Aftermath

The Empire has lost at Endor, and the Rebel Alliance, now a young New Republic, is hunting what remains of the Imperial forces before they can regroup. Above the remote planet Akiva, pilot Wedge Antilles flies a lone reconnaissance run and sees Imperial Star Destroyers massing. He is captured before he can warn the New Republic's leaders.

On Akiva's surface, Norra Wexley, a war-weary former rebel fighter, has come home. She wants to make peace with her estranged son and then leave for a new life somewhere far away. Then she picks up Wedge's distress call, and the plan falls apart.

The Imperial elite are heading for Akiva too, to hold a secret emergency summit. Their aim is to pool what is left of their strength and plan a counterstrike. Norra meets them with a small crew of her own: her son, who has a gift for technology, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and an Imperial defector with a bad reputation.

This is a Star Wars novel set just after the Battle of Endor. It reads as a military and espionage adventure, with a mismatched team of allies at its centre and an enemy gathering close by. The stakes are the survival of the new government and the end of Imperial rule.