About the Book
It began as the ultimate voyage of discovery – only to become the stuff of lost Republic legend... and a dark chapter in Jedi history. Now, at
last, acclaimed author Timothy Zahn returns to tell the whole
extraordinary story of the remarkable – and doomed – Outbound Flight
Project.
The Clone Wars have yet to erupt when Jedi Master Jorus
C’baoth petitions the Senate for support of a singularly ambitious
undertaking. Six Jedi Masters, twelve Jedi Knights, and fifty thousand
men, women, and children will embark – aboard a gargantuan vessel,
equipped for years of travel – on a mission to contact intelligent life
and colonize undiscovered worlds beyond the known galaxy. The government bureaucracy threatens to scuttle the expedition before it can even
start – until Master C’baoth foils a murderous conspiracy plot, winning
him the political capital he needs to set in motion the dream of
Outbound Flight.
Or so it would seem. For unknown to the famed
Jedi Master, the successful launch of the mission is secretly being
orchestrated by an unlikely ally: the evil Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, who has his own reasons for wanting Outbound Flight to move forward...
and, ultimately, to fail.
Yet Darth Sidious is not the mission’s most dangerous challenge. Once underway, the starship crosses paths at
the edge of Unknown Space with the forces of the alien Chiss Ascendancy
and the brilliant mastermind best known as “Thrawn.” Even Jedi Knight
Obi-Wan Kenobi, aboard Outbound Flight with his young Padawan student,
Anakin Skywalker, cannot help avert disaster. Thus what begins as a
peaceful Jedi mission is violently transformed into an all-out war for
survival against staggering odds – and the most diabolical of adversaries.
Timothy Zahn’s unique mix of espionage, political gamesmanship, and deadly
interstellar combat breathes electrifying life into a Star Wars legend.
