Star Wars: X-wing (book series)

• 1. Introduction

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  Star Wars: X-wing is a ten-book series of novels set in the Star Wars universe, and it begins with a question that the films never quite answered: what happens after the Rebellion wins? The original trilogy ends with celebration. But somebody has to take Coruscant. Somebody has to hold it. And somebody has to deal with the chaos that follows when an empire falls.

  Written primarily by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston, the series follows two distinct military units across a span of decades. Stackpole introduces a new Rogue Squadron built by legendary pilot Wedge Antilles. Allston then hands that same Wedge Antilles an entirely different kind of squad: the Wraith Squadron, pilots who are one mistake away from being drummed out of service. Together, the ten books chart the messy, unglamorous work of winning a war after the big battle is over.

  The first seven novels take place roughly six and a half to seven and a half years after the events of the original Star Wars film. The series then skips forward, and the final novel, Mercy Kill, lands over three decades after its predecessor, announced at Star Wars Celebration V in 2010 and released on the 7th of August, 2012.

• 2. Rogue Squadron Rebuilt

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  Wedge Antilles is the kind of character the films keep alive without ever quite putting at the center. The X-wing series fixes that. In Rogue Squadron, published in 1996, Antilles is given command of a brand-new version of the squadron, and the novel is largely about the pain of building something from scratch.

  The primary new character is Corran Horn, whose introduction takes up a significant portion of the first book alongside a roster of pilots including Mirax Terrik, Erisi Dlarit, and Tycho Celchu. Early chapters focus on training and the tangle of relationships among the new recruits. Erisi develops a romantic interest in Corran; Mirax and Corran develop a mutual pull that the series will develop across subsequent books.

  The first book culminates in an attack on Borleias, an Imperial stronghold. Taking Borleias is framed not as an end in itself but as the first step toward something far larger: the invasion of Coruscant, the capital world of the Galactic Empire. That ambition carries forward into the second novel, Wedge's Gamble, also published in 1996, which plants Rogue Squadron undercover on Coruscant itself. The squadron uses orbital mirrors to reflect sunlight onto the planet's reservoirs, generating storms powerful enough to disable the planetary shields. The cost is steep: Corran is believed dead by the end of the operation.

• 3. Occupation and Betrayal

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  Taking Coruscant turns out to be the easier problem. The Krytos Trap, the third novel published in 1996, is built around what the Empire left behind. The Krytos virus, developed by General Evir Derricote and ordered by Imperial leader Ysanne Isard, infects all non-human species while leaving humans untouched. The only cure is bacta, a substance the Empire controls. The result is a deliberate strategy: conquer through disease and then monopolize the remedy.

  While the virus tears at the new government's credibility, Tycho Celchu is put on trial for the apparent murder of Corran. Imperial Intelligence officer Kirtan Loor conducts a terrorism campaign on behalf of the Palpatine Counterinsurgency Front, tightening the grip of crisis on the capital. Loor eventually tries to defect and testify in Tycho's defense, but he is killed before he can speak.

  Corran is not dead. He is being held in a facility called Lusankya, alongside the Rebel general Jan Dodonna. When he escapes, he is able to exonerate Tycho and expose Erisi as the actual traitor. With her cover blown, Isard makes a dramatic exit: Lusankya is revealed to be a Super Star Destroyer that was buried beneath the surface of Coruscant. She uses it to escape, and the destruction it causes on the way out sets the conditions for the fourth book, The Bacta War, published in 1997.

• 4. Going Rogue

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  The Bacta War presents a political problem as much as a military one. Isard has seized control of the planet Thyferra, the source of bacta production. The New Republic will not move against her because doing so risks losing their only supply of the cure for the Krytos virus still spreading through Coruscant's population.

  Rogue Squadron's response is to resign. Antilles and the others formally leave the New Republic military and begin their own insurgency as private actors. The novel follows their effort to build enough alliances to confront Isard directly. They eventually stage a full assault on the Lusankya, forcing its surrender. Corran himself shoots down and kills both Erisi and Isard, closing out the four-book story arc that Stackpole constructed.

  The resolution of this arc is followed almost immediately by a shift in creative voice. Aaron Allston takes over for books five, six, and seven, bringing a different approach to the same universe. Where Stackpole's arc was built around espionage and occupation, Allston's opens with a question about the kind of soldier who doesn't quite fit anywhere.

• 5. The Wraith Squadron Experiment

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  Wraith Squadron begins with a pitch. Wedge Antilles, fresh from the insurgency detailed in The Bacta War, wants to create a new starfighter unit that takes only pilots with commando-type skills. When Admiral Ackbar raises the question of cost, Antilles offers a solution: recruit exclusively from pilots who are about to be discharged from Starfighter Command. His argument is that most will be irredeemable, but a few will have made only one mistake too many. Ackbar agrees, with one condition: if Antilles cannot make the squadron work, he must accept a promotion to General.

  The pursuit of Zsinj reaches its end in Solo Command, published in 1999. Han Solo leads the task force and even allies with Imperial Admiral Rogriss to corner the warlord. Zsinj, however, fakes the destruction of the Iron Fist, slipping away while both sides believe he is dead. The final accounting of that chase was left unresolved by design, because by the time Solo Command closes, the Wraith Squadron arc has fulfilled its purpose.

• 6. Returns and Revisions

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  Stackpole returns for Isard's Revenge, published in 1999, and the book draws almost entirely on characters and situations he established in his first four novels rather than building new ones. Wedge Antilles is now a General commanding Rogue Squadron and is sent after Imperial warlord Admiral Krennel. The complication is that Isard, who Corran killed at the end of The Bacta War, appears to have survived.

  The explanation arrives mid-novel: the Isard helping Krennel is a clone, created to serve as a body double. The real Isard is alive and approaches Rogue Squadron as an unlikely ally. Her terms include providing the squadron with TIE Defender fighters and the location of Jan Dodonna and the prisoners still held aboard the Lusankya. In exchange, she wants Krennel defeated and her clone killed. Rogue Squadron succeeds on both counts, but the mission is revealed to have been a distraction: Isard's actual goal was to steal the newly repaired Lusankya. She is intercepted and killed by New Republic agent Iella Wessiri before she can escape with it.

  The ninth book, Starfighters of Adumar, also published in 1999 and written by Allston, takes Wedge Antilles and a small group including Tycho Celchu, Wes Janson, and Hobbie Klivian to a previously neutral world that is choosing sides. The Adumari insist that both the New Republic and Imperial Remnant delegations be composed exclusively of fighter pilots, because the Adumari prize military skill above all other qualifications. The mission turns diplomatic, then dangerous, when the New Republic diplomat Tomer Darpen betrays the delegation by lying to Cartann's ruler about Wedge's intentions. The resulting conflict ends with Cartann's overthrow, a new treaty, and Adumar joining the New Republic.

• 7. The Long Gap and Mercy Kill

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  Between Starfighters of Adumar in 1999 and the announcement of a tenth novel, more than a decade passed. At Star Wars Celebration V in 2010, Aaron Allston announced Mercy Kill. It was released on the 7th of August, 2012, and it takes place over three decades after the events of the previous volume, making it the most temporally distant installment in the series.

  Before the series even began publishing, Stackpole had reached out to Timothy Zahn, the Star Wars Expanded Universe author whose Thrawn trilogy also features a group called Rogue Squadron. That early contact set the tone for how the two corners of the expanded universe would relate to each other. After the first book appeared, Stackpole asked Zahn for permission to use his character Talon Karrde; Zahn revised about three words of dialogue to make it work. Later, Zahn asked to borrow the character Booster Terrik for his Hand of Thrawn duology, and Stackpole returned the same courtesy, also changing about three words. Those small exchanges capture something about how this corner of the Star Wars universe was built: through direct collaboration between writers, one small favor at a time.