Mission to Nirauan

"You don't think the two of us tackling a whole fortress full of unknown enemies is giving us too much of an advantage, do you?"

- Mara Jade to Luke Skywalker

The Mission to Nirauan was attempted by Luke Skywalker in 19 ABY to rescue Mara Jade after her disappearance on the mysterious planet Nirauan. It resulted in the discovery of the powerful Empire of the Hand in the Unknown Regions and in the recovering of an unaltered copy of the Caamas Document that later resolved the Caamas Document Crisis.

The mission


By 19 ABY, the Hand of Thrawn had become the leading fortress of the Empire of the Hand. Its garrison, comprised for the most part of Chiss troops, was commanded by Imperial officer Voss Parck. Soontir Fel was also part of the Hand of Thrawn's complement. When Mara Jade disappeared on a mission to track down the source of clones and mysterious starfighters which had recently become active, Luke Skywalker and R2-D2 followed her. Joining with some of the native Qom Jha and Qom Qae, they infiltrated the compound. In order to prevent the Hand of Thrawn from turning itself over to Bastion and the Empire, Mara Jade used a beckon call to drive her ship, Jade's Fire, into the compound, damaging the main hangar and all remaining ships. Luke and Mara then reentered the compound, where they discovered Thrawn's secret cloning chamber. While battling two sentry droids, the entire chamber flooded, but they were able to escape by forcing Thrawn's cloning cylinder to explode, resulting in the water draining and allowing them to escape. After escaping, Luke discovered that R2-D2 also managed to download an unaltered copy of the Caamas Document.

Aftermath
"There were two waves of attack. The first came from Jedi spies. The facility was destroyed. We salvaged what we could before other ships arrived, forcing a tactical retreat."

- Stent to Jagged Fel

Following Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade's intervention, the Hand of Thrawn was attacked and looted by the Cavrilhu Pirates who were involved in some skirmishes with the Jedi and had followed them to Nirauan. Due to the destruction of their defenses by the Jedi, the personnel of the base were forced to evacuate. Fearing that the pirates could have obtained information about the secret Chiss installations in the ruins, Commander Stent went to the Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo training academy in the Rata Nebula to prevent a pirate attack.

This mission was the occasion for Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade to spend some time together and accept their feelings. They get married three months later.

Appearances

 * Specter of the Past
 * Vision of the Future