‘Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good’ Releases a New Excerpt Ahead of Next Week’s Release
A new excerpt has been released via IGN for the new book Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good, the sequel to last year’s Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising. Timothy Zahn helms the second entry in the Ascendancy trilogy and it’s out next Tuesday, April 27th. Be on the lookout for our review coming very soon.
Here is a chunk of the new excerpt. Head over to IGN to check it out in its entirety, as well as the audio version narrated by Marc Thompson):
The shifting patterns of hyperspace swirled outside the Grayshrike’s bridge, a hypnotic spectacle that never failed to amaze or intimidate first-time viewers. Lakinda hardly noticed. With no shipboard duties currently vying for her attention, her full focus was on how Ar’alani’s almost offhanded order was going to affect her life. On the surface, of course, there would be no effect. Her admiral had detached one of her ship captains from the attack force in order to contact her other ship captain. All perfectly proper, reasonable, and necessary. No one on Csilla would blink twice over the order or Lakinda’s obedience to it. But that was on Csilla. On Cioral, stronghold of the Xodlak family, it would be a different story.
Honor and glory to the family. That was the Xodlak watchword these days. Not just a slogan, but the single most important goal for all who called themselves by the Xodlak name. And Lakinda had now failed—twice in a row—to earn that glory. She felt a knot in her stomach. The first blow had been at their last skirmish with the Nikardun, where untimely battle damage to the Grayshrike’s thrusters had robbed her of her part in the final cleanup operation. That had left the Vigilant and Springhawk to gather those last bits of glory. Now she’d been taken out of the final, climactic battle against the remnants of General Yiv’s forces in order to play messenger.
To play messenger.
“Senior Captain?”Lakinda shifted her eyes away from the hypnotic swirl. Her first officer, Mid Captain Csap’ro’strob, was standing beside her command chair, an uncertain expression on his face. “What is it?”“I have the follow-up report on the thruster repairs, ma’am,” Apros said, offering his questis. “Did you want to look at it now or wait until later?”
“Now is good,” she said, taking the questis and skimming the report. The thrusters were still not up to full strength, but they were solidly functional. “They’ve made good progress,” she continued. “Relay my compliments and have them keep at it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Apros hesitated. “Ma’am?”
“Something else, Mid Captain?”
“I was wondering if you could enlighten me as to what the Springhawk is doing way over in the Rapacc system.”
“I assume it’s because of the Nikardun presence Thrawn reported after his first incursion there,” Lakinda said. “Apparently, Rapacc is included in the region our force was tasked to clear out.”
“That would be reasonable,” Apros agreed, a slight frown creasing his forehead. “I’m mostly wondering why Ar’alani would send the Springhawk out there alone.”
“Thrawn went toe-to-toe with them once before,” Lakinda reminded him. “Even brought back one of their smaller warships for us to study.”
“Which we all appreciated when we tangled with them over Primea,” Apros said. “My point is that the Vigilant’s now about to go in alone against that final Nikardun listening post. This just seems . . . unwise.”
“Perhaps,” Lakinda said. “Or perhaps the admiral’s decided that a single Chiss warship is enough to take on a group of desperate and badly organized Nikardun.”
“That wasn’t the case at that last base,” Apros pointed out darkly. “It took all three of us there to finish them off.”
“I suppose we’ll just have to see,” Lakinda said, keeping her voice neutral as she handed back the questis. “The Springhawk and Vigilant are excellent ships, with superb officers and warriors. Whatever Ar’alani and Thrawn run into, I’m sure they’ll be able to handle it.”
“I hope so.” Apros offered a small smile. “It would be embarrassing to have beaten Yiv’s main force at Primea only to get kicked in the teeth by his dregs.
“Never happen,” Lakinda said firmly. “Carry on, Mid Captain.”
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as movies from Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
