth are concerned, they paid for everything on the Moon, so it belongs to them.
There is only one solution: turn Luna into a battlefield!
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Thrawn and his allies race to save the Chiss Ascendancy from an unseen enemy in the second book in the epic Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy from bestselling author Timothy Zahn.
Thrawn's latest triumph still rests newly on his shoulders. He has led the Chiss to victory and brought glory to the House of Mitth, but the true threat to the Ascendancy has not yet been extinguished. Their foes do not send threats or ultimatums, do not mass ships on the edge of the Chaos. Their weapons come cloaked in smiles and generosity: Gifts offered freely. Services granted unconditionally.
Across the Ascendancy, seemingly inconsequential events could herald the doom of the Chiss. As Thrawn and the Expansionary Defense Fleet rally to uncover the plot, they discover a chilling truth: Rather than invade Chiss capitals or pillage resources, their enemy strikes at the very foundation of the Ascendancy, seeking to widen the rifts between the Nine Ruling Families and the Forty Great Houses below. As rivalry and suspicion sow discord among allies, each warrior must decide what matters most to them: the security of their family or the survival of the Ascendancy itself.
