Product Description

As the savage Clone Wars rage unchecked, the Republic’s deadliest warriors face the grim truth that the Separatists aren’t their only enemy–or even their worst.

In the Grand Army’s desperate fight to crush the Separatists, the secret special ops missions of its elite clone warriors have never been more critical . . . or more dangerous. A growing menace threatens Republic victory, and the members of Omega Squad make a shocking discovery that shakes their very loyalty.

As the lines continue to blur between friend and enemy, citizens–from civilians and sergeants to Jedi and generals–find themselves up against a new foe: the doubt in their own hearts and minds. The truth is a fragile, shifting illusion–and only the approaching inferno will reveal both sides in their true colors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21013 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-30
• Released on: 2007-10-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 496 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345498007
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Karen Traviss is the author of two Star Wars: Legacy of the Force novels, Bloodlines and Sacrafice, and two additional Star Wars: Republic Commando novels, Hard Contact and Triple Zero, as well as City of Pearl, Crossing the Line, The World Before, Matriarch, and Ally. A former defense correspondent and TV and newspaper journalist, Traviss has also worked as a police press officer, an advertising copywriter, and a journalism lecturer. Since her graduation from the Clarion East class of 2000, her short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, On Spec, and Star Wars Insider. She lives in Devizes, England.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
1

Look, all I know is this. The Seps can’t have as many droids as Intel says—we’ve seen that when we’ve sabotaged their factories. And if they have gazillions of them somewhere, why not overrun the whole Republic now and get it over with? Come to that, why won’t the Chancellor listen to the generals and just smash the key Sep targets instead of dragging this war out, spreading us thin from Core to Rim? Add that garbage to the message Lama Su sent him griping about the clone contract expiring in a couple of years—it all stinks. And when it stinks that bad, we get ready to run, because it’s our shebse on the line here. Understand?

—Sergeant Kal Skirata to the Null ARCs, discussing the future in light of new intelligence gathered during their unauthorized infiltration of Tipoca City, 462 days after Geonosis

Republic fleet auxilliary Core Conveyor, en route for Mirial, 2nd Airborne (212th Battalion) and Omega Squad embarked, 470 days after Geonosis

“Nice of you to join us, Omega,” said Sergeant Barlex, one hand wrapped around the grab rail in the ship’s hangar. “And may I be the first to say that you look like a bunch of complete prats?”

Darman waited for Niner to tell Barlex where to shove his opinion, but he didn’t take the bait and carried on adjusting the unfamiliar winged jet pack. It was just the usual bravado that went with being scared and hyped up for a mission. Okay, so the sky troopers’ standard pack didn’t fit comfortably on Republic commando Katarn armor, but for accuracy of insertion it still beat paragliding. Darman had vivid and painful memories of a low-opening emergency jump on Qiilura that hadn’t been on target, unless you counted trees. So he was fine with a pair of white wings—even if they were the worst bolt-on goody in the history of procurement in the Grand Army of the Republic.

Fi activated his wing mechanism, and the two blades swung into horizontal position with a hiss of hydraulics, nearly smacking Barlex in the face. Fi smiled and flapped his arms. “Want to see my impression of a Geonosian?”

“What, plummeting to the ground in a spray of bug- splatter after I put a round through you?” said Barlex.

“You’re so masterful.”

“I’m so a sergeant, Private—”

“Couldn’t you at least get us matte-black ones?” Fi asked. “I don’t want to plunge to my doom with uncoordinated accessories. People will talk.”

“You’ll have white, and like it.” Barlex was the senior NCO of Parjai Squad, airborne troops with a reputation for high-risk missions that Captain Ordo called “assertive outreach.” The novelty of supporting special forces had clearly worn off. Barlex pushed Fi’s flight blades back into the closed position and maintained a scowl. “Anyway, I thought you bunch were born-again Mandalorians. Jet packs should make you feel right at home.”

“Off for caf and cakes afterward?”

Barlex was still unsmiling granite. “Orders are to drop extra matériel and other useless ballast, meaning you, and then shorten our survival odds again by popping in for a chat with the Seps on Mirial.”

Fi did his wounded concern act, hands clasped under his chin. “Is it the Mando thing that’s coming between us, dear?”

“Just my appreciation of the irony that we’re fighting Mando mercenaries in some places.”

“I’d better keep you away from Sergeant Kal, then . . .”

“Yeah, you do that,” said Barlex. “I lost ten brothers thanks to them.”

Clone troopers might have been able to sing “Vode An,” but it was clear that the proud Mandalorian heritage hadn’t quite percolated through all the ranks. Darman decided not to tell Skirata. He’d be mortified. He wanted all Jango Fett’s clones to have their souls saved for the manda by some awareness of the only fragile roots they had. Barlex’s hostility would break his heart.

The compartment went quiet. Darman flexed his shoulders, wondering how Geonosians coped with wings: did they sleep on their backs, or hang like hawk-bats, or what? He’d only ever seen the bugs moving or dead, so it remained another unanswered question. He had a lot of those. Niner, ever alert to the mood of his squad, walked around each of them and checked the makeshift securing straps, yanking hard on the harness that looped between Fi’s legs. Fi yelped.

Niner gave Fi that three-beat silent stare, just like Skirata. “Don’t want anything falling off, do we, son?”

“No, Sarge. Not before I’ve had a chance to try it out, anyway.”

Niner continued the stare for a little longer. “Sitrep briefing in ten, then.” He indicated the hatch and inspected the interior of his helmet. “Let’s not keep General Zey waiting.”

Barlex stood silent as if he was working up to telling them something, then shrugged and took Niner’s indication that what was to follow wasn’t for his ears. Darman did what he always did before an insertion: he settled in a corner to recheck his suit calibration. Atin inspected Fi’s jet pack clips with a critical frown.

“I could knit better attachments than these,” he muttered.

“Do you think you could try cheery and upbeat sometime, At’ika?” Fi asked.

Niner joined in the inspection ritual. It was all displacement activity, but nobody could ever accuse Omega Squad of leaving things to chance. “All it has to do is stay attached to Fi until he lands,” he said.

Fi nodded. “That would be nice.”

Atin set the encrypted holoreceiver he had been holding on a bulkhead ledge and locked the compartment hatches. Darman couldn’t imagine any clone trooper being a security risk, and wondered if they were offended by being shut out of Spec Ops briefings as if they were civilians. But they seemed to take it as routine, apparently uncurious and uncomplaining, because that was the way they’d been trained since birth: they had their role, and the Republic commandos had theirs. That was what the Kaminoans had told them, anyway.

But it wasn’t entirely true. Trooper Corr, last surviving man of his whole company, was now on SO Brigade strength and seemed to be enjoying himself charging around the galaxy with the Null ARCs. He was becoming quite a double act with Lieutenant Mereel; they shared a taste for the finer points of booby traps. They also enjoyed exploring the social scene, as Skirata put it, of every city they happened to pass through.

Corr fits in just fine. I bet they all can, given the chance and the training.

Darman slipped on his helmet and retreated into his own world, comlinks closed except for the priority override that would let the squad break into the circuit and alert him. If he let his mind drift, the scrolling light display of his HUD blurred and became the nightscape of Coruscant, and he could immerse himself in the precious memory of those brief and illicit days in the city with Etain. Sometimes he felt as if she were standing behind him, a feeling so powerful that he’d look over his shoulder to check. Now he recognized the sensation for what it was: not his imagination or longing, but a Jedi—his Jedi—reaching out in the Force to him.

She’s General Tur-Mukan. You’re well out of line, soldier.

He felt her touch now, just the fleeting awareness of someone right next to him. He couldn’t reach back: he just hoped that however the Force worked, it let her know that he knew she was thinking of him. But why did the Force speak to so few beings, if it was universal? Darman felt a pang of mild resentment. The Force was another aspect of life that was closed to him, but at least that was true for pretty well everyone. It didn’t bother him anywhere near as much as the dawning realization that he didn’t have what most others did: a little choice.

He’d once asked Etain what would happen to the clone troops when the war was over—when they won. He couldn’t think about losing. Where would they go? How would they be rewarded? She didn’t know. The fact that he didn’t know, either, fed a growing uneasiness.

Maybe the Senate hasn’t thought that far ahead.

Fi turned to pick up his helmet and started calibrating the display, the expression on his face distracted and not at all happy. This was Fi unguarded: not funny, not wisecracking, and alone with his thoughts. Darman’s helmet let him observe his brother without provoking a response. Fi had changed, and it had happened during the operation on Coruscant. Darman felt Fi was preoccupied by something the rest of them couldn’t see, like a hallucination you’d never tell anyone about because you thought you were going crazy. Or maybe you were afraid nobody else would admit to it. Darman had a feeling he knew what it was, so he never talked about Etain, and Atin never went on about Laseema. It wasn’t fair to Fi.

The Core Conveyor’s drives had a very soothing frequency. Darman settled into that light doze where he was still conscious but his thoughts rambled free of his control.

Yes, Coruscant was the problem. It had given them all a glimpse into a parallel universe where people lived normal lives. Darman was smart enough to realize that his own life wasn’t normal—that he’d been bred to fight, nothing else—but his gut said something else entirely: that it wasn’t right or fair.

He’d have volunteered, he was sure of that. They wouldn’t have had to force him. All he wanted at the end of it was some time with Etain. He didn’t know what else life had to offer, but h...

Customer Reviews

Traviss raises the bar for SW novels
True Colors is what most SW books are not: intelligent, dramatic, internally realistic, and morally complex.

A sequel to the previous Republic Commando novel, Triple Zero, True Colors follows Delta and Omega Squads as they seek to capture scientist Ko Sai, the master geneticist of the Republic's clone army. Having fled Kamino with records of the cloning program, she's now being hunted by Palpatine and other commercial cloners eager to appropriate her work. But where these parties are motivated by commercial and political potential, Delta and Omega Squads have a more personal interest, to coerce the scientist into prolonging their lives by slowing down the quick-aging process built into their genetic code.

It's a fairly simple story made complex by attention to character and theme, something most Star Wars writers glance over if they think of it at all. Many employ a comfortable shorthand in which certain kinds of characters or characteristics are good, others bad, and the situations in which they find themselves clear cut. Traviss, though, paints in shades of gray, in which heroes have faults, bad guys are sometimes good, and the choices they have to make rarely easy.

The clone soldiers struggle to comprehend the enormity - and irony - of their burden, to die for a Republic that claims to defend freedom and liberty but values its clone warriors less than machines. Though content to do that for which they have been bred, the clones begin to resent being taken for granted, especially by their Jedi generals, men and women who through their relationship with the Force claim to have a wider and deeper appreciation of life in all its forms. The Jedi are painfully aware of their responsibilities to the clones, but find themselves trapped by tradition and circumstance serving the Republic, setting aside the rights of their soldiers to first fight the greater threat posed by the Separatists.

With no one to look after their interests but themselves, the clone commandos and their Mandalorian trainers set in motion a plan to free themselves from the tyranny of genetics and societal neglect, to give themselves an opportunity to live a life of normal men. But to do that they have to go against their breeding and training to disobey orders, aid deserters, deceive trusted comrades, kill fellow clone troopers and Mandalorians, and put civilian associates at risk. Complicit in their schemes are two Jedi commanders who discover first hand the dangers of attachment to loved ones and the equally dangerous detachment from avoiding difficult decisions.

In the end the commandos and the Jedi find that by looking closely at the thing you hate, you begin to understand it, to see that it exists much the same as you, as the expression of conditions that brought you into existence. Ko Sai is from a society that as a result of ecological disaster had to euthanize weaker members of its species to survive. For the Kaminoans the universe is a cold and harsh place that demands difficult choices, choices other species seem unable to take, but from which the commandos do not shy. In taking extraordinary measures to protect their own kind, in not being able to depend on the help of outsiders, the clones and Ko Sai find they have something in common. And in a universe in which many see the clones as little more than crude fighting machines, the Jedi begin to see that what they might have considered brutish behavior is as much a result of breeding as it is the tasks the Jedi and the Republic call upon the clones to perform.

This is the finest Star Wars novel ever written. Where Triple Zero was weighed down by excessive detail on weaponry, technology, and Mandalorian culture, True Colors pulses with the warmth of life and the honest portrayal of human conflict. There is no SW novel that can compare in depth of character and ethical complexity (though Matthew Stover's novels come close). On the one hand I'm glad Traviss wrote it. It was a fine read and shows that licensed fiction need not be hackneyed product. On the other, I despair of reading anything as fine until Traviss' next Republic Commando novel.

If you enjoyed True Colors, then by all means check out Traviss Wess'har series, which covers much of the same thematic ground.

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Exceptional fiction by any reasonable standard.
Forget that it's a Star Wars tie-in, for that matter forget even that it's science fiction. Those are just the scenery - albiet exquisite and terrifically well used scenery - in this absolutely gripping military drama. Once again Karen Traviss has turned the ultimate in interchangable cast members - clone soldiers - into deep, complicated, and incredibly sympathetic and powerfully written people. The very title is a clue to the nature of the story, and indeed the true colors of the soldiers on the front line, as opposed to the government who sent them there, are both starting to show through. This is not a story about Jedi and battle droids and spaceships, though they are there. This is a story about people living with the choices they make, this is about comradery, about family, loss, and love. Read this book.

You don't have to like Star Wars
Another great read from Ms. Traviss. In True Colors, we see more of Delta and Omega squads as they are sent on their way across the Galaxy Far Far Away to fight for the Republic. The squads are not the same as they were in Hard Contact, they've seen too much to think that Jedi are infallible or that military procurement is working in their best interest. At times, they are obviously fatigued from all the fighting in their short lives.

Republic Commando: Hard Contact, the first book in this series, was my introduction to the GFFA. As I told someone just yesterday; you don't have to like Star Wars, or even have read any of the Extended Universe books associated with Star Wars to enjoy this series. It's military fiction first and tie-in fiction a distant second. The clones are not all identical, and that's what makes the books interesting. They are as much individuals as identical twins.

I look forward to the next installment in this series (and hopefully the next, and the next). I really care about these guys. I want to know how it all turns out for them. It's not the whiz-bang technology or the Hyperspace travel that makes these books good. It's the characters, and Ms. Traviss writes characters so well that you really feel like you know them; you really care what happens to them.