WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray, on sale now.
Throughout the Star Wars: The High Republic subseries, a dichotomy has been presented. The High Republic is a bastion of culture and prosperity, while the Outer Rim is a dangerous frontier with new enemies such as the Nihil and the Drengir terrorizing everyone. However, Claudia Gray's Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark begins to question that narrative. While most of the enemies that the Jedi face are from the Outer Rim, the activities of the Byne Guild suggest that there may be corruption within the Republic's borders as well.
In the novel, a group of Jedi contract a Byne Guild ship, the Vessel, to take them to the Starlight Beacon. While Leox Gyasi is the ship's pilot, he is not the highest-ranking crew member in the Byne Guild. The ship's copilot, Affie Hollow, is the foster daughter of Scover Byne, the guild's leader. While the Byne Guild deals in many legal shipping, transport and trade ventures, they also do engage in some illegal smuggling activities. The Vessel contains smuggling compartments. When the Jedi board, Leox, Affie and their navigator Geode, a Vintian who resembles a giant rock, all decide not to let them know about their other cargo.
While Affie is aware of the Guild's smuggling activities, the ship's unexpected detour to the Amaxine station reveals some far more startling truths. The coordinates to the station were already preprogrammed into the vessel's navigation system, which Affie immediately finds suspicious, as Scover has never mentioned an outpost there to Affie. When exploring the station, Affie finds evidence that Byne Guild members have been there recently. Affie at first suspects that the station has been kept a secret from Scover from guild members skimming from shipments, but Leox shoots down that theory. Desperate to find more evidence to prove that Scover had nothing to do with Amaxine Station, Affie explores further and finds something she never expected: evidence that her birth parents had traveled to the station too.
Confused by the evidence, Affie reports everything she found to Scover after they reunite on Coruscant. Scover affirms that she knew about the station, and when Affie protests that the station is too dangerous, Scover merely states that it is the pilot's "free choice" and that she does not dictate their methods. Scover's explanation does not satisfy Affie, so she hacks into Scover's records. Affie learns that the Byne Guild uses indentured workers and incentives to convince them to take dangerous jobs that they would not take if they were not desperate. She also learns that her own parents were indentured workers that died on Amaxine Station.
Ultimately, Affie is left with a choice between seeking justice for her parents and supporting Scover Byne, who raised Affie to be her successor. With great difficulty, Affie decides to return to Amaxine Station to gather more evidence to stop Scover from exploiting indentured workers and to make sure no more Byne Guild members die there. Luckily, the Jedi also need to return, giving the crew of the Vessel a plausible reason for the journey. After gathering more evidence and surviving the Drengir, Affie tries one last time to get through to her foster mother, but she is unsuccessful. Therefore, Affie turns her foster mother into the authorities. The Byne Guild is dissolved, and individual ships become the property of the highest-ranking officer on board. Since Affie was the highest-ranking Byne Guild member on the Vessel, the ship becomes Affie's property. Leox and Geode remain the captain and navigator, respectively, and the trio decides to continue their work on their own terms.
While the matter of the Byne Guild seems to be resolved, Gray highlights questions about the High Republic itself. While it is to the Republic's credit that they act swiftly once Affie provides them with evidence that Scover put the indentured pilots' lives in danger, the fact still remains that the practice of indentured servitude is not illegal. When Affie questions Leox about her findings after she hacks Scover's files, Leox reflects that "there were a few legal limits to what indentured servants could be forced to do in guilds that wanted to work with the Republic -- they couldn't be required to risk their own lives, for instance -- but that still left indentured people trapped for years in the misery of unceasing, unrewarded labor." Therefore, indentured labor is not illegal in the Republic, and other guilds might be using similar practices with Republic sanction, or at least without outright Republic condemnation.
Thus, while the novel's main purpose was to introduce the Drengir, Claudia Gray also showed that while there are enemies outside of the High Republic, there are some cracks within the Republic's perfect facade. While Chancellor Lina Soh is working toward a golden age of peace and prosperity, there are still necessary reforms that need to be made within the Republic. In addition, most of the Byne Guild's ships seemed to be engaging in mostly legal activities. If the Byne Guild could hide their darker side, it suggests that other groups might have been able to hide beneath a mask of respectability. Therefore, while the Republic is currently focused on enemies outside their borders, there might also be dangerous groups within the Republic.
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