Aaron Allston 2002 – Del Rey 27 years after The Battle of Yavin Site Rating =  Buy Now From Amazon.Com

SPOILER ALERT: This Will Spoil The Plot of the Book!

On Coruscant, the Rebel Special Forces group led by Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, along with Face Loran, Tahiri, Danni Quee and others, disguised as Yuuzhan Vong, continue their exploration of the former Republic capital .  While exploring a building, they a run across a Yuuzhan Vong patrol and the groups begin to fight.  Realizing they are outmanned, the rebels use an explosive charge to destroy the walkway and are able to successfully kill or avoid the rest of the group.

A tall powerful man stares at a large black wall.  He uses his mind to push thoughts into a skinny man’s head.  The skinny man, his slave, heads out to retrieve items that will break through this wall.

Harrar, priest of the Trickster goddess, along with Charat Kraal continue the search for Jaina Solo.

After fleeing from a group of humans, Luke and Mara return without their disguises to meet with the group who turn out to be a group of holdouts that have been surviving on the planet.  One man stands up and says he’s seen Lord Nyax, an old wives tales from Corellian ancient times, but the others scoff at them.  He tells them that when he was near the old government center he saw a man wielding a laser sword and destroying a whole group of Vong.  Luke and Mara had earlier felt a Force twinge in that area themselves and they decide to investigate.

Jaina Solo is awoken and she runs into Jagged Fel and a few other Twin Son pilots.  The Yuuzhan Vong are attacking!  She realizes that this is probably another in ploy in attempts to kidnap her.

Above the planet, Harrar searches for the location of a hidden lambent crystal he believes the New Republic is using to create a super weapon as well as to find Jaina’s location.  After seeing Jaina destroy a Vong ship using exceptional deception, he begins to wonder if she is the actually the Trickster goddess herself.

The small man returns with a device to cut through the wall, but it fails and he is killed by the tall man using a Force push.  The tall man’s search continues.

Warmaster Tsavong Lah meets with one of the shapers to discuss the fate of his disfigured arm.  The news is not good and Lah says he will sacrifice himself before becoming a shamed one.  Knowing that it is quite possible the shapers are working against him, he sets in motion a ploy to reveal their true plan.  Nen Yim, the shaper, comes to tend to Lah’s arm, and tells him that indeed it appears that the shapers are traitors.  One of Lah’s aids returns and tells him that he has set a creature upon the traitor that will cause pain and assist in catching the others.

The tall man now has several men and women helping him get through the impenetrable wall.  After a minor success, a woman suggests using a tall robot to bash through the wall and he sends her out immediately.

Yim tells Lah that if he stops the shaper’s treatment for his arm it will get better on its own, but since he doesn’t want to give away that he knows of the conspiracy, he asks her to shape a material that will counteract it so he can continue the treatments.  He also sends for Viqi Shesh and congratulates her on being correct about the conspirators, which of course surprises her since she had only done it as a ruse to buy time to escape.  He sends her on a mission to Coruscant to find the Jedi that have been suspected of killing several Vong warriors there.

As the humans have names, the tall man realizes that he has a name.  They call him Lord Nyax.  He believes that soon he will have all he desires and will rule the galaxy and rid it of those that he cannot sense – the Yuuzhan Vong.

After returning from one of their scouting runs, the Special Forces group enters a hidden research lab.    The lab, which is older than Luke, contains a very large life-support pod inside.  Many think it was for a nonhuman, but Luke senses a Dark Side presence within and disagrees. Whatever was held inside had busted out using brute strength before using a lightsaber to finish off any in its way.  Some believe the location would be perfect for their base, but Luke suggests they discover more about the previous occupant before settling down.

They encounter a droid that has been working in the facility, and it tells them that the human inside was subjected to various growth hormones that allowed it to grow larger than a normal human. It had armor plates surrounding its head, arms and body.  The droid, however, was not familiar with who this person was.

Elsewhere on the planet, Viqi Shesh along with several warriors and voxyn are on patrol.  They encounter a young man who gives Viqi a small object, but before she can determine its use they kill him.  She tucks it away and hides it from her Vong escorts.  The hunting party comes across a manufacturing plant, and they send the voxyn inside.  Several lightsabers ignite and the voxyn are killed in horrific fashion.  As the warriors meet a similar fate, Viqi flees the area.  Once she’s safely away, she discovers that the device she received from the boy is actually a homing signal that leads her to an upscale apartment in Coruscant.

Inside a super star destroyer, Commander Eldo Davip is overseeing the construction of a new weapon called Davip’s Side.  The weapon is designed to destroy the Yuuzhan Vong worldship.

Back in the lab, the group learns that the Dark Jedi confined in the pod was named Irek Ismaren.  Luke recounts that Ismaren’s insane mother implanted him with electronics to enhance his Force abilities.  At one point he is essentially killed, but his mother kept him in this pod while he recovered.  Irek broke out early and killed everything around him.  He has limited intellect and his only drive is to dominate the world.

Viqi inspects an escape shuttle inside the apartment, but is interrupted by Denua Ku and the other Vong warriors as they had implanted a tracking creature inside her. They survived the attack by Lord Nyax and vow to hunt and kill him.

The Special Forces Team watches as a group of humans excavate a nearby building.  As Mara goes in for a closer look, Lord Nyax enters the room.  The Vong hunting party finds the building as well and attack him.  Nyax makes quick work of several Vong, but Luke, Mara and Tahiri join the side of the Vong to help them eliminate the larger threat.  Mara notices that Viqi is watching from an overhead passageway, but she is quickly apprehended by Face and Kell Tainer.  As Face attempts to warn the Jedi that a huge construction bot was coming to life hundreds of feet below them, Viqi is able to escape, mocking Denua Ku as he lies dying.  The floor drops out under the battle as the Jedi and Nyax leap to safety.  Luke and Mara follow Nyax, Kell follows Viqi’s locator, and Face goes after the construction droids.

Luke and Mara quickly realize that Lord Nyax and the construction droids are probably heading towards the same place.  They meet with Face and follow the trail to an old government center that is more or less destroyed.  They assume Lord Nyax knows something about the building that they do not.

They reach their destination and find a battle between Vong warriors and Nyax controlled humans.  Kell contacts them and says he’s found the escape shuttle.  Luke sends Face to escape with Kell and warn the New Republic about Lord Nyax in case he, Mara, and Tahiri don’t make it back.

As the Jedi begin to attack, Nyax is able to control them as he does the other slaves.  When they fight it, they are met with terrible pain.  Tahiri’s time with the Yuuzhan Vong pays off as she is able to shrug off this pain.  Using their individual strengths the three Jedi bind together: Mara’s will allows them to reject false truths, Luke rejects any hatred, and Tahiri rejects the pain!  Just as they regain their footing, the construction droids bring down the black wall and unleash a wealth of Force energy once protected by the old Jedi Temple. Nyax feeds upon the energy to bring down the ceiling around them.  Nyax leaps through a hole and escapes.

Face and Kell prepare to blast their way out of the building to escape.  Much of the team rejoins them (leaving behind one member to continue the study) and they make a treacherous escape.  Viqi returns to find the pod gone, but the food left behind along with a note from the Face saying they figured she would need it more than they did.

The Jedi follow Nyax and destroy several coralskippers in the process using their enhanced Force abilities.  They finally track him down and Tahiri hopes to take the lead since Nyax may have trouble sensing her because she is part Vong.  Using a large boulder, she slams it into Nyax breaking his bones and causing him to fall deep into a pit killing him.  The group is contacted by Face and they pick them up and escape the planet.

As Viqi watches the escape ship fly away, Denua Ku enters the room.  Rather than face death at his hands, she simply jumps out the window.

The Special Forces Group returns to Borleias and Luke is greeted warmly (surprisingly) by Kyp Durron.  Han and Leia are also there and they all do their best to support Jaina, who now appears to be more in balance with the Force.

During a meeting, Wedge reveals to everyone about the Star Lancer hoax that he has been running to trick the Yuuzhan Vong into believing they had a super weapon that could destroy a worldship.  He hopes to trick the Vong and use the diversion to attack them in others ways as well as get everyone safely off Borleias.

As the lesser ships engage the coralskippers, all the elite squadrons prepare for another mission.  Wedge refers to it as The Emperor’s Spear!

Czulkang Lah explains his own plan for deception to Harrar.  The main attacking squadron will not be controlled by the yammosk, so any New Republic disruptions will be ineffective.  Victory, he says, it within their grasp!  As the battle progresses, however, he begins to realize that the intelligence he received from the Peace Brigade may not be entirely accurate.

Charat Kraal leads an easily successful attack on the pipe fighter diversions and also begins to wonder if something has is amiss with the plan.  Jaina’s ship was in the area, but has disappeared.

The Lusankya, a super star destroyer, is being crewed by one pilot, Eldo Davip, who takes the ship into hyperspace before being stopped by a dovin basal.   It is being protected by Jaina and the Twin Suns and is in sight of the worldship.  Although it has no weapons firing, Czulkang Lah realizes, too late, that ship is going to ram them. Jaina and her ships are attempting to distract and protect Lusankya to buy it time to do just that.

Charat Kraal believes he is hot on Jaina’s tail, while in reality he is following a decoy missile (that he can’t physically see because his ship does the seeing for him).  He simply believes that she is hoping to claim all the glory for herself, as any goddess would.  Harrar wants to join the pursuit when he sees two ships chasing Jaina disappear.  Kraal believes he has Jaina trapped by a dovin basil, but at the last minute the missile does a 180 and destroys him.

Realizing the end is near; Czulkang Lah contacts his son and tells him that although this may seem like a victory, soon he will be dead.  After leaving Tsavong Lah confused by his transmission, the Lusankya rams the worldship.

Luke and Mara look on as the worldship is completely destroyed and Tsavong Lah contemplates what this means for the Yuuzhan Vong.

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