Death Troopers

Death Troopers
Author(s)	Joe Schreiber
Cover artist	Indika
Country	USA
Language	English
Series	"Virus duology", preceded by Red Harvest
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel Horror novel
Publisher	Del Rey Books
Publication date	13 October 2009
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	288 pp (first edition, hardback);
ISBN	ISBN 0345509625 (first edition, hardback)
Preceded by	'Red Harvest'

Death Troopers is a Star Wars novel written by Joe Schreiber.^[1] Schreiber's idea was to create a horror story in the Star Wars universe that pulled from horror movies he enjoyed such as the Shining and Alien. The novel is the first horror story based in the Star Wars Universe since the Galaxy of Fear series, released in the late 90s.^[2] Released on October 13, 2009, Death Troopers is set just before the events shown in A New Hope. It will be heavily featured in the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies with SOE confirming a full page of information and advertisements of the game in the book.^[3] On September 22, 2010, Ballantine Books revealed the cover of the prequel novel, also by Schreiber, called Red Harvest

Plot

The Imperial prison barge Purge, temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy's most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels and thieves, breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space. Its only hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer drifting nearby, derelict and seemingly abandoned. When a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back, bringing with them a contagion so lethal that within hours, almost all aboard the Purge are dead - the half-dozen survivors are two teenage brothers, Kale and Trig Longo, a ruthless captain of the guards, Jareth Sartoris, and the chief medical officer, Zahara Cody, all of whom seem to possess natural immunity.

The Purge's onboard computer informs Cody that there are also two survivors in isolation, and Cody leaves the medibay to release them and administer an antidote synthesized from her blood by the incumbent 21B medical droid "Waste". The isolated prisoners are Han Solo and Chewbacca who initially are sceptical of the situation, however allow her to immunize them, and make their way back to medical. Upon returning to medical they find it empty, and Waste destroyed. The dead have become undead and begin to hunt the survivors who are forced to abandon Purge and take shelter in the Star Destroyer, unaware that the Destroyer is not the better place to be.

All the survivors are separated: Sartoris faces the few living survivors who have become cannibalistic, and are hiding in an Imperial Assault shuttle previously captured by the Star Destroyers tractor beam. Solo & Chewbacca make their way to the bridge in an attempt to either fly the Destroyer, or at least turn off the tractor beam. Kale dies from an infected wound, returns to life as a zombie, and is subsequently killed again by Trig. Cody finds herself in the Destroyers medbay, and with the aid of the destroyers own 21B discovers the cause of the contagion: Codenamed Blackwing, it is an artificially created virus - intended to slow the onset of decay and rigor mortis, and increase the healing capacity of the human body prior to death. The Destroyer was taking it to an isolated outpost for testing. However, the contagion - characterised by a grey goo - leaked from its containers and infected the entire ship, converting its 8,000 crew into the undead. Cody observes from her vantage point that the remaining ships in the docking bay are being filled with the zombies - they are attempting to leave the Destroyer and spread their contagion throughout the galaxy.

After escaping from the shuttle, Sartoris meets up with Solo, Chewbacca & Trig, then sacrifices himself to allow them to escape, after revealing he has been bitten by an undead and is himself turning into a zombie. They return to the shuttle and successfully leave the destroyer, but discover a zombie has made it aboard the shuttle, and has killed the two remaining original survivors. The zombie is shot by Cody - who they had previously thought killed when the shuttle ready room she was hiding in was destroyed by the zombies - and she points out that the rest of the escaped ships are no longer controlled - as they watch two infested Tie fighters collide with each other and explode. Cody theorises that Blackwing is only effective when in range of the original contagion source on the Destroyer, and that now removed from the source the zombies have again "died".

The four survivors leave the Destroyer and now-derelict ships, and find a planet where they sell the shuttle to a pirate group. Solo and Chewbacca leave to re-buy their impounded ship, while Cody and Trig use their share of the sale to visit a distant planet - home to one of the dead prison guards, and deliver a note he was in the process of writing when Blackwing took him.

See also

Novels portal

• Galaxy of Fear

References

1. ^ Joe Schreiber Talks Supernatural: The Unholy Cause
2. ^ Book Update: Deathtroopers & Darth Bane
3. ^ Death Troopers Get Reinforcements

External links

• Death Troopers Official Site
• Interview with Joe Schreiber on BookBanter
• First Look: Death Troopers on StarWars.com
• Book Update: Death Troopers and Darth Bane on StarWars.com