Shortly after the fall of Coruscant, Wedge Antilles leads a strike force to retake Borleias from the Yuuzhan Vong. Using this as his command outpost, he begins to wage a campaign against the Vong that relies on cunning and guile. When Jaina Solo arrives at the planet, they begin fostering the illusion that she is the living incarnation of the Yuuzhan Vong goddess Yun-Harla in order to make the Vong troops more wary. When they defeat a Vong fleet because the Lusankya arrived in the middle of a battle, the find themselves facing the father of the Vong warmaster, Czulkang Lah, the previous warmaster. Believing that he has seen everything that the Republic can throw at him, he launches a massive ground assault. The Republic forces fall back in front of the assault, and just when they are on the verge of overrunning the Republic base, they find themselves faced with an enemy they have never seen before, the Empire. Lusankya performs an orbital bombardment that wipes out the Vong ground forces, causing Lah to rethink his strategies and retreat. In the middle of this battle, Luke Skywalker leads an insertion team into Coruscant, because he has a premonition of something terrible in the Dark Side of the Force roaming the planet.
