Heir to the Empire

Chapter 2 reveals the current status of Luke and Leia Skywalker and Han Solo about five years after their defeat of Emperor Palpatine. Luke and Leia live in Coruscant, where the New Republic has taken over the Imperial Palace as their headquarters. The siblings are helping the new government to grow and stabilize—particularly Leia, with her political experience and leadership.

Luke has a dream about Obi-Wan Kenobi, who says he will be passing on from his intermediate, ghost-like existence and has come to say good-bye. After waking from the dream, Luke struggles with feelings of sadness and depression, both from the loss of Obi-Wan and so many others and from his struggles in building the New Republic. Leia, pregnant with twins and practicing her own fledgling Jedi powers, senses Luke’s distress and sends C-3PO to check on him. Leia’s assistant mentions Han Solo, now Leia’s husband, and Leia feels anger at his absence on a mission and guilt over her own lack of time with Han while she helps the New Republic.

Han meets with an old smuggler friend at the Tatooine cantina where he first met Luke and Obi-Wan. The New Republic needs cargo ships, and they hope to make a deal with smugglers to do some honest work and build up the economy. The smugglers, however, are wary. After the meeting, Han decides to go to the site of Thrawn’s defeat of their ships to discover more about what happened.

Chapter 3 introduces Talon Karrde, the smuggler that Han Solo’s contact identified as the likeliest to have taken over Jabba the Hut’s organizational control of smugglers. Talon has invited Mara Jade, one of his newer smugglers, to dinner to discuss her role in the organization. He sees promise in her skills and wants to promote her—specifically, he wants to train her to become his second-in-command.

A transmission interrupts them—the Chimaera has approached the planet and sent out two smaller ships to land quite near the smugglers. Talon sends out a transmission to speak with the ship, reaching Pellaeon, who denies the presence or command of Thrawn on the Chimaera. Talon, however, has put together various pieces of information from his smugglers and deciphered who controls the ship. Talon offers his men’s services to show how to get the creatures Thrawn is after (which Mara intimates Thrawn wants to use against the Jedi), claiming he wants no payment but planning to gain information from his men’s observation of Thrawn’s team.

As he ends the transmission and turns back to Mara, he wonders at her reactions to their conversation about the Empire and Luke Skywalker. In particular, he wonders what Luke did to make Mara hate him.

With several ysalamiri installed in the Chimaera, Thrawn now orders his crew to land on the planet where the Emperor’s Guardian protects the mountain in which the Emperor kept important items. Thrawn takes one ysalamiri with him, because the creature rebuffs the Force; Thrawn does not want the Guardian to attack before hearing Thrawn’s offer.

After the locals attack and Thrawn orders the ysalamiri to respond violently, a man steps out to speak with them. He shows them to a room where the Guardian is supposed to be, but they find only a coffin. Like with others who visited the Guardian, the man turns and attacks Thrawn and his men with Jedi lightning. Rebuffed by the ysalamiri, the man gives in and agrees to listen to Thrawn, introducing himself as Joruus C’baoth.

Thrawn tells Joruus that he wants the Jedi’s help to find new shield technology in the mountain. Thrawn explains that once the Emperor died, his forces weren’t as formidable in combat because he had provided the mental power and control over them that they needed to work as tight, effective units. Thrawn wants a Jedi to provide similar control, but in specific situations, so that the forces are more effective but not reliant on Jedi power alone.

Joruus refuses, claiming local, in-person control is more powerful than galaxy-wide control like the old Empire. Thrawn gets his attention, however, when he reveals that Joruus is not the only Jedi left. Thrawn offers to give Luke, Leia, and the twins Leia carries to Joruus in exchange for his services. Joruus agrees, hoping to shape a future generation of Jedi.

On board the ship again, Thrawn confesses to Pellaeon that the man is not actually Joruus C’baoth, who had been aboard a ship of Jedi that Thrawn himself had destroyed at the Emperor’s orders in the early days of the Empire. The man is a clone of Joruus, meaning he is mentally unstable. Pellaeon argues that he should not be aboard the ship, then, but Thrawn insists the possible reward of utilizing Joruus’s abilities is great enough to take the risk of having him with them.

Han reports back to the New Republic council, led by Mon Mothma. Counselor Fey’lya and Admiral Ackbar bicker over the lack of results from Han’s mission, but Han insists some smugglers will help them eventually. Mon Mothma ends the discussion by asserting that smugglers, as well as the rest of the New Republic, are waiting to see evidence that the New Republic will re-establish the principles and law of the Old Republic.

Han and Leia are preparing to leave for another mission together, and Leia reveals that the Bimms, with whom they are to meet to try to convince them to join the New Republic, are requesting Luke’s presence at the talks. She tries to convince Han that this is good—that all three of them would be together, just like old times. Han seems less convinced. He also wishes that Mon Mothma would stop giving Leia so much diplomatic work so that Leia could finally make progress on her Jedi training.

Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie, and the droids arrive on Bimmisaari on the Millennium Falcon. Chewie, not wanting to deal with hero adoration, stays behind on the ship with R2-D2. C-3PO translates the welcome ceremony for the trio before they are all led to the meeting with the planet’s council. Along the way, Bimm citizens calmly reach out to touch the trio as they pass.

One of the council members has become ill, leading to a delay in the meeting. The Bimms offer to give Leia a tour of the marketplace and insist Han and Luke would not want to see the marketplace but instead view Old Republic relics. The trio are suspicious, but Luke believes the Bimms pose no danger to them. He goes to see the relics, but Han insists on going with Leia.

In the marketplace, C-3PO suddenly loses sight of their guide, and Han and Leia notice a race of beings they do not recognize (later revealed to be the Noghri) with powerful stun weapons. They have circled the group and are herding them out of the marketplace. They catch Han trying to reach his comm to contact Chewie, so Leia reaches out to Luke with her Jedi powers. Just as Luke hears Leia’s mental cry for help, however, he too is taken by their mysterious attackers.

Luke cooperates at first, then uses his Jedi powers to fight when he sees a moment of weakness. After dispatching all of his Noghri attackers, he uses one of their weapons to create a sort of rope to get down to the marketplace quickly.

Han searches for something to fight their captors. Seeing jewelry in the marketplace, he tells Leia to use her powers to pull it all to him. When she does so, the Bimm shop owners converge on them, seeing Han as a thief and providing a distraction and a barrier between them and the Noghri. Han is able to call Chewie, who flies the Falcon over the marketplace to attack. Between Chewie and Luke, they kill their attackers; the trio and C-3PO board the Falcon, where Luke tries various chemicals to free C-3PO of the odd substance from the Noghri weapons.

Luke does not want to return to Bimmisaari. Leia insists that it is a diplomatic mission, and that the Bimms claim the attack was the result of one traitorous Bimm official who was bribed by the Empire. Han takes matters into his own hands and flies them away in the Falcon, realizing the Noghri probably had back-up, and they should only return once they’ve secured reinforcements of their own.

Han also insists that Leia should finally get her own lightsaber and train with it. She is reluctant, but Luke points out that even non-warrior Jedi of the past carried lightsabers. Leia tries to put it off until after her many diplomatic duties are completed, but Han insists she needs it for safety. Leia agrees, but seeing Luke’s unease, she misinterprets it and says that even if she is not the best student, he should see teaching her as practice for teaching her children. Luke thinks anxiously about Obi-Wan’s comment about his own hubris, thinking he could teach Anakin to be a Jedi—and how he was wrong, since Anakin gave himself over to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader.