Cover Artist: Tom Jung

One month after the loss of the Katana fleet to Grand Admiral Thrawn finds the New Republic still fighting a losing war. Thrawn's insights into the alien races he battles continue to be proved right. Showing to the Galaxy why he is a Grand Admiral, he concocts creative and demoralizing attacks that make it very difficult for the Republic forces to fight back. The only negative for him is that his insane clone Jedi Master is becoming more and more unstable which is making the Jedi less and less reliable. In order to keep C'baoth happy, Thrawn sends a commando team to Coruscant to attempt the kidnapping of Princess Leia and her newborn twins, Jaina and Jacen. This action sets in motion a chain of events that will lead Luke Skywalker and a team of saboteurs to Mount Tantiss on Wayland, the location of Thrawn's cloning facility and a confrontation with the Dark Jedi Master. On the military front Thrawn captures system after system, eventually striking at Coruscant itself and seeding its orbit with a small amount of cloaked asteroids, thereby isolating it from the rest of the Republic forces. This in turn leads to a final confrontation at the Bilbringi system where the Noghri people are avenged against the Empire.

As the final book in the series that launched the modern Star Wars publishing blitz, this book has some very satisfying conclusions while leaving enough new stories to be shared later. One particular character who has had an almost uncontrollable urge to kill Luke manages to find a way to satisfy that compulsion while leaving herself open to considerable growth. Other characters prove that they are not as mercenary as they would like to believe they are, and still others receive the ending that is most suitable to them. This is a fitting conclusion to one of the best Star Wars stories ever written.