Star Wars Insider Explains ‘Rishi’s Maze’
The mystery of Rishi’s labyrinth has been solved, as Han Solo faces the threat in our preview for Star Wars Insider: The Fiction Collection Vol. 1.
Since its appearance in Star wars tradition, fans have long wondered about the secret nature of Rishi’s maze. But one of the strangest mysteries of Star wars the universe will finally receive some explanations, thanks to our exclusive preview of Star Wars Insider: Fiction Collection Vol. 1., coming soon from Titan Comics.
Tradition is just one of many short stories in the collection of Star Wars InsiderBest seller, written by renowned bestsellers Star wars authors such as Jason Fry, Matthew Stover, John Ostrander and Paul S. Kemp, stunning works of art from some of the saga’s most beloved performers including Joe Corroney, Brian Rood, Jan Duursema and Magali Villeneuve, and featuring featuring iconic characters such as Han Solo, Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian and Darth Vader. And if you thought the Kessel Run was Han and Chewie’s most dangerous mission, you’re surprised.
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Ahead of the arrival of the Complete Collection on Star Wars Day (May 4, 2021), Screen Rant is pleased to present a preview of “Maze Run” by authors David J. Williams and Mark S. Williams, an exciting story featuring featured the series’ the heroes of smugglers Han Solo and Chewbacca. As fans are well aware, The Rishi Maze has never been given a clear explanation in canon, since his first appearance in Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones. But the meaning of the name can and should be appreciated, with this story following the Millennium Falcon straight into the maze. Enjoy the exclusive clip as well as Brian Rood’s illustrations, integrated below.
It was the mother of all storms.
Huge jets of relativistic plasma erupted from the polar regions of the black hole, lighting up the darkness with tendrils of shimmering fire. There was only one direction for a sane pilot: far, as fast as possible.
The Millennium Falcon fired its engines and headed inside.
This black hole was also no ordinary specimen. Each galaxy revolves around a supermassive vortex, but this was the center of the dwarf galaxy known as the Rishi Labyrinth. Vast fields of gravity, energy and debris spread out on all sides. Maybe this labyrinth of death was the reason the galaxy was called the labyrinth in the first place. Perhaps.
Han Solo didn’t care.
What interested him were angles, vectors and flight paths. Besides the fact that he had been faced with a challenge of the first magnitude, because only the best pilots had a chance to cross the labyrinth. That was what mattered to Solo.
And the payment. That too.
The annoying thing was that so far this business had already cost him the highest price of all: a girl. While making fun of his favorite space bar in Mos Eisley, he had come so close to getting along with that minx Jenny. They had flirted and stole around each other for months and he had finally managed to detach her from his crowd of admirers, when the broker had approached him. Norund Tac – a member of the Merchants Guild and a longtime glitterstim smuggler – said he had a race that required a cold hand on the stick … someone who could handle not only the Imperial blockade of Hutt space, but which could reach the very center of Rishi’s labyrinth. Tac faced a group of struts running an illegal energy farm deep in this maelstrom who were in dire need of supplies of all kinds: phase loop generators, ramscoop coils, reserve armor, works. The Empire had closed the path to vertical space commerce, so the only way to reach customers was through radiation fields dangerously close to the galaxy’s black hole. Which was all the more reason to get a good deal – or go away altogether.
In fact, Han hesitated until Tac deposited half the payment on the table and promised a tidy little bonus at the point of delivery. By the time they had made the deal, Jenny had walked away with Tork the bouncer and another night of potential happiness had gone up in smoke. By morning, Han and Chewie were aboard the Falcon, fleeing an Imperial cruiser determined to prevent them from jumping out of Hutt space. But slipping the Imperials was the Falcon’s specialty and in the pursuit that followed it more than lived up to its reputation … albeit with a few hits to the rear armor.
Of course, that was the easiest part. Now they had to thread the maze. Han watched as the Falcon’s computer spat out the initial race parameters, calibrating a whole host of variables to chart the optimal path through the legion of obstacles. Han stretched out his gloved fingers over the holo-deck and began to move the various indicators for the tasks ahead. He had learned his lesson a long time ago: reconfigure the deck as needed and never get locked into anything. Flexibility was key, and Han had made sure the Falcon was the most flexible ship he had ever flown. For the most part, she was just another battered old freighter, barely able to carry a load large enough to support her operations – but for Han, she was better than having your own Star Destroyer. He had given it enough special tweaks and unique modifications to make the Falcon the match for any contraband ship on the Outer Rim.
On the screen, the radiation levels soared, and on the speakers the volume of Chewie’s growls too.
“Nothing to worry about,” Han drawled.
Chewie’s barbed wire replica echoed in the cockpit. He was in the access corridors, still doing the checks after the hyper-flight. They had hoped to have some time between exiting hyperspace and entering the labyrinth, but with Imperial ships nearby, they had had to forgo that luxury. But what Chewie didn’t miss was to perform the checks manually. He insisted on prudence.
It was good for Han. Since he liked to take extra risks, he and the Wookiee balanced out. Great partnerships had been built on much less. Han grabbed the staff and strangled the Falcon, dodging the photospheres of some of the stars captured in the black hole’s outermost orbits. A few of these stars even had planets the black hole hadn’t yet wrenched from their grip: chunks of rock carving near their suns, any atmosphere long swallowed by the jaws that filled half the sky. Chewie’s face appeared on the screen – he threw his head back and groaned to indicate that everything was preparing since the hyperspace jump and that they could proceed as planned.
“Good,” Han said, “because we’ve already done it.” The Wookiee protested, but Han kept talking about him, “I’m taking us now; we can’t waste any more time if we want to catch this directional beacon when it goes off. That had been his own argument, of course – Chewie wasn’t too happy that they didn’t even know the precise location of the rogue energy farm, and that instead, the station would make them a signal once they would. sailed through the labyrinth enough to be accessible on comlinks. Even if Solo had replaced the Falcon’s original sensors with a military-grade set years ago, finding the beacon among all the energy distortions wouldn’t be an easy task. He strangled the Falcon to half its speed and placed the ship in the spaces between the radiation fields. These fields were moving fast enough that the Falcon’s computer was working hard to plot the optimal flight vectors – and working overtime to eliminate interference on the instrument readings. Han looked out of the cockpit as he moved between gigantic lakes of high energy cloud. The ship shook as the gravitational forces increased – and suddenly the radiation levels increased. Chewie’s questioning growl reverberated through the communications system. All Han could do was shrug.
“It’s a little warm in here,” he said, and rolled the Falcon slowly, turning the belly of the craft over to where its shields were at maximum. For a while, the rad readings remained stable – then they continued to climb, steadily reaching red, becoming intense enough that the cockpit was increasingly threatened. Han let out a curse. Considering the damage to the rear shields, he had expected this kind of development, but not so soon. If he stayed where he was, the radiation would boil him from the inside.
Before fans can start the debate on Star wars Canon vs Legends, they will have to read the entire “Maze Run” as well as countless other news, when Star Wars Insider: Fiction Collection Vol. 1 hits shelves on May 4, 2021 and is currently available for pre-order via Amazon.
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