Aboard the Jade Shadow, Luke, his wife Mara, Jacen Solo, and other Jedi head off into the Unknown Regions, where rumors and clues suggest Zonama Sekot might be found. Yet the mission has barely begun when the searchers stumble into a horrific battle. The Imperial Remnant, in retreat from the mighty Yuuzhan Vong, is about to be destroyed. It would seem those aboard the Jade Shadow have little choice but to leave the Empire to its fate. But these are no ordinary space travelers, they are Jedi…
The novel opens up with Saba Sebatyne arriving at Barab I and finds that it has been completely destroyed without a single survivor by the Yuuzhan Vong. Saba duels in a space battle with a group of coralskippers in Barab I's orbit, defeats them and takes out a large, organ-like ship which is also by the Vong. The organ-like ship spills out its contents into six-pointed stars and Saba realizes that the ship had carried her people. She had effectively helped the Vong into endangering her own species.
On Yuuzhan'tar, after his failure to the Yuuzhan Vong with the Battle of Ebaq 9, former ExecutorNom Anor is hiding in the underworld of the Vong home planet in order to avoid being killed or captured by the warriors that Supreme OverlordShimrra dispatched to kill him. Along the way, Nom Anor comes across a Shamed One named Vuurok I'pan who tells Nom Anor about a group of rising Shamed Ones and workers who intend to establish a new Vong religion that will look up to the Jedi as saviours, and Nom Anor is taken to the group. He begins his established trust with them and also plans on how to get his reputation back without getting killed by Shimrra's forces.
Luke, Mara, Jacen, Danni and Saba all arrive at Bastion to find that it is being attacked by the Yuuzhan Vong. The Imperial forces that survived the attack flee to Yaga Minor and Grand AdmiralGilad Pellaeon is presumed deceased after the attack. However, the Chimaera, Pellaeon's flagship Star Destroyer, makes it to Yaga Minor almost completely destroyed and it is revealed Pellaeon is in a coma after the attack. Fortunately, Pellaeon is saved by Tekli who gets him out of the coma in a bacta tank, but Pellaeon will have to remain in the tank for quite some time before he can fully recover from the injuries of the attack. However, Pellaeon still becomes part of the plan to stop the next Vong attack, via an internal earpiece, and everyone agrees to lead the next battle between the Imperial Remnant and Vong to the planetBorosk.
On Galantos, while Han, Leia and Tahiri are living in one of Al'solib'minet'ri City's suites, and Jaina and Jag are in orbit with the rest of Twin Suns Squadron with the Pride of Selonia, Tahiri wanders off and comes to a suite with a totem of the Vong god, Yun-Yammka, the Slayer. A group of Fian guards come for Tahiri and she confronts them with her lightsaber, but before any real violence can break out, she faints again. Meanwhile, after hearing about this, Jaina takes two of Jagged's Chiss pilots to N'zoth, home of the Yevetha, to investigate as to why they are not planning an attack on the Fia. But when they arrive, they find that it has been destroyed by the Vong, and a surviving Yevethan pilot, who sends a message to the three pilots about how the Vong are the greater species than the Yevetha, self-destructs his own ship, killing one of the Chiss pilots and sending Jaina and the surviving Chiss pilot back to Galantos. The Vong then arrive to attack.
At Borosk, the showdown between the Empire and the Vong begin at the still-bacta-encased Pellaeon's command. Jacen finds out who are the Vong and Peace Brigade infiltrators in the Empire are and gathers them into a meeting in one room. The Vong warriors battle Jacen and die with the help of a group of stormtroopers while the Brigaders are arrested and Saba notices a slaveship, an organ-shaped ship she saw back on Barab I, and decides to send in a Katana fleetDreadnaught, naming it the Braxant Bonecrusher, as bait for the slaveship to take in her and Danni so they can save the people inside the ship. The plan works, and Danni sends in a group of YVHmouse droids to poison the two Vong stationed at the console of the slaveship. After a while, the poison works on the Vong, and Saba cuts a hole at the slaveship that frees her, Danni and the surviving captives with the hardening blorash jelly protecting them from the vacuum of space. The Star Destroyer Widowmaker, with Jacen in command, saves Danni, Saba and the slaves.
Eventually, the Vong invasion at Galantos is repelled by Galactic Alliance forces and it is revealed that the Ryn are now spies secretly looking in on Yuuzhan Vong operations after an agent is helped by Tahiri off of Galantos. The Ryn agent tells Han, Leia and Tahiri to send the party's accompanying Galactic Alliance forces to the next planet that has been out of communications with the Galactic Alliance: Bakura.
Back at Borosk, the Empire wins its showdown against the Vong invasion force and repels them away from Imperial space. Pellaeon fully recovers from the bacta tank and declares that the Imperial Remnant officially join the Galactic Alliance. At first, the Moff Council extremely disagree with this notion, but after Pellaeon convinces them that it will help repel another future Vong invasion, they all agree. MoffKurlen Flennic still doesn't agree with the official truce to be declared, and even pulls a blaster on Pellaeon to emphasize his point when he loses support from the rest of the Council. After Flennic is repelled by stormtroopers, Pellaeon gives him the choice of incarceration for his treason or to be pardoned and agree on the alliance between the Galactic Alliance and the Empire. Flennic chooses the latter and he is pardoned by Pellaeon for his treason, but Pellaeon emphasizes that this event will never be forgotten. With that, Luke, Mara, Jacen, Danni and Saba depart the Empire with help from the Imperial Remnant's very own Widowmaker, commanded by CaptainArien Yage, and xenobiologist Soron Hegerty tags along to study Zonama Sekot. The characters all head for Chiss space to continue their search for the living planet.
On Yuuzhan'tar, Nom Anor, disguised as a separate Yuuzhan Vong individual, escapes death from Vong warriors when nearly all the members in the camp that he is being sheltered in are killed. The only surviving member with him is Kunra, a Shamed warrior. Then they meet Shoon-mi Esh, a Shamed Intendant. The three decide to revive the Jedi heresy that the Shamed Ones are living by and Anor establishes a new identity known as Yu'shaa, the Shamed-worker prophet.
On page 212 of the paperback, Coruscant is mentioned as a recent departure point for a mission to Galantos. This is, in fact, a mistake, as the departure point was actually Dac.
On pages 87 and 95 of the paperback, Csilla is spelled "Csillia".
This was Sean Williams's first Star Wars novel. And while it is also true that this is Shane Dix's first Star Wars novel as well, his authorship in Star Wars would end along with this trilogy.
In Remnant's original outline Cilghal would have gone with Luke's expedition. However ultimately she was replaced with her apprentice Tekli. Baby Ben was also supposed to be part of the expedition, and Jacen would have been his cousin's guardian in the Force. Jacen's protection of Ben would have caused Mara to resent him. Ultimately the story thread would have set up future events in the Legacy of the Force series nicely if it hadn't been discarded.[1]