Cover Artist: Drew Struzan

Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and her children are stunned when they sense the sudden deaths of over a million people somewhere in the galaxy. This is followed shortly thereafter by an explosion in the Senate chamber that kills many long time Republic Senators. Lando Calrissian discovers a derelict smugglers ship that contains evidence that implicates Han Solo in the bombing and so decides to find Han and warn him. Han is out following his own investigation into where smugglers are suddenly coming into a lot of money, when the evidence that Lando found is discovered by the people investigating the bombing. Through the Force, Luke feels that on old apprentice named Brakiss may be involved and so borrows an X-wing fighter to track him down because his own X-wing is being overhauled. While observing the repairs to Luke's X-wing, R2-D2 helps the technician discover a bomb planted in the ship, which leads them on an investigation of there own that reveals bombs in all of the new X-wings, as well as all the X-wings that have been overhauled. Luke meets with Brakiss and is directed to the planet Almania where someone named Kueller is waiting for him. As he arrives there, his X-wing explodes, forcing him to crash on Almania's moon where he finds that apparently everyone on the moon is dead. Leia sets out on a mission to rescue Luke, accompanied by a small task force led by Wedge Antilles.R2-D2, C-3PO and the technician travel to the moon where Brakiss is staying, hoping to uncover more of the bombing plot. Han and Lando discover that the bomb that went off in the Senate was actually a lot of bombs hidden in the droids that were in the Senate chamber, and that it's all part of a plan by Kueller to take control of the galaxy. Back on Almania, Luke finally confronts Kueller and discovers that he was another failed Jedi named Dolph. Luke escapes from Kueller's prison as Leia lands on Almania to rescue him, but they are stopped by Kueller who begins a duel trying to kill Luke, who is badly injured. Just as it appears that Kueller is going to win, Han and Mara Jade arrive with a couple of ysalamiri. Finding himself thwarted, Kueller decides to activate all the droid bombs that are planted around the galaxy. Leia then kills him, and they discover that the plan was thwarted by R2-D2 who managed to disable the activation relays before the droids can explode.

This was not a bad book at all. There was mystery, suspense and plenty of tension, which made me want to keep reading so as to finish the book quickly. I thought t was really quite well written.