"The Last Command" Part 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Captain Pelleaon

Pelleaon had a long history in the navy, both for the Republic and the Empire. He became the captain of Thrawn's flagship, the Chimera. He was a capable officer, but still had trouble keeping up with Thrawn's insights and plans. He was often amazed when Thrawn's intuition turned out to be correct.

Pealleaon would go on to become an Admiral himself. Where Thrawn studied his enemies' art, Pelleaon took up gardening for similar insights.

After Disney acquired "Star Wars" and reset the canon, they hired Timothy Zahn to write a new trilogy of books to introduce Thrawn to the new canon (twenty-six years later!). In the new series, Thrawn himself was a viewpoint character.

Answer: To avoid tipping off the Empire via Delta Source

The New Republic still had a leak somewhere in the Imperial Palace that was transmitting data to Thrawn. Even though they had trusted friends in the government, anything could be overheard. They contained their discussions to their private apartments, and then slipped out on the Millennium Falcon without telling anyone.

Answer: They broke her out.

Mara knew how to get to the Emperor's storehouse from her time as the Emperor's Hand. The heroes did not want their plan to leak through Delta source, so instead of going through any official channels, they placed restraining bolts on the guard droids, broke Mara out, and left before anyone even noticed she was gone.

Leia stayed behind on Coruscant and confessed once everyone else was away.

Answer: Jawas

The Noghri were a short, strong species, about the same size as Jawas. The Jawas' loose, hooded robes made excellent disguises for the commandos. It made it a little more difficult for them to stay near Leia, but they were professionals, and managed to make things work.

Answer: Han clan Solo

Han was still wary of the Noghri after being attacked by them multiple times in the first novel. The Noghri had come around, though, to revere the Lady Vader, and vowed to protect her and her consort. Leia was also known as the Mal'ary'ush, but Han did not get a similar title.

The Noghri had given names followed by clan names. For example, Leia's Noghri envoy was called "Khabarakh clan Khim'bar." On Weyland, the Noghri suggested "Han clan Solo" as an alternative name, and Han liked the sound of it.

Answer: A personal request from Mon Mothma

Admiral Ackbar was on an inspection tour, leaving Admiral Drayson in charge. While competent, he was no match for Thrawn. He was making mistakes that Garm Bel Iblis was able to see, but not prevent. Leia asked him to take over, and to quit letting his personal feelings hold himself back from saving lives.

Bel Iblis had already made up with Mon Mothma, which had allowed him to integrate his forces with the New Republic military. He still thought that Mothma insisted on doing things herself, and overseeing every aspect of the new government. Before he could properly lead with authority, Bel Iblis felt he needed a personal request from Mothma to show that she truly trusted him. Thankfully, as he told Leia this, Mothma overheard, and was able to make the request immediately. As soon as she had, Bel Iblis took over, and the battle started to turn around.

Answer: To place cloaked asteroids in orbit

Thrawn used his new cloaking technology on simple asteroids, and then flung them into orbit around Coruscant using his ship's tractor beams. He made a point of destroying at least on New Republic ship with one before he left. He also "dry fired" his tractor beams, knowing that the New Republic would be able to detect them. The New Republic then thought that there were many more cloaked asteroids in orbit than there actually were. With an unknown number of invisible rocks flying around the planet, Coruscant was effectively under siege, unable to open the planetary shield to let ships come and go. Thrawn had bought himself valuable time.

In the "X-wing" novels, the New Republic took back Coruscant from the Empire in "Wedge's Gamble" with a plan that involved controlling the orbital mirrors. In the very next book, "The Krytos Trap", Ysanne Isard escaped Coruscant on her personal Super Star Destroyer that had been hiding under the city.

Answer: They hunted through the Force.

Karrde came to this realization as he stood with his pets. Their sudden responses to Mara whenever she had used the Force near them made much more sense. With the Vornskyrs hunting through the Force, the Ysalamiri's natural Force-damping fields made sense as an adaptation against their natural predators.

In the "New Jedi Order" series, the galaxy was invaded by the Yuuzhan Vong, which were voids in the Force. They were unaffected by any Force techniques, and could only be detected by the "hole" they created in the Force. They mixed Vornskyrs with one of their own animals to create Voxyn, which were particularly adept at hunting Jedi.

Answer: Place a datacard in Karrde's office

Ferrier was always trying to be helpful, but had trouble following Thrawn's complex machinations. For the next meeting, he said he would try to throw suspicion on Karrde and rally the other smugglers against him. Thrawn ordered him to do no such thing. Ferrier was a terrible liar, and would more likely bring suspicion upon himself. He was told to have his Wraith place an incriminating datacard in Karrde's office, and nothing else.

The datacard contained fake records of Karrde soliciting the Imperial garrison on Trogan to attack the smuggler's meeting.

Answer: That Luke and Vader had killed the Emperor together.

The crew had landed far away from the Storehouse to avoid detection, but when they started up the speederbikes, the local predators attacked. They were set off by the high-pitched whine of repulsorlifts used by hovering vehicles.

As the Emperor's Hand, Mara had been linked to him through the Force. She was greatly affected when he died. He had sent her visions of Luke and Vader working together to kill him. Luke finally cleared up her misunderstanding, telling her that Vader had killed the Emperor, defending Luke.

During their trek on Weyland, Mara also learned the Luke was the son of Darth Vader.

Answer: The trees

Lining the Grand Corridor of the Imperial Palace were ch'hala trees. They had red pigment in their bark that was sensitive to pressure. Tapping a tree would send ripples of colour along its length. Even the softer pressure of sound was enough to set off the trees. Leia finally realized what Delta source was, and sure enough, the roots were connected to a secret set of wires.

This explained the sometimes useless information that Delta Source passed along. It was always just any idle conversation by any important members of the New Republic government. Thrawn was able to listen in and tease out the important bits of information to plan his strategy. The New Republic removed the trees, rather than try to run a counter-intelligence operation.

Answer: The Imperial officer's name from the last meeting

Ferrier managed to make a series of blunders during the second smugglers' meeting. Karrde was reasoning with Mazzic, and Ferrier accused him of trying to throw suspicion on someone else by implying that someone had planted the data card. He said this just before the data card was actually found by Ellor.

Mazzic was ready to shoot Karrde, but Gillespee jumped in to remind him of an intruder alert that had been tripped earlier without anything turning up. Ferrier immediately called Karrde out for accusing his wraith of planting the data card, even though no one had mentioned Ferrier or his wraith.

Everything clicked for Karrde, then. He realized that Mazzic was being duped by Ferrier, who was working with Thrawn. As Karrde started laying out his suspicions, Ferrier jumped in again to say that Karrde was accusing him, even though, again, Karrde had yet to mention Ferrier at all.

Karrde finally did accuse Ferrier, riling him up. Mazzic was still unimpressed with Karrde's "antics" until Ferrier blurted out that the data card stated that Karrde had hired Lieutenant Kosk to attack the previous meeting. Mazzic finally caught on. Kosk's name hadn't been said during the meeting, so Ferrier should not have known.

Ferrier's situation quickly deteriorated from there. With his true motives exposed, he tried to run, but Mazzic was not a forgiving man.

Answer: The wildlife had stopped attacking them.

Han was suspicious of the sudden lack of clawbirds attacking them. They found nests that appeared to have been attacked by predators. Except something was still off. The nests were not disturbed the way they would have been after a predator attack. Upon further inspection of a dead clawbird, they found a knife wound, and determined that it had been killed in flight.

Answer: The New Republic was also planning to attack Bilbringi.

Of the three crystal gravfield traps (CGTs), the obvious target was the one at Tangrene. Suspecting a trap, the New Republic decided to attack Bilbringi instead. General Madine said, "It's big, it's defended, and it's the last place the Imperials will expect us to hit."

Karrde assumed that the New Republic would attack at Tangrene, and planned to steal the CGT at Bilbringi while the Empire was focused elsewhere.

Thrawn did have a trap planned at Tangrene, but something was nagging him, and he guessed that the New Republic would attack Bilbringi. Everyone was going to be surprised when the space around Bilbringi was a lot more crowded than expected.

Answer: Wedge had wanted to be seen by the spies.

Wedge was on Tangrene to be seen by Imperial Intelligence to make them think the New Republic was going to attack there. This would have drawn their attention away from Bilbringi.

Aves, thinking that the New Republic was going to attack Tangrene, thought he was helping Wedge by saving him from the obvious blunder of being seen by Imperial Intelligence.

Aves wanted to coordinate Karrde's operation with the New Republic attack, but neither Wedge nor Aves were giving away what their plans were. They both alluded to their approximate intentions without revealing to each other that they had the same target.

Answer: Karrde had seen Thrawn's preparations.

Earlier, just after the Imperial's attacked the smugglers on Trogan, Mazzic had retaliated. He had Karrde go to the Bilbringi system to watch as he blew up a Star Destroyer at the shipyards.

While there, Karrde had seen 22 medium-sized asteroids near the shipyards, which was unusual. Karrde and his crew had wondered what Thrawn was doing with them. Once Karrde heard that Coruscant was under siege by cloaked asteroids, it all made sense.

Answer: Thrawn was growing the clones in Force-dampened fields.

The problem with clones was that they would go mad if grown too quickly. There was some kind of connection between a clone and its template that applied a mental pressure, and the new clones needed time to acclimatize. By removing the Force connection, the growth rate could be increased.

Leia realized this when thinking about Karrde, who had supplied the Force-damping ysalamiri to Thrawn. Thrawn had collected thousands of the creatures, yet Luke had still been able to sense Thrawn's ship crews through the Force. That meant the ysalamiri were not on the warships. They were on Weyland where the clones were being made. And Luke was walking towards it, unaware.

These novels were published a decade before "Attack of the Clones" was released. In that movie, the clones were grown at just twice the rate of a normal human, rather than 20 days. The retconned reason was that the Republic clones were more stable, and had a longer effective life span.

Answer: Borsk Fey'lya

Bothans were known as sly creatures with a penchant for spies and Machiavellian politics. In the first two novels of the trilogy, Borsk Fey'lya lived up to this reputation. In the third book, after being proven wrong so thoroughly, he was much more subdued.

Fey'lya urged Karrde to bring Leia to Weyland to help the New Republic expedition, apparently for the good of the galaxy, and not just for personal or Bothan gain. He was concerned that if the team failed, that Thrawn would move its contents elsewhere, or scatter them. In the "Hand of Thrawn" duology (also written by Timothy Zahn, and published in 1997), set ten years later, we would learn that Fey'lya was worried about the Caamas Document being revealed.

Answer: Chewie was allowed to use a weapon.

The local species were not fond of humans because the Empire was primarily composed of them. When they found the New Republic team of mostly humans making their way through the forest, they were wary. Then they saw Chewie with his bowcaster, and realized that the Wookiee was not a slave, which made this group different from the Empire.

The locals decided to help the New Republic by attacking the main gate while the expedition team snuck in through an air intake vent.

Answer: The throne room

The team split up inside the storehouse to tackle different objectives. Luke and Mara went to the throne room, hoping to find a self-destruct switch for the whole facility. They were caught off-guard when they found C'Baoth already sitting in the chair.

They hadn't sensed him because of all the ysalamiri in the facility, which gave them a slight edge in the meeting. That was until C'Baoth triggered the explosives he had set, killing all the ysalamiri, and giving himself back full access to the Force.

Answer: Luke Skywalker

Joruus C'Baoth was a clone of Jorus C'Baoth, and Luuke was a clone of Luke. Luke's original right hand had been recovered by Darth Vader after their fight on Bespin, after it got stuck in one of the air vents. It was from this sample that the clone had been grown. Luuke even used Luke's lightsaber from that fight.

Answer: "You will kill Luke Skywalker!"

Mara had frequent flashbacks to this last command throughout the novel, often written as "YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER". Mara was finally able to fulfill it by killing the clone, Luuke.

The original English language cover art of "The Last Command" depicted Luke and Mara facing off in a lightsaber duel. It made a lot more sense after the reveal of Luuke.

Answer: Mara Jade ran him through with a lightsaber.

C'Baoth was a difficult foe to put down. Mara lamented that she had not killed him earlier, in "Dark Force Rising". Even on his own, he was winning against Mara, Luke, Han, Leia, and Karrde. Luke used his lightsaber to cut the leashes of Karrde's pet Vornskrs, which immediately ran at C'Baoth. With the mad Jedi briefly distracted, Mara was able to close the distance and stab him with a lightsaber. Just like the Emperor, C'Baoth exploded with brilliant blue energy.

Answer: His bodyguard stabbed him with a vibroblade.

Despite being able to predict almost every move the New Republic made, he never found out about Leia turning the Noghri against the Empire. They had maintained the impression that they were still loyal, waiting for a safe opportunity to properly sever ties.

The battle at Bilbringi was starting to turn against the Imperials. Thrawn had not anticipated both the New Republic and the smugglers to all be there. A transmission came in from Weyland saying that the storehouse was under attack, including by Noghri. At that moment, Thrawn's bodyguard, Rukh, lashed out. He claimed that the Noghri had been betrayed, and had now been revenged. Rukh left Thrawn with a knife buried in his chest.

Thrawn actually smiled in his last moments, commenting, "It was so artistically done," before finally succumbing. Pelleaon signaled a retreat to the remaining Imperial forces.

Answer: His old lightsaber

After their fight with C'Baoth, Luke recovered his old lightsaber, Anakin's old lightsaber. With Mara opening herself back up to the Force, and on the path to becoming a Jedi, she would need a new lightsaber. Mostly, though, Luke just wanted her to have it.