Star Wars Book Review: The Truce At Bakura (1994) by Kathy Tyers

“An honest exchange is our only hope for a lasting treaty…” -Leia

One of the first Bantam era Star Wars books published after Timothy Zahn’s celebrated Thrawn trilogy, The Truce at Bakura was written by Kathy Tyers and was the fourth major Expanded Universe novel as well as the first stand-alone Star Wars novel since the release of the now-retconned novel Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. It begins immediately following the events of Return of the Jedi. The Empire has just been defeated (which includes the death of both Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine) but many of the loyal Imperial outposts have not yet received the news of their defeat. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker is still recovering from his force-lightning wounds sustained at the end of Return of the Jedi when suddenly Wedge Antilles discovers an old Imperial drone message carrying an urgent communication for the Empire. While decoding the message, Wedge accidentally triggers the drone’s self-destruct sequence and he narrowly survives the explosion. Luke flies out in his X-Wing to rescue Wedge who is floating in suspended space while manually holding crystal-infused detonation triggers apart from one another. Luke sends his lightsaber out into space and, using the force, he slices the crystals apart which manages to undo the threat of self-destruction. Luke and Wedge then return to the medical bay where bacta tanks await them.

What does the decoded Imperial message say? As it turns out, a remote planet called Bakura has come under attack from a mysterious alien species and the planet is requesting urgent Imperial assistance (Bakura is not yet aware the Empire has fallen). Bakura is a planet located in the Outer Rim, it has somewhat antiquated defense capabilities. Its economy is based on repulsorlift component exports as well as an exotic fruit known as “namana” used in candies and liquors. Its capital city is called Salis D’aar. It was originally “settled by a speculative mining corporation during the final years of the Clone Wars, and taken over by the Empire approximately three years ago, to absorb and control its repulsorlift production capacity.” But Bakura was more recently subjugated by the Empire and thus many of its denizens remember what life was like prior to Imperial rule.

With this in mind –for some strange reason– all the key heroes in the Rebellion/New Republic decide to form a collective strike force and travel together to Bakura –including Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Threepio, R2-D2, Wedge Antilles, and Luke Skywalker (who recently experienced a troubling dream and visit from the force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi who instructed Luke to travel to Bakura). Apparently, Emperor Palpatine achieved first contact with the aliens attacking Bakura during one of his force meditations, and he struck up a deal giving them control of the planet. It is a strange premise. Still, why would the leaders of the New Republic all decide to jointly depart so quickly for a remote planet like Bakura when their nascent governing council has not even been established yet? Wouldn’t they prefer to build up the fledgling New Republic first? At any rate, the strike force is dispatched with five Correllian gunships and a corvette to escort a small cruise-carrier, the Flurry, helmed by Captain Tessa Manchisco fresh from the Virgilian Civil War, en route to Bakura. Upon arrival, we predictably meet a suspicious Imperial contingent consisting of Commander Pter Thanas and Governor Wilek Nereus who are broadly skeptical of the Rebels. They are unsure about the news that the Empire has been defeated, but eventually Nereus agrees to a “truce” with Leia. Throughout the novel, Nereus is portrayed as a cartoonishly evil villain who collects the teeth of predator species. We are also soon introduced to the invading alien species on Bakura –the Ssi-ruuk—who are reptilian in nature (perhaps not unlike the Gorn in Star Trek). They are sometimes referred to in the fandom as “space lizards.” However, the Ssi-ruuk are not merely conquering Bakura, but rather they are kidnapping all of its citizens in order to harvest their life essences via a process called “entechment” in order to build an army of militant droids. Now, the Ssi-ruuk have managed to kidnap a force sensitive character named Dev Sibwarra of G’rho, who grew up on Chadrila under the wing of his Jedi apprentice mother who never finished her Jedi training but taught Dev a bit about the Force. Dev has since been captured and brainwashed by the Ssi-ruuk to perform their bidding by harvesting souls using his force-sensitivity. Dev is under the control of a particular Ssi-ruuk named Sh’tk’ith or “Bluescale” (all the Ssi-ruuk have strange names like “Firwirrung” or “Admiral Ivpikkis,” though the Bakurans simply call the Ssi-ruuk “Fluties” because they whistle and make bird-like noises). The Ssi-ruuk also lord over an enslaved reptilian species known as P’w’ecks. All of this is a bit disturbing in my opinion –space dinosaurs harvesting souls in order to power an army of war machines. Suffice it to say, this book has plenty of horror tropes, even if it isn’t particularly scary.

“The Ssi-ruuk meant to reduce humankind to breeding animals and energy sources. They would lie, kill, torture, and maim to achieve domination” (253).

In addition to the Imperial presence on Bakura, we also meet members of the locally elected senatorial body: Senator Gaerial “Gaeri” Captison, a free-spirited noblewoman with two different color eyes who practices a religion known as Cosmic Balance which is a karmic belief system that is antagonistic to the Jedi. She has studied at the Imperial Center on Coruscant in the not-too-distant past. Her Uncle Yeorg is the Prime Minister of Bakura, and through them we also meet other politicians on Bakura, such as Senator Orn Belden and his spunky wife Senator Eppie Belden.

At any rate, much of the plot for The Truce at Bakura drags throughout the book, often burdened by political posturing, a cringeworthy romance between Luke and Gaeri (even though her religion is biased against the Jedi), and other wandering plot threads until we patiently await the inevitable grand battle for Bakura. One of the key highlights of this otherwise dreary section of the book concerns Leia who is visited by the force-ghost of her father, Darth Vader —“Do not fear me… tell Luke to remember that fear is of the dark side.” He asks for forgiveness which she angrily rejects, but nevertheless, this theme of atonement and truce-making comes to light as a chief theme throughout the book.

Anyway, there are understandably some backstabbings within this new uneasy alliance between the New Republic and the Imperials on Bakura, Luke is given a force-dream warning about the Ssi-Ruuk by Dev, and Leia is arrested when she tries to inspire a rebellion among the senators and their allies within the Bakuran underground movement (at one point, Han rescues Leia while Threepio amusingly dons stormtrooper armor). Luke is unwittingly fed parasitic eggs slipped into his food which are intended to weaken him (they are Olabrian trichoid larva which consume a person’s insides in search of the heart) as Governor Nereus plans to hand Luke over to the Ssi-ruuk in exchange for their promise to leave Bakura. Once captured, Luke fights the Ssi-ruuk using all manner of force powers like taking control of a P’w’eck and commanding the parasites who are eating away at his insides (he vomits them up). Gaeri also consumes a parasite but the cure is to kill them with oxygen. Luke also attempts to use the force in order to commune with the lost souls who are powering the Ssi-ruuk ship. In other words, there is a bewildering expansion of Jedi force powers in this book — Jedi self-healing, Jedi mental tricks, and even complete Jedi mind control (which raise all manner of ethical concerns). And to add to the confusion, the Ssi-ruuk apparently possess a religious belief which suggests they cannot enjoy the afterlife unless they die on their home planet, an unconsecrated world. Thus, they fear dying at Luke’s hand on Bakura. With this in mind, why would the Ssi-ruuk even travel outside their home planet in the first place? What is the point of their conquest on Bakura? Do they really need to be harvesting souls in order to power their machines? Why are they doing all of this?

In the end, Dev tragically dies sacrificing himself during this fight alongside Luke against the Ssi-ruuk, and Luke kills Governor Nereus by deflecting a blaster rifle shot. Luke and Gaeriel bid farewell to each other one final time as she rejects joining him in the New Republic –“I want to be your ally, Luke. But from a distance” (336)—but then they confusedly share a goodbye kiss anyway and she sails off. Bakura is officially liberated from its Imperial rule (the evacuation of Bakuran Imperial forces is led by Commander Thanas who ultimately defects to the New Republic/Alliance of Free Planets). And the heroes celebrate an emotional funeral service for Dev whose body is shot out of an airlock toward Bakura where it burns up in the atmosphere.

“Luke stared at the meteor, a momentary flare of brilliance… like all life. Nothing really, in the sweep of time. But everything, in the Force” (341).

While there are some intriguing horror/science fiction ideas employed in The Truce at Bakura, and the “distress call” premise was almost lifted straight out of a classic Star Trek episode, I struggled a bit with this Star Wars novel. The Ssi-ruuk struck me as a confusing villain with no clear objective, Governor Nereus seemed a bit too farcical, a caricature of an evil Imperial figure, and Luke’s infatuation with Gaeriel Captison was off-putting to say the least. None of this adventure makes much sense, especially for taking place mere hours after the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi, though I will admit crafting a dilemma around an uneasy alliance of former Imperial remnants and a New Republic strike force was indeed a compelling concept, and at least the theme of truce-making and reconciliation in a post-Imperial world is well taken.

I will close with one of my favorite passages in The Truce at Bakura, the opening paragraph:

“Above a dead world, one habitable moon hung suspended like a cloud-veiled turquoise. The eternal hand that held the chain of its orbit had dusted its velvet backdrop with brilliant stars, and cosmic energies danced on the wrinkles of space-time, singing their timeless music, neither noticing nor caring for the Empire, the Rebel Alliance, or their brief, petty wars” (1).

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Tyers, Kathy. The Truce At Bakura. Del Ray (an Imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House). New York, NY, 2015 (originally published in 1994).

Kathy Tyers dedicated this book to legendary film composer, John Williams. For Star Wars, Kathy Tyers wrote The Truce at Bakura and Balance Point in the New Jedi Order series. She also wrote some short stories as featured in Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina (1995), Tales from Jabba’s Palace (1996), Tales of the Bounty Hunters (1996), and Tales from the Empire (1997). She was born in Long Beach, CA and resides in Montana. She has one adult son. Her first husband died of complications due to alcoholism, and was a teacher as well as a folk musician. In addition to Star Wars, she has written a variety of science fiction books as well as Christian fiction. She remarried in 2014 and remains active in her Presbyterian Church.