Challenged by ruthless Imperial bodyguards, death-dealing enemy battleships, merciless bounty hunters, and monstrous brain-eating parasites, Luke Skywalker plunges head-on into a high-stakes espionage operation that will push his abilities as a Rebel fighter and would-be Jedi to the limit.

Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and Chewbacca head for Candoras Sector to evaluate an alliance proposed by the governor that would provide the rebels a new base, while Mara Jade and five renegade stormtroopers also head for Candoras to smash the rebels.

The late Jacen Solo's shocking transformation into murderous Sith Lord Darth Caedus has cast a damning pall over those who wield the Force for good: Two Jedi Knights have succumbed to an inexplicable psychosis, criminal charges have driven Luke Skywalker into self-imposed exile, and Chief of State Natasi Daala is exploiting anti-Jedi sentiment to undermine the Order's influence within the Galactic Alliance.

Forty years after the Battle of Yavin a dangerous new era in the Star Wars epic begins–the revelations are shocking, the stakes desperate, and the enemy everywhere.
As civil war threatens the unity of the Galactic Alliance, Han and Leia Solo have enraged their families and the Jedi by joining the Corellian insurgents. But the Solos draw the line when they discover the rebels' plot to make the Hapan Consortium an ally–which rests...

As the Jedi deal on their own terms with the epidemic of madness preying on their ranks, Han and Leia Solo, along with their daughter Jaina, join the fight to protect more stricken Knights from arrest. But none of them realize the blaster barrel is already swinging in their direction--and Chief Daala is about to pull the trigger. Nor do Luke and Ben, deep in the Maw Cluster and pushing their Force abilities beyond known limits, realize how close...

The Empire is dead. Nearly two decades after the Battle of Endor, the tattered remnants of Palpatine's forces have fled to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. But for the heroes of the New Republic, danger and loss are ever-present companions, even in this newly forged era of peace. Jedi Master Luke Skywalker is haunted by visions of the dark side, foretelling an ominous secret growing somewhere in the depths of space, on a dead world called Exegol....

In this first volume of the two-volume series The hand of Thrawn, "Princess Leia struggles against all odds to hold the New Republic together" while Luke Skywalker "pursues a mysterious group of pirate ships whose crews consist of clones."--Jacket.