Get Ready for Star Wars Outlaws: Prequel Arriving Next Month with Exciting New Details!

The cancellation of a sequel for Ubisoft’s Star Wars: Outlaws hit fans of the underrated open-world adventure hard. Yet, as we’ve seen time and again in a galaxy far, far away, nothing is ever truly lost, and Outlaws is no exception. In the upcoming Star Wars novel, Low Red Moon, penned by New York Times bestselling author Adam Christopher, we dive back into the gritty underworld of criminal syndicates during the time between Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. The novel is set to drop on February 3.

Instead of reuniting with Outlaws’ main character, Kay Vess, Low Red Moon shifts focus to Jaylen Vrax, the crime lord who recruits her, alongside ND-5, a trenchcoat-wearing BX-series commando droid. In an exclusive excerpt, we follow Jaylen and ND-5 as they search for clues about the enigmatic Low Red Moon in a bustling spaceport, only to discover that they might not be as secure as they thought.

“Madel Nureth is out of scanning range. We should speed up,” I say, processing more sensor data. We pick up the pace, moving 40 percent faster than before, though still at a leisurely yet hurried walk. “I’m maintaining a threat detection analysis.”

“Any signs of the person from before?” Jaylen asks, scanning the area. His movements are quite noticeable.

“Unconfirmed.”

A young Rodian darts past and collides with my leg, his arm briefly snagging in my duster.

Not a threat.

I adjust my pace to sidestep the child. Amid the noise, I catch a faint set of footsteps adjusting to match our speed, maintaining a safe distance. I isolate the sound and realize there are actually two distinct sets of footsteps following us.

I halt. “What are you doing?” Jaylen asks. “We’re losing ground.”

My internal timer counts to ten before I accelerate again. Both sets of footsteps match our new pace. “There are two people tracking us,” I inform him.

“You’re sure?” Jaylen asks, glancing around. “I only saw the one in the hood.”

“That’s one of them. I can identify the sound frequencies of their footfalls. One set matches my audio sample from the security gate commotion and has kept perfect pace with us.” I focus on isolating the frequency, cadence, and consistency of the second pair of footsteps. “Another individual is following a similar pattern. Given the multiple parties involved, it’s reasonable to assume this person is also interested in our activities. They may pose a threat.”

“I think…” Jaylen trails off, his gestures becoming more discreet. “We keep up our pace. We find Madel Nureth. We let these other people chase us.”

“Understood,” I reply. With so many variables at play, Jaylen’s plan doesn’t stand out as either a best or worst-case scenario. His preference, combined with the lack of better alternatives, leads me to remain silent and move forward.

We aim to close the gap between us and our targets, but neither Madel nor her contact appears on my thermal sensors. We pass gate after gate, and as we venture further down the row, the number of waiting travelers dwindles.

At the final, ninth gate, there’s no sign of Madel Nureth or the agent from Crimson Dawn. Behind us, both sets of footsteps come to a halt as well.

Jaylen and I find ourselves in the middle of the empty spaceport gate. He bites his lip in frustration as he scans the area. “You don’t pick up anything?” he asks. Even without my tactical analysis, I can tell we’re in an open and vulnerable position.

This effectively makes us bait.

I don’t respond to Jaylen. Instead, I notice several of my sensors have stopped functioning. Thermal capture, long-range audio detection, and dynamic movement patterns are active but yielding no readings. I turn to put Jaylen in my field of view, but I can’t detect any thermal data from him.

“Endee?”

Jaylen isn’t dead, so he should be giving off some heat signature. This is concerning.

“I believe something is jamming my scanners.”

“It’s a trap,” Jaylen says, his voice tense. “I got a bad feeling about this. I got greedy, let my emotions get in the way.” He glances out the floor-to-ceiling window at the ship on the landing pad—possibly belonging to Crimson Dawn. “Endee, capture an image of that shuttle. See if it matches anything on known registries.”

I comply with Jaylen’s request, and my first scan of the ship reveals a match. “It’s an Amentor Midna-class shuttle. I’ll need a few more seconds to identify the production year.”

Jaylen nods, but then suddenly brings his hand to the back of his neck. “What the…?” His fingers probe as he turns frantically. “Mission’s off. We gotta go. Something clipped the back of my neck.”

“I didn’t detect any movement or impact sounds. However, I agree. We should leave.” As I say this, my standard visual sensors also fail. My audio quality abruptly drops, and I estimate I can only capture sound within five meters. “My other—”

Before I can finish, my power systems detect a sudden ionic surge and—

[[Neural core shutdown in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .]]

Jaylen watched as ND-5 collapsed to his knees, the weight of the BX commando droid creating a thud that might have echoed through the hall if anyone else were around. The instinct to call out surged within him, but he suppressed it. Even in this situation, attracting local authorities wasn’t a smart move.

Or was it? Perhaps a distraction could help him escape safely.

He took a step forward, but a sharp pain gripped his chest, radiating down into his gut with a mix of stinging and nausea that forced him to hunch over. He managed one more step before he dropped, nearly mirroring ND-5’s rigid pose.

Jaylen blinked as his vision blurred, a growing weakness clouding his focus and causing his eyes to water in response to… whatever this was. First, something had struck him in the back of the neck. Then ND-5 collapsed. And now he was incapacitated. All in the span of ten, fifteen seconds?

Something like that. Though the pain made it feel much longer. He squeezed his eyes shut, nausea causing sweat to bead on his forehead, and forced himself to look and assess.

One silhouette approached, shifting from a blurry figure to a clearly defined shape. Despite the pain, Jaylen recognized her. The person before him had fundamentally shaped most of his adult life.

Madel Nureth.

She stood in her standard office attire of matching tan coat and trousers with a muted gray shirt. She bore no obvious weapons. Whatever had struck his neck had no clear source.

A second silhouette came into view, initially fuzzy. First, Jaylen noticed her soft leather boots. Then her black leggings came into focus, followed by a long coat embroidered with glowing orange runes, and finally the distinct green head tendrils of a Nautolan female.

She had to be the Crimson Dawn agent identified by ND-5.

If ND-5 were operational, he could have provided more details from his database, possibly even a name. But that wasn’t happening right now due to what she held in her hand:

A blaster with an ion attachment.

In fact, as he glanced over at ND-5, small trickles of white energy still danced over the deactivated droid’s body.

Madel scanned the empty gate, then looked behind her. “No one here,” she mused. Her partner nodded, mentioning that the next flight at the adjacent gate was in four hours. She knelt to inspect ND-5, even poking at the edge of his scar with her fingernail.

“Brutal.”

Jaylen locked eyes with her as she said that.

“Your handiwork?”

He struggled to push out any words, but the pain was uniquely horrific. At Gus Treta, the concussive forces of the dining room bomb had left him with intense soreness and a massive headache. This felt different, a singular contraction of pain gnawing at him from the inside out. “You…” he managed to utter before gripping his stomach and…

Was that something moving under his skin?

“Well, that droid’s not walking anywhere,” the Nautolan said, raising her ion blaster. “This does its job well. We should go.” She nodded toward a side door by the gate.

Jaylen recalled a distant memory of a spaceport just like this one, where his family had used a small secondary walkway to reach a private charter shuttle instead of taking the busier main gate.

“We don’t want to keep Qi’ra waiting.”