Maybe it's the genre but I just couldn't connect with the characters at all. I'm familiar with the Star Wars universe but it felt like there was very little depth to the characters (at least from the first 200 pages). The premise could have been a really interesting opportunity to include topics like guilt, responsibility and redemption, the question of how far "following orders" can be a justification, but to me it seemed like the characters were simply put in the story with their backstory added later on, without their past affecting the present.