Red Harvest, penned by Joe Schreiber, serves as a prequel to his earlier title, Death Troopers. Initially named Black Orchid, the novel saw its release on December 28, 2010. This horror-themed hardcover unveils the genesis of the virus featured in its predecessor. Sue Rostoni announced on the official site forums on April 23 that the book's title was altered due to concerns that Black Orchid evoked the feel of a romance novel. The paperback edition of the book became available on February 28, 2012. John Glover lent his voice to narrate the audiobook.
In the Old Republic era, a time fraught with peril, the Jedi Knights bravely confront the Sith Lords and their merciless forces. But the Sith harbor sinister schemes—most notably, Darth Scabrous's obsessive ambition, poised to become a terrifying reality.
Hestizo Trace, unlike other Jedi relegated to the Agricultural Corps due to perceived shortcomings, possesses an exceptional Force talent: a natural affinity for plants. Her tranquil existence among greenhouse flora is shattered by an envoy from Darth Scabrous. The rare black orchid she has cultivated is the key ingredient in an ancient Sith formula, promising Darth Scabrous his ultimate desire.
However, at the formula's core lies an unprecedented virus, far more devastating than mere death—it transforms its victims. The decaying, ravenous dead now rise, driven by an insatiable hunger for the living, under the command of a Sith Master consumed by a lust for power and immortality, regardless of the consequences.
Darth Scabrous, who heads the Odacer-Faustin Sith Academy, secretly contracts Tulkh, a Whiphid bounty hunter, to pilfer the Murakami orchid from the Jedi Agricultural Corps facility located on Marfa. Upon successfully stealing the orchid, Tulkh realizes he cannot return to Scabrous with it intact without also bringing its caretaker, Padawan Hestizo Trace. He brings both of them back to the academy, where the Sith Lord incorporates the orchid into a peculiar device connected to Sith apprentice Wim Nickter, whom Scabrous had taken for his own purposes. Nickter succumbs to death, only to revive as a zombie. The infection rapidly spreads throughout the academy, even affecting Scabrous. Hestizo and Tulkh find themselves trapped, struggling to fend off hordes of zombies. Meanwhile, Scabrous becomes fixated on discovering a method to achieve immortality without the drawback of becoming a mindless monster. To accomplish this, he infects Dail'Liss, the Neti librarian, instructing him to lure Hestizo to the library by mimicking the orchid's voice, which remains alive amidst the infection known as the Sickness. The plan succeeds after she and Tulkh separate. Scabrous binds Hestizo to a sacrificial altar, intending to extract her heart using a traditional Sith sword. Scabrous hopes to counteract the Sickness's decaying effects while preserving his eternal life by consuming Hestizo's heart.
Simultaneously, as Tulkh fights to survive and escape Odacer-Faustin, he encounters Scabrous's personal HK-series assassin droid, disguised as a protocol droid, and reprograms it to fight the zombies. Together, they make their way back to Tulkh's ship, the Mirocaw, where they discover Pergus Frode, a stowaway. Frode had been the mechanic for the previous crew hired by Scabrous to retrieve the black orchid; after Scabrous killed that crew for failing, Frode was stranded, left to survive the zombie outbreak.
Back at the Sith library, Hestizo manages to break free from Scabrous's sacrifice. Before Scabrous can kill her, Hestizo's brother, Rojo, arrives and engages the Sith Lord in a duel. Scabrous kills Rojo, but Hestizo defeats Scabrous by telepathically commanding the orchid to grow out of his head, severely weakening him. She then finishes off Scabrous, now a complete zombie, with his own Sith sword. Hestizo avoids infection from the remaining Sith zombies when the Mirocaw, piloted by Pergus Frode, arrives to rescue her. The ship evades Scabrous's perimeter defenses long enough to reach the roof of Scabrous's personal tower. There, the HK droid manipulates the perimeter defenses to destroy the tower instead of the Mirocaw as zombies invade the roof and the ship flies away. The tower is destroyed, along with all the remaining zombies and the droid.
However, Hestizo realizes that the Sickness could still spread throughout the galaxy - Tulkh was infected back on the planet when an infected tauntaun's saliva dripped into his eye. Knowing that his time is running out, Tulkh asks Hestizo to open the wall he chained himself to so that he will be blown out into the vacuum of space. Before she can do so, however, Rance Lussk, an infected apprentice from the academy, attacks, but Hestizo avoids his attack and sends both Tulkh and Lussk out into space. She seals the room that they were blown out of, and rests assured that the Sickness is over.
Hestizo goes back to Marfa, where a new black orchid awaits her care. However, she decides to return to Coruscant to resume her Jedi training.