As the bloodied and weary galaxy faces battle once more, the Jedi take on the formidable task of bringing the last of the Empire into the light….
From the ashes of the New Republic—torn to shreds by the savage Yuuzhan Vong forces—the newly formed Galactic Alliance has risen, determined to bring peace to the entire galaxy. But first the Yuuzhan Vong must be contained once and for all. And so Luke Skywalker seeks a world long lost to legend: Zonama Sekot, a sentient planet believed to have repelled an invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong decades ago. Deciphering the enigmatic secrets of Zonama Sekot just might turn the tides of this relentless war.
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.
Three months later, Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, Jacen Solo, Tekli, and Danni Quee all decide to leave Mon Calamari to search for the lost living planet of Zonama Sekot. Jacen believes that the living world can help the Galactic Alliance win the war against the Yuuzhan Vong based on what his late tutor Vergere told him. Luke decides to take Saba along to deal with the grief of killing her own species. Their first stop: Bastion, capital of the Imperial Remnant. Meanwhile, Han Solo, Leia Organa Solo, Jaina Solo, Jagged Fel, and the rest of Twin Suns Squadron, with a small Galactic Alliance fleet, go on a mission to reestablish contacts in the Unknown Regions, starting with Galantos, home of the Fia, for the Alliance. Leia chooses Tahiri Veila to come along after she blacks out on Mon Calamari and no one, not even Tahiri, knows why, although when Tahiri called Jaina before she blacked out, she screamed out insanely that the late Anakin Solo was trying to kill her.
On Yuuzhan'tar, after his failure to the Yuuzhan Vong with the Battle of Ebaq, former Executor Nom Anor is hiding in the underworld of the Vong home planet in order to avoid being killed or captured by the warriors that Supreme Overlord Shimrra 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 saviors, 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 Admiral Gilad 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 planet Borosk.
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 goes to N'zoth, home of the Yevetha, to investigate as to why they are not planning an attack on the Fia. But when she arrives, she finds that it has been destroyed by the Vong, and a surviving Yevethan pilot, who sends a message to her about how the Vong are the greater species than the Yevetha, self-destructs his own ship, sending Jaina 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 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 fleet Dreadnaught, 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 YVH mouse 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 frigate 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. Moff Kurlen 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 Captain Arien 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, and the brother of Niiriit Esh, a Shamed One whom Nom Anor came to be an acquaintance to (and who died thanks to the invasion of the Vong warriors). Nom Anor, Kunra, and Shoon-mi all 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.
In the novel's original outline, Cilghal would have gone with Luke's expedition. Ultimately, she was replaced with her apprentice Tekli. 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.
Force Heretic I: Remnant states that N'zoth is in the second orbital position of the N'zoth system. However, Coruscant and the Core Worlds (2003) and The Essential Atlas (2009) state that N'zoth is in the fifth orbital position.
- ISBN 9780345428707; February 13, 2003; Del Rey; US paperback
- ISBN 9780307795601; June 28, 2011; Del Rey; US eBook
- Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Force Heretic
- "Bookshelf" — Star Wars Insider 65
- The Essential Reader's Companion