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"The Jedi are keepers of the peace. We are not soldiers."
--MACE WINDU

Mace Windu is a living legend: Jedi Master, senior member of the Jedi Council, skilled diplomat, devastating fighter. Some say he is the deadliest man alive. But he is a man of peace--and for the first time in a thousand years, the galaxy is at war.

Now, following the momentous events climaxing in the Battle of Geonosis, Master Mace Windu must undertake a perilous homecoming to his native world--to defuse a potentially catastrophic crisis for the Republic... and to confront a terrifying mystery with dire personal consequences.

The jungle planet of Haruun Kal, the homeworld Mace barely remembers, has become a battleground in the increasing hostilities between the Republic and the renegade Separatist movement. The Jedi Council has sent Depa Billaba--Mace's former Padawan and fellow Council member--to Haruun Kal to train the local tribesmen as a guerilla resistance force, to fight against the Separatists who control the planet and its strategic star system with their droid armies. But now the Separatists have pulled back, and Depa has not returned. The only clue to her disappearance is a cryptic recording left at the scene of a brutal massacre: a recording that hints of madness and murder, and the darkness in the jungle... a recording in Depa's own voice.

Mace Windu trained her. Only he can find her. Only he can learn what has changed her. Only he can stop her.

Jedi were never intended to be soldiers. But now they have no choice. Mace must journey alone into the most treacherous jungle in the galaxy--and into his own heritage. He will leave behind the Republic he serves, the civilization he believes in, everything but his passion for peace and his devotion to his former Padawan. And he will learn the terrible price that must be paid, when keepers of the peace are forced to make war....