Legends Never Die: The Truce At Bakura

Released at the end of 1993, The Truce at Bakura followed hot on the heels of the Thrawn Trilogy. The first standalone Star Wars novel since Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Bakura is often overlooked in the early Expanded Universe since a lot of the things it introduced weren't really touched upon later and would get swallowed up in the blitz of EU material that was to come in 1994.

Its author, Kathy Tyers, was relatively new at the time. Her first book, Firebird, was published in 1987, with three more novels published before Truce at Bakura, all through Bantam Spectra (which had the Star Wars rights in the 90s).

The book begins immediately after the Battle of Endor. The victorious Rebel Alliance is licking its wounds and taking stock of the situation. Luke is exhausted and badly injured from his confrontation with the Emperor (and his Dark Side lightning), but he's forced into action when an obsolete message pod arrives in the system from an Imperial-held world that has been invaded by aliens. Sensing an opportunity to win over “Hearts and Minds,” Alliance High Command decides to send a small force to rescue the planet, Bakura, and diplomatically sway them away from the now-headless Empire.

An escort carrier and several fighter squadrons are all that can be spared, but Leia Organa is in charge of the diplomatic mission (Han, Chewie & the droids are along for the ride too, of course) and Luke is put in overall military command.

That's right, eagle-eyes. Rebels re-used the Quasar Fire-class in NuCanon

Arriving in the Bakura system, they find a well-developed world that was originally settled by corporate interests and developed a thriving repulsorlift industry. The locals hate droids thanks to an old uprising in the past, but they've only been recently incorporated into the Empire and many don't have a problem with its rule over them. A tentative truce is established to fend off the aliens, the reptilian Ssi-Ruuvi Imperium from the Unknown Regions.

Then all hell breaks loose when the truce is broken.

There's a lot going on inside this book. Luke is badly in need of rest and healing, but the burdens of his obligations (and because Ben's Force ghost told him to go) push him forward. He struggles with command, resisting the temptation of using the Dark Side to make life easier, detecting a Force user among the alien force, and an attraction to a pretty young Imperial senator from Bakura.

Leia's conflicts are more direct. She's got to deal with the Bakuran government that is only partly Anti-Imperial. The local governor proves to be a capable and wily negotiator himself. She does get some great personal moments, like where she wrestles with the knowledge of being Darth Vader's daughter, even going so far as telling Anakin's Force ghost off when he appears asking for forgiveness. She's written a bit inconsistently, too. Part of the agreement of the truce is that the Rebels won't stir up seditious behavior, which is exactly what she does. There's little things like that that stand out.

The new characters end up being some of the most interesting.

Commander Pter Thanas, the man in charge of military defense with his small Carrack-class cruiser, is actually a Good Guy Imperial. So good that he refused to punish an alien planet under his control and was transferred to a sleepy backwater for the rest of his career. He struggles between his duty and his conscience throughout the book.

Governor Wilek Nereus isn't a cartoonishly evil dictator when he's introduced. He rules Bakura with a fairly open hand, while never letting them forget who really rules their Senate. As the fighting worsens, his darker side comes to the surface, and he's revealed as an inveterate schemer with a fondness for poisons and taking the teeth of game he has hunted.

Gaeriel Captison is the pretty young Senator and an Imperial loyalist who fears the reputation of the Jedi and their abilities. She's also deeply religious, and devoted to the Cosmic Balance, which holds that a good deed on one end of the galaxy will be balanced out by a bad deed on the other end. Part of her fear of the Jedi stems from the belief that they heavily upset that delicate balance. Tyers herself is openly Christian (and later in her career would focus on writing Christian Sci-Fi), and the facet of Gaeriel's character isn't treated as a joke or something that overpowers the character, which is nice.

She's also got heterochromia of the eyes and her presence in the Force drives Luke's hormones wild, but she's actually not a mary sue, since she's not good at everything. She's only good at diplomacy. Unfortunately the romance between her and Luke doesn't really work, so its probably for the best that it doesn't work out between them by the end of the book.

The Ssi-Ruuk are an interesting race. Derisively called “fluties” because of their high-pitched language, they're xenophobic, imperialist dinosaur-men who believe that only they have souls. They capture and enslave people to power their technology, forcibly sucking out the life energy and consciousness of living beings (humans are great for this) to power their electronics and droids. This is called “entechment” and it lasts until the machine is destroyed or the poor bastard inside goes completely insane and dies a second death.

Its really quite horrifying.

Among them is a fifteen-year-old human boy named Dev Sibwarra. He's a powerful Force sensitive with strong empathic abilities and he's deeply affected by Stockholm Syndrome in a galaxy that doesn't even have a Stockholm. Poor Dev is a true believer in the Ssi-Ruuk cause and longs to be enteched, despite being abused for even minor failings. He's the presence that Luke sensed, and is part of why Luke drives himself to the physical brink trying to save this kid.

Also, Dev is brown-skinned of the Indian subcontinent variety, but that's secondary because this is how you do diversity without forcing it and publicly patting yourself on the back for inclusivity.

The overall plot is interesting and hustles along briskly, and the space combat scenes are well done. The middle bogs down a bit where it turns into diplomatic posturing. Han doesn't have a whole lot to do, aside from shoving Threepio into Stormtrooper armor at one point and doing space stuff in the Falcon. Some of the side characters, like the crew of the carrier Flurry, are untapped potential.

Its a Luke and Leia focused story that explores bittersweet themes of failure and loss, and sits on the better end of the Expanded Universe spectrum. The Ssi-Ruuk are an interesting, if one-dimensional villain race, and I like them because they're weird.

Not on the top level with Heir to the Empire or Han Solo at Stars' End, but still recommended.