Star Wars: Heir to the Empire is the first post-Return of the Jedi novel to have gotten published by Bantam Spectra. Written
by Timothy Zahn, the story takes place roughly five years after the last Star Wars film in the fictional Star Wars chronology. The Galactic Empire has been reduced to a fourth of its former size, and the successor to the Rebel Alliance, the New Republic has occupied the traditional seat of power in that region of the galaxy, Coruscant. However, attacks by the Empire have been increasing, and there are rumors of a new leader of the Empire’s navy and
military. As the Galactic Empire pushes forward with a strong assault on the worlds of the New Republic, heroes Leia Organa Solo, Han Solo, and Luke Skywalker work to destroy this new threat as the New Republic goes on the defensive.Although the Empire has been drastically reduced in size, a new military leader
seeks to change this. The New Republic had figured that it had captured or killed all of the Galactic Empire’s Grand Admirals, the highest military rank besides Darth Vader’s. Yet one slipped through their grasp, as he was in the galaxy’s Unknown Regions at the time of the Empire’s collapse up until around this point. Grand Admiral Thrawn, the only nonhuman Grand Admiral has taken command of the Fleet and military of the Empire and is prepared to retake the regions which the Empire has lost. He has found the location of one of Emperor Palpatine’s facilities which houses exotic technologies and mementos. Of these, Thrawn seeks a cloaking device which will mask objects within its range from almost all observations, an exception being one that detects effect of gravity the mass of an object has. The other are Spaarti Cloning Cylinders, apparatuses that can clone an adult with a mere tissue sample. Also, Thrawn seeks to procure some creatures, which can push back the fictional Force in the Star Wars universe, to speed up the cloning process from around a year to a couple weeks. After securing food sources and ships for his military, Thrawn will launch an offensive against the New Republic.Meanwhile, Leia Organa Solo, Han Solo, and Luke Skywalker seek to thwart Grand Admiral Thrawn. A pregnant Leia attempts to use diplomacy to keep the worlds of the New Republic together, but discovers that she is being hunted by unknown aliens who seek to kidnap her twin babies.Han Solo is in the process of trying to convince smugglers to work for the New Republic and ship supplies throughout the worlds of the New Republic, as there is a shortage of people willing to transport supplies because of Thrawn poaching them on the common trade routes.Luke Skywalker seeks to gain more insight into being a Jedi, and this leads him to encounter the smugglers Talon Karrde and Mara Jade, the latter of whom seeks to kill Luke. Luke manages to turn these smugglers into at least temporary allies, and they help prevent Thrawn from capturing Luke.The heroes of the Star Wars film continue to fight Thrawn in the next two novels of the series, along with their newfound smuggler allies.