The Force Unleashed II

PROLOGUE: CATO NEIMOIDIA

JUNO ECLIPSE STOOD with her hands behind her back and stared down at Cato Neimoidia. From the bridge of the Salvation, the densely forested world shone a brilliant green against the star-dusted black, and she was keenly reminded of other forest worlds she had visited during her career as an Imperial pilot.
Callos was the first. There she had obeyed orders that had resulted in the death of the entire planet’s biosphere.
Felucia was next, and that world, too, had been left poisoned in her wake.
Kashyyyk, the last and most difficult to recall, had not been damaged at all. In fact, the prospects for its forests’ continued survival had taken a sharp turn for the better following the destruction of the skyhook that had threatened to enslave every last Wookiee and to ensure the planet remained part of the Empire forever. The resolution made in the ruins of a jungle hut, where a handful of people had vowed to rebel against the Emperor and free the galaxy’s tormented trillions, was bound to help, too.
Given luck, then, the forests of Kashyyyk would survive, but Juno remembered wondering how she herself possibly could. The pain she felt had been too great, the sense of loss too deep. Every living thing reminded her of the part of her that had unexpectedly wakened within her and then died just as suddenly. Her heart beat with a heaviness that hadn’t been there before—not even when she’d been held captive for months in the Empirical, expecting to be executed at any moment.
Sometimes she woke in the night, still feeling his lips against hers. They had kissed just once, but the memory of it was burned in her brain. He had died, and she lived on. It had taken a year before she finally felt as though she might be over him. So why was she letting a bunch of trees bother her now?
She told herself to get it together. Juno Eclipse had bigger things to worry about.
“Excuse me, Captain,” barked a voice at her elbow. “Our probe droids are picking up an atmospheric disturbance in the vicinity of the target.”
She turned away from the view to face her Bothan second in command. “What kind of disturbance, Nitram?”
“Explosions.”
“Show me.”