"The High Republic #9: The Shadow of the Nihil, Chapter I: Jedi No More" by Cavan Scott

"The High Republic #9: The Shadow of the Nihil, Chapter I: Jedi No More" written by Cavan Scott, illustrated by Ario Anindito, Rachelle Rosenberg, Mark Morales, Victor Olazaba, Sean Parsons, and Marc Deering

This issue takes place several months after the destruction of the Republic Fair on Valo so we've moved ahead in the timeline a bit--the Nihil have scattered for the most part after the Battle on Grizal which took place immediately after the Republic Fair catastrophe. And the Drengir are no longer a threat. Instead, the angry plant monsters have been deemed a distraction seeded by the Nihil themselves. (Am I remembering incorrectly or were the Nihil in Into the Dark just as surprised and terrified by the Drengir attacking on the Amaxine Station as the Jedi were?? Maybe they weaponized them after seeing the damage they could do? Or maybe the Jedi are just flat out wrong? I guess we'll see...)

We start with Orla Jareni helping out Starlight Beacon with the "Response" against the Nihil--her current call by the Force has led her to join Avar Kriss's mission. As Orla's introduced in this issue, there are Keeve Trennis's thoughts in green boxes. One of her thoughts was something skipped over in the last issue but is SO important to her continued character development, "I wonder if I will ever have such purity of vision to trust the Force so completely. To trust in myself." She's referring of course to the fact that Orla is a Wayseeker, only going in the direction the Force leads her. We see Orla orbiting over the Soola System, on the alert for any Nihil activity...when a Nihil ship appears, guns blazing (see below).

Then we see a super alarming panel of Keeve and Terec, faces painted with stripes to represent the rankings of the Nihil--Keeve a Storm with three stripes and Terec a Cloud with two stripes, as the ones in the attacking Nihil ship!! (See the panel below.) I was shocked to the bone when I first saw this!! Just imagining that something traumatic and life changing had happened to Keeve and Terec thus leading them down the Nihil path to the point of attacking Jedi was heart-breaking but also SUPER intriguing. I was oh so excited for a deeply interesting bit of character development!! But...nope...they're just undercover, but like deep undercover, and Keeve is terrified of what she could lose in the process of completing her mission pretending to be a vicious Nihil Storm. Okay, so maybe there's some depth to it, but I was so looking forward to learning more about her struggle and how she's dealing with everything that's been going on, so making it look like there was major character development and then taking that away was frustrating to say the least. And they even psych you out by going back and time, seemingly to explain how things transpired. 

Instead, we get a blow up between Avar Kriss and Stellan Gios over whether or not they should send ships to scout the Soola System--Stellan says the Task Force has already done so, but Avar Kriss won't back down since she has intel directing her attention there. And then Keeve stands up and very passionately defends Avar as well as calls out the fact that the Nihil are way more of a threat than Stellan wants to believe. Once the meeting is over, Sskeer tells Keeve that he has a plan and thus "Mission: Undercover Nihil" begins. 

Returning to the present, we see Keeve and Terec call for reinforcements while Orla receives reinforcements in the form of the Starlight Beacon Jedi. I don't want to give away the whole secret of what happens so I'll end with one more bit of information: Keeve confronts Zeetar while pretending to be a Nihil and is told that she has a test awaiting her to determine her true loyalties...dun dun dun!!! See Zeetar in his mech suit below.

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Trivia: 

-Post-Valo attack, the Nihil have been dealt with on Aris, Port Haven, and Golrath.

-The Jedi Council believes Lourna Dee, the Twi'lek with her own amazing audio drama entitled Tempest Runner (which I will eventually review), was the original Eye of the Nihil, but that she was "killed during the Battle of Galov." They think it's possible that a Talpini (Zeetar unbeknownst to them) has taken her place. The Jedi appear to know their Tempest Runners pretty well, but their handle on the Eye is AWFUL!!

-The Leresai Assembly is a group that works on intercepting Nihil communications for the Republic.

-Keeve says she is in Pan Eyta's Tempest.

-Nooranbakarakana is a Frozian Jedi who is ADORABLE!!! I had no idea how cute this species was when they were first introduced in The Rising Storm! See Nooranbakarakana pictured below:

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So a very interesting turn of events, regardless. I'm definitely intrigued to see where this undercover mission goes from here and if they'll give Keeve some more reflection time...