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The second volume of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy picks up the story immediately after the events at the end of the first book in the series, Heir to the Empire, with the New Republic reeling from the blows inflicted on it by the Empire’s last remaining Grand Admiral. With the ships of the Sluis Van shipyards heavily damaged from the Empire’s attempt to steal them and Admiral Ackbar stripped of his command in the face of accusations of corruption, Luke, Leia, and Han react to the growing threat facing them. As Han and Luke try to unravel the effort to frame Ackbar, Leia and Chewbacca travel to Endor to meet with one of her attempted kidnappers in the hope of shifting their allegiance. Meanwhile the smuggler Talon Karrde hopes to leverage his way out of the bounty Thrawn has placed on him by offering a valuable secret: the location of the legendary “Dark Force,” a fleet of derelict warships that could tip the balance in the war between the Empire and the New Republic.

In following up his first volume Zahn takes his story of the post-Original Trilogy movies in two key directions. The first is the introduction of the Dark Force fleet, a MacGuffin that serves as a logical goal for the novel’s main characters given some of the goals and motivations the author introduces in the first book. Yet the race for the Dark Force fleet is just one part of a novel that explores further the elements Zahn introduced in Heir to the Empire. Story lines such as Joruus C’baoth’s ongoing efforts to corrupt Luke and Mara Jade’s quest to kill the Jedi Knight play out over the course of the book, providing development without resolution. It makes for an effective middle entry in the trilogy, with enough developments and resolutions to satisfy the reader while propelling them towards the final volume of the series.