David's Review of The Truce at Bakura

4/5 Rancors - The Truce at Bakura picks up with the Star Wars saga just after Return of the Jedi. After reading the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy and various collections of tales in the preceding books from the Expanded Universe, a return to our familiar heroes is welcome indeed for me. In this book we are back with Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2, and Threepio as they head to the far-flung Imperial outpost of Bakura in response to an Imperial drone ship that carried a message to the late Emperor Palpatine. The message stated that Bakura was under attack by an alien force and needed help urgently. The leadership of the Rebel Alliance decided that Luke should lead a relatively small fleet of ships to Bakura to see what help could be provided. Leia is responsible for trying to forge an alliance with the Bakurans despite the control there of an Imperial Governor named Wilek Nereus.

The attack on Bakura was by the Ssi-ruuk, a species of warm-blooded saurians who were engaged in a campaign of conquest. Their fearsome technology called entechment could transfer the life-energy of a human prisoner into the circuits of a battle droid. Their goal was to entech the population of Bakura to give them enough mechanical warriors to pose a threat to the entire galaxy.

The Alliance fleet arrives in Bakuran in the middle of a Ssi-ruuk attack and provides valuable assistance to the Imperials to win the day. The Ssi-ruuk fleets backs away but does not leave. From that point the story moves to diplomatic maneuvers by Leia to obtain Bakuran support for the Alliance. Her efforts are offset by the devious maneuvering by Governor Nereus who clearly cannot be trusted.

The Ssi-ruuks have a young human boy named Dev Sibwarra in the fleet. Dev has been brainwashed to the point where he willingly helps his alien masters with their entechment process. Dev also has some Force presence, and he senses the presence in the opposing fleet of Luke Skywalker. The Ssi-ruuk then adjust their plans to focus on capturing Luke with the idea of enteching his Force skills and creating an even more powerful force of battle droids. Governor Nereus agrees to give Skywalker to the aliens while at the same time placing a lethal parasite in Luke's food. Things look bad for a while, but in the end our heroes come through in a battle with many ups and downs.

The tale also has a number of interesting side stories which occur along the way. Leia has a visit from the spirit of her father Anakin Skywalker, and she does not welcome him with love. Luke becomes extremely interested in Gariel Captison, the niece of the Bakuran Prime Minister. She returns the interest, but in the end duty pulls them in opposite directions. However, we do get to understand Luke's feelings of loneliness and his wondering of where he might end up in the future. Wife? Family? Kids? The farm boy from Tatooine is growing up. We also get a great scene late in the book where Threepio, wearing a stormtrooper suit, tries to get back on the Millennium Falcon and is not warmly welcomed by Chewie.

Ms Tyers has written an extremely entertaining book covering a very important period in the Star Wars saga. Well worth reading.