I want my Allegiance

I've been hitting the bookstores for the past 2 days in search of Timothy Zahn's new book, Allegiance. MPH, Times, Borders and Kino, all zilch. But what I found was the paperback version of Outbound Flight Project, also by Zahn. And in it was a short story titled Mist Encounter. Since I was striking out on the second day, might as well plonked myself down and do a bit of reading. Mist Encounter was from a short story originally published in Star Wars Adventure Journal 7. It is about the initial encounter of the Empire to the most iconical character of the EU galaxy. Who is this person? His name is Thrawn. Mith'rawn'uroudo was his Chiss name. Blue skinned and red eyes. It was a good read, even though it was only about 7 odd pages long. An exiled warrior trying to escape a lonely planet by stealing into an Imperial star destroyer. And to add to the agony of the feet (ie too much walking, yes), there was also an excerpt of Allegiance. Involving Han, Luke and Chewie trying to escape from pirates and assisted by Imperials. Huh? ... well, unknowingly of course. The timeline which this story starts was stated about 2 weeks to the blowing up of the first Death Star in a New Hope (EP4). Can't wait to get it!