Karrde's people had earlier picked up an urgent transmission, addressed to Luke, coming from Admiral Voss Parck on the planet Nirauan.

Fearing that the message might be somehow connected with the unknown menace Parck and Baron Fel had warned them about two years earlier, Luke and Mara decide to head out to Nirauan.

The Chiss have found the remains of the colonization and exploratory vessel Outbound Flight, which had been destroyed by Grand Admiral Thrawn many years previous.

The supposedly peaceloving Geroons instead are revealed to be the bloodthirsty Vagaari, who desire revenge against the Chiss and Outbound Flight for their defeat at the hands of Thrawn during the Jedi vessel's destruction.

Lucasfilm and Del Rey planned Survivor's Quest as a Luke/Mara parallel to Tatooine Ghost, a Han Solo/Princess Leia book being written at the time.

[1] He decided to have Survivor's Quest cover what was essentially the end of the Outbound Flight Project story before the beginning was explored in the titular novel, already in the works but scheduled to be published second.