It began as the ultimate voyage of discovery-only to be the stuff of shed Republic tale . and a dark section in Jedi background. Now, at last, acclaimed author Timothy Zahn results to tell the whole extraordinary story of the remarkable-and doomed-Outbound Flight Project.

The Clone Wars have yet to erupt when Jedi Grasp Jorus C’baoth petitions the Senate for support of a singularly ambitious undertaking. Six Jedi Experts, twelve Jedi Knights, and fifty thousand men, women, and kids about Celebrity Wars: Outbound Trip will embark-aboard a gargantuan vessel, equipped for a long time of travel-on a mission to contact intelligent existence and colonize undiscovered worlds beyond the known galaxy. The federal government bureaucracy threatens to scuttle the expedition before it could even start-until Get better at C’baoth foils a murderous conspiracy storyline, winning him the political capital he must set in motion the imagine Outbound Flight.

Or so it could seem. For unidentified to the famous Jedi Grasp, the successful release of the mission is secretly getting orchestrated by an improbable ally: the wicked Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, that has his personal reasons for seeking Outbound Flight to go forward . . . and, ultimately, to fail.

Yet Darth Sidious is not the mission’s most dangerous problem. Once underway, the starship crosses pathways at the advantage of Unknown Space using the forces of the alien Chiss Ascendancy as well as the outstanding mastermind most widely known as “Thrawn.” Even Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, aboard Outbound Air travel with his youthful Padawan college student, Anakin Skywalker, cannot help avert devastation. Thus what begins as a tranquil Jedi mission can be violently changed into an all-out war for success against staggering odds-and one of the most diabolical of adversaries.

Timothy Zahn’s exclusive mix of espionage, political gamesmanship, and deadly interstellar combat breathes electrifying life right into a Star Wars legend.