I'm pretty familiar with Aaron Allston. Some of you may remember that he wrote a couple X-Wing books; his most famous work was probably with TSR in the D&D field.
Me, I first encountered him as an author reading Galatea in 2-D. I think I've liked reading that one the best; this one was a bit sadder than I was in the mood for. Cutting down a former student of yours who always had a crush on you, who is doing everything right... that's terribly sad.
Anyway, there were a few interesting quotes.
The handheld requires a relay to the shuttle, and then to the moon, before getting into the holonet? There was also discussion of long distance holophone charges somewhere.p22
“While it’s doing that, check to see if the shuttle’s holo-
comm is still live. Remotely activate it and bounce a comm
echo off the old lunar New Republic station.â€
“Yes, sir.†This time, Ben didn’t sound as put-upon. This
was more of a challenge, something he’d never done before
on his own authority. He typed commands into his data-
pad, relayed them through the comlink. “Holocomm is . . .
live.â€
Kilometers away, the communications system aboard Ja-
cen’s shuttle—a full-fledged holocomm unit, capable of trans-
mitting through hyperspace and thus communicating faster
than light—would have just awakened from its power-down
status.
“Querying automated comm systems on Relay Station
ADU-One-One-Zero-Four through to Coruscant,†the boy
said. His voice, though no deeper, sounded more confident,
more mature when he was engrossed in a task like this.
“Successful echo.†Another message popped up on his data-
pad. “Package encrypted.â€
Just an interesting tidbit.p56
Fact: elements of the Galactic Alliance Second Fleet were
being diverted from their missions of record. As an exam-
ple, the Mon Cal heavy carrier Blue Diver was supposed to
be heading out to the Tingel Arm of the galaxy on an an-
nual fleet mission to retrace the Yuuzhan Vong’s entry
route into the galaxy in order to spot any lingering mani-
festations of their passage. Yet when it had reprovisioned,
it had not taken on the sort of provisions appropriate to a
months-long solo mission.
Light Eta-5 fighters attacking a previously undamaged frigate. They take out the shield generators with one attack run with concussion missiles.p163
“Ten,†Syal said, “we’re going for the deflector shield
generator. Concussion missiles for maximum close-range
results.†They were now close enough that a schematic of
the Nebulon frigates popped up on her sensor board; she
tapped the top side of the rear nodule on the wire-frame
image and it expanded on the screen, word labels and
arrow-tipped lines appearing on the schematic to explain
what was what. She tapped the words deflector shield
generator to highlight them, dragged a targeting bracket
from the corner of the screen over them, dragged an Eta-5
interceptor silhouette from the same corner to the same
spot. Now her targeting computer would automatically
seek out the shield generators and V-Sword Ten would re-
ceive a data transmission pointing to that target.
Energy absorption now definitely a Jedi power in the EU, albeit only a few Jedi use it.p176
Jacen caught the shot—bare-handed, dissipating its en-
ergy before it reached his palm. He smiled and opened his
hand, showing Thrackan his undamaged palm.
Gravitics, i.e., a force applied uniformly to the entire body at once through a g-like field. Yup, Aaron Allston is using the same term with the same meaning as I.p179
Thrackan’s tube twisted, a right-angled turn, and sud-
denly he was headed away. The turn would have pulped a
human under ordinary circumstances. Gravitics, Jacen told
himself. Only gravity manipulation could have allowed
Thrackan to survive.
The anti-force trap recognized and interfered with "force-using" brainwaves, btw.p190
Luke nodded. “Yes, sir. According to Mynock’s reports,
they had developed tactics and brought in combat droids
that were clearly optimized for action against Jedi. They
used wide-effect weapons such as sonic attacks and explo-
sives, very hard for Jedi to evade; they had fast-moving,
very mobile units capable of sustaining action against power-
ful individual infiltrators; their holocam sensor network
appeared to be set up to track individuals moving through
the station. They even had a trap specifically designed to
keep Jedi from using the Force. Also, a resource remaining
in Corelliaâ€â€”Luke didn’t name Dr. Seyah, since all those
here who were authorized to know that name would al-
ready be familiar with it—“reports discussions among the
CorSec troops about the relative effectiveness of their brief
anti-Jedi training.â€
That last one is my favorite. AA cannot possibly have inserted "Han shot first" into a post-SE Star Wars novel coincidentally. Reminds us that authors are fans too.p232
Tycho asked, “Is Han—â€
“He’s fine,†Leia said. “Han shot first.â€
