Heir to the Empire

Pellaeon informs Thrawn and Joruus of the failure of their Noghri task force to capture Luke and Leia. Joruus gets angry and claims Thrawn will continue to fail. He wants Thrawn to focus on taking Leia, because he believes he could take Luke himself. He argues that he only agreed to help Thrawn after he had been given the two Jedi.

Pellaeon offers an alternative: They will plant rumors of Joruus’s presence on a sparsely populated planet to lure Luke, but in the meantime, Joruus will help Thrawn. Joruus and Thrawn agree.

At an inner council meeting in the aftermath of the attack, Fey’lya expresses disbelief at Han’s solitary decision to remove Leia from Bimmisaari, while Ackbar claims Han did what he should have done to protect an ambassador. Mon Mothma steps in and tells Leia and Han that they will return to Bimmisaari the next day with additional protection. Leia instead requests time off as she promised Han she would so she can train as a Jedi, but Mon Mothma insists they need her as an ambassador too much. She claims that Leia could devote time to training in perhaps a year.