Tempest Runner: What is Lourna Dee really after?

Over the past several months, High Republic author Cavan Scott has gained a reputation for deeply and unapologetically breaking Star Wars fans’ hearts. Thanks to Tempest Runner, an upcoming audio drama set in the era displaying the Jedi at the height of their power, Scott’s streak will likely soon continue. Only this time, he’ll use a villain to crush our souls.

A new exclusive excerpt from Gizmodo focuses on the Nihil Tempest Runner Lourna Dee’s mission to overtake a Republic relay station in order to improve the Nihil’s communication efforts. She’s the same villain readers have gotten to know over the past few months in bits and pieces: unforgiving, self-serving, and dangerous to cross.

But this excerpt paints her in a more desperate, more on-edge light. And Marchion Ro’s meddling in her affairs over a broken-up comlink call certainly doesn’t help ease her lack of patience. It’s kind of like your boss asking for a meeting when you’re in the middle of completing the assignment he asked you to get done at the last minute. She doesn’t want him telling her what she already knows.

She also doesn’t want him around … ever.

Lourna Dee and Marchion Ro are two individuals who want the same thing: control. Both have their own preferred methods of obtaining and maintaining that control. Ro’s impulsive, explosive style isn’t any more or less ruthless than Dee’s calculated, destructive methodology. But chances are she knows things about him – and the Nihil and its many secrets – that she’ll be able to hold over him in a moment of dangerous desperation.

Del Rey and Penguin Random House Audio have released two previous audio dramas set in the Star Wars universe so far: Dooku: Jedi Lost and Doctor Aphra: An Audiobook Original. Both stories have not only given their main characters new mediums to thrive in but have also expanded on the emotional aspects of their origins and given more insight into why they eventually became antagonists in their own right.

It would be surprising if Tempest Runner didn’t do the same thing with Lourna Dee, giving more context to why she continuously fights so hard to undermine Ro’s authority and make a name for herself in the Nihil ranks.

Just don’t expect to walk away from the story unscathed. You know what you’ve done, Cavan Scott.

Tempest Runner will be available for download on Aug. 31.