Cover of the novel “Star Wars: Dark Force Rising”

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I finished reading Star Wars: Dark Force Rising, book 2 in the Thrawn trilogy and I have to say I’m having a blast.

It doesn’t quite nail down the original film trilogy, but it comes close. I suppose because more details can be packed in a novel than a two-hour film, those details take a little away from its “Star Wars-ness.”

The race is on to find the derelict Katana fleet, a group of Dreadnoughts dating back to the Clone Wars. Both the New Republic and the revitalized Empire are in desperate need of ships.

Supposedly Talon Karrde, head of the smuggler’s guild, knows the secret location and might be persuaded to tell the New Republic, but then there are others.

Following her promise in the last novel, Leia, Chewbacca, and Threepio meet with their Kashyyyk contact in orbit around Endor. Leia and the rest leave the Millennium Falcon and travel with their companion Khabarakh to his home world in an attempt to convince this warrior race to abandon the Empire and join the New Republic. Eventually, she finds evidence of the Empire having poisoned their planet during the clone wars, rather than the Rebellion, convincing them they have been betrayed by the Empire.

Luke heeds the call of insane cloned Jedi Master Joruus C’baoth and joins him on the planet Jomark to “complete his training.” While there, Luke sees behaviors from C’baoth that he never imagined coming from Obi Wan Kenobi or Yoda. However, his inexperience keeps him there, or is there another reason for his confusion and fatigue?

Han and Lando continue to search for the Delta Source, an Imperial covert spy network hidden somewhere deep in the New Republic’s hierarchy. They must also prove that Admiral Ackbar is innocent of the bribery charges against him and foil the plot seemingly launched by the Bothan Senator Borsk Fey’lya before his party takes over the Republic.

They encounter another smuggler and spacecraft pirate and his “wraith” and narrowly escape being drowned in a ship sinking. They don’t know their adversary has been hired by Thrawn to find the Katana fleet, something he finds all too easy.

Han and Lando also find the lair of an outlaw group led by Garm Bel Iblis, a former Corellian  Senator thought long dead. He is in possession of several ships from the Katana fleet, revealing he too knows of its location. Han seems very taken with Iblis, but Lando is suspicious.

Mara Jade, having been forced to betray Karrde by Thrawn, then slips away from Thrawn’s ship where Karrde is being held, and seeks out Luke to help rescue him. Jade’s Force powers are returning along with the dreams she dreads.

Jade manages to get Luke out of the Jedi Master’s clutches and together they rescue Karrde, escaping on the Falcon which Thrawn had found and seized while orbiting Endor.

In an odd skip late in the book, all of the separated parties are suddenly together on Coruscant talking with Mon Mothma and Fey’lya about acquiring the Katana fleet. Oddly enough, the Senators don’t seem that enthusiastic, suggesting to me that Fey’lya might be the Empire’s information source (no one in the novel has this suspicion).

Locating the Katana fleet, the New Republic finds that the Empire got there first. There are only fifteen ships left out of thousands. Getting them up and running so quickly would have taken more workers than the Empire has…unless they’ve found a way to create clones.

“It’s a trap.” The Empire attacks with Han, Luke, and Lando trapped on one of the Katana derelicts. Wedge and his Rogue Squadron defend as best he can, but Fey’lya, who commands most of the recovery fleet, prepares to abandon them. Leia and Karrde manage to turn the tables on him and use his fighters to help Wedge. Then reinforcements arrive both from Mara Jade’s smuggler comrades and Senator Iblis’ forces.

One more space battle and firefight on the Katana and the New Republic carves out yet another dubious victory.

Meanwhile, the planet on which Thrawn first found C’baoth has a mountain containing the Emperor’s secret weapons projects, which includes the cloning technology. The mad Jedi is taking it over, having performed a Jedi mind trick on Thrawn’s underling Captain.

There were slow and uneven parts of the book, but it’s still a lot more “real Star Wars” than anything the “House of the Mouse” has produced.

Now, with the bulk of the Katana fleet in Imperial possession and with clones to man them, can the New Republic stand up against this revitalized threat?

I’ve already started reading the third and final book in the trilogy The Last Command. This is Star Wars and science fiction when it was fun.