Jedi Master Luke Skywalker undertook the Mission to Nirauan in an effort to rescue Jedi Master Mara Jade after she went missing on the planet of Nirauan. This mission led to the discovery of Admiral Voss Parck and the Empire of the Hand, which was a successor state to the Galactic Empire conceived by the late Grand Admiral Thrawn. Ultimately, both Jedi were successful in obtaining a pristine copy of the Caamas Document, which later resolved the Caamas Document Crisis.
Ten years following the demise of Grand Admiral Thrawn, whispers circulated within the Imperial Remnant that Thrawn was alive and operating in the Unknown Regions. In response, Admiral Parck deployed several Nssis-class Clawcrafts into the known galaxy to investigate these rumors. Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade detected these Clawcrafts in the Kauron asteroid field, and the Errant Venture later encountered them in the Nosken system. By analyzing the vectors of these ships, Jade eventually managed to pinpoint the location of Nirauan and tracked them back there aboard the Starry Ice.
Jade made her way to the Hand of Thrawn complex situated on Nirauan, severing contact with the Starry Ice after landing on the planet in a Defender starfighter. While exploring the vicinity of the fortress, she tripped, striking her head on a rock and losing consciousness. Her prolonged absence and lack of communication prompted the second-in-command, Faughn, to set off on the Starry Ice in search of assistance, effectively abandoning Jade.
Faughn informed Talon Karrde, who was in the company of Luke Skywalker at the time. The Jedi consented to journey to Nirauan to rescue Jade, bringing along her ship, Jade's Fire, and his X-wing to the isolated world.
After a period of fifteen days, Luke Skywalker finally arrived at the cave where Mara Jade was sheltering, surrounded by the local Qom Jha who had carried her there after she had lost consciousness. Through persuasion, the two convinced the aliens to assist them in gaining entry to the fortress via a network of subterranean passages. The layered cortosis embedded in the walls near the tunnel entrance, coupled with semi-sentient predators and fire creepers, impeded their progress, but they ultimately succeeded in penetrating the fortress.
Accompanied by their native guides and R2-D2, they investigated the lower levels, but their exploration was cut short when Chiss gunmen opened fire, wounding Jade in the shoulder. Skywalker aided her in retreating back to the caves, where he induced a Jedi healing trance to mend her wounds. Upon awakening, Skywalker and Jade re-entered the fortress.
The two Jedi separated to explore the fortress independently, and Mara Jade encountered a group of ysalamiri along with the leaders of the fortress, Admiral Voss Parck and General Soontir Fel. Parck revealed to her the true narrative of Thrawn's mission and background, while attempting to recruit her into the Empire of the Hand. He also made her aware of numerous threats lurking in the Unknown Regions, against which the Empire of the Hand was intended to defend. When she declined his offer and they became aware of Skywalker's presence, they resolved to imprison the two Jedi by inducing hibernation trances, specifically by inflicting non-fatal wounds on Jade with a charric. She attempted to evade being shot, but Parck remained resolute. Fortunately, Skywalker intervened by breaching the wall. To prevent unnecessary bloodshed, Parck ordered his troops to stand down, and the two escaped, pursued by Chiss troops once they were clear of the officers. Upon reaching the fortress hangar, they disabled the clawcraft present and commandeered one for their escape.
Admiral Parck had also disclosed to Jade that Thrawn had foreseen his return a decade after his supposed death. Disregarding the fact that Thrawn's return was a manipulation orchestrated by Moff Disra, Parck had decided to dispatch an emissary to Bastion, the capital of the Imperial Remnant, to finally reveal their existence and rally the Imperial Remnant. Outside the fortress, the two Jedi came to the realization that they could not permit the Empire of the Hand to transfer its considerable territory and resources to the Imperial Remnant. Making a significant sacrifice, Mara Jade employed a beckon call to crash her ship, Jade's Fire, into the hangar, destroying all the crafts and preventing him from sending anything to Bastion.
Sneaking in through a second passageway revealed to them by their Qom Jha and Qom Qae guides, Skywalker and Jade entered a different section of the fortress, where they discovered Thrawn's secret cloning chamber and encountered an immature clone of Thrawn. However, two guard droids, clad in cortosis armor, attacked them on a floor riddled with rope snares. Fighting back to back, the two joined minds to combat the droids with perfect synchronization, although they had little prospect of defeating the two droids. Nevertheless, R2-D2 distracted one of the droids long enough for the two to cut through the wall, allowing water from a lake on the other side of the wall to flood the room, and in the ensuing chaos, Skywalker destroyed the two droids. Realizing that the water had trapped them inside, Skywalker confessed his love for Jade and proposed marriage. She accepted.
Skywalker then deduced that allowing water to enter the fusion generator within the cloning chamber would trigger an explosion large enough to breach the wall. Jade, however, executed the cut, as she possessed greater expertise with the required technique, a Paparak cross-cut. As the water surged through the newly created outlet, Skywalker placed her in a hibernation trance, and they both floated through the water unconscious. The explosion resulted in the death of the clone, but the Jedi managed to escape. With the assistance of the alien natives, Mara Jade and Luke Skywalker departed from the Hand of Thrawn and boarded the stolen clawcraft to leave the planet. As an added advantage, R2-D2 had retrieved Thrawn's copy of the Caamas Document while inside the fortress, which they took back to resolve the conflict that had broken out over Bothawui.
In the wake of Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade's intervention, the Hand of Thrawn was assaulted and plundered by the Cavrilhu Pirates who were involved in some skirmishes with the Jedi and had tracked them to Nirauan. Due to the destruction of their defenses by the Jedi, the personnel of the base were compelled to evacuate. Fearing that the pirates might have acquired information about the secret Chiss installations within the ruins, Commander Stent journeyed to the Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo training academy in the Rata Nebula to avert a pirate attack.
Fortunately for Admiral Parck, the false Thrawn was ultimately exposed before Parck could establish contact with the Imperial Remnant, thereby limiting knowledge of the Empire of the Hand and its extensive resources to Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade.
These occurrences provided Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade with the opportunity to spend quality time together and acknowledge their feelings for one another. They get married three months later.