Star Wars: Legacy of the Force – Exile
Author: Aaron Allston
Released: 27/02/2007

Following on from Star Wars Legacy of the Force Tempest now on the run from both The Galactic Alliance and Corellia, the exiled Han and Leia Solo seek the aid and assistance of Lando Calrissian, who joins his old friends in disguise as owners of a gambling and pleasure ship. Together they arrange GA license to operate in Corellian space, where they sit, watch, and wait for the disfigured and deranged Twilek, Alema Rar. Back from his own exile is Chis pilot Jagged Fel, whose personal mission dovetails nicely with Han and Leia’s and who under Luke’s orders is assigned to work with Jaina and Zekk to capture or destroy the former Dark Nester and agent of the series’ arch villain, Lumiya.

Jacen, meanwhile, sends Ben on a mission to test his cousin’s suitability as a Sith apprentice, a mission that ends with Ben stranded on the ancient Sith home world of Ziost fighting for physical survival. While Ben struggles to balance the imperative of his mission with the Jedi imperative to protect life, other worlds join Corellia in seceding from the GA, widening the potential conflict and setting up Exile’s final scene, in which Jacen infiltrates a meeting to elect a military commander for the newly christened Corellian Confederation

That particular mission turns rather predictably to failure, an end clumsily telegraphed to any reader passingly familiar with action/adventure/fantasy fiction, in which the details of military plans are glossed to preserve suspense for the actual battle scenes. Here, though, author Aaron Allston lays out the entire scheme, a clear sign that the plan is not what it seems – or will very quickly be made moot once the action starts.

Authorial ruse was evident as well in Jacen’s insistence that he himself act as the spy at the election meeting when under circumstances not dictated by the need to maneuver the characters Jacen would have sent a less noticeable agent.

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