The New Jedi Order - Book 8: Edge of Victory 1 - Coquest

Author: Greg Keyes
Cover Artist: Terese Nielsen

Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: April 3, 2001
Media Type: Paperback
Pages: 291
ISBN: 0345428641

Era: New Jedi Order
Timeline: 26 ABY

After Warmaster Tsavong Lah of the Yuuzhan Vong proclaims the Jedi to be captured to stop the Vong invasion of the galaxy in the previous novel, Balance Point, Jedi are now being hunted down across the galaxy and are either killed or captured by the Vong, desperate citizens of the galaxy and/or the Peace Brigade. And on Coruscant, the New Republic figures out the Yuuzhan Vong will be taking over Yavin 4, which is where the Jedi praxeum is being held. Anakin Solo disobeys both his Uncle Luke and the New Republic and he goes to Yavin 4 to save the Jedi there. After he fights Peace Brigade forces stationed around orbit of the moon, he reaches the praxeum and he meets up with Master Ikrit and Anakin's old friend, Tahiri Veila. They and all the other Jedi, including Kam Solusar, his wife, Tionne, Valin Horn, and Sannah, have a brief reunion with Anakin's return. But the Peace Brigade attacks the praxeum, kills Ikrit and captures Tahiri while Anakin manages to hijack one of the Brigade vessels with Valin and Sannah and he has the vessel crash a long way from the praxeum. Later, the full Yuuzhan Vong force led by Tsaak Vootuh come to claim the moon finally arrive; they kill the Peace Brigade forces stationed at Yavin 4 and take over the jungle moon. Meanwhile, the rest of the Jedi are picked up by Talon Karrde's company, sent by Luke to save them. But due to Anakin, Tahiri, Valin, and Sannah still on the surface, Karrde and his forces don't leave the Yavin system and decide to play a game of cat-and-mouse with the occupying Vong forces long enough to get the four Jedi off the moon.

Anakin, vowing to save Tahiri, leaves Valin and Sannah with a captured Peace Brigade member, Remis Vehn, and a former Imperial TIE fighter pilot, Qorl, who was trusted by Luke years earlier when Anakin's siblings, Jaina and Jacenattended the academy as kids. Anakin then begins a long trek back toward the praxeum. Meanwhile, the Yuuzhan Vong Shaper caste, lead by Master Shaper Mezhan Kwaad and her aide, Nen Yim, decide to begin shaping Tahiri and the whole jungle moon of Yavin 4 themselves, both mentally and physically for Tahiri, into making her think she is a Yuuzhan Vong. Back with Anakin, his long trek takes him into a fight with Vong forces that destroys the crystal in his lightsaber and his weapon becomes useless to him. Another confrontation with Vong forces nearly kills him had it not been for a rogue Vong who saved him and tended his wounds.

As the New Republic figures out about Anakin's presence and intentions on Yavin 4, the rogue Yuuzhan Vong reveals he is Vua Rapuung. Rapuung tells Anakin that the only reason he saved him was because the Vong warrior's body chemistry had been physically altered by a Yuuzhan Vong shaper to Shame Rapuung by deforming him, turning him into the Yuuzhan Vong's outcast Shamed Ones society, and he needs Anakin's help to get to the praxeum and shame the shaper further. Since the Jedi praxeum is Anakin's destination anyway, the young Jedi agrees and travels with the shamed Vong warrior, and along the way, the two develop an uneasy relationship because of their cultural differences that neither finds appealing toward the other. When Anakin and Rapuung finally arrive to the praxeum, Anakin is disguised as a slave for Rapuung and the young Jedi begins to understand the ways of the Vong in his false services to them. Along the way, Anakin discovers a lambent crystal that he puts into his lightsaber as a new blade. And not only does he become one with his old weapon again, but his connection with the lambent makes him able to detect the Yuuzhan Vong in a non-Force sense, albeit as unclear presences.

When the Yuuzhan Vong find out that Mezhan Kwaad has been Shaping Tahiri using heretical practices, Tsaak Vootuh and his warriors attempt to take Kwaad, Yim and Tahiri off of Yavin 4 for execution on the count of heresy. Anakin and Rapuung soon find out about this, stop the Vong, and force her reveal to all Vong present about the heresy she committed onto Rapuung because he rejected her love for him. Instead of doing so, she proclaims that there are no gods, thus proclaiming her to be a heretical atheist in her kind, which is forbidden in Vong culture. This fulfills Rapuung's revenge, but Kwaad attacks Anakin and Rapuung, as well as killing her captors, and mortally wounds Rapuung. But the Shaped Tahiri decapitates Kwaad with her lightsaber in her guise as the Yuuzhan Vong warrior Riina Kwaad, but Anakin reminds Tahiri about who she really is and how much Anakin loves her. Tahiri is reminded about who she is but her Vong knowledge stays with her.

The Vong of the praxeum proceed to attack Anakin and Tahiri, but Rapuung states that as long he lives, no one will touch Anakin, honoring the young Jedi as a warrior after he helped him. Then Vua Rapuung fights the Vong and dies in the battle, leaving Anakin and Tahiri on their own from the Vong as they steal the ship that was going to take Kwaad, Yim and Tahiri, and escape the praxeum with all the other captured Jedi. They get shot down, but survive. They're chased on foot from the Vong, but they get saved by Talon Karrde and his forces. Corran Horn, returned from his self-imposed exile on Corellia since after the Battle of Ithor in Dark Tide II: Ruin, and Booster Terrik also come along to help Karrde with saving Anakin, Tahiri, Valin and Sannah, as well as Remis Vehn and Qorl. Along with Valin, Sannah and Vehn, all the protagonists get saved from the Vong and return home.

In the aftermath, Anakin and Tahiri become valuable assets in the Yuuzhan Vong War because of Anakin's fuzzy sense of the Vong and Tahiri's knowledge of them in the aftermath of her shaping. The novel concludes with Nen Yim planning to do heresy of the Vong tradition to defeat the New Republic.