diff --git "a/OriginalStoriesSeparated/StarWarsBooks.txt" "b/OriginalStoriesSeparated/StarWarsBooks.txt" new file mode 100755--- /dev/null +++ "b/OriginalStoriesSeparated/StarWarsBooks.txt" @@ -0,0 +1,411 @@ +Je'daii Ranger Lanoree Brock is tasked by the Je'daii Council to stop her own brother, Dalien Brock, who had been presumed dead earlier. Dalien, who had never wanted to be a Je'daii Ranger, and who abhorred the Force, plans to activate a bomb that will create a black hole that could potentially destroy the Tython system; he wants to do this because he believes that it will allow the inhabitants of the system to expand outward throughout the galaxy. Lanoree travels throughout the Tython system, searching for her brother, with the help of a Twi'lek rogue named Tre Sana. Lanoree tracks Dalien back to Tython itself where he plans to activate the bomb. She stops him by killing him with her sword, but she is left with not only the question of whether or not Dalien was right to pursue this, but with regret of killing her own brother. + +Around 5000 BBY, during the Great Hyperspace War, a Sith mining vessel named Omen crashes into the planet Kesh, a world yet undiscovered by the Galactic Republic or the Sith Empire. The ship's captain, a slave Human named Yaru Korsin, attempts to keep his scared crew in line. Kesh was a relatively primitive world with a superstitious population, the Keshiri, contained within the continent Keshtah. The Keshiri worshipped the Skyborn, the gods from above, who the natives believe to have incarnated as the Sith newcomers. During the next fifteen years, the latecomers rule unchallenged over the Keshiri people, with Yaru Korsin becoming the Grand Lord of the Skyborn. Years later, an underground movement of Keshiri rebels conspires to rid their world of the Sith intruders. The wicked machinations of Seelah, Yaru Korsin's late brother's wife, wipe out the pureblood Sith from among the Omen survivors, leaving the Humans alone to survive. Seelah's son, Jariad, mortally wounds the Grand Lord in a coup. Although Yaru dies, he is survived by his daughter, Nida, who punishes Seelah, her own aunt-in-law, for her treachery. More than a thousand years later, the Omen's crash site becomes sacred ground to the Keshiri, concealed by a Temple in the mountains. The Sith dynasty continues, no longer propagated by bloodline, but rather as a meritocracy shaped by bold examples of power and skillful political maneuvering. A botched assassination attempt targets the reigning Grand Lord, a doddering crone named Lillia Venn. Culpability is laid on High Lord Candra Kitai. She and her daughter, Orielle Kitai, are then stripped of status and enslaved. Afterwards, Ori flees to the countryside, finding some peace with a lowly gardener named Jelph. Jelph, in truth, is a secret Jedi agent who has recently and accidentally arrived on the Keshiri's world. Ori eventually discovers this, finding his Republic starfighter hidden in his shed. Venn and a retinue of Sith Lords arrive at Jelph's, also discovering the spacecraft. When Venn boards the starfighter, she unwittingly trips an antitheft device rigged by Jelph that destroys the ship and Venn in an explosion, leaving Jelph and Ori together as exiles, in the wilderness, where they begin a new life together. After another thousand years of stagnation, the Sith dynasty has now splintered into squabbling factions that only unite to honor the traditions of Yaru Korsin, the first Grand Lord of Kesh. Varner Hilts, a caretaker of Sith customs, plays a traditional holographic recording made by Korsin at the end of his reign and intended for his daughter, Nida. Before the assembled Sith factions, Hilts allows the recording to play past its conclusion, revealing fragments of an earlier transmission never meant for public display--an image of the Dark Lord Naga Sadow identifying the crew of the Omen as mere slaves. This sends the Sith factions into disarray as their view of their ancestors as godly conquerors had now been turned upside down. As the disillusioned Sith factions begin to self-destruct, Hilts realizes there is more to Korsin's recording. He left a hidden a message to Nida, with the cryptic words that the true power lies behind the throne. Hilts finds Korsin's old command chair that he used as a throne in a secret chamber within the Omen Temple. Inside it, he finds a hidden map of the entire world of Kesh, revealing an unexplored continent on the far side of the planet, a landmass recorded by the Omen's sensors during the crash but left unrevealed to Korsin's crew. Realizing the key to unifying the disintegrating Sith factions, Hilts gives them a target of conquest and after twenty-five years of planning and advancements, the Sith have constructed a fleet of airships to travel across the ocean and invade the new continent. A gifted engineer, Edell Vrai, leads a scouting fleet to the recently-named Alanciar. The Keshiri of Alanciar are prepared, though, for they have remained vigilant since being warned centuries earlier by Adari Vaal, a Keshiri who first greeted the Sith and fled their rule during the reign of Yaru Korsin. Enormous ballistae shoot down the Sith airships, and Edell crashes onto the coast. He takes a pair of opponent Keshiri watchers, Quarra Thayn and Jogan Halder, prisoner. While Edell has his Sith lieutenants take Halder back to the Keshtar homeland, forcing Quarra to bring him into the Alanciar civilization. Edell admires the advanced architecture and engineering exhibited by these Keshiri, advancements made necessary by their long-held fear of Sith invasion from afar. Edell is shocked to see a Sith invasion force, impulsively launched from Keshtar before his scouting expedition could return, attempting conquest of Alanciar. Its leader, the Sith Lord Bentado, seeks to betray his tribe and destroy any remaining airships so he can rule the new land unchallenged. Quarra and Edell work together and succeed in defeating Lord Bentado. Hilts, now Grand Lord of the Lost Tribe of Sith, arrives as a benevolent contrast to Bentado's force, bringing with him Jogan, who sings the praises of the distant Sith, alleviating the concerns of the Alanciar. Hilts, a far more pragmatic and even-minded ruler than the Grand Lords past, sees the unification of Kesh as the key to the continued survival of the Lost Tribe, even welcoming Keshiri blood into their ranks to ensure their future. A new era begins in Kesh. + +The short story Precipice occurs in 5000 BBY and is told from the point of view of Yaru Korsin, the captain of the Sith transport ship Omen and a slave to the Sith Lord Naga Sadow, one of the last rulers of the Sith Empire. The ship Omen is falling apart and Captain Korsin is trying to save his ship. He is talking to the engineer Lohjoy when she is killed by another breach in the hull. Even Gloyd, the gunnery officer, is not finding much funny today. None of the crew members have any ideas on how to save the ship and its fight against the atmosphere of the planet they are stuck in. The Omen is the more desirable ship of the Sith. There is the Harbinger as well, but it is run by the most recent Sith Lord, fallen Jedi Saes Rrogon, who many of the Sith do not like to trust. Both the ships leave Phaegon III earlier that day with large loads of Lignan crystals, when a Jedi starfighter attacks the defenses of the Sith. The Blades are to take out the Jedi while the Omen jumped to hyperspace, but the Harbinger is hit and before the Omen can jump, the Harbinger hits the Omen and knocks them off-course. The Omen ends up in a gravity well which destroys the shielding and then the armory of the ship explodes. Because it is destroyed in hyperspace it doesn't destroy the whole ship, but it seems to just vanish. Devore Korsin comes in and blames the navigator, Boyle Marcom, who worked for Yaru Korsin's father under Marka Ragnos. Yaru's father commanded for the Sith Lords for many years and he never lost a ship. He had Devore with a mother from a different planet. Yaru decided to work away from his father and in five years he was a captain, and in ten he beat out his father to command the Omen. As the ship enters more into the atmosphere of the planet the crew begins to see rain, but they also begin to think for a minute that they are on a gas giant. Something with wings hits the side of the ship for a second, but then disappears. Part of the ship opens up and air rushes in; breathable air. Seelah, Devore’s wife, enters the bridge with her baby, Jariad Korsin. Devore has her go to the lifepods, but they do not work. Just then, they see land, but the ship will have to slow down considerably. The Omen opens up its torpedo doors to create drag to slow down. It works enough for them to be able to see exactly what is below: mountains. Yaru made the decision to make a landing on land to save the cargo, instead of landing in the sea. The Omen slams into a cliff and slides down an incline towards the edge of the cliff. The ship stops in time before going over. Most of the crew of the Omen came from what would become the Tapani Empire. Naga Sadow needed the Lignan crystals for the Battle of Kirrek. In bringing the 355 people down from the crashed ship, 21 have died on the trip. They have to evacuate the still-burning ship and about halfway down the mountain they find a grassy clearing they could stay at. Ravilan Wroth, the quartermaster, is in charge of the Massassi, who are getting sick and dying from something in Kesh's atmosphere. Already a third of their numbers have died since making their way from the ship. Yaru Korsin starts up the mountain with the three healthiest Massassi. They have all died before they make it to the ship. Back at the camp at night, it has gotten colder than expected and many more have died. A six-legged mammal also attacks and it takes five guards to slay it. When eaten, the person who takes a bite dies almost instantly. Another fight breaks out over a foodpak and another Sith is killed. Yaru knows the ship won't fly again, but he hopes the transmitter will be able to send out a message so that Naga Sadow will be able to get the Lignan crystals, though if that causes Naga Sadow to lose the Battle of Kirrek, he knows Sadow will take his life. Devore gets to the Omen before Yaru does. Inside, Yaru tries turning on the transmitter, but it doesn't work; nothing does. Yaru looks through the ship for things that will be useful for those at the camp, but there isn't much for him to take. Yaru hopes they will be able to put the blame on the Harbinger, because Naga Sadow doesn't trust Saes. Devore had talked to Sadow earlier about command of the Omen giving him the idea that Yaru Korsin was not completely in control of the ship. While Yaru thinks, Devore ignites his lightsaber. Devore uses the Force to throw objects at Yaru. In his spice-induced rage he is able to be more powerful than normal. Their fight on the Omen causes the ship to teeter knocking Devore out of the chair he is in. Yaru then uses the Force to shoot Devore out a window. As Yaru leaves the ship, he hurts his ankle and falls down the slope. Yaru makes his way back up and he sees another of the winged creatures that hits the ship on its crash landing. Then Devore knocks him into the side of the ship. Devore batters him along the edge of the ship, when they get to the torpedo tubes, Yaru shoots open the door hitting Devore’s shoulder. Yaru helps his brother to his feet, who can no longer stand on his own. Yaru faces the sun and then lets go of his brother, who falls into the abyss below. Yaru Korsin doesn't make his way back down until sunset. He brings the last of the foodpaks and blankets from the Omen. Ravilan meets Yaru as he comes back, asking what was going on with the beacon. All Yaru can tell him is they have to wait. Seelah wants to know where Devore was, but Yaru doesn't have to say anything. Seelah knew what has happened. Yaru gives a speech to everyone, telling them that someone is looking for them, and that they have to make the best of the situation and make the land theirs. The Massassi have died and Yaru remembers that he had seen a rider on the winged creature at the ship and he felt the Force with them. He smiles over at Seelah and she reluctantly smiles back. She will bide her time and get revenge on Yaru Korsin. + +Skyborn is set in 5000 BBY and is told mainly from the point of view of Adari Vaal, a female Keshiri geologist and the widow of the late Zhari Vaal, a member of the Neshtovar. The Neshtovar were an elite aristocratic priesthood that rode uvaks, winged reptilian beasts of burden, and dominated Keshiri society on Keshtah Minor, one of the two major continents on Kesh. At the exposition, Adari was being persecuted by her community for teaching that the landmasses of her homeworld Kesh were created by volcanic eruptions. This contradicted the Neshtovar's teachings that Kesh's landmass was created as a result of a battle between two divine groups known as the Skyborn and the Otherside. This persecution took the form of citizens regularly pelting stones at her house and verbally abusing her and her family. Even Adari's mother Eulyn was unsympathetic towards her daughter for challenging the status quo and feared for the lives of Adari's two sons Tona and Finn. Adari was subsequently summoned by the Neshtovari leader Izri Dazh for a public trial at the Circle Eternal, a large plaza in the heart of Tahv. During the trial, Adari passionately defended her work despite of the hostile atmosphere. Izri also frequently hectored the geologist and accused her of serving the Otherside. While arguing with Izri, the trial was interrupted by a massive explosion which rocked the Cetajan Mountains. Like most in attendance, Adari fled to her home at first but it was soon surrounded by angry Neshtovar who had decided that her heresy had brought the anger of the Skyborn upon them. She sent Eulyn and her children to stay at her uncle's house. Adari was subsequently pursued by the enraged townsfolk but managed to escape by riding her uvak Nink to the Cetajan Mountains. Adari intended to investigate the cause of the explosion. After two days of traveling, Adari and Nink reached the Cetajan Mountains and rested in a mountainside roost. Adari flew Nink towards the source of the explosion. Instead of a volcanic crater, Adari discovered that a large metallic shell, which later turned out to be the Sith starship Omen, had crashed into the side of a mountain. She also witnessed a man with a red light dropping an object over the side of a precipice. This incident startled Nink and caused Adari to fall off her uvak. However, she was able to grab Nink's foot and held the beast until they reached a seaside perch. Later that night, Adari discovered a cluster of fires in the mountainside. While she initially feared that the Neshtovar had caught up with her, Adari then received a strange calming message from the mountains and felt compelled to come closer. She then moved towards the fires where she was overpowered and attacked by the strangers, who turned out to be stranded Sith from the Sith Empire. Before she could be beaten up by the other Sith, she was saved by the man whom she had encountered earlier on the mountains. He introduced himself as Yaru Korsin just as she blacked out. Over the next few days, Adari was nursed back to health by her Sith captors and quickly learned about the identity of the Sith and their starship. Yaru Korsin was the captain of a Sith ship Omen which had crashed on Kesh during the Great Hyperspace War. In return, Adari shared information with her captors about her people, her town of Tahv, and the mythical Skyborn. During this period, Adari also developed a friendship with Yaru Korsin. However, Seelah Korsin, wife of the deceased Devore Korsin, remained suspicious of Adari. Ultimately, Adari managed to convince Yaru Korsin to allow her to leave with Nink and get help from the Keshiri. After eight days, Adari returned with the Neshtovar and introduced them to the Sith. The Sith were able to awe the Neshtovar with their lightsabers, a technology unknown to the Keshiri, and their ability to levitate objects. Most importantly, they claimed to be the mythical Skyborn, the deities which the Neshtovar revered. As a result, Adari’s status was rapidly elevated from being an ostracized heretic to the esteemed Daughter of the Skyborn. Adari became the spokesperson of the Skyborn who announced that they would reside in Tahv until they could repair their starship and return to the stars. The Skyborn subsequently moved into the homes of the Neshtovar, supplanting the former elite as the new rulers of Keshtah Minor. Eventually, Adari managed to confront Yaru Korsin about her earlier encounter when she saw him throwing something over the mountainside. She revealed that she had later investigated the object and found that it was a dead man, who had been swept away by the tide. Korsin admitted that the dead man was his estranged brother Devore Korsin but justified his actions by claiming that his brother was a danger to his people. He also reiterated that murder was not abhorred by the Sith. Yaru was also able read Adari’s mind and learnt about her persecution and her deceased husband Zhari. In the end, Korsin persuaded Adari to keep this incident a secret between themselves in return for him teaching her to develop her Force powers. Adari agreed and became a student of Korsin. However, she came to realize that the Sith were not gods despite their Force powers. + +Following their peaceful takeover of Tahv in 5000 BBY, the Lost Tribe has supplanted the Neshtovar as the new ruling elite of the planet Kesh by claiming to be the Skyborn, divine gods in Keshiri religion. Seelah has married her husband's brother Yaru and has a son and a daughter. The Siths' efforts to repair the starship Omen and return to the stars have been unsuccessful due to the breakdown of machinery, a lack of spare parts, and a lack of metal on the planet. Kesh's electromagnetic atmosphere was also interfering with the Sith's electrical equipment. The Sith also tried to search the oral histories of the Keshiri for any references to offworld visitors but were unable to find anything useful apart from the legends of the Skyborn and the Otherside or Destructors. Trapped on a primitive and remote world, the Sith became restless and tensions soon emerged between the Human Sith and Red Sith, who had become known as the Fifty-Seven. The Red Sith leader Ravilan Wroth was concerned that none of the Red Sith's children survived childbirth. Ravilan's efforts to include a Red Sith as part the creche crew was resisted by Seelah, which bred distrust and animosity between the two individuals. This made Ravilan determined to leave Kesh by any means necessary. The following day, Ravilan visited the Ragnos Lakes, a region of eight villages which lay to the south of the town of Tahv. The Keshiri had been harvesting a species of fluorescent algae and Yaru Korsin had assigned Ravilan to investigate whether these could be used for lighting the Sith structures. He planned to first visit the city of Tetsubal. Unknown to the other Sith, Ravilan had secretly planned to contaminate the region's lakes and water supplies with cyanogen silicate, a substance that was used to treat the Massassi but was toxic to various other species including Humans and the indigenous Keshiri. Meanwhile, Seelah began a project to document the ancestry of the Human crew aboard the Omen, intending to produce a new generation of pure-blood Humans. She began screening the children of the Human crew who had been born on Kesh. As a slave of the Sith Lord Ludo Kressh, Seelah hated the Red Sith and sought to purge them from the new Sith society on Kesh. She was also jealous of the close friendship between her new husband Yaru and the Keshiri woman Adari Vaal, the newly-designated Ambassador to the Keshiri. Seelah even hired several of her Keshiri staff including Tilden Kaah to spy on her husband and Adari to check whether they were having an affair. Instead, Korsin and Adari were more interested in talking about science and the Force. Following the death of her husband Devore, Seelah had married Yaru to seal an alliance between the ship's crew and the mining crew aboard the Omen. Later that evening, Seelah and Korsin received news of a massive calamity at Tetsubal. Due to Ravilan's contamination of Tetsubal's water reservoir, over 18,000 Keshiri and various domesticated animals including uvaks had perished. By the time Seelah and her retinue arrived, Ravilan was the sole survivor. Even his Human assistant had succumbed to the mysterious plague. Ravilan claimed that something was killing the Keshiri and urged the other Sith to take it as a sign to leave Kesh forever. After examining the corpse of Ravilan's human aide, Seelah realized that Ravilan had played a role behind the plague and summoned her entire staff at her ward for an emergency meeting. Despite efforts by the Sith authorities to destroy the infected corpses at Tetsubal, the mysterious plague spread to other cities in the Ragnos Lakes region. This time, the other 57 Red Sith were also implicated because they had visited these cities shortly before the plague. Shortly later, Seelah and Tilden discovered an empty vial which had been used to store cyanogen silicate. Since the only available samples were stored in the Omen's medical stores and Ravilan's store, Yaru Korsin deduced that the Red Sith were behind the outbreak. In response, Yaru Korsin ordered a purge of the Red Sith. Within one night, the Red Sith were slaughtered by the other Human Sith in the streets of Tahv. Their tentacle heads were also displayed in public. Seelah confronted the wounded Ravilan Korsin who had been imprisoned in the uvak enclosures. Ravilan admitted contaminating Tetsubal's water supply but denied poisoning the other cities. Seelah then admitted that she had organized the poisoning of the other cities in the Ragnos Lakes in order to blame the Red Sith for it. To add insult to injury, Seelah herself revealed that she had been behind the deaths of the Sith infants at the creche, revealing her hatred for the Red Sith. Seelah's adolescent son, Jariad then personally executed Ravilan, completing the extermination of the 57 Red Sith. This allowed Seelah to pursue her vision of a purely Human Sith Tribe on Kesh. Following the Red Sith Purge, Tilden Kaah, who was a secret member of the Keshiri resistance, met with other resistance members including Adari Vaal. They discussed the recent plague outbreak and the Red Sith Purge. The sole remaining non-Human among the Sith was the Houk Gloyd, who was fiercely loyal to Yaru Korsin and was regarded as a pet by the Human Sith. The Keshiri rebels confided that Seelah Korsin had underestimated the Keshiri resistance. Adari encouraged Tilden to continue working for Seelah so that she could provide intelligence to the resistance. Adari personally vowed to end the plague she had brought on the Keshiri. + +Yaru Korsin has adopted the title of Grand Lord and has made the former village of Tahv his new capital. Under his leadership, the Lost Tribe had moved from their mountain retreat at the crash-site of the Omen to Tahv permanently. Korsin had also been able to exploit the plague which occurred ten years earlier by claiming that the residents of the Ragnos Lakes towns had lacked faith in the Lost Tribe of Sith, who claimed to be the divine Skyborn, gods in Keshiri mythology. To commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the arrival of the Lost Tribe on Kesh, Korsin had commissioned a celebration in Tahv. Among those present were his wife Seelah and the Keshiri ambassador Adari Vaal, who had first discovered the Tribe's arrival. While Adari pretended to be friendly towards the Sith, she harbored a strong dislike towards them for enslaving her people and exploiting as slave labor. She was embittered by the death of her son Finn Vaal who had died during a construction accident. In secret, she had prepared the Keshiri resistance for an attack on the Tribe. Meanwhile, Seelah Korsin harbored homicidal feelings towards her husband Yaru Korsin, who she had only married to seal an alliance between the miners and ship crew of the Tribe. She favored her elder son Jariad Korsin, whom she had produced with Devore, over her younger daughter, Nida Korsin, who she had produced with Yaru. Seelah had already learnt from Adari that Yaru had murdered her husband Devore shortly after their arrival on Kesh. Like Adari, she planned to lead a revolt against Yaru Korsin with her son Jariad, whom she hoped to use as a weapon against the Grand Lord. Later, Jariad obtained permission from his father Yaru Korsin to lead a detachment of Sith Sabers on a training mission in the Northern Reaches. Meanwhile, Adari and her younger son Tona Vaal left for a meeting with other members of the Keshiri resistance which included the descendants of Izri Dazh, the late leader of the Neshtovar and Adari's former tormentor. The Neshtovar resented the loss of their privileged status which included the loss of the right to ride uvaks, which was now exclusively reserved for the Sith. Tona was a key member of the Keshiri resistance's plans to steal the Tribe's uvaks and launch an assault on the Tribe due to his position as the stable master for Nida Korsin's Skyborn Rangers, an elite club of uvak-riding enthusiasts. Meanwhile, Seelah met Korsin and his entourage at the plaza of the Kesh Sith Temple which was near the shrine which covered the wrecked starship Omen. Privately, Seelah gloated over her plans to ensure that future generations of the Tribe remained pure-blooded and her impending plot to assassinate Yaru. Yaru Korsin along with his Houk friend Gloyd and their bodyguards were quickly surrounded by Jariad and his Sith Sabers. Jariad announced his intentions to overthrow his father and to install himself as the new leader of the Tribe. Seelah soon appeared and joined the standoff, and confronted Lord Korsin about the murder of her husband and their son's father. However, the two parties were interrupted when the Keshiri resistance raided the Temple's stables and stole the Tribe's uvaks. The rise of the uvak provided just enough of a diversion to allow Yaru to break the circle and flee to better ground. Meanwhile, Adari Vaal and the other Keshiri riders had assembled their uvaks nearby for a planned strike against the Sith. They now awaited the arrival of other Keshiri and their uvak steeds from Tahv. These reinforcements never came because her son Tona had revealed the plot to steal the uvaks to one of Nida's acquaintances. Back at the Sith Temple, Yaru's forces took on Jariad and Seelah's rebels in a vicious lightsaber duel. Yaru and Gloyd were separated during the fighting with Gloyd being cornered by Seelah's aides. However, Jariad's Sith Sabers proved ineffective against Yaru's bodyguards. Although Yaru battled back valiantly, his force was dwindling, and he began to lose strength due to wounds inflicted on his chest. Jariad finally cornered his step-father near a high precipice and released all his anger, furiously slashing at him again and again. However, as Jariad moved in for the kill, his sister Nida suddenly appeared with members of her Skyborn Rangers riding club. The arrival of Nida and the Skyborn Rangers effectively turned the tide of the battle in Yaru's favor. Shortly later, Gloyd detonated his proton detonator, killing Seelah's aides and crippling Seelah herself. In the end, Jariad was killed when his sister Nida threw him over the cliff; effectively ending the rebellion. Meanwhile, Adari and the Keshiri rebels learnt that Tona had revealed their plot to overthrow the Tribe to Nida Korsin, who had used her position as aerial ambassador for the Tribe to develop a network of Keshiri spies and informants. Nida had also been secretly trained by Yaru's most loyal supporters in the arts of the dark side. With nothing to lose, Adari and her supporters fled across the ocean and eventually came to rest on a remote island. Out of one thousand riders, only three hundred survived that journey due to the turbulent atmospheric conditions and long distances. Adari's beloved uvak Nink also died from exhaustion. However, Adari had succeeded in escaping the thrall of the Sith and pondered whether there were true Protectors out there hunting for the Sith. Back at the Sith Temple, Seelah survived the explosion but was unable to walk again. She conversed with her daughter Nida who revealed that she had thwarted the Keshiri rebellion with the assistance of Tona, one of her Keshiri informants. Yaru Korsin had also succumbed to his injuries and died. Prior to his death, he designated his loyal daughter Nida as his successor. Nida also revealed that she had single-handed thrown her brother Jariad off the cliff after his step-father failed to do so. With the disappearance of the rebels, she assumed that they had plunged themselves into the lava pit or fled across the ocean. Finally to add insult to injury, Nida confined her mother to the Sith Temple and ordered the Sith to remove themselves from the mountain permanently. To ensure that no one attempted to reach the Temple again, Nida ordered that all paths and entrances to the Sith Temple be blocked or sealed. + +Unknown to Orielle, Jelph was also a secret Jedi Shadow who had become stranded on the planet Kesh. Following the death of the Lost Tribe of Sith's founder Yaru Korsin in 4975 BBY, his daughter Nida Korsin had ruled the continent of Keshtah Minor as Grand Lord for 79 years. While she produced a son named Donellan, he did not outlive his mother. As a result, Nida instituted a succession system based on merit. Thus, successive Grand Lords were elected from among the seven High Lords of the Tribe. Since 5000 BBY, the continent Keshtah Minor had been ruled by the Lost Tribe of Sith, the descendants of a group of Human Sith who had become stranded on the planet during the Great Hyperspace War. Force-sensitive Sith formed the elite of Keshiri society while non-Force sensitive Humans formed a Yeomanry class. The indigenous Keshiri, a purple-skinned humanoid species, formed the bottom of Sith society and were predominantly serfs. In addition, outcasts from the Tribe formed a slave class. Despite their class and social differences, Orielle and Jelph developed a close and friendly relationship. Orielle met Jelph while looking for beautiful flowers to decorate her mother Grand Lord Candra Kitai’s booth prior to the Donellan's Day, an annual holiday which commemorated the memory of Donellan. The first protagonist Orielle Kitai led a privileged and sheltered life due to her mother Candra's status as High Lord. During that year’s Day of the Dispossed, Candra and her daughter along with other members of the ruling elite including the current Grand Lord Lillia Venn are present in the capital city Tahv's arena Korsinata for a game of rake-riding. Rake-riding was a competitive blood-sports which involved teams of riders competing on flightless uvaks, winged reptilian beasts native to Kesh. These particular uvaks have had their wing muscles cut at birth, rendering them flightless. For that game, Candra and Orielle had sponsored a rake-rider known as Campion Dey. Unknown to Candra and Orielle, Dey had planned to assassinate Lillia during the games. However, this attempt was unsuccessful and Dey was killed. Candra and Orielle were shocked and horrified that their sponsored rake-rider would attempt to assassinate one of their family’s political allies. Hoping to prove her family's innocence, Candra ordered her daughter to return to the family estate while she remains behind. After two hours, Orielle returned to her family’s estate only to discover that the Grand Lord had unfairly blamed her family for the assassination and had ordered their disenfranchisement and enslavement. Under Lillia's orders, the family’s Keshiri servants had destroyed all of her family's possessions in a public bonfire. As a sign of her diminished status, Orielle is renamed Ori, a nickname she had used while around Jelph. In addition, Lillia had ordered the summary executions of two other High Lords Dernas and Pallima, the leaders of the Red and Gold Factions respectively. In desperation, Ori takes her uvak to Jelph's remote farm where she attempted to find comfort and solace in her friend. During her time there, Ori and Jelph discussed whether the downfall of her family was the result of a conspiracy engineered by the Grand Lord. Jelph advised Ori not to return because he believed that her life was in danger. He speculated that Lillia must have ordered the attempted assassination on herself in order to make Ori and her mother political scapegoats. The fact that she had spared them rather than execute them indicated that the Grand Lord had wanted to make a public example of them. In the end, Ori agreed to stay with Jelp until it was safe and to temporarily abandon her plans to regain her family's position. Several days later, Ori was home alone on the farm while Jelph was away checking his traps in the forest. During that time, Ori’s Sith rivals Flen and Sawj Luzo, arrived at the farm and killed her uvak Shyn on the pretext that slaves were not allowed to own uvaks. Prior to Dey’s failed assassination attempt, the two Luzo brothers had been Ori’s rivals while she was training to be a Sith Saber. They also produced two confessions from her mother Candra which claimed that she conspired with both Dernas and Pallima. Under duress, the Luzo brothers also confiscated her lightsaber. To mark her new status as a slave, Ori was given a spade. After the Luzo brothers depart, a humiliated Ori descended into a fit of rage. She damaged and destroyed several items of Jelph’s property including his plants, wooden cart, and barn. During that time, Ori discovered an Aurek-class tactical strikefighter beneath a mound of manure. Ori quickly realized that the starship could become a way for her and her mother to regain their loss status within the Tribe. Since the Tribe’s ancestors had crash-landed on Kesh, the Tribe had been unable to leave the planet and return to the stars for more than a millennium. The Tribe had always hoped to return to the wider galaxy to create their own interstellar empire. By the time that Jelph had returned to the homestead, he found that Ori had already left and that his starship had been uncovered. As a member of the secretive Jedi Covenant, Jelph was committed to eradicating any Sith influence and preventing the Tribe from posing a threat to the galaxy. Fearing that the Tribe would pose a threat to the galaxy, he resolved to stop his friend Ori from revealing the presence of a Jedi and a hyperspace-capable starship to her people. + +Sentinel occurs immediately after the events of the short story Purgatory which takes place in 3960 BBY. This short story is told from the point of view of two protagonists: the undercover Jedi Shadow Jelph Marrian and the former Sith Saber Orielle Kitai. Earlier, Ori had lost her privileged status in the Tribe's society after her mother was accused of being involved in the attempted assassination of Grand Lord Lillia Venn. Attempting to regain her family's lost status, Ori had sought to reveal the existence of a hyperspace-capable starship at Jelph's farm to the Tribe's leadership. The story begins with Jelph traveling to the Tribe's capital of Tahv. While resting at the bar of a Keshiri bartender, he reflects on how his childhood experiences during the Great Sith War motivated him to join the Jedi Covenant, a secret group of Jedi Knights who were committed to preventing a return of the Sith. As a Jedi Shadow, Jelph had spent years combing the Outer Rim Territories for potential Sith threats. During the Mandalorian Wars, Jelph had become stranded on Kesh. Meanwhile, Ori arrived at Tahv's zoo where her mother had been forced to shovel manure for the past two weeks. Ori told her mother about the hidden starship she had discovered in Jelph's farm. While Candrai was skeptical that this would improve their status, she told her daughter to contact four High Lords from the Red and Gold Factions through the well-connected architect Gadin Badolfa. Ori followed her mother's advice and then fled to the city's aqueduct system, which had been her favorite haunt during her days as a Sith Saber. Before she left, Ori also stole the lightsaber belonging to the zoo's guard. Jelph entered Tahv and headed into the city's aqueduct system, knowing that they were Ori's favorite haunt. These aqueducts towered over most of the city's buildings and transported water across the city. There, he encountered Ori who attacked him with her Force powers, throwing him twice into the canal. After disarming Ori, Jelph admitted that he was a Jedi Knight and that he was the owner of the starship. Ori also revealed that she had revealed his secret to her mother. Jelph attempted to reason with Ori by arguing she could abandon her desire for power. When Ori related the Tribe's ambitions for galactic dominance, Jelph claimed that there were no more Sith in the wider galaxy. Despite their differences, Jelph admitted he had romantic feelings for Ori in an attempt to calm her down. Ori then revealed she had informed the other Grand Lords about an important discovery and had instructed them to meet her at Jelph's farm the following day at sunset. In the end, Ori and Jelph agreed to return to Jelph's farm and they stole an uvak from an aerial rider patrolling the city. During their flight, the pair agreed that Ori would claim she had discovered four functioning blasters, a technology that was not available to the Tribe. The pair rode the uvak back to Jelph's farm but were pursued by the Tribe's uvaks. Fortunately, they managed to reach the farm before their Sith pursuers could arrived. Jelph slipped out of sight while Ori headed towards the barn intending to meet the four High Lords. However, these visitors turned out to be the Grand Lord Venn herself and four of her most loyal body guards including Flen and Sawj Luzo, Ori's rivals. Unknown to Ori, Candrai had secretly informed the Grand Lord in exchange for improved working conditions. Grand Lord Venn then entered the stable where she discovered the starfighter. She was triumphant because she believed that she had discovered interstellar travel, something which had eluded the Tribe for millennia. Unknown to Venn and her entourage, Jelph had already rigged the starfighter with explosives; he had already hidden two proton torpedoes among thousands of kilograms of ammonia-nitrate based explosives. Prior to reassembling the starship in his stable, Jelph had installed this anti-theft system as a fail-safe in the event that his presence on Kesh was discovered. Jelph managed to distract Venn and her entourage by using the Force to levitate the four blasters towards him. He then opened fire on her bodyguards, allowing Ori to escape her captors. Meanwhile, Venn entered the starfighter's cockpit only to trigger the explosives which killed all of the Sith present and destroyed all traces of the entire farm. Ori and Jelph managed to escape by submerging underwater in the river. The events of that night would be remembered in Keshiri history as the Night of the Upside-Down Meteor and ushered in a power struggle which lasted almost a millennium. Little trace of Venn, her entourage, and Jelph's farm survived since the explosion had caused the surrounding riverbank to collapse into the Marisota River. After eight weeks of traveling deep into the jungle, Ori and Jelph established a remote homestead in the forest. Jelph also destroyed the last remaining evidence of his offworld origins: a transmitter. The Jedi had destroyed the machine after intercepting transmissions which revealed that the Jedi had collapsed into factions and were engaged in a civil war. Finally Jelph and Ori established a romantic relationship and eventually started a family in their new jungle home. + +Revan, living on Coruscant and now married to Bastila Shan, is on the outs with the Jedi Order and experiences horrible insomnia due to nightmare he believes are part of his forgotten past as the Sith Lord Darth Revan. Desperate for information on his past he tries to get in contact with a former subordinate of his from the Mandalorian Wars named Meetra Surik but finds out that she had been dismissed from the Jedi Order and has left Republic space. A meeting with his old friend Canderous Ordo provides Revan with another chance to regain his memories; a group of Mandalorians are searching for the mask of Mandalore, the traditional leader of the Mandalorian peoples. The mask was taken by Revan after defeating Mandalore and hidden away to prevent the Mandalorians from regrouping and to break their spirits. Before leaving, he learns from Bastila that she is pregnant; despite her protests Revan convinces her to stay as he doesn't know how long he will be gone. On the planet Dromund Kaas and unbeknownst to the Republic, the Sith Empire has rebuilt itself after being driven away by the Republic thousands of years ago. A Sith Warrior named Scourge is caught up in a rivalry between members of the Sith's Dark Council and is eventually employed by Darth Nyriss to root out traitors and threats to her safety. Scourge carries out his duties, despite growing concerns that Nyriss is trying to have him killed. After earning Nyriss's trust, the Sith Master confides in Scourge her plan to overthrow the Emperor as she believes he is insane and will bring ruin to the Sith Empire. She takes Scourge to the Emperor's homeworld of Nathema, which he finds completely devoid of the Force. Nyriss explains that a thousand years ago, a Sith Lord impregnated a farmer's wife who gave birth to the Emperor. Known then as Lord Vitiate, he eventually killed his parents once the truth of his parentage was revealed and through violence and terror eventually drove out the ruling Sith Lord. After the Sith Empire lost their war against the Republic it was Lord Vitiate who picked up the pieces and held the Empire together. Scheming to obtain immortality, he and other Sith performed a ritual that killed every living thing on the planet and transferred their life energy to Vitiate. Nyriss fears that the Emperor plans to invade the Republic and risk the stability of the Empire as well as the well being of the remaining Sith species, who were mercilessly hunted down by the Jedi. After locating Mandalore's mask, Revan learns of Nathema from a recording he left behind that told him that Mandalore the Ultimate was approached by Sith to attack the Republic. Upon arriving at Nathema, Revan's ship the Ebon Hawk is shot down and Revan is captured by Scourge and Nyriss. Revan's droid, T3-M4, manages to eventually repair the ship and head back towards Republic space. Right after the events of the Dark Wars. Meetra Surik arrives at the home of Bastila Shan and with T3-M4 in tow to show Bastila a recording T3 made of Revan being abducted by Sith. Although jealous of the relationship Meetra and Revan had, she is relieved to hear that Meetra is set on retracing Revan's path and finding him. She arrives on Nathema and after searching through a municipal building learns of Dromund Kaas and sets out for the planet. Arriving on Dromund Kaas, she passes herself off as a mercenary and eventually makes contact with Scourge who, after seeing Nathema and talking with Revan, has agreed that the Emperor is a danger to the Sith and must be stopped. After leaking information to the Emperor that Nyriss was a traitor, the Emperor decides to purge the entire Dark Council and sets his personal army upon them. During the chaos Scourge and Meetra manage to free Revan from his cell. Meetra gives Revan the mask that he wore during the Mandalorian Wars; upon wearing the mask all of Revan's memories return to him. After the end of the Mandalorian Wars, Revan and his friend Malak went out in search of the Sith Empire, but due to their corruption during the war they were made succeptible to the Emperor's will and were converted to the Dark Side and sent back to weaken the Republic so the Sith Empire could return and take over. Meetra and Scourge are attacked by Nyriss, but before she can kill them Revan approaches them and effortlessly kills the Sith Lord by directing her force lightning burst back to her. After resting and watching a message from Bastila and his son Vaner, the three set out to eliminate the Emperor. Scourge however is troubled by visions he cannot explain, of a Jedi Knight and the Emperor. The three fight their way into the Emperor's throne room and Revan engages him in combat. The Emperor is frighteningly powerful. Revan is then nearly electrocuted to death by the Emperor, and is only stopped when T3 sets the Emperor on fire with his flamethrower. The Emperor directs his lighting at T3, annihilating the small droid. This is the moment that Meetra and Scourge intervene. At this moment Scourge understands his vision; he is seeing the death of the Emperor at the hands of a Jedi Knight, but it is not Meetra nor Revan. Understanding what needs to be done, Scourge stabs Meetra in the back, killing her instantly. Scourge lies to the Emperor saying this was all a ruse to flush out every traitor in the Empire and Revan is placed in a suspension tank where he is constantly interrogated and tortured by the Emperor for information about the Republic; unknown to the Emperor is that Revan is able to slightly impose his will upon the Emperor and plans to slow down his planned invasion of the Republic as long as he can so Bastila and his son will never see war. Scourge is rewarded with the Emperor's gift of immortality. An elderly Bastila converses with her son. They talk of Revan, and Vaner wonders if his father would have been disappointed that he never joined the Jedi Order but went into politics instead. Bastila assures him that he did the right thing, and that despite not knowing Revan's fate she knows he succeeded because they were still alive and the darkness that Revan feared never came to pass. Bastila then goes to sleep, dreaming of her lost husband. + +Darth Malgus leads the attack on the Jedi Temple as it precedes the Sacking of Coruscant. During the Jedi-Sith battle in the Temple, Malgus ends up in a fight against Jedi Master Ven Zallow, and it ends with Malgus killing Zallow by impaling him on his lightsaber. Soon, all of the Jedi are killed and the Sith Empire begins its attack on Coruscant. The Jedi Temple is then destroyed, burying all of the dead in it. Malgus expects a full-scale bombardment on Coruscant, but what he learns from Darth Angral brings much contempt and disgust: the Empire was making a peace treaty with the Galactic Republic. Throughout the day, he secretly begins to suspect that his superiors, including the Sith Emperor, have brought doom upon the Empire by bringing about peace. Only through conflict can one's understanding of the Force be achieved and Malgus firmly believes this. On Alderaan, where the Jedi and Sith are trying to work out the peace treaty, the Jedi delegation sense through the Force the horrors committed by the Sith on Coruscant. Despite this, or rather because of it, as the Sith are using the capture of Coruscant as leverage in the peace talks, the negotiations continue, much to the chagrin of Jedi Knight Aryn Leneer who had sensed her Master Zallow's death in the Force. Aryn then secretly turns her back on the Jedi Order to go to Coruscant, find out who killed Zallow, and kill the murderer. To get to the recently-captured Coruscant, however, she enlists the help of former Republic soldier, now spice runner, Zeerid Korr. Zeerid, meanwhile, also needs to get to Coruscant in order to deliver a shipment of engspice on time for a criminal organization called The Exchange. Unfortunately for Zeerid, he is spied upon by the likes of former Imperial sniper Vrath Xizor, who is working for the Hutts, who are rivals of The Exchange. Knowing that Zeerid is supposed to deliver the engspice to Coruscant, Vrath arrives to Coruscant ahead of time from Aryn and Zeerid to tell Darth Malgus, now overseer of the Imperial blockade, of Aryn and Zeerid's arrival on Coruscant. Malgus heeds Vrath's provided information, and by the time Aryn and Zeerid arrive, Zeerid's ship, the Fatman, is attacked by the Sith fleet. It manages to get to Coruscant, but it is soon blown out of the sky. Aryn and Zeerid survive thanks to Aryn's use of the Force, and they land relatively safely to Coruscant's surface. Though Zeerid failed to deliver his shipment of engspice, he still agrees to help Aryn in her investigation as to who killed Zallow. They travel underground through the Works and follow the late Zallow's astromech droid companion T7-O1 to get to the underground recordings of the Temple by the time of the attack. Aryn learns that it was Malgus who killed Zallow, and vows to avenge her Master. Zeerid, meanwhile, wishes to find a spacecraft that can get him back to his home planet of Vulta so he can get to his daughter, Arra Yooms, before The Exchange reach her. Since The Exchange can very well kill Arra and her aunt, Natala, because of Zeerid's debts to them, and because Vrath Xizor learned of Zeerid's family by spying on him, Arra and Natala could very well be in danger. Soon, as Aryn returns to the destroyed Jedi Temple, she confronts Darth Malgus, who had been waiting for her since he learned that she was looking for him in vengeance for Master Zallow's death. Their fight is cut short before a clear winner can be determined when Zeerid arrives to pick Aryn up, as killing Malgus in vengeance will lead Aryn down a dark path. Aryn only agrees so that she can get a greater vengeance on Malgus by targeting his Twi'lek lover, Eleena Daru, so that he will know the pain that Aryn suffered when Master Zallow died. Both Aryn and Zeerid find their respective goals at a spaceport, where Aryn prepares to kill Eleena, but finds that killing her would disgrace everything that Master Zallow taught her. She again confronts Malgus just as Zeerid leaves with a ship of his own, which just so happens to be the ship owned by Vrath Xizor. Zeerid and Vrath get into a fight in the ship's cargo hold, and Zeerid wins the fight by beating Vrath to a bloody pulp. After Zeerid takes over the ship, the Imperial blockade allows him to leave under Malgus's permission after Aryn threatened to kill Eleena if he didn't let Zeerid go. Afterward, Zeerid kills Vrath by shoving him out of the ship's air lock so that he wouldn't be able to tell The Exchange or anyone else about Arra and Natala's relation to Zeerid. Malgus defeats Aryn in their second fight, but instead of killing her, he allows her to leave Coruscant after she spared Eleena's life. Malgus then kills Eleena after confessing his love to her, seeing her as a weakness to himself that he can no longer afford to worry himself over. In the aftermath, a peace treaty is signed between the Republic and the Empire, and the latter disbands its occupation of Coruscant. In his disappointment over how peace will reign through the galaxy as a result, Malgus intends to take over the Empire himself, starting by killing his political rival Lord Adraas. Zeerid, meanwhile, is able to buy a farm and prosthetic legs for his daughter Arra, who lives with her now while Natala has a place of her own. Aryn eventually finds Zeerid, telling him that she quit the Jedi Order so that she can be with him. + +Darth Scabrous, leader of the Odacer-Faustin Sith Academy, secretly hires the Whiphid bounty hunter Tulkh to steal the Murakami orchid from the Jedi Agricultural Corps facility on the planet Marfa. When Tulkh steals the orchid, however, he finds that he cannot take it back to Scabrous alive without the plant's handler, Padawan Hestizo Trace. Taking them both back to the academy, the Sith Lord mixes the orchid in a strange device hooked up to Sith apprentice Wim Nickter, who had been taken by Scabrous for his purposes. Nickter dies, but comes back as a zombie. His infection quickly spreads throughout the academy in a single night, infecting even Scabrous himself. Hestizo soon finds herself trapped with Tulkh in trying to fight off hordes of zombies. Meanwhile, Scabrous preoccupies himself with finding a way to become immortal without the side effect of becoming a mindless monster. To do so, he infects the Neti librarian, Dail'Liss, and commanding him to lure Hestizo to the library by mimicking the voice of the orchid, still alive amidst the infection known as the Sickness. The plan works after she and Tulkh part ways. Scabrous straps Hestizo down on a sacrificial altar, plotting to cut out her heart with a traditional Sith sword and become truly immortal; by consuming Hestizo's heart, Scabrous hopes to negate the decaying effects of the Sickness while retaining his eternal life. Meanwhile, as Tulkh does his best to survive and find a way off of Odacer-Faustin himself, he comes into contact with Scabrous's personal HK-series assassin droid and modifies it to combat the zombies. Together, the two of them make it back towards Tulkh's ship, the Mirocaw, where they find a stowaway named Pergus Frode on board. Frode was the mechanic for the previous crew hired by Scabrous for the purpose of retrieving a black orchid; when that crew was killed by Scabrous for their failure, Frode had been stranded, left to survive the zombie epidemic. Back at the base of the Sith library, Hestizo is able to free herself from Scabrous's sacrifice, but before Scabrous can outright kill her, Hestizo's brother, Rojo, arrives and briefly duels the Sith Lord. Scabrous wins and kills Rojo, but Hestizo is able to kill him by telepathically convincing the orchid to sprout itself outward from his head, severely weakening him. She is then able to finish off Scabrous, now a complete zombie, by using his own Sith sword against him. Hestizo escapes infection from the remaining Sith zombies when the Mirocaw, piloted by Pergus Frode, flies in to save her. The ship manages to evade Scabrous's perimeter defenses long enough to reach the roof of Scabrous's personal tower. There, the HK manages to manipulate the perimeter defenses to destroy the tower instead of the Mirocaw as zombies invade the roof and the ship flies away. The tower is destroyed, along with all the remaining zombies and the droid, while the ship flies off into space. However, Hestizo finds that the Sickness still has a chance of infecting the rest of the galaxy - Tulkh was infected back on the planet when an infected tauntaun's spittle dribbled into his eye. Knowing that his time is limited, Tulkh asks Hestizo to open up the wall he chained himself to so that he will be blown out into the vacuum of space. Before she can do so, however, an infected apprentice from the academy, Rance Lussk, attacks, but Hestizo is able to avoid his attack and send both Tulkh and Lussk out into space. She seals the room from they were blown out of, and rests assured that the Sickness is over. Hestizo returns to Marfa, where a new black orchid is waiting for her care. However, she instead decides to return to Coruscant where she can resume her proper Jedi studies. + +In Wild Space, the Auriga Fire has just captured a ship called the Cinzia. The Auriga Fire's Captain Jet Nebula is undergoing a mutiny led by his Rodian first mate Shinqo, but Nebula is able to quell this mutiny and get Shinqo and his followers back under his control. The crew of the Auriga Fire attempt to board the Cinzia after warning the crew on the other end of the communications net of their intentions. However, Nebula manages to pilot the Auriga Fire away from the Cinzia after detecting an energy surge in the opposite ship that results in its destruction. The Fire crew begin to scan the debris and hypothesize that whoever blew up the ship thought that the cargo must have been really important to sacrifice their ship, and their lives, over. During the debris scan, they notice something. In the lower levels of Coruscant, Jedi Padawan Shigar Konshi, recently disgruntled after being rejected by the Jedi Council from testing himself in the Trials in order to become a Knight, is on a mission for the Order. He notes a violent confrontation taking place inside a nearby warehouse, and decides to check it out. Meanwhile, also approaching the warehouse is former Republic trooper Larin Moxla, and she confronts the sole survivor, and instigator, of the conflict, Mandalorian warrior Dao Stryver. Konshi and Moxla get into a brief fight with Stryver from which the Mandalorian escapes. But the Padawan and former trooper decide to combine forces in order to find Stryver and figure out what he was talking about regarding two things he mentioned to Moxla; the Cinzia and Lema Xandret. Approaching the Sith world of Dromund Kaas and heading to Kaas City is Sith apprentice Eldon Ax, who had recently failed a mission for her master Sith Lord Darth Chratis. This failure was based on Ax's confrontation with Dao Stryver, who caught her, asked her about the Cinzia and Lema Xandret, and then released her and let her live as he left to continue on with his business. Ax informs Darth Chratis about this, and Chratis takes her to Dromund Kaas's Imperial data mine to inform her of what Stryver was talking about. Chratis reveals that Lema Xandret is actually Eldon Ax's mother who tried to hide her from the Sith when it was discovered that Ax, who was then named Cinzia Xandret, had Force-sensitivity. The ship's name was obviously based off of Ax's real name, and was destroyed back in Wild Space. From what information that the Sith could gather on the Cinzia itself was that it was involved in some kind of auction that the Hutts were holding on Hutta; whatever was going to be sold at the auction itself remains unknown, especially since the ship's destruction leaves very little to gain information from. As a result of this, Chratis decides to remove the memory block that he placed in Ax's mind when she was younger that was meant to block out any memories that she had of her family. This is to further Chratis's investigation regarding the whereabouts of Lema Xandret herself. Unfortunately, despite the flood of memories coming back to Ax, she can discern no real recollection of where her mother or other family members could be hiding, or what could be so important aboard the Cinzia before it blew up. Meanwhile, a spy within the Republic working for the Sith Empire, Ula Vii, learns about the word going around about Lema Xandret and the Cinzia. He gets this information because the Hutts have managed to recover whatever was thought lost in the explosion of the ship, as well as information to its planet of origin. Its cargo may very well be just as or less important than where it came from, as it could tip the balance between the Republic and the Empire in terms of planets and resources. Vii passes this information along to his Imperial masters. This helps Ax and Chratis, meanwhile, who are also wanting to find out what could be so important that is now being auctioned by the Hutts. Thus, four journeys are made to Hutta for the cargo from the Cinzia--one made by Shigar and Larin, one made by Vii and his Republic entourage of guards, one made by Ax and Chratis, and the last made by Dao Stryver. These four parties meet in a violent clash of interests that ends up with a small group of hexagonal droids that attack them. Though the droids are destroyed, Stryver makes his escape with the Cinzia’s navicomputer. Ax makes do with memory hardware from one of the defeated hexagonal robots, which could very well lead back to the Cinzia’s origin point. Shigar and Larin have to deal with the primary Hutt auctioneer, Tassaa Bareesh, in the aftermath of the violence that spilled over in her palace because of all the interests of the Cinzia’s contents. Shigar makes a deal with Bareesh that allows him and Larin to leave and continue with their journey. With a compliment of Bareesh's own guards, Jet Nebula, and Ula Vii, Shigar is able to retrace the origin of the hexagonal droids by feeling their history through the Force via touching one of their destroyed corpses. These three parties locate the origin planet of the hexes, Sebaddon, located near a black hole on the very edge of the galaxy. The hexes seem too powerful to stop, so the present fleets of the Republic and the Empire, who came with the other parties, have no choice but to team up and destroy the droids; otherwise, the hexes could very well multiply to a point where they would easily take over the galaxy. In spite of the problems that ensue between the two fleets, the alliance succeeds in defeating the hexes as Ax and Shiagar's master, Satele Shan, unintentionally kill a clone of Ax who had been unknowingly allowing the hex army to take countless lives. Ax takes control of the hexes herself, commands them to successfully kill her hated master Darth Chratis, and then allows the remnants of her dead mother to lead the droids to destroy themselves in the lava of Sebaddon. The alliance is broken, the Republic and the Empire go back into conflict, and the primary characters' lives change all the better for each of them. In the epilogue, Dao Stryver catches up with Jet Nebula in a cantina on Tatooine after having searched for him ever since the Sebaddon incident. Jet reveals that he knows that Stryver had intentionally led all parties involved towards the conflict at Sebaddon in order to assess the strength of both the Republic and the Empire. Stryver is revealed to be a female Gektl Mandalorian at this time. She intended to take Jet's droid, Clunker, away from him due to Clunker's ability to decode both Republic and Imperial codes. Before Stryver has a chance to try and take Clunker, Nebula, with the help of other patrons in the bar, subdues Stryver and disappears. Stryver awakes later and realizes that she respects Nebula and admits to herself that she believes him to be a worthy opponent. + +Theron Shan's mother, Satele Shan, later Grand Master of the Jedi Order, names her son and then reluctantly gives Theron to be raised by Jedi Master Ngani Zho. Now a covert agent with the Republic Strategic Information Service, Theron Shan is on Nar Shaddaa to talk with Morbo the Hutt to plead for the life of Teff'ith, a Twi'lek female smuggler for the Old Tion Brotherhood that Theron has taken under his watch. Morbo the Hutt has decided to have Teff'ith and the crew she is with killed for violating his terms of spice smuggling in his territory. Before talking with Morbo, Theron interrupts a 3 month long SIS operation to free several Republic Military prisoners of war who are being sold by Morbo. Though Theron frees the soldiers, the SIS operation falls apart. Unable to convince Morbo to back off, Theron races to the spaceport. He arrives in time to help Teff'ith, though she is unaware of it, to kill the thugs sent by Morbo. On Coruscant, Director of Republic Strategic Information Service Marcus Trant meets with the Supreme Commander of the Republic Military, Jace Malcom. Together they discuss the state of the Cold War, now turned into the Galactic War. Trant and Malcom plan a new mission to destroy the Ascendant Spear, a dangerous prototype Imperial battle cruiser under the command of Darth Karrid, a Falleen Sith Lord. The mission is planned as a joint operation between the Republic Military, SIS, and the Jedi Order. Meanwhile, the Dark Council debates possible candidates to be promoted to the council. Darth Marr puts Darth Karrid's name forward, though the Council is hesitant because she was Darth Malgus' apprentice and Malgus attempted to claim the Imperial throne and was branded as a traitor. Added to that, Karrid is a Falleen, not a pure Sith blood or a Human. The council comes to no decision and though Marr assures Karrid and urges her to be patient, she is angry, determined to be on the council. Theron Shan arrives on Coruscant and is escorted to SIS headquarters. He is chewed out by Trant for disobeying orders and causing the mission to fail. Trant reassigns Theron to the Analytics Department as a punishment. He asks Theron to trust him and to being planning a new special mission, Operation End Game. Theron is able to later develop a plan after a call from Teff'ith and the mention of Ziost inspires him. Darth Karrid meanwhile joins the battle over Leritor where she manipulates Darth Gravus into attacking her and she proceeds to destroy him and the Republic forces. The move wins approval from the Dark Council and they decide to let Darth Karrid join them. Shortly there after, Minister Davidge of the Imperial Ministry of Logistics reports to Darth Marr that there is a risk of loosing Boranall and there is a growing number of Republic ships. Darth Karrid agrees to go there to ensure Imperial rule. On Coruscant, Theron's plans move forward with Jedi Master Gnost-Dural joining the group. Theron has been chosen by Supreme Commander Malcom to lead the operation. After the meeting, Malcom invites Theron to his apartment. During the conversation, Malcom reveals he was in a relationship with Satele Shan and that Theron's birth date confirmed to Malcom that he was Theron's father. The two agree to talk more later and they part on good terms. Theron and Master Gnost-Dural leave for Ziost. They are able to secure a black cipher from Minister Davidge's office. The black cipher allows the SIS to monitor Imperial transmissions and make further plans. Theron goes to see his mother and confronts her about not revealing who his father is. They argue but Satele stands by her position that it was the right course to take. At the she had believed that Jace Malcom could follow the dark side. After Theron leaves, Satele dreams a flashback. It involves an argument she had with Jace Malcom when she confronted him about brutally pursuing Imperial soldiers after the Battle of Alderaan. Malcom refuses to back down and Satele breaks down but decides to break off their 6 month affair and not reveal to him she is pregnant. Theron and Master Gnost-Dural leave for Desevro. They arrive at Jigani Port where Teff'ith takes them to Gorvich who is living in Maslovar. Gorvich gives Theron a disguise to enter Reaver Station, an Imperial post. There Theron intends to infiltrate the Ascendant Spear. However, he learns that the Empire attacked Ruan causing massive devastation. Theron contacts Malcom and Trant who acknowledge they knew the attack was coming and the next attack will be to Duro. They plan on allowing the attack to go ahead since Ascendant Spear will not be there. Angered, Theron hatches a plan with Gnost-Dural to have the Ascendant Spear take part in the attack forcing Malcom and Trant to send a fleet. Theron also asks to Teff'ith to inform Satele Shan of what is happening to have her convince Malcom to send the fleet. Meanwhile, Gnost-Dural, aiming to force Karrid to take part in the attack, infiltrates the Ascendant Spear and takes on Darth Karrid and several of her Sith apprentices. Gnost-Dural intentionally lets himself be defeated and taken alive. Theron meanwhile sets off a simulated Republic attack. The confusion allows Theron to also get on to the Ascendant Spear where he begins scouting the ship and hacking into the system. Following Theron's request, Teff'ith fights with Gorvich who wants to keep the ship, the Prosperity. She is able to escape and make her way to Coruscant. Karrid starts torturing Gnost-Dural to find out what he knows. Teff'ith meanwhile arrives on Coruscant and is taken into custody by two Coruscant Security Force police officers. She is able to surprise one of them and take his blaster and forces the other to contact Satele Shan. After arriving on the scene, Satele is told by Teff'ith what has occurred. Gnost-Dural pretends to finally crack and gives up that he was hoping to keep Karrid away from Duro. Karrid decides to head for Duro. At the same Satele and Teff'ith convince Malcom to send a fleet to Duro to intercept the coming Imperial attack and the Ascendant Spear. When the Imperial fleet under Moff Nezzor arrives, the Republic is waiting under the command of the Aegis and opens fire surprising the Imperials. The Imperials are routed and Nezzor attempts a suicide run but his ship is destroyed. The two remaining Imperial ships attempt to flee but are destroyed by the Ascendant Spear as Karrid arrives and executes them for cowardice. The Ascendant Spear then faces off with the Republic fleet. Theron meanwhile has started to slice the Ascendant Spear's systems. Targeting systems, shields, and sensors go awry or completely offline. Karrid recognizes a slicer on board and prevents further hacks. Theron frees Gnost-Dural who overwhelms his guards and a Sith apprentice. They both make their way to Karrid's command pod and begin the attack. Karrid's three apprentices attack Gnost-Dural as Theron starts slicing the command console. Meanwhile the Republic fleet is being hammered and Malcom is running of a time. Theron slices in to convince the ship it is damaged causing Karrid to leave her command pod. Moff Lorman fails to take command, unsure if Karrid is still alive. The Republic fleet begins to tear the Ascendant Spear apart and Lorman gives the order to abandon ship. Karrid runs for the command pod and Theron throws is ruined blaster inside, activating it just before the pod closes. The blaster explodes, killing Karrid. Gnost-Dural has meanwhile killed one of the apprentices and the other two flee with the abandon ship order. The Ascendant Spear falls apart, capsizing under the Republic attack. Malcom lets the thousands of escape pods leave the ship while hoping that Theron and Master Gnost-Dural make it out. The two are able to get into Karrid's personal escape pod, moments before the Ascendant Spear is vaporized by a hyper matter explosion. Theron and Gnost-Dural are brought aboard the Aegis and everyone celebrates. Gnost-Dural, Teff'ith, and Theron are awarded the Cross of Glory. Three days later in the Supreme Commander's office, Malcom meets with Satele Shan, Gnost-Dural, and Director Trant for a debriefing. Theron sends his regrets and is unable to attend. Afterwards, Malcom and Satele discuss Theron as Malcom wants to be closer with his son. Satele tells him to be patient and the two part on good terms. Malcom finds a recording from Theron inviting him to a drink later and Malcom smiles. Meanwhile Theron visits Teff'ith's hotel room and gives her the 10,000 credits promised for delivering the message to Satele Shan. Teff'ith accepts the money but rejects a job offer. Teff'ith tells Theron to stop watching her and leaves. Theron, to himself, vows to watch over Teff'ith because that's what family does. + +Pantheon is set in 3000 BBY, over two thousand years after the ancestors of the Lost Tribe of Sith landed on Kesh. Varner Hilts is an elderly Sith who is the caretaker of the Tribe's historical records and lore. His assistant and close friend was Jaye Vuhld, a talented Keshiri mathematician. Together, they ran the Tribe's archives at the Kesh capitol building in the capital city of Tahv. Since the death of Grand Lord Lillia Venn during the Night of the Upside-Down Meteor, the Lost Tribe had been bereft of any cohesive leadership. The Tribe had been locked into a vicious civil war which had lasted over nine-hundred years and devastated much of the continent of Keshtah Minor. During the story, Iliana Merko, the leader of a breakaway faction known as Sisters of Seelah, visited Hilts and attempted to coerce him into giving her faction a favorable report during the upcoming Testament Day. The Sisters of Seelah revered Seelah Korsin, the estranged wife of the Tribe's founder Yaru Korsin, as the true founder of the Tribe. Hilts succeeded in buying time by claiming that the holocron containing Yaru Korsin's Testament would only activate on Testament Day. The Sisters' presence attracted the attention of several rival Sith factions including the Golden Destiny, Force 57, and the Korsinite League. Hilts and Jaye narrowly managed to avert violence by claiming that Testament Day was on that very day; pointing out that Kesh's calendar was eight days behind the Galactic Standard Calendar. While this ploy worked, Iliana and the Sisters of Seelah did not gain any advantages from Yaru Korsin's Testament which sanctioned the banishing of Seelah and designated their daughter Nida Korsin as the new Grand Lord. However, Hilts mistakenly discovered that Korsin's Testament was recorded over an older recording which revealed the Tribe's true history. Instead of being great conquerors, the assembled Sith learned that their ancestors were merely lowly slaves and miners of the ancient Sith Lord Naga Sadow. The Tribe did not come willingly to Kesh but had instead become stranded during a mission to deliver Lignan crystals to Sadow's forces during the Great Hyperspace War. This revelation horrified the various Sith attendees. In an attempt to hide their inglorious past, Iliana destroys the holocron with her lightsaber. Despite efforts by the Sith to hide their true origins, word of the recent Pantheon reaches the masses. This sparks a series of violent riots and mass killings known as the Great Crisis which results in the razing of several cities across Keshtah Minor. In the midst of this great crisis which threatens the existence of the Lost Tribe, Hilts and Jaye resolve among themselves to find the true power behind Yaru Korsin's throne which is located in the Omen, the ancient Sith starship which brought the ancestors of the Lost Tribe to Kesh. The Omen is buried beneath a mountainside Sith temple. + +Secrets is set in 3000 BBY and occurred two weeks after the events of Pantheon. It is told through the point of view of the Sith historian Varner Hilts. During the Great Crisis, Hilts and his Keshiri assistant Jaye Vuhld traveling to the Kesh Sith Temple in an attempt to discover secrets that could save the Lost Tribe of Sith from their own destruction. Nobody had visited the Sith Temple for several centuries since the Tribe's founder Yaru Korsin's daughter Nida Korsin had ordered the Tribe to evacuate the Temple. After much difficulty navigating the difficult terrain, Hilts and Jaye managed to enter the Temple's compound. Shortly later, they encounter a despondent Iliana Merko, the former leader of the Sisters of Seelah, a Sith faction which emulated Seelah Korsin, the estranged wife of Yaru Korsin. Hilts managed to convince Iliana to join their efforts to discover Yaru Korsin's secrets that could save the Tribe from destruction. The three explorers eventually made their way inside the derelict Omen, the ancient starship which had brought the ancestors of the Lost Tribe to Kesh. The Omen is buried beneath the Keshiri Sith Temple. However, the explorers found that Korsin's command throne has been removed from the ship's bridge. Hilts and his companions eventually discovered the presence of other Sith including Korsin Bentado, Edell Vrai, and Neera. These Sith had been vicious rivals prior to the Great Crisis but had come together after much blood-letting to destroy the Omen in order to purge the inglorious history of the Tribe. Hilts and his companions eventually reached the cupola above the Sith Temple's roof where they discovered Korsin's throne. They discovered that the cupola's ceiling is a planetarium and also found a piece of transparent film which contains an old cant in the Tapani language. This document was a message from Yaru Korsin's mother Takara Korsin to her son prior to his fateful mission to Phaegon III. She predicted that Korsin's descendants would rule over a great people one day and be free of the Red Sith. However, Hilts argued that this text was not actually Korsin's secret and contended that the planetarium was intended to mislead future explorers into thinking that Korsin had intended the Tribe to return to the stars. Using their knowledge of the Lost Tribe's history, Hilts and Jaye reasoned that the dying Korsin had recorded his final Testament in a chamber beneath the Sith Temple. Hilts and his companions eventually reached the chamber and discovered both Korsin's throne and a map room. The other Sith eventually discovered their presence and killed Jaye. Before they could kill the others, Hilts used the Force to remove the blank slates covering the room and revealed a large map which showed the existence of a second continent besides Keshtah Minor. This unknown continent was several times the size of Keshtah and was separated by a vast ocean. Hilts was able to use the discovery of 'Keshtah Major' to unite the Tribe and end the centuries-long infighting that has nearly destroyed them. In the end, the other Sith leaders elected Hilts as Grand Lord and Iliana becomes his Grand Consort. Under Hilt's leadership, the Tribe committed itself to rebuilding Keshtah Minor and discovering a way to reach Keshtah Major. + +Following an unsuccessful attempt to drive the Lost Tribe of Sith from Kesh in 4975 BBY, Adari Vaal and three hundred other Keshiri followers had fled from Keshtah Minor to another continent known as Alanciar. There, they transformed the Keshiri civilization and prepared it to resist a future Sith invasion. Centuries later in 2975 BBY, Grand Lord Varner Hilts succeeds in reuniting the Lost Tribe following nine-hundred years of civil war. He has committed the Tribe to finding a way to reach Alanciar. After much difficulty, a Sith mathematician named Edell Vrai succeeded in constructing a fleet of airships which allowed the Tribe to travel to Alanciar. The story begins at Point Defiance, a naval fort on Garrow's Neck, a mountain peninsula on the south-western coast of Alanciar. It was part of a canal-crossed region known as the Shank which terminated into six mountain peninsulas. The first protagonist was Quarra Thayn, an Alanciari woman who is the Chief military administrator and wardmaster of Uhrar. While Thayn was a married mother of three children, she was secretly having an affair with a soldier in the Alanciari military named Jogan Halder. While officially on a tour of the battle-armor factories on the Northern Slope of Alanciar, she visited Port Defiance which was where her lover is stationed. The Alanciari Keshiri were a militaristic society which was structured around resisting an invasion by the Lost Tribe of Sith from Keshtah Minor. The continent was heavily fortified on land and sea. Thayn and Halder were dissatisfied with their family commitments and the militaristic rigours of Alanciari society. Therefore, they sought relief and solace in romance. Meanwhile, the second protagonist Edell Vrai, a High Lord and Chief Engineer of the Tribe, was leading a vanguard force consisting of three Sith airships: the Candra, Lillia, and the Dann Itra. These airships were powered by helium gasbags and were guided by uvaks. Edell had planned an over flight reconnaissance of Keshtah Major which would have been followed by a return trip across the Southern Ocean to the western coast of Keshtah Minor, the domain of the Lost Tribe. The fleet approached the Shank but were quickly attacked by black javelins fired from Alanciari ballista emplacements on Point Vigilance. The Lillia and Dann Itra were destroyed. This incident marked the first contact between the Lost Tribe and the Alanciari Keshiri. The Alanciari defenders were able to light the fireglobes and warn the rest of their people of the invaders. Quarra and Jogan were present when the Alanciar anti-air defenses assaulted the Sith fleet. Quarra panicked because she did not want her husband to discover her affair with Jogan since she was far away from the Northern Slope, which she was supposedly visiting. However, Quarra was unable to escape since her muntok, a six-legged reptilian steed, had escaped during the fighting. Meanwhile, Edell’s airship Candra managed to travel further inland but was assaulted by the Alanciari air force which also consisted of uvak riders. The Candra was eventually brought down with the loss of much of its crew. However, Edell and four of his crew survived and managed to land on Alanciar. One of the uvaks known as Starboard tethered to the Candra was killed during the fighting and crashed on top of Jogan, seriously wounding him. This accident brought the story’s two main protagonists together. Quarra attempted to protect her lover and fend off the Sith. Despite her Force-sensitivity, she was overpowered following a struggle with Edell. Quarra surprised her captives by revealing that the Alanciari Keshiri spoke Galactic Basic Standard, the same language that the Lost Tribe spoke. Quarra managed to convince her captors to spare Jogan’s life. By then, Edell had been joined to two other Sith. Quarra and Jogan were subsequently taken prisoner by Edell and his men. Back in Tahv, Grand Lord Varner Hilts and his wife Iliana Hilts are present during a meeting with High Lord Korsin Bentado, the designated military commander of the Lost Tribe’s invasion fleet that would invade Alanciar after Edell had made contact with the continent. The Sith leadership had received this new through thoughtcriers, individuals capable of transmitting information through the Force. While the Hilts wanted to wait until Edell had returned, Korsin was eager to go to war. This invasion force was known as the Ebon Fleet and consisted of sixty airships; making it twenty-times the size of Edell's scouting party. This party included several Keshiri translators and many of Korsin's supporters from the former Korsinite League. Despite their reservations, Varner and Iliana gave their approval for Korsin to launch the invasion since they secretly hoped to eliminate a political rival. Meanwhile, Edell and his Sith followers managed to seize control of the Keshiri sailing ship Mischance after a fierce battle with the crew. The Mischance was a fishing vessel used for trapping crustaceans. They managed to escape into open water before reinforcements from Garrow's Neck could capture them. Jogan and Quarra were tied up to the ship’s mast. Eventually, Edell managed to coerce Quarra into serving as his guide for a reconnaissance mission into Alanciar’s military capital Sus'mintri. In return, Quarra managed to convince Edell to untie Jogan and give him medical treatment. Edell agreed but stated that they had to return by two weeks or she would never see her lover again. While Quarra appeared to collaborate with the invaders, she secretly intended to scare the Sith back to where they came from. Edell and Quarra managed to infiltrate Garrow's Neck using a small cove that was not guarded by Alanciari troops. After four days of traveling, they reached the town of Kerebba disguised as performers for Observance Day, an annual festival which commemorated the arrival of the Keshiri woman Adari Vaal, who had fled the Lost Tribe-controlled Keshtah Minor. The festival was intended to promote a sense of patriotism among the Alanciari Keshiri and to continually remind them of the threat posed by the Lost Tribe. Edell acted as a Sith villain but was angered by the anti-Sith undertones of the festival. Following the festivities, the pair slept in a dry culvert near the Kerebba canal station. That night, Quarra experienced a Force vision where she encountered the former Sith woman Orielle Kitai and her Jedi husband Jelph Marrian who gave her encouragement. Orielle compared her former life as a high-ranking member of the Sith tribe to Quarra's station in the Alanciar military. She also warned Quarra of the dangers of living within a dream. Convinced of the inevitable Sith take-over and intrigued by Orielle's peaceful life in the jungle, Quarra decided to remain loyal to her family rather than becoming the consort of Edell Vrai after the Sith have occupied in Alanciar. During their time together, Edell and Quarra developed a reluctant friendship. Edell learnt about Quarra's family life and her affair with Jogan. They also discussed cultural differences between the Keshiri on Keshtah Minor and Alanciar; with the latter being more suited to building practical implements like aqueducts than the former. The pair eventually reached the Western Shield that afternoon and Sus'mintri was only about two days away. At that point, Bentado's Ebon Fleet led by his flagship the Yaru arrived over the countryside but were quickly shot down by the Alanciari air defenses. The fleet was quickly decimated but a several Sith managed to survive the landing. They were immediately hunted by the Alanciari military. Edell was furious with Bentado for attacking too early without waiting for him to return to Keshtah Minor. Edell and Quarra were quickly caught-up in the fighting when the surviving Sith landed on the ground. Quarra personally killed a Sith warrior but spared Edell, citing her agreement with him. However, she did a detour to her hometown of Uhrar to check that her three children were safe. After finding that her three children were safe in the town's shelter, she rejoined Edell and the two continued their journey to Sus'mintri. Using her Force abilities, Quarra secretly managed to send a telepathic message to the War Cabinet in Sus'mintri telling them that she had a Sith Lord with her. The War Cabinet instructed Quarra to bring Edell to them stating that they knew what to do. Quarra was determined to save Jogan and be a heroine for her people. Edell and Quarra eventually reached Sus'mintri, the capital of Alanciari civilization. The Alanciari War Cabinet was housed within a one-storey hall known as Vaal Hall which was situated next to a tall silo tower that was capable of relaying communications between the different regions of Alanciar. Quarra and Edell were allowed to enter the building by a lone Keshiri sentry. They quickly discovered that Bentado and the survivors of the Ebon Fleet had regrouped and infiltrated Vaal Hall and slaughtered the entire Alanciari War Cabinet along with all the bureaucrats and guards present. Due to the centralized nature of the Alanciari government, the various military, industrial and education directorates were based in one building. This made it easy for an enemy force to decapitate the leadership. This development destroyed Quarra's plans to lure Edell into a trap and to save Jogan. Edell and Quarra also encountered Lord Bentado and the surviving crew from the Ebon Fleet. Also present was Bentado's Keshiri assistant Squab. Bentado explained to the protagonists that Sus'mintri contained thirteen communications facilities including the tall silo tower, which was a signalling station that was used for transmitting and processing telepathic messages from Force-users. They managed to infiltrate Vaal Hall and slay the Alanciari War Cabinet. Bentado and his men were then able to use telepathic messages to draw the other survivors towards the building. Unknown to the Alanciari military forces scattered across the continent, an enemy force had infiltrated and hijacked the very hub of their government. The Sith continued to use the signal tower to relay instructions to the Alanciari artillery defenses. Having decapitated the Alanciari government, Bentado then put his next plan into action: destroying the remaining sixteen ships of the Lost Tribe which were traveling towards Alanciar. Bentado had intended to kill Grand Lord Hilts and also create a second Tribe on Alanciar. He planned to use the militaristic Alanciari Keshiri and their industrial base to forge a new rival empire. Edell countered that Bentado's plans would not work since his followers would eventually get tired of having to hide inside the building in order to avoid being discovered by the Alanciari Keshiri. Meanwhile, Quarra condemned Bentado for killing the Alanciari leadership and vowed that her people would eventually come looking for them. In the end, Edell refused to support Bentado's plans and attempted to order him to work with Grand Lord Hilts until reinforcements arrived. Bentado ordered his men to seize Edell and Quarra but the two managed to escape their pursuers. When Quarra wanted to escape Sus'mintri and return to the Mischance in order to rescued Jogan, Edell revealed that the Mischance had received orders to sail to Keshtah Minor. Despite their differences, the two agreed to work together to survive and managed to hide for a day within Adari Vaal's secret library. During this period, Quarra discovered Adari Vaal's personal memoirs which revealed that she had succumbed to weakness during an encounter with Yaru Korsin, the founder of the Tribe. Quarra and Edell then decided to disrupt Bentado's communications by taking out the High Lord himself. Quarra also found Adari's lightsaber in the archive. Meanwhile, Grand Lord Hilts' airship arrived off the western coast of Alanciar near Port Melephos. In response, Bentado had instructed Squab to order the Keshiri uvak diamond-flak teams to engage the aircraft. Edell and Quarra managed to enter Bentado's worldwatch room through a diagonal tunnel leading upwards from the archive. Upon exiting, Edell engaged Bentado in a lightsaber duel while Quarra fought off his bodyguards. However, they were unable to stop Squab from escaping to the tower to relay Bentado's commands. Bentado eventually managed to overpower both Edell and Quarra with his Force powers. Squab also retrieved Quarra's lightsaber and revealed that Grand Lord Hilt's airship had safely landed at Port Melephos. In reality, Squab was secretly serving Grand Lord Hilts and had disobeyed Bentado's command to down the Grand Lord's airship. Bentado then attempted to carry on with his plan by ordering Squab to order the Alanciari troops to kill Hilts and anyone with him. However, Squab countermanded that order with a new order from Hilts ordering him to kill Bentado. Squab then used Quarra's lightsaber to stab Lord Bentado through the heart, killing the Sith Lord. This effectively ended Bentado's dreams of creating a Second Tribe and killing his rival Hilts. Squab then handed Bentado's weapons to Edell Vrai, who was designated as the new commander of the Sith forces on Alanciar. Edell then used the Force to reassert control over Bentado's men and the signaling devices. Grand Lord Varner Hilt's white airship Good Omen arrived at Sus'mintri after doing a brief stop-over at Port Melephos. The Good Omen encountered no resistance on both occasions because the Sith had used the Alanciari Keshiri Jogan Halder to greet the Alanciari population. Edell and Quarra were both present when Hilts' airship arrived at Sus'mintri where it was welcomed by thousands of Keshiri. Following his arrival in Sus'mintri, Jogan gave a speech where he explained that he had been taken to Keshtah Minor by ship. They eventually reached Tahv where he was greeted by the Keshtah Alanciari who successfully convinced him that the Lost Tribe were actually the benign Protectors and that the Keshiri were actually happy to live under the Sith. Jogan also told them that Bentado and the Ebon Fleet were the malevolent Destructors who had been expelled from Keshtah. He also explained that Edell Vrai and his airships was a trusted friend of the Protectors who was pursuing the Destructors. The Tribe in reality had tricked and coerced Jogan into distorting the events of the Sith invasion in order to win the hearts and minds of the Alanciari. This ploy worked and Jogan was welcomed as the new Herald. Jogan was immediately followed by Grand Lord Hilts, who was disguised as the Bright Tuash, a legendary Keshiri deity. He claimed that Adari Vaal, the revered founder of Alanciari civilization, was his daughter and that she was well-meaning but misguided. He backed Jogan's account and professed to be saddened that the Destructors had attacked and killed the Alanciari leadership. He also assured the Alanciari that the Destructors and their leader had been defeated by his agent Edell Vrai and the Alanciari woman Quarra. To facilitate peace between the two continents, the Bright Tuash decreed that both Human and Keshiri relief workers would arrive from Keshtah over the next few days to promote reconciliation and unity. Grand Lord Hilt's deception worked and the Alanciari Keshiri willingly submitted to Sith rule. Jogan's message was transmitted across the entire continent. In private, Varner confided in Edell that he had been able to manipulate the similar histories of the Alanciari and Keshtah Keshiri to orchestrate this grand deception. He also explained that the Tribe had withdrawn from public view when Jogan visited Tahv while putting their most loyal Keshiri on the streets. Hilts regarded bringing the Alanciari Keshiri willingly into the Sith's service as a greater victory than capturing new slaves in combat. Edell was subsequently appointed as the new de-facto governor of Alanciar. As part of the reunification process, the Alanciari Keshiri publicly destroyed their balliste. New plays focusing on Jogan were also commissioned to replace the patriotic plays associated with Observance Day. Finally, Quarra attempted to warn the Alanciari of the deceptive nature of the Sith take-over but no one was willing to listen. Instead she resolved to accept her destiny and guide her compatriots through the process of Unification. She also returned to her husband Brue Thayn and her three children. + +Darth Bane for the first time recounting his early life, prior to his ascension to the Sith. The story begins in the cortosis mines of Apatros, where a young Darth Bane goes by his birth name, Dessel. Dessel works in the mines with his abusive, alcoholic father Hurst. After a confrontation in the mines, Dessel kills Hurst by unknowingly using his Force abilities to induce a fatal heart attack. Shortly after, Dessel is forced to leave Apatros after killing a Republic naval officer in a fight over a sabacc game, which Dessel had won with the help of precognitive Force powers. Smuggled off-world by his Neimoidian friend Groshik, Dessel enlists in the Sith army to escape the Republic. Joining a unit called the Gloom Walkers, he distinguishes himself in the Assault on Kashyyyk and the subsequent Battle of Hsskhor on neighboring Trandosha. During the Battle of Phaseera, Dessel mutinies against the commanding officer Ulabore to prevent the unit from deploying on a suicide mission. Dessel then leads the unit to victory over the Republic forces opposing them. Despite this success, he is arrested upon his return. Taken before the Sith Lord Kopecz, Dessel expects to be executed for insubordination. Instead, Kopecz senses Dessel's Force potential and enrolls him in the Sith academy on Korriban. Upon his arrival, Des adopts the name Bane, a name his father had often used to degrade him. Bane begins to learn the ancient ways of the Sith, studying under such masters as Qordis and Kas'im, as well as others like Orilltha, Shenayag, Hezzoran, and Borthis. He also studies the temple archives and quickly begins to surpass the other students, despite his late entry to the Academy. After Bane killed a student named Fohargh in the dueling ring, his prestige at the Academy rises. However, he begins to doubt himself and his connection to the Force falters. In a desperate bid to maintain his reputation, Bane challenges Sirak, the foremost student at the Academy. In the ensuing duel, Bane is beaten to within an inch of his life. After this humiliation, Lord Qordis decrees that Bane is to receive no further training from any of the Masters. Githany, a Jedi traitor, arrives at the Academy shortly after Skere Kaan's near victory over the Army of Light on Ruusan. Seeing Bane as someone she could use to remove Sirak, her only real rival at the Academy, she begins to secretly tutor him in the ways of the Force. At the same time Bane approaches Kas'im for secret instruction in lightsaber combat. Neither of Bane's illicit teachers is aware of the other, and Bane hopes to keep this secret for as long as possible. Slowly, as Bane begins to regain much of his lost power and confidence, he once again visits the Temple archives and resumes his studies there. As his training progresses, he starts to believe that the Brotherhood of Darkness and the Sith as a whole have turned their backs on the ancient ways. Despite his new training, Bane realizes that the true potential of the dark side was beyond not only himself, but every other Sith Lord. When Bane defeats Sirak in another challenge, he once again enjoys the favor of the Masters, but departs angrily when Qordis ordered him to stop visiting the archives. Bane travels to the Valley of the Dark Lords, hoping to find some remnant of the Sith who had passed beyond. Bane returns having found nothing and feigns acceptance of the Sith and their current teachings. Secretly however, he now believes there is only one place he can go to learn what he needed. Just prior to the departure of the Academy students for Ruusan, Githany lures Bane into an ambush with Sirak at the Academy library, but only so Bane could kill Sirak for her own ulterior purposes. At first Bane believes she has betrayed him but he quickly realizes the true reason when Githany tosses him his lightsaber to defend himself. Bane and Githany together kill Llokay and Yevra, two of Sirak's followers. Bane then kills Sirak, who pleads for his life before Bane brutally decapitates him. Instead of leaving for Ruusan with the other Sith Lords Bane steals Qordis' starship, the Valcyn, and heads for a location he had read about in the Sith archives. He takes the ship to a world called Lehon, remembered in history as the Unknown World and home to the now-extinct Rakata. Through his perusal of the archives, Bane believes that the Rakata were the first dark side users present in the galaxy. Upon his arrival at the Temple of the Ancients, Bane finds Darth Revan's holocron. Taking all he learned from Revan, Bane crafts the Rule of Two to ensure that only the strongest of the Sith order continue to exist. After he defeats Kas'im in a lightsaber duel, Bane leaves for Ruusan, but not before sending Lord Kaan a message in which he purposefully appears weak and regretful about killing Kas'im. He also sends the instructions for an ancient Sith battle technique, the thought bomb as a peace offering. In anticipation of his arrival, and fearing that Bane may actually destroy the Brotherhood, Kaan sends Githany to kill Bane. After locating him on Ambria, she kisses him with poisoned lips, after herself taking the antidote. Bane detects the poison straight away and is thrilled that Githany used such cunning and treachery as befited a true Sith Lord, rather than traditional methods like dueling. Confident that the methods from Darth Revan's holocron will allow him to counteract the poison, Bane kisses Githany three times. Eventually, however, he begins to feel the effects of synox on his body and realizes that she used two poisons against him synergistically, one to disguise the presence of the other. Bane then tracks down a local healer named Caleb who cared neither for the Jedi or the Sith. After Bane threatens to kill his daughter, Caleb cures Bane. Bane decides to spare their lives, figuring he might still use them and that killing without reason or gain was one of the petty pleasures that was ruining the Sith Order. Heading for the Sith camp on Ruusan, Darth Bane finds a Jedi fleet in the system and Sith ships blocking their reinforcements to the Jedi below. On landing, Bane joins a meeting of the Sith Lords during which Kaan describes his battle plan to the Brotherhood. The Sith Lords, especially Githany, are surprised to see Bane still alive. Bane uses the opportunity to lecture Kaan for thinking like a dirty general and not a Sith Lord. Bane convinces the assembled Sith lords to help him create a massive Force Storm with another of Darth Revan's rituals to destroy the forest where the Jedi forces are located. Kaan, however, interrupts the ritual prematurely to engage the surviving Jedi hand to hand. Returning to the empty Sith camp, Bane meets Qordis, who recognizes Bane's power and asks to join Bane. Bane then Force-chokes him while telling Qordis that he intends, not to take over the Brotherhood, but to end it forever. Bane enacts the next phase of his plan to destroy the Brotherhood by contacting the Sith fleet admiral and ordering him to break off the blockade. This move allows the Jedi to get through the blockade and gain the upper hand in the battle. Lord Kaan, who has slowly drifted into insanity during his time on Ruusan, now believes the thought bomb to be the only chance for victory. The Sith lure the Jedi deep into a network of caves where they prepare the thought bomb. Lord Kopecz however, sees Kaan's madness and abandons the Brotherhood, only to be killed by Master Farfalla. Kaan then detonates the thought bomb, killing himself and all the Sith and Jedi in the caves. Now the last Sith on Ruusan, Bane finds a Force-sensitive girl named Rain. Seeing her potential strength, Bane considers making Rain the first apprentice in his Order of the Sith Lords. + +A Force-sensitive adolescent, Darovit, is curious as to how he survived the thought bomb that had been detonated. He enters the cavern where the thought bomb was activated and finds a strange orb floating in midair. After touching it, he becomes exposed to the thoughts of all those who were killed by the bomb and is overwhelmed by them. Darth Bane and his new apprentice Zannah are still on Ruusan after the destruction of the Brotherhood of Darkness during the Seventh Battle of Ruusan. Bane begins Zannah's instruction by making her relive her memories of her friend Laa's death and so that she can learn how to channel her anger at will. They head toward the former Sith encampment, where Bane kills a group of mercenaries who were looting the camp, but allows two to escape to spread rumors of the Sith's continued existence. In Qordis' tent, Zannah and Bane find an unexpected treasure: a Sith manuscript revealing the location of the tomb of Freedon Nadd, a legendary Sith Lord from some three thousand years earlier. Bane then leads Zannah into the cave where the thought bomb was detonated to show her what Kaan's beliefs led to. Zannah is horrified by the feelings emanating from the orb, while Bane indoctrinates her with his Rule of Two. In the cave, they encounter Darovit, who is revealed to be Zannah's cousin. Darovit attacks Bane, believing her to be Bane's captive. Knowing that her new master would kill Darovit in an instant, Zannah instead stops Darovit by destroying his right hand with the Force, telling Bane that the boy's death would serve no purpose. After leaving the cave, Bane informs Zannah that he will meet her on Onderon in ten days, and that she will have to find her own way there as her first test. Bane then boards the Valcyn and left Ruusan, headed for Nadd's tomb on Dxun, Onderon's moon. Meanwhile, Johun Othone, former Padawan of General Hoth, hears the two surviving mercenaries' story of being attacked by a Sith Lord. Johun attempts to convince Jedi Master Valenthyne Farfalla that a Sith has survived, but Farfalla quickly dismisses the mercenaries' story. He then tells Johun that he will take Johun on as his apprentice, and they have been ordered to return to Coruscant and meet with the Supreme Chancellor. Now alone, Zannah manages to locate a Galactic Republic shuttle crewed by a soldier, a farmer, and his two sons. She accepts a meal, and tells them, when questioned, that she needs to get to Onderon, where she has family. When the shuttle prepares to rejoin the Republic fleet, Zannah makes her move, intending to hold the crew hostage in exchange for passage to Onderon. One of the farmers' sons catches her stealing a blaster, and in the ensuing struggle Zannah kills him by shooting him with it. She then kills the farmer as well and orders the soldier to set an autopilot course for Onderon. She then kills the woman when she didn't comply, along with the other boy. In the aftermath of the thought bomb, Bane begins seeing hallucinations of Kaan and Qordis, and as he flies to Dxun, the vision of Qordis goads him, causing Bane to lash out with the Force and seriously damage the Valcyn. Despite the damage Bane is able to crash land on Dxun and enter the tomb of Freedon Nadd. As Bane attempts to retrieve a holocron from the burial chamber, he is attacked by orbalisks, parasitic creatures native to Dxun. Two of the creatures attach themselves to his body before he can escape and Bane quickly realizes that he cannot remove them. Nadd's holocron described his own experiences with the orbalisks: they feed on the dark side, release enzymes that increase physical strength and the power to draw on the dark side, grant incredible regenerative powers, and their shells offer protection against any weapon, including lightsabers. The holocron also warns they cause constant pain, multiply and spread over the entire body, and if one died, it would release a lethal poison that would kill him within days. Using his increased power to drive the phantoms of Kaan and Qordis from his mind permanently, Bane mentally dominates a drexl, a flying reptile, and uses the Force to encase it and himself in a cocoon of dark side energy and fly the few hundred kilometers through open space to Onderon. Zannah lands her stolen shuttle on Onderon, and is confronted by a group of threatening Onderon Beast Riders. Bane arrives at that moment, killing the riders and returning with his apprentice to her shuttle. On Coruscant, the Galactic Senate passes a resolution disbanding the Jedi's military forces. Master Farfalla assigns Johun to the Chancellor's personal guard and promotes him to a full Jedi Knight. Ten years later Zannah has grown into a beautiful young woman, training in the rare arts of Sith sorcery. She had to learn much of the dangerous power by herself because, while Bane provided her with some spells and techniques from Nadd's holocron, his own skills in that area were limited. Bane sends her on a mission to goad a separatist movement on the world of Serenno into acting against their government. Zannah seduces the separatists' second in command, an affluent Twi'lek named Kelad'den, and feeds them information about former Chancellor Valorum's upcoming visit to Serenno. The group decided to kidnap him. Zannah returns to her and Bane's home on Ambria. In her absence, Bane has attempted to create his own holocron and failed, destroying the camp in his anger. Concerned for her master's future and slightly conflicted over her physical attraction to Kel, Zannah questions whether the orbalisks are helping Bane or harming him now. She realizes from Bane's reaction to her question that Bane also wonders the same thing, and hopes that he will eventually find a way to rid himself of the orbalisks. Back on Serenno, the separatists stage their kidnapping. Johun, however, still acting as Valorum's guard, and manages to prevent the kidnapping and kill most of the Separatists, including Kel. Zannah, is accosted by the two surviving members, Cyndra and Paak, when she returns to is taken to the separatists' financial backer, a middle-aged man named Hetton who has been trained in the dark side and asked to become Zannah's apprentice. After Zannah defeats Cyndra and Paak, Hetton shows her his library of rare Sith artifacts and tells her of his first master's stronghold on the planet Tython, where the Jedi and Sith first came to power. Zannah takes Hetton and his eight Umbaran Shadow Assassins with her back to Ambria. The assassins attack Bane, who kills them and Hetton before turning on Zannah. She manages to hold his attacks off long enough to tell him that Hetton knew where to find information about how to make a working holocron. This piques Bane's curiosity and he wonders if perhaps the orbalisks were part of his inability to create a holocron. He resolves to rid himself of the orbalisks and heads to Tython to find Hetton's master's base. He also assigns Zannah to enter the Jedi Temple Library and find information about how to remove the orbalisks from the massive data archives. Zannah succeeds in her mission by disguising herself as a missing Jedi and using her Sith sorcery to mask her Force presence. As a favor for Johun's saving his life, Valorum asks the Senate to commission a memorial to the Jedi forces who died on Ruusan. Darovit, living a reclusive existence as a healer on Ruusan, is angered by this and sabotages the construction effort until Johun tracks him down. Upon questioning Darovit, Johun learns that his hand was destroyed by his cousin Zannah, and that she had been accompanied by Bane. Taking Darovit with him back to Coruscant, Johun leaves him in the Library while he tries to secure an audience with the Jedi Council. Zannah finds the information she needs in the Library, though a momentary lapse of concentration allows Darovit to sense her true identity. When she finds out that he has told the Jedi about her and Bane, Zannah takes him with her to Tython to warn Bane and then escape. When Johun and Farfalla discover that Darovit is missing from the library, they trace the records on the terminal Zannah had been using, revealing a hyperspace route to Tython. Farfalla now believes that the Sith survived and begins assembling a Jedi task force to destroy the Sith once and for all. On Tython, Bane learns how to successfully create a holocron from Hetton's master Belia Darzu's own holocron after but is interrupted when Zannah and Darovit arrive. She warns Bane that the Jedi are on their way, but before they can leave, the Jedi ship enters the atmosphere. With no choice but to stand and fight, Zannah shuts Darovit in a small closet and she and Bane face their opponents. During the ensuing lightsaber duel, Johun happened to strike at a part of Bane's body not covered by any of the orbalisks. The Jedi are all killed, but Bane is severely injured when his own Force lightning is turned against him. Several of the orbalisks were also killed by the lightning attack. Realizing she still needs Bane's teachings, Zannah takes Bane and Darovit to Ambria in search of the healer Caleb, who had saved Bane's life previously. On Ambria, Caleb refuses to help, having sent his daughter away years prior to deprive Bane of leverage against him should he return. Zannah threatens him with physical pain and her sorcery and his death, but to no avail. Darovit tries to dissuade Zannah from the path of the Sith, telling her that Caleb has agreed to help Bane on the condition that Zannah sabotage their ship and send a message to the Jedi Council telling them of Bane's location. Zannah finally agrees, and Caleb removes the orbalisks and heals Bane's injuries. When Bane was strong enough to understand, Zannah tells him of the bargain she made to save his life. Bane orders Zannah to kill him rather than become a prisoner of the Jedi. Zannah refuses, and a still weak Bane collapses back onto his bedding. Realizing that Bane's mental faculties are undiminished, she rises from his side and activates her lightsaber. A Jedi strike team lands on Ambria and discovers a dismembered body at Caleb's camp. As they approach Caleb's shack a one-handed man swinging Farfalla's lightsaber emerges and attacked them wildly. The Jedi quickly overpower and kill him. After finding the lightsabers of Farfalla's companions inside the shelter, they conclude that this last Sith had been wounded in the battle on Tython and then driven himself insane by attempting to use the dark side to heal his injuries. They overlook the pit under the shelter where Zannah hides herself and Bane with her sorcery. Several days later, Bane finally awakens. Zannah informs him that she killed Caleb and broke Darovit's mind with her powers, and that Darovit was then killed by the Jedi when they arrived. Bane asks her why she saved him, and Zannah reminded him that he still has much to teach her. Bane admits that he underestimated her and that he was proud of her. Zannah then warns him: + +Since Darth Bane's recovery at the end of Rule of Two, he and Darth Zannah have been living on the Outer Rim world of Ciutric IV under the assumed identities of Sepp and Allia Omek, a pair of wealthy merchant siblings. Bane's constant use of the dark side has begun to take a noticeable toll on his body, along with the damage inflicted by his decade-long experience with the orbalisks and the natural aging process. He realizes that he is slowly but surely growing weaker each day, a realization crystallized by a recurring tremor in his left hand. Zannah, however, has made no move to challenge him for the role of Dark Lord of the Sith, a fact that Bane finds extremely troubling, unsure of whether she is afraid of him, unsure of winning, loyal to him or simply wanting him to be more vulnerable physically before she attacks. He refuses to initiate their confrontation himself, believing that to do so would weaken the Sith again: if Zannah won, the Sith would be in the hands of a Lord who did not fully follow Bane's teachings; and if Bane won, his body would fail him before he could find and train another apprentice. He decides that he must rejuvenate or replace his body, and theorizes that the secret to doing so is in the long-lost teachings of a Sith Lord named Darth Andeddu. On the mining world of Doan, Jedi Knight Medd Tandar meets with a rebellious group of miners to both bring their grievances to the ruling family and to confiscate some possible Sith artifacts they have unearthed. Tandar tells the miners that the king is unlikely to listen to them, as an ill-planned attempt at capturing the crown prince several months prior led to the man's accidental death. As he argues with the miners, a disturbance in the Force manifests itself, and an Iktotchi assassin storms into the meeting area, killing the rebels. Tandar attempts to fight back, but finds his ability to touch the Force tainted by the dark side, making him almost physically ill. Gathering his concentration, he manages to disarm the assassin, but, anticipating his move, she set her blaster on overload, and Tandar is killed in the explosion. Princess Serra of Doan, widow of Crown Prince Gerran, is awakened from her sleep by a nightmare of the healer Caleb confronting the poisoned Bane on Ambria, and of her own near-death at Bane's hands: Serra is Caleb's daughter, who married into the Doan royal family. Her personal bodyguard and close friend - Lucia, who once served with Des in the Gloom Walkers, brings word that the king wishes to speak to her and they head to the royal chamber. The king raises the possibility that the assassin who killed the rebel miners followed the Jedi there, and that since he had asked the Galactic Senate to send a Jedi mediator, they might assume that he hired the assassin to do so, not intending the Jedi's death. He says that the assassin was not acting on his orders, which Serra believes, and in turn he believes Serra's view that any of the nobility might have hired the assassin, not realizing that a Jedi would also become involved. She offers to go to Coruscant and present this view to the Jedi, and the king gives her leave to go. Once they are alone again, Lucia confesses to Serra that she hired the assassin, and though she is thanked by Serra, Lucia finds herself disturbed at the scope of Serra's anger and hatred toward the miners for her husband's death. Back on Ciutric IV, Bane meets a man named Argel Tenn, who knows Bane only as a collector of Sith artifacts, and finds them for him and other clients. After haggling, Bane receives a single scroll that points to Darth Andeddu living on the Deep Core world of Prakith, and of the temple being built there to glorify him. Knowing that Zannah would be suspicious if she knew Bane was leaving, he sends her to Doan, ostensibly to gather the Sith artifacts that led to the Jedi's death. Zannah does so, though she doubts Bane's reason for sending her, and comes to think that perhaps Bane has mistaken her caution in challenging him before she has found a suitable apprentice for hesitation to think that she can defeat him. She decides that the time has come, and that upon returning from Doan, she will challenge Bane for the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith. Serra and Lucia, meanwhile, make their way to Coruscant and are granted an audience with Ithorian Jedi Master Obba, a member of the Jedi Council of First Knowledge. Serra uses her knowledge of the Jedi's tenets and behavior to subtly manipulate Obba into accepting her side of the events surrounding Tandar's death, and Obba then surprises Serra by revealing that a former pupil of his, a Dark Jedi named Set Harth, may have been involved in the circumstances of the Sith artifacts. Obba also shows Serra the memorial plinth that was erected after the deaths of Masters Valenthyne Farfalla, Raskta Lsu, Worror Dowmat, Knights Johun Othone and Sarro Xaj, and the healer Caleb. Serra realizes that Bane had returned to Ambria as her father had foreseen he would; however, she also realizes from Obba's description of the man killed there that it was not Bane, and after leaving the Temple, she tells Lucia to take a message to the assassin who killed the rebels. As Obba suspected, Dark Jedi Set Harth is on Doan, knowing that the real reason Tandar would have journeyed there is because Obba sent him to claim the Sith artifacts. He bribes Quano, a Rodian bartender to find out who has them, but is forced to kill the Rodian's bodyguards when they spring a double-cross attempt on him. He then follows the Rodian to a new meeting of the rebel miners, who are being led by a voiciferous individual named Draado; Harth quickly realizes that Draado is being influenced by the Dark Side energies in the artifacts, and he dashes in, using his blasters and lightsaber to make quick work of most of the miners, and Force Choking Draado to death before taking the artifacts. Zannah, in the meantime, has made her own way to Doan, and following Harth's trail leads her to Quano, the Rodian bartender. Faking sympathy for him, Zannah gets him to lead her to his contact at the spaceport, who tells her Harth's ship came from Nal Hutta. When Zannah finds out that the contact also knows that she came from Ciutric IV, she kills him and Quano, then dumps their bodies onto a ship in Doan's sun as she leaves orbit. In the Deep Core, Bane arrives at Prakith, having had to make hundreds of small hyperspace jumps that lengthened his trip significantly to avoid the dangers of that area of space. He lands at a spaceport and passes himself off as a visitor from another city on the planet, and quickly learns the location of Andeddu's temple. Traveling there, Bane sets his ship, the Triumph, down on the landing pad at the top of the temple, attracting the attention of almost two dozen of Andeddu's cultists, who he easily dispatches with the Force and his lightsaber. Heading into the temple, Bane effortlessly kills the few who dare to oppose him, soon finding Andeddu's holocron and leaving Prakith. At the same time, Lucia journeys to a Muun space station called Paradise to enlist the services of the Iktotchi assassin, who is known only as the Huntress. She dislikes acting as she is, but realizes that something in Serra's past hurt her deeply. Meeting the Huntress, Lucia gives her the coordinates to Caleb's camp on Ambria, offering triple the assassin's normal rate for the meeting. The Huntress agrees, and Lucia returns to Doan. Zannah has made her way to Nal Hutta in search of Harth, and soon finds his home, lavishly decorated in a style that obviously means he enjoys the good life. He also, however, has a stash of Sith artifacts hidden away, and Zannah decides that despite his flaws, it might be advantageous to see if he would be a fitting apprentice. Harth returns home and engages Zannah in a suggestive conversation, then attacks without warning, causing her to think that he may be a worthy student. They battle, and Zannah soon realizes that Harth is tiring, then she unleashes one of her spells on him, casting his mind down into a pit of hopelessness and despair, knowing that if he possesses the will to fight out of the trance, he will have shown that he is strong enough to be her apprentice. The Huntress, in the interim, makes her way to Ambria and finds Serra there. Serra flatly says that she wants the assassin to track down and capture Bane, and the Huntress uses her Force abilities to sense the memories of the camp, getting images of Caleb, Bane, and Zannah. Serra offers the Huntress ten times her normal fee and a force of mercenaries, and the Huntress accepts. Serra then gives the Huntress a drug called senflax, which will incapacitate Bane, and the Huntress begins to make her plans. Heading back to Ciutric IV from Prakith, Bane learns of the ritual of essence transfer, which will allow a powerful enough Sith to transfer their essence to a new body, though their own body will be destroyed in the process. Additionally, if their would-be host is strong willed enough, the transfer will fail and the Sith attempting the transfer will suffer an eternity of torment as a disembodied consciousness. Bane grows angry at the arrogance of Andeddu's holographic gatekeeper, and forces his own mind into the holocron, taking the ritual into his mind by force. On Nal Hutta, Harth awakens to find Zannah sitting in his bedroom, and she tells him she needs an apprentice. Harth is reluctant to follow Zannah, knowing that he chafed under the Master/Apprentice system of the Jedi Order, but finally decides to commit to her out of a lust for the power she exhibits. Zannah, for her part, realizes that Harth is flawed, but reasons that she can teach him to believe in the ways of the Sith and make him into a worthy apprentice, deciding that if he fails to become one, she is young enough that she can find another apprentice and start again. On Ciutric IV, at the Omek home, the Huntress prepares to spring Serra's trap on Bane. While shutting down the automated security systems, she finds Bane's library of Sith artifacts and takes his personal holocron. When Bane returns, still exhausted from his mental battle with Andeddu's gatekeeper and preoccupied with thinking about finding a victim for the essence transfer, he only realizes he's walking into a trap an instant before two sonic detonators go off on either side of him, staggering him. He uses the Force to shield himself, but the Huntress' power interferes with his and he is hit by a stun rifle. Bane quickly recovers and kills three of his attackers with Force lightning, but is incapacitated by flash grenades and webbing guns which connect his supine body to the floor. Bane finally manages to overpower the Huntress' ability and taps into the Force, shredding his restraints and avoiding the diving stabs of the Huntress, only getting cut on the arm. Bane kills several more of his attackers, then he flips up to the balcony to face the Huntress; he knocks her off and she lands safely, even managing to avoid a bolt of Force lightning. Bane follows her down, but as he lands the senflax takes effect and he is immobilized. The Huntress takes Bane's lightsaber and duffel bag, then directs the clean-up effort that takes Bane and the bodies of the dead mercenaries back to Doan. Zannah touches down on Ciutric IV a short time later only to find the evidence of Bane's confrontation, and she deduces that he's been captured. Harth finds evidence that someone from the Royal House of Doan was there, and Zannah dispatches Harth to find out any information he can about where they might have taken Bane. Zannah meets with Argel Tenn, but Tenn refuses to tell her what he's been buying for her brother and she is forced to torture him for the information, killing him afterward. Returning to the Omek house, Harth tells her he knows everything about Doan, and when Zannah makes the offhand comment that she should have had him research Darth Andeddu, Harth surprises her by revealing that he studied Andeddu as a Jedi, and that the Jedi believed Andeddu had found a way to make himself immortal. Zannah is enraged by this, seeing it as Bane's betraying his own teachings and possibly preventing her own ascendancy, and she realizes that whoever took Bane has Andeddu's holocron, leading her and Harth to travel back to Doan. Serra has had Bane taken to the Stone Prison, a complex built several kilometers under the foundations of the Doan castle. She goes to see Bane and is confronted by Lucia, who is worried about the effect this is having on her friend. The Huntress says she wants to see Bane as well, and when Lucia voices the same wish, all three women head into Bane's cell. Serra administers a powerful stimulant to Bane and as he raises his head, Lucia gasps in shock as she recognizes her former commander. Serra begins torturing Bane with various drugs, demanding to know why Bane killed Caleb, but Bane answers that he did not, that he considered Caleb to be a valuable tool that he might have had need of again someday. He derides Serra for her attempts at hurting him, twisting her actions into an affirmation of the teachings of the dark side, and Serra is horrified by his words Serra and the Huntress leave, and Lucia uses the stimulant drug to give Bane a chance to escape, more out of concern for what torturing Bane will do to Serra than of wanting Bane to go free. She leaves the cell and orders the guards to sound the alarm if anything goes wrong, then heads off to find Serra. Zannah and Harth arrive at the Stone Prison and land undetected; Zannah goes off in search of Bane while ordering Harth to guard their ship. A bored Harth begins to run through his options, weighing his desire for greater power against abandoning his new apprenticeship and living with the fear of Zannah or Bane finding him one day. He searches with the Force and easily locates Zannah and Bane, then also finds Andeddu's holocron. The temptation of eternal life proves too much, and he leaves to search for it. In his cell, the stimulant finally overpowers the senflax, and Bane manages to free himself from his bonds. He breaks out of his cell and kills the guards outside, but guards on the next level trigger the alarm before Bane can reach them. He uses the Force to dispatch those soldiers, then senses Zannah searching for him. He begins trying to track down Serra and escape, while at the same time avoiding Zannah, as he still has some of the senflax in his system and doesn't have his lightsaber. A distraught Serra turns to find the Huntress shadowing her, and the Iktotchi tells her that Lucia has freed Bane. Serra refuses to believe her, but then the alarm sounds and she heads for the prison control center, intending to activate detonation charges that will collapse the entire prison on itself. While searching for Serra, Lucia hears the alarms go off, and she runs into the Huntress, who tells her that she informed Serra of Lucia's betrayal. She tells Lucia which way Serra went, and Lucia realizes that Serra is going to collapse the prison. The Huntress, who still has Bane's lightsaber and holocron, decides that she wants the power the Sith can give her and heads to the landing pads to wait. Zannah is tracking Bane through the prison, though she soon realizes that Bane is leaving traces of his power at certain points to confuse her. She focuses on Bane and begins tailing him again, eager to battle him. Harth finds the office where Serra earlier hid Andeddu's holocron in a safe and takes it, then heads to the main landing pads to leave. After entering the code incorrectly several times in her agitation, Serra manages to get inside the control room and enters the self-destruct code for the prison, hesitating to press the confirm button. At the landing pad, Harth admires the Huntress' ship before she confronts him. He attacks her but soon falls victim to her ability, finding it difficult to battle her without full access to the Force. Bane, tracking Serra down, is stopped by Lucia, who asks Bane to let Serra live in exchange for her freeing him. Bane refuses, and Lucia stands in his way. But Bane is no longer Des, and he prepares to kill Lucia, before a wave of Force energy hits both he and Lucia. Bane manages to shield himself, but Lucia is killed. Zannah confronts Bane, telling him in a voice filled with contempt that he has betrayed the Rule of Two. Bane argues that he only sought Andeddu's holocron because Zannah had not challenged him and that if Zannah wants the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith, she must take it from him while he is in his prime, not once he has been weakened by old age. Zannah advances on him and realizes that he hasn't found his lightsaber, then she attacks. In the control room, Serra cancels the self-destruct, then goes in search of Lucia, soon finding her friend's broken form. She finally realizes that revenge was never what her father would have wanted, then she hears a high-pitched hum and sees Bane and Zannah fighting. Dragging Lucia's body to the control room and putting it in the escape shuttle, she activates the detonation charges and leaves in the shuttle. At the landing pads, the Huntress finds herself unable to corner Harth, who realizes that he can't beat her with her interfering with his connection to the Force. Harth switches tactics and disables two of the four shuttles on the pads before stopping and offering to let the Huntress leave if she will do the same for him. She reluctantly agrees and Harth steals a shuttle and flies off, with the Huntress noting that he is the first person to escape her, but believing it to be a minor inconvenience compared to the power the Sith can show her. Fighting Bane, Zannah finds herself uncomfortable with being the aggressor and, even without his lightsaber, Bane is able to use his other Force powers to keep himself from being cornered or trapped by her, and he finally manages to distract her long enough to trigger one of the detonation charges with Force lightning, separating them with tons of rubble. Realizing she's missed her opportunity, Zannah retreats to her ship and leaves. Bane races to the landing pad and finds the Huntress there; she kneels before him, presents Bane with his lightsaber and holocron, and asks to be his apprentice, sweetening her offer with knowledge of Serra's location. Bane accepts and they leave. Serra lands on Ambria and buries Lucia's body, then recounts the events that led her here, beginning with the desire for revenge that Gerran's death evoked in her, and she realizes that the lust for vengeance has cost her everything she had left. She finally decides that no matter what else happens, she will face it with the strength of will her father showed, and that she will never again allow the dark side to influence her decisions. In conversation with the Huntress, Bane learns of how she tracked him with her visions, and that she is having visions of Bane and Zannah battling, though they shift between Bane and Zannah winning their battle. He realizes that she could be a valuable addition to the Sith, as while he can predict the future, she could be trained to actually see it. They land on Ambria at Caleb's old camp, and as Bane walks up to the tent, Serra emerges and confronts Bane, asking if he saw Lucia's grave. When Bane discounts Lucia's saving his life, Serra says her death was pointless, and Bane retorts that Caleb's death was pointless, and that he would not have killed the man. He tells Serra that if she has Caleb's power, he could use her, but Serra says she will never help Bane. She attempts to warn the Huntress that following Bane will lead to her destruction, but the Huntress disregards the warning, saying that Bane will lead her to her destiny. Serra again disagrees, saying that the dark side and Bane are evil and again reiterating that she will never serve Bane. The Huntress asks for and receives Bane's permission to kill Serra, doing so quickly when Serra doesn't resist. In orbit around Doan, Zannah is thinking on the events of the previous day, wondering if what Bane said about waiting for her to challenge him really reflects a weakness in her, before deciding that it was only a psychological ploy on Bane's part to get her to doubt herself. Going over their battle again, she realizes that Bane had tricked her into fighting his way, instead of her way, and she resolves to not make the same mistake if they meet again. On Ambria, Bane initiates the Huntress as a Sith apprentice, and she takes the name Cognus, impressing Bane that she realizes her mind is her most important weapon. He questions her further about the battle she sees between him and Zannah, and realizes that it has to happen or the Sith will be forever weakened. He heads to Cognus' shuttle and sends Zannah a coded message telling her to come and face him at Caleb's camp. Zannah receives the message and heads to Ambria, determined to end their confrontation. Landing on Ambria, Zannah sees Cognus in the background, but Cognus declares that her loyalty is to the Sith and that she will not interfere in their battle. Zannah declares that she has surpassed Bane; he tells her to prove it, and their battle restarts. Zannah realizes in moments that even with his orbalisk armor, Bane never sparred with her at his full speed, as it is all she can do to keep him at bay. Bane, likewise, realizes that her defense is better than he knew, and settles back in anticipation of a long, grueling battle. Zannah has decided to use some of her Sorcery on Bane, but while she backs up and prepares a spell, she trips over Lucia's freshly dug grave and Bane instantly advances on her, kicking her in the side and breaking a rib. Zannah puts some distance between them, then hits Bane with a spell that causes him to see horrific creatures staring at him with his father's eyes. Seeing Zannah gives him the strength to banish the phantoms, but Zannah then calls on the dark side itself, causing tentacles of pure dark side energy to rise out of Ambria's contaminated ground and attack Bane. Bane attempts to destroy them, but his lightsaber passes through them like smoke, and one touches his shoulder and disintegrates a chunk of flesh, causing such pain that Bane almost goes into shock. Bane realizes that he can't affect the tentacles and must kill Zannah, and he dodges them in an attempt to do so. He leaps to the attack and Zannah blocks him, but with part of her powers tied up in controlling the tentacles, Bane is able to disarm her. But as he brings his lightsaber down to kill her, one of the tentacles wraps around his forearm, severing the limb and dropping Bane to his knees in silent agony. Marshaling all his remaining power, he grabs Zannah's wrist with his left hand and begins the ritual of essence transfer, his body obliterated in an instant as his mind invades Zannah's body, looking out through her eyes and hearing through her ears. Zannah fights back, both seeking to destroy the other, seeming evenly matched, before it ends. Cognus has watched the entire fight from the camp, and having felt Bane's essence leave his body, she knows it could only have gone into Zannah or been cast out. She watches Zannah rise unsteadily to her feet, unsure if it's because Bane is now in control of the body or if it is merely exhaustion from the battle. Cognus hesitantly approaches and asks who it is, with Zannah replying dismissively that Bane is gone and that she is now Darth Zannah, Dark Lord of the Sith. She accepts Cognus as her apprentice and directs her to take Bane's lightsaber until she can construct one of her own, and as Zannah explains that one day Cognus must face her just as she faced Bane, Cognus notices that Zannah is flexing her left hand repeatedly. In the Doan shuttle, Set Harth begins to examine Darth Andeddu's holocron, eager to one day learn the ritual of essence transfer. + +The young Padawan Dooku had recently been appointed to Jedi Thame Cerulian. One day, at the age of 13, Dooku and his friend, Lorian Nod, went into Dooku's new master's room. In there, the two found an ancient Sith holocron belonging to Cerulian. Nod attempted to convince Dooku to open it, but the young apprentice refused. As Lorian continued to try and convince Dooku, Jedi Oppo Rancisis walked into the room. He found the two friends with the holocron and told them that he would tell the Council about the Sith holocron. The next day, Dooku, joined in on a special challenge, held by Yoda and Rancisis. The challenge was to get fruit from the market in Coruscant and bring it back. Whoever was tagged with a lightsaber was out, and the team who brought back the fruit would be the winner. Dooku became leader of the Blue Team, and Lorian the leader of the Gold Team. There was a large duel and clash, and the remaining Padawans were Nod and Dooku. The two dueled each other harshly until Yoda broke it up, as he saw how serious the duel became. Nod was afterwards expelled from the Order, because of his anger. A few years after the incident, now a full-pledged Jedi, Dooku began to train young Qui-Gon Jinn. Dooku picked Jinn when he strolled by Yoda's class. Dooku and Jinn were assigned to protect Senator Blix Annon. A pirate, later revealed to be Dooku's childhood friend, Lorian Nod, attempted to kidnap the Senator, just to later sell him back to the Republic. However, his attempt failed, as the Senator died of a heart attack as soon as he was kidnapped, and Nod was arrested. After facing his own Jedi Trials, Jinn received his own Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Three decades after Jinn and his master had fought against Lorian Nod, Jinn and Kenobi faced Nod again and Nod was once again captured. Once the Clone Wars began, Dooku, now a Sith Lord, attempted to bring Nod to his side. Nod accepted, but only to redeem himself for the Jedi Order, as he told the location and time of the meeting. The Order sent Obi-Wan Kenobi and his own Padawan Anakin Skywalker to planet Null, where the meeting was being held. Skywalker, Kenobi and Nod all showed up at the meeting. Dooku attempted to escape, but Nod quickly caught up to him, while Kenobi and Skywalker were busy with the other Separatist leaders. Nod tried to stop Dooku, but failed and was killed by Dooku, who then escaped. Most of the Separatist leaders also successfully escaped, and Kenobi and Skywalker traveled back to Coruscant to report what had occurred. + +Darth Sidious kills his Sith Master Darth Plagueis. The Sith Lord experiences a moment where he feels a dramatic shift in the Force, which promises him that its dark side will use him as a tool just as he will use it as a tool for his own purposes. This moment in the Force is what promises Sidious that he will have a great impact on the galaxy in the future. Darth Plagueis and his Master Darth Tenebrous arrive on the world of Bal'demnic to examine its cortosis supply, which is being mined unbeknownst to either the Republic or the Jedi Order. Tenebrous plans to take advantage of the cortosis' natural resistance to lightsaber blades for his future attempts to overthrow the Jedi and replace the Republic with an empire ruled by the Sith. During the examination, the mining probe droid begins digging at a pocket of explosive lethane next to a cortosis deposit against orders, leading Tenebrous and Plagueis to rush back to their ship and escape the resulting explosion. The explosion occurs before they make it back to their ship, though Tenebrous was able to use the Force to contain the explosion so it doesn't kill him or his apprentice, while Plagueis makes sure that their ship isn't destroyed by the impact of the blast. In the process, Tenebrous is severely wearied, and Plagueis finds himself with the opportunity to end his Master's life and take on the role of Sith Master. He uses the Force to hurl falling debris on top of his Master and inflict a mortal wound, attempting to make it look natural as he rushes to his master's side. However, he cannot resist revealing to Tenebrous how he died, and what it means for the future of the Sith. The Muun tells his Bith Master that he will put an end to the old order of the Rule of Two before breaking Tenebrous's neck and observing his dying body through the Force in an attempt to manipulate midi-chlorians. However, Tenebrous dies before Plagueis is even able to at least prolong his Master's life for the sake of his experimentation. Regardless, Plagueis makes it off of Bal'demnic by stowing away on the ship known as the Woebegone. He kills its crew and has the ship slagged, taking only the droid 11-4D as an assistant in his midi-chlorian experimentations. Plagueis then returns to his homeworld of Muunilinst as Hego Damask, CEO of Damask Holdings, in time for a clandestine meeting with several leaders of various companies and cartels on Muunilinst's moon of Sojourn. In particular, he confronts the representatives of the Subtext Mining Corporation, which was the company that supplied the faulty probe droid that was the indirect cause of Tenebrous's death. He threatens their lives, and in response, they tell him of a lode of plasma located beneath the world of Naboo, which will prove profitable for Damask Holdings, the InterGalactic Banking Clan, and the galaxy at large. Plagueis spares their lives and has them relocated to the most remote world on the Tingel Arm so they would be in reserve in case he needs them again. After the meetings on Sojourn, Plagueis is confronted by Darth Venamis, a Sith who Tenebrous had been training behind Plagueis's back in case Plagueis failed to live up to Tenebrous's expectations. Plagueis bests Venemis in combat, forcing him to swear allegiance to him before forcing the lesser Sith to poison himself. Plagueis then proceeds to use Venamis as part of his experiments in manipulating midi-chlorians, whose ultimate end is to defeat death and make himself immortal. In the meantime, Plagueis tracks down the other Force-users that Venemis had met in order to determine whether or not they pose a threat to his plans. He promptly rules out the Force-users who pose a threat to him and eliminates them. In exchange for the plasma located beneath the surface of Naboo, Damask Holdings and the Trade Federation begin a bid to support Bon Tapalo as king of the planet. Tapalo will open Naboo to trade, particularly for the plasma, which will then allow it to get involved with the rest of the galaxy. Among the political allies Plagueis sees in particular is a young man named Palpatine, whose motivations and actions go against those of his father, Cosinga, who wants Naboo to remain an isolationist world. Seeing potential in Palpatine in terms of ambitions and even actual power in the Force, Plagueis begins using him as a source of information regarding the campaign of Tapalo and his opponents. Palpatine, meanwhile, sees in Hego Damask the father figure he never had, even as he knows that he is being manipulated. Naturally, this attracts Cosinga's attention, who tries to separate his son from Plagueis. In retaliation, Palpatine kills his entire family and their honor guard aboard their personal starship by using his full, unbridled power in the dark side of the Force. He later informs Plagueis of the deed, who then congratulates Palpatine on emancipating himself. Soon, Plagueis takes Palpatine under his wing as his Sith apprentice after revealing to the young man the nature of himself and of the Sith, promptly naming him Darth Sidious. In the eleven years that follow of Plagueis teaching Sidious the nature of the dark side and the ways of the Sith, Palpatine, as the last of House Palpatine, climbs his way up the political ladder of Naboo to become its ambassador throughout the galaxy. And with the help of new friends like Kinman Doriana and Sate Pestage, Palpatine arranges for the successful assassination of his former mentor and Naboo's representative Senator to the Republic, Vidar Kim. As a result, Palpatine becomes the new Senator of Naboo, taking a seat in the Republic Senate as Plagueis continues his plans of manipulating midi-chlorians to prolong his own life indefinitely. One such plan involves the cloning industry on the backwater world of Kamino, inadvertently setting the stage for the eventual Clone Wars. Meanwhile, amidst his own political machinations, Palpatine, in his urge to know more about the dark side than what Plagueis teaches him, manages to make a visit to the world of Dathomir, where he encounters a Dathomirian woman who gives him a Zabrak infant simply known as Maul. Palpatine later has Maul sent to Mustafar, where he could be nurtured at his young age in the dark side of the Force. As Sidious and Plagueis promptly proceed to eliminate their political opponents, Plagueis is attacked during an Order of the Canted Circle ceremony for his assistant Larsh Hill by Maladian assassins. Hill and the other members of the Order of the Canted Circle are killed, but Plagueis, albeit severely wounded, is able to fight off and kill several of the assassins before Palpatine and Sate Pestage arrive to assist the superior Sith Lord. Palpatine had previously discerned that a powerful political opponent of his, Pax Teem, had outwitted Plagueis and had sent the assassins to kill him and his partners during the Canted Circle ceremony. In retaliation, Palpatine himself personally attacks Teem during a celebratory feast, killing him and all of his guests, leaving no survivors or evidence. In the aftermath of the attack at the botched ceremony, as Plagueis is forced to wear a transpirator to survive, he becomes more alert than ever about his surroundings, even going so far as forever renouncing sleep, and is even more obsessed with finding a way to live forever. As Damask, he trains Hill's son, San, to become the new head of the InterGalactic Banking Clan. Meanwhile, even though Plagueis managed to kill and then resurrect Darth Venamis in one of his experiments, he finds that he cannot do it again after Venamis dies for good. More than two decades pass as Palpatine gains more power in the Senate as the reign of Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum comes to an end. It is learned that Plagueis had killed former King Ars Veruna of Naboo and that Plagueis also suggested to Sifo-Dyas to sanction a human clone army on Kamino. Palpatine, who had also named Maul Darth behind Plagueis's back, also sees a potential ally in the former Jedi Count Dooku. Sidious and Plagueis learn that a young boy named Anakin Skywalker, a former slave found by Qui-Gon Jinn on Tatooine, had been born of the Force. They discern that this is most likely due to Plagueis's experiment of creating life through the Force, which he had commenced about a decade earlier. As the Battle of Naboo occurs, Palpatine coerces Plagueis into sleep with the promise of making him co-chancellor of the Republic, just as Plagueis demanded decades earlier, now that Palpatine appears to be winning in the election to replace Finis Valorum as Chancellor. With that, Sidious attacks Plagueis and, as he kills him, he explains that he was the one who had really been manipulating Plagueis the whole time, with such deals as the clone army as an example. In the end, Sidious ends Plagueis's life with the dark side of the Force, although his feeling of triumph is ruined as he feels uneasy for some reason. He later attributes this to the supposed death of Darth Maul, though, as he initially suspected, it may very well have been Plagueis himself reaching out to him from beyond the Force. As Palpatine is officially made Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, he begins to commence his solo plans of taking over the galaxy with the upcoming Clone Wars, such as seeking Dooku as a placeholder Sith apprentice and ally in the war. But the biggest part in Darth Sidious's plan is young Anakin Skywalker, now a Padawan to Obi-Wan Kenobi, who the Sith sees will be easily manipulated into becoming his true apprentice, and a harbinger of Palpatine's own power. + +Just before his 13th birthday, Obi-Wan Kenobi left Yoda and the other teachers at the Jedi Temple. He was not supposed to become a Padawan, rather, he was assigned to be a farmer. Trying too hard to become Qui-Gon Jinn's Padawan, Obi-Wan showed his lack of discipline, and that--in addition to Qui-Gon's mysterious past--kept them apart. But the Force kept pulling the two together: Obi-Wan resigned himself to the Jedi Agricultural Corps on barren Bandomeer, only to find that Qui-Gon was on a mission to the same planet. Traveling there on a mining ship, the two had to work together to forge a truce between the warring Hutt, Whiphid, and Arconan miners on board. The inexperienced Obi-Wan stirred up trouble but received plenty of chances to redeem himself later--after the pirates attacked and the ship crash-landed on a hostile planet with the crew still at each others' throats. + +While thankful for Obi-Wan's life-saving help on the trip to Bandomeer, Qui-Gon must put aside his mixed feelings over the young apprentice and take care of his peace mission. But he soon finds out that he's been tricked--not only did the planet's government not call for him, but the request may have come from his former-apprentice-gone-to-the-dark-side, the sinister Xanatos. Qui-Gon stays on Bandomeer to help rival mining companies there negotiate and to find out more about his fallen Jedi Padawan. Obi-Wan and Si Treemba investigate a secret annex Argi-Corps giant dome located in the Eastern Enrichment Zone, which he suspects belongs to the Offworld Corporation. Xanatos finds Obi-Wan in the annex, Offworld security guards battle and capture Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan is sent to the Great Sea of Bandomeer as a prisoner to become a miner on a deep-sea mining platform. He meets Guerra a Phindian who he works with to try an escape. Guerra then betrays Obi-Wan while trying to steal equipment from the guards. Obi-Wan is thrown off the platform for punishment, but Guerra supplied a net, saving him from the fatal fall. Qui-Gon comes to save Obi-Wan, and they drive off to the mines to try to stop Xanatos. When they get there, a vision Qui-Gon had came true. As they run into the mines, Xanatos confronts them, and they have a brief lightsaber duel. Xanatos retreats out of the mines, leaving Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to die. They find bombs inside an Offworld mining box, meaning they were all over Bandomeer. Qui-Gon disarms the bomb, Xanatos gets away, and Qui-Gon accepts Obi-Wan as his apprentice. + +After surviving the hair-raising events of The Rising Force and The Dark Rival, Jedi Knight Qui-Gon and 13-year-old apprentice Obi-Wan are officially Master and Padawan. The two have been sent off on their first mission by Master Yoda, who has given them a boring assignment: overseeing the elections on Gala, where Prince Beju has been forced to submit his promised throne to a popular vote. As usual for our Jedi heroes, though, nothing goes quite as planned. On the way to Gala they get hijacked to Phindar by Paxxi Derida, the brother of Guerra using the pretext of a fuel leak.Phindar is ruled by an evil Syndicat that has the technology to erase the minds of any rebel or enemy they get their hands on. The brothers say that they planned to kidnap the two Jedi warriors because they needed their help to prevent the artificially created food shortages that are ruining the planet. Faster than the flick of a lightsaber, Master and apprentice find themselves back in hot water, struggling to help their Phindarian buddies overthrow the Syndicat crime lords. After a double-cross here and a blaster fight there, the two discover that even Prince Beju is involved in the Syndicat's nefarious schemes. + +Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are called to Gala to monitor new elections. The queen of the planet is dying, and her last act is to turn the government into a democracy, much to the displeasure of her son, Prince Beju. As the Jedi face the turmoil between the fighting parties, Qui-Gon is sent on a mission to the leader of the hill people, a separatist faction in the mountains. It turns out that this female leader, Elan, is the true heir to the throne, and the queen wants her to know that before she dies. As Qui-Gon delivers the message, Obi-Wan discovers shady happenings behind the scenes and a possible murder plot against the queen. + +The planet Melida/Daan is in the middle of a civil war where the two factions, the Melida and the Daan, are slowing killing each other. A female Jedi named Tahl was sent to mediate, but she was taken hostage. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn are sent to retrieve her. Unfortunately, they get caught in the local war and must seek refuge with the Young. The Young are a group of orphaned Melida and Daan children who are determined to end the war waged by their Elders no matter what it takes. Obi-Wan is soon wrapped up in their enthusiasm and helps their cause, much to Qui-Gon's displeasure and against his and Master Yoda's orders. A Jedi is supposed to remain neutral and not take sides. Eventually, Obi-Wan must choose between Qui-Gon and the Jedi or the Young. + +Obi-Wan has left Qui-Gon and the Jedi to help the Young end the wars on Melida/Daan. The Young eventually win the war, but then are left with establishing a new government, rebuilding after the war, and all the other problems of running a war-torn planet. Meanwhile, Qui-Gon returns to Coruscant with Tahl, the Jedi he rescued. They are soon informed by Yoda that someone is stealing things and vandalizing the temple. As the problems escalate, Qui-Gon is assigned the task of nabbing the culprit. But how far will the problems go? As things go downhill quickly on Melida/Daan, Obi-Wan begins to realize that leaving the Jedi was a mistake and that they are the only ones who can help save the planet from more war. But will Qui-Gon take him back? + +Obi-Wan Kenobi is back in the Jedi Order. But now everything is different: his master Qui-Gon Jinn is sure he will become a great Jedi Knight, but he is not sure that Obi-Wan should still be his Padawan. Now they must unite forces to investigate the recent attacks on the Jedi Temple, including a failed assassination attempt on Yoda. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon team up with Bant Eerin and the recently rescued Tahl. They soon learn that Xanatos is the mastermind behind the recent Temple attacks, and that he has converted Obi-Wan's former rival, Bruck Chun, to his cause. Furthermore, it is uncovered that Xanatos is planning more attacks, namely on the reactor core of the Jedi Temple. Bruck Chun also kidnaps Bant. In order to continue funding Offworld Mining Corporation, Xanatos demands vast supplies of Vertex, an expensive crystal worth high monetary value, in exchange for the temple's freedom and the release of Bant. Qui-Gon locates Xanatos and duels with him, while Obi-Wan hunts down Bruck. Xanatos escapes, but not before setting the Temple on a course for destruction. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan and Bruck fight in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, where Bant is being held. During the duel, Bruck slips, and although Obi-Wan tries to rescue him, he falls to his death. Bant is rescued, and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon soon locate the source of Xanatos' time bomb: the Fire Crystals locked in the reactor core. Although the Temple is free, Xanatos is once again at large. Qui-Gon has only one lead: Xanatos could be on his home planet, Telos. Obi-Wan decides to join Qui-Gon on his quest, even though the two are not master and padawan anymore. Obi-Wan is placed on a temporary probation by the Jedi Council. + +Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi went to the planet of Telos on an unofficial mission to apprehend Xanatos, the Dark Jedi who had tried to destroy the Jedi Temple. Upon their arrival, they are surprised to find that Xanatos wields significant financial and political power on Telos. They soon discover that Xanatos and the government of Telos have been distracting the populace with a new form of gambling called Katharsis. In the meantime, the company UniFy, a subsidiary of the massive Offworld Corporation headed by Xanatos, has been mining the planet's resources despite the importance the native Telosians place on their environment. Pursued by Xanatos' men, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon are forced to trust a man called Den, a con man associated with POWER, an outlawed political party dedicated to preserving the Telosian environment. The three infiltrate the UniFy headquarters, looking for evidence to prove that Offworld is mishandling the planet's resources. However, the two Jedi are arrested, and Xanatos personally informs them they have been sentenced to death. The Jedi manage to escape the public execution with the help of Andra, a member of the POWER party. Obi-Wan and Andra infiltrate the Sacred Pools of Telos and discover that the site is indeed being used for mining operations. The two are detected by surveillance droids, but are able to escape and record evidence that Offworld is connected with UniFy. Meanwhile, Den and Qui-Gon have rigged the Katharsis lottery so that Den will win. When Den does win and Xanatos presents the prize to him, the recorded images are played for all the Telosians to see. However, Xanatos deceives the crowd and the Jedi are captured once more. But Den, addressing the crowd, tells the people how the lottery was rigged and how the Telosians were robbed of their money. Xanatos then makes his get-away, but Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan chase him back to the Sacred Pools site. After a lightsaber battle amid the black acid pools, the two Jedi finally corner the Dark Jedi. But Xanatos, not willing to be defeated, commits suicide by throwing himself into the acid pools. + +In a Jedi Temple training room, Padawans Obi-Wan Kenobi and Siri Tachi participate in a training exercise under the supervision of their respective Masters, Qui-Gon Jinn and Adi Gallia. The two young apprentices are supposed to cooperate in destroying a number of seeker droids, merging their styles with the Force to cover each other's weaknesses and fight as one. Tachi, however, gives her full attention to simply destroying the droids, and Kenobi, attempting to penetrate her devotion, inadvertantly collides with her. Gallia orders both Padawans to opposite corners of the room to start over, and Kenobi gives up trying to work together with Tachi. Minutes later, they have taken out every droid in the room, but Jinn informs them that both have failed, for they fought separately and not together. Grand Master Yoda then enters the room with a mission: both Padawans and their Masters are to travel to the remote Outer Rim planet of Kegan, from where parents have contacted the Jedi believing that their daughter may be Force-sensitive. Yoda points out that Kegan has been completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy for thirty years, and he asks the four Jedi to open relations between Kegan and the Galactic Republic also. As the four Jedi arrive on Kegan, Kenobi wonders why two Master--Padawan teams have been sent on what seems to be a routine mission. The Padawan considers the possibility that the Jedi Council is still keeping an eye on him since he had left the Jedi Order for a brief time several months prior, despite the fact that he has been accepted back into the Order and his probation has been lifted. Meanwhile, Tachi, who is two years younger than Kenobi and far less experienced, is looking outside the ship at the landing platform. Kenobi tries to give her some advice, but she rebukes him, reminding him of his temporary departure from the Order. Soon, the ship lands, and the Jedi disembark. They are immediately met by Hospitality Guides O-Rina and V-Haad and the parents who contacted the Jedi, V-Nen and O-Melie. The Guides take the entire group to the parents' home to meet the child, explaining the way of life on Kegan while en route. Arriving, the Jedi indicate that they wish to meet with the parents privately, but the Guides politely refuse, claiming that V-Nen and O-Melie are nervous and had requested that the Guides stay. Jinn points out that there is nothing to be nervous about, but the parents state their wish that the Guides stay. V-Haad and O-Rina reassure the Jedi that it is all right for them to stay, but Kenobi senses that something is wrong and that the Guides, despite their smiles, did not want the Jedi to come here at all. Jinn senses it also but, along with Gallia, agrees to let the Hospitality Guides stay, and the group goes inside. V-Nen and O-Melie present their daughter, O-Lana, to Jinn, who studies her for a few minutes. Jinn and Gallia both determine that she is indeed Force-sensitive, and Jinn hands the child--who is also hungry--back so she can be fed by the child caregiver for the housing quad, O-Yani. The Jedi Masters try to explain to the parents how a Force-sensitive child can be different from a normal child and why it would be a good idea for O-Lana to be given to the Jedi Order for training, but the Guides constantly interrupt, saying how keeping her on Kegan is better without actually listening to the Jedi or giving the parents a chance to speak. Finally, the Guides end the meeting, telling the Jedi that they will transport them to their quarters. Jinn, however, requests that they walk there instead, and the Guides reluctantly agree. Jinn quietly tells Kenobi and Tachi to split from the group without being seen during the walk and gather information about the planet, then turns to Gallia to see if she will object. Waiting, Jinn also wonders why two teams were sent on the mission and considers a couple of possibilities, including that Gallia might be intended to monitor his tendency to bend the rules. Shortly, Gallia agrees to the plan. As the group makes its way through the city, Jinn asks the Guides why Kegan has isolated itself for so long. The Guides respond by claiming that the galaxy is dangerous and that the sharing of knowledge and goods between and travel to other planets would harm the General Good, a Kegan philosophy regarding the well-being of their community. As the group walks through the marketplace, Jinn creates a diversion by accidentally bumping into a rack of tools, causing it to spill. While helping pick the tools up, the two Padawans slip away. Their absence is soon noticed by the Hospitality Guides, who tells Gallia and Jinn to wait in the market with V-Nen and O-Melie while they search for Kenobi and Tachi. After the Guides leave, Jinn tries to initiate a conversation with the parents, but O-Melie flatly tells him that they made a mistake in contacting the Order and that the Jedi should leave. Sensing that the parents are afraid, Jinn suggests that they go back to their house and look at O-Lana again; the parents agree when he adds that the Jedi would take full responsibility for violating the Guides' instructions. Taking the long way to avoid the Guides, the four soon arrive back at the parent's house and are greeted by O-Yani. O-Melie asks her where O-Lana is, and O-Yani tells them that they took her away. Meanwhile, the Padawans leave the marketplace and head for the Garden Circle to avoid detection. Tachi complains about not being able to watch the Masters and learn from them. When Kenobi tries to comfort her with Jedi wisdom, Tachi rebukes him, reminding him that she took the same classes at the Temple that he did. Kenobi proposes that they find the Tech Circle to begin investigating Kegan society, but Tachi suggests that they mingle with the population and gather information by talking to people, pointing out that they would blend in easily because of their similar clothes. Just then, a landspeeder pulls up to them, and a Truant Guide asks them why they aren't in school. Bluffing, Tachi tells him that their parents needed their help at home that day, and the Guide initially appears to be satisfied. As the two Padawans move on, however, the Guide hits first Kenobi, then Tachi, with an electro-jabber, sending them to the ground. The Guide dumps them on the landspeeder's floor and takes off. + +Two neighboring planets, Rutan and Senali, had a long history of war. Rutan was a feudal society that valued hunting and culture while Senali was a Polynesian-esque culture that emphasized nature and harmony. However, after a stunning victory by Senali, a truce was agreed upon. The rulers of each planet temporarily exchanged children when they reached the age of seven and raised them in an effort to get the future leaders to appreciate each other. However, the plan backfired after hundreds of years of success when the heir of Rutan decided he wanted to remain on Senali, forsaking his royal title and home planet. This infuriated his father, King Frane, who believed his son had been brainwashed by the Senali. He threatened to declare war on Senali. Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon arrived to mediate the dispute. After meeting with King Frane, they went to the ocean world of Senali and attempted to convince Leed to return to Rutan, thus avoiding war. Unfortunately, nothing is as simple as the Jedi hoped. + +Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi are on a training mission on the planet Ragoon VI. They are following a trail left behind by another Jedi, Rana. But before they can complete their tracking exercise they are attacked by a pack of Malia. After defeating several of the creatures, one of them suddenly drops dead and the rest of the pack flees. Then a group of Ragoon hunters, using poisonous blow-darts, reveal themselves and tell the Jedi that their deaths will be less painful at their hands. Qui-Gon, however, realizes that the hunters merely want the dead Malia. He offers them to the hunters and they are free to leave. When they return to their exercise Qui-Gon suddenly stops as he receives a vision. He informs his Padawan that they should return to the Jedi Temple immediately. In his vision Tahl was in great distress. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan rush back toward their transport, although it still takes them three days to reach it, and hurry back to Coruscant. When they reach the temple Qui-Gon asks the Jedi Knight stationed at the security checkpoint to contact Tahl. He informs Qui-Gon that she is still in the Jedi Temple, but is not answering her comlink. Qui-Gon deduces that she then must be at the Jedi Council Room and hurries to it. He rushes in, not bothering to request entrance, and sees Tahl reporting to the Jedi Council. Despite his breach of protocol Qui-Gon is allowed to stay and Tahl continues with her report. She first relates her mission with Qui-Gon to New Apsolon six years earlier. Now she has been contacted by two girls she had met then, they are in terrible danger and request help. Tahl proposes that she retrieve the girls. Qui-Gon insists on coming along, but his offer is turned down by the Jedi Council. Outside the Council Room, Tahl gets angry with Qui-Gon, thinking he has doubts about her abilities now that she is blind. Tahl had told her Padawan Bant Eerin about what had happened in the Council Room, and she in turn informed Obi-Wan. Bant was upset as Tahl had left for a mission without her again Bant was afraid Tahl did not trust her yet. Obi-Wan tries to console her, but he cannot take away the fact that Tahl's mission is taking longer than expected, she has already been gone for two weeks, while the mission should not have lasted more than three days. Meanwhile, Qui-Gon is trying to lose himself in training, but that night he has a nightmare of a dying Tahl. He decides to finally act upon his vision. He informs the Council of his decision to follow Tahl to New Apsolon, and despite their advice, he stubbornly goes on with his plans. Obi-Wan joins him, even though Qui-Gon tries to have him stay in the Temple. Arriving in the capital city of New Apsolon Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan dress themselves as common travelers. They make their way from the Workers sector to the Civilized sector, there they discover several pieces of graffiti opposing Roan. They continue their path towards the Administration Services Building for a mandatory security check. They are greeted by Balog, the head of security, who warns them that the planet soon could be very dangerous for offworlders, as there is some political unrest. Qui-Gon asks the man if he believes if the planet's leader, Roan, is in danger of being assassinated as his predecessor was. Balog tells them it is unlikely, as Roan is popular with most of the inhabitants of both the Workers and the Civilized sectors. He even informs them that the two girls Tahl had been sent to rescue, Alani and Eritha, are safely living two blocks away and have been adopted by Roan. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan make their way to the house and inside Qui-Gon is warmly greeted by the two girls. When Qui-Gon informs if they had contacted Tahl for help, they tell him they did not. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan leave to solve this mystery. First they decide observe the city and happen upon the Museum of the Absolutes, the former secret police. Their guide is Irini, a former prisoner of the Absolutes. She tells them about the time before the revolution six years earlier. She also tells them that many of the Absolutes are still free and have gone underground or were protected by the Civilized. Recently, records of the Absolutes had been discovered, but the government sealed them, angering many of the Workers. Outside the museum Qui-Gon alerts Obi-Wan that they are being followed by a probe droid, even though they are illegal on New Apsolon. They enter an alley and quickly hide, there Qui-Gon confronts the droid and cuts it in two with his lightsaber. Immediately after blaster fire erupts from above them. Unable to move freely in the narrow alley they move up to an adjoining roof. The blaster fire stops, but they see no trace of their assailant. They only find a transmitter for the probe droid and an ammunition pack branded with the same symbol as Irini wears on a necklace. They wait outside the museum until Irini appears, they follow her into an airbus. They get off at the same stop as Irini and continue to shadow her. Irini enters a building slated for demolition, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan enter the building next door. They make their way up, following sounds they hear in the other house. They eventually manage to find a way into Irini's building and move toward the source of the sound. They overhear Irini discussing with a group of Workers. They see Roan as Ewane's murderer and plan to overthrow him, also because they believe that Roan is behind the re-formation of the Absolutes. Lenz informs the group of new leadership within the Absolutes, but he does not know who they are. Then Lenz's comlink goes off, he is informed that the Absolutes are raiding the building. The group flees to the roof, but before the two Jedi can escape the Absolutes discover them. Rather than fight Qui-Gon orders Obi-Wan to submit. They were blindfolded and bound, then they were transported to another building. Qui-Gon tried to get some information from one of their captors, but he did not learn much except that the captors knew they were Jedi and did not support the current government. After an hour they were again moved to another room where Qui-Gon heard Tahl speaking. Apparently Tahl had managed to infiltrate the Absolutes. They were questioned by another person in the room. After Qui-Gon did not answer their question to their satisfaction they discuss what to do with the Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Tahl suggest letting them go as their deaths surely would send an investigation by the Jedi and the Senate, and they also would lose any hope of gaining backing from the Senate. The others left and Tahl took off Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon's blindfolds and bounds. Obi-Wan watches as Qui-Gon and Tahl seem to forget the whole world around them. Then Tahl leads them to the exit, in a large warehouse owned by the Absolute, on the edge of the Civilized sector. As they are about to part ways with Tahl, Qui-Gon asks her her plan. She tells them that Alani and Eritha did contact her, but lied to Qui-Gon to protect Tahl. The twins were quite informed about the situation on New Apsolon and realized that they could not leave the planet as they were symbols for the new government. The Absolutes, however posed a threat against them and the government so Tahl had agreed to go under cover and find out how strong the Absolutes actually were. She discovered that they were not that powerful, but they had important backing and were amassing weapons. She asks Qui-Gon to find the backer, but Qui-Gon cannot help her, as there has been no official request by any party in the government. After some arguing Tahl proposes a compromise, she will remain under cover for one more week while Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan will investigate Ewane's murder. Qui-Gon accepts reluctantly and Tahl suggests they start by questioning Manex, Roan's brother. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan spend the night in a guesthouse, but Qui-Gon can not get to sleep as the gnawing feeling he has had since his vision still has not gone, even though he now is on a path to help Tahl. The next morning they head to Manex's palace-like mansion. They are heartily welcomed by Manex, but their conversation does not leave them much wiser. Manex denies that he was behind Ewane's murder, nor does he believe that his brother Roan is behind it as Ewane was like a brother to Roan. Next Qui-Gon decides the Supreme Governor, Roan. As they neared Roan's residence Obi-Wan alerts him to a tracking droid hovering in front of the house. Qui-Gon soon noticed another. Apparently, Roan or someone else had reason to improve surveillance of the house. As they near the house Qui-Gon senses a disturbance in the Force. They ring the security button, but no one answers. Obi-Wan suggests they try entering the house through the gardens. They jump over the wall and Qui-Gon searches for a way in, when Obi-Wan suddenly alerts him to a few masked people carrying a large black package over the garden wall. When he sees a blond strand of hair sticking out, Qui-Gon quickly realizes the twins are being kidnapped. The intruders spot them and one of them activates a transmitter, calling probe droids that attack the Jedi. The kidnappers flee while they have the advantage, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan ignore the probe droids and pursue. On the other side of the wall the intruders have loaded the twins on swoops and take off. Then a secret door opens and Balog and security forces emerge. Qui-Gon quickly explains the situation and Balog calls for air support to follow the kidnappers. Balog moves away to inform Roan what happened. Qui-Gon remarks to Obi-Wan that he might already know and be behind the kidnapping. They meet with Tahl to discuss the situation. She does not believe that the Absolutes are behind the kidnapping, because then she would probably know of the kidnapping. She suggest that Irini and her group might have taken the twins to keep them away from Roan. Obi-Wan suggests they try to meet with Roan again, but just at that moment Qui-Gon's comlink signals. Roan is asking the Jedi to meet with him. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan discuss the situation with him when Roan's comlink signals. It is the kidnappers, in exchange for the twins' safe return Roan has to resign without mentioning the kidnapping. Roan agrees to their terms, he will be contacted when and where to pick up the twins. Qui-Gon warns him not to go alone, when he is contacted he must ask if he can take the Jedi as escorts. They have just left Roan's office when Tahl contacts them. The Absolutes have found out she is a Jedi. They have sent probe droids to hunt and kill her, and because she cannot see or sense the droids she cannot destroy them. She is hiding in a memorial in the Workers sector. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan hurry toward her. Qui-Gon worries if his vision of Tahl's death is about to come true. As they near Tahl's location Obi-Wan urges him to be careful as the probe droids might be looking for them as well. They find Tahl where she said she was and they decide to return with her to Roan's house. The Workers on the street seem to be heading to a demonstration, but in stead of hiding in the crowd, they move on toward the Civilized sector. Then a probe droid appears, Qui-Gon quickly slashes it out the sky, but soon three more arrive. While Qui-Gon protects Tahl, Obi-Wan uses his liquid-cable launcher to reach a higher ledge, meanwhile taking out one of the probe droids. The two other droids divide their attention between Tahl and Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan takes out the one attacking him, but Qui-Gon has trouble defending Tahl. He pushes her behind some garbage bins where she will be safe. Obi-Wan jumps off the roof, while Qui-Gon also jumps at the last droid, they take it out together. They run toward the crowded streets of the Civilized sector, and into Institute of Government Service where Roan's office is located. But Roan is not there, his assistant informs them he has gone to meet with the kidnappers. After waiting for hours in Roan's office, Bolag arranges accommodations for them in Roan's residence. When they move to the residence Qui-Gon spots a large package near the house. When they near it, they discover it is Roan, he is dead. They carry the body inside. Bolag thinks it best to not reveal Roan's death yet, they first need to find the twins. Qui-Gon remarks it will be hard to conceal the death, as Roan's killers will want it to become known. Bolag goes to inform Manex of his brother's death, before he finds out in another way. Not much later Manex arrives in distress, he goes to sit with his brother's body. Later that night, Qui-Gon hears a noise outside, when the three Jedi reach the door it just opens and the twins enter. They immediately ask where Roan is, they had heard rumors of his death on the street after their kidnappers had let them go. When they hear the rumor confirmed they blame themselves for his death, but Tahl consoles them by telling them it was Roan's own choice to find them. She suggest the twins go back to Coruscant with her in the morning and the twins agree. When the twins have gone to see Roan, Bolag informs the Jedi that a peace meeting is being set up between the Civilized, the Workers, the Absolutes and him to stabilize the government. But most parties have asked for a Jedi to attend the meeting. Qui-Gon consents to go, but Tahl insists that she go instead, because she knows the most about the Absolutes. Then, Qui-gon realizes something very important that he feels he must tell Tahl as soon as possible. He requests to speak with Tahl alone in another room. Tahl expects another argument, but Qui-Gon just wishes to tell her something. First, he agrees that she should attend the meeting, but he will not leave New Apsolon before she returns from the meeting. He tells her he believes that if he does he will not see her again and has felt this way since his vision. The second thing he wants to tell is of a more personal nature. He reveals to her that he has fallen in love with her. After a while she speaks, she actually feels the same way. Then they pledge themselves to each other. They acknowledge that their lives will be full of separations from each other, but they still decide to be together. When Qui-Gon and Tahl leave the room, Qui-Gon informs Obi-Wan of their decision. Tahl will go to the peace meeting, while they wait with the twins for her return. Then they will return to the Jedi Temple, unless the government officially asks them to stay. Obi-Wan notices a change in the look on his Master's face, he no longer looks haunted. Tahl and Balog leave for the meeting. In the morning Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan start packing for their return to Coruscant when they hear a scuffle outside. When they go to look they find Irini in the grip of a security guard. She asks them why they need security, as they are Jedi. Qui-Gon tells her of the probe droids, carrying ammunition with the same insignia as the one on Irini's necklace. She informs them that it is the Workers logo, but she does not believe the Workers have attacked the Jedi, instead she believes someone is misusing the logo. She then tells them she has some useful information for the Jedi, if they are really present to guard the peace. They reassure her and she tells them that the Workers have found it was not one of them that kidnapped the girls. She also informs them that the girls could be kidnapped because someone at the highest levels of security had changed the security procedures. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan reach the same conclusion, Balog was behind the kidnapping and the death of Roan. They warn Irini that Bolag has a hidden agenda and that she should be careful at the peace meeting, but she has no idea what meeting they are talking about. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan rush toward the Institute of Government Service, and there they force Bolag's assistant to take them to the secret meeting room where the meeting was to take place. Outside they see a bin with several blasters and Tahl's lightsaber inside it. The room itself was empty. Qui-Gon is frustrated and afraid his vision of Tahl in danger will come true. + +Blinded from injuries sustained at Melida/Daan, Tahl is nonetheless a great Jedi renowned for her diplomatic skills. She shares a powerful friendship with Qui-Gon Jinn; the two are connected through the Force in a way that's stronger than friendship, deeper than love. Now, Qui-Gon experiences great loss as Tahl is kidnapped in a trap he should have foreseen. He and his young apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, set out to rescue her. They set out on the trail of Balog, Tahl's kidnapper, with a probe droid tracking him they got from Mota. While pursuing Balog, they encounter Eritha, who reveals to them her sister Alani's plot to take over the government. She joins them on their mission. Soon after she joins them, they are attacked by the Rock workers, a group of miners whose lives are endangered by the Absolutes. When the Rock Workers attack, Obi-Wan is injured. They take him back to the Workers' settlement for medical treatment. While Obi-Wan is healing, Qui-Gon questions the workers about the Absolutes, hoping to get some leads on Balog and Tahl's whereabouts, but finds out nothing that could help them. As soon as Obi-Wan is fit to travel, they set off again, only to be delayed once more when Yanci, the Rock Worker medic who treated Obi-Wan, begs them to come back because the Absolutes are attacking their settlement. Qui-Gon sends Obi-Wan and Eritha to go help, but decides to pursue Balog himself. However, he follows the Jedi Code and decides to go help the Rock Workers instead. By the time help got there, everybody had already been killed. However, it did give them a lead on where the Absolutes were from the type of soil carried in from their boots. The Jedi and Eritha were able to locate the Absolute hideout. They infiltrated it and found Balog with Tahl in a sensory deprivation device. Balog realized the Absolute hideout would no longer be hidden so he ordered an evacuation and destroyed it. They got Tahl out and swam in a lake where the hideout was hidden away form it. Qui-Gon took Eritha's speeder and took Tahl to the city of New Apsolon to be received by medics. While Qui-Gon is waiting for word from the doctor, Obi-Wan and Eritha arrive. They think about Tahl's kidnapping and if anyone else was behind it. Then the doctor comes and tells Qui-Gon that Tahl's damage is severe, but Qui-Gon is confident she will recover. He goes into the room where Tahl is, and she promises that wherever she is headed she will wait for him. Then she dies. Obi-Wan feels a disturbance in the force, and rushes into the room where Tahl lay. Qui-Gon's grief for her shocks him, and Qui-Gon tells his Padawan that their was no help for him now, only revenge. + +Qui-Gon Jinn's heart is not in his work. After the death of his truest love, he is finding it hard to continue as a Jedi Knight. When he and his apprentice Obi-Wan are sent to a hostile planet to protect the only witness willing to testify against an evil crime family, he finds it hard to focus. But when the witness is suddenly under attack and the crime family makes a move to ensure its survival, Qui-Gon must keep the peace and fight both the foes who attack and the enemies within. A Master is supposed to help his Padawan resist the lure of the Dark Side, but can Obi-Wan handle it the other way around, restraining a man not known for his obedience who is as dangerous to himself and those around him as he is to his target? + +One person holds the key to the downfall of a powerful criminal syndicate. She must be safely escorted offworld so that she can testify to the authorities just what she knows. Where could she be safer than in the escort of the Jedi? As Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discover, when dealing with powerful and corrupt criminals, nothing can be taken for granted. + +Two months since their last mission, Qui-Gon Jinn and the young Obi-Wan Kenobi are summoned in front of the Jedi Council. Jedi help is requested on the planet Vorzyd 4. Vorzyd 4 was the most powerful planet in its system and Vorzyd 5 had to borrow much from Vorzyd 4 in order to survive. Vorzyd 5 recently built casinos and were making enough money to pay off their debt. Vorzyd 4 claims that sabotage on their planet is the fault of Vorzyd 5 and their ambitions to become the planetary power in the system. Jocasta Nu tells Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan that all the Vorzydiaks on Voryzd 4 work and children go to school and gain a day of work each year until they work full-time at age 17. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan soon make their way to Vorzyd 4. Once on the planet, the Jedi are met at their landing pad by a Vorzydiak guide who would take them to Chairman Port who called for the Jedi assistance. They find out that the Vorzyd adults do nothing but work and try to improve work, and fun and games are frowned upon. Buildings and clothing are designed with function in mind and not with aesthetics. The Jedi are brought to Multycorp, and are immediately taken up a Turbolift to the twenty-fourth floor where accounting is done. Chairman Port greets the Jedi and tells them that he has deported everyone from Vorzyd 5, but the attacks continue. No one has been hurt in the attacks, but productivity has been hurt. During the first meeting with the chairman, another attack begins. The computers in the building were showing erroneous information. Obi-Wan worked to try to fix the computers while Qui-Gon and Chairman Port tried to calm all the workers down. The interruption of work was causing physical and mental problems to the workers. Then, all of a sudden the attack stops and everything resumes back to normal. Soon a sound is heard throughout the building signaling the end of the workday. All the laborers and Jedi soon get on shuttles that take them away from the workspace and towards the homespace. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are taken to Chairman Port's house where they meet his wife, Bryn, and expect to meet their son Grath, but are told he is working and will be home afterwards. They also discover that the youth of the planet, specifically a gang called the Freelies, do not like this and are sabotaging the factories in hope of social change. Obi-Wan infiltrates the Freelies, but is discovered and the Freelie band splits into two groups, one following Grath, the other side following Flip, a Vorzydiak prone to violence. +In the end, Obi-Wan and his friends manage to stop the work-only attitude of the populace. + +Professor Murk Lundi was a historian who had an interest in the Sith. After learning this, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi followed him on a ship that is headed for Lisal. During the trip, Lundi convinced the ship's captain to go to Nolar, stating that he didn't need to go to Lisal. The two Jedi followed the professor until they were attacked by a group of thugs. Soon, the Jedi located Lundi in a shop where he wanted to buy a Nolarian 6000 drill. After being told that the store didn't have any, Lundi said that he didn't really need one. He just needed to time it well. The Jedi followed Lundi to Kodai, which was rumored to have a Sith holocron on the planet. Soon after, they were able to find Lundi but only to discover that the Sith holocron had fallen deeper into the geyser it was in. Lundi, now completely insane, started to ramble on about been deprived of his chance to get the holocron. Years later, Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker were asked to retrieve the Sith holocron from Kodai. After enlisting the help of Lundi, the Jedi were off. Lundi confirmed that Norval They eventually came to one of Lundi's old followers, Omal. They witnessed how the holocron had turned Omal insane, just as it turned Lundi insane. The Jedi went back and searched the geyser only to find the holocron was missing and that Norval had it. Lundi mentioned that numerous parties had promised vast riches should the holocron ever be found and that one of the parties arranged to meet him at Ploo II. The Jedi, sensing that Lundi was telling the truth and headed for Ploo II. Upon arriving at Ploo II, the Jedi came across Norval's ship. While Obi-Wan boarded his ship, Anakin was left to pilot their borrowed ship from harms way. Obi-Wan caught up with Norval and he revealed that he had crafted his own lightsaber. After a short battle, Obi-Wan was able to overpower Norval, retrieve the holocron and leave the ship before it was destroyed. After returning to his ship, Obi-Wan arrived just in time to witness Lundi die. Anakin had let him out of his cage saying that he didn't he should spend his last moments in a cage. Obi-Wan and Anakin arrived at the Jedi Temple and stored the holocron inside a vault. The Jedi requested that Lundi should be attended to. + +Darth Maul is dispatched by Darth Sidious to the prison colony of Cog Hive Seven in order to find the mysterious weapons merchant known as Iram Radique. In Cog Hive Seven, Maul, under the guise of a mercenary known as Jagganath, finds himself in a prison that also holds gladiatorial contests between prisoners. Maul is forced to partake in several of these matches during his investigation into Iram Radique's whereabouts. However, as his investigation unfolds, Maul soon discovers the true nature of his mission; he is to contact Radique in order to buy a nuclear device that had been secretly built inside Cog Hive Seven. The purpose of buying this nuclear device is to sell it to the Bando Gora, whom Radique hates with a passion. Unfortunately, during Maul's investigation, Cog Hive Seven's warden, Sadiki Blirr, finds out that Jabba Desilijic Tiure has sent several of his minions into the prison as guards in order to find Radique. Blirr has these guards summarily executed, provoking Jabba's wrath as he sends a team to intercept the prison barge known as the Purge. After Jabba's team hijacks the Purge, they attack Cog Hive Seven, prompting Blirr to initiate the prison's self-destruct sequence. However, Blirr is killed by the Syrox, a creature embedded in Cog Hive Seven who feeds on the ceased consciousnesses of dead inmates. As Cog Hive Seven meets its destruction, Maul, with the help of inmate Eogan Truax, attempt to escape with the nuclear device that Maul bought from Radique. But when Radique betrays them by refusing to help them detach the bombs embedded in their hearts, Eogun kills Radique just as the Bando Gora arrive. Maul and the Gora's leader, Komari Vosa, have a brief fight before they are confronted by the Syrox. Maul decides to help Vosa kill the Syrox so he can fulfill his mission of giving the nuclear device to the Bando Gora, and then Maul, Vosa, and Eogun escape the prison before it completely destroys itself. + +Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn are summoned before the Jedi High Council to be briefed on a mission. Upon entering the High Council Chamber, Jinn notes the absence of Adi Gallia and inquires. Gallia was on a covert mission to the planet Esseles, whose capital city of Calamar is a center for advanced hyperdrive research. The Council received an anonymous data card saying that the Trinkatta Starships factory had begun manufacturing experimental Vulture-class droid starfighters equipped with hyperdrive engines on-board. Worried that the ships were commissioned by an ally seeking civil war, the Council sent Gallia to ascertain the identity of the buyer. While on the mission, Gallia went missing. The Council recommends that Jinn leave his Padawan in safety and take two Jedi knights, Vel Ardox and Noro Zak, with him to determine the fate of Gallia. During a previous mission, Gallia had saved Jinn's life and the Council explains that this was part of their reasoning in choosing Jinn for this operation. Before departing, Jinn requests Kenobi repair the ship's hatch. After Kenobi steps aboard Jinn closes the hatch and exclaims that it must be fixed, requesting his Padawan take a seat. The ship arrives at Esseles and lands near Trinkatta Starships on the outskirts of Calamar. Jinn requests Noro fly ahead to scout out the factory grounds while Jinn, Kenobi, and Ardox take a speeder to the factory. The grounds consist of a large manufacturing building, a landing pad, and a twenty story observation tower, all of which are surrounded by a moat and finally a security wall. Approaching the main entrance on the outside of the wall, the Jedi regroup and are quickly approached by two security droids guarding the entrance. Jinn tells the droids they are building inspectors but the droid replies that they are not expected and should leave as the factory is being fumigated. As the factory normally outputs toxic smoke, the chimneys on top of the building begin to close forcing the smoke to remain trapped within the structure. Using the Force, Jinn senses Gallia's presence and attempts to mind trick the droids into allowing them entrance. The droids receive a command from the central tower to destroy the trespassers, but before they can accomplish their orders Ardox draws his lightsaber and destroys them both. The group realizes the toxic fumes will likely kill Gallia, and they quickly devise a plan for search and rescue. Qui-Gon Jinn decides create a diversion by the main checkpoint allowing the other three to make a more secretive entrance. He uses the Force to open the gate on the outer wall, and six droids exit the main manufacturing building and make for the bridge which crosses the moat. As Jinn crosses the bridge he uses his comlink to communicate progress on the mission to the other group. They reply that they have run into droids themselves and have not yet entered the factory. Eight droids on the facility's rooftop position themselves near a water tower to fire upon Jinn. Jinn repels their blasts to strike the tower's supports, forcing the droids off the roof and destroying them in the process. As the massive torrent heads towards Jinn, the Jedi dives off the bridge and into the moat below. Jinn places a breather over his face and locates a cave on the innermost wall of the moat. Entering the underwater tunnel, Jinn senses a tentacle wrapping itself around his ankle. Rather than slicing the creature with his lightsaber, Jinn thinks to himself about what life would be like in this dark cave and noticing a human come swimming past. The tentacle retracts, and Jinn hears a response to his thoughts in the form of an apology and warning to mind the fast current. Jinn continues on his way and the current soon takes over and forces him quickly into a large silo with a propeller at the bottom. Jinn spots a hatch at the top of the silo, but is unable to wield his lightsaber while also fighting the torrential current. Using the Force, Jinn imagines the propeller twisting and bowing. The propeller soon falls apart and the water level in the silo begins to rise. Jinn forces open the hatch with the use of his lightsaber and jumps through. Jinn falls into a dry chamber but has accidentally crushed his comlink. The Jedi thrusts the hatch back into place before water begins to fill the chamber. A moan is heard and the chamber is found to contain a prisoner who has been tortured by having his arm sliced off. Jinn learns the creature is Boll Trinkatta, owner the manufacturing facility, and he has been locked away to die after saboteurs have reprogrammed his droids. Questioning him on the location of Gallia, Trinkatta replies that the droids may have captured her after imprisoning him and would likely be holding her at the top of the observation tower. When pressed about who placed the order for the hyperdrive starfighters, Trinkatta reluctantly admits they were being built for the Trade Federation. Trinkatta requests the two part ways, and leaves through a secret tunnel while Jinn continues his search for Gallia. Entering the main building area of the factory, Jinn uses a half-completed starship's weapons to blast a hole in the ceiling for the fumes to escape. Jinn uses the Force to determine Gallia's location and realizes she is in the observation tower. Using a speeder to get across the grounds, Jinn enters the tower and proceeds to floor 19. Jinn peers out the observation tower's windows and see an army of droids marching onto the tower. The detention center contained ten cells with transparent security fields. Each cell appears to have an unconscious Gallia lying in them, which Jinn believes to be nine holograms with a single real Jedi. Using nearby controls, Jinn disables the projections and the security field and frees Gallia, carrying her out of the cell. Jinn decides that he must deactivate the droids before leaving or they may escape the facility and cause harm. A nearby security cabinet houses a self-destruction initiator which Jinn triggers as a timer on the unit counts down from three minutes. An alarm sounds throughout the entire complex as Jinn exits the observation tower onto a landing deck with a resting speeder. To his surprise, the craft belonged to two Bartokk whom it seem are the saboteurs that reprogrammed the droids. The two fired upon Jinn who quickly set down Gallia and destroyed the Bartokks which proved to be difficult as slicing them in two did not kill them but simply left them in two very much alive pieces. Slicing down further, however, the Bartokks proved even they could not escape death. Fleeing with Gallia in the speeder, Jinn regroups with his Padawan and the two knights at the entrance to the facility. Gallia requires immediate medical treatment so Jinn instructs Ardox and Zak to take Gallia back to their cruiser and travel to Rhinnal where she can receive treatment. Jinn wants to find out why the Trade Federation was ordering the starfighters and remains on the planet with his padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Meanwhile, aboard a Trade Federation battleship at the edge of the Colonies, Viceroy Nute Gunray hears from Darth Sidious, who asks where his new hyperdrive starfighters are. Gunray replies that the freighter should have arrived fifteen minutes ago, and he cannot explain the delay. Sidious informs him the Jedi Council has learned of the existence of the starfighters but that they do not know of the Trade Federation's involvement. Sidious requests that Gunray go to the factory on Esseles to ensure the ships are on their way and also requests Gunray silence whomever leaked information to the Jedi Council. Trinkatta meets up with Jinn and Kenobi. Jinn mentions that the Bartokks travel in groups of fifteen, so thirteen must still be on the planet and perhaps know more about the starfighters. Jinn then lifts up Trinkatta by his shoulders and places the Kloodavian in the back of his speeder, exclaiming that they can not part ways yet as they still have the starfighters to locate. + +The reader's character, either a Jedi or an ally of the Jedi, is part of a Jedi task force sent to the planet of Corulag to rescue a Force-sensitive infant, Teela Panjarra, from a scientist who has kidnapped her in order to study the Force. The scientist, Frexton, took the girl to a military academy on that world, where he is Chief Scientist of the Academy's Science Service. When the character reaches a nursery on Level 7 of the Science service tower, the character finds that it has been attacked by Bartokk assassins with several X10-D draft droids, at least one of which is armed with a plasma bomb. The character resolves to prevent the assassins from detonating the bomb, which would kill the children of Level 7 and Teela Panjarra. Two X10-Ds enter the nursery. Because the character thinks the assassins may be using equipment that allows them to see things within their draft droids' optical range, the character dispatches them quickly so their operator will think it was an accident. That done, the character searches both droids and discovers the one with the plasma bomb. The character tells the task force that he or she will stop the Bartokks and save Panjarra while they lead the tower's occupants outside. The character deactivates the first bomb while they do so, giving it to a damaged security droid to fully disassemble. After the droid does so, two Bartokk assassins arrive from an emergency stairwell to check upon the disabled droids and find the security droid. The character kills them and uses a comlink to warn the Jedi team about Bartokks in the stairs. While the character speaks with one of the Jedi, the Bartokks jam transmissions in the tower. Frexton informed the Jedi before they arrived on Corulag that he had sequestered Panjarra from the other children in her own nursery. The character tries to use a computer at the nursery's security checkpoint to pinpoint the girl's location, but the Bartokks have destroyed a power terminal and the building is without power. After discerning her location, the character finds that Frexton lied, she is actually in a laboratory on Level 58, and proceeds to her in a turbolift. Suddenly, two assassins plunge into the room through an air vent and destroy the security droid with their cryogen whips, but the character kills them. Upon reaching Level 58 and unlocking an access door, the character is confronted by a security droid that received orders from the lower levels to evacuate the building of organic life. After dealing with the droid, the character uses an interactive map of the level to locate the laboratory in which Panjarra is lodged. Upon entering the dark room, the character sees Frexton lower Teela Panjarra into a Live Organism Comfort Conveyor. The character demands his surrender and Frexton draws a blaster, which the character destroys. Two assassins and two X10-Ds ride up the building's side on a window-washing drone and one uses a Squib battering ram to break a window and enter Level 58. While Frexton cowers from the invaders, the character destroys the droids, kills one Bartokk, and mortally wounds the other. The character then interrogates the survivor and learns the Bartokks plan to blow up the tower with three bombs, but his prisoner expires before revealing who hired them to do so. The character takes his dead prisoner's X10-D remote control and finding the second plasma bomb in one of the fallen droids. Two grappling hooks fly through the window and the character finds two more Bartokks ascending to Level 58. After killing them, the character goes about deactivating the bomb and Frexton takes Teela Panjarra while the character is busied. Instead of deactivating the bomb and allowing Frexton to flee, the character uses the lab's waste disposal equipment to destroy it and chases after him. Frexton has sealed of the door into an adjoining lab with an energy shield, so the character breaks in and again demands Frexton's surrender. + +Cloak of Deception is told in four parts: Dorvalla, Coruscant, The Outlying Systems, and The Inner Circle. Shortly before the Battle of Naboo, Darth Sidious is in the middle of his plans. As Senator Palpatine, he manipulates Supreme Chancellor Valorum and other senators. As the Sith Master, he begins to slowly put the Neimoidians and the Trade Federation in position for his blockade of Naboo. A terrorist group known as the Nebula Front threatens the activities of the Trade Federation. They are protesting the actions of the group and will resort to any means necessary to disrupt the Trade Federation. They have hired Captain Arwen Cohl to carry out terrorist acts against their business, including robbing a Trade Federation ship of aurodium ingots, worth billions in orbit of the planet Dorvalla. However, Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi are hot on the trail of the terrorists. Though Cohl escapes, he is forced to crash-land and all but him and two of his crew members, Rella and Boiny, perish. He later flees in his ship, the Hawk-Bat. Fearing more trouble, the Trade Federation petitions the Galactic Senate to allow them to increase their number of droid fighters, battle droids, and other defenses. Valorum considers this, but only if he can tax some of the trade routes they hold. This sparks a debate and a summit on Eriadu is scheduled to be held on the matter. Taking extreme measures, the Nebula Front sets plans in motion to assassinate Supreme Chancellor Valorum at the summit to prevent the taxation. Cohl has been hired by a mysterious being known only as Havac. He travels throughout the Outer Rim, hiring several experienced assassins. Unknown to him however, Havac has another plan. Meanwhile, the Jedi Council, along with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, steps in to track down Captain Cohl and the would-be assassins. On Eriadu, Cohl dispatches his helpers throughout the capital city. He is ambushed by Havac after realizing the true target. Most of the assassins are captured by the Jedi outside the summit building, but one remains inside. A sniper, he has been given the order to fire at, but miss, Valorum. The Jedi find Cohl and his partner Boiny, who, wounded, agrees to help them. They discover the sniper a second too late, but are surprised when he misses Valorum. Then Cohl remembers the true intent of Havac: to assassinate the Trade Federation Directorate. Cohl tackles Havac and kills him, though he and Boiny are mortally wounded in the attempt. Suddenly, the battle droids draw their blasters, influenced by the single droid present that didn't require a Central Control Computer to act. With a shield activated for safety, the members of the Trade Federation are trapped. The droids kill them all while the crowd watches, stunned. The only survivors were the Neimoidian members, who were away to their ship which had been tampered with. In the ensuing shock, the bill to tax is passed by the Senate. Later, the leading members of the Federation are named. They are all Neimoidians. Darth Sidious later meets Nute Gunray on the bridge of his ship, suggesting they invade Naboo for revenge against Palpatine, who helped pass the bill. Little do they know that it is just part of the Sith Lord's plan for control of the galaxy. + +Aboard the Trade Federation freighter Saak'ak, Nute Gunray finds that his second-in-command Hath Monchar, the Deputy Viceroy of the Federation, has gone missing. Unfortunately, it is too late to do anything about it, because at that moment, Darth Sidious contacts Gunray. The Dark Lord of the Sith questions Gunray about the missing Neimoidian. Gunray panics and tells Sidious that Monchar is sick. However, the Sith Lord sees through the lie, and when the conversation ends, he sends his apprentice Darth Maul after the missing Deputy Viceroy. Meanwhile, Jedi Padawan Darsha Assant prepares for her final mission before becoming a Jedi Knight. She will be sent to the Crimson Corridor in the Zi-Kree Sector of Coruscant. There, she must pick up a former Black Sun employee named Oolth the Fondorian who is willing to trade information about the recent reorganization in the upper ranks of the criminal syndicate in exchange for protection by the Jedi Order. Unfortunately, when she does find Oolth, the ship they were supposed to travel in is damaged by raiding thugs who try to kill Darsha and Oolth. Though the Padawan is able to fend them off, the two of them have no choice but to zip-line up to the top of a building to get to the Jedi Temple. Bad luck strikes again when hawk-bats attack the two of them, resulting in Oolth falling off of Darsha just as she arrives at the top of the building. Knowing that she has failed since Oolth died, she neglects to mention this to the Jedi Council and instead only informs her Master Anoon Bondara over her failure. Bondara agrees to keep Oolth's death a secret from the Jedi Order until they find Oolth's body to confirm his death. They travel back to the Crimson Corridor, and even though Oolth's body is not where it was supposed to when he fell, Bondara and Darsha still conclude that he is indeed dead, because at this point, there is no doubt that scavengers would have taken his corpse already. Darth Maul eventually finds Hath Monchar and learns from him, while interrogating the helpless Neimoidian, the latter had sold a Sith holocron to a man named Lorn Pavan and his protocol droid partner I-5YQ. Maul is aware that this Holocron happens to contain all of the information regarding Darth Sidious's plans in bringing down the Jedi Order and taking over the Republic. Maul executes Monchar for this treachery against Sidious by decapitating him with his lightsaber, and sets off to find Pavan and I-Five. When he does, he ends up chasing them so that he can kill the two of them before they can reveal the information in the Holocron to the Jedi Order. As they travel back to the Jedi Temple to report to the Council regarding Oolth the Fondorian's death, Darsha and Bondara run into Pavan and I-Five just as they are being chased by Darth Maul. Bondara confronts Maul alone while Darsha leads the others to safety. During the battle, Master Bondara sacrifices himself by exploding Maul's speeder with his own lightsaber, giving Darsha, Lorn, and I-Five time to escape. After a long chase through the bowels of Coruscant, battling Cthons, a Taozin, and other dangers, the group is once again tracked down by Darth Maul. Assant does battle with Maul while I-Five carbon freezes Pavan in an attempt to hide and protect him. After a large explosion which Darsha enacted, thus sacrificing herself, Darth Maul can sense no life in the warehouse and believes all of his targets are dead. He heads back to his master with news of success. Pavan is thawed out and this time, he starts hunting Maul. Although he was able to get the drop on Maul using a taozin limb, he is duped into giving the Sith Holocron to Senator Palpatine, who is secretly Darth Sidious. Palpatine lies that he will give the Holocron to the Council and sends Pavan to a hospital, since, just as he is taking the Holocron from Maul, Pavan has his arm cut off by the Sith Lord. In the end, Maul confronts Pavan in the hospital privately, and the Sith Lord decides to give the man a quick death for his abilities by impaling him with his lightsaber. Pavan dies facing his death bravely, with Maul secretly admiring him for that trait. With that, Maul leaves, mission accomplished. + +Two Jedi knights, Qui-Gon Jinn and a young Obi-Wan Kenobi, along with a Gungan outcast named Jar Jar Binks, must help Queen Amidala save her world from the greedy Trade Federation. Along the way, they discover a young boy, named Anakin Skywalker, who has the potential to be a powerful Jedi himself. Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, are dispatched to the planet of Naboo to settle a dispute between the Trade Federation and Queen Amidala. The Federation has blockaded Naboo in order to force them into signing an unfavorable trade agreement. Unknown to the galactic senate, the Federation has formed an alliance with Darth Sidious, a Lord of the Sith whose Order the Jedi thought to have been extinct for a millennia. Before negotiations even have a chance to start, the viceroy attempts to assassinate Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, but the two Jedi manage to thwart this attempt. On board the Federation's main ship, they discover a droid invasion army. After escaping to the planet's surface, the two plan to warn Amidala of the approaching army. With the help of Jar Jar Binks, an outcast Gungan, they make their way to Queen Amidala's palace in the capital city of Theed. To avoid signing the treaty, Amidala escapes with Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Captain Panaka and Jar Jar Binks and heads to Coruscant, the galactic seat of government. Amidala intends to present her case to the Galactic senate. En route, they divert to the desert planet Tatooine for repairs to their damaged ship. At a salvage shop, Qui-Gon, Padme, and Jar Jar meet Anakin Skywalker, a young slave boy. Watto, Anakin's master, refuses to sell the part Qui-Gon needs for Republic credits, and Qui-Gon must somehow raise money. As a sudden desert storm approaches, Anakin offers the group refuge at his home. Qui-Gon discovers Anakin possesses undeveloped Jedi abilities and believes he may be the Chosen One destined to return balance to the Force. He's further convinced when Anakin's mother, Shmi, says Anakin was conceived without a biological father. To help Qui-Gon get the part for the spaceship, Anakin offers to enter his own racer in a dangerous pod race. Qui-Gon bets Watto the Queen's space ship and the entire winner's purse against the part for the ship and Anakin's freedom. Greedy Watto accepts the bet, certain that Anakin will lose. Anakin wins and Watto reluctantly frees him. Wanting a better life for her son, Shmi allows Anakin to leave with Qui-Gon to become a Jedi. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are unaware they have been tracked to Tatooine by Darth Maul, a Sith Lord and Darth Sidious's apprentice. Maul attacks the group as they are about to take off, but they escape. On Coruscant, Qui-Gon reports the reemergence of the Sith to a skeptical Jedi Council. The council denies Qui-Gon's request to train Anakin as a Jedi, claiming he's too old, but Master Yoda has sensed something dangerous in him. Defiant, Qui-Gon says Anakin will be his padawan with or without the Council's approval. Meanwhile, Queen Amidala presents her case to the Senate. Senator Palpatine persuades her that Supreme Chancellor Valorum is a weak and ineffective leader. In fact, Valorum is attempting to aid Amidala but is stymied by a bureaucratic and increasingly corrupt senate. Urged by Palpatine, Amidala calls for a vote of no confidence against Valorum, and he is removed from office. Palpatine is nominated to replace him. Frustrated by the Senate's inaction, Amidala returns to Naboo accompanied by Qui-Gon, Panaka, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Jar Jar. Once there, they meet with the remainder of the Gungans in their sacred place, after Jar Jar has searched Otoh Gunga. There, Padme reveals herself as the true Amidala and convinces the Gungans to fight with them against the Trade Federation. The Gungans create a diversionary battle in order for the Naboo underground movement to gain entry to the palace. They gain entry and attempt to reach the viceroy, who has taken cover in the throne room. On the way, the party is ambushed by Darth Maul, and the two Jedi engage in a battle, while Anakin and R2-D2 take cover in a starfighter. He attempts to help Padme by firing at droids that have also ambushed them. He inadvertently presses the power switch, which activates the autopilot to take him to the space battle to knock out the droid control ship. There is a heated battle in space which ends with Anakin destroying the control ship. Padme reaches the viceroy in the throne room, but her party is captured by droidekas. Sabe arrives with a diversion, and the viceroy sends all troops after her, thinking that Padme is a decoy. Padme gets two blasters out of her throne and captures the viceroy. Meanwhile, the Jedi continue their duel with Maul, and go through many rooms and walkways, until they are separated by laser walls. Qui Gon and Maul get through and continue their duel, while Kenobi watches helplessly. Qui-Gon is eventually slain by Maul, and Kenobi continues the fight and almost defeats Maul before he is knocked into a plasma input chute. There, Maul attempts to knock him down, but Kenobi performs a Force jump out of the pit, summoning his master's lightsaber with his last remaining strength. He lands and cuts Maul in half. Qui-Gon's last wish is for Kenobi to train Anakin as a jedi. This wish is granted by Yoda at Qui-Gon's funeral, as well as making Kenobi a Jedi knight, seeing his killing of Darth Maul, a Sith lord, as a sufficient trial. + +Maul discusses being born on Iridonia and taken from home by Darth Sidious at a young age. In early chapters, he is depicted as sleeping on a hard floor in order to develop his feelings of rage. A pivotal step in his training is a confrontation divised by Palpatine to make Darth Maul hate his master. After a grueling mission, Sidious confronts Maul ostensibly to kill him, stating that he has had a better apprentice all along. Maul passes the test by lunging into a battle only to discover that his master's lightsaber is a training saber. Before describing his mission to Naboo, Maul explains his choice to build and wield a double bladed lightsaber, taking after Exar Kun. Darth Sidious concludes the journal of Darth Maul after his apparent death on Naboo, summarizing the events leading to his apparent death. He concludes that his next apprentice will be flawless, unlike Darth Maul was. Sidious is then unsure of what to do with the journal, either to add it to the Sith archives or destroy it. + +Twelve year old Anakin Skywalker was planning on participating in an illegal race in the garbage tunnels under Coruscant. Before the race started, another contestant, a Blood Carver named Ke Daiv, tried to assassinate Anakin. Obi-Wan Kenobi rescued his young Padawan just in time and together they made their way out of the garbage pit. Afterwards, they returned to the Jedi Temple to appear before the Council. Mace Windu, one of the four Jedi Masters present in the Council, headed up the inquisition. In the middle of the meeting Thracia Cho Leem came in and helped Anakin convince the Council and Obi-Wan that what he needed was a mission. The mission Obi-Wan and Anakin were assigned sent them to a very strange and mysterious planet in the Gardaji Rift by the name of Zonama Sekot. They were sent there to find Thracia's former apprentice, Vergere, whose last mission was on this planet, and also to purchase a Sekotan spacecraft. The ship that they took to Zonama Sekot, the Star Sea Flower, was the same ship Vergere had rode about three years earlier when she began her mission. On both occasions, it was piloted by a male Priapulin, Charza Kwinn who had helped the Jedi for over a century. Meanwhile, Raith Sienar and Commander Wilhuff Tarkin of the Republic Outland Regions Security Force had been making plans. Tarkin helped Sienar become commander of the Admiral Korvin which carried three landing craft, one hundred Trade Federation troops, and over three thousand droids. Sienar was to use this ship, along with three smaller vessels, to conquer Zonama Sekot. Tarkin, after sending Sienar on his way, headed to Coruscant to support their effort politically. Before the Admiral Korvin arrived at Zonama Sekot, the Star Sea Flower came out of hyperspace near its destination. Obi-Wan and Anakin got to view the beautiful dancing red and purple pinwheel made by the red giant and the white dwarf that dominated the skies of Zonama Sekot. The northern hemisphere of the planet was covered with unusual tree like foliage called boras, while the southern hemisphere was covered by a silvery cloud layer. The Star Sea Flower landed, as directed by the Orbital Control of Zonama Sekot, in the far north of the planet and the two Jedi disembarked in a flurry of snow. Obi-Wan than ordered Charza Kwinn to keep the Star Sea Flower nearby in case they needed it for anything. Anakin and Obi-Wan were transported to a lush part of the planet located in the Middle Distance. They were greeted by Gann, a Ferroan, who explained to them a little about Zonama Sekot and the people that inhabited it and led them to their quarters where they were to stay the night. The next morning Obi-Wan and Anakin met Sheekla Farrs who informed them that they would meet their seed-partners today. She also told them that the seed-partners come out of a Potentium. Anakin did not know anything about the belief of a Potentium, but Obi-Wan knew a little bit about it and wanted to figure out why it was believed here. While they were talking, they traveled to Far Distance in a gondola hanging underneath a large airship. When they arrived they went through a ceremony at the end of which they entered a door in a massive stone which led to a great, open spherical chamber. There they saw thousands of living spike-covered balls above them around the edges of the chamber. The spikeballs soon started falling down and Anakin warned Obi-Wan "This is going to be bad! But whatever you do, don't be afraid!" When the great stone doors opened Sheekla Farrs called to Obi-Wan and Anakin. Obi-Wan got up first with three spikeballs clinging to him. Anakin, however, was under a great mound of shed spikes and shells and Obi-Wan and Gann had to help him up and carry him out. In all, Anakin had twelve seed-partners clinging to him; more than anyone had ever had, Farrs informed them. Soon Farrs and Gann removed the seed-partners that were clinging to Obi-Wan and Anakin and placed each one each in a Lamina box. Farrs explains that three of the seed-partners, one of Obi-Wan's and two of Anakin's, had chosen a client before, but that the client did not stay long enough to grow a ship. Obi-Wan and Anakin were left alone to eat, but after only ten minutes Gann came back in and informed them that before they could design and forge their ship they had to meet with the Magister who, he said, they would go to at his convenience. While the Admiral Korvin was still in hyperspace, Sienar ordered a Baktoid E-5 battle droid to his room and replaced its verbobrain with one of his own design so that it was now carrying his own programs. He did this in case Tarkin had ordered Ke Daiv to assassinate him. Once this was completed he called Ke Daiv to his quarters to find out a little more about him and to give him the order to take a smaller ship and get closer to Zonama Sekot to observe it. Then Sienar headed to the navigation deck of the Admiral Korvin and ordered Captain Kett to load some programs of Sienar's own making into the ship manufactory and in all the Battle droids. Obi-Wan and Anakin were transported to the Magister in a Sekotan air transport. On the way they passed over a huge brown scar on the landscape that resembled a battle scar. When they arrived at the Magister's Palace they were greeted by a girl named Wind who said she was the Magister's daughter. The Magister seemed to know his two clients were Jedi, but he told them they could continue making their ship and then he left them. Both Anakin and Obi-Wan felt that something was not right but neither of them could quite figure it out. That night the two Jedi didn't get much sleep because of their seed-partners who they had to sleep with. They put up with it, however, and the next morning they were each given a red and black client robe and access to the library. Soon they were transported to Shappa Farrs's designing shop where they set about drafting and designing their ship. Later, after they had finished the designing process, they were transported again this time on their way to forge their ship. On the way Anakin met a girl who looked like the Magister's daghter they had seen but was much more real. She said her name was Jabitha Hal and that she was indeed the Magister's daughter but that she had not seen the young Padawan before. She explained that her father often put holograms of her in different places so that's how Anakin must have seen her. Then she continued to tell him about the different kinds of boras and how they work in the wild. Eventually the gondola landed and they disembarked, ready to begin the next leg of their journey. Ke Daiv, back from his scouting expedition, made his report to Raith Sienar. He said they had made their way in pretty close to the planet and back out without being scanned and then he proceeded to tell Sienar all he had observed. When Ke Daiv was finished, Sienar told him of his plan to get a Sekotan spacecraft and sent him down in a indiscreet starship to carry out the plan. Soon Sienar received the message from Ke Daiv that he had landed his ship on the northern plateau and that he was awaiting transport to Middle Distance. After this news, Sienar was sure positive he was going to overtake Zonama Sekot very soon. Obi-Wan and Anakin found that they did have farther to go before they forged their ship. Together with Jabitha and Gann they descended steep steps to a low-ceilinged cavern. After twenty minutes of walking, they reached an underground river and boarded a boat on which they traveled downstream for several hours. Finally, they docked and disembarked and after a long climb they reached the head of the factory valley. There Gann and Jabitha left them. Soon their forgers arrived riding Carapods. The leader of the forgers, Vagno, took their seed-partners and put them on the back of a carapod and then they headed to the forging pits. Again Sienar received a message from Ke Daiv but this time it was not good news. Ke Daiv had been rejected because the seed-partners had taken a dislike to him. Sienar decided to give Ke Daiv one more day. Tarkin had also sent a message communicating his impatience, so Sienar also decided he might have to resort to force soon. Sienar sent Tarkin a false message in reply that he was sure would have Tarkin running in as fast as he could but he would take a few days to get to Zonama Sekot. Anakin and Obi-Wan watched as Vagno and his crew tossed the seed-partners into a deep pit and dumped boras foliage and branches on them. Then the forgers poured red pellets on top of that and after a rather mysterious ceremony, Orange bolts of lightning tumbled down into the pit and soon after the seeds popped. Finally, they were ready to gather the seeds out of the pit. Obi-Wan and Anakin were again transported; this time on the backs of carapods to the shapers. The chief of the shapers, Vidge, placed pieces of a special fruit on each of the white seed-disks that the seed-partners had made when they exploded. When this was done Vidge told Obi-Wan and Anakin to each sit in one of the frames that would make their ship as they traveled to the Jentari. When they reached the Jentari the seed-disks were slapped around the frames and began to grow, mold, and join together until the ship was almost finished and just needed a few minor things. Raith Sienar's E-5 battle droid that he had loaded his programs into was vibrating and having trouble even standing up. Sienar could not find out what was wrong with the droid but Captain Kett said that five other battle droids had unexpectedly departed and he had to lock down the other droids so that they could not do anything similar. Sienar ordered a sweep of the entire system with active sensors and then he set about trying to figure out why the droids had malfunctioned. By the time the new Sekotan starship made it to the end of the factory valley it was early morning. Workers helped Anakin and Obi-Wan out of their new ship. One of the workers, Fitch, informed them that in the next couple of hours the workers would add a few things to the ship to bring it up to Republic standards and than they would work on learning the ship. But before the ship was completely finished Shappa, Sheekla, Gann, and Jabitha arrived with news that there were four fighters coming in. Before they could even decide what to do about that, starfighters arrived and started shooting at them. Obi-Wan was disabled while trying to protect his Padawan and separated from him. Anakin was confronted by the Blood Carver who threw him in the ship and climbed in after him. Jabitha had hid in the ship and was discovered by the Blood Carver who tossed her in the back seat. The Blood Carver ordered Anakin to fly under the threat of killing Jabitha. Raith Sienar watched Tarkin arrive with two converted midsized Hoersch-Kessel Drive, Inc. cargo haulers and ten Corellian Engineering light cruisers. Sienar had figured out that Tarkin had hidden a code in the battle droids so that when he activated it the droids would do what he wanted. Captain Kett informed Sienar that Tarkin's orders were to put Sienar under arrest and that Tarkin now controlled the Admiral Korvin. Sienar headed back to his quarters to await Tarkin there but on the way he was confronted by Republic troops who made a path for Tarkin to reach Sienar. Tarkin took Sienar to his own ship to talk with him. Obi-Wan was badly hurt, but not too badly for a Jedi Knight. Shappa told him that Sheekla was injured and that Gann was in shock, so Shappa would help the Jedi however he could. Obi-Wan asked for a spacecraft to follow Anakin. Shappa said he would fly Obi-Wan in his own ship. While they were chasing Anakin, Obi-Wan told Shappa why they were here and in return Shappa told Obi-Wan all he knew about Vergere. Obi-Wan then established a com-link channel with the Star Sea Flower so he could ask Charza Kwinn for help. Tarkin told Sienar he had already given orders to invade the planet. While this was happening they both watched the race between three ships, two they did not recognize and a YZ-1150. They also observed as many spacecraft rose from the Sekotan jungles. Tarkin then ordered Captain Mignay of the Rim Merchant Einem to release the first rank of starfighters. Anakin flew his new ship with ease, it would have been a joyful moment if Obi-Wan was with him. As easy as it was to fly, he had a hard time concentrating because a misting ghost kept floating around the cabin of the ship. Then the wraith took on form, but Anakin took his hands off the controls of the ship and it disappeared. While his hands were up there he tried a bit of Jedi persuasion and was doing pretty good when Ke Daiv noticed the ships that were following them and tensed up. He ordered Anakin to go faster to the Magister's mountain. When Anakin put his hands back on the controls the image appeared again, this time crystalline, and Anakin now recognized her as Vegere. She had left a message in the seed-partners and they were now delivering it to Anakin. At the end of it Anakin realized he must defeat Ke Daiv and anyone else who tried to stop him; the life of the Jedi was at stake. Shappa recognized the sky-mines above them as Republic vessels and thought maybe Obi-Wan did know something after all. But Obi-Wan was just as troubled about why they would be here. Shappa mentioned the Potentium and Obi-Wan started asking a few questions to try to finally get some answers. Shappa was reluctant to answer but eventually complied. Obi-Wan found out that the original Magister had been given Jedi training and that his name had been Leor Hal. He also found out that the people of Zonama Sekot had begun building weapons under the leadership of the second Magister. Obi-Wan now realized that the Magister was dead and that what they had seen was just a holo-image, but Shappa would not accept this. Anakin brought his ship in a low arc around the mountain, but he did not see the Magister's palace. Anakin circled again and again, higher this time. The third time both he and Ke Daiv saw sky-miners above them. Anakin told Ke Daiv that they would have to land somewhere to avoid them. Jabitha, desperate in her need to find her father, pointed out the ruins of a huge complex of buildings buried under a massive landslide. Anakin put down on a little portion of the old landing field next to the ruins. Shappa was forced to put down his ship about one-hundred kilometers form the Magister's mountain because of the sky-mines. Obi-Wan was becoming increasingly troubled; he saw though the Force that Anakin's future was mixed in a big knot with so many other futures in the next few hours. Everything depended on his Padawan. Jabitha, having a hard time breathing because of the altitude, entered a small door in the rubble. Ke Daiv motioned for Anakin to go in after her, but he refused. He was trying to control the banked anger that threatened to spill over and fill him. His eyes turned black as pitch and he cried out to any one who would listen "Stop it, please! I can't hold it back any longer!" Tarkin was surprised; Zonama Sekot had many more ships than he had thought. Tarkin was sure all the Sekotan ships would soon be destroyed anyway, but he was troubled by another thing. Rectangular bulges in the jungle that they had noticed earlier had begun to rise out of the ground. As he was observing this he also saw a beautiful Sekotan ship, different from any of the others. He ordered all sky mines away from the mountain and instead to go against the YT-1150. He was determined to capture the abandoned ship on the mountain. Shappa and Obi-Wan, still pinned down, watched though the ships sensors as the sky-mines abandoned the Magister's mountain and went after the Star Sea Flower. They decided that they would attempt a rescue of Anakin and Jabitha. Jabitha watched as Ke Daiv emerged from the shadow in which he and Anakin had fought. She looked at him and shrieked. His eyes were white and he was bleeding profusely. She called Anakin and the young sand-haired boy also emerged from the shadow. When Ke Daiv saw the Padawan he fell to his knees. Anakin hoped that Ke Daiv was not dying; he did not want to kill him this way. Jabitha left to find her father, but Anakin stayed with the Blood Carver as he slowly died. Then the boy who had killed him rose, turned around, and screamed. Anakin knew he needed to get Jabitha to safety before he could wrestle with what had just happened. So he entered the small door that Jabitha had entered a little while before. He made his way down the dark corridor inside until he ended up in the chamber where he and Obi-Wan had first met the Magister. While he was going there the ceiling shuddered and rocks started falling down. Jabitha was on her knees beside one of the piles of rubble in the circular chamber. Under the pile of rubble the Magister was buried. Again Anakin saw a vision of Vegere appear, but then she turned into the Magister. Anakin put Jabitha asleep using the force and then asked the image who he was. It replied "A friend of Vegere. I think my name, to some, is Sekot." Anakin and Sekot talked for a while and Anakin learned a little bit more about Zonama Sekot. When the roof of the chamber started falling in Sekot shored up the hallways as Anakin carried Jabitha out. As they exited the last door Jabitha woke up and saw a sky-mine delivery ship land beside them. A bulky soldier pulled Anakin away from Jabitha though he tried to stay with her. An officer told Anakin that his name was Tarkin and they entered the ship just as Jabitha cried out. Anakin was brought to the bay where his ship had been hoisted and left there with some guards. Shappa maneuvered his ship well and soon they were at the mountain. Shappa landed and Obi-Wan jumped out, dropped a kicking and screaming Jabitha in through the hatch and told Shappa to leave him there. Shappa hesitated but left him and Obi-Wan prepared to fight the incoming starfighters. Before the fight started Obi-Wan investigated the Blood Carver's body; something about it troubled him but he had no time to contemplate it. The starfighters had just started firing, one of them hitting Ke Daiv, when out of nowhere the Star Sea Flower came in and destroyed the two starfighters before they could even think of retaliating. Then Charza Kwinn directed his old YT-1150 to land beside Obi-Wan and soon the Jedi was in the cabin with Charza. "They have your Padawan," The Priapulin informed him, "Sit down and buckle up." Tarkin was beside himself with pride, but his enthusiasm was banked when he saw that Zonama Sekot was still not subdued. He decided to interview the boy before they docked with the Rim Merchant Einem When he went in and tried to talk with Anakin the young boy refused to help him. When Tarkin touched Anakin's shoulder his hand was burnt. Suddenly alarms rang out around the ship. The bay doors broke through and when the air pressure dropped Tarkin and Sienar left without a thought of the boy. Through the smoke and hot metal Anakin saw a hooded figure reflecting laser fire from the guards with a brilliant green lightsaber. Anakin cried out with joy but there was no time and he set to work getting their ship ready to leave. They had three minutes before a delay bomb that Charza Kwinn had put on the bay doors went off. In those minutes they had to load their ship up with fuel. Obi-Wan jumped in their Sekotan ship seconds before the explosion that propelled their ship out of the doors. The ship made it out with only a couple scrapes which quickly healed themselves. The path through space to Zonama Sekot's atmosphere was dangerous and filled with mines but Anakin made it to the upper layers of the atmosphere and on the way he told his Master about everything that had happened since they had been separated, especially about Sekot and Vergere's message. Tarkin, who had escaped in an escape pod with Sienar, was purple with rage. He ordered the captain of the Einem to destroy the cargo ship, all that remained on the planet, and Obi-Wan and Anakin. Soon the two Jedi found themselves surrounded by sky mines and starfighters and they decided they would have to go lower into the factory valley. Then the ship, which was connected to Sekot, told them that if they didn't want to go with the people of Zonama Sekot then they better find some way to get into a solar orbit, and fast. Obi-Wan told Anakin to do his best at getting them into free space and Anakin, expecting to die at any moment, drove them straight through the boiling atmosphere full of debris and flaming fuel. They broke through the atmosphere's outer edges but starfighters were still pursuing them until Charza Kwinn pushed up from behind them and lured most of the fighters away. Then the Einem hit them with a concentrated bolt of turbolaser fire. It caught their ship broadside and Anakin felt the ship's scream of pain. While Anakin was still lost in the pain the ship felt, Obi-Wan saw huge engines flare to life on Zonama Sekot; pushing the planet out of its orbit. All the ships around her were having a hard time compensating and were running into each other. "She's leaving!" Obi-Wan cried and indeed the planet of Zonama Sekot disappeared into hyperspace with only a faint, far-reaching tendril of farewell lingering behind. Anakin and the ship together worked to take themselves into hyperspace; the ship teaching him how to navigate the dimensions of space and he giving all the skills he possessed in return. The ship was giving all it had but it would not be able to get them to their destination; It's injures were too great. While Anakin was sleeping, Obi-Wan found a closer station, on the planet of Seline, that Jedi sometimes used. He set it's coordinates as their new destination and the ship's display affirmed that they could make it there. Obi-Wan also sent out a message to the Jedi Temple asking Mace Windu or Tharacia Cho Leem to meet them at the outpost to council Anakin. When Anakin woke up he told Obi-Wan he was going to give their ship a name; the Jabitha. Then Anakin asked "Our ship is dying, isn't she?" "Yes" Obi-Wan replied. Anakin's face went blank and Obi-Wan thought "The boy loses everything he loves, and yet still he is strong." The Jabitha, in a hanger on Seline, was rapidly losing its color as Anakin sat before it and watched. Thraica and Obi-Wan entered; Thraicia approached Anakin and started her counseling and healing while Obi-Wan waited outside. "Self-knowledge is the most difficult of our many journeys." Thraica told the apprentice before they started. He simply replied "I know." No more Sekotan ships were made. In a few years, all of them were dead or destroyed. Tarkin and Raith Sienar managed to bring the crippled fleet home. Inspired by what he called a great example, Tarkin redeemed himself before the Supreme Chancellor with secret plans for a moon-sized battle station. Tarkin claimed sole credit for the design. Sienar did not dispute him; it is a brainchild he was eager to disown. Sienar had a bad feeling about such an expensive concentration of might. The new order found both Tarkin and Sienar useful. Charza Kwinn and his shipmates survived and reached Coruscant, where they were assigned new missions. In later years, with the rise of the Empire and a decline in cordial relations with nonhumans, Charza became a smuggler and pirate to feed his food-kin. He limited his prey to Imperial vessels. A legend grew in the galaxy: of a rogue planet that wandered between the stars, forever lost, ruled by either a madman, a madwoman, or a saint, the legends were never clear which. Months after Thracia Cho Leem counseled Anakin Skywalker, without explanation, she left the Jedi order. Obi-Wan Kenobi had his work cut out for him. The young man, his Padawan, was growing stronger, overcoming disappointment, acquiring discipline. But the knot in Anakin's future was not completely loosened. The trial was not over; not over for decades. No balance. No balance yet. + +Five years after the Battle of Naboo, a smuggler's freighter, the Bargain Hunter is fleeing trouble with its crew of three: Captain Dubrak Rak Qennto, Maris Ferasi and a very young Jorj Car'das. They are on the run from Progga the Hutt, and to escape, Car'das punches in random hyperspace coordinates that send the ship into the Unknown Regions. Progga's ship manages to follow them, and Progga calls the Hunter on the comm, believing that they've made an intentional jump to a secret cache of treasure, and they're going to lead him to it. Before anything else can happen, the Hunter is captured by a flotilla of unknown ships. Progga's ship, though larger and more heavily armed and armored than any one of the unknown ships, is utterly destroyed when he tries to fight back. Aboard the flagship, the smugglers are introduced to Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo of the Chiss Ascendancy Fleet, who generously offers to repair their ship and and send them on their way, provided they can bear with him and be his guests during the flotilla's patrol cruise deeper into the Regions. The story then shifts to Coruscant, where Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth and his Padawan, Lorana Jinzler, interrupt a meeting between Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and his aide, Kinman Doriana. Yet again, C'baoth demands more funding for his proposed Outbound Flight Project, insisting that its importance outweighs any of the other petty problems the Republic is facing. Doriana suggests a compromise: if C'baoth can resolve a mining strike on the planet Barlok, it will free up enough immediate funds to finish the project. After C'boath and Lorana leave, Palpatine orders his aide to keep an eye on C'boath, to make sure that his well-known arrogance doesn't cause him to do something foolish. On returning to his apartment to pack, Doriana makes a call to his real master, Darth Sidious, who has already ordered him to prepare to travel to Barlok. After C'baoth demands, and receives, permission from the Jedi Council to travel to Barlok, Master Mace Windu orders Obi-Wan Kenobi and his Padawan, Anakin Skywalker, to Barlok for the same reason: to keep an eye on C'baoth. Back in the Unknown Regions, Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo is taking the opportunity to learn more from his guests, teaching them his language, and vice-versa. When he says that the Chiss have a low view of smugglers, Maris objects that they are actually privateers - mercenaries employed to steal supplies and food for oppressed peoples - a somewhat fanciful lie that Qennto sold Maris on a while ago. Qennto privately regards the alien Commander as a naif, but Car'das is quick to discern that Mitth'raw'nuruodo is actually very cunning and dangerous. The young officer sees something similar in Car'das, and the two begin spending so much time together that the Commander allows Car'das to call him by his core name, Thrawn. In an unexpected skirmish with one of the Chiss's most deadly enemies, the Vagaari, Thrawn is badly wounded, though the battle goes in their favor. The flotilla limps home, and the three smugglers are introduced to Thrawn's brother, Thrass, a political official of some importance, and Admiral Ar'alani of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force. On Barlok, C'baoth and Lorana meet up with Obi-Wan and Anakin. C'baoth leaves Lorana with the other two Jedi while C'baoth goes to arrange the negotiations to resolve the mining dispute. In his absence, the other three Jedi, through a series of chance encounters, discover a plot to sabotage the negotiations by some disgruntled workers egged on by a disguised Doriana. When the negotiations start, the saboteurs launch a missile that only C'baoth is powerful enough in the Force to stop. Seeing his power, the council members are scared enough to quickly resolve the conflict. Between the sudden cash flow caused by the mining resolution, and his new prestige as a Jedi hero, C'baoth quickly receives the necessary funds to finish Outbound Flight, and immediately begins organizing a group of Jedi Masters and Knights, and civilian colonists to travel to the Unknown Regions. Lorana is ambivalent about whether she wants to leave her home behind, but while walking around the Jedi Temple, she is confronted by one of the workers, whom she has caught staring at her. It turns out that he is Dean Jinzler, her brother. As she was taken from her family as a baby like all Padawans, she never had the chance to know him, but she is shocked and hurt when he vents his jealousy of her. Dean believes that their parents always overlooked him because of her, simply because of the accident of her being a Force-sensitive. When he turns his back on her and walks away, Lorana decides that she has nothing in this galaxy worth staying for, and can't wait to leave on Outbound Flight. Before leaving, C'baoth asks for, and receives, permission to promote her to Jedi Knight. Obi-Wan and Anakin also agree to accompany the voyage for at least part of the way. When the titanic vessel is finally launched into space for its long journey toward the outside of the galaxy, Doriana checks the crew and passenger manifest and informs Darth Sidious. Sidious is pleased at first, but becomes enraged when he learns that Anakin is aboard, and orders Doriana to get him off the vessel immediately. Then he reconsiders, saying he will do so himself, while Doriana departs for his main mission. Doriana, under the alias Commander Stratis, rendezvous with Trade Federation Vicelord Siv Kav, commanding a battle fleet powerful enough to destroy Outbound Flight, waiting at the edge of the galaxy. Aboard Outbound Flight, C'baoth appears to be taking the opportunity to transform his ship into his own personal vision of what he believes the Jedi Order, and by extension, the entire galaxy, should be. His decisions encompass every aspect of the passengers' lives, right down to the decor of the common rooms. Additionally, he orders that the colonists' children be sorted for Force-sensitives, who should immediately be separated from their parents. Midway through the voyage, Palpatine meets the vessel personally, saying he has an urgent diplomatic errand for Obi-Wan and Anakin. They depart with the Chancellor, playing no further part in the events to come. Meanwhile, the Chiss fleet, under the command of the recovered Thrawn, stumbles on the Trade Federation battle fleet. Though massively outgunned, Thrawn remains calm, and tells the fleet that they are trespassing into Chiss space. Kav arrogantly orders his forces to wipe out the tiny Chiss fleet. With some technical advice from Car'das, coupled with his own innate tactical genius, Thrawn devastates the Trade Federation fleet utterly, leaving Kav no choice but to surrender. Seeing an opportunity where the Neimoidian does not, Doriana pleads with Thrawn to let them carry out their original mission, going so far as to initiate a direct conversation between Lord Sidious and Thrawn. Sidious explains that Outbound Flight, and the Jedi, are a grave threat to the Republic -- specifically, because Outbound Flight's path will take them directly into the projected home of an immensely powerful and hostile alien empire. Sidious's agents discovered the existence of this empire some years ago, and since then he has been doing his best to prepare the Core Worlds for the invasion he believes is inevitable. If Outbound Flight reaches the aliens first, the invasion may come too soon. Thrawn appears to take Sidious seriously, and agrees to help Doriana and Kav destroy Outbound Flight. Car'das, becoming increasingly worried that Thrawn is holding him hostage, escapes the Chiss fleet in a small ship, but is captured by the Vagaari. Car'das shares everything he knows to prevent his own death, and the Vagaari become very interested upon learning about the Trade Federation's battle droid technology -- despite their spacefaring capabilities, the Vagaari have almost no droid technology, and the idea of a manufactured army of remote killers is immensely appealing to the aggressive race. The Vagaari commander decides to return to the Trade Federation fleet and take their technology. When Outbound Flight finally makes it to the edge of the galaxy, Thrawn, much to Doriana and Kav's consternation, insists on giving the vessel the opportunity to turn back. He meets with C'baoth and Lorana aboard the ship, and warns them that a Sith Lord is planning to destroy them. But in his arrogance, C'baoth disregards Thrawn's warnings and sends him back to his ship. As the two sides prepare for battle, the Vagaari arrive. Sensing their hostility, the Jedi aboard Outbound Flight band together in a telepathic link to confuse the Vagaari. But Thrawn takes advantage of their distraction to open fire on both hostile forces. After severe damage has been inflicted on the vessel, C'baoth gives in entirely to his rage and falls to the dark side, choking Thrawn through the Force. Rather than let such a valuable officer be killed, Doriana orders the fleet to drop a lethal radiation bomb into the vessel's bridge, killing C'baoth and all the other Jedi on board, except Lorana. The Vagaari receive a sound thrashing at Thrawn's hands, and are forced to retreat, but not before Car'das escapes their ship. Because Chiss military doctrine is harshly against the use of preemptive strikes, Thrawn is immediately reprimanded by his superiors, and recalled to Chiss space. While he is preparing to return home, Thrass and Car'das investigate the heavily damaged Outbound Flight, and find Lorana. Knowing that the vessel cannot remain intact in space for much longer, Thrass orders Car'das to rejoin Thrawn, while he and Lorana attempt to pilot the vessel to a nearby planet. As they near the planet, the vessel begins to roll out of control, meaning the side of the ship where the majority of the survivors are trapped will crash first. Lorana and Thrass, despite their differences, see the choice before them and make it together: they must stay in the ship's command console and steer the ship so that their side crashes instead. They prepare to die together, hoping only that they succeed in saving lives, and Lorana intones, "May the Force be with us." Thrawn releases Car'das, Qennto and Maris and reveals to Car'das that he had been feeding his suspicions to send him to the Vagaari, with the intent of luring them to their destruction. Thrawn wishes them well, and then prepares to face his own exile as punishment for his actions. Kav insists that Thrawn cannot be allowed to live, since he knows too much about Lord Sidious. Doriana agrees, but, when he and Kav meet face-to-face with Thrawn, realizes that a being as unique and useful as Thrawn must not be killed. Kav, with his wounded pride, then attempts to kill Thrawn himself, but ends up killing himself with a ricochet from his own hold-out blaster. Then Thrawn reveals why he believed Sidious: because the Chiss have indeed encountered the aliens the Sith Lord is preparing for, and know even better than Sidious how much of a threat they pose. The Chiss calls these aliens the Far Outsiders. Thrawn then sends Doriana back to his master, confident that they will meet again someday. Qennto, Maris, and Car'das depart in their repaired ship, each of them a little richer for their experience, but also uneasy about their unnerving encounter with the master strategist, Thrawn. + +Evil scientist Jenna Zan Arbor is hiding on Romin. The ruler of the planet, Roy Teda, is a dictator who shields criminals in exchange for large sums of money. Obi-Wan and Anakin team up with Siri and Ferus, taking on the identities of the Slam gang, in order to get onto Romin and capture Zan Arbor. When they arrive on the planet, the are contacted by the leader of the Romin citizen resistence, Joylin. They agree to help the resistance to overthrow the current oppressive government in exchange for Zan Arbor's safe extrication from the planet. But after the plan falls apart, the Jedi receive a call from the escaped Teda and Zan Arbor, requesting to meet with them. After their Slam-gang cover is blown, the Jedi are left to fight the rest of Teda's army until they receive assistance from a Jedi rescue team, which includes Jedi High Council member, Master Mace Windu. After arriving back at the capital, the Jedi approach Joylin. Soon after, they realize that Joylin was bribed by Zan Arbor to set her free along with Teda. The two criminals escape the planet, but with a tracking device placed on their ship by Anakin. + +Jedi Master Luminara Unduli and her Padawan Barriss Offee go to the planet Ansion to make sure the world stays in the Galactic Republic rather than joining the growing powers of the Separatists. After an attack on the two female Jedi by a group of mercenaries, they are instantly saved by Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker and the four Jedi begin a journey to meet with Ansion's government for them to settle with the Republic. However, the foursome's attempts become a bit more complicated with the machinations of Ansion's residing Hutt, Soergg Vosadii Bezhin, who instead wants Ansion to join the Separatists. Nevertheless, the four Jedi make it through all impossible odds with the help of two clanless Ansionians that originally worked for Soergg and had their minds restored to a more fixed way thanks to Barriss's healing talents from the Force. After getting through much of Ansion's wildlife, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Luminara and Barriss make two Ansion clans make a peace treaty that ended their war, thus gaining more support for the Republic. Getting through more of Soergg the Hutt's machinations, the four Jedi eventually coerce Ansion to join the Republic on its voting day, and they successfully have Ansion side with the Republic. The prologue features Shu Mai, and the epilogue features a cameo by Shu Mai and Count Dooku. + +Boba Fett starts out on Kamino, the rainy world in the Outer Rim. His greatest wish is to be just like his father and become the next great bounty hunter of the galaxy. Boba's father leaves with Zam Wesell to go on a mission. When Jango returns he soon tells Boba of Zam's death. Boba is then given a black book, which his father tells him to open only in the case of his death. Soon after Jango's return to Kamino, a Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi, shows up to investigate Jango Fett and see the clone army. Jango and Obi-Wan are introduced but after the meeting Jango informs his son that they are leaving. Boba goes to Whrr, the Kaminoan librarian droid to return some books, but accidentally drops off the black book as well. Boba runs and enters Slave I, his father's ship, and watches as his father and the Jedi battle on the landing platform which looks to have ended as Obi-Wan falls to the ocean of Kamino. The Jedi pursues and gives chase to Slave I. Jango released seismic charges inside an asteroid field and with no trace of the Jedi or his ship Jango and Boba both thought him to be dead. The father-son pair landed at a stalagmite city, on Geonosis. Boba is given a room to stay in and warned by Jango to be here when he gets back. Boba disobeys his father and leaves his room to explore the city. During his wandering he investigates a strange sound which turns out to be the droid factory. Aware of the trouble he would be in if caught, Boba hurries back to his room and gets there just before his father returns. His father reminds him to stay in his room. Boba, disobeying his father again, leaves the room for a second time. He ventures outside the city and explores the mesas and plateaus outside. He sees a sand snake which is being attacked by two massiffs. They spot Boba and charge at him. Boba kills one by running it off a cliff after slashing at it with a piece of mica. The other massiff runs off after being attacked. Boba wanders around and finds Obi-Wan Kenobi, somehow still alive after their space battle. Boba signals the guard by reflecting light off his piece of mica into the massiff's eyes. Droidekas attack and capture the Jedi, thanks to Boba’s warning. Boba returns to his room once more where his Father talks to him about disobedience. Jango then escorts Boba to the Arena for the executions of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala. Boba is fascinated by the three beasts, the reek, nexu, and acklay, who are to be the executioners. Boba watches as Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padme escape and with the help of the newly arrived Jedi and the clone army, attack the Separatists. This starts the Clone Wars. During the intense battle Boba sees his father die at Mace Windu's hand. When the battle is over, Boba takes his father’s armor and buries him. Boba then returns Slave I and opens the black book and finds a message from his father, telling him to seek Jabba the Hutt and Count Dooku. Boba remembers his father was recruited on one of the moons of Bogden and heads to Bogg 4. There he meets Aia, a pickpocket. He also meets many different people who tell him where Count Dooku is. He heads back to Slave I and finds that Honest Gjon has stolen his ship. Aia tells Boba to go to Gjon's workshop and reclaim his ship, but Gjon suggests a job instead. Gjon tells Boba how they could steal false credits to make some money. The three steal a whole basket of credits, but a security guard stops them. After Boba uses Slave I to hurl the security guard--in reality, a hijacker--into the atmosphere, the threesome celebrate quietly, and Aia pickpockets Boba, leaving him with no money. Boba goes back to Slave I and heads to the bar which he had been told was where he would find Count Dooku. The people who had told him to go there turn out to be bounty hunters. The bartender there holds Boba until another bounty hunter, Aurra Sing, steps in and stuns the giant bartender. She captures Boba and brings him to the trash planet of the galaxy, Raxus Prime. Aurra Sing then leaves Boba on the planet and flies off in Slave 1. Boba finds a concealed doorway in a trash pile that leads to Count Dooku's base. + +Young Boba Fett is brought to Count Dooku's lair on the planet of Raxus Prime by Aurra Sing. Boba Fett snoops around finding out what the Separatists are there for: the Force Harvester. Clone Troopers attack the planet's Separatist forces, rescue Boba Fett as an orphan taking him to a large ship in outer space. On board the Casanderri, Boba Fett hides himself under the name Teff and meets another orphan who he develops a friendship with. This bond is broken when Boba flees the ship when it lands on Cloud City. Boba Fett escapes to search for his ship Slave I which was taken by Aurra Sing. Both meet upon a moon and agree to get Boba Fett his father's money, in exchange for half. The two leave for Count Dooku. Meanwhile, on Excarga, the Separatists seized control over the planet. The Galactic Republic manages to launch a strike force and take back the planet. Several prison camps were liberated, but some prisoners were not found. + +Aurra Sing is bringing Boba and Slave I to Aargau. As soon as Boba saw the maze-like structure of the planet, he began to plot his escape, thinking that he could lose Aurra Sing by leaving her in the maze-like pyramid. There was an incident at customs in which Sing protested leaving her weapons behind, but the presence of an IG-series Assassin droid convinced her to comply. Fett was allowed to remain behind while Aurra Sing was escorted back to the ship to stow her weapons. While Boba was waiting, he noticed that Sing had forgotten to take the info card that allowed access to the Fett account. As soon as he had the card, he began to walk away, towards the turbolifts that gave access to the lower levels. Luckily for Boba, it was not Aurra Sing who pursued him, but a young clone trooper who had noticed that Fett had dropped his book and was returning it to him. Once again, due to his uncanny luck, Fett dodged Sing, and she grabbed the young clone, who was known as CT-9779. Boba soon walked away from the scene, and began to search for the bank where his father's money was kept. Before he did anything, he opened the book Jango gave him, which told him to never seek out help. While he was pondering what to do, a supposed Bimm named Nuri approached him. They conversed, and while they were talking, Boba noticed that Aurra Sing was in the same area that he was. Nuri led Boba to the Undercity, where he claimed his fathers fortune was. Eventually they arrived at a place where Nuri attempted to remove all the money from Boba's account. However Boba was able to stop Nuri. Nuri then revealed himself to be a Clawdite and took some of his money and ran off. Boba then learned where to get the rest of his money from and raced off to find it and after outsmarting Aurra Sing, he got the rest of his money and left Aargau in Slave I. + +With the Clone Wars raging across the galaxy, a new threat has emerged that plagues the Jedi. A series of new Jedi-killing droids, JK-13, have started to be manufactured on the planet Ord Cestus. Based on biotechnology, they have limited Force abilities that allow them to anticipate a Jedi's moves. Despite the fact that Ord Cestus is allied with the Republic, the Separatists have their eye on the droids and the planet. Seeing a possible threat emerging on the backwater planet, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine dispatches the Jedi and a squad of elite clone commandos to deal with the problem. They are led by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Kit Fisto. Obi-Wan Kenobi's mission is to approach the Cestian leadership and solve the crisis by diplomatic means. With the help of the mollusk-like Doolb Snoil, Obi-Wan engages the planetary leaders and the Five Families of Cestus Cybernetics. Meanwhile, Kit Fisto and a clone trooper squad are secretly dispatched to the planet to start fomenting a rebellion if the diplomatic approach fails. Fisto quietly travels among the working class of the planet and starts recruiting fighters for possible war. Those rebels are then trained by the clone troopers. Things are significantly complicated, though, when Count Dooku sends Asajj Ventress to stir things up. Amid this backdrop of political intrigue is the story of Alpha-class ARC Trooper A-98, or Nate. The ARC trooper, engineered to be more free thinking than his more common brethren, begins a journey of self awakening. His emotions develop and for the first time he begins to question why he is fighting for the Republic, something unthinkable for a clone trooper. More significant, though, is his growing love for Sheeka Tull, a pilot aiding Kit Fisto and a former flame of Jango Fett. When Obi-Wan and Snoil's plans for political negotiations falter, the Republic task force stationed on the planet shifts to Plan B, where Kit disguises himself as a Force-sensitive terrorist who is an old enemy of Obi-Wan's. When Kit captures the Five Families members, Obi-Wan confronts him and in an orchestrated duel, Obi-Wan sends Kit to run away and thus, with this, it appears that Ord Cestus will shift its attention away from the Separatists. Unfortunately, around the same time, Asajj Ventress happens to be on the planet, making a deal with a gang member named Trillot who could help out the Separatists in the Clone Wars, and Ventress places a camera in Obi-Wan and Kit's fight. Ventress then delivers the camera footage to Caiza Quill, one of the Five Families members and a cousin to Cestus's main ruler, G'Mai Duris, and when Quill presents this footage to the Five Families, the deal with the Republic is called off, thus resulting Obi-Wan and Kit, with the clone troopers, to start a rebellion against the Five Families. Obi-Wan tried to send Doolb Snoil off planet, but unfortunately, Obi-Wan's escape pod from the ship he was evacuating almost kills him when it crashes, and Snoil is also forced to evacuate back to Cestus as battle droid starfighters from the Separatists fire on him, which blows up the ship and kills the clone trooper, Xutoo, flying it. Meanwhile, as Nate's relationship with Sheeka Tull grows stronger, the clone trooper decides to call himself Jangotat, because since Nate is a clone of Jango Fett and Fett was Mandalorian, Jangotat is Mandalorian for Jango's brother. Obi-Wan and Kit also spend time befriending the clones, even teaching them how to do Jedi-performing techniques, and although the clones are unable to defeat the Jedi in combat, Obi-Wan and Kit are still impressed. As the Republic-formed rebellion lies low in the catacombs of Ord Cestus, the Jedi Killer droids are activated and they locate the rebellion in the catacombs. Many clones and rebels native to Cestus are killed, including Snoil who sacrificed his life to save Obi-Wan from one of the Jedi Killers. Jangotat is also almost killed by one of the Force-sensitive droids, but he is saved by Sheeka Tull, who departs the catacombs with the clone trooper and goes to the outskirts of the planet to a cult which could heal Jangotat's heavy wounds. As days pass on with Obi-Wan and Kit's rebellion striking against the Five Families' activities, Jangotat spends peaceful days in the cult which healed him, and with Sheeka. Eventually, Jangotat returns to the rebellion and reunites with the three other surviving clone troopers from the Jedi Killer attack; Forry, Sirty and Seefor. However, around the same time, things grow worse for the rebellion, as Obi-Wan receives a message personally from Chancellor Palpatine that if the conflict on Cestus isn't resolved in time, he will send Republic forces to bomb the planet from orbit. In the end, Obi-Wan and Kit are lead beneath Cestus by Trillot, who Obi-Wan has been making dealings with so maybe she could join the rebellion, and Obi-Wan and Kit are forced to confront Asajj Ventress and several other native Cestians. Meanwhile, Jangotat goes against Obi-Wan and Kit's orders to stay put with his clone brothers, and the rebelling clone trooper had to fight and defeat Forry for it. After Jangotat's victory, he travels with two of the rebel members, Thak Val Zsing and Resta Shug Hai, into the area where the Five Families are hiding from getting killed from the orbital bombing. When the trio are almost there, Jangotat and Zsing knock Resta unconscious because they didn't want her getting killed. Later, when the two soldiers are at the area, they are confronted by a Jedi Killer, but Zsing sacrifices himself by blowing himself up to defeat the droid. It isn't destroyed immediately, and Jangotat finds out that the reason for the droid's defeat was because of the explosion, it lost the serenity it had with the Force. Then Jangotat makes a holocron containing this information for either Obi-Wan or Kit, and he redirects the orbital assault into his area, killing him and all the Five Families. Back with Obi-Wan and Kit, Obi-Wan is still forced to fight the Cestians while Kit engages Ventress in a lightsaber duel. After Ventress defeats Kit and nearly kills him, Obi-Wan gets past the Cestians and duels Ventress himself. Their duel leads underwater at a nearby chasm where their rebreathers are knocked out, and after Obi-Wan makes a slash somewhere on Ventress with his lightsaber, the apprentice of Count Dooku disappears, leaving Obi-Wan the victor of the duel and he rescues Kit. Afterwards, the two Jedi and Sheeka Tull find Jangotat's holocron, gain the information and a funeral is held for Jangotat, where Obi-Wan secretly reveals to Sheeka that he knows Jangotat impregnated her somewhere near the end of their stay at the cult. Meanwhile, Ventress kills Trillot by slashing one of her lightsabers at her because of Trillot's failure that was the destruction of the Jedi Killers by Jangotat's machinations, and also that Trillot accidentally saw Ventress' dreams of death and destruction whenever the gangster slept. Afterwards, Ventress departs Cestus and Trillot's brother, Fizzik, is left to wonder if he will take his relative's crime business. After Jangotat's funeral, Sheeka looks at the clone trooper's grave and silently promises him that their child will have a name, not a number that clones of Jango Fett are regularly given. + +Anakin Skywalker, in the Jedi Temple, receives a call from his Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kenobi is on another mission, and Anakin is forced to stay in the Temple to continue his training. Anakin then meets Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon and over the next several hours, the two become sparring partners in lightsaber dueling in the training chambers. They eventually dine together, too. Meanwhile, on the planet Praesitlyn, which is a major communications center for the Republic, the planet prepares itself from an invasion from Separatist forces lead by Admiral Pors Tonith. All of Praesitlyn's defense force is destroyed by Tonith's forces comprising more than one million battle droids, but two of Praesitlyn's residents survive the onslaught: Odie Subu, a female soldier in General Khamar's Praesitlyn army, and Erk H'Arman, a pilot observing the surface of the planet, meet up together and lay low from Tonith's forces. As for Tonith himself, he captures the communications center, operated by the famous Reija Momen, and holds her and her employees hostage. Tonith then forces Momen to read a manuscript that will be sent out to the Republic to threaten them to surrender Praesitlyn over to the Separatists. However, Momen disobeys at the last words and cries for the Republic to attack Tonith's forces and defeat them. While the Republic on Coruscant debates over Momen's message, and whether they should send clone troopers or not, a major rebellion on Praesitlyn begins against Tonith and his Separatist forces lead by General Zozridor Slayke and his many soldiers. Erk and Odie are then saved from certain death in Praesitlyn's heat by Slayke's forces, and they join the fight against Tonith. However, when Erk becomes battle mad in one attack against Tonith, it leads him and Odie into an accident that traps them in a bunker for several days. Meanwhile, when the Galactic Senate of the Republic finally allows for the attack on Praesitlyn to begin, Nejaa Halcyon is allowed by both the Senate and the Jedi Council to send troops in to help Slayke's forces and defeat Tonith. Halcyon agrees to go, and he takes Anakin with him, as well as a Rodian soldier named Grudo. When Anakin is introduced to Grudo, Nejaa reveals to the Jedi Padawan that Grudo used to work for Zozridor Slayke, and that around a certain time in the past, earlier in the Clone Wars, Slayke was a rebel who decided to fight the Separatists in his own way and departing himself from the Republic due to its slow and political ways. Nejaa was sent by the Republic to track him down and arrest him, and on a certain planet, Nejaa happened to be following Slayke, the Jedi first met Grudo, and the two fought while Slayke got away. Eventually, Nejaa and Grudo became friends, but after Slayke was pardoned by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and was decreed a rightful citizen of the Republic again, Nejaa and Slayke still had their differences, but they settled their feud nevertheless. Eventually, Nejaa, Anakin and Grudo travel to Praesitlyn with several thousand clone troopers and a commando squad that Anakin befriends, and they arrive just in time to help Slayke and his forces just as his forces are faltering. However, before they arrive, Anakin sends a love letter to his secret wife, Padme Amidala, and both Anakin and Nejaa reveal truths about the oaths they broke against the Jedi Code - Anakin reveals all about his relationship with Padme, and Nejaa reveals that he has had a wife and kids for years now. Later in the rebellion's activities, Grudo and a few of Slayke's men find out that, without proper maintenance, the battle droids stationed on Praesitlyn will fail in time. After Grudo and the soldiers escape from a battle droid attack at night, Erk and Odie finally get out from beneath their bunker and Odie accidentally shoots Grudo in the head, mistaking him for an enemy. Eventually, the surviving soldiers bring Erk and Odie back to the rebellion, along with Grudo, and due to the wound he sustained, he dies from it, and Anakin is the last one Grudo talks to. Despite Anakin's deep friendship with Grudo, he forgives Odie for his murder, knowing she killed him because she didn't know Grudo was on her side. Several failed attacks against Tonith later, Anakin deducts a plan where Halcyon and Slayke mount a direct assault against Tonith's forces while Anakin and several other clone troopers sneak into the communications bunker to free the hostages and defeat Tonith and his crew. However, they are confronted by several battle droids which Anakin easily defeats. Unfortunately, Anakin is nearly driven to the dark side of the Force, driving him further to his destiny, after a battle droid kills Momen, whom Anakin feels a rapport with due to similarities between her and his mother. Anakin defeats several more battle droids, and eventually gets to Tonith and his crew. However, before Anakin can kill either Tonith of any of his technicians, the voice of Qui-Gon Jinn contacts him and prevents him from killing Tonith or any of his group. Tonith easily surrenders to Anakin, and Tonith and his crew are finally arrested by the Republic's forces stationed at Praesitlyn. But the fight for Praesitlyn is not yet over, as the Republic has learned that Commander Asajj Ventress has sent backup for Tonith through a Trade Federation ship and a considerable fleet. Anakin, Halcyon and several clone troopers board their starfighters, and confront the ship and their droid fighters. However, toward the end of the fight, Anakin decides to sacrifice himself in order to take out the Federation ship in an attempt to blow it up, and he privately tells Halcyon through a secure comm channel to tell Padme Anakin loved her. The Federation ship explodes, and the Republic forces on Praesitlyn celebrate another victory in the Clone Wars, but Halcyon grieves over Anakin. However, Anakin returns to Praesitlyn in time for the celebration and reveals he managed to survive his suicidal run on the Trade Federation ship by going into hyperspace just before the giant starship blew up. After the Praesitlyn victory for the Republic, the Jedi Council decides that for Anakin's actions in the Republic's victory, they will promote him to a full-fledged Jedi Knight when he returns to Coruscant. Meanwhile, Darth Sidious is reflecting that, with the Praesitlyn victory, everything is proceeding as he has foreseen. + +A squad of clone trooper shinies under the charge of Clone Captain Lock are dispatched from the Republic Star Destroyer Demolisher to sort through the wreckage of the dreaded Separatist heavy cruiser Malevolence, which had previously been sabotaged and crashed into a moon by Anakin Skywalker. Republic intelligence reports indicated that the Malevolence had been constructed at the Pammant Docks by the Free Dac Volunteers Engineering Corps, part of the Quarren Isolation League. The clone reconnaissance and recovery mission confirmed this report. Exotic circuitry was also discovered, however, among the debris. This on-board circuitry was delivered to Jedi General Ring-Sol Ambase, who brought it directly to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine on Coruscant. It was the Jedi Master's very firm conclusion that the circuitry was manufactured by KynachTech Industries on the planet Kynachi, which was previously believed to manufacture it's unique brand of technology solely for peaceful purposes. Though Kynachi had isolated itself and severed all ties with the Republic ten years earlier, the existence of their circuitry aboard the Malevolence came as a grave surprise. Given that Ambase was born Kynachi and had studied his home planet and people extensively, Palpatine asks Ambase to undertake a secret mission to Kynachi to discover the true nature of what is going on there. Returning to the Jedi Temple, Ambase informs his newly-appointed Padawan Nuru Kungurama of his imminent departure and that the apprentice will not be joining him. Young Nuru is a Chiss, but doesn't know any more about his heritage than most others, as he was an infant when he was brought to the Temple. Nuru was too young to be called into action at Geonosis and his original master, Lanchu Skaa, did not return from the battle. Further, Nuru was only recently assigned to Ambase. As Ambase leaves for the hangar, Nuru experiences a strong sensation in the Force that this new master will also not return from his mission. In the hopes of somehow preventing any dreadful events from transpiring, Nuru uses the Force to influence a clone trooper and stow away on the freighter the task force is using to infiltrate Kynachi. It is revealed, however, that the entire mission is an ambiguous plot by Palpatine's alter ego, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. Ambase's task force includes three clone squads under Captain Lock's command and two clone pilots. Upon exiting hyperspace near Kynachi, the task force is ambushed by Trade Federation Vulture Droids. It is also quickly discovered that their freighter has been sabotaged. In the frantic action, Ambase falls prey to toxic gas and is unconscious while Nuru's presence aboard the ship is discovered. Master and apprentice are split up, however, in separate, also-sabotaged escape pods. The two groups crash land in their escape pods and are almost immediately beset on the cold and rainy planet by native crustacean creatures and more Vulture Droids. Nuru's group attempts to continue the mission while also trying to discover what happened to General Ambase and his group. Along the way, they are assisted by grounded smuggler-turned-diner-owner, Lalo Gunn and beguiled by an unusually helpful ally in the bounty hunter Cad Bane, who is under unknown orders from Darth Sidious. Gunn's navigator droid Teejay is destroyed by droid commandos, who are tipped off by none other than Cad Bane. After taking out the droids and based upon information of Ambase's whereabouts from the bounty hunter, Nuru, Gunn, and the clones plot a prison break that involves combining a droid commando body with Teejay's brain. The droid is renamed Cleaver. Ten years prior, Kynachi had been subjugated by the Trade Federation, who jammed all communications to hide what they were doing. In the break out, a clone re-opens communications and calls in reinforcements. Skakoan Overseer Umbrag from the Techno Union flees the facility and the planet in his Metalorn yacht, setting the auto-destruct sequence. Cad Bane also cuts and runs, but taking the still-unconscious Ambase with him in a coffin. The Duros contacts Darth Sidious and is told to go to the Bogden system and await further instructions. By holocomm, Yoda is none to pleased with Nuru's unauthorized absence from the Temple and his stowing away on the task force's freighter, but Palpatine intervenes and, seeing that the Padawan is a Chiss, taps him and the newly-christened Breakout Squad for an immediately pressing mission to meet a Chiss ambassador on Csilla. Lalo Gunn and Cleaver volunteer take the squad in their freighter. + +Cad Bane is in his ship going to rendezvous with his informant. Bane meets Asajj Ventress on Bogg 5, a moon in Bogden system. Ventress goes to Darth Tyranus' lair with Jedi Master Ring-Sol Ambase and another pod. Tyranus says "You're late."--the same thing Ventress said to Bane when he arrived. On board the Hasty Harpy after a six day trip, Breakout Squad finally arrives in Chiss space, finding no planet, but rather a space station. Nuru meets the Chiss ambassador, but during their meeting, a Separatist fleet commanded by a Metalorn yacht attacks the station. Breakout Squad escapes and flees into hyperspace. Later, they unexpectedly come out of hyperspace near a blackhole and are boarded by pirates claiming to be the Blackhole Pirates. After the pirates realize who they are, they say they're cursed be the blackhole. They go to a moon the pirates call Plunder Moon. They find an old temple and use an infinity gate to jump back to Chiss space. When they get back to Chiss space, they defeat the Separatists and go their separate ways. Nuru is revealed to be Kung'urama'nuruodo of the Second Ruling Family. Later, in Dooku's lair, Ring-Sol Ambase wakes up. + +After retaking Bilbringi Depot, the Galactic Republic's Breakout Squad finished its investigation and returned to Coruscant. Jedi Nuru Kungurama then met with Jedi Master Harro Kelpura to explore the alien escape pod he had been discovered in 10 years earlier. When they arrived at Kelpura's lab in the Dacho District, they saw that Kungurama's missing master, Ring-Sol Ambase, had gotten there first to acquire the escape pod for himself. Each believing that the other had fallen to the dark side of the Force, they conduct a duel, which ends after Ambase collapses. Afterward, Ambase recovers in the Jedi Temple's medical center and tells his Padawan that he was leaving the Jedi Order. Kungurama was then promoted to the full commander of Breakout Squad and assigned by Grand Master Yoda to investigate a missing freighter. + +Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala's attraction toward one another during the battle was not undetected by the other Jedi, such as Yoda. The latter asks Obi-Wan Kenobi to talk to Padme in order to dissuade her from advancing her romantic relationship with Anakin. Using her political skills, Padme lies by pretending to concede to Yoda's whims, and asks for Anakin to escort her back to her home planet of Naboo, where, unbeknownst to Obi-Wan or anyone else, she and Anakin will marry, an action that will later help bring Anakin to the dark side of the Force. This will be following Anakin's recovery from the injury of his lost arm in his lightsaber duel with Darth Tyranus. Anakin and his Padawan Ahsoka Tano rescue Jabba the Hutt's son. After Obi-Wan receives valuable information from his friend, Dexter Jettster, about an attack on the planet Bothawui by General Grievous, Obi-Wan is injured in a sneak attack on Coruscant by the Confederacy of Independent Systems. His injuries are not fatal, so he lives, albeit barely. As Anakin takes Ahsoka and a good sized portion of the Grand Army of the Republic to counter Grievous's forces at Bothawui, Senator Bail Organa gets a message from a shadowy ally of his that explains that there is a Sith Holocron on the planet of Zigoola in Wild Space. Obi-Wan and Padme are told by Organa, and Obi-Wan agrees to go with the Senator in order to retrieve the Holocron and seek what information lies within it. The Jedi and the Senator rendezvous with Organa's contact in Wild Space, Alinta, but the three of them are attacked by space pirates. Alinta is killed, but Obi-Wan and Organa continue to Zigoola. But when they arrive on the planet, they crash several miles from the Sith temple and are forced to walk there in order to retrieve the Sith Holocron. During the journey, however, Obi-Wan suffers hysterically by dark side illusions projected by the planet due to its dark side nature from being immersed in the Sith. Eventually, the duo just barely make it to the Sith temple, but Obi-Wan can go no further because the closer they get to the Holocron, the stronger the dark side is to Obi-Wan and weakens his power. Obi-Wan is finally able to get into the Temple and destroy the Holocron, taking a crystal with him out of the temple as it collapses because of Obi-Wan's presence. He believes the crystal can contact home. Obi-Wan heals from the dark side projected by the destroyed Holocron and makes a Force call with the crystal to Master Yoda back on Coruscant. Yoda sends Padme and several clone troopers to retrieve the duo from Zigoola, which is successful. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine ruminates on his thoughts for the failure of Obi-Wan's destruction on Zigoola, but he is reassured by the dark side, knowing that one day, the Jedi will fall and all power will be his. + +In 22 BBY Mace Windu's former Padawan and fellow Jedi Master Depa Billaba has been sent to Haruun Kal to start a revolution against the Separatist-allied government two months after the Battle of Geonosis, which started the Clone Wars; however, all contact has been lost with her. Four months after Depa is shipped to Haruun Kal, a message is found on a voice chip that indicates Depa has fallen to the dark side of the Force or even lost her mind. Since Windu taught her, he knows he is the only one who can intervene, and is sent by the Jedi Council by himself to his birth world. Mace lands onplanet, and is apprehended by Lorz Geptun, Security Chief for Haruun Kal and leader of its offworlder militia faction. After negotiating with the Chief, Mace is let free into the planetary capital of Pelek Baw. He duly meets up with his supposed contact, Phloremirrla Tenk, who is shot and killed in a subsequent incident. Mace is rendered unconscious, and is acquainted with Nick Rostu, a young Korun and his associates, Besh, Lesh and Liane Trevval, who also goes by the name Chalk. Rostu reveals that Tenk was a Separatist agent, and that he and his cohorts saved Master Windu from detention. Nick leads Mace into the harsh jungles of Haruun Kal on grasser-back, where Depa is apparently at large. Nick tells Mace of the Summertime War, a seasonal conflict between the natives of Haruun Kal--Korunnai--and the offworlders--Balawai--over materials and ways of life. The Balawai are also now affiliated with the Confederacy of Independent Systems. A Balawai gunship attack menaces the party, and soon after, Lesh is killed by wasp-larvae from contaminated thyssel bark and the young Korun is euthanized by Mace. Besh is also lost a short time later. Further on, Mace and the party encounter Kar Vastor, a dangerous lor pelek and volatile Force-user who leads a cadre of elite men known as Akk Guards. After a conflict, Vastor allies with Mace, and the Master rendezvouses with Depa Billaba, who has fallen to the dark side of the Force. He arrests her after learning that she has been responsible for several atrocities. The assault ship Halleck, which Mace has standing off near Haruun Kal, is summoned to the planet to extract Mace and Depa, but comes under attack from droid starfighters. Mace orders the ship to jump outsystem and deploy its landers. The acting commanding officer of the ship complies with doubt. Soon after, Mace and Kar Vastor defeat a Balawai militia attack using grassers and akk dogs, and Mace manages to defeat the droid starfighters using a militia gunship and some clever sensor modifications. The landers from the Halleck land at Pelek Baw Spaceport, and the clone forces take the facility. However, Mace is forced to surrender to Geptun, whom he later enlists to help him stop the battle, which is reignited by turncoats Depa and Vastor. Mace defeats them both, sustaining serious injury, and Nick is critically wounded by an Akk Guard. Mace stands triumphant, despite the campaign's many downfalls. After the affair, Master Billaba is taken to the Jedi Temple, where she is detained. Kar Vastor is tried for war crimes. Nick, having been awarded the brevet rank of major during the fight, convalesces in a medical center in the capital. Throughout the mission, Mace keeps a journal, which he finishes by hoping that Anakin Skywalker, as the Chosen One, will bring balance to the Force. + +Republic spy Hallena Devis acts as a factory worker on the planet, which is run by a fascist regime. The regime has allied with the Republic in order to counter the Confederacy of Independent Systems, to which the citizens of JanFathal wish to side on, since the Separatists are comparatively more democratic in their eyes compared to JanFathal's fascist regime and the Republic. Eventually, all electronic power to JanFathal is blacked out, and the Separatists attack the planet, resulting in the Battle of JanFathal. Captain Gilad Pellaeon is on a shakedown cruise aboard his new Republic battle cruiser, and joining him is Captain Rex of Torrent Company and Ahsoka Tano, apprentice to Anakin Skywalker. They receive a distress signal from Hallena Devis on JanFathal for extraction, and joining Pellaeon's company is maverick Jedi Master Djinn Altis of the Altisian Jedi. Altis's allowance of his students to have romantic relationships and indulge in other actions deemed unacceptable by Master Yoda's Jedi Order causes an inner turmoil in Ahsoka's traditionally held beliefs that those who follow this path are destined to fall to the dark side of the Force. Nevertheless, Ahsoka joins Torrent Company, Altis and his two Jedi apprentices, Callista Masana and Geith Eris, both whom are romantically involved and engaged for marriage, down to JanFathal to save Hallena, whom Pellaeon is also romantically involved with. Torrent Company, Ahsoka, Altis, Geith and Callista locate Hallena amid the chaos caused by the Battle of JanFathal inside a building. She is held by several factory workers whom Hallena has worked with. Hallena's captors are eliminated by her rescuers and they get back to the shuttle to which they traveled in from Pellaeon's battle cruiser, though Torrent Company loses one clone, Vere. However, while the shuttle is traveling back up to the cruiser, the latter ship is forced to go to hyperspace in order to avoid any further damage. The shuttle in which Hallena and her rescuers are traveling in know that they don't have enough oxygen supplied from the ship suitable enough to keep them alive long enough to get to the closest planet past JanFathal. Knowing they have no choice, they go back to JanFathal under cover. The Confederacy of Independent Systems has won hold over the planet with its fascist regime utterly destroyed and the Republic no longer on the planet's side. Back on Coruscant, Anakin Skywalker gets a call from Captain Rex back on JanFathal, discussing their predicament on the captured planet. Anakin realizes that he needs to fulfill his duty to tend to his clone company and his apprentice, and leaves his secret wife, Padme Amidala, for JanFathal. When he goes to the captured planet, he meets up with Torrent Company and Ahsoka, but also, consequently, Altis, Callista, Geith and their liberal Jedi views. Anakin, like Ahsoka, is conflicted with everything he was taught under Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi's tutelage, and also realizing that if he were trained under Altis, he could have been openly loving Padme. Nevertheless, they all work together to get past the Separatist forces, stealing a shuttle from the enemy and race back for the space around JanFathal. And just as they're doing that, Captain Pellaeon's flagship returns to the planet's system and picks them up just as they are hunted down by Separatist starfighters. They successfully leave the system with one more casualty from the clone known as Ince. Anakin talks to Altis, who reveals that he was friends with the late Qui-Gon Jinn, who wasn't completely obedient to Yoda's Order to begin with either. It is hinted through the communication between Anakin and Altis that the latter is somewhat aware that Anakin has someone with whom he is infatuated with. Altis assures Anakin that the latter is always open to join with his sect, but Anakin decides to stay, seeing that since the mainstream Jedi Order is more associated with the Grand Army than Altis is, Anakin sticks by with the clones, even if it means sticking by Yoda's rules and the Republic's. + +Eight years before the Battle of Geonosis, Mandalorian soldier Kal Skirata goes to the rainy planet of Kamino to observe the developing army for the Republic. He finds out that they are cloning his friend, Jango Fett, and that the clones have had their age factor doubled. If the clones have lived a year they will have aged two, and when they have lived two years they will have aged four, and so forth. Skirata is disgusted with the Kaminoans' practice of reconditioning--often a term used for terminating--clone children who didn't pass quality control standards. Six prototype ARC Trooper children, designated Null-class, were labeled defective and scheduled for reconditioning because they would not follow any orders given them. However, before the unruly clones can be executed, Skirata intervenes and takes it upon himself to raise and train them personally, keeping them separate from the other clones. The plot jumps forward to five days after the Battle of Geonosis. Skirata is on Coruscant and has just heard about the conflict and of Jango Fett's death at the hand of Jedi Master Mace Windu. The Galactic Republic learns that Separatist terrorists have infiltrated Coruscant and are spying on the Republic. Skirata is hired by the Republic to track them down and enlists Omega Squad--Darman, Niner, and Fi, all personally trained and formally adopted by Skirata, and Atin who was trained by Walon Vau--for the mission. Assisting the team is Republic information broker Besany Wennen, Jedi Master Arligan Zey, and Jedi Knights Bardan Jusik and Etain Tur-Mukan--the Jedi who worked with Omega Squad during the mission to Qiilura. Skirata's Wookiee companion Enacca also joins the group, as does Null ARC trooper Ordo and clone trooper Corr. However, the situation is made more complicated when Vau and Delta Squad--Boss, Sev, Scorch, and Fixer--also join the team. Skirata and Vau have a rivalry due to their different philosophies in training clone soldiers. Skirata trained Omega Squad as a role model father-figure, while Vau trained Delta Squad through abusive discipline. Atin has a hard history with Vau since he was beaten so many times under his tutelage. Etain and Darman's relationship grows stronger, and Etain becomes pregnant with Darman's child but does not tell him. During the mission to track the terrorists down, Jinart and Valaqil join in to remind Omega Squad and Etain that they still owe the Gurlanins a debt after they helped the clones and Jedi back on Qiilura. Etain and Omega Squad promise that they will eventually repay that obligation, but ask the Gurlanins to assist in the mission, to which they agree. The spies in the Republic are ultimately found, and the information they captured is destroyed and the terrorists are killed. Unfortunately, the rivalry between Omega and Delta Squads remain; Atin and Vau engage in a brutal fistfight that is quickly broken up by Bardan Jusik. Later, after the celebration of the squads' victory over their mission, Etain reveals to Skirata that she is pregnant with Darman's child. Skirata is angered by this because he believes Etain used Darman. Nevertheless, the two agree to keep this a secret from everyone else--aside from Jinart and Valaqil--and that the child will be a Mandalorian like his father and not a Jedi like his mother. Skirata promises Etain that she will be able to go to Qiilura and spend some time with Darman. Ordo figures out Etain is pregnant but decides to keep it a secret. + +Delta Squad and Sergeant Walon Vau, now a civilian, begin on the harshly cold and barren planet of Mygeeto. Vau has come to liberate some funds from the bank vaults under the glaciers of Mygeeto, taking over 55 million in credits and other valuables from his family vault. However, their exit does not go as smoothly as planned, leaving Vau trapped and alone under several tons of ice, slowly freezing to death, while Delta Squad is forced to leave without him. Meanwhile, Omega Squad, including Darman, is shipped out to Gaftikar, a Separatist held planet, to assist the Null ARC A'den in training the local rebels, a lizard-humanoid species in overthrowing the human-Separatist government. Skirata haggles with a Rodian over a submersible-flight capable craft, one with which he hopes to find Ko Sai, the lead rogue Kaminoan geneticist. Ko Sai, it is revealed, had defected from the Republic to the Separatists, eventually double crossing them as well. Delta brings news to him of Vau's fate, MIA and most likely dead, under several tons of ice and snow. Together, along with the Null ARCs Mereel and Ordo, they travel to Mygeeto and begin their long search for Vau. In a deep snow drift, they find Mird, Vau's loyal strill, hopelessly clawing its way down to where it had last seen its master. Skirata takes the submersible craft and plows it deep into the glacier. After hours of scraping and blasting away at the ice with lasers, they finally find Vau's body, frozen, but still alive, and manage to thaw him without incident. Skirata, angered but at the same time rejoicing that Vau still lives, is shocked when Vau produces the priceless treasures he had stolen from his family's vaults, and gives it all to Skirata for the Clone Retirement Fund. While this is happening, Darman and Atin infiltrate a city on Gaftikar disguised as civilians. While there, they are shocked to find Sull, an ARC trooper that had been Missing In Action on the planet for weeks, assumed to be dead. He is alive and well, and had become a citizen, leaving the army behind him. The duo catch him off guard, and haul him back to base unwillingly, as he struggles to escape. Back at base, they learn from Sull's interrogation that the ARC had discovered the truth behind Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's plan - or at least the vague gist of it. Sull, unwilling to be a pawn any longer in a war with no conceivable end, had decided to go AWOL and live out the rest of his short life peacefully. Sull agrees to leave Gaftikar after providing A'den and Omega with information about the Gaftikar capital city and the location of Sull's discarded armor, which Darman retrieves. After Sull departs the planet, Darman returns to Sull's home to look for any evidence that the ARC had been there, when two Clone Covert Ops Troopers rush in, believing him to be Sull. Darman manages to kill them both, but is shocked and wonders why clones would be sent to kill clones. During the assault on the capital city of Gaftikar, Fi suffers a traumatic head injury and is virtually brain-dead. He is shipped to a medical facility on Coruscant but they are unable to revive him from his coma. Besany Wennen discovers that any clone trooper who requires too much effort or supplies to be saved is simply allowed to die. Only troops who can be made fit to fight again receive medical care. Since Fi is too far gone to be saved, he is scheduled to be terminated, but Besany Wennen and Captain Jaller Obrim of Coruscant Security Force kidnap him from the medcenter just in time. They take him to Obrim's home, where Bardan Jusik uses the Force to heal the tissue in Fi's brain and he lives. Even so, the healing is not complete, and Fi is nowhere near his old self. On Qiilura, Etain Tur-Mukan is tasked with evacuating, by force if necessary, the human farmers who acted as a resistance movement against the Separatists. The Republic promised the planet to the native Gurlanins, who want all humans gone forever. However, the farmers do not go quietly. Etain begins to hemorrhage after the fight and fears she is miscarrying her baby. Skirata sends Ordo with a medical droid to take care of her. After her recovery, Ordo takes her with him to Dorumaa, where Skirata, Mereel, and Vau have been successful in capturing Ko Sai. Skirata takes the whole group to Mandalore and imprisons Ko Sai in his home. He wants to find out how to stop the accelerated aging in the clone troopers so that his boys can have a normal lifespan. However, Mereel and Vau are unable to get any information out of her until Etain offers Ko Sai a sample of her tissue and some tissue from the umbilical cord when her son is born. Eager to play around with a Jedi genome, Ko Sai accepts and gives Etain some of the data needed to reverse the rapid aging. However, Ko Sai grows more and more dejected as time passes since she is no longer known as the best geneticist in the galaxy. This loss of her reputation leads her to eventually hang herself from a beam in Skirata's house, using Etain's umbilical cord after her son, Venku, is born. Etain's son, Venku, is born on Mandalore. Skirata subtly asks Darman what he would name a boy if he had one, and Darman says he likes Kad. Skirata and Jusik decide to nickname the boy Kad'ika and agree to let him stay at Besany Wennen's apartment while Etain is in the field. Etain is torn apart that Darman is still unaware that he is the baby's father. Delta Squad present General Zey with Ko Sai's head, pretending they found it on Dorumaa to fool General Zey and the Chancellor as to her real fate and the information discovered through her. + +Jedi Padawan Barriss Offee is sent by the Republic to the planet Drongar, home to the rare plant Bota, important because of its high medicinal value. Her task was to use her Jedi healing techniques in order to assist the medical staff aboard the Rimsoos, the medical facilities tending to wounded clone troopers during the Battle of Drongar. If Barriss is successful in healing the clone troopers, she will return as a Jedi Knight. She makes friends with Republic surgeons Jos Vondar, Tolk le Trene, Klo Merit and Zan Yant, as well as the protocol droid I-5YQ and Republic news reporter Den Dhur. I-Five's purpose on Drongar is to find a way back to Coruscant to find and look after Jax Pavan, a young Jedi apprentice who was the son of I-Five's late business partner, Lorn Pavan. Lorn died twelve years earlier by the Sith known as Darth Maul for being in possession of a Sith Holocron that would have revealed vital details to the Blockade of Naboo that followed shortly after Lorn's death, and plans for the downfall of the Jedi Order. Den Dhur begins to associate himself with CT-914, a clone trooper whose friend had died during the battle. CT-914 would later be killed by a Separatist ambush. Barriss finds an antagonistic enemy in Phow Ji, a Republic-hired mercenary who kills Separatist sentient beings on Drongar not just for money, but for his own sadistic pleasures. Their polarized ideals clash that results in a rivalry between them. And meanwhile, in orbit around Drongar, corrupt Republic Admiral Tarnese Bleyd makes a shady deal with Filba the Hutt so that Bleyd can return to his home planet and can result in the Republic's loss over Drongar. Amid all of this, a spy lurks in the corners, sabotaging the Republic's operations on the planet. Bleyd's deal with Filba is ruined when the Hutt is poisoned and dies. Later, Bleyd is confronted by Kaird the Nedij, a member of the Black Sun crime organization which Bleyd is associated to. Kaird confirms to Bleyd that Black Sun is aware of the Admiral's interests, and Kaird kills Bleyd. Phow Ji sacrifices himself by using a bomb to wipe out an entire platoon of Separatist sentient beings, and he has already recorded this to have sent to Den Dhur as an impressive news report to the Republic. Eventually, the spy, who goes by the alias Column under the leadership of the Separatists and the alias Lens under Black Sun, sabotages the Rimsoo that Barriss and her friends reside in. Though they successfully evacuate to another Rimsoo, Zan Yant is killed, throwing Jos Vondar, Dr. Yant's friend, into a deep grief, even despite finding the comfort of a new girlfriend from Tolk le Trene. + +Dr. Vondar is still wallowing in grief over the loss of his late friend Zan Yant, even as Zan is replaced by the adolescent surgeon, Kornell Uli Divini, who takes a liking toward Barriss, who does not reciprocate his interests because of the Jedi Order's ban of attachments. Kaird succeeds in his operations on Drongar for the Separatists and Black Sun's interests and leaves. Meanwhile, the spy, who is also working for the Separatists and Black Sun, continues his duties of sabotaging the Republic Rimsoos. Barriss nearly falls to the dark side when she takes bota to heal herself, but rejects it at the last second. She then uses her Force powers to locate who the spy is, and finds the culprit in Klo Merit. Dr. Vondar confronts him with a blaster and kills Merit, avenging Zan's death. The Republic and the Separatists leave Drongar when they figure out that the drug has mutated into a useless weed, but its effects in enhancing one's Force abilities to the point of the dark side, such as from Barriss's case, still lives on unbeknownst to the Republic or Separatists. I-5YQ and Den Dhur depart for Coruscant to fulfill the late Lorn Pavan's wishes to look after his son, Jax, just as I-Five believes he has gained sentience. Barriss returns to the planet as a Jedi Knight. + +The Clone Wars had raged across the galaxy for two and a half years, when the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Yoda, received a message from his former Padawan, Count Dooku. In the message, Dooku conceded to Yoda that the conflict had gotten far out of hand. He claimed that what he had begun as a political play to rid the Republic of corruption had turned into a bloodbath and that he was willing to come to a truce. Dooku invited Yoda to come and meet him on the planet Vjun, where they would organize the cease-fire. After conferring with his fellow Jedi Masters from the Council, Yoda decided that even if the meeting at Vjun were a feint, the chance to end the war far outweighed the perils of a trap. In order to cover for this secret meeting, the Jedi contracted a famous actor and Yoda-impersonator, Palleus Chuff to act as a decoy while the real Yoda departed for Vjun. Disguised as Yoda, Chuff left on a very public mission to Ithor. However, upon Chuff's arrival at Ithor, his ship was ambushed and destroyed by Asajj Ventress who was seeking to assassinate the Jedi Master. Yoda's perceived death was a significant blow to the Republic's morale. Meanwhile, Yoda traveled under disguise accompanied by Jedi Masters Jai Maruk and Maks Leem and their Padawans, Scout and Whie. During one Spaceport layover, Ventress, Chuff managed to catch the quintet, and unleashed a dangerous new type of battle droid. While the other Jedi fought the droids and Ventress, Yoda sought to rescue Palleus. Both Jai Maruk and Maks Leem fell to the terrible droids and Ventress's lightsaber. Yoda, however, managed to divert Ventress's attention before she took a chance to kill the young Padawans, and the three Jedi escaped. Meanwhile on Vjun, Count Dooku awaited Yoda in the Château Malreaux, the manor of the long since waned aristocratic Clan Malreaux. As the group of Jedi landed on Vjun they were forced to separate: Yoda went to meet with Dooku, and the Padawans followed mysterious disruptions in the Force felt by Whie. Soon the Padawans were captured by the lurking Asajj Ventress. She revealed to Whie that the Château was in fact his house, and the insane house-woman was his mother, Lady Whirry Malreaux. Asajj then held Scout in a tight Force grip, and tried to bring Whie to the dark side. Ventress knew of the boy's crush on the pretty, athletic red-haired Scout, and used it to ignite Whie's darker side by telling him to kiss Scout. In the end, Whie Malreaux handled his inner emotions and resisted the dark side. Meanwhile, Yoda met with Dooku. The two Masters engaged in a tense debate about the ways of the Force, and reminiscenced about Dooku's childhood in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. In the end, Yoda encouraged his former apprentice to leave the dark side and Darth Sidious forever. Dooku, hands shaking, was on the verge of answering when Whirry informed him of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi's arrival in the mansion, dispatched there by the Jedi Council. Convinced that the legendary duo were replacements for him, Dooku was overcome by jealousy and threw his assistant out the window. Yoda was forced to save Whirry from falling to her death, and then parry Dooku's follow-up lightsaber attack. Although Dooku managed to wound him, Yoda was unfazed, and did not yield to the dark side. Yoda recovered, and a short lightsaber battle ensued. In a repeat of his escape from Geonosis, Dooku activated an orbital missile targeted to the house before leaping from the window. Yoda was forced to stop the missile to save the lives of everyone in the vicinity, giving Dooku and Ventress the time to escape. Kenobi and Skywalker rescued the Padawans and Yoda, and returned home to Coruscant. Meanwhile, on a distant planet that was Dooku's new headquarters, Count Dooku realized that everyone he had ever loved, including Yoda, had forsaken him. He was truly alone. + +After working for Jabba for a few years, Boba had made a name for himself becoming Jabba's favorite bounty hunter. With that position, Boba was offered his first off planet assignment, to kill Wat Tambor. After traveling to the planet of Xagobah, Boba had to find a way into Wat's fortress, The Mazariyan Citadel. To get inside, Boba had to not only survive the planets plant life, but also work his way through the Battle of Xagobah, which was a siege on the Citadel itself. Once inside, Boba's search for Wat was helped when he was reunited with his old nemesis Nuri, and after a brief tussle, was told where to find him. Killing Tambor was easier said than done, and was made even more difficult when General Grievous turned up. After a short fight, in which Grievous just deflected young Fett's shots back at him and Fett diving away before he was hit, eventually, Boba was shot, and realizing that it was a good idea to play dead, he paralyzed himself with some Xabar fungus. + +A twelve year old Boba Fett is inside a Separatist stronghold on Xagobah. Fett lies on the ground, paralyzed by a toxin used to escape a near death experience against General Grievous. He is taken to a blast furnace to be destroyed, but escapes when his paralysis subsides and he destroys two droids. He leaves the stronghold and reaches Slave I. Once in space he spots his primary target, and attacks Tambor's vessel. After damaging the vulnerable vessel, he has to break off the attack because of Asajj Ventress, who nearly destroys him save for Anakin Skywalker intervening in time. Skywalker forces Fett to land on a nearby moon. Exchanging greetings, Skywalker begins repairing Slave I while Fett repairs his armor. Once finished, Skywalker moves to detain Fett, but a giant Space Slug incapacitates Anakin, leaving Fett to destroy the behemoth. He shoots the slug several times in the head causing it to whimper back into cover and Skywalker agrees not to arrest Fett, but tells him to go to Coruscant as Fett revealed he had information vital to the Galactic Republic. On arriving in Coruscant airspace, he is escorted by Governor Tarkin and Luminara Unduli to the Jedi Temple. Inside, Fett makes his way to the visiting quarters, passing Mace Windu on the way. In his quarters, Fett contacts Jabba the Hutt's contact on Coruscant, Hat Lo. Boba waits at a landing dock for Elan Sel'Sabagno, who flies him to a bar that Hat Lo owns where Boba collects various weapons before returning to the Temple with Elan. Once inside, he races to Windu's quarters only to be too late. He breaks through a window and flies to the Senate Building. He breaks into Palpatine's quarters and finds Windu waiting for the Chancellor. They engage in a fight, with Windu eventually taking out most of Fett's weapons. The fight ends in stalemate with each about to strike when Palpatine arrives and scolds Windu. Boba then tells Palpatine about the trap that the Clone army has become because of Count Dooku. Palpatine acknowledges that he knows and reveals his intentions indirectly to Boba. The Chancellor then gives Boba a cube of credits to keep him quiet. Boba returns to Slave I to contemplate his future, finally shedding his past. + +Anakin and Obi-Wan lead Squad Seven in an attack on Cato Neimoidia to capture Nute Gunray. After fighting Separatist forces outside Gunray's fortress the group uses harvester beetles as cover to enter through the underground. However one of the beetles startles and run over a mine in the ground causing more of the beetles to startle. Separatist forces then swarm the areas with STAPS laying fire on the clone forces. Droidekas attack from the fortress however Anakin orders an artillery strike on their position effectively destroying the majority of the droids. Once inside the tunnels Anakin and Obi-Wan decide to split up, with Obi-Wan, Commander Cody, and the majority of Squad 7 going deeper into the fortress to act as bait for the battle droids inside, while Anakin and four commandos pursue Gunray. Kenobi engages Super Battle Droids with his clone forces and while deflecting blaster bolts accidentally burst a canister of spores which are said to have a dislocating effect. Upon reaching the fleeing Separatist leaders Anakin's forces position is revealed by a protocol droid, causing the Separatists to change course and send Super Battle Droids against them. Despite destroying the droids Anakin still loses Gunray but before he can pursue receives a transmission from Obi-Wan's force requesting assistance. When he reaches the force though he finds that the enemies have been destroyed, with a dislocated Kenobi having defeated over fifty alone with his new lightsaber form as Anakin jokingly refers to it. After Kenobi recovers they learn that the commandos inspecting the items left behind by Gunray have discovered something that may be of interest. Aboard Nute Gunray's ship Gunray and Rune Haako discuss the continual defeats of the Separatists and their evacuation. While reviewing the items he saved he realizes he has left behind his mechno-chair with a special transceiver for Sidious. He and Haako quickly decide to arm the chair so that it will set itself to self-destruct. At the citadel Anakin and Obi-Wan discuss their find: the mechno-chair. Anakin is determined to examine the chair there but Obi-Wan insists that they wait for Republic Intelligence to show up. Anakin refuses to wait though and has R2-D2 try and run a diagnostic on the chair. While Anakin is talking with Obi-Wan though the chair receives Gunray's signal and goes off to arm itself to explode. Anakin is able to stop it before it does, though narrowly avoiding poison gas emitted from the chair. After stopping it though a recording of a conversation between Gunray and Sidious appears. On Coruscant Bail Organa meets with fellow members of the Loyalist Committee for a meeting with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine. They are delayed however by Sate Pestage. Back on Cato Neimoidia Republic Intelligence has arrived and is accompanied by Yoda. Yoda tells Obi-Wan that he and Anakin are to try and hunt down this Darth Sidious. The Loyalist Committee members are finally granted their meeting with Palpatine who despite their insistence that the tide of the war is turning refuses to withdraw certain security measures that have been put into effect on Coruscant. Obi-Wan reflects again how Anakin would have fared had Qui-Gon survived and been his master but is saved from his musings by Yoda and the Intelligence captain. They have found something on the chair that could begin the Jedi's search: engravings by a Xi Charrian who signed his name on the chair. Aboard the Invisible Hand Grievous watches as Nute Gunray's ship exits hyperspace, followed closely by Republic starfighters. He destroys part of Gunray's droid fighter escort as a punishment and considers letting the Republic troops achieve their kill. However he decides that Dooku and Sidious would be too upset with him were he to allow Gunray to die and thus destroys the starfighters. Anakin and Obi-Wan go to Charros IV to find t'laalak-s'lalak-t'th'ak, the Xi Charrian who worked on the mechno-chair. With TC-16 acting as translator they convince the prelate to allow them to speak with t'laalak-s'lalak-t'th'ak. Upon questioning him however he becomes scared and attempts to flee. Anakin and Obi-Wan chase him down and cause a disruption in the workshop. The prelate arrives and demands that they leave but allows them to ask their questions first. They learn that the chair had come to Charros IV from Escarte and thus continue on with their search. Republic Intelligence has used the mechno-chairs transceiver to finally crack the Separatist code and have learned that General Grievous is planning to attack Belderone next. They inform Mace Windu and Yoda who decide that they must try and stop the attack. Aboard the Invisible Hand Grievous reflects on his life as a Kaleesh warlord before his fatal crash and cyborg transformation. He is alerted to a problem in the Belderone invasion and finds Republic forces ambushing his ships and evacuating the people of Belderone. Anakin and Obi-Wan lead the Republic forces in the space battle and Anakin makes a bold attack on the Invisible Hand. Grievous realizes that the battle cannot be won and before retreating blasts the refugee ships, killing over ten thousand including twenty-seven Jedi. Mace and Yoda decide that no matter what Darth Sidious must be rooted out. Grievous meets with Gunray and chastises him for the loss of the mechno-chair. On Kaon Count Dooku reflects on Grievous, his turn to the Sith, and his apprenticeship and service to Darth Sidious. Mace and Yoda meet with Palpatine to discuss the events at Belderone as well as what they have uncovered from the mechno-chair. Palpatine tells them to do whatever they must to hunt Sidious down. Anakin and Obi-Wan arrive at Escarte and after being denied landing Anakin harasses the patrol ships until a tractor beam pulls them in. A captain of the base arrives and has them arrested but while leading them to their cell reveals himself as Travale, a Republic Intelligence agent. The Jedi are placed in a cell with Thal K'sar the Bith who designed the hyperwave transceiver for the chair. Travales cover is blown however and he is thrown in the cell with them, though not before setting up a power failure. When they escape the cell Anakin and K'sar get to the ship, after battling a dwarf spider droid in the tunnels, and Obi-wan and Travale deactivate the tractor beam. Anakin questions K'sar and by the time Obi-Wan and Travale arrive the Jedi have their next lead. In The Works of Coruscant Count Dooku meets with Lord Sidious and discusses the events at Escarte and Anakin and Obi-Wan's search for Sidious. Sidious tells him not to worry and that they will set a trap for the Jedi at Naos III. He tells him to eliminate Kenobi but to allow Anakin to live for he has other plans for him. Palpatine makes an address to the Senate about his plans for taking the war to the Outer Rim specifically the Triad of Evil. Anakin and Obi-Wan search for their next source of info, a Lethan pilot on Naos III. After searching, and sampling, several taverns they finally find Fa'ale Leh, now going by Genne. Before having time to question her though they are ambushed and after a chase manage to escape their pursuers. Fa'ale is injured but is able to give them one piece of information. She delivered the ship to an area on Coruscant known as The Works. Back on Coruscant Mace leads a team consisting of troopers, Padawans, and Master Shaak Ti into the building they believe the courier was delivered to. Through Republic Intelligence research they are able to pick up a trail of Dooku's unknown visitor. A trail that leads through the tunnels to the senate district. Aboard Grievous's ship Dooku watches Grievous duel with his Magnaguards They soon receive a transmission from Sidious who discusses the events at Naos III, his plans for them to conquer Tythe, and his plans to accelerate the plan for the final stage of the war: regarding Coruscant. Anakin and Obi-Wan are on Belderone while Fa'ale recovers. Obi-Wan informs them that they will not be returning to Coruscant soon, as they are needed at Tythe. Anakin argues that he wants to be home and Obi-Wan suspects that it is because of Padme. He tells Anakin to discuss it with Palpatine. Mace and Shaak Ti are examining the tunnels and find a repulsorlift speeder bike which leads the search team to their next destination, 500 Republica. In the space battle over Tythe Anakin and Obi-Wan lead Red Squadron in destroying a Techno Union starship and then proceed to enter Tythes atmosphere to assault Dooku's stronghold. All of Red Squadron is lost along the way and the Jedi decide to enter through the facilities containment domes. Mace's team is getting close on finding the Dark Lord but are interrupted by a jolt to the building. Upon exiting Mace and Shaak Ti find a shocking sight. Coruscant is under attack. On Tythe, Dooku sends battle droids to delay Anakin and Obi-Wan from reaching him, but his plans go awry when an angered Skywalker loses control of himself. In a surge of rage and power, Anakin howled, releasing a powerful wave of Force energy that collapsed the vast hall of the building, burying himself, Obi-Wan and Dooku beneath tons of debris. Captain Dyne and his team had found a door in the tunnel that scans confirm to have one sentient being behind it as well as droids. Mace informs Yoda of the attack and Yoda decides to order all Jedi who can make it back to Coruscant for the battle. + +As the Clone Wars continue to rage across the galaxy, spreading the Jedi Order and the Grand Army of the Republic very thinly in the war against the Confederacy of Independent Systems, Kal Skirata and his adopted clone trooper sons of Omega Squad, Delta Squad and the Nulls, as well as Jedi Knight Etain Tur-Mukan, plan to defect to the planet Mandalore to live normal, civilian lives. As Skirata continues to search for a cure for the clone troopers' accelerated aging process, things get complicated when Etain finally reveals to Darman that her son, Kad Skirata is also Darman's son. Darman feels betrayed at both Etain and Skirata for keeping Kad a secret from him, which leads to Darman beating Skirata badly as the clone's father-figure doesn't even retaliate to let Darman release his anger. Meanwhile, Ordo marries Besany Wennen, whose spying into Republic files is finally gaining attention. The Gurlanins even frame one of Besany's friends, Jilka Zan Zentis, for the hackings to cover for Besany. Fortunately, Walon Vau, Ordo and Wad'e Tay'haai save Zentis after the three trick the prison guards at the prison Zentis is being held in, into believing they are transferring her out. Bardan Jusik also plans to break out Dr. Ovolot Qail Uthan, captured by Omega Squad nearly three years earlier on Qiilura. Skirata and Mereel have managed to manipulate different groups of scientists to research certain cells in the clones' genes to give the clone troopers normal life spans, and they believe Uthan might be able to piece all this information together. On Coruscant, Etain plans to leave the Jedi, even disregarding joining a more liberal group of Jedi that have decided to join the war in the mainstream Jedi Order's favor because she believes that would be having the best of both worlds and ignoring the issues that caused Bardan Jusik to leave the Order in the first place. Darman forgives both Etain and Skirata for keeping Kad a secret, and begins to spend time with Etain and his son. Things also become too dangerous for Skirata as he becomes a wanted fugitive by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's orders for stealing the late Ko Sai's clone data. Atin also marries Laseema, who is looking after Kad for Etain while she was away on Coruscant. Meanwhile, Skirata's son, Tor Skirata, contacts Kal and informs them that he and his brother, Ijaat, haven't heard from Skirata's daughter, Ruusaan, in several months. Skirata pieces together that Ruu has been captured as a prisoner of war by the Republic because she had been working for the Separatists. Fi Skirata, Spar, and Sull all act as prison authorities to free Ruusan, with Bardan acting as another prisoner who can identify Ruu. Afterward, Ruu was highly grateful to her father for having her freed and reunited with the family. Darman and the rest of Omega, as well as Delta, begin to encounter clones who aren't as trained or coordinated in combat as they are, and even hear that Kamino doesn't even rain. This corresponds to the new information coming from Besany that Palpatine is making a batch of new clones on Centax-2 from Spaarti cloning cylinders, which makes instant mature clones in less than a year with no accelerated aging afterward and Skirata's group begin to fear that these new less-trained clones might replace the truly trained Kamino clone. Skirata decides on a date to finally defect from the Republic and leave the Clone Wars - 1,090 days after the Battle of Geonosis. Later, Etain leads the Mission to Kashyyyk with Delta Squad 1,070 days after the Battle of Geonosis. However, the mission ends in bitterness for Etain and Delta as Sev is lost and presumably killed, and Etain and Delta are pulled back by orders that came directly from Grand Master Yoda even as they all want to save Sev, especially Scorch who almost disregards the order completely and tries to go after Sev. Scorch's grief at Sev's loss furthers his anger from being a comedic character to a tragic hero, exemplified by his killing of Separatist terrorists at a Republic outpost because those terrorists bombed the building the clones were in, killing and wounding many clones in the blast. But on the same day Sev is lost, the Separatists invade Coruscant where Omega Squad and thousands of other clones, including the newly bred from Centax 2, fight against the battle droid and droid starfighter forces unleashed on the planet's surface. The battle lasts for five days, where Skirata and his clone sons estimate that Palpatine's newly produced clones were for defense purposes for Coruscant when the Separatists finally invaded the Republic capital planet. They even manage to take advantage of the battle as a distraction to spring Uthan from prison, and they also free Arla Fett, Jango Fett's insane and lost sister. The battle finally ends when General Grievous defects from the battle to return to Utapau. Afterward, as Etain is pulled off Kashyyyk, she sends a message stating she is officially resigning from the Jedi Order and accepts Darman's marriage proposal by comm. But as Skirata's defection date grows near, Chancellor Palpatine utters the chilling words to clone troopers everywhere that is an order that cannot be denied. All clone troopers must kill their Jedi commanders immediately. Soon, the Jedi are hunted down and many are killed with few survivors, but most of those survivors would be hunted down and killed by the newly declared Galactic Empire. Palpatine would establish, with himself as Emperor. The Jedi Temple is attacked by several clone troopers, led by Darth Vader, where many Jedi are killed and the Temple is burned. Arligan Zey, who escaped the raid on the Jedi Temple, although severely wounded, is found by Captain Maze shortly after Ordo enters Zey's office to erase incriminating evidence in the Republic mainframe so Skirata's group wouldn't be tailed by Palpatine's New Order. Zey explained Palpatine is a Sith Lord, which Maze didn't know until Ordo told him that the Sith was like the Jedi - only with the exact opposite views, but he retorts why the Jedi didn't sense Darth Sidious's dark side presence in the first place. Then, Zey ordered Maze to kill him and the captain, despite his reluctance, pulled the trigger. Meanwhile, Etain, officially no longer a Jedi, secretly lands on Coruscant and disguises herself as an ordinary citizen on the planet while Skirata and the clones begin to search for her as the hour grows nearer for Skirata and the clones to depart to Mandalore. Etain is found by the group at a congested pedestrian traffic blocked off by clones to see if anyone on the bridge is a fugitive Jedi. The traffic erupts violently when the clones creating the blockage figure out that there are a group of Jedi in the crowd. The Jedi that have been figured out, except for Etain, defend themselves with their lightsabers and battle the clones. But Etain stands in the way of a random clone and one of the Jedi's lightsabers just as that Padawan would have killed the trooper. Etain immediately dies from her wound from the lightsaber strike, and Darman is left in shock just as Niner is wounded by one of the Jedi and his spine is broken, paralyzing him. Skirata goes insane after Etain's death and Darman's shock and attacks the Jedi where the Jedi are all killed. Darman and Niner are both picked up by a medical LAAT/i and disappear as Jaller Obrim knocks Skirata out with a drug and take Etain's body away with the rest of Skirata's defecting group back to Mandalore. With the exemption of Darman, Niner, Boss, Scorch, Fixer and Sev, the rest of Skirata's group finally settle down on Mandalore just as the Clone Wars finally end. Then Etain's funeral is held, with her cremation as Skirata adopts Etain posthumously as his daughter, and Skirata decides to save her ashes for Darman if they can ever find him. Walon Vau hints that he will be going to Kashyyyk to find Sev, Arla Fett is slowly being nursed back to mental health and Dr. Uthan agrees to make up a cure for the clones' aging process. Later, Skirata decides to make a monument of all the clone troopers whom have died in the Clone Wars, and Etain is the only non-clone that will be represented in the monument. One of the pilots whom Etain worked with back on her second mission on Qiilura when she was secretly pregnant with Kad, Nyreen Vollen, comes to Skirata to state she has two Jedi - one of them who is nicknamed Scout and a Kaminoan Jedi. Skirata agrees to take them in. On Coruscant, Darman, Niner, Boss, Scorch and Fixer's fates are all revealed - they have become Imperial Commandos for Palpatine's new empire, and Niner has been healed to fight again. Darman also puts his old self, the one who used to love Etain, his brothers and Skirata as a father, away for the new Imperial Commando Darman. The Empire comes to Mandalore to mark their domain. Meanwhile, Fenn Shysa, the Mandalorian who tried to get Spar and Fi to claim Boba Fett's place as Mandalore, met up with Palpatine's forces to discuss a deal. Skirata calms Kad down since the baby is aware of the Imperial forces' intentions, reflecting upon how Skirata had calmed down Darman after the clone beat up Skirata for keeping Kad a secret from Dar and reflecting upon a scene fifty years before the Battle of Geonosis when Kal was Falin Mattran, a Kuat boy who recently lost his parents and was raised by a Mandalorian named Munin Skirata who calmed Kal down when he first took on the mantle of Kal Skirata to stop his nightmares of his parents' deaths. + +Nearby, the settlers and moisture farmers of Dannar's Claim rally together under Orrin Gault against the threat of the Tusken Raiders, who are gradually losing morale and people against Gault's alliance of settlers. Following another of the settlers' victorious battle against the Tusken Raiders, Kallie Calwell, the teenaged daughter of the owner of Dannar's Claim, Anilleen, accidentally rides an animal toward a field of Sarlaccs. Annileen tries to save her daughter, but both women are saved by Kenobi, riding on Rooh. After saving the Calwell women, Kenobi begins to visit Dannar's Claim on an irregular basis to the point where he soon sees what the united settlers are doing to the Tusken Raiders. Kenobi communicates with the Tusken's leader, A'Yark, who agrees that what the settlers are doing to the Tuskens is morally wrong. At the same time, Annileen starts to develop a fond attraction to Kenobi. Kenobi decides to investigate Orrin Gault, who wants to marry Annileen. The former Jedi discovers that Gault is deeply in debt to Jabba Desilijic Tiure, and is rallying the settlers for his own financial benefit; as well, Orrin's desire to marry Annileen was also to plunder more money from her ownership of Dannar's Claim to give to Jabba. After stopping one of Gault's scams to get more settlers into his sham alliance, Kenobi becomes a pariah whom Gault wants dead. Thus, Kenobi teams up with the Tusken Raiders to take Gault down. Kenobi comes up with a plan to gather the Tusken clan who has been attacked by Orrin's group. While Ben is preparing the Tuskens, Annileen calls Jabba's cronies to come and settle the large debt that has been accumulated. Orrin still tries to make Kenobi the scapegoat and get the other settlers to rally against the man, but in the end Annileen tells the settlers that Kenobi is a good person. This confirms the suspicions the settlers harbor of Orrin's goals. When being pursued by Orrin, a canyon krayt dragon attacks Kenobi. This is where he reveals himself as a Jedi to Orrin Gault as he battles the beast. After destroying the krayt dragon, Orrin schemes to reveal Kenobi to the Empire. Which could be his last card to play, despite his desperate situation with the settlers, the Tuskens, and Jabba's debt. Eventually Orrin tries to escape, making use of a damaged land speeder. In a face off with Annileen, Kenobi, and A'Yark, Orrin accelerates quickly towards the Tusken leader which sends them speeding off a cliff into the Tusken badlands. Orrin is no longer seen by Kenobi, Anilieen or the children at that point. In the end, Orrin, thought dead, is paralyzed from the waist down and badly burned. He is taken in by the Tusken Raiders. He wakes up discovering that he is wearing a Tusken breathing mask. A'Yark reveals that Orrin is now a slave on the Tusken camp and will be used to repair moisture vaporators. Annileen and her children meet Kenobi at his house in the Jundland wastes. Kenobi then reveals to Annileen that he has arranged for her to travel to Bestine and leave Tatooine for good. He also gives her news that he submitted her university application, that she had been holding onto the Claim for so many years. She will study exobiology and travel to multiple systems and planets to study different species as part of the program. She is overjoyed with the news. But Kenobi reveals that he will not be staying with her and her family. He explains has responsibilities on the planet to take care of. He also explains how he has been withholding information from her about his past. This upsets her greatly and causes her to feel sorry for Kenobi. She is saddened to lose her new savior, but finds a way to deal with her grief. + +Jedi Masters Roan Shryne, Bol Chatak and Padawan Olee Starstone land on Murkhana with a contingency of clone troopers. Using information from a defected mercenary, Shryne leads a surgical strike on Murkhana City much to the dismay of Commander Salvo who preferred a strike from aboard the Star Destroyer Gallant. Joined by clone commando Climber and his Ion Team, Shryne leads the attack on the Separatist's shield generator, successfully completing their mission. During preparations to rendezvous with the other Republic forces, Climber is contacted by Salvo with the order to exterminate the Jedi. Conflicted by this command and his loyalty to his comrades, Climber instructs Ion Team to disrupt the planned ambush on the Jedi. A quick standoff ends with Climber allowing Shryne, Chatak and Starstone a head start before starting the hunt. Salvo loses most of his trust in Climber and his team and keeps his eye on them. Shryne and the others decide to abandon their Jedi garb and gear in an attempt to escape the planet, but are captured by the troopers. Four standard weeks pass since the events of Order 66, with the downfall of the Jedi Order and the rise of the Galactic Empire over the Old Republic. Darth Vader, apprentice to the newly proclaimed Emperor Palpatine, alias Darth Sidious, and second-in-command in the Empire, is sent to Murkhana by Palpatine himself to investigate allegations of disloyalty from clones failing to carry out Order 66. Vader investigates and engages in a lightsaber duel with Bol Chatak; the Sith Lord wins by decapitating Chatak. Shryne and Olee escape Vader's wrath, seeking transportation offworld. Shryne and Olee find that transport through the Drunk Dancer, a freighter, and the former Jedi meets his mother, Jula. Olee and Shryne part ways: Shryne stays with his mother, Olee goes in search of other Jedi survivors with the other Jedi. Meanwhile, Skeck, Archyr, Jula and Shryne--having parted ways with Fili to help Olee track Jedi--go to Alderaan to rescue Sern Prime's Senator Fang Zar. Darth Vader, having been sent by Palpatine to kill the Senator, confronts Shryne as they are about to escape. Zar and Jula are struck by Vader's lightsaber and Zar is killed. Luckily, Jula is rescued despite her wounds. On Kashyyyk, Shryne and Starstone, along with the native Wookiees, fight the stormtroopers of the Empire as an attack on the planet begins. Two of the Jedi are killed while Darth Vader fights Starstone. Shryne intervenes and fights Vader, telling Starstone to flee. Chewbacca flies the remaining Jedi to the Drunk Dancer as Vader reveals himself to Shryne and kills him by fatally wounding him via the dark side of the Force. Kashyyyk falls to the Empire. The epilogue depicts Obi-Wan Kenobi, now under the guise of Ben Kenobi living as a hermit on Tatooine to watch over the infant Luke Skywalker from a distance. Kenobi is shocked at the news to hear that Darth Vader, whom he believed he killed in his duel against him on Mustafar, is alive. He is then contacted by the spirit of his late Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, who assures him that Luke will grow to confront his father when the time is right and that Vader will never step foot on Tatooine ever again, for fear of his memories coming back to haunt him. + +Darman and his brother Niner, who has healed from his spinal injury on the night of Order 66, are now under the rule of Darth Vader's 501st Legion. The purpose of Vader's organization of clones, remaining loyal to the Empire after the Clone Wars, is to hunt down and kill any remaining Jedi, especially Masters and maybe Knights, but also to bring back Padawans for the Emperor's Hand to train as dark side users. Along with this Jedi-hunting objective is to hunt down for any Jedi sympathizers and clone stragglers whom have left Palpatine's rule, such as the clone members of Clan Skirata. Darman is having an inner struggle with himself as he tries to pull himself together from his wife Etain Tur-Mukan's death. Initially, the squad that Darman and Niner are recruited in incorporate two clones trained by Corellian Sergeants, Bry and Ennen, and Bry is killed in the first mission in hunting Jedi. Bry is soon replaced by a Spaarti-grown clone, Rede, and after Ennen terminates a thug suspected to be a Jedi, he commits suicide. Not looking for any replacements for Ennen, the squad decides to be a three-man deal, and Rede is granted respect by Darman and Niner when he single-handedly kills a Jedi named Borik Yelgo aboard a space station somewhere in the Outer Rim. Meanwhile, Darman and Niner are introduced to Roly Melusar, who gains great respect from the clones in the 501st Legion, including Darman and Niner, for his no-nonsense attitude, his deep sympathy for the clones as people and soldiers, and his deep hatred of Jedi and all Force-users in general, including members of the Emperor's Hand. Meanwhile, on the planet Mandalore, Kal Skirata sends most of his Null clone sons, Nyreen Vollen and Bardan Jusik, who Skirata just adopted as another son, to extract Darman and Niner from Imperial Center. However, just as Darman and Niner head down to meet with Ordo, Mereel, Prudii, Jaing, Vollen and Jusik, Darman has second thoughts as he thinks over that if one of the 501st Legion's purpose was to hunt down for members to be trained as a member of the Emperor's Hand, then his son Kad would be in danger. Seeing how he has the entire Clan Skirata watching over Kad, Darman decides to stay in the 501st Legion in order to monitor, and maybe even sabotage, certain activities within the Empire that might compromise Kad's safety. Being as one of Darman's closest brothers, Niner decides to stay, too, which brings Jusik, now recently adopted as one of Skirata's sons, Vollen and the Nulls back to Mandalore empty-handed. Nevertheless, Ordo has promised Niner to have comlinks installed both of his and Darman's helmets that allows them to communicate to Clan Skirata over on Mandalore. Jaing even manages to get some dirt on Melusar, and reveals that Melusar came from a planet that was erased from the Republic star charts because it was ruled over by a Sith cult that killed his father, thus triggering Melusar's hatred of all Force-users. This hatred of all Force-users, including all of the members in the Emperor's Hand who serve as intelligence for the Empire, allows Melusar to have Darman and Niner, as well as Rede, skim around Imperial Intel to handle out anti-Jedi operations without the Emperor's Hand's knowledge. Skirata's plan to reverse the aging in his clone sons' DNA by Dr. Ovolot Qail Uthan is compromised when Uthan's home planet of Gibad is attacked by the Empire because of their reluctance to join the Imperials. Most, if not all, of Gibad's citizens were exterminated by a toxin created by Uthan herself - a bitter irony - while the actual structures of the planet remain intact. Uthan decides to put a halt on the reverse-aging process for revenge on the Empire for what they've done to Gibad by developing another virus she plans to unleash to the Imperials on Imperial Center. Working with Mij Gilamar, who she has a budding romance with, Uthan receives the supplies she needs to create the virus from the clones, but first develops an antiviral that would render whoever would receive the antiviral immune to the virus Uthan is creating. Skirata, Gilamar, the clones and Jusik go into Keldabe to spread the antiviral around so that the citizens of Mandalore wouldn't be affected by Uthan's virus that she plans to unleash unto the Empire. During Clan Skirata's visit to Keldabe, they spot Dred Priest. Priest happens to be a hated Mandalorian, who is an avid member of the Death Watch, a Mandalorian society that wants Mandalore to return to its old imperial days. Priest was also part of the Cuy'val Dar, and on Kamino, he set up a fight club that clones had been involved in, where they were either brutally wounded or killed. For what Priest did on Kamino, Gilamar and Ordo lead Priest down into an underground chasm where Gilamar kills Priest by stabbing him in a vital artery in the leg. Priest dies from severe blood loss, and Gilamar and Ordo toss his corpse into a churning river. Also as part of Skirata's plan to reverse the clones' accelerated aging, Ny Vollen ships in the ancient Kaminoan Jedi Kina Ha, who was engineered by the ancient Kaminoans to cheat death via old age. With Kina Ha is Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy, or Scout for short. Kina Ha's gracious and pleasant persona happens to almost change Skirata's view of Kaminoans, and Scout shows Skirata that the late Etain Tur-Mukan or Bardan Jusik weren't the only sensible Jedi he felt good to be around. Unfortunately, Clan Skirata comes to struggle with an inner turmoil over what would happen after Kina Ha's genetic material was used to reverse the clones' accelerated aging. Since the Empire is hunting down for Jedi, keeping Kina Ha and Scout for any longer than is needed would compromise Clan Skirata's safety. One alternative is to simply kill the two Jedi so they wouldn't reveal any information about Clan Skirata's location, willingly or otherwise, or they trade them off with maverick Jedi Master Djinn Altis. The Jedi problem merely gets worse for Skirata when Jusik and Vollen pick up renegade clone trooper Maze, and he has Master Arligan Zey with him, whom Ordo believed to be dead under Maze's hands on the night of Order 66. Zey figures out about Kad's nature, his Force abilities and his parents, and Zey finds out about the Jedi Order's flaws, such as how they are viewed as child stealers. Nevertheless, Skirata, against his better judgment and Vau's logic to simply kill the Jedi, decides to deal with Djinn Altis to trade the three Jedi, as well as wiping out their memories of Clan Skirata's location in case the Empire ever caught them and interrogated them about Skirata and his clanmates. Darman realizes about the Jedi being under the same roof as Kad via Fi, and regrets his decision about not going with the Nulls, Jusik and Vollen back to Mandalore, believing Zey, Kina Ha and Scout a threat to Kad's well being as a free Mandalorian instead of an orthodox Jedi under Palpatine's rule. He also figures out about Skirata's deal with Djinn Altis, who is viewed as a threat to the Empire of reestablishing the Jedi Order, and Darman decides that he will hunt down and kill as many Jedi as possible, notably under Altis's rule, for Kad's sake, which would compromise Skirata's deal. + +His search first leads to Belassa where Ferus was born. He heads to Olin and Lands where a nearby tailor named Mariana tells him that the company is shut down and the owners are not there anymore. Obi-Wan leaves and meets a boy in the alley, named Trever Flume. Later a squad of stormtroopers come patrolling there and Obi-wan is forced to hop on the nearest gravsled and ride for his life. Unfortunately that gravsled was the one that housed the street-kid he met earlier, and forced to take over the vehicle learns that his name is Trever Flume. Eventually, his investigation led him to the hospital that housed Roan Lands, Olin's partner in business. He eventually found out where Olin lived and found him. Soon after, two bounty hunters attacked where they were hiding. They were identified as Boba Fett and D'harhan. After that, Ferus attempted to save the planet and succeeded, by surrendering himself, with help from Kenobi. + +Ferus Olin returns to Coruscant with his street kid partner, Trever Flume. He is shocked at what has been done to the Jedi Temple. Ferus has come to the Temple in search of a Jedi, who he believes to be Fy-Tor-Ana. Ferus and Trever sneak into the Temple, and run from stormtroopers in search of the room the missing Jedi is being held in. Ferus finds that Inquisitor Malorum has set up his office inside the former living quarters of Yoda. Ferus then overhears Malorum saying that Darth Vader is coming to the Temple. Ferus also sees that the Empire has taken every single lightsaber and stored them in a room together. He then overhears Vader telling Malorum that he and the Emperor plan to wipe out the lower levels of Coruscant, which he believes are the home of many rebellious people. Ferus, after being seen by Vader, flees the Temple with Trever. Vader does not seem to care. Ferus then seeks out the help of Dexter Jettster. He finds that Dex has moved out or been kicked out. Ferus meets a woman who tells him to go to the underlevels. Ferus goes there and finds Dexter living with several people who call themselves the Erased. The Erased are people who lived on Coruscant that became enemies of the Empire. Dexter tells Ferus that he talked to Fy-Tor. Dex tells him that Fy-Tor said to seek out Solace when he needed her. Ferus, Trever, and the rest of the Erased go out in search of Solace, but Dexter stays behind. During their search, the group is attacked by a gang of Coruscanti. During the fight, Trever finds a secret passageway. Later, the group travels down the passageway, and it leads them below the crust of Coruscant. They find a man who calls himself Guide, and he leads them down the passageway further. Ferus and the group then see a bunch of people who have been living down below the crust who have been worshiping Guide. Ferus then realizes that Guide is actually a woman, not a man, and that this woman is Fy-Tor-Ana. Fy-Tor-Ana has deserted her old name and taken on the name of Solace. Ferus then tells Solace about the asteroid that he is gathering Jedi at. Solace refuses to go with him, much to Ferus's shock. Ferus tells her that Vader probably knows Solace is down in the underlevels, and that Malorum and Vader plan to sweep the area completely. This still did not sell Solace. Then Ferus tells her about the lightsabers. Then Solace suggests that they go back to the Temple, finally deciding to go with Ferus. She wants to find out what the Empire plans to do with the Erased and everyone else in the underlevels, and she wants to steal the lightsabers back. She suggests using the new turbolift shaft that was built during the Clone Wars. Ferus, not being a Jedi at that time, did not know about this addition to the Temple. They agree to use this plan. Ferus, Solace, and Trever take off in Solace's makeshift spacecraft en route to the Temple. At the Temple, Solace's spacecraft was able to get them through the turbolift shaft. They decided to go to Malorum's office first. They find that Malorum's office has been cleaned out. Trever realizes that the Empire plans to blow the entire Temple up with a version of a sleeper bomb. They all raced through the Temple, trying to get to the core generator to shut the bomb off in time. They encounter attack droids, which they dispose of quickly. Trever finds the Generator and the bomb, and Ferus is able to shut the generator down. When they were sure the bomb would not blow up, Ferus cut it in half and disposed of it. The group then hears the sound of stormtroopers. They see Malorum at the head of the stormtroopers. He screams, "Find them!" Then the troopers storm through the halls, some on AT-RTs. The three run back to Solace's ship. When Ferus is sure Solace and Trever are in the ship, he starts to jump in, but then at least 50 stormtroopers appear. Ferus knows that if Solace waits for him, they will all be captured or dead. Ferus tells Trever, "I'll be back!" Trever and Solace do not want to leave Ferus there, but Ferus tells Solace that she must get Trever back to safety. Solace agrees and flees in her spacecraft. Ferus is captured by the Imperial forces. Ferus is taken to a jail cell, and Malorum enters to interrogate him. Ferus does not reveal the name of the Jedi he met on Bellassa, even though he knows it is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Malorum tells Ferus that he is being deported to a prison planet, and that if he does not reveal the name, he will be executed for crimes against the Empire. Solace flies back to her base under the crust. Trever is furious at her for leaving Ferus to die, but Solace assures him that they will go to retrieve him. She tells him that it's not over; they hadn't escaped completely. Solace then hears a scream and a laser shot. They then see a member of the Erased, Keets Freely, run over to them, with blood all over him. He collapses at Trever's feet. Trever realizes that Solace was right; it was not over. He grabs a weapon and readies himself for the fight against the stormtroopers. + +From the moment he was thrown in Dontamo Prison, Ferus Olin looked for an escape. After a few run-ins with Prisoner 677780 he met his old friend, Clive Flax, who had already formulated an escape plan. On the day they were to escape, Ferus was taken by Stormtroopers to the execution chamber. He was able to tamper with a droid there to administer the lethal injection. While the Stormtroopers were distracted he used the force to subdue them all. He ran out of the building to find Clive Flax already in the midst of an escape attempt. They jumped on a supply freighter and fought off several guards and Stormtroopers. They were able to take off but were pursued by several imperial fighters. Meanwhile, the Jedi Fy-Tor-Ana, known at the time as Solace, was returning from a mission with Trever Flume. They came upon their base in the underground seas of Coruscant to find her people and the Erased fighting with imperials. Although they fought bravely, most of her allies died and their base was destroyed. Solace escaped with Trever and a few other survivors. They went to Dexter Jettster secret hide-out where they discovered Ferus Olin's location. Knowing that he was slated for execution, they hurried to the prison in an ARC-77 and a two-seated Jedi starfighter. When the entered the system, they saw a freighter about to be shot down by the Imperials. Through the force, Solace knew that it was Ferus' and they were able to defend him and make their escape. Afterwards, Ferus found out that Inquisitor Malorum was on Naboo. Having been tasked by Obi-Wan Kenobi to prevent anyone from finding out a secret about the late Padme Amidala, Ferus quickly went to Naboo and his friends came with him. On Naboo, they talked to Queen Apailana who assisted them in tracking down Malorum. Malorum, after much frustration had tracked down Amidala's maternal grandmother, Ryoo Thule. From her reaction to his questions he was able to deduce that she believed Amidala's child was alive. With that secret he left her for dead. Ferus reached her house just before she died. With her dying breath she told him that Malorum knew a secret about Amidala. After a brief fight with Malorum and some other Imperials, Ferus enlisted the help of Boss Rugor Nass and Queen Apailana. Ferus, Solace and their friends joined Gungan warriors in a surprise attack on the imperial barracks attached to the Theed Hangar. While Solace lead the forces, Ferus broke off and found Malorum. They proceeded to have a lightsaber duel and Ferus realized that they were dueling in the exact location Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn dueled with Darth Maul. After a furious battle that lead to the catwalks in the power core, Ferus saw an opening in his opponent. He elbowed Malorum in the face and knocked his lightsaber out of his hands. Malorum jumped of a catwalk and attempted to call the lightsaber back to him and land on another catwalk using the force. But, because he only had basic Force training, he strained too hard and lost control of the Force. He and his lightsaber fell into the abyss. Solace and the Gungans joined up with Captain Gregar Typho's forces and routed the imperial battalion. In order to prevent Imperial retaliation, Ferus and Clive detonated an illegal imperial explosives cache. The explosion took out the Imperial headquarters, the Theed hanger. When the Imperial military came to investigate, they engineered a coverup so that the Senate would not know that they were keeping explosive stores on a world illegally. After regrouping in the Rainbow Nebulae, Ferus, Trever, Solace, Clive, Oryon, Keets Freely, and Curran Caladian all agreed to come back to Ferus's jedi asteroid. But just before they left, Ferus received a message on his comlink from Emperor Palpatine himself. He offered Ferus amnesty and safe passage to meet with him on Coruscant. + +In 19 BBY on Naboo, Gregar Typho, who was once the late Padme Amidala's bodyguard, is visiting her grave. The narrative reveals that he loved Padme deeply, and vows that he will find and track down her killer, thus avenging her death. Jax Pavan, Laranth Tarak, Den Dhur, I-5YQ and Haninum Tyk Rhinann are living as private investigators in the bowels of Imperial Center. They come across a new case when they are encountered by Dejah Duare where she leads the party to her apartment to find her lover, Ves Volette, has been murdered. Force-using bounty hunter Aurra Sing is tasked by Darth Vader to go to Imperial Center to hunt down Jax. During their investigation to Ves Volette's murder, Jax and I-Five work out that Volette was killed by an Umber 3PO unit owned by a wealthy family who purchased Volette's artworks. The 3PO unit destroys itself so that its masters won't suffer. The reasoning for the droid's murder of Volette was because it was worried that the Caamasi was having an affair with the wealthy woman, and thus, might destroy the marriage between the family. This raises something to I-Five about sentience, which he wants to achieve, because this droid went beyond its protocol to defend its masters' honor. Gregar Typho learns that Darth Vader was somehow responsible for Padme's murder, along with the death of Anakin Skywalker. So he decides to kill Vader on Imperial Center in order to avenge her death. But Vader catches Typho off guard and asks why he was hunting him. Typho reveals about his wanting to avenge Padme, and, to a lesser degree, Anakin. Vader confirms of his murder of Padme and Anakin, and Force-chokes Typho to death. But Typho died knowing that he somehow hurt Vader more than killing him would have ever done to avenge Padme. With the case of her lover's murder solved, Dejah Duare decides to leave Imperial Center for her home, accompanied by Jax and his party. But they are attacked by Aurra Sing. Jax and Sing fight, and Sing is defeated, if not killed. Because of the Jax-Sing fight, Dejah decides to stay with him. This prompts Laranth, who Den knows loves Jax, to leave the group, with Dejah replacing Laranth in the position. Rhinann is plotting to leave Jax's group and regain favor with Vader. + +After receiving a summons from Emperor Palpatine, Ferus Olin discovers that Roan Lands and Dona Telamark, two people from his past on Bellassa are being held for trial. If Ferus agrees to help find the saboteur who is disrupting the computer system in the city of Sath on Samaria, then Palpatine will offer clemency to Ferus' two friends. Ferus has no choice but to agree. He heads to Samaria, after secretly telling his friends, the Erased, Trever Flume, and Clive Flax, what he has to do. While Ferus tries to find the saboteur, Solace, Trever, and Oryon attempt to rescue Dona and Roan, so Ferus doesn't have to follow the Emperor's orders. Clive, a client of Olin and Lands goes with Ferus, while Keets Freely and Curran Caladian stay with Dexter Jettster. Eventually with Keets and Curran's help, Solace's group rescue Roan and Dona. Ferus finds the saboteur and discovers that it is Astri Oddo along with her son, Lune Divinian. She says that she was hired by the Aaren Larker, the prime minister of Samaria. Ferus hears someone on the roof, and finds out that Darth Vader was doing a door-to-door check. After being reunited with Solace, Trever, Oryon, Dona, and Roan, they all head towards Solace's ship, which was stolen from the Galactic Empire. Ferus stays, however, to become a double-agent against the Empire. Back on Coruscant, Keets and Curran were captured because they broke into a Senator's office. Later they managed to escape, using a gun that Dex's droid had brought them. + +Meanwhile, Trever Flume heads back to the asteroid base. After apologizing for leaving his friends stranded there, he tells them his doubts about Ferus. Solace, another Jedi, quickly casts those doubts aside, but after thinking she realizes how true they could be. As Trever heads back to Flame, a member of Moonstrike, with Roan Lands, Solace heads to Coruscant with Clive Flax, Astri Oddo Divinian, and Lune Divinian. She finds a Jedi called Ry-Gaul there, but is unable to prevent Bog Divinian's capture of Lune. Lune is forcibly enrolled in the Imperial Naval Academy. As if that isn't enough, Trever, Roan, and Amie Antin have decided to take some action. After they contact Ferus and after all doubts about him have been cleared, they choose to break into the Empire's computers and gather information. Once they are all ready, the group splits into three parts: Roan and Ferus, Amie, and Trever. At the end of the short time they have, Trever is missing! Ferus desperately searches for Trever, and, finding him, he gives Trever a chip with all the information they found. Then he leaves him to escape in case anything happens to the rest of them. As Ferus makes it back to the rest, he finds Darth Vader right in the way of the path to his friends. So quick that no one can fully register, Darth Vader kills Roan. Ferus is angry despite Roan's last warning to not give himself away, and he attacks his greatest nemesis. Dwarfed by Darth Vader's power, however, Ferus is arrested along with Amie Antin. Inside the jail cell, Ferus is confronted by the Emperor himself, and he asks him if he would really like to be powerful enough to destroy Vader. This gets his attention, and the Emperor offers to let him out of prison if he would become his apprentice. Ferus agrees. With Ferus and Amie in prison, Lune enrolled in a naval academy, and Roan killed, how will the resistance continue to succeed? In addition to that, the resistance is losing hope as they lose their best men. Things do not look well + +Trevor is in the Imperial Navy Academy on Coruscant to save Lune and is having a tough time adjusting. He can't be kicked out before he helps the boy, after all. But after they find each other, Lune is taken as a test subject to Jenna Zan Arbor. Vader's hired her to get her to eliminate memories. He doesn't want to think of his past life - including Padme - anymore. Ferus is hell-bent on revenge and uses his anger to mask his pain. He's on a slippery slope and while he recognizes his excuses for what they are, he is okay with falling. He gets Roan's cousin Malory to take a job at a hospital on Coruscant so that he can learn more about Vader. That's where he realizes just how dangerous the pull of the Dark Side is. + +Ferus is on Alderaan to investigate possible Force activity from a toddler. When he learns that it's Leia, Bail Organa's daughter, he does what he can to protect her from his fellow Inquisitor, Hydra, as well as Vader. Ferus also begins to recognize the consequences of having a Sith holocron so near. Amie is on Coruscant still looking up the medical history for Ferus. She steers him towards Mustafar. Meanwhile, Clive still doesn't trust Flame and is investigating her past. Astri helps him. + +Ferus Olin has found out that his old rival Anakin Skywalker is now Darth Vader. With hatred for what he did to his partner and best friend Roan Lands, Ferus plans to end Vader, once and for all. Darth Vader plans the same fate for Olin. He finds out that Jenna Zan Arbor has lost her memory, and cannot give Vader the drug he needs to dump Padme out of his life forever. He thinks Ferus is behind this and plans to kill him no matter what his master Darth Sidious says. Meanwhile Clive Flax and Astri Oddo have found out that Flame, their loyal and trustworthy friend has been a spy for the Empire all along. They contact Ferus and tell him this. Being under the influence of the Sith holocron he tells them to terminate her. A few minutes later he comes to his senses and tells them to dump her on the planet, turn heel, and leave. Ferus then goes to the Jedi Temple and finds Vader there. The two started dueling each other. While they are fighting Ferus tells Vader that he knows who he is and that he knows how he secretly married Padme, then supposedly killed her. Vader roars in anger and comes at Ferus with everything he's got. Ferus realizes that this isn't the way to bring Vader down. He destroys the Holocron and becomes his old Jedi self again. Vader takes advantage of this movement and chokes Ferus until he passes out. Thinking he has killed him Vader returns to his Star Destroyer. Ferus' friend Trever Flume finds and rescues him. Meanwhile Toma tells Raina that he has handed Acherin to the Empire so he can be king of it. The two of them get into a gun battle in which they both die. Back on his star destroyer Darth Vader destroys the asteroid. Since they were on it Solace, Ry-Gaul, Garen Muln, and Oryon all die. Only Lune survives. After a tearful goodbye to Ferus, Trever gets his memory wiped so he won't be in danger of the Empire. Astri and Clive raise Trever and Lune on a beach house far away from the Empire. Ferus then goes to Alderaan after accepting a mission to look after Leia from Obi-Wan, who is currently looking after Luke Skywalker. Leia would never know Ferus, but he would always be there. + +Jax Pavan, Den Dhur, I-5YQ , Dejah Duare and Haninum Tyk Rhinann are assisting Pol Haus with his investigation into the murder of a Toydarian spice dealer. Some time later, Jax has a dream of being in the Jedi Temple on the day that Anakin gave him a pyronium nugget for safekeeping. The dream alters from how it happened, with Anakin giving a cryptic message in a deep voice, before his image shifts into a horribly burned version of himself, the shock of this causing Jax to awaken. He reveals to I-5 how odd it is for the Force to have altered a memory in a dream, rather than having a prescient dream as he has heard of before. Jax and I-5 then hear someone at the door, and Jax opens it to reveal Tuden Sal, who has been sent by Whiplash to find Jax. I-5 is not at all happy to see Sal, and holds him at laserpoint. Den walks in on this scene as I-5 explains his and Sal's history, with Jax realizing that Sal was the man that his father Lorn Pavan entrusted the Sith holocron and I-5 to years prior. Sal apologizes for his actions, revealing that immediately after Lorn's death, he fell prey to a hostile takeover of his business holdings that was engineered by then-Senator Palpatine. He sent his family off-world after a kidnap attempt was made on one of his children, then joined the Whiplash in an effort to battle the Empire. When he met Laranth Tarak and learned of I-5's existence, Sal formulated the plan that he is now presenting: for I-5 to assassinate Emperor Palpatine. Rhinann rejects the plan as too risky, Den points out that I-5 is a much older model of droid than would likely be seen in Palpatine's company, and Dejah voices the opinion that if the plan fails, it would likely focus Palpatine's attention on the Whiplash. She also argues that Jax could be killed if his role in the plot is found out, with I-5 observing that perhaps it is Jax's responsibility to train new Force-sensitives, and therefore not be involved in the assassination attempt. I-5 finally says that he wants to hear everyone's opinions before making his decision, but he will give Jax's view the most weight. Jax, however, says that he doesn't know what his answer will be. Elsewhere, Kajin Savaros, an untrained human Force Adept, is living a marginal existence on the streets of Coruscant, attempting to stay alive while avoiding the Inquisitorius, Darth Vader's personally trained Jedi hunters. This is problematic for Kajin, because he was never properly trained in how to control the Force, and his emotions cause it to build up inside him, making him need to use it to relieve his anger. He senses an Inquisitor near him as he steals some food, but manages to stay hidden and make his escape. Meanwhile, Inquisitor Probus Tesla, who has been tracking Jax, is given a new assignment by Vader, to focus on finding I-5 instead. Disappointed, Tesla nevertheless promises to find the droid. Rhinann, meanwhile, has learned that Tesla has been narrowing his search for Jax to an uncomfortable proximity, and finally decides that he has overstayed his welcome, setting up transportation for the next day, regardless of whether he has obtained the bota plant extract or not. Jax finds himself wondering why Laranth left the group months prior, but before he can devote too much thought to it, he senses a strong Force presence and heads toward it. Tesla and Laranth, who are both in the area, have felt it too, with Jax meeting up with Laranth on the way to its source. Tesla arrives at a huge, malfunctioning repulsor field expecting to find Jax, but instead finds Kajin. Tesla chases Kajin down a tunnel, and they struggle against each other with the Force. To Tesla's amazement, Kajin is able to literally tear out a piece of repulsor field energy and hurl it back at him, almost knocking him completely out of the passage. He challenges Kajin verbally, then fires a bolt of Force lightning at him when Kajin rebuffs his offer to join the Inquisitorius, but the lightning interacts with the unstable repulsor field and arcs back on Tesla, injuring him severely. Jax and Laranth find Kajin when he exits the area, and Jax brings the teen back to the groups dwelling intending to train him in the ways of the Force. Upon Dejah's entry, Laranth abruptly leaves to make a report to the head of Whiplash, while Jax and Dejah talk about Kajin's abilities. Den tells I-5 privately that he believes Dejah is manipulating Jax. Rhinann observes most of this and worries that perhaps Kajin is a plant to find Jax and the others, then accelerates his plans to leave Coruscant, with or without the bota extract. Jax begins Kajin's training the next day, trying to work through the problems caused by Kajin's anger, and Rhinann begins his inquiries by asking I-5 about the vial's location, though I-5 is cryptic in answering him, saying that he does not want Rhinann to have any information that Vader would want, in case Rhinann should be captured. Near the end of the day, Pol Haus visits the group, and reveals both that he knows Jax is a Jedi and that Vader has taken a personal interest in finding the rogue Force-sensitive who injured an Inquisitor. Haus claims to want to find Kajin and get him to one of the surviving Jedi that he believes exist, saying that the easiest way would be to tell Vader that Kajin was killed in an accident that left no physical evidence. When Haus leaves, Jax asks Dejah and I-5 for their opinions on Haus, with Dejah saying she sensed no malice from him and I-5 saying that if Haus is an enemy, he has the ability to have all their means of offworld passage watched. Jax brings Kajin out to talk with him, but is confused when the teen disappears from his Force sense even though he can still see him. This happens again moments later, and when Jax asks how he is doing it, Kajin claims to not be doing anything. When he steps closer to one of Ves Voltte's light sculptures, Jax and Dejah both lose any Force or empathic sense of him. Dejah becomes upset and leaves the room, with Rhinann following her, and I-5 theorizes that the crystal-based power source of the sculpture shunts the Force from being sensed. Jax wonders about using an enclosure made of the sculptures to contain Kajin's abilities from detection, while in the meantime, Rhinann has learned that Dejah believes Ves knew of the sculptures' properties and used them to hide his true feelings from her. She is stung by the realization, and Rhinann makes a token attempt to comfort her, also telling her about the bota extract in an effort to learn from her if she knows who has it. Rhinann then questions Den about the location of the extract, who claims not to have it, with Den and Dejah later talking about who actually does have it, deciding that they can't be sure what I-5 has done with it. Back at the groups dwelling, Kajin's anger gets the better of him and threatens to expose him to the Inquisitorius before Jax manages to calm him down. Jax learns that Kajin feels angry at Palpatine, blaming him for his parent's decision to send him away from the Inquistorious squad that was on their planet. Den and I-5 have gone to set up a departure for an Ortolan refugee through the Underground Mag-Lev and Den questions I-5's reasons for not rejecting Sal's assassination plot outright. Den questions I-5 about the bota, but before they can continue the conversation, I-5 spots a group of Inquisitors moving towards the area where they felt Kajin's power emanating from. Jax asks Dejah if Kajin can be moved to Ves Volette's studio, where there are more light sculptures, and Dejah grudgingly gives her permission, even after learning that it may be necessary to modify the sculpture's waveforms. Jax dispatches Rhinann to find a way to get Kajin to the studio, while I-5 and Den see the Inquisitors enter the groups residential area. I-5 disguises himself as a Koorivar, with Den pretending to be a real estate agent, so as not to draw the Inquisitors attention. When they reach the conapt, they disguise Kajin as the Koorivar and send him, I-5 and Den to the speeder that Rhinann has hired. Kajin sees one of the Inquisitors and panics, trying to remove the disguise before they're airborne, and Jax is forced to reveal himself in the Force to draw the Inquisitors attention, then he abandons the dwelling and makes his way to Volette's studio normally. Laranth arrives at the studio after Kajin, I-5 and Den arrive, and through her they learn that the sculptures also make it difficult for her to sense when Kajin actively uses the Force inside their fields. Jax and Laranth try to further modify the sculptures so that they will shield more of Kajin's power, but Haus contacts them, telling Jax that soon 'the client' -- referring to Vader -- will take matters into his own hands if Haus fails to give him any information. Jax asks Laranth to set up a meeting with Thi Xon Yimmon, the head of Whiplash, and asks her opinion about Sal's plan. When Laranth demands to know if Jax cares what she thinks, Jax assures her that he does, with Laranth saying that he didn't seem to care when he left her in the medcenter after she was injured during the battle with Aurra Sing. Jax begins to respond, but they halt the conversation rather than have it in front of Kajin. Finally done modifying the sculptures, Jax has Kajin attempt to deflect fire from a training remote. Realizing that Kajin is only using the Force to increase his reaction time, Jax blindfolds him and tries to instruct him in how to use the Force to anticipate the attacks. Kajin succeeds in blocking several shots, but then gets hit and lashes out in anger, almost killing Jax with the duraluminum pole he's using instead of a lightsaber. Jax calms Kajin down, and Kajin apologizes for his actions, begging Jax and Laranth to teach him how to restrain himself. The rest of the exercise passes without incident, and after Kajin goes to sleep, Jax and Laranth discuss his training. Jax finds himself wondering if he should ask Laranth to rejoin the group, when I-5, Den and Dejah return from sending the Ortolan refugee offworld. Laranth leaves, saying that she will set up the meeting with Yimmon, and I-5 asks that the group now vote on Sal's plan. Den and Rhinann vote against it, while Dejah has changed her mind, and now votes for it. Jax still hasn't made up his mind, but promises I-5 that after he speaks with Yimmon he'll have an answer. Jax then goes to meet Laranth at a bar so they can meet Yimmon. While waiting for her, he considers her attitude and actions in several instances, including the brief moment of emotional intimacy they shared months prior, when she was injured. He questions whether he's let himself be manipulated by Dejah, then Laranth arrives. She asks him if he's alright, and Jax says he's realized that he's been cocky, and has made a serious mistake. Laranth offers the opinion that everyone makes that kind of mistake once in a while. Jax again senses a connection, but he hesitates and the moment passes. They get up and leave under the pretense of a romantic interlude, and Laranth takes Jax to Yimmon's lair. Laranth begins to leave, but Jax asks her to stay. He finds out from Yimmon that Haus is one of the original Whiplash operatives, and that Yimmon also considers Sal to be a trustworthy member of the group. Jax then reveals that Sal wants I-5 to assassinate Palpatine, which neither Laranth or Yimmon knew about. Jax says that he believes Sal's primary motive is vengeance, and Yimmon then questions if this is also Jax's reason. Laranth supports the plan, but Yimmon questions how assassinating Palpatine would make Jax and his group any different from the Empire. Jax thanks Yimmon for his advice and leaves. Jax returns to the group and tells them that he can't give his approval of the plan, which Dejah disapproves of. Jax goes to contact Haus, and Jax apologizes to I-5, saying that he wishes his father was there to advise him. This activates a recording Lorn made for Jax just before his attempt to recover the Sith holocron from Darth Maul, where Lorn says that he never considered himself a hero, but felt he owed it to Darsha Assant, the Jedi who sacrificed her life to save him and I-5, and because he wants Jax to be proud of his father. Jax realizes that his father was a hero, and decides to go ahead with the plot to assassinate Palpatine. Jax wonders if perhaps by killing Palpatine there can be a Jedi Order that allows the Jedi to have families, then he and I-5 head back to the abandoned conapt to get a piece of equipment from the sculpture they left there. While Jax and I-5 are out, Rhinann and Dejah take Kajin outside for a walk, but the Inquisitors locate them. Jax and I-5 return to the studio to find Dejah, Rhinann and Kajin gone, and Haus shows up for their rendezvous. Kajin tells Dejah and Rhinann to run, then attempts to make his way past the Inquisitors. Laranth finds him and accompanies him, but soon their path is blocked by Tesla. Laranth suddenly arrives on the scene, and fires at Tesla. But at the same time, Kajin has Force-pushed Tesla away, and Laranth's shots detonate a vehicle, causing a panic on the street. Kajin, Laranth, Jax and the Inquisitors battle, with Jax crippling one before Laranth kills him. Kajin faces off against Tesla, but both he and Jax see the third Inquisitor attacking Laranth from behind. Kajin hurls a massive Force push against him, disintegrating the man and saving Laranth, but allowing Tesla to escape. Tesla is amazed by the teen's skill, and also realizes that he somehow sensed I-5 in the Force. Back at the studio, Dejah apologizes for taking Kajin outside, saying she was afraid that Haus would arrive while Jax was gone and try to take Kajin. Haus asks if they should send Kajin to Yimmon, and then the group realizes that Den is gone, having intended to head back to Sullust earlier. Jax tells I-5 that he can sense him, and that this means I-5 wouldn't be able to get close enough to Palpatine to assassinate him. Tesla makes his report to Vader and is surprised by Vader's telling him that one of Jax's group is a double agent, and that capturing Kajin is what will be needed to have Jax, I-5 and the bota extract as well. Laranth goes to take Kajin to Yimmon, while Jax and I-5 meet with Sal and inform him that I-5 somehow generates a Force signature. Sal is determined to carry out the plan, and tries to figure out some way for I-5 to kill Palpatine anyway, but the only way I-5 would no longer show up in the Force would be if his programs were stripped down to his basic level, which I-5 points out would make it impossible for him to kill Palpatine, as it is only his modifications that allow him to kill people. Sal then raises the prospect of I-5 assassinating Palpatine during the next Senate debate in two days time, with Jax accompanying a disguised I-5 while himself disguised as an Inquisitor. On their way to Yimmon's, Laranth and Kajin are drugged and captured by Inquisitors, and Jax has a Force-induced nightmare that worries him enough to go see Kajin. Before he can leave, Yimmon contacts them, saying that Laranth and Kajin were ambushed and taken. Yimmon realizes this means someone who had knowledge of some Whiplash activities must have informed the Inquisitors, but unlike Jax, he doesn't believe it was Haus. Jax alters the plot, changing it from an assassination to a rescue. Kajin wakes up in a nondescript room, not having any memory of who or where he is. When he heads out into the main area, he meets Tesla, who tells him that Jedi attempted to kidnap him. Kajin decides that must mean he is a Sith and Tesla tells him he is one of the most promising Inquisitorius recruits. Jax, in his Inquisitor disguise, manages to get close enough to the ISB Central Office to sense that Laranth is being tortured, but he cannnot sense Kajin. He returns to the others and tells them this, and is surprised when Dejah says they should try and rescue Laranth. Jax decides to offer himself to Vader in exchange for Laranth and Kajin, intending to perhaps play Vader against Palpatine by using the bota extract as a bargaining chip. Rhinann sets up a conversation with Vader where Jax offers to turn I-5 and the bota over to him in exchange for Laranth and Kajin, to which Vader seemingly agrees. Afterward, Vader tells Kajin he was the one that rescued Kajin from the Jedi and shows him the restrained Laranth, causing Kajin to react with anger. I-5, Dejah and Rhinann arrive at the ISB and are escorted by Inquisitors, one of whom is Jax in disguise, to an abandoned docking chamber control room, faced by the still-bound Laranth, Vader, Palpatine and Kajin. Rhinann wonders why I-5 doesn't go on with the plan and fire at Palpatine, before realizing that Palpatine is only a holograph, which promptly disappears. Vader asks Dejah who has the bota, and she replies that she doesn't know, and then reveals that one of the inquisitors is actually Jax in disguise. Jax is upset by this and by her reasons for betraying them -- a sensual addiction to the energy given off by Force Adepts, which, when she couldn't manipulate Jax into providing her, was indulged by Tesla. Vader demands the bota, telling Jax that if he hands it over, he will let Laranth go. He then demonstrates his willingness to kill them all by momentarily torturing Laranth with the Force, which Jax uses as a distraction to reactivate I-5's personality. Vader again demands that Jax order I-5 to turn over the bota, but I-5 replies that he doesn't have it, firing his lasers at Vader, who blocks them. Vader admits fascination with the fact that he can sense I-5's emotions, then threatens to kill Jax and Laranth if I-5 doesn't give him the bota. Jax catches Laranth's gaze and she signals to him that she has the bota vial, but Vader loses his patience and hurls Jax against the wall. Laranth tells Vader that she has the vial and gives it to him, then Vader asks Jax to return the pyronium nugget Anakin gave him years previously. Jax does so, and Vader also demands the Sith holocron, which I-5 informs him they no longer have. Vader reveals that the bota combined with the pyronium will purify and exponentially increase his connection to the force, and that the Holocron contained instructions on exactly how to do this. Vader, however, is confident that he can figure it out without the Holocron, and pours the contents of the vial into a receptacle on his chest plate. A frightened Tesla steps forward, but Vader says it is merely an analysis, before he is overcome by the power of the Cosmic Force, causing him to toss out Force energy in random directions. One blast shatters the control room window, a chair pins I-5 to the wall, and the energy surges short out Laranth's bonds, letting her rush to Kajin's side. Dejah attempts to get close to Vader but is hurled into a wall and killed. Another Force blast kills the other Inquisitor, and when Laranth and Jax are both unable to use the Force to contain Vader's power, Jax draws his lightsaber and heads toward Vader, only to be met by Tesla, before Tesla is caught by another burst and thrown into a pile of debris. Jax finds himself face-to-face with Vader, and hears Vader say "You cannot." When Vader is momentarily distracted by the opening of the room's doors, Jax slashes at him, his lightsaber bouncing off the bubble of Force energy hard enough to cause Jax's arm to go numb. Laranth calls for Jax and he sees Yimmon, Sal, Den and other Whiplash operatives, heavily armed, coming into the room. Sal tries to get Kajin, who is frantically trying to reach Vader, and is then grabbed by a tendril of Force energy as Vader heads toward the blasted-out window. Jax pursues them, only to be caught himself by another loop of energy. Rhinann, enraged that the bota extract is gone, hurls himself at Vader and attempts to damage his breathing apparatus, which distracts Vader enough to lose his grip on Kajin and Jax. Rhinann lunges at Vader and they fall out of the window to the hangar, with Rhinann feeling the Force at last as he dies. They realize that Tesla has vanished again, then run as Vader's power erupts again and begins to destroy the control room. In the aftermath, I-5 is repaired and upgraded with several new weapons, while Den admits that he stayed because he now thinks of Coruscant, rather than Sullust, as his home. Jax and Laranth try to restore Kajin's memories, but when they are unable to, Yimmon suggests sending him to the planet Shili, where the mysterious healers known as The Silent can help him recover, though it is unclear if Kajin will ever use the Force again since Vader removed his memories of it. After Kajin leaves, Laranth tells Jax that Dejah's betrayal wasn't his fault, but Jax aruges that he should have anticipated her actions, that he was so certain that the Force allowed him to counteract her pheromone discharges and empathic gifts that he let himself be fooled. He brings up the moment that he and Laranth shared in the medcenter, only for Laranth to dismiss it as the past. Jax refuses to do so, however, and he and Laranth again share their feelings for each other through the Force. Neither of them are sure what is meant by their feelings, and they decide to hold off on any romance for the time being. Laranth questions why Jax wagered that the bota would affect Vader that way, and he says it was a combination of the bota being twenty years old and Vader not being prepared for the power surge he experienced, although he does not mention that Vader's aura and his comment about returning the pyronium have led him to suspect that Vader is Anakin. Jax tells Laranth that he doesn't think Vader is dead, but that he intends to stay on Coruscant, working with Whiplash, regardless. Arriving back at their new residence, Den introduces them to a Mirialan named Chan Dash who has come to them for assistance. Suddenly, Jax is hit with a connection to the Force unlike any he has ever felt, a momentary resonace with the Cosmic Force. He realizes that with the bota gone, the only way this could have happened is by the Force itself granting him the moment, and that what it means is that he was where he is meant to be. Jax then asks the Mirialan how they can help. + +Aboard the ship Far Ranger, Jax Pavan, Laranth Tarak, Den Dhur and I-5YQ transport Thi Xon Yimmon, Cerean leader of the Whiplash resistance movement. They are en route to Dantooine, where Yimmon will be safe from the attacks that have taken place on Coruscant. They make a stop on Toprawa, where Jax and Laranth meet with Aren Folee of the Antarian Rangers. After continuing their journey, the ship is assaulted by Imperials at the Twins. Darth Vader and several stormtroopers board the dying ship during the battle. Laranth is killed, Yimmon is taken, and I-Five is nearly destroyed. Vader leaves with the Cerean, believing the fate of the survivors sealed, but Jax and Den leave with an escape pod, with I-Five's remains and the miisai tree that Laranth once gave to Jax. They are picked up by an escort of the Antarian Rangers and return to Toprawa. There they seek refuge in Mountain Home, a hideout used by the resistance there, and they meet several people. I-Five is refitted in the body of a DUM pit droid. Den and Jax are shaken by the previous events and contact Coruscant. After several days of staying on Toprawa they leave for Coruscant. There they have a meeting with the main members of Whiplash: Tuden Sal, Acer Ash, Dyat Agni, and Sheel Mafeen. Pol Haus is also present. After Jax meets with the Cephalon Aoloiloa, who warns him of events to come, he infiltrates the Imperial Security Bureau. Vader is present and he sees Jax, who is disguised. Jax quickly leaves after knowing Yimmon isn't there. Back at his ship, the Laranth, an Inquisitor is onto them. Part Two: Flight and Pursuit Jax, Den and I-Five leave Coruscant in a rush. They make for Mandalore, where several Imperial ships have been seen. Jax meets with a Black Sun contact of Tuden Sal, Tyno Fabris. Jax negotiates with him and Prince Xizor and eventually learns of Kantaros Station in the Both system, where Yimmon might be. Meanwhile, Tuden Sal is planning to kill the Emperor but Haus disagrees with him. After withholding information, Sal removes Haus from Whiplash. Haus uses Mafeen to gather intel. Den and I-Five refit the droid in a new body and disagree with Jax's methods. The three leave for Kantaros. + +Han Solo has spent nearly all of his nineteen years aboard the Trader's Luck, a pirate vessel commanded by the barbaric Garris Shrike. While on Corellia, Shrike discovered Han as a street urchin and took him in to use as an actor in scams. By sending Solo and other children into the streets on various worlds to beg for money, Shrike made a fortune. Life aboard Trader's Luck was hard and cruel, but a young Solo found solace and care from the Wookiee cook Dewlanna. From her, he learned to understand Shyriiwook and learned that not everyone in the galaxy was as vile as Shrike. At the age of nineteen, the youth decided he had enough with Shrike and made plans to escape the Luck. Solo carefully planned to stowaway aboard a droid freighter bound for Ylesia, where he had heard about a need for skilled pilots. However, his plan was discovered by Shrike during his farewell to Dewlanna. Shrike was furious and violence ensued; Dewlanna defended they boy and injured Shrike, but not before she suffered a mortal injury. Stricken with grief, Solo was reluctant to leave a dying Dewlanna. She told him to leave, to live so that her death would not be in vain. With Dewlanna dead and Shrike unconscious, Han Solo boarded the freighter and began his journey to Ylesia. Han Solo survived his arrival on Ylesia only by his natural skill as a pilot. The atmosphere on the planet was particularly turbulent and he managed to land the freighter with minimal damage. The t'landa Til priests were impressed already with his ability as a pilot and interviewed Solo, who had assumed the alias Vykk Draygo. Ylesia was a tropical world with a few large islands amidst a vast ocean home to massive predators. As part of an elaborate scheme orchestrated by the Besadii Hutt clan, t'landa Til priests had set up a religious sanctuary that attracted thousands of Pilgrims to experiences the Exultation. Solo would later discover the truth behind what appeared to be a paradise. Soon enough, Vykk Draygo was hired as a pilot for transporting spice to and from Ylesia because many of the droid freighters had been easily attacked and pillaged by spacegoing pirates. Not only was Ylesia a religious sanctuary, it served as the heart of the Besadii clan's spice refinement operations. Massive factories refined raw spice shipped from Ryloth and Kessel into a consumable form bound for Nar Shaddaa and other worlds. To supposedly protect the new pilot, Teroenza, the High Priest, assigned him a Togorian bodyguard named Muuurgh. Like all Togorians, Muuurgh was very tall and exhibited many sharp teeth and extraordinary hunting abilities. Solo was quite aware that his obedience was more of a priority to Teroenza than his protection. Before he could begin flying, Solo became well-practiced in the simulator and began to learn the lay of the land of Colony One. With Muuurgh, he toured the spice refineries, which is where he met Pilgrim 921. He discovered that so-called religious pilgrims were, in fact, being forced into slavery within the spice refineries. 921, who eventually revealed her name to be Bria, was a Corellian woman who met Solo's fancy but declined his advances. Solo would stop wondering how the slaves were kept on Ylesia when he witnessed his first Exultation. Each evening, the slaves would enthusiastically attend the t'landa Til Exultation, which they believed to be a spiritual experience that brought them together with The One and the All. After reciting a scripted sermon, Teroenza, Veratil, and other Ylesian priests would perform the Exultation. The new pilot had to actively resist the intense waves of pleasure and ecstasy being produced by the t'landa Til. Around him, the slaves writhed in pleasure on the ground and were barely able to return to their dormitories. This jolt of pleasure, a natural t'landa Til ability used to attract females, became an addiction the slaves could not refuse. In this manner, the slaves were kept on Ylesia not by security guards--of which there were few--but rather by choice. When Han Solo discovered the scam, he alerted Bria Tharen - who refused to believe him. However, Solo had secretly recorded a discussion he had had with Teroenza about the secret of the Exultation. This revelation was an epiphany for Tharen, who lost all faith in her religious journey and was infuriated at her own folly. Nevertheless, she was unable to skip Exultations. Prior to this revelation, young Solo had rescued Tharen from the spice refineries by securing for her a job as caretaker and documentarian for Teroenza's extensive and prized collection of antiquities. Had he not, Tharen would most likely have ended up as another sort of slave - in an Imperial pleasure house. By now, Han Solo had gained much experience as a pilot for the T'landa Til, delivering spice to many worlds. With the trust of the priests gained and Tharen at his side, Solo decided the time had come to leave Ylesia. Of course, there was Muuurgh to worry about. Muuurgh first began to trust Solo after they were attacked by pirates and forced to land on Alderaan for repairs. Muuurgh was injured but Han Solo did not abandon his bodyguard. Young Solo soon got to know Togorian better and discovered that Muuurgh had also been deceived into working for the T'landa Til. While searching for his lost mate, Mrrov, Muuurgh had come to Ylesia. Teroenza had told him that Mrrov had indeed been there, but her current whereabouts were unknown. Unable to buy passage off of the planet, the feline signed on as an enforcer. His tale of love and loss made Solo realize that he, too, was in love: with Bria Tharen. On Ylesia, Solo and Tharen made their plan to escape. Muuurgh was furious and threatened to kill the pilot upon learning of their intent. However, he agreed to take part in the plan when Tharen told him about a female Togorian that had been at the colony. To Muuurgh's horror, her description matched that of his mate's. According to Tharen, Mrrov had been relocated to another colony. After an Exultation, the three made their move. Solo, Tharen, and Muuurgh first created a diversion by blowing up the largest of the spice refineries. Panic ensued as billions of credits' worth of spice went up in flames. Solo and Tharen also raided Teroenza's collection, stealing the most valuable items to sell once they left Ylesia. It was during their raid when Teroenza discovered their treachery. As fire spread around the Colony, secondary explosions caused damage to nearly all of the buildings, and the ceiling of Teroenza's collection room collapse - onto the Besadii Hutt overlord, Zavval, crushing him. Their work done, the trio hijacked the Talisman, Teroenza's personal yacht, and rescued Mrrov. They then blasted their way from Ylesia, suffering major damage from an orbiting CR90 corvette, but were able to reach Togoria safely. At last, they were free from Ylesia. While on Togoria, Muuurgh and Mrrov were married in the usual Togorian fashion - meaning it involved much combat. After the ceremony, Han Solo and Bria Tharen went on a romantic interlude and both admitted their love. They decided to return to Corellia to meet Tharen's family and to sell the stolen goods from Ylesia. Wishing farewell to Muuurgh and Mrrov, the two lovers returned to their homeworld. Unlike Solo, Tharen had grown up wealthy and privileged. This was very evident upon visiting her family's massive estate. Much to her sadness, her mother and brother found her new love despicable and unworthy of being in their home. However, Tharen's father, Renn Tharen, found a kindred spirit in Solo and rather liked him. Later, one of the men Tharen's mother had wanted her to marry showed up and recognized Solo as a pod racer under a different name, causing Tharen's mother to become even angrier. Even so, Solo and Tharen left Corellia after selling Teroenza's antiques. Han Solo would withdraw the funds from the Imperial Galactic Bank on Coruscant once he applied to the Imperial Academy. Thus, the two made their way to Coruscant, officially referred to as Imperial Center. Things did not go well on Coruscant. Solo was refused his funds from the Imperial Bank and was nearly arrested by stormtroopers. He fled from the authorities into the darkest, deepest levels of the city to return to his love, where she awaited him in a cheap motel room they had rented. Still fighting her addiction to the Exultation, Tharen left Solo with a note explaining that she felt she would only prevent him from achieving his dream at the Academy. Emotionally devastated--both distraught and furious--Solo persevered and applied to the Academy with a loan Tharen had secured from her father. Solo passed the entrance exams and was accepted into the Academy. During his training, he became an exceptional pilot and exemplary cadet. On the night of his graduation, while standing high on a roof top and reflecting on his life thus far, he was ambushed by none other than Garris Shrike, who had taken up bounty hunting in search of Solo. Shrike sought vengeance for his former subordinate's betrayal and audacity at leaving Trader's Luck nearly five months earlier. Solo fought for his life against Shrike. However, it was another bounty hunter that killed Shrike with the hope that he would catch Solo. Han Solo killed the other bounty hunter and traded clothes with the dead man, hoping this would prevent any further acts of retribution and finally set him free. + +Han Solo has been discharged from the Imperial Navy and is down on his luck. Not only has he failed in achieving his dream, he has a Wookiee claiming to have given him a life debt and won't stop following him, no matter how often he objects or attempts to flee. However, the Wookiee--whose name is Chewbacca--proves his worth to Solo when he saves him from an incensed Barabel after a game of sabacc. Chewbacca swore his life debt after Solo saved him from being mercilessly killed by Imperial slavers. Although Solo detests slavers more than anyone else in the galaxy--having seen in person what they do on Ylesia--he really wishes the Wookiee had left him alone. As far as Solo is concerned, he saved the Wookiee to repay Dewlanna for saving him nearly five years earlier, when Han Solo escaped Garris Shrike. Seeking work, Han Solo makes his way to Nar Shaddaa, the Smugglers' Moon. He and Chewbacca meet a number of smugglers and begin working for one of Han's old classmates, Mako Spince, as transport pilots. Solo also meets Shug Ninx, a master mechanic and owner of his famous Spacebarn. With Spince's help, Solo finds an apartment in the Corellian sector and comes closest to settling down as he ever has, insofar as a smuggler can settle down. However, a bounty was placed on Solo by Teroenza after the events of The Paradise Snare and several bounty hunters come to Nar Shadda trying to collect, leaving Han and Chewbacca dodging attacks. Within only a few months, and after extensive experience flying, Solo seeks greater opportunities and eventually seeks a career with Jabba the Hutt and Jiliac. Jabba and Jiliac are impressed with the young pilot's credentials and experience and hire him to smuggle spice around the Galaxy. Solo quickly proves his skill to the Hutts and is given tougher and more exciting assignments, such as the infamous Kessel Run. On his first Kessel Run, Solo's friend and old-time smuggler Roa accompanies him to avert any mishaps. Although the first Run was not terribly smooth, even Roa was impressed by Solo's natural piloting ability. Initially unbeknownst to the Solo, Jiliac and Jabba are preparing to make their bid for supremacy among Hutts by targeting the Besadii clan's spice refining operation on Ylesia. The smuggler narrowly escapes a brutal pirate attack, the blame for which is laid upon the Besadii clan. Aruk the Hutt, clan leader of Besadii, and his offspring, Durga, are outraged at such claims. A Council was convened on Nal Hutta to discuss recent events, but the Besadii clan was not found guilty of any transgressions. It was at this time when Jiliac and Jabba decided Aruk needed to die. Han Solo had never been happier. By now, Chewbacca had proven himself a very capable and valuable partner in the smuggling trade. Solo established himself as one of the best smugglers in the galaxy, and became Jabba's favorite. However, the astronomical bounty offered for Solo from Teroenza was still available. In desperation, Teroenza contacted the most infamous bounty hunter in the galaxy: Boba Fett. In addition to smuggling and evading Imperial customs ships, Solo was living it up on Nar Shaddaa. He enjoyed two things above all: women and gambling. One such woman was an illusionist named Xaverri, who stunned audiences around the galaxy with her amazing magic acts. After seeing her perform, Solo became acquainted with her and their relationship became intimate. Taking a break from smuggling for several weeks, Solo and Chewbacca joined Xaverri, serving as stage hands and occasionally performing in her shows. Xaverri, who had strong sympathies to the smugglers, soon decided enough was enough and Solo and Chewbacca returned to their home on Nar Shaddaa. After a particularly enjoyable evening with Xaverri, Solo was returning to his apartment when he was stabbed by a toxic dart. The toxin, which was made at Rlyoth, was a blue liquid and prevented any willful action on smuggler's part and total obedience to whoever spoke. Terrified and unable to move, Solo knew that a bounty hunter had jumped him. That bounty hunter, unknown to him was, of course, Boba Fett, the most infamous bounty hunter in the galaxy. Although Solo would not have agreed, what happened next could only have been the will of the Force. A professional gambler and entrepreneur named Lando Calrissian had dire need of a professional pilot and understood that Han Solo was the best. While seeking out Solo, he witnessed his capture at the hands of Boba Fett. Not only did Calrissian not wish to see a potential associate harmed, he also hated anything to do with bounty hunters. While Fett was busy with Solo, Calrissian sneaked up on the bounty hunter and jammed a blaster into his neck. Unable to resist, Fett was humiliated when the gambler injected the same toxin he had used on Solo. Calrissian also secured the antidote for Solo and freed him. However, they ordered the bounty hunter to leave entirely. After Fett unarmed himself, he was saved because both Calrissian's and Solo's conscience would not allow them to kill even a bounty hunter in cold blood. Then, Fett was coerced to fly clean through Imperial Space. Once the effects of the toxin wore off, Fett would swear revenge against Solo and Calrissian, for very few people outsmarted him and lived to tell the tale. Having gained a new friend and valuable ally in Lando Calrissian, Han Solo was obliged to choose a ship as his own from the gambler's used ship lot on Nar Shaddaa in exchange for teaching Calrissian how to fly. Solo selected a worn, battered freighter that he christened the Bria, after his tragic first love, Bria Tharen. Calrissian kept the lot's prize for himself, however. It was that ship on which Solo taught Calrissian to fly, and the ship that stole Han Solo's heart: the Millennium Falcon. On Ylesia, business was booming and the Besadii clan was making unprecedented profits. However, not everyone was pleased. After the death of Zavval, Aruk dispatched his nephew, Kibbick the Hutt, to act as overlord to Teroenza and the t'landa Til priests. Kibbick, however, was a bumbling idiot and completely inept. This further frustrated Teroenza, who entertained thoughts of seizing the Ylesian operation as his own. In addition to Aruk's refusal to fund Teroenza's exorbitant bounties on Han Solo and Bria Tharen, these factors prompted Teroenza to respond to an outstanding offer from Desilijic clan. Teroenza gave in to his frustration and contacted Jiliac. The two gangsters exchanged views and came to agree that the best course of action would be to eliminate Aruk. Months earlier, Teroenza discovered that Aruk had an insatiable appetite for nala tree frogs and began shipping them by the ton to Nal Hutta. Jiliac had obtained an ultra-secretive toxin that could not be detected. The toxin worked by creating an addiction and slowly, over many weeks, would rot the consumer's brain. Once the toxin was removed from the consumer's diet, he would die of shock from the loss of the addictive poison. By exposing the nala tree frogs to trace amounts of the poison, Teroenza would kill Aruk through his own gluttony. Jiliac and Teroenza agreed, and their plan worked. Teroenza's seemingly endless shipments of nala tree frogs to Nal Hutta were indeed exposed to the toxin and Aruk unknowingly became addicted to it. Even though he suffered a near-stroke and seizure as a result of the toxin, not even his son Durga suspected the cause. Aruk's physician advocated exercise and cautioned against uncontrolled gluttony. Aruk argued that a Hutt of his age and influence could do as he pleased. When Teroenza shipped one last case of nala tree frogs without the toxin, Aruk went into shock and soon died a most agonizing death as his brain hemorrhaged. Durga, unlike Kibbick, was very clever and understood immediately that Aruk's death had involved foul play, despite the fact that no physicians could locate any foreign substances. Even so, Durga seized control of Besadii despite misgivings about his unusual birthmark that, according to Hutt legend, was an evil omen. Durga was quick to establish himself as rightful clan leader and, with the aid of Black Sun, set up a number of fatal accidents for his naysayers. With Besadii firmly in his grasp, he had Aruk's corpse frozen and sent to Coruscant. Durga intended to hire the best forensics team in the entire Galactic Empire discover the true cause of death. Throughout the galaxy, Rebel activity had reached an all-time high and Palpatine decided to put an end to it before it got any worse. One of the sectors targeted for Imperial retribution was the lawless expanse of Hutt Space, and Nar Shaddaa in particular. Moff Sarn Shild had been bribed by the Hutts for years but he denounced his corruption with the aim of rising through Imperial ranks. Despite the pleas of the Hutts, he was stalwart in his resolve to level Nar Shaddaa. Desperate to prevent such a disaster, the Hutts convened again on Nal Hutta and decided to offer anything to Shild to prevent the attack. Having superseded Besadii as supreme Hutt clan, Jiliac and Jabba selected Han to visit Shild on Coruscant because of his familiarity with Imperial military procedure. Reluctantly, Han Solo returned to Coruscant to meet with Shild. Upon his arrival, Solo was horrified upon discovering an old friend with Shild: Bria Tharen. To all anyone who was unaware of her mission--including Solo--Tharen appeared to be Shild's mistress. Shocked and devastated at seeing her that way after all those years, Solo left Shild both unsuccessful and emotionally distraught. Unbeknownst to Solo, however, Tharen was working undercover for the Corellian Resistance and spying on Shild. She, too, was devastated at Solo's reaction. It would be nearly three years until she could tell him the truth. The one thing that Han Solo was able to accomplish on Coruscant was learn that Admiral Winstel Greelanx would be commanding the attack force. Again, Solo was sent to meet Greelanx and offer any bribe he could. Greelanx accepted an exorbitant bribe in the form of precious gems in exchange for his battle plans, allowing the defenders of Nar Shaddaa a fighting chance. Solo returned to Nar Shaddaa with the plans. Along with Mako Spince, Shug Ninx, and the others, Han Solo developed a plan to defend Nar Shaddaa from the Empire. His friend Xaverri even returned to assist their effort. Unknown to the smugglers, however, was that the Admiral received a mysterious priority transmission commanding him to retreat at the first believable opportunity and allow the smugglers to win. Greelanx was puzzled, but followed through. When the Empire did attack Nar Shaddaa, the smugglers' fleet was ready after numerous drills. Although the battle did not go as smoothly as practiced, the smugglers were able to defeat the Imperial forces decisively. Despite grievous casualties, the smugglers won the day and Nar Shaddaa survived the wrath of the Empire. Following the battle, Solo delivered the gems to Greelanx. Before Solo could return, however, he heard from inside an adjoining room Greelanx's execution at the hands of none other than Darth Vader. Solo hastily returned to Nar Shaddaa, happy but shaken. Having won the battle, Solo and Chewbacca returned to smuggling, as had everyone else. The Bria was little more than flying scrap now, and the smuggler decided it was time to replace her. Lando Calrissian let Solo know about an upcoming sabacc tournament on Cloud City he would be attending. Solo decided he would go too, and maybe he would win enough to buy a ship. Meanwhile, the Moff in charge of Hutt space is in the midst of the biggest, and last, decision of his life. Moff Shild knows that the imperial loss at the Battle of Nar Shaddaa will not go over too well with Palpatine. So falling back on an old childhood memory, he tries to decide his own death. By blaster or by poison? + +Not long after winning the Millennium Falcon, Lando Calrissian visits the Oseon system in the Centrality. In a sabacc game on the asteroid Oseon 2795, Lando meets the Ottdefa Osuno Whett, who tells him of the supposed treasure of the Rafa system, one-time home of a highly advanced race called the Sharu--and also source of the extremely valuable life-crystals, which are harvested at a penal colony on Rafa IV. Running short of credits, Whett persuades Lando to let him put up a droid as a gambling stake. When Lando wins the hand, he discovers that the droid is actually in storage on Rafa IV. Hoping to claim his prize long enough to resell it, Lando travels to Rafa IV and picks up the Class Two multiphasic robot, a chrome-plated, five-tentacled droid called Vuffi Raa. He is subsequently waylaid by the local police force and beaten and arrested on trumped-up charges. Brought before the system's governor, Duttes Mer, and Mer's sinister associate, Rokur Gepta, Lando is railroaded into searching for a legendary artifact called the Mindharp. He is given the Key, a miniature version of the Mindharp, and set free, although Mer and Gepta disable the Falcon's hyperdrive to insure that Lando does not attempt to renege on their deal. Lando and Vuffi Raa soon encounter an old man named Mohs, one of the Toka. Mohs, who identifies himself as the High Singer of the Toka, tells them that he believes Lando is the Key Bearer and Vuffi Raa the Emissary described by Toka legend. He convinces them to travel to Rafa V, the next planet in the system, to find the Mindharp. Unfortunately for Lando and the droid, Mohs leads them into a trap. On Rafa V, the pair are waylaid by a group of Toka armed with primitive weapons, who nearly destroy Vuffi Raa and leave Lando to die of exposure. Lando manages to free himself and rejoin Vuffi Raa, whose self-repair systems have enabled him to survive the damage inflicted on him. Overcoming a group of Rafan policemen sent by Mer to waylay them, Lando and Vuffi Raa patch their wounds and set out to find Mohs. The Toka Singer, unexpectedly contrite for his earlier betrayal, leads them to the base of one of the Sharu's massive pyramids and shows them how to use the Key to enter it. Separated, Lando, Vuffi Raa, and Mohs make a disorienting journey into the interior of the pyramid, which seems to have the ability to warp both space and time. Mohs undergoes an epiphany--his previously stunted mental capacity begins to expand, but he is mysteriously blinded at the same time. Lando and Vuffi Raa, meanwhile, appear to be wildly different sizes, experiencing time at different rates. After observing a tableau of the planet's evolutionary time scale and the development of the Sharu themselves, Mohs disappears, and Lando and Vuffi Raa find themselves in a vast hall containing the Mindharp. Lando takes the Mindharp, and he and Vuffi Raa exit the pyramid, only to find themselves back on a street in Teguta Lusat, the capital of Rafa IV, with no evidence of how they got there. Vuffi Raa, responding to previously established programming, immediately has Lando arrested and brought before Duttes Mer. The governor informs them that they have been gone not for a few days, but for four full months. Mer tells Lando that everything that brought him to Rafa in the first place, including his encounter with Osuno Whett in the Oseon, had been a set-up; Mer and Gepta needed someone who would fit the description of the Toka prophecy. The Mindharp, Mer explains, is an enormously powerful device capable of controlling every sentient mind in the Rafa system, even across interplanetary space. Having achieved his goal, the governor has Lando sent to one of the Rafa system's life-crystal orchards for what is likely to be a very brief life sentence. Lando is rescued, however, by Vuffi Raa, now free of his programmed imperative, and rather guilt-stricken at having betrayed his master. Lando tells the droid that he realizes he recognized some of the Toka language as Old High Trammic, a language with which he has some familiarity. He realizes that there are going to be serious consequences if Mer attempts to use the Mindharp. Rafa IV is wracked by a series of violent earthquakes. Lando and Vuffi Raa make their way to the Teguta Lusat spaceport, where they find that the governor has retrieved the Millennium Falcon from Rafa V. Rokur Gepta, meanwhile, leaves his cruiser, the Wennis, desperate to take the Mindharp from Mer before the governor causes a disaster. Lando and Vuffi Raa encounter Mohs aboard the Falcon. The Singer, whose intellect is no longer that of a primitive man, Mohs confesses what he has now learned: the primitive Toka are themselves the long-vanished Sharu. Generations earlier, the Sharu were threatened by some unknown external menace; to hide from it, they deliberately concealed their cities beneath the massive pyramids that cover most of the Rafa system. The activation of the Mindharp will reverse the process, causing the Sharu cities to emerge from beneath the surface--with catastrophic results for the Imperial cities built over them--and the minds of the Toka will be restored. Rokur Gepta reaches the governor's office too late to stop Mer from activating the Mindharp. Mer is obliterated by the unleashed energy, and Gepta himself only narrowly escapes. Although his ship is hit by a burst from the Millennium Falcon's guns, Gepta survives, swearing revenge on Lando and his mechanical partner. Lando and Vuffi Raa, meanwhile, make a hasty escape from the Rafa system, carrying the last load of valuable life-crystals that will ever be harvested there. + +Following their adventures in the Rafa system, Lando Calrissian and his droid companion, Vuffi Raa, lifted-off from Rafa IV with a hold full of valuable life-crystals. After the sale of the crystals and with a decent stake, Lando decided to attempt the honest occupation of free-lance freighter captain. Not counting the difficult issues of filling out landing-permit forms, going over bills of lading, and figuring overhead and profit margins, plus a nearly fatal pirate attack, Calrissian yearned to practice his original profession again. So, while on Dilonexa XXIII after a failed delivery, he jumped at the chance when he received an invitation from Lob Doluff, Administrator Senior of the Oseon system, to play sabacc in the credit rich asteroid belt. As an added pleasure, he would be arriving just prior to the seasonal event known as Flamewind. Unbeknownst to Lando and Vuffi Raa, Rokur Gepta was also making his way to the Oseon in an attempt to exact revenge on Calrissian for his treachery in the Rafa system. As the pair made their way to Oseon 6845, the Millennium Falcon experienced a bit of misfortune. An explosion rocked the underside of the starship, and it was discovered that a bomb was placed there on their previous stop on Dilonexa. After repairing the damage, the crew made a safe planetfall in the Oseon. Vuffi Raa discovered a second explosive device on the ship shortly after touch-down, alertly defusing it, averting disaster. During a particularly lucrative turn at the gaming table, Calrissian received word that his ship was on fire. When Lando reached the space terminal, he realized there was nothing wrong with the Falcon. As he turned to leave, he was set upon by an unknown assailant. After a brief struggle, Lando was able to dispatch his attacker using his concealed stingbeam. Lando Calrissian was starting to believe that someone or something was out to get them. Thinking his actions an act of self-defense and fearing no punishment, he promptly reported the incident. Doluff and his peacekeeper assistant, Bassi Vobah, agreed with the charge of self-defense, but the Oseon system exercised a strict no-weapons statute, punishable by death. Requiring the service of an independent pilot, Lob Doluff offered Lando Calrissian a deal as an alternative to execution. It had been discovered that Bohhuah Mutdah, an extremely wealthy inhabitant of the Oseon, received an illegal shipment of lesai every season during Flamewind, when it was forbidden to travel within the system. The radiation that accompanied Flamewind was a detriment to navigation and life support systems. Nevertheless, Lando was to act as the supplier, and transport Bassi Vobah along with Imperial narcotics agent, Waywa Fybot, to Oseon 5792. After the deal was made, the two law-enforcement officers would arrest Mutdah, and Lando would be free to depart the Oseon with all his belongings, including his winnings. During the trip from the sixth to fifth belt, the crew of the Millennium Falcon and her passengers were set upon by a ragged squadron of two dozen starfighters. After some respectable flying, Calrissian was able to evade the bandits, dispatching a pair of them. Finding a crevasse on an unpopulated asteroid, Lando and Vuffi Raa were able to set down to affect repairs and strengthen the Falcon's shields. Unfortunately, the fighters discovered the crevice in their search for the starship. Employing a tactic which detonated part of the rock, Lando Calrissian destroyed all but five of attacking fighters. They retreated and the Millennium Falcon was able to continue it's journey to 5792. The four adventurers made an uneventful landing on Oseon 5742, where Calrissian was promptly escorted, with his vacuum-wrapped parcel, to Bohhuah Mutdah. Shortly after introductions were made, Vobah and Fybot burst in and attempted to arrest Mutdah. The narcotics agent promptly eliminated his colleague, to shelter the entrepreneur. It was soon discovered that Waywa Fybot was in league with Mutdah, who promised the avian a discharge from his duties, in exchange for protection. To Lando's confusion, Bohhuah Mutdah shot and killed the Quor'sav, and his obese form was immediately transformed into that of Rokur Gepta. Things were finally beginning to make sense. During a session of torture by chagrin, Calrissian discovered it was Gepta who made his life as a tramp freighter captain difficult. Raising rates, lowering resale prices; even arranging the harassment and death of Bohhuah Mutdah, and his subsequent replacement, was part of Gepta's scheme. Apparently, the vengeance Rokur Gepta knew no bounds. As Gepta prepared Calrissian for another round of torture, the habitation dome of Bohhuah Mutdah was compromised by a strafing run by the five remaining fighter-craft Lando previously encountered. While the Sorcerer of Tund was distracted by the attack, the gambler made quick his escape, and was able to work his way back to the spaceport and raise ship. Manning the Falcon's quad-guns with Vuffi Raa at the controls, Lando engaged the enemy. The pair finished off three and scattered the last two. Seeing that one of the fighters was disabled and adrift, the droid suggested a rescue of the pilot. As the aged soldier was brought onboard, it was discovered that he was Klyn Shanga, a Renatasian and the flight-leader of the squadron who accused the droid of being the destroyer of their world. After pleading his case, and in an effort to exhibit clemency, Vuffi Raa suggested that he and Lando allocate a portion of the profit from their recent exploits to Renatasia. In true rogue fashion, Lando responded by trussing up his prisoner. + +It had been nearly a year since Lando Calrissian and his droid companion, Vuffi Raa, ended their adventures in the Oseon system. It was then that they encountered Lehesu, a strange, vacuum-breathing creature, flying through deep space. In a short time, the intelligent manta-like creature and Vuffi Raa were able to establish a form of communication. The adventurers discovered that the Oswaft lived in a nebula called the ThonBoka, with others of his kind, and that he, too, was on an adventure, having grown bored with the confines of his home. A month after parting ways, the pair received word that the ThonBoka was besieged by the Centrality Navy. It seems Lehesu did not return directly to the Starcave, but explored more of the Centrality, making the Centrans nervous. In response, the navy trailed the giant Oswaft back to his home, and set up a blockade at the entrance. At timed intervals, the Centrality cruisers would unleash energies at the mouth of the cave, poisoning the interstellar plankton, pseudoanimals, and quasi-plants that entered there, and made up the main diet of the inhabitants. The Oswaft were slowly being starved. When Lando and Vuffi Raa heard this news, they hastened to the aid of their friend. Lando Calrissian became apprehensive when he saw the size of the blockading fleet. Realizing that the Millennium Falcon was no match for that many warships, the pair utilized a scheme that Calrissian designed for tight situations. Posing as an interstellar salesman, Lando talked his way onboard the Respectable, the picket ship that halted them. Using his talent as a con-artiste, Calrissian worked his way through the fleet, getting closer and closer to the entrance of the ThonBoka. While on their way to the fifth ship, the Courteous, the pair devised another plan. Straying from their trajectory and slowly moving toward the Starcave, the Falcon was cautioned to return to its original course. Calrissian ignored the communication and powered up the aft deflector shields, just as the last warning was being transmitted. When the Couteous opened fire, Lando punched the hyperdrive engines while Vuffi Raa released a canister of exploding gases and metallic particles, creating the illusion that the Millennium Falcon had been destroyed. As these events were unfolding, the last Sorcerer of Tund, Rokur Gepta, was making an alliance with Klyn Shanga and his squadron of fighter pilots. The Renatasians no longer had the means for interstellar travel, as they had lost their dreadnaught engine in the Battle of Oseon. Their starfighters were brought onboard the decommisioned cruiser, Wennis, and the ship set course for the ThonBoka. Gepta also contracted the services of the Ottdefa Osuno Whett to study the Oswaft, and determine what they were and if they had any weaknesses. This information would be critical if any type of conflict ensued. The Millennium Falcon emerged from hyperspace inside the Starcave where Lehesu was waiting, nervously. The three were enjoying each others company, informing one another of their current situation, when two large Oswaft sent by the Elders summoned them to the Cave of Elders. After introductions were made, a plan was to be formulated to deal with the blockading fleet. Concurrently, a delegation of Oswaft, led by Bhoggihalysahonues, was sent to the mouth of the nebula to try and negotiate a settlement without conflict. Unfortunately, the Centrality cruiser, Courteous, was destroyed along with many Oswaft. As the fighting ensued, word came from Rokur Gepta, aboard the Wennis, to cease fire until he arrived. He was to be there for the destruction of the Oswaft and Lando Calrissian. The vacuum-breathers had the ability to project matter from their bodies, creating a false image of themselves in the process. They also could hop, making short hyperspace jumps at will. Lando devised a stratagem that incorporated these talents. The Oswaft were to engage the enemy by flying between the cruisers, leave an image of themselves, and hop to another location. The Navy warships, thinking the enemy was near, would then fire on the artificial skin. The beams of their turbolasers would pass through the false image, striking the allied craft. This plan was put into effect when the Wennis arrived, bearing the symbol of the Central Administrator. Zero Squadron, led by Klyn Shanga, was simultaneously launched from the hangar of Gepta's cruiser. The starfighters were linked to ship's pinnace to provide their hyperdrive capabilities. The motley array of fighters were to engage the Millennium Falcon inside the Starcave, while the Navy cruisers were occupied with the Oswaft at the mouth of the nebula. As the battle raged on, many Navy ships were destroyed while the Millennium Falcon, with Vuffi Raa at the controls and Calrissian manning one of the quad-guns, was able to inflict damage to Zero Squadron. When the Falcon and the Renatasian pilots had fought their way to the entrance to the ThonBoka, Rokur Gepta called a cease-fire to demonstrate the power of his new weapon. Many Oswaft were terminated, including the chief Elder and his second. Gepta had done this in an attempt to draw out Lando Calrissian and his droid, and challenge them to a hand-to-hand duel to the death. Seeing no other option, Lando agreed to the contest. The terms of the fight were simple; each challenger was permitted a single weapon, and the match was to take place in space! The three met outside, as Lando and Vuffi Raa circled their opponent, the droid detached his five appendages and used them as a distraction for the gambler to employ his stingbeam. When all eyes were occupied by the duel, the Zero Squadron pinnace started moving toward the conflict. Klyn Shanga hailed the ship, to find Osuno Whett at the controls. The Ottdefa stated he wanted to destroy the droid along with Calrissian, and perhaps Rokur Gepta as well. Remembering Whett's voice from so many years ago, and seeing Vuffi Raa with his detached arms, Shanga realized that he really was a robot, and finally understood that Whett was the Butcher of Renatasia, and not the droid. Shanga ordered his men to fire on the pinnace, and they were able to force it into the Wennis, destroying both spacecraft. As Rokur Gepta was distracted by the explosion, Lando Calrissian fired on him, and his form dematerialized inside his spacesuit. When Calrissian searched the suit, he found a small organism. He took the being and crushed it in his hand. Directly after the death of Rokur Gepta, hundreds of thousands of mechanical life-forms appeared forcing an end to the hostilities. It appeared their leader was the father of Vuffi Raa, and that many years ago, the little droid was sent out to record the experiences of other sentients. He was now being recalled to provide the information he collected. Lando Calrissian and Vuffi Raa were saddened by the parting, but Lando felt the need to settle down and become responsible, giving up his wandering ways. A hold full of valuable gemstones, provided by the Oswaft, would help get him started! + +While in the process of ending their affairs with a loan shark named Ploovo Two-For-One, Han Solo and Chewbacca are informed by the Corporate Sector Authority's Security Police that the Millennium Falcon is not allowed to fly within the boundaries of Corporate Sector Authority space unless it is added to the Authority's Waivers List. They break the Falcon out of impoundment and make their way to a group of outlaw technicians headed by a man called Doc in hopes of procuring a Waiver and repairing some damage suffered by the Falcon during their last smuggling run. Upon landing at the outlaw techs' base of operations, they find Doc's daughter, Jessa--instead of Doc himself--in charge. Jessa tells Han that Doc has disappeared and that she is willing to give him what he came there for despite the fact that she knows that Han isn't flush with money at the moment. They cut a deal in which Han and Chewbacca will extract some individuals from the agriworld of Orron III in exchange for repairs, upgrades and a Waiver for the Falcon. Since Orron III also serves as a base for one of the Authority's Data Centers, the techs begin work on disguising it so that it can slip in without alerting the watchful eyes of the Authority. Before the work on the Falcon can be finished however, the outlaw techs' base comes under attack by four Authority IRD starfighters. Because he is unable to leave before the Falcon's camouflage job is done, Han, along with Jessa and four other techs, fly against the Authority starfighters in outdated Z-95 Headhunters. Han, Jessa and the other pilots prevent the base from being destroyed, but they lose three of their own and the base takes some damage during the course of the dogfight. The outlaw techs put their finishing touches on the Falcon, which is now camouflaged as part of a drone barge and Han and Chewbacca depart for Orron III. The techs send two droids with them to assist the passengers in infiltrating the Authority's data interfaces on Orron III. The first droid, Bollux, is an outmoded labor droid with a special hidden emplacement within his chest for the other droid, Blue Max. Blue Max is a state-of-the-art but immobile computer probe who relies upon Bollux to get around. They land on Orron III undetected and meet with Rekkon, one of their passengers and a leader of a group of people who are trying to find loved ones who vanished after criticizing the Authority. Han, Chewbacca and the droids accompany Rekkon to the Data Center to pick up the Waiver for the Falcon and to meet the other members of Rekkon's group. During the ride, Rekkon confesses to Han that he had another reason for asking Jessa to get Han to help him: There is a traitor among the core members of his group and he needs Han to discover who it is. Once they reach Rekkon's office at the Data Center, Rekkon gives Han the Waiver and sets Blue Max upon the problem of where the Authority is holding the missing individuals. As Blue Max sorts out the data, Rekkon's companions arrive at his office. Torm--the first one to arrive--is a Human male from Kail who says that he suspects that his father and brother were kidnapped by the Authority. The next two are a Trianii female named Atuarre and her mute cub Pakka. They are both looking for her mate, who had been capured by the Authority and had never been heard from since. In Rekkon's case, his nephew was far too vocal in his criticism of the Authority and also disappeared without explanation. Atuarre bears the news that they have lost contact with Engret, another member of the group and Rekkon comes to the conclusion that Engret has been silenced by the Authority. Shortly thereafter, Blue Max finishes his analysis of the data and copies it to a data plaque. He also informs them that the Authority's Security Police have been alerted to their presence within the Data Center. Following Han's advice, Blue Max activates a series of false alarms across Orron III to aid their escape from the Authority's forces. After getting into a firefight with a group of Security Police, the group flees for the spaceport in a stolen skimmer with troopers pursuing them. Before they arrive at the spaceport, however, their pursuers manage to cause Han to crash the skimmer. Thinking quickly, Chewbacca takes Blue Max with him and hooks up the small computer to a large agrirobot. After the connection is made, however, Chewbacca is attacked by a group of troopers who manage to pull him off of the large harvesting machine. A larger group of troopers manage to subdue and capture him. Han tries to run to his aid, but is prevented from throwing his life away by Rekkon, who disables him with a single blow. Blue Max does all that he can to help Chewbacca but the clumsiness of the harvester prevents him from doing little more than killing some troopers. He settles upon using it to provide transport to the spaceport for Han and Rekkon's group. They make it safely to the Falcon after Blue Max programs the harvester to run wild within the confines of the spaceport to provide another distraction for their escape. With the Falcon still camouflaged as a drone barge, Han and Rekkon's group depart from Orron III. However, an obstacle in the form of the Shannador's Revenge, an Authority dreadnaught, still stands in their way. The Shannador's Revenge locks a tractor beam onto the drone barge that the Falcon is attached to, but Han--alone in the cockpit save for Bollux--finds a way to use that to his advantage. First, he empties thousands of tons of grain that had been loaded onto the barge during their brief stay on Orron III into the dreadnaught's path. He then reverses the barge's acceleration as he detaches the Falcon from the barge. The barge collides with the Shannador's Revenge, allowing the Falcon to escape to the relative safety of hyperspace. Han leaves the cockpit and finds Rekkon's dead body slumped on the Falcon's gameboard. Han also finds the melted remnants of the data plaque that held the information pointing to the location of the Authority's detention facility. Figuring that everyone besides himself and the droids are suspects, Han disarms Torm, Atuarre and Pakka. He warns them that he will kill whoever provokes the slightest suspicion from him and then dismisses all of them to the cargo hold while he jettisons Rekkon's corpse. Han then discovers that in the last moments of his life, Rekkon had written the location of the secret detention facility on the gameboard: Stars' End, Mytus VII. Han renders the words unreadable and decides to take up the deceased man's cause. Han sets a trap involving the location of the detention facility for the traitor and causes Torm to out himself as the traitor. A scuffle ensues and Torm breaks free and tries to find anything that will serve as a weapon. He enters a compartment and realizes that it is the Falcon's emergency airlock. He tries to cut a deal with Han, but Han turns down his offer and ejects him into hyperspace without any protective gear. The Falcon arrives in the Mytus system, but Han is unsure as to infiltrate Stars' End until the Falcon's communications system eavesdrops on a message from the Imperial Entertainers' Guild to the detention facility. The message states that the originally scheduled troupe was unable to come and that a replacement act would be scheduled immediately. Billing themselves as Madame Atuarre's Roving Performers, Han, Atuarre, Pakka and the droids land at Stars' End. The group of ersatz entertainers are taken immediately to Vice President Hirken, head of the facility. During the course of their conversation with him, Han learns that Hirken was expecting them to bring a gladiator droid, a role for which Bollux is ill-suited. Adding further to the problem, Hirken's bodyguard, Uul-Rha-Shan appears to be skeptical of their story. In order to buy more time and locate the prisoners, Han tells Hirken that Bollux had been damaged prior to their arrival at Stars' End and passes Blue Max off as a component that needs attention. Hirken grants Han permission to make his repairs while Atuarre and Pakka perform for him and his wife. However, he grows impatient at Han's absence and decides that he will have Bollux destroyed by his state-of-the-art gladiator droid in retribution for what he believes to be a fraud perpetrated against him. To make things more interesting, Hirken has Bollux equipped with a simple handheld shield and sets his Mark X Executioner upon the old labor droid. Meanwhile, Han is escorted to Stars' End's general maintenance section. Once there, he cons the technician who brought him there into revealing the location of the facility's central computer section and then knocks him out. After acquiring the man's identification, he carries Blue Max to the central computer section unmolested. Blue Max taps into the Authority's network and after some searching, he discovers that Chewbacca is being held prisoner in a stasis booth--the same fate as the other lost ones Han asks Blue Max if he is able to deactivate the prison's defense systems. Blue Max says that he can't, since the primary control systems can only be accessed through Hirken's master-control unit. However, if the master-control unit can be deactivated, the secondary control systems--which Blue Max has access to--will take over. Han tells Blue Max to set up Stars' End for self-destruction in order to force Hirken to choose between letting the prisoners free or the deaths of everyone within the facility. When he learns of Bollux's duel with the Mark X Executioner, Blue Max tells Han that they must intervene for Bollux's sake. Han disagrees and tells Blue Max to get on with his work. Blue Max, who has befriended Bollux, continues to refuse even in the face of threats of physical violence from Han and insists that there is time for the two of them to help Bollux. Han relents and takes Blue Max to the amphitheater where Bollux is facing the Executioner. In the process of getting to the amphitheater, Han encounters Atuarre and Pakka, who are on their way to the Falcon and tells them of his plan. They then continue on their separate ways. Coming into the amphitheater, Han and Blue Max find Bollux waging a losing battle against the Mark X Executioner. However, Blue Max manages to inform Bollux of the Executioner's one weakness and Bollux takes his advice. Dodging the Executioner's attacks, Bollux gets beneath the Executioner and sabotages its cooling circuitry. The Executioner, unable to reach Bollux, races around the arena and overheats in the process. The excess heat causes further damage to the Executioner's other components, which leads to it behaving erratically and its eventual self-destruction. Enraged by the destruction of his toy, Hirken demands that Han agree to a duel with Uul-Rha-Shan. Believing his fate to be sealed, Han tricks his opponent into destroying the primary control systems, which results in the overload spiral that he and Blue Max had set up earlier and Stars' End's power plant explodes. However, Han had failed to take the combination of the facility's exterior deflector shields, its enhanced-bonding armor plate, anticoncussion field and the depleted overhead deflector shield. When the power plant exploded, these various factors, along with Mytus VII's weak gravity, caused Stars' End to be blown like a rocket from the planet's surface. However, there is a limited time before the airborne prison facility must come crashing back down to Mytus VII. With Hirken and his subordinates still confused, Han, Bollux and Blue Max make their way down to the lower levels of Stars' End, to find Chewbacca and Doc--the one man who Han believes will be able to get everyone out of this mess. On the main prison level Han finds that quite a few of the prisoners have been freed from stasis due to the dwindling power supply and he aids them in subduing their captors. He finds Chewbacca and Doc shortly thereafter and informs the grizzled outlaw tech about their current predicament. Their only chance for survival of the impending crash is to get down to the engineering levels and re-energize Stars' End's anti-concussion field. Han and some other prisoners will try to hold Hirken and his forces at bay while Doc and others try to make their way down to the engineering section. However, Doc comes back without having fixed the anti-concussion field. He tells Han that Authority reinforcements have arrived at Stars' End from an assault craft that has docked at the tower's lower airlock to rescue Hirken. Han decides that the only option left is for himself and the prisoners to rush the Authority forces on the upper levels and to take Hirken hostage. Just before they are about to do that, however, they find that Atuarre has docked the Falcon to the detention level airlock. Not all of the prisoners can fit aboard the Falcon but Atuarre had secured one of the facility's tunnel-tube junctions to the Falcon and the Authority assault craft docked at Stars' End's lower airlock, nearly emptied of any Authority troops serves as a convenient escape vessel. While covering the evacuation of the remaining prisoners, Han discovers Bollux, who had been left behind. He helps the ancient droid up and then is fired upon by Uul-Rha-Shan. Bollux manages to push Han out of the way and is hit in the head by the disruptor beam. With no time to spare, Han fires from the hip and kills Hirken's reptilian bodyguard. Han begins to drag Bollux back to the tunnel-tube to the Falcon and receives help in doing so from Keeheen, Atuarre's mate. Once Han gets inside the tube, Hirken tries to make it to the airlock alone, imploring Han to let him aboard. He is cut off in mid-sentence when he is shot in the back by his wife. Han seals the tube and detaches it, leaving them and the tower of Stars' End behind. The tower crashes to the surface of Mytus VII as the Falcon and the captured Authority assault ship escape safely. The two ships land on the planet Urdur, the new site of the outlaw techs' base. Although Bollux's body is unsalvageable, Blue Max managed to save his personality and Doc promises a new body for Bollux. Han becomes angry at Jessa when she merely thanks him verbally for risking his life to save her father and the others. She reminds him that he was only fulfilling his part of a deal, but stops him before he leaves. Jessa suggests that she and Han could strike another deal, listing various upgrades to the Falcon. Hearing this, Chewbacca becomes so happy that he kisses the Falcon's landing gear and then watches as Han and Jessa snuggle, walking away to discuss Han's end of the arrangement. + +After a string of unsuccessful smuggling ventures in the Corporate Sector, Han Solo and his Wookiee copilot, Chewbacca, quit that part of space. Down on their luck after a botched smuggling run on the Rampa Rapids, Han Solo and Chewbacca found themselves on the planet Kamar, showing holodocumentaries to the natives. They soon realized they weren't cut out for legitimate work, and found themselves nearly broke, with no prospects in sight. In these dire straits, Han and Chewie accepted a job offer from an anonymous employer to fly blind for a cool ten thousand credits. However, after flying the Millennium Falcon to the planet Lur for the pickup, they discovered that the cargo was a load of slaves--something neither Han nor Chewbacca had any tolerance for. Some fast thinking by their two droids, Bollux and Blue Max, provided the two with an opportunity to turn the tables on the slavers' attempt to commandeer the Falcon, and escape with both their lives and their ship. As far as Han Solo was concerned, somebody still owed them for their trouble. So they set out to track down the recipients of their intended cargo to get their money one way or another. Han Solo and Chewbacca set a course for the planet Bonadan, where the slavers' leader, Zlarb, was to meet his contact for payment. Instead of the contact, however, they crossed paths with Fiolla, an assistant auditor-general employed by the Corporate Sector Authority. She was also following a lead on a group of slavers operating within the Corporate Sector, and convinced Han that his only chance of getting paid was to aid her in tracking down the slavery ring. During their investigations on Bonadan, Han and Fiolla discovered that Authority executives may be involved in the slavery ring. In the meantime, Chewbacca foils the attempted repossession of the Millennium Falcon by a Tynnan skip tracer named Spray. After reading Zlarb's data plaque, the group made plans to travel to the planet Ammuud, to investigate the slavers' connection to the shipping firm of one of the governing clans there. Unfortunately for them, the slavers were watching Fiolla and were keeping their eyes on Han and Chewbacca now, as well. Due to some unfortuitous circumstances with the slavers watching the Falcon, Han and Fiolla are unable to board the ship, and the two smugglers are forced to split up. Chewbacca, Spray, and the droids lifted off in the Falcon, while Han and Fiolla were forced to seek passage on a passenger liner. En route to Ammuud, the hull of the Millennium Falcon was compromised by a sleeper bomb placed by the slavers on Bonadan. The crew had to make an emergency landing in the mountains on Ammuud. Prior to planetfall, however, Spray sent the two droids to the spaceport in a lifeboat, in search of Captain Solo. Meanwhile, the liner that Han Solo and Fiolla were aboard was hijacked in transit by the slavers, in an effort to capture the pair. The couple was able to escape detection in a lifeboat of their own, and arrived on Ammuud with the hope of uncovering the evidence Fiolla needed to implicate the high-ranking Authority officials in the slavery ring. After Han had befriended the Mor Glayyd, by foiling the plot of Gallandro to harm the clan leader, he was furnished with the permission and the repair parts to search for his missing copilot and starship. After finding Chewie and the Falcon, making repairs and raising ship, the crew was beset by the slavers once again. It was the Corporate Sector Authority and Gallandro who came to their rescue, however. The gunman was actually coming to the aid of his superior, Spray, who was in fact the Corporate Sector Authority's Territorial Administrator Odumin, working undercover to expose the slaver ring and the corruption within the Authority. Despite the circumstances, Han Solo and Chewbacca were to be placed under arrest for previous crimes committed against the Corporate Sector Authority. In a daring attempt to escape incarceration, the pair of smugglers kidnapped the Authority administrator, and were able to barter for their freedom and collect their payment at long last. + +Han Solo and Chewbacca are back on hard times, having squandered their reward for breaking up the slavery ring within the Corporate Sector Authority on celebrations and a number of failed ventures. Once again the smuggler duo are teamed with the elderly labor droid, BLX-5, and the computer probe, Blue Max. A quick job nets the smugglers 1,500 credits and lands them on the University world of Rudrig in the Tion Hegemony. Here, Han and Chewie encounter Alexsandr Badure, an old smuggler who had once saved their lives. Badure had fallen on hard times himself and had been working contract labor at a quasi-legal mining camp on the planet Dellalt, where he had befriended two sisters, Hasti and Lanni Troujow. Lanni, a pilot, had discovered what they believed to be the log recorder disk from the long-lost Queen of Ranroon, the fabled treasure ship of the warlord Xim the Despot. Millennia earlier, the Queen and her cargo of treasure and a legion of Xim's warrior-robots were lost en route to Xim's sprawling treasure vaults on Dellalt. Dellalt was now a minor, backwater world with a meager human population of Tionese origin, out in the largely disregarded Tion. Badure needed Han and Chewbacca for a mission, taking himself and Hasti back to Dellalt, along with the Ruurian professor Skynx, who's job was to translate the disk and lead them all to the treasure. Lanni stashed the disk in a lockbox at the vaults, which were now partially used for public storage, before being murdered by the mine operators, who were now pursuing Badure and Hasti to claim the disk, and the treasure, for themselves. To make things more interesting, Han was also being pursued by Gallandro, the deadliest gunman in the galaxy, who was bent on avenging a point of honor with Han over their dealings in Han's adventures in the Corporate Sector. Shortly after arriving on Dellalt, the mine operators managed to steal the Millennium Falcon and take it back to the mine to search for the disk. Han's party decided to hike across several hundred kilometers of Dellatian open country to reclaim her. Along the way they met up with the Survivors, a clan of inbred humans, who have evidently lived in the mountains for generations and who kept their existence secret by killing any outsiders who stumble upon them, as Han and Chewbacca have. It turned out that the Survivors had a bigger secret than just their own existence in the mountains to hide. They also held the key to Xim's treasure and the secret to the fate of the Queen of Ranroon, all Han had to do was get his ship back, defeat an army of killer robots and steer clear of Gallandro, who had managed to track him to Dellalt, and team up with the mine operators. + +Han Solo and Chewbacca visited Jabba the Hutt in his Mos Eisley compound. Jabba then suggested Solo take a smuggling job for him, on the condition that he take a translator with him. Solo reluctantly agreed and took off for Gamorr with his Wookiee partner and the droid TC-72. In hyperspace, Solo could not stand TC-72's overly-talkative mannerism and locked the droid in the cargo bay. Once on Gamorr, Solo insulted a Gamorrean farmer, and she would have killed the smuggler if TC-72 hadn't been there to translate. Afterwards, Solo attempted to barter with the farmer, but she would not budge. Back on Tatooine, Solo reported to Jabba. Jabba blackmailed Solo into doing another job, as Solo had violated part of his contract, which said he must pay Jabba if he does business on the side. When Solo asked how Jabba knew, TC-72 shows up. Knowing he must pay back Jabba, Solo reluctantly agrees to go to the mining planet Shinbone to pick up gemstones. Carrying a load of plants, Solo and Chewbacca land on Shinbone and meet Jabba's contact, Torkil Mux. The miner was using an unidentified walking plant species to mine gems for him. Mux gives the two smugglers less gems than had been agreed on, saying it was a difficult season and accepts the delivery of the plants, which as it turns out, are the walking plants. They are grown in soil. Later, Chewbacca starts following one of the walking plants, who leads them to Mux's ship. Solo and Chewbacca realize Mux has been skimming gems from Jabba, and hatch a plan to take their revenge. Solo distracts Mux, saying the plants he brought were diseased. Chewbacca rounds up all the walking plants and places them on Mux's ship. He then takes off after receiving Solo's signal. Mux, angry at seeing his ship disappear, demands Solo bring it back. Solo denies all knowledge of the incident and suggests he and Mux's security droid draw their weapons against each other. Mux starts counting up to three, but Solo cheats and shoots first, then walks away from Mux and heads back to the Millennium Falcon. In orbit, he meets up with Chewbacca and give the walking plants Mux's ship to take to Kashyyyk. Returning once again to Tatooine, the two smugglers gave the extra gemstones to Jabba. + +Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian in an intense sabacc tournament on Bespin. He began upgrading the freighter into a highly-specialized smuggling vessel, and also makes a brief stop with Chewbacca on the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk, where Chewbacca married Mallatobuck. Solo and Chewbacca then embarked on a series of adventures. After returning to Nar Shaddaa, Solo is reunited with his old flame Bria Tharen, now an agent of the Rebel Alliance. He was reluctant to aid his former love, who was planning an all-out attack against the slaving colonies on Ylesia. Promised appropriate compensation, Solo, Calrissian, and Chewbacca take on the mission. In the aftermath of the battle, Tharen's troopers turned their blasters on Calrissian and the rest of Solo's friends, confiscating all valuables in the name of the Rebel Alliance. Angered, Han Solo threatens to kill Tharen if he ever saw her again. Defaced and branded a traitor back on Nar Shaddaa, Lando Calrissian refused to believe Solo was not involved in the swindle, and punched his former friend in the jaw. Desperate for money, Solo and Chewbacca took a spice smuggling run from Jabba through the Kessel Run. However, the duo were met mid-Run by an Imperial patrol, and were forced to abandon their cargo in deep space while the Falcon was searched and escorted to a nearby world. When they came back to look for the cargo, however, the two discovered it has disappeared. The smuggler tried to explain what happened, but Jabba -- in a drug-induced haze -- turned his back on Solo and demanded compensation for the lost spice. Meanwhile, Bria Tharen led a rebel raid on Toprawa in which rebel spies transmitted the plans for the Death Star I to Leia Organa aboard the Tantive IV. Tharen and her squadron were all killed in the raid, but the plans were successfully transmitted. This was the first victory of the Rebels. On Tatooine, Han Solo tried unsuccessfully to arrange a personal meeting with Jabba, and became increasingly harassed by bounty hunters working for the crime lord. While he searched for a card game in which he might be able to win the money needed to pay off Jabba, he briefly encountered Dash Rendar. Solo is then interrupted by news of his former lover's death, delivered by Boba Fett, who also informed Solo that Greedo was looking for him, and may try to kill him. The following day he recorded a message to Tharen's father passing on the news. The smuggler then proceeded to Chalmun's cantina, where Chewbacca had met with Obi-Wan Kenobi to discuss chartering the Falcon for passage to Alderaan. Solo sat down to a table where Kenobi and Luke Skywalker were waiting, leading in to Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. + +Jareth Sartoris, captain of the guard on the barge, is called into the warden's office to discuss something. When he arrives, Bissley Kloth, the warden of the barge, explains that the engines on the Purge are breaking down. The good news being, there is a derelict Star Destroyer in the vicinity. Sartoris questions why the Empire would leave a Star Destroyer in the middle of space but Kloth tells him that it is none of their concern and that the Captain is ordered to go on the ship and retrieve spare parts in order to fix the prison barge's engines. Before Sartoris leaves, the warden states that his interrogation techniques are ineffective because the subjects keep dying, like Von Longo. Sartoris recommends he cancels his duty on the Purge and then leaves to board the Star Destroyer. Zahara Cody is the Chief Medical Officer on the prison barge, aided by her 2-1B surgical droid, Waste. She is an outcast among the Imperial Personnel due to the fact that she interacts with inmates all day. She has attachment to some inmates and would rather be around them than the Empire. When she saw Sartoris kill Von Longo, she handed in her resignation letter. Once the barge landed at their next stop, she was away from the Empire for good. She also had some sort of a connection to the Longo boys since she carried out their father's last request, which was to bring them to him. Sartoris takes ten men and boards the Vector. They split up so Sartoris and his men can find the parts while the other group finds the medical bay. In the medical bay are pairs of lungs in tubes, breathing in unison. The men in the med bay realize they are not alone and they are unable to escape. Sartoris and his men get back to the lift to return to the Purge. One of his guards is coughing violently while one of the engineers is vomiting. They get back to the barge and rush to the medical bay. All the guards are coughing and vomiting. Then inmates and guards alike begin coughing and vomiting. Soon the entire medical bay is full. Sartoris, however, is unaffected by this new virus. In the medical bay, Cody is trying to deal with the problem when Waste comes to the conclusion that the virus only activates after there are enough of the cells that the body cannot defend against it. Cody realizes at this point that their containment measures are useless and rips her isolation suit off. She knows that everyone is going to die so she tries to make everyone as comfortable as possible before they succumb to their fate. Waste acknowledges the fact that she has yet to be sick and that she must be immune. He takes her blood and they attempt to create an anti-virus to stop people from getting sick. But at this point, it is almost too late. The Longo boys are stuck in their cell watching everyone die around them. As the noise starts to come down, they begin screaming to let them out. The cell doors open and they walk out, forgetting Myss is in the cell next to them. Myss attacks Kale and is about to kill him when Trig jumps on his back and tries choking him. Myss flips Trig off of him and is about to kill Trig when a blade comes through Myss' mouth. Kale states that he was attacked with it and they both get up and run out of the cell block. When they reach the end, they realize that their friend, Wembley, let them out but died shortly after. They take note of it and start running for the escape pods. They reach the next cell block but they see a young Wookiee in one of the cells with his dead family around him. Trig insists they help the young one and unlocks the doors. They try to get the youngster to go with them but the little one stays with his family and holds them. The boys leave and when they reach the end of this cell block, they hear the young Wookiee screaming and a noise that sounds like something is eating it. Sartoris finds that he too is immune and goes to the warden's office. He picks up two E-11 blaster rifles and kills anyone who seems infected near him. He gets to the wardens office to realize that the warden is infected. Sartoris demands the launch codes for the escape pods. The warden gives them up and asks Sartoris if he wants to know what he scored on the psychological exam. Sartoris pulls both triggers on the blasters, disintegrating the warden's head. Zahara, now with an anti-virus in hand, decides she is going to get it to anyone alive on the barge. She goes to the bridge and asks to do a bioscan of the ship. The ship states that there are six people alive, two of which are in solitary. She reluctantly goes down to solitary, tripping over bodies while getting there. She finds a note that one of the guards was going to give to his wife. She takes it and pockets it. She reaches the first solitary door and opens it, blaster in hand. But no one is in there. She goes to the next one and as soon as she opens it, a huge Wookiee comes out screaming and getting ready to attack Zahara. She yells at him to stop and he does. Zahara unlocks the next door and a man comes out. He introduces himself as Han Solo and the Wookiee's name is Chewbacca. She insists that they take the anti-virus but they are defiant, until they see the bodies around the corner. Han takes it first, then Chewbacca. But Chewbacca did not get it in time and started showing symptoms of the other victims. He starts screaming and going insane and his throat is swelling up. He begins to pass out and Zahara quickly takes the syringe and empties the blisters starting around his neck. The swelling goes down and Chewbacca returns to normal. They get up to leave but they realize the bodies Zahara had stumbled over before are missing. They go back into the medical bay, which is now completely empty, and look for Waste. They find him on the ground in critical condition. Zahara asks what happened to the bodies and Waste replies that they came back and ate. Soon after, Waste deactivates and Zahara turns around to realize Han and Chewie are gone. Kale and Trig get to the escape pod and are trying to figure out how to work it when Sartoris appears. He tells them both to get out, he gets in, activates the launch codes, and launches away. Kale quickly realizes that there is another escape pod opposite of the position they are in. They start running that way because they feel the thing that was eating the baby Wookiee is following them. When they reach the other escape pod, they run into Han and Chewie. The boys hold their blasters at them but Han and Chewie quickly disarm them. Zahara comes around the corner and tells them to stop and that they are all getting out together. They realize the escape pod's hatch has been sealed because of security measures. So Han, Chewie, and Zahara go to the bridge to disable it, while Kale and Trig stay at the escape pod. The Longo brothers hear something outside and Kale leaves to investigate. Trig hears something moving inside the escape pod and scratching at the door. Despite his pleas, Zahara opens the pod. When Kale comes back, he sees his brother is gone and the escape pod is opened. He frantically starts searching for him. He finds him in a maintenance tunnel all scratched and scared. Then Kale hears things moving toward him through the tunnel. Kale picks up Trig and runs to the bridge. Zahara opens the escape pod but doesn't hear anything back on the comlink. Soon after, the bridge's computer says that there are more life-forms since that last bioscan. They look at the map the computer brings up and realizes all the life-forms are headed for the bridge. Soon after, Kale bursts through with Trig in his arms and yells at them to run. They run to the turbolift, which leads to the Star Destroyer, and activate it. Trig comes to and sees his father. Trig runs for his dad, and Kale grabs him and throws him back. But their dad gets Kale and bites him on the leg. When Kale awakes, they are in the hangar bay of the Star Destroyer. Kale realizes he has been bit but when he stands up, blood starts spurting out of the wound. Zahara says that she and Kale would stay there and Han, Chewie, and Trig need to get to the bridge to start the engines. Trig at this point is having some issues since he just saw his dead father bite his brother. Reluctantly, he leaves with Han and Chewie. Han, Chewie, and Trig are walking along a corridor when the ceiling explodes and hundreds of the zombies come pouring out of the hole. They take off running and end up running in circles. Zahara and Kale are sitting next to the turbolift when Kale tells her to cut his leg off. She notices that his entire leg is turning grey and after some arguing she goes to cut it off but realizes it has moved into his abdomen. Zahara quickly cuts into his stomach and pulls out a big infection cell. As she holds it in her hand, she sees it moving around and trying to find an opening to get into. She quickly disposes of it and cleans up the wounds on Kale. Han, Chewie, and Trig arrive at the top of the main Turbine with a small catwalk to cross. Trig decides to stay behind and Han and Chewie press forward. Trig thinks he sees Kale run into a door and Trig runs after him while Han and Chewie find a baby Wookiee crying in the corner. Chewie insists that they open the door. Han opens it and they see three Wookiees eating human remains. The Wookiees turn around and run toward Han and Chewie, and Han instinctively starts blasting them. The baby Wookiee jumps on Han's back and starts clawing at him when Chewie blasts the young one's head wide open. After a moment of silence, they go back and try to fix the engines. Zahara and Kale realize that the zombies are coming up the turbolift. She grabs Kale under the arms and starts dragging him across the hangar. The zombies start coming out of the turbolift, equipped with blasters. They start shooting at them though the shots are wild and inaccurate. Kale keeps screaming at her to drop him but she ignores him and just keeps dragging on. She notices that their shots are getting better. Her adrenaline is pumping and she is moving faster than ever when all of a sudden, a blaster bolt hits Kale in the side of the face. She leaves him after that and goes into the medical bay and is attacked by a zombie. She sticks syringes in its head and for a minute it starts to act human again. It scratches out in the ground Blackwing but the cure doesn't last long and it attacks Zahara again. Suddenly another 2-1B surgical droid saves her. It reminds her of Waste and she has a moment with the droid. The droid leads her to a console that will tell her whats happening. She continues to call the droid Waste and says thank you. Leaving the droid confused, she leaves to go to the console. After sometime, Sartoris awakes inside the escape pod. He realizes that the tractor beam of the Star Destroyer was turned on and sucked in the escape pod. He hears blaster fire outside and jumps outside. Noticing zombies all around him, he jumps into an abandoned X-wing and fires. The ship skids across the hangar floor and crashes into an Imperial shuttle. He quickly climbs into the shuttle and is greeted by four men, one being Commander Gorrister who explains that this zombie outbreak is because of a weapon that the Empire had created. He also explains the zombies can learn. They learn what works and what doesn't and how to make it work. The whole time all the men are licking their lips. Gorrister explains that they have been stuck in the shuttle for ten weeks. Then he explains that he started out with 30 men and is now down to 6. Two men grab Sartoris and Gorrister explains that they did what they did to survive and they started encroaching to kill Sartoris. All of a sudden a blast knocks the shuttle and Sartoris breaks free. He realizes the zombies learned from what he did and were getting into scattered ships around the hangar bay. Sartoris starts grabbing the men and throwing them into a crowd of zombies, but the last man pleads for mercy. Sartoris asks him his name, to which he replys White. Sartoris asks if the shuttle will fly. The man says the tractor beam won't let them out. Sartoris says he is going to disable the tractor beam and he will be back. Sartoris jumps into the crowd and goes running through the zombies. He reaches the other side of the hangar and finds a lifter, but also finds out that he has been bit. Zahara finds out that the zombie virus is a weapon as well. She uses the word Blackwing as a password to access the records. Then when she goes to disable the tractor beam, she realizes that it is already disabled. She stays in the bridge because she gets boxed in by zombies on the other side of the door. Trig followed who he thought was Kale into a room full of bodies. He lets out a scream and a zombie comes through the mountain and chases him. Trig climbs the mountain and gets into a ventilation duct. The duct turns out to lead right over where Han and Chewie had crossed. The zombie catches up to him and Trig realizes it is Kale. Trig is motionless and Kale starts to climb over Trig to bite him when Trig comes and pushes Kale down the shaft and into the turbine room. He sees Han, who is telling Trig to climb down to the catwalk. Meanwhile all the zombies at the bottom are shooting up at them and they are getting more accurate. Trig tries to climb but falls. He falls into something and he realizes it was the lifter that Sartoris was piloting. Sartoris flies around and gets Han and Chewie. The lifter is overloaded and slowly going down into the crowd of zombies. In a moment of redemption, Sartoris gives Trig the controls and then jumps over the edge of the lifter and into the zombies. They then fly to where Zahara was, but the bridge is on fire and they see a hand, assuming her to have been killed. They get to the shuttle and climb inside. They ask where White is and find him dead. Han and Chewie get to the controls and fly out of the hangar. Suddenly they hear a noise, and one of the zombies is inside the shuttle with them. The zombie kills the two men that were originally in the shuttle and is staring at Han. Just before it attacks, a blaster bolt comes from the back of the shuttle and kills the zombie. Zahara steps out and explains that since the zombies are away from the source of the infection, the zombies die easier. They all ask what happened to her and she states the hand they saw on the bridge was White's. He came to save her and while he did he said a stranger saved me too. referring to Sartoris. The crew fly off and reach a cantina. Han and Chewie leave Zahara and Trig to go get the Millennium Falcon back. Zahara and Trig meet the wife of the guard who died on the barge. She hands the note to the wife which she picked off the dead body. The wife begins to cry and asks them if they want to come in for tea. They do and Trig states that he wouldn't mind settling down there. Zahara and Trig settle on the planet. + +Over the planet Delrakkin, Admiral Termo awaits a transmission from Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin in the Yavin system. When the transmission does not arrive, Termo grows concerned, and prepares to dispatch a strike team to Yavin. Meanwhile, at the Great Temple on Yavin 4, the Rebels are celebrating the destruction of the Death Star, until C-3PO interrupts them with the news that R2-D2 has discovered something interesting. According to the Death Star plans, the battle station was carrying copious amounts of bacta as cargo. While Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Leia Organa ponder what this could mean, Threepio receives a relay signal from a beacon in the system, and informs the Rebels that an unknown ship has entered the system. Their sensors indicate that it is a modified Carrack cruiser, probably searching for the Death Star. General Jan Dodonna orders that they lay low, and allow the ship to pass, but Solo disobeys, and sets out after the craft in the Millennium Falcon. Upon reaching the craft, Solo opens fire, and forces the Carrack to crash land on Yavin 4. Dodonna decides that they must send a force out to stop the survivors from sending a distress signal and alerting the Empire to their presence. Dodonna selects one of the Rebels to scout ahead and survey the Imperial strength. The scout, using a speeder bike, reaches a clearing, and is nearly captured by Imperial stormtroopers, but quickly defeats them. The scout then finds more stormtroopers who are planning to launch a distress beacon, and quickly kills them too. Realizing that they will not be able to neutralize all of the Imperials, the scout disguises themselves as a Stormtrooper, hijacks an Imperial landspeeder, attaches their speeder bike to the back of it and sneaks into the Imperial camp. However, the scout forgets to turn off their comlink, and their cover is soon blown. The scout quickly escapes into a nearby temple to avoid capture. Within the temple, the scout encounters a battle droid, but defeats it. Venturing further into the temple, the scout encounters two more battle droids, and defeats them, as well as a worm-like creature. The scout then discovers Q-7N, a security droid left by the Sith builders of the temple. 7N, thinking that the scout is an Imperial, sends the scout hurtling through a trapdoor, and pits them against two stormtroopers. The scout kills the two stormtroopers with ease, only for Q-7N to reveal that they were in fact holograms. Convinced that the scout is friendly, Q-7N aids them in their quest to capture the Imperial captain. The scout is able to escape, but is pursued by Captain Skeezer. Q-7N slams himself against the captain, knocking him out and saving the scout. The scout then returns to the Rebel base with the damaged ancient droid. Afterwards, Artoo repairs Q-7N, while Solo learns from the captured Captain Skeezer that the bacta carried by the Death Star was contaminated. + +As HIMS Liquidator lies in wait over Delrakkin for the arrival of the Death Star I, Admiral Termo views a holotape recorded by Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin several weeks prior. Tarkin's holorecording tells Termo to send a coded transmission to B90-478R, and to await further instructions. Meanwhile, back on Yavin 4, C-3PO, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, and Han Solo explain to General Jan Dodonna about the contaminated bacta that the Death Star had been carrying. Alarmed, Dodonna decides to dispatch a team to Thyferra to investigate. Organa volunteers, and she and her entourage board the Millennium Falcon, and set course for Thyferra. On the way, R2-D2 is able to repair the ancient droid, Q-7N. Back on the Liquidator, Termo contacts B90-478R, only to learn that he is, in fact, speaking with Galactic Emperor Palpatine. Palpatine informs him that Tarkin is dead, and the Death Star was destroyed. The Falcon enters the Polith system safely, with a Y-wing brought in tow as a backup. However, upon landing on Thyferra, all of the Rebels are captured. But Q-7N and one of the Rebels escape, with a view to helping the others. They commandeer the Y-Wing and land it a few blocks away from the Imperial garrison. The Rebel then tries to find Voralla Morbo, a local who is sympathetic to the Rebellion. However, on the way, they are tricked by a Kubaz, and almost robbed. The Rebel is able to fight their way out of the situation, save a Vratix named Plurra from slavery and return to the other Rebels. The group meet with Morbo, and she tells them that a modified Imperial Carrack cruiser picked up a large amount of alazhi several weeks ago, and shipped it to Delrakkin. Picking up on the lead, Organa, Solo and Skywalker prepare to set course for Delrakkin. + +Over the planet Delrakkin, in the Star Destroyer Liquidator, Admiral Termo watches a holotape recorded by Grand Moff Tarkin before his untimely death. Upon viewing the tape, he orders the crew to fly the ship to the far side of Delrakkin's nearest moon. There, the Imperials prepare to attack Delrakkin disguised as Rebel forces. Meanwhile, the Millennium Falcon, following a trail of contaminated bacta from Thyferra to Delrakkin, enters the Delrakkin system and comes under fire from Imperial X-Wings. The Falcon is damaged and forced to land, but one of the Rebels aboard takes a Y-Wing to the skies with Q-7N, and battles the Imperials. Though the Rebel and Sevenen are able to thin the bogus Rebel Forces, their ship is hit, and they are forced to eject. On foot, the encounter and defeat more Imperials. Eventually, they come across some of the native Delrakkins, and are forced to prove their worth. The Rebel does so by fighting and defeating Gwann, the Delrakkin champion. The Delrakkins aid the Rebel in stealing an Imperial ship, which the Rebel then flies to the Liquidator. There, the Rebel destroys the remaining Imperial X-Wings, and steals two holotapes from Admiral Termo's desk. The Rebel then returns to Delrakkin and the Falcon. On the Falcon the group view the holotapes from the Liquidator, and discover that Tarkin was working on a new gravity well technology. They also discover that the Liquidator was ordered to search for the Death Star at Yavin in the event of Tarkin's absence. Realizing that the Imperials would already be en route, the Falcon races back to Yavin. + +The Liquidator arrives in the Yavin system, and begins scounting the inhabitable moons in the area, starting with Yavin 8. Meanwhile, the Millennium Falcon enters the area and prepares to destroy an Imperial probe sent to Yavin 4. It does so, and Captain Han Solo transmits a fake message back to the Liquidator, claiming that Yavin 4 is clear. As this is happening, Captain Skeezer escapes from his cell in the Massassi temple, and hijacks his Carrack Cruiser. As he leaves, he fires on the Millennium Falcon forcing it to land. The Rebels realize that they must stop Skeezer before he reaches the Liquidator. Along with Q-7N, a Rebel sets off after Skeezer in an T-65 X-wing starfighter. Skeezer is forced to land on Yavin 8, where he attempts to make contact the recently established Imperial garrison there. The Rebel, however, destroys the garrison, but is captured by the Liquidator. On board the Imperial Star Destroyer, the Rebel escapes with the aid of Sevenen, and manages to destroy the ship. Skeezer is killed in the process, but Termo and Tix are able to escape. The Rebel returns to Yavin 4 and celebrates. + +Darth Vader arrives on Imperial Center in a Carrack-class light cruiser following the Battle of Yavin. He orders that Captain Mordak have his ship. Meanwhile, in deep space, Admiral Termo and Communications officer Tix have spent weeks in an escape pod, and are about to make planetfall on an uncharted planet. Vader meets with his master, Emperor Palpatine, who stipulates that he not move against Yavin IV. Back in deep space, Termo and Tix crash on the planet, and locate a transmission relay tower. Tix and Termo are able to contact Imperial Center, and Palpatine dispatches Vader, Mordak, a Royal Guard and several TIE pilots to the uncharted planet. There, they are to retrieve Tarkin's secret holotape from Termo. Upon reaching the planet, the Imperials are attacked by a droid ship. One of the group manages to get to his TIE craft, and land on the planet below, but the Carrack is ensnared in the droid ship's grasp. Encountering Termo's escape pod, the Imperial ventures further through the planet, searching for the elusive Admiral. Spotting the relay tower, the Imperial journeys towards it, and investigates the interior. While at the tower, the Imperial is able to free the Carrack from the tractor beam, and then rescues Termo and Tix, before meeting with the Carrack. Vader, displeased, executes Termo, and retrieves the holotape. He orders three TIE pilots to remain at the planet, and destroy the relay tower, to prevent it falling into Rebel hands. The floating droid inhabitants of the planet, in a panic, contact their brethren, Q-7N, who has joined the Rebels on Yavin 4. + +On Imperial Center, Darth Vader meets with Palpatine, and delivers Wilhuff Tarkin's holotape. The holotape stipulates the concept of gravity well projectors and indicates how they can be created. Palpatine, intruiged, appoints General Mordak head of the Gravity well scheme, and dispatches Vader to Fondor, to oversee the creation of the Executor. Meanwhile, on the Uncharted red planet, Q-7N and his Rebel allies assess the damage done by the Empire. Q-7N finds nothing of value, however. A message pod, sent by Rogue Squadron, arrives on the planet, with a message from Wedge Antilles, who requests that Leia Organa and her friends join him on Kwenn Space Station. At Kwenn Space Station, Antilles, Wes Janson, and Tycho Celchu are investigating a Action VI transport that the Empire has detained, the Stellar Manx. While snooping about, they are set upon by a squad of Stormtroopers. The Rogues split up, and one of them eludes the Imperials by swimming through an aquarium. The lone Rogue encounters Captain Kar Lamoran in the detention cell, and frees her, along with her crew. Making their way back to Lamoran's Action VI, the Rogue encounters more security droids. The ship, however, takes off before they can reach it, but the Rogue pursues it, boards it, and takes it back to Space Station Kwenn. During his expedition, the Rogue also finds out that Darth Vader is in charge of the Imperial operation, and that the freighter's destination was Bonadan. + +The Rebels, in Kar Lamoran's Stellar Manx, approach the rendezvous on Bonadan, disguised as Imperials. The Imperials, in turn, are also disguised, and wait for the arrival of the transport. General Mordak meets with a Frap Radicon, who assures him that Palpatine's merchandise is secure. When the transport lands, Radicon recognizes Leia Organa, and starts a fight. Han Solo slips a Luxan Penetrator onto Radicon's person, before escaping, causing the Espos to bear down on the Imperials. Radicon is arrested, and Mordak contacts Lord Darth Vader at Fondor Shipyards. The Dark Lord, livid, dispatches a bounty hunter to Bonadan to retrieve Radicon. The bounty hunter braves several dangers on Bonadan, including swoop bikers, Espos, and Anzati. Eventually, the hunter reaches their destination, Spaceport Southeast II. There, the hunter learns that Radicon is being held in Blue Level. The hunter then rescues Radicon, and collects their reward. Radicon is then able to escape, taking Lamoran's freighter to the Uncharted red planet. The Rebels quickly learn its destination, and prepare to pursue. + +Learning that the Stellar Manx has been taken by Imperial forces, Han Solo hijacks a Corporate Sector Authority Marauder-class corvette, and pursues it. Meanwhile, in the hold of the Manx, Chewbacca, Q-7N and R2-D2 are holed up in the Millennium Falcon. Upon reaching Malagarr, Frap Radicon explains to Tix and Mordak the concept of a gravity well projector. Concerned that Radicon is insane, the two Imperials decide to defect, and resolve to steal the Falcon. The encounter Q-7N, who warns them not to upset Chewbacca. The Wookiee, along with the turncoat Imperials, escape the planet, and meet with Solo's Marauder. Solo questions the Imperials, and is convinced they can be of service. Two of the Rebels pilot IRD-As down to the planet, evading Imperial space mines. Q-7N stows away on Scout One's craft, which subsequently makes a crash landing. Scout Two also crashes, but Scout One is able to save them. Scout One then proceeds to disable the gravity well projector, and escapes. Q-7N then explains that Malagarr is highly dangerous to organic beings, and that the planet must be destroyed. With only Q-7N having the ability to destroy the planet, Scout One and Scout Two quickly flee the planet in the Manx, while the small black droid destroys Malagarr. + +To make his biggest score, Han’s ready to take even bigger risks. But even he can’t do this job solo. Han Solo should be basking in his moment of glory. After all, the cocky smuggler and captain of the Millennium Falcon just played a key role in the daring raid that destroyed the Death Star and landed the first serious blow to the Empire in its war against the Rebel Alliance. But after losing the reward his heroics earned him, Han’s got nothing to celebrate. Especially since he’s deep in debt to the ruthless crime lord Jabba the Hutt. There’s a bounty on Han’s head--and if he can’t cough up the credits, he’ll surely pay with his hide. The only thing that can save him is a king’s ransom. Or maybe a gangster’s fortune? That’s what a mysterious stranger is offering in exchange for Han’s less-than-legal help with a riskier-than-usual caper. The payoff will be more than enough for Han to settle up with Jabba--and ensure he never has to haggle with the Hutts again. All he has to do is infiltrate the ultra-fortified stronghold of a Black Sun crime syndicate underboss and crack the galaxy’s most notoriously impregnable safe. It sounds like a job for miracle workers or madmen. So Han assembles a gallery of rogues who are a little of both--including his indispensable sidekick Chewbacca and the cunning Lando Calrissian. If anyone can dodge, deceive, and defeat heavily armed thugs, killer droids, and Imperial agents alike--and pull off the heist of the century--it’s Solo’s scoundrels. But will their crime really pay, or will it cost them the ultimate price? Han Solo had received his reward from the Alliance to Restore the Republic. However, his payment had then been stolen by a pirate leaving him heavily in debt to Jabba the Hutt with no means to pay him back. Han responded to a job request at Reggilio’s Cantina on the planet Wukkar where after a brief encounter with the bounty hunter Falsta he encountered Eanjer Kunarazti. Eanjer explained to Han that a local crime lord named Avrak Villachor murdered Eanjer's father and stole over 163 million credits from his family. Eanjer hired Han to assemble a team of con artists and thieves to break into Villachor's heavily protected vault in Marblewood Estate located in Iltarr City and steal the money back for an even split. Han got into contact with local fixer Rachele Ree who in turn helped him track down the following members of their team: Bink Kitik, a ghost thief and her twin sister Tavia, the electronics expert, Zerba Cher'dak, a magician and sleight-of-hand expert, Dozer Creed, a shipjacker. While Han and Chewie flew around picking up their new team members a mutual acquaintance of Han and Rachele named Mazzic sent help in the form of Kell Tainer, explosives and droid expert, and Winter, a woman with perfect memory. Finally due to miscommunication Lando Calrissian also arrived as the group's front man despite Han and Lando having a falling out recently. Meanwhile two Imperial Intelligence agents, D'Ashewl and Dayja arrived on the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Dominator tracking a Falleen Black Sun Vigo, Qazadi. Qazadi arrived on Wukkar and was staying as a guest in Villachor's estate. Both Dayja and Han's team discovered that an important VIP was staying at the Lulina Crown Hotel and was transiting back and forth between the hotel and Villachor's estate multiple times a day. Han's team put the hotel under surveillance and discovered that the Falleen Aziel was staying there with a large safe. The team decided to break into the safe and discover the identity of Villachor's guest as well as steal whatever was being guarded so heavily. As Bink, Winter, and Chewie broke into the hotel suite, Dozer and Kell distracted the guards allowing Bink and Winter to discover that the safe was guarding a cryodex, an ancient Alderaanian encryption device that was unhackable. Meanwhile Dayja discovered Han's team watching Villachor and Aziel and gets into contact with Eanjer and worked out a deal with him. In exchange for Dayja delivering additional intelligence, Eanjer would turn over the cryptodex and the encrypted files that were being stored in Villachor's vault. Using the information from Dayja, Eanjer explained to the rest of the team that Villachor was heavily involved in Black Sun and that the encrypted files that were being stored in Villachor's vault was a cornerstone of Black Sun's power and that the files and cryptodex to decode them were almost priceless. Over the next week the team made preparations and cased the estate while Villachor hosts the Festival of Four Honorings, a grand affair where Villachor's estate was open to the public. As part of the plan Bink attached herself to Villachor's chief of security Lapis Sheqoa, Dozer attempted to bribe several of Villachor's security staff and Lando introduced himself to Villachor under the alias of Kwerve offering to help Villachor defect to a mysterious rival organization. Lando's offer was sweetened by him stating that his organization had a working cryodex which surprised Villachor as less then a dozen survived the destruction of Alderaan. Lando agreed to come back at a later date with the cryodex as proof of his offer. Meanwhile Villachor started to become very paranoid that Lando and all the other mysterious events caused by Han's team was really either Qazadi or even Prince Xizor attempting to test his loyalty or position him for failure and replacement. Lando arrived as agreed with a fake cryodex that Winter had recreated from her brief inspection of the one held in Aziel's vault. Villachor demanded proof that the cryodex could actually decode a file and using information provided by both Han and Rachele, Lando was able to bluff his way through the meeting and convinced Villachor that the cyrodex was legitimate. In the process they swapped out the datacard Villachor gave them with a fake card that contained sophisticated sensors so they could get readings from inside Villachor's vault. Soon after departing, however, Lando and Zerba, who had been carrying the cryodex in a case, were kidnapped by corrupt police on orders from Qazadi. They attempted to steal the cryodex but Han, Chewie, Winter and Kell were able to rescue them. At the next opportunity Han made contact and offered to set up a meeting between Villachor and the leader of Lando's shadowy organization while the rest of the team made their final preparations. As more and more unexplained events happened, Villachor became paranoid enough to make preliminary contacts with the Imperials with the hope that if he defected and turned over information on Black Sun's organization that they could in turn protect him from whatever was going on however in the end he decided against it. Dayja warned Eanjer however Eanjer decided not to warn the rest of the team that Villachor might be taking an unexpected turn by dealing with the Empire. Finally the day of the heist came and the entire team sprang into action. Han approached Villachor with a datacard that was supposed to have the time and place for a meeting however Villachor immediately took him prisoner. Dayja, who had been making his own attempts to infiltrate both Villachor's organization and estate was also spotted and captured. Bink, who had been flirting with Sheqoa throughout the whole festival stole his keycard to get access to the estate and then using one of Zerba's illusions she switched places with Tavia so Tavia was with Sheqoa and Bink was free to infiltrate the house. Sheqoa immediately suspected Bink to have stolen his keycard however as he was now with Tavia he could find no evidence of the theft. Even so Qazadi ordered her into the estate for a more in-depth interrogation. With several members captured the team had to improvise. Lando dead dropped the crydoex in an attempt to ransom out Han but nobody on the team expected that to actually work. Instead they had realized that as Winter had copied Aziel's cryodex perfectly, Qazadi would immediately suspect his aide of treachery and would call him to the estate immediately. If the team could keep the real cyrodex from being in the same room as the fake then Qazadi would keep the prisoners alive so he could get more information out of them. Winter and Dozer went back to the hotel to stall Aziel while Bink, Zerba, and Kell infiltrated the estate. Both Han and Dayja escaped their captors and Han joined up with his team while Dayja went to the roof to observe. Bink, Zerba, and Kell were able to cut their way into the vault chamber and using data from the fake datacard on the inside they were able to penetrate the vault completely. Meanwhile Winter and Dozer staged a landspeeder accident and then hotwired Aziel's landspeeder to operate by remote. Dozer took control of the vehicle and smashed Aziel and his bodyguards all over a parking garage before he opened the side door and grabbed the cryodex while the guards were too dazed to react. Dozer and Winter tried to escape but were stopped by a detachment of stormtroopers who put everyone under arrest. Unexpectedly D'Ashewl appeared and let Dozer and Winter go in exchange for the cyrodex. When Winter communicated this out to the team they realized that Eanjer's contact had been with Imperial Intelligence and became aware that there was another operation underway. Villachor realized that the intruders were already breaking into his vault and tried to get their in time but due to various delays organized by the team he was too late to catch Bink, Zerba, and Kell. Instead when he opened the vault chambers explosives went off that caused the vault, that shaped like a sphere, to roll out of the estate entirely and into the front lawn. Meanwhile Lando, Chewie, Bink, and Eanjer attempted to rescue Tavia from Qazadi's chambers. Bink arrived first but she was quickly incapacitated by the falleen's pheromones. While Chewie and Lando dealt with the last of Qazadi's guards Eanjer arrived and killed Qazadi with a hidden hold-out blaster pistol. Lando, Chewie, Bink, and Tavia quickly escaped from the estate while Eanjer stayed behind under the excuse that he had to finish his revenge on Villachor. Out on the front lawn Kell and Zerba emerged from the vault with both credits and blackmail files and the rest of the team arrived and picked them up. Lando left early, exchanging his share for the blackmail files. Dayja spotted him leaving with the box however and alerted the orbiting Star Destroyer to capture him. Unbeknownst to Lando and Dayja, Han had handed over an empty box instead of the blackmail files as he realized that Dayja had been watching. Eanjer, meanwhile, hurried to the landing bay where the Millennium Falcon was parked and waited to spring an ambush on Han and Chewie when they arrived to leave. He realized too late, however, that what he thought was the Millennium Falcon was actually a decoy set up by Dozer. Han's team had learned that the real Eanjer had been killed six weeks ago, long before hiring Han and that the whole deal had been some kind of set up. Without the real Eanjer to unlock the credit tabs where the money was stored the team would have to settle for significantly less, about eighty-thousand credits each instead of 14.8 million. Han offered to exchange his share for the black mail files that he intended on turning over to the Alliance. + +Five to six months after the Battle of Yavin, Daric LaRone and other stormtroopers from the Reprisal were on Teardrop carrying out a mission meant to subjugate the planet's populace. Believing that they are sympathizers of the Rebellion, civilians were ordered executed by the Reprisal's command staff. However, the Rebels, including Han Solo aboard the Millennium Falcon, had already fled. Despite this being unknown to LaRone and his squadron, it was clear that the individuals they were ordered to destroy had no affiliation with the Rebel Alliance. Feeling that exterminating innocent civilians goes against the oath that he swore to protect citizens of the Empire, LaRone and his team tactfully refused to obey the order by ostensibly missing the targets when firing. Meanwhile, Mara Jade was on one of her first missions as the Emperor's Hand. She uncovers evidence of Moff Glovstoak's embezzling, but also realized that some of the priceless artworks that she found in the Moff's possession are missing, possibly taken by Rebels or pirates. She received permission from Emperor Palpatine to investigate the issue further and began her search. In the midst of her mission, she uncovered that a group of pirates are planning on attacking a group of Imperial military transports. Returning to Yavin 4, Han Solo began to question his allegiance to the Rebel Alliance to the dismay of his friend and co-pilot, Chewbacca. This is in stark contrast to Luke Skywalker, whose sympathy for the cause only seems to deepen with each mission. In the middle of Han's ruminations, it was brought to his and Luke's attention that pirate attacks on Alliance supply lines were becoming a major irritation for the Rebellion. Originally, Han, Luke, and Chewbacca were going to accompany Princess Leia Organa on a mission to Shelkonwa, but instead were reassigned to investigate the pirate attacks. Back on the Reprisal, Daric LaRone was confronted by Major Drelfin from the Imperial Security Bureau for Larone's apparent refusal to follow orders. A scuffle arose which resulted in Drelfin being killed by LaRone in self-defense. Realizing that they are now fugitives, LaRone and the other Stormtrooper witnesses, Taxtro Grave, Saberan Marcross, Joak Quiller, and Korlo Brightwater, stole Drelfin's ISB ship and fled the Reprisal. During a trip to Drunost to buy supplies, a swoop gang attack compelled the squadron to defend civilians, who in an odd twist of fate actually turned out to be members of the Alliance. Leaving Drunost, they journeyed to Janusar to finish their purchases, only to find that it was under the control of a corrupt militia with links to pirates. The five rogue stormtroopers feel obligated to stop the corruption. After their resounding success in liberating the citizenry from their corrupt leaders, they dubbed themselves the Hand of Judgment when asked for details regarding their unit designation. With the militia defeated and justice restored to Janusar, they returned to Drunost. Serendipitously, Han, Luke, and Chewie met up with their contact on Drunost, unaware that the Hand of Judgment was also there. Luke helped stop a bank robbery, using his lightsaber in the process, getting the attention and curiosity of the Hand of Judgment. This led LaRone and his squad to follow them to where the Rebels had planned to ambush a group of pirates. After the Falcon and the Hand of Judgment defeated the pirates, the ex-Imperials and Rebels worked out an uneasy partnership. Leia, who was on Shelkonwa trying to unify three Adarian resistance groups, met with Administrator Vilim Disra, who had allegedly wanted to join the Alliance. However, seeing much personal gain in turning Leia over to the Empire, and specifically Darth Vader, Disra shuts down the spaceports, starts a massive manhunt for Leia, and contacts Imperial High Command. Leia goes to ground, posing as a tapcafe waitress and waits for a chance to slip out. Mara, on the other hand, boards a pirate ship and kills or subdues its crew as it attacks a military transport. Calling for help from the Reprisal, she boards the Dreadnaught and borrows two ISB stormtroopers to help her pilot the military transport back to the pirate base on Gepparin. Captain Kendal Ozzel, thinking she is onto him due to the five deserters, aids her, but also takes the Reprisal to Gepparin to attack the base. Mara had infiltrated the pirate base when her ISB stormtroopers betray her, causing the whole base to also attack her. Just as she defeats most of the pirates who haven't fled, the Reprisal attempts to kill her by blasting the base. The Hand of Judgment and their Rebel companions have also tracked the pirates to Gepparin, and the Reprisal attacks them also. Thanks to stunt flying by Chewie in the Falcon, the two ships escape after tricking Ozzel into going to the Alderaan system. Mara Jade, relieved of the attack, takes a pirate ship to journey to Shelkonwa after seeing a transmission from the pirate base to the governor's office there. However, the Hand of Judgment and the Falcon also journey to Shelkonwa, the Rebels to rescue Leia and the Hand to find the pirate connection. Mara Jade meets up with Darth Vader in orbit and informs him of her intentions. Landing on the planet, she is attacked by an AT-ST controlled by a pirate named Caaldra. The Hand of Judgment comes to her aid, leaving Han, Luke, and Chewie to find Leia. Mara commandeers the five men to take down the AT-ST and advance on the governor's palace, correctly believing Governor Barshnis Choard to be a traitor to the Empire. Han, Luke, and Chewie meet up with Leia and escape the planet while Mara and the Hand of Judgment take down Choard. Mara, although she later learns the story of the deserters, pardons them and tells them to discontinue their actions. The ex-stormtroopers leave the planet as the Rebels escape in the Falcon back to the Rebellion. + +The Victory I-class Star Destroyer Decimator enters the Kleeva system, awaiting the delivery of a new shipment of droids from Boonda the Hutt. Boonda, however, wakes up to find his droids attempting to kill him. The corpulent Hutt, panicked, escapes his would be murderers using secret escape routes. The droids, led by 12-4C-41, prepare to lead an assault on the Decimator, which they plan to capture and take to Vactooine, where they hope to take over droid production. In the Decimator's loading bay, the droids are inspected by Captain Pelvin and Trooper 1219, but upon unloadng, Wuntoo attacks the Imperials, and his droid lackeys start a fire on the deck. Admiral Groot believes this to be a machination of Boonda, and orders an attack on the Hutt's facility. He, along with Pelvin and Gammat Squad, are able to escape the Decimator, which is quickly overrun by the renegade droids. They are attacked by droid-piloted TIEs while approaching Boonda's Moon, and the Admiral is injured. Upon landing, the group is attacked by Boonda, but one of the troopers convinces him that they mean no harm. When Boonda discovers that the Imperials are not the ones who have caused the droids to revolt, he realizes that he needs to prove his innoncence, and helps the trooper destroy his own factory. Before leaving, the Decimator picks up what's left of the factory. Though Boonda believes that there is nothing of worth within, Wuntoo has a cadre of specially designed battle droids that he had been keeping in reserve. Storing them aboard the Decimator, Wuntoo sets course for Tatooine. + +The Star Destroyer Decimator approaches Tatooine, carrying 12-4C-41's Droid Army. 12-4C-41's assistants begin to question his plans, but persist towards the desert planet. Meanwhile, planetside, the bikers Big Gizz, Spiker, and Twitch wait in Ben Kenobi's hut. There, a group of Jawas start investigating the threesome's swoops, but are warded off. Big Gizz decides to go to Mos Eisley for a drink, before returning to Jabba's Palace. At Chalmun's Cantina, however, Wuntoo and his Droid Army attack, seeking the location of Jabba's palace. The bikers, however, prepare to fight back. They are able to defend the cantina, but one of the bikers realizes that Wuntoo has stolen a swoop, headed for Jabba's Palace. Tracking the droid to Docking Bay 94, the biker is unable to stop it heading for the Palace, but instead continues tracking Wuntoo on his swoop. The chase eventually ends at Beggar's Canyon, where Wuntoo is defeated. However, his army, aboard the drone barge, rescue him, and capture the biker. The biker escapes, however, and contacts Jabba's Palace, warning them of the impending attack, before they are confronted by Wuntoo. Jabba's security forces attack and drive off the barge, while the biker safely escapes. Big Gizz, Spiker, and Twitch then tell Jabba that the droids intended to assassinate the crimelord, blurring the truth somewhat. Jabba, enraged, orders Bib Fortuna to recall all Bounty Hunters and send them after Wuntoo's army. + +The Star Destroyer Decimator heads through hyperspace on a course for Vactooine. The ship, now under the control of 12-4C-41's Droid Army, is under the command of 12-4C-41, who regrets the recent loss at Tatooine. Nevertheless, he resolves to build his foundries on Vactooine, and return, to wreak vengeance on EV-9D9. Meanwhile, at Jabba's Palace, the biker Twitch delivers a broken K4 security droid to 9D9, who begins interrogating it. Meanwhile, on Dennogra, IG-88B hunts Han Solo, who was recently on the planet dealing with the Ithorian treasure merchant Sprool. Entering the Zio Snaffkin Cantina, 88 finds the place completely wrecked, with all the patrons killed. The only inhabitant of the Cantina still alive is the notorious bounty hunter and 88's rival, Boba Fett. Soon after, Dengar and Bossk arrive on Dennogra, but the bounty hunters are soon met by a message droid from Jabba the Hutt, ordering them to hunt down Wuntoo's droid army. The bounty hunters all scramble to their ships and begin dogfighting, but only one of them escapes to the Vactooine system. There, the hunter encounters the Decimator, which is hiding behind the largest Moon of Vactooine. Wuntoo, in the Decimator, launches TIE/sa bombers to intercept, but they are quickly swept aside by the hunter. The Decimator, searching for its lost bombers, captures the bounty hunter in a tractor beam, bringing it into the landing bay. A K4 security droid boards the ship, but the hunter quickly dispatches it, before launching the ship's escape pod across the hangar floor, gaining the element of surprise. Despite this, the hunter is captured, and thrown in one of the Decimators cells. The hunter does not give up, however, and defeats his guards, before questioning K-2PQ. Learning that the droids are renegades, and that they were hunting 9D9 and not Jabba, the hunter destroys 2PQ, and escapes the ship, programming the drone barge to travel to Tatooine on their way out. Upon returning to Tatooine, the hunter is set upon by Zuckuss and 4-LOM, but is able to defeat them. Jabba, impressed, pays the hunter their fee. On Vactooine, however, Wuntoo's forces have successfully subjugated the mining colony. On Yavin 4, Luke Skywalker detects that something is amiss when Vactooine is late for a shipment, and requests that he be allowed to investigate. + +On Tatooine, Jabba the Hutt inspects the drone barge recently delivered to him. His majordomo, Bib Fortuna, discovers that the barge once belonged to Boonda, a fact which piques Jabba's interest. On Boonda's Moon, Groot and Pelvin are rescued by an Imperial relief force, but shortly after their departure, Boonda is contacted by Jabba, who provides the manufacturer with the location of the renegade droid army. Boonda tells Groot of this, who decides to bring Boonda along to Vactooine. The Hutt, however, is reluctant, and finds himself wanting to escape his predicament. On Vactooine, 12-4C-41 is preparing to set up his droid foundries, when his master, Olag Greck, meets him, and scolds him for his prevous detour at Tatooine. Meanwhile, Millennium Falcon, carrying Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia Organa, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Q-7N, along with Rogue Squadron, enter the Vactooine system, only to be met by Groot's Imperial shuttle. The shuttle disables all the Alliance craft bar one, which pursues the Imperial craft, disabling it. Boonda then chooses to escape in one of the Lambda's pods. Despite forcing the shuttle to crash, the Rebel too plummets towards Vactooine, and makes a rough landing. Upon landing, the Rebel encounters Boonda, and saves him from several Stormtroopers. Venturing with Boonda further into the wilderness of Vactooine, the Rebel encounters the downed Imperial shuttle, and captures Groot and Pelvin. Speeding to the Vactooine Mining Colony, the Rebel infiltrates the facility and encounters Olag Greck. Greck panics, and calls in Wuntoo, but the Rebel is able to convince the traffic controller droid that Greck is manipulating him, and that he is committing acts of evil. The droids are swayed, and rebel against Greck. Wuntoo reveals that the entire revolt was actually Greck's plan, and that he intended to create a gargantuan droid army on Vactooine to overthrow the Empire. The Rebels, satisfied, apprehend Greck, obtain the Decimator, and extend an invitation to join the Rebellion to Boonda. + +Tash and Zak Arranda are preteen siblings whose parents were killed when the Galactic Empire destroyed their home planet of Alderaan. With nowhere else to go, they began to travel with their Uncle Hoole, a mysterious shape-shifting Shi'ido who studies different species on many planets. They live with him on his starship, the Lightrunner, and learn from their new caretaker droid, DV-9. When they travel to the mysterious planet of D'vouran, they are pulled out of hyperspace, seemingly too soon, by the planet's gravity, and crash land at the spaceport. Though Tash feels bad things about the planet, the Enzeen, the alien race who live on the planet, are more than happy to help out with anything they need while on the planet. D'vouran has become a tourist destination and the Enzeen hope to bring more people to live on the planet. When Chood, the Enzeen who personally helps the family, brings them to an inn to find help in repairing the engine, they are attacked and the children taken captive by the forces of Smada the Hutt, who demands Hoole's service. With help from the Rebels who are also investigating the planet, Smada's forces release the children. Outside of the inn, they meet Kevreb Bebo, a disgraced pilot who tries to warn the people staying on planet that people are disappearing. When their Uncle Hoole leaves them with Chood while he is studying, Tash sees an alien creature standing over sleeping Zak. Waking him, they run to town to warn the others, only to find that no one is chasing them. After Hoole speaks to them, Tash stops worrying about the planet and who is chasing them. The next day, Zak, while alone, is attacked by Smada's forces. Bebo is there also, and manages to evade all their laser shots at him. Hoole is eventually able to stop Smada, but Tash convinces him to let her speak with Bebo. He brings her, accompanied by DV-9, to a cave, where he shows her a laboratory which had long ago been abandoned. He shows her a seemingly bottomless pit, which she feels there is something wrong with, and he shows her his medallion, a device which apparently keeps him safe from the disappearances. Believing him, she tries to return to the town. He gives her his medallion, but, after she has gone, he is killed by one of Smada's guards. As she returns to town, she is attacked by the Enzeen, who have become parasitic monsters, but manages to escape when an earthquake shakes the ground. Back at town, however, everyone is missing, and she goes to Smada's fortress, thinking he has done something. There she finds Zak in captivity. With DV-9's help, they escape Smada's fortress, but are recaptured easily. However, now outside the fortress, Smada, his guards, and the children are attacked by the Enzeen and the planet, as holes begin to open up and take people into the planet. Smada, on his repulsor sled, and the children, protected by the medallion, are kept safe, but are brought by the Enzeen to the heart of the planet, the pit Bebo showed Tash. There it is revealed that the planet is alive and needs nourishment, and the Enzeen get their own nourishment from the planet while attracting more people to come. The medallion created a forcefield around the wearers that the planet couldn't absorb. When Hoole, who was disguised as an Enzeen, gets the medallion, he throws it into the pit, causing the planet to begin to erupt. Able to escape the pit, even as Smada falls in and is absorbed, they finally reach their ship. The ship, however, is unable to take off, as the planet has grabbed hold of it. Losing hope, the Millennium Falcon comes to their rescue and, with deft flying by Han Solo, is finally able to escape the planet, which collapses on itself behind them. + +Aboard the Millennium Falcon, Zak Arranda awakens from a horrific nightmare in which he, in a version of his bedroom from Alderaan floating in space, witnesses the corpse of his mother outside his window, asking why he had left them behind. His cries awaken his sister, Tash, and startle Han Solo, Chewbacca and DV-9. The nightmare awakens a sense of survivor's guilt in Zak. At Hoole's insistence to find a new starship after the demise of the Lightrunner, the Arrandas and their uncle are dropped off by the Rebels on the planet Necropolis. The planet is noted for its massive cemetery, as well as their traditions and superstitions regarding proper treatment of the dead, which includes physical burial. Upon landing, the family is greeted by several Necropolitans dressed as mummies, although Zak is unnerved by this and shoves one of the greeters. They are introduced to the Master of Cerements, Pylum, as well as a Necropolitan named Kairn, who strikes up a quick friendship with Zak. The Arrandas are led to a local hostel, but are intercepted by the bounty hunter Boba Fett, who announces to the denizens of Necropolis that he is seeking out Dr. Evanzan, who is wanted in 12 systems for illegal medical practices and the torture of his victims, among other crimes. Fett is especially suspicious, as a former target he had eliminated on Necropolis had somehow revived, and believed that Evanzan was responsible for this reappearance. Pylum instead insists that, rather than Evanzan, the dead are rising due to a curse placed centuries ago on the inhabitants of the planet. Kairn explains that Necropolis had been home to a witch named Sycorax, who claimed to be a necromancer. The disbelieving people of the planet cruelly killed her son to force her to prove her power, but the loss instead caused the death of Sycorax herself. With her dying breath, she is said to have cursed the Necropolitans to observe the rites of the dead, or suffer their vengeful return. He also adds that the power of Sycorax was reputedly so great that it was possible, even from beyond the grave, for her to resurrect the dead loved ones of someone who visited her tomb. Zak is fascinated with the story, hoping to find a way to bring back his parents and apologize to them, but Tash disagrees with his belief in the possibility of the legends having any truth to them, and adamantly tells Zak they never left their parents behind. Zak suffers another nightmare, but is awakened in the middle of the night by Kairn and a group of local boys, who want Zak to join them. After climbing out of his room, Kairn informs Zak that he and the others want their new friend to prove his bravery by entering the cemetery of Necropolis, an action considered taboo as the cemetery is thought of as sacred ground. They want Zak to go to the center of the graveyard, to the Crypt of the Ancients, and stand on one of the graves, marking it with a knife to prove he had been there. To dismiss their belief that he is scared and to test the legends, Zak agrees to the dare, taking a glowrod for light and Kairn's cloak for warmth. Upon reaching the center of the cemetery and the Crypt, Zak implores Sycorax to return his parents to life, but he is met with silence in spite of his heartfelt pleas. As Zak goes on to complete the dare issued by his new friends, to his horror a corpse actually does rise from its grave and begins to attack him. After a second one also rises, Zak manages to flee from them, but becomes lost among the maze of headstones. He calls for help, and is answered by Kairn, but his shouts also attract Dr. Evanzan. Evanzan quickly grabs and poisons Kairn with cryptberries, a toxic fruit found in the cemetery. He attempts to do the same to Zak, but is prevented by Boba Fett, who tricks and executes the murdering criminal. The bounty hunter and Zak are found by Hoole, Tash, Pylum, and several of the Necropolitans, but Pylum is insistent that Evanzan and Kairn both be buried on Necropolis, against Boba Fett's inclination to take the body of Evanzan with him to collect his bounty. Fett agrees to it, but warns Pylum that if he cannot collect the bounty without a body, he will return. Zak tries to explain what he had seen, but is not believed by Tash or his uncle, and like the Necropolitans they assume Kairn ate the cryptberries on his own. The next day Kairn and Evazan are given funerals and buried in the Necropolitan cemetery. Afterward, Hoole and the Arrandas go to find a new starship. However, as Zak decides to look at a ship that is not yet ready for sale, he witnesses the same Dr. Evanzan who was killed the night before rush off the ship and escape. Once again, his accounts fall on deaf ears. He begins to think that perhaps the legends and his nightmares are affecting his mind, but Zak is alarmed to discover strips of dead flesh on his window from the night before, from a rotting corpse he had thought he'd dreamed had tried to break into his room. He alerts Pylum, who tells Zak that he will send someone to him to discuss the matter. Despite this, Zak is waylaid by Tash, who has overheard part of a conversation between Hoole and Boba Fett, involving a proposal. She insists that they follow Fett to gain more information about the Shi'ido, but, as they do, the siblings are separated. Tash is found by Boba Fett, and is coerced by him into revealing Zak's accounts of Evanzan's return. However, when Tash asks about her uncle, Fett will not tell her about their discussion, instructing her to mind her own business. As Zak continues on, to his shock, he runs into Kairn, who is alive despite looking sickly and sluggish. Kairn recognizes Zak and confirms that he had in fact been dead; he agrees to show the astonished Zak the secret of his revival. Zak follows Kairn back to the cemetery and to Sycorax's tomb, hopeful now that the witch's power was real, but is horrified to learn that the truth is far more sinister: he is brought before the revived Dr. Evanzan, who orders Kairn to restrain Zak. Evanzan explains that he has developed a serum that can reanimated dead tissue, creating powerful zombies with superior strength, resistance to pain, and the penchant for obeying orders without question. The serum is activated once the corpse has been buried and exposed to boneworms, wormlike creatures that eat the bone marrow of bodies in the cemetery. The slime of the boneworms allows the serum to work, but a notable side effect is an uncontrollable twitch, and in the case of older corpses clumsiness and awkward movement. However, Evanzan proudly proclaims that with a fresh, minimally damaged corpse, his improved serum works far better, preserving the former memories of the body it's used on and allowing the zombie to speak, as seen with Kairn and himself. He intends to use Zak as his next subject, but without killing him: he injects Zak with both the serum and a diluted cryptberry juice to paralyze him, mimicking death. Zak awakens in a coffin at his own funeral; after being gone for several hours, Deevee finds his body holding cryptberries, and it is assumed by all that he has actually poisoned himself. Despite his frantic efforts, Zak's body remains frozen, and he is buried in the Necropolitan cemetery. He begins to reminisce about his parents, and remembers his mother telling him that they will never be gone so long as Zak keeps them in his heart. As the boy realizes that he should have looked for them inside himself, Zak regains the ability to move, but this unfortunately happens as the boneworms begin to gnaw their way into his casket. Zak attempts to stop them, but is rescued by Deevee and Boba Fett. Having been sent by Hoole to pick up their purchased ship, Deevee was instead compelled to take the ship Zak had seen Evanzan on earlier: this turns out to have been Evanzan's own ship, The Shroud. Scanning the memory banks of the vehicle, a horrified Deevee realized what the doctor had been doing and that Zak had been buried alive. Surprised by Fett, Deevee convinced the bounty hunter to save Zak, as the boy knew where Evanzan was hiding and how he had returned from the dead. Tash, meanwhile, cannot shake the feeling that Zak would never have killed himself, and insists to Hoole that they investigate whether or not Evanzan is really dead. Surprisingly, Hoole agrees to exhume the body, against the laws of the planet. However, at the cemetery, they are attacked by a hoard of zombies, barely escaping with their lives. At the cemetery gate, they are met by an angry mob, led by Pylum, who demands that Tash and Hoole be punished for their desecration. They are dragged back into the cemetery, now devoid of zombies, and thrown into the Crypt of Ancients, followed by Pylum. Here, the Master of Cerements is revealed to have been Evanzan's partner, having become disillusioned by the legend of Sycorax once he'd found the actual, frail corpse of the witch. He and Evanzan unleash the zombies on Hoole and Tash; despite their efforts, they are outnumbered and soon captured. Fortunately, Boba Fett, Zak, and Deevee arrive; Fett fights the zombies while Zak and Deevee, using the boneworm slime, are able to quickly concoct an antidote to the reanimation serum from Evanzan's own research. Evanzan attempts to stop them by sending Kairn over, but Zak manages to break through the doctor's mind control, getting Kairn to work with them to stop the zombies. Zak's friend takes the antidote and splashes it on each corpse, returning it to its original state as Fett holds them back. Kairn, unfortunately, is also splashed with the antidote as he takes down the last corpse, but Fett is able to take the very last of the liquid and use it on Evanzan, who dies for the final time. As they depart, they notice Pylum's own dead body at the foot of the stairs leading into the crypt; although Hoole posits that the Master of Cerements had died trying to open the heavy tomb door and had slipped down the stairs, Deevee tells them the door had been open, leading Hoole to state that perhaps Sycorax did have some power after all to punish those who disrespected the dead. Hoole asks Fett whether he will accept the Shi'ido's proposal, but Fett leaves, telling Hoole that only a fool would take that job. + +While trying to spend a peaceful night at the Restful Nights Hotel on Faldos, Han Solo is ambushed by several bounty hunters. He is forced to escape, and in the process, rescues young Grubba Desilijic Aarrpo from a pair of Whiphid slavers. Safely aboard the Millennium Falcon, Solo learns that Jabba Desilijic Tiure is Grubba's Ur-Damo. Meanwhile on Tatooine, Prefect Eugene Talmont hatches a scheme with Dengar, Udin, and Eron Stonefield to capture Solo at Jabba's Palace. They are to trek across the Dune Sea until they reach the Palace, where they will stop and capture the renegade smuggler. During their trek, they are met by Tusken Raiders, who are quickly dispatched by Stonefield. As the hunters journey further into the desert, they are set upon by a sandstorm, and in turn, they erect a biosphere. But during the storm, they detect a ship landing near Jabba's Palace, and one of them sets out after it. The hunter encounters more Sand People, B'omarr Monks and other danger, but eventually reaches Jabba's Palace. But the hunter is too late to apprehend Solo, and instead takes his quarry -- Grubba. The hunter takes Grubba back to the biosphere, and Udin elects that they take him to Kubindi, for Solo to follow. + +In Mos Eisley, Han Solo interrogates a Kubaz as to the location of Grubba, the nephew of Jabba the Hutt. The Kubaz squeals, and reveals where Udin, his hive-mate, took Grubba: Kubindi. Han, satisfied, releases the Kubaz, but is soon set upon by the town militia, and is forced to flee. Meanwhile, Udin and Grubba, along with Dengar and Eron Stonefield, reach Kubindi in the Punishing One. They safely wait in the Silver Forest of Dreams for Solo to arrive. He does, and lands outside the forest, deciding to advance through using landspeeders. Solo hires a local guide, Bizzin Uz, to help them through the Silver Forest. One of the rebels is paired with C-3PO, whose sensors prove to be invaluable. Bizzin Uz leads the group, warning them that if they see any other Kubaz, it's likely police or poachers. The Rebel encounters a giant water monster of unknown species, and is forced to evade it, but wanders into an entire nest of them. Eventually, the Rebel is so beset by creatures, that their companions leave them behind. The Rebel is captured by a Giant mantys, leaving Threepio alone and stranded in the Forest. Taking it to its treetop nest, the mantys fights the Rebel, who is able to defeat the giant creature. The Rebel then rappels down the tree, hoping to find Threepio waiting. Upon reaching the forest floor, the droid is not to be seen, so the Rebel ventures into a cave. After an hour of exploration, the Rebel encounters a Giant termyte, which it defeats. Spending the night in the cave, the Rebel is woken by Threepio, who had apparently sought shelter in their absence. Resuming their earlier journey, the Rebel encounters Uz, who has been fatally bitten by a spydr. Uz tells the Rebel that his companions have been captured and taken to the Zabin Hive. Just as Uz succumbs to his injuries, a squad of Kubaz enforcers from Zabin Hive arrive, inspecting Uz' corpse. The Rebel hides until most of the enforcers leave, and then defeats the remainder with Threepio's help. Upon reaching the Zabin Hive, Threepio and the Rebel are able to bluff their way to the detention facility, where they are beset by security droids and taken to see Queen Zabin. The Queen agrees to turn over the Rebel's captured comrades, supply the Rebellion with spydr meat, and turn over the captured Grubba, but only if the Rebel can cook a fine dish with spydr meat. The Rebel is able to do so, but unfortunately for them, Grubba was taken away while they were in the kitchen. Despite this, the bounty hunters leave a message on the Millennium Falcon, goading the Rebels to follow them and attempt to reclaim Grubba on the Tafanda Bay, over Ithor. + +Captain Han Solo, in the Millennium Falcon approaches Ithor, hoping to reclaim possession of Grubba the Hutt. His passengers are Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, Momaw Nadon, R2-D2, and C-3PO. Attempting to evade Imperial detection, he modifies the Falcon's transponder to transmit the data of an diplomatic shuttle, while masquerading as the ship of Master Torturer Sir Vengnar Heiff. The Imperials allow them to approach the Tafanda Bay a herdship that resides above Ithor's surface. Meanwhile, on the Tafanda Bay, General Olan Dewes gives Dengar, Eron Stonefield, and Udin a tour of some botanical gardens. The three bounty hunters have captured Grubba, and are keeping him safe on the herdship. Feigning a crash so the Imperials will not be surprised when Heiff fails to appear, Solo sets the Falcon down at the Nadon Shrine. There, Nadon is reunited with his wife, Fandomar, and his son, Do-Forow. Before allowing Solo and his companions to hunt for Grubba, however, Nadon insists that they consult The Oracle. The Oracle tells the group of the plight of the Ithorians, before sending them to the Tafanda Bay. Meanwhile, on the herdship, Dewes receives word that the real Heiff will be coming to Ithor to interrogate Ithorian prisoners. One of the Rebels is selected to accompany Nadon to the Tafanda Bay. After spending the night in the jungle, the pair encounter several dangers, including Imperial Stormtroopers. Eventually, they are able to board the Bay, where they are confronted by Ithorians sympathetic to the Empire, led by Boma Inondo. The Rebel knocks the Ithorian into a pile of berries, while the other Ithorians relent, and explain that Sir Vengar Heiff is on board. Planning to raid the Imperial armory and start an uprising on the Bay, the Rebel and the Ithorians encounter an IG-88 assassin droid, which they destroy. Taking the Imperial weapons, the Ithorians engage the Imperials, beginning the First Battle of Ithor. Seizing the control room, General Dewes is captured, and the Alliance Fleet enters the system, driving off the Imperial presence. The Rebel then attempts to find Sir Heiff, in the prison bays. Combating the Master Torturer, the Rebel is able to incapacitate Heiff, and leaves him to the mercy of the Ithorians. The Rebel then encounters three bounty hunters, who are able to flee the Bay with what seems to be a sack containing Grubba. Fortunately, it only contained Grubba's dinner, and the young Hutt is found safe and alive in one of the herdship's staterooms. Solo then contacts Jabba, requesting that he meat him on Togoria to negotiate the transfer of Grubba. The Hutt crimelord agrees, but then secretly informs Dengar of their rendezvous, ordering him to kill Solo upon arrival. + +As the Punishing One enters the Thanos system, Han Solo, in the Millennium Falcon disables it, rendering it useless. The occupants, Dengar, Udin, and Eron Stonefield, planned to capture Solo and claim the large bounty on his head, but find themselves outsmarted. Forced to abandon the Punishing One, they use an escape pod to reach Togoria. The Falcon approaches the city of Caross with its passengers: Chewbacca, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, and C-3PO. The Margrave-sister, Ffaseer effet Ihsss, meets with Leia, and invites her and her companions to a royal reception. Meanwhile, the bounty hunters land on Togoria, bruised and shaken. While tracking through the forest, the bounty hunters are set upon by Fassool's hunting band, who agree to help him find and capture Solo. One of the bounty hunters joins Fassool's band, and makes their way to Caross. Upon reaching Caross, the hunter subdues Solo's allies, and is able to grab Grubba the Hutt. Solo gets the upper hand for a short wile, but Grubba saves the hunter. The Rebels are then taken to the Star Destroyer Valiant. The Valiant, however, has been overrun by Rebel forces. The bounty hunters unwittingly deliver the Rebels into the hands of other Rebels masquerading as Imperials, collecting counterfeit credits. Grubba is returned to Jabba, but the Hutt crimelord is displeased with the fact that bounty on Solo's head was not claimed. + +Two turncoats from the Galactic Empire, Dusque Mistflier and Finn Darktrin, side with the Rebel Alliance to recover vital information from the abandoned Rebel base on the planet Dantooine. This information concerns with potential Jedi throughout the galaxy; if the Empire get their hands on it, whatever chance that the Jedi Order has of restoring itself is lost; if the Rebels get their hands on it, there is still hope. Eventually, despite many obstacles and dangers in their way, Dusque and Finn retrieve the information. However, it turns out that Finn has been an Imperial spy this whole time as he betrays Dusque, nearly kills her and takes off with the information he has. Though the information is incomplete, he is not killed by Darth Vader for his partial failure. + +Han Solo, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker, and Leia Organa all travel to a Skrilling salvage ship, in search of supplies for the establishment of Echo Base on Hoth. While bartering there, C-3PO encounters the ancient droid B-1D4, an expert in gender relations. Wondeefor engages in a datalink with 3PO, which greatly enhances the protocol droid. Organa, impressed with Wondeefor, buys her. The Falcon then leaves for Dweem, but its hyperspace engine is damaged, leaving it stranded. The M'hendosat discovers the Falcon, and its captain, Kassihm, orders that Solo's ship be salvaged and torn apart. Solo, once aboard, plans to trap the Nikto pirates and repair his ship. One of the Rebels manages to escape the Nikto craft and roams free on the M'hendosat, wreaking havoc, while their compatriots are left behind to deal with the boarding party. Those left are all knocked out by Bothan stun spores and thrown in the brig. Meanwhile, the escapee begins sabotaging the Nikto ships. The Rebel powers up the droids, which have been left behind. Beewondeefor then begins convincing the M'hendosats computer to deactivate all security systems and unlock the cell doors. The Rebel then steals all the required parts to fix the Falcon, before saving his companions and escaping. During the Rebels' escape, the ship's power core sustained significant damage and was destroyed. Kassihm, however, was able to escape. + +The Millennium Falcon, set on a course for Dweem, is diverted, thanks to the machinations of B-1D4. The Captain, Han Solo, is outraged and powers Wondeefor down, much to the angst of C-3PO and R2-D2. Meanwhile, on the Zaker Besar, Grand Moff 4-8C searches for the Falcon. Instead, his crew find the remains of the M'hendosat and a life pod carrying the former Captain, Kassihm. Burra Stone, Imperial interrogator, is abruptly awoken from his sleep on the Zaker Besar, and summoned into 4-8C's presence. Meanwhile, Kassihm's pod is captured by the Imperials. Stone interrogates Kassihm, and determines that Solo was headed for Dweem. Kassihm is also able to convince Stone and 4-8C that he is more valuable alive, and that he would be willing to join the hunt for the Corellian. One of the Imperials, in an AT-ST, leads a team through the Dweem wilderness. Encountering an ancient auto cannon, the Imperials begin to wonder whether there really is a Rebel base on the planet. Venturing into a cave, the Imperials are set upon by Dweemons, large spydr-like creatures. Though they are able to fend off the monsters, they then encounter an avalanche. Venturing further and further into the cave, and encountering more Dweemons, the Imperial is forced to abandon the AT-ST, and traverse on foot. Eventually, the Imperial encounters an Iron Knight, but is able to defeat it. Realizing that the base is in fact an ancient Republic installment, they begin to make their escape, but encounter more knights. The Knights provide riddles, but the Imperial is able to solve them, and meet back up with the group. + +The Millennium Falcon, blasting through hyperspace, is on a course set for Coruscant, a fact unknown to the passengers. Onboard, Luke Skywalker shuts down his droids, C-3PO and R2-D2, as they have been infected by The Heart of Steel, B-1D4. Upon reaching Coruscant, the Rebels are shocked, but Captain Han Solo acts quickly, activating a false transponder, allowing the Falcon to land. He tells his friends about Phelon, a Columi genius who resides in a fortress deep in the Coruscant underworld. The Rebels are able to blast their way out of customs, and into the Coruscant underworld. After braving many dangers, one of the Rebels contacts Phelon, who is able to get them offworld. On Cheeyoom Matee, the Rebels hope to find some solitude, but find themselves betrayed by the other Rebels there, and are sold to the Empire. + +Learning that The Heart of Steel has been captured and sent to a prison on Merakai, Grand Moff 4-8C travels to the swamp planet with due haste. On his ship, the Zaker Besar, former Captain of the M'hendosat, Kassihm, barters with the Grand Moff for his life. Offering to help in the retrieval of B-1D4 from Merakai, the Nikto begins planning his own escape from 4-8C. The Imperials break into Merakai Prison through an underwater vent, and proceed to search for Wondeefor. Masquerading as an inspector one of the Imperials makes their way through the facility, encountering abrasive cooking droids and the like. With 4-8C accompanying him, he finds Wondeefor in the clutches of a torture droid. Saving 1D4, the Imperial provokes a prison riot, freeing Han Solo and his Rebel compatriots. The Imperials are able to escape, despite combating guards and pursuing TIE/LN starfighters. On the way back to the Zakeer Besar, Kassihm deactivates and dismantles 4-8C, and rescues the Rebels, offering his services. + +Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia are traveling to Circarpous IV for a Rebel underground meeting in an attempt to take the Circarpousians into the Rebel Alliance. Leia's ship experiences problems; she is forced to land on Circarpous V a foggy, swampy planet. Luke follows. A strange colorful energy storm caused by energy mining forces their ships down in a crash landing. Luke exits his X-wing and, with R2-D2, begins searching for Leia's Y-wing. He finds it; Leia is there as well as C-3PO. They all begin walking in search of a beacon that could possibly be a station that would allow them to get off the planet. Instead, they find a mining town; Leia sees that the Empire has a secret energy mine here. They enter unnoticed, steal some mining clothes, change into them, and enter a bar. An Imperial suspects, so he investigates, and to cover up Luke and Leia's true identities, Luke claims that Leia is his servant girl. The Imperials no longer suspect. An old woman named Halla comes over and quietly talks to Luke and Leia; she identifies Luke as one who is strong with the Force. Then the old woman takes out a splinter of a glowing crystal that she identifies as the Kaiburr crystal, which to Luke seems to magnify and focus the Force to a Force-sensitive. She has but a shard of the crystal; she is in search of the whole thing. She strikes a deal with Luke and Leia that if they help Halla find the Kaiburr crystal, Halla will help Luke and Leia get off the planet. They all exit together. Upon emerging, Leia admonishes Luke for slapping her in the restaurant and calling her his servant girl; Luke falls off the walkway and into the mud. He pulls Leia down with him. They begin playfully fighting as some miners emerge from the building. They claim that fighting in public is against Imperial law here, so they all get into a brawl. Imperial stormtroopers take everyone, except for Halla, C-3PO, and R2-D2, who all hid in the shadows, to the local jail. They are all questioned by Captain-Supervisor Grammel. The miners who confronted Luke and Leia are taken away while Grammel continues questioning with Luke and Leia. Grammel discovers and confiscates the crystal shard after having already confiscated Luke's weapons, most prominently his lightsaber. Luke and Leia are placed in the maximum security cell with two drunken, but friendly to Luke, Yuzzem named Hin and Kee, while Captain-Supervisor Grammel reports the incident and the crystal shard to the region's governor, Governor Essada. Halla shows up in the jail cell's window. She, having claimed to be a master of the Force, uses the Force to lift up the food tray through the jail bars and over to the open/close mechanism so that the jail cell opens. The two large, hairy, and muscular Yuzzem go on a rampage killing Imperials while Luke and Leia make their way to the exit. The two Yuzzem catch up with Luke and Leia as they all exit the jail together; the Yuzzem give Luke and Leia their weapons. The four make their way to a pre-specified meeting point. They find Halla there, who steals a vehicle. They all begin making their way to the place where Halla believes the Kaiburr crystal to be, the Temple of Pomojema. As they are driving through the swamplands with little pursuit due to Luke's quick thinking, they encounter a large, pale white worm with huge jaws. It begins chasing them; eventually they all must exit the vehicle. Luke and Leia split up with Halla, C-3PO, R2-D2, Hin, and Kee; Halla's group loses the wandrella creature, while Luke and Leia are still being chased. Luke and Leia find a deep well into which they climb down vines and hide on a ledge. The wandrella finds them but falls down the well in an attempt to get to them. Its massive body takes the climbing vines that acted as ladders with it. Luke and Leia wait for some time until Halla's group finds them. There is no way back up, so Luke and Leia are told by Halla that there should be a passageway back up to the surface in the back of the ledge on which they are sitting. Halla's group leaves to make their way to the ground-level end of the passageway while Luke and Leia journey through it. Luke and Leia encounter a lake, onto which they must float using a lily pad--like boat; they encounter another creature in the black waters of the underground lake, but Luke makes it go away with his father's lightsaber. They get to an abandoned underground city where they are stalked and attacked by some Coway guards/patrols. All but one Coway are dispatched; the one goes off and tells his Coway tribe about the visitors. Luke and Leia follow the single Coway to the tribe. There, Luke and Leia see that Halla's group made it to the other side of the passageway and had already made their way into it to meet up with Luke and Leia, but here they have been tied up by the Coway. To save his friends, Luke must fight the Coway's champion fighter; Luke wins. The Coway then become friends and feast with Luke, Leia, Halla, Hin, and Kee. But Luke, in the Force, senses Darth Vader. Coway patrols race over to the tribe and confirm Luke's feeling: Imperials, led by Darth Vader and Captain-Supervisor Grammel, are attacking the underground cave. The Coway tribe and the protagonists prepare for the attack. The Imperials arrive, but they are surprised by the Coway tribe's powerful response and the Imperials face a debacle. Darth Vader and Captain-Supervisor Grammel retreat with very few surviving stormtroopers. Darth Vader and Grammel leave in search of the Temple of Pomojema while Luke and company steal an Imperial transport left behind. They travel to the temple as well. Upon arriving at the temple, Luke, Leia, Halla, Hin, and Kee exit to find the Kaiburr crystal and the fact that they have beaten Grammel and Vader to the temple. They encounter yet another creature with large jaws; they try to fight it off with ineffectual blasters. Luke tells Hin and Kee to go get some rifles. Luke finally decides that cutting down one of the pillars holding up the temple will crush the creature; it does. They all then make their way back to the Kaiburr crystal located in the back of the temple. The two Yuzzem, Hin and Kee, never return. Luke wonders why, but then is crushed by rubble that fell from the cracking, ancient ceiling. Darth Vader then enters the Temple of Pomojema after having turned off the droids and killed Captain-Supervisor Grammel, Kee, and supposedly Hin. Leia takes up Luke's lightsaber and begins fighting Darth Vader, with little success; she is badly injured. Hin, badly injured, shows up and lifts the big rock off Luke's leg. Luke then fights Darth Vader, engaging Vader on a level which even surprises the Dark Lord. Here Vader conjures a ball of Force energy, which Luke manages to deflect. They continue to battle and Luke, his actions guided by the spirit of Obi-Wan and his power augmented by the Kaiburr crystal, strikes Vader's sword arm, severing it. Undaunted, Vader picks up his lightsaber with his remaining arm, and again pursues the exhausted Luke. Vader, also exhausted, is about to win, staggering as he approaches to make the killing blow, and he falls into a pit; Luke senses that this does not kill Vader. A healed Leia and Luke drive off with their droids and with Halla into the mists of Mimban, ready to take on further off-world adventures. + +Princess Leia organizes a rescue team to save a carbonite-frozen Han Solo from the hands of the infamous bounty hunter known as Boba Fett, who is taking Han to the ruthless Jabba the Hutt. The mission is unsuccessful, and Fett gets away with Han. Meanwhile, Darth Vader is hunting down his son, Luke Skywalker so that he can turn him over to the dark side of the Force. However, the leader of the Black Sun criminal syndicate, Prince Xizor, is trying to kill Luke. Both Vader and Xizor are in Emperor Palpatine's good graces, and Xizor even pretends that he is looking to have Luke become a member of the Galactic Empire, just as Vader is trying to do. And even though the latter Sith is more aware of the Prince's plans, Palpatine forces Vader to trust in Xizor. In order to lure Luke over so that he can kill him, Xizor has Princess Leia kidnapped. Luke, Lando Calrissian and Dash Rendar sneak into Xizor's palace from underground to rescue Leia, and this all leads into a conflict that ultimately leads to the palace's destruction. Luke, Leia, Lando and Dash all escape, but so does Xizor. Eventually, a battle plays over Imperial Center where Xizor is killed in the destruction of his own skyhook. Luke and Leia plan to rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt's clutches, leading into Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. + +The Mandalorian Armor focuses mainly on the bounty hunters Boba Fett and Dengar following the two rivals' struggle for survival. The story is told through the flashbacks Boba encounters while in a vegetative state and Dengar's activities, while caring for him. Jabba the Hutt's sail barge is destroyed, back when the Bounty Hunters Guild still existed. Dengar is in the Dune Sea of Tatooine searching through the wreckage of Jabba's sail barge for anything or anyone of value. As Dengar is ready to give up, assuming that the Jawas had beaten him for scavenging the wreckage, he notices two things: first, that the Sarlacc residing in the Great Pit of Carkoon appears to be dead; and second, that there is a survivor. The survivor is Boba Fett, who had blown his way out of the Great Pit of Carkoon causing the Sarlacc's death. Boba's distinctive armor had suffered damage from his time in the pit and he was nearly dead. Dengar moved Fett to a cave for shelter. Boba Fett was a freelance bounty hunter and at odds with the Bounty Hunters Guild. Neelah attempts to find Dengar and instead stumbled upon Fett. After escaping Jabba's Palace and wandering the desert she found two medical droids SHE1-B and 1e-XE standing outside of a shelter. Upon using threats as well as acts of physical violence Neelah managed to gain entry into his hiding place. She revels that she was a dancer in Jabba's Palace and had noble blood as well as that she had committed no acts of violence until recently. She enters the hiding space to find Fett heavily burnt but kept alive by a transparent membrane covering his body called a sterile nutrient casing. She left and forced the droids not to mention to Dengar she was there. Kuat of Kuat, the hereditary CEO of the Empire's chief subcontractor for military items is interested in the events that occurred at Jabba's Palace and on his sail barge. Kuat of Kuat reviews a holoprojector with the footage uploaded from the palace and regardless of the evidence, he is not convinced Boba Fett is dead without further additional informations. In the first of many flashbacks to the period between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, the bounty hunters Bossk and Zuckuss have been assigned by the Bounty Hunters Guild to a contract for an accountant wanted by the Hutts. Although both were experienced bounty hunters, Bossk acted like the leader. Zuckuss warned Bossk that just because his father lead the Bounty Hunters Guild did not make him leader of the mission. The bounty hunters blasted their way into the accountant's hiding place and find the room empty. They had been beaten to their quarry by Fett. Bossk and Zuckuss take a space ship in a pursuit of Fett and warn him that he has no authority to work this bounty; that they had been assigned to the bounty by the Bounty Hunters Guild. Fett quips that he answers only to a higher authority -- himself, and blasts off into hyperspace. Fett enters into his hold aboard Slave I and talk to his Merchandise sitting in one of the cells. The accountant offers to pay Fett more than the bounty if he let him go. Fett explains that it does not work that way, that he is the highest paid bounty hunter in the galaxy because he delivers. The accountant mentions he had heard of other bounty hunters accepting offers. Fett said that the mismanagement and incompetence of the guild causes that and he will have no part of it. Deep in space, Slave I approaches the lair of the Assembler, Kud'ar Mub'at, the arachnid go between who serves as the criminal world's escrow service. It is to the Assembler that Fett is to deliver his captive and collect his bounty. The Assembler reveals that it has received a new contract, a private one, for Fett to work. Private contracts were required by clients who wish their business to be kept secret and mean more money for Fett. Fett accepts the contract to join the Bounty Hunters Guild and break it up from within. Flash forwarding to the present, Dengar captures a woman who has followed him and Fett into their hiding place. The woman, Neelah, insists that she must see Fett, but she doesn't know for what reason. She explains she was a dancer in Jabba's Palace but has no memories before arriving there. She continues with the memory of when Boba Fett looked at her in the palace that she knew she had some connection to him and needed to meet him. Dengar notices signs of an aristocratic upbringing in Neelah and symptoms of a memory wipe. He agrees to her request, attributing his soft spot for Neelah to the fact that he'd recently met a woman he cares for. He warned Neelah that she has to be careful around Fett and that Fett won't leave her alone to be with him. He warns Neelah that Fett is ruthless and cannot be trusted and that he hardly trusts him to keep up his end of their new partnership. Flashing back, Fett comes to the feast held in his honor, welcoming him to the Bounty Hunters Guild. The guild elder's finally admit Fett into their organization. Bossk does not trust Fett and calls his father a fool for doing so. Father and son exchange death threats which is common among Trandoshans; as is feasting on the remains of your enemies, and killing and eating your siblings shortly after birth; and Bossk kills his own father. Bossk asks why Fett wants to join the guild. Fett explains that times are changing and that that pressures in the galaxy--including Black Sun--have forced him to change his stance on the guild. Bossk grudgingly calms down with help by the rest of the guild and he agrees to treat Fett like a brother. The Emperor meets with Darth Vader and Prince Xizor to discuss the new plan Xizor has put in place. It was Xizor who contacted the Assembler with the private contract for Fett to join the guild. Xizor reveals that his plan would eliminate the dead weight in the guild and leave only the best bounty hunters. The Empire will then be able to contract with those remaining bounty hunters to execute plans that need independence and cunning. He explains that the Empire, by design, has suppressed independence in their troopers and officers, but that they need independence to fight the Alliance to Restore the Republic where free thinking is their strongest asset. Vader is not convinced and thinks Xizor has ulterior motives. + +After the Battle of Endor, an Imperial drone arrives at the site of the Second Death Star. Wedge Antilles investigates the drone, but is nearly killed trying to prevent the drone from self-destructing. Luke Skywalker, still convalescing from the Emperor's Force lightning, rescues Wedge and the Alliance seizes the drone for investigation. The drone contains a distress call for the Emperor from Governor Wilek Nereus of Bakura, which is under attack by the reptilian Ssi-ruuk. With Palpatine dead and the Imperial Navy scattered, the Empire will most likely not aid Bakura. Luke Skywalker, after receiving a vision from the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi volunteers to lead an Alliance task force to intercept the alien invasion and save Bakura. Han Solo and Leia Organa also accompany the force in hopes of possibly negotiating with either the aliens or the Imperials at Bakura, although Han also wishes to spend more time with Leia. The Rebels arrive at Bakura to find the planet under attack. From the bridge of the Flurry, Luke Skywalker helps repel the attack and an unofficial truce is established with Pter Thanas in orbit. After evading Ssi-ruuk vessels, Han, Leia, and Chewie meet up with Luke on the surface as part of a diplomatic entourage to the Bakuran Senate. Leia addresses the body, while Luke finds himself attracted to a Bakuran senator named Gaeriel Captison. Leia and Luke in return learn of Dev Sibwarra, a brainwashed Force-sensitive Human who aids the Ssi-ruuk, who seek to establish a beachhead in the larger galaxy in order to harvest a supply of beings whose life energies can power their entechment technology. The Ssi-ruuk themselves cannot sense the Force, but they know of it through a captured Human, Dev Sibwarra, who is Force-sensitive but untrained and has been brainwashed into furthering the Ssi-ruuvi agenda. At a social dinner, Governor Nereus confirms the truce with Leia Organa, the lead Alliance diplomat, marking a historic first truce between the Empire and the Alliance. While Luke discusses tactics with Pter Thanas at the Imperial garrison, Leia struggles to find a way to cope with the revelation given to her on Endor--that Darth Vader, the being responsible for the death of thousands of beings, is actually her father. The problem is exacerbated when Anakin Skywalker's Force ghost appears to her, asking not for absolution, but for forgiveness. At the same time, she also engages in active diplomacy with the Bakurans, learning that Bakura joined the Empire only three years ago and that Bakura chafes under Imperial rule--as do some of the Imperials, notably ranking officer Commander Pter Thanas--though Imperial governor Wilek Nereus is too crafty to let dissension spread too far. Leia has to be careful not to attract unwanted Imperial attention for sedition and avoid diplomatic incidents such as the shooting of several Bakurans by Rebels in self-defense. On a personal level, Skywalker finds himself consistently distracted by one of Bakura's senators, Gaeriel Captison, and by the nascent attraction forming between them, despite her religious objections to the Jedi Order. Luke also encounters the aged and mentally infirm Eppie Belden and heals her mental damage with the Force. Princess Leia and Han Solo also struggle to find some time together and hash out their newly-formed relationship. However, the Ssi-Ruuk are not so easily defeated and continue to threaten Bakura. The Jedi Knight Skywalker especially intrigues Ssi-Ruuk because his control of the Force can enable the Ssi-Ruuk to enslave beings from a distance once he is enteched. Obi-Wan Kenobi appears to Luke and underscores the danger of the Ssi-Ruuk if they get into the greater galaxy with this technology. In the end, Nereus attempts to turn Skywalker over to the Ssi-ruuk in exchange for their retreat. Secretly, he has infected Luke with deadly parasites that will kill him and the Ssi-ruuk both when they hatch. Though the kidnapping succeeds, Skywalker fights the Ssi-ruuk off enough to save Gaeriel from capture. Luke, though taken prisoner, fights back and is able to free Sibwarra of his brainwashing. The two of them escape and sabotage the Ssi-ruuk flagship, whereupon Luke decides to take him on as an apprentice, but Dev is injured during the escape and later dies of his wounds. Meanwhile, Leia, talking with sympathetic Bakuran officials, is arrested by Nereus for sedition and locked away in a remote estate. Han Solo launches a daring, but foolhardy escape attempt while Chewie, joined by Threepio, prepares the Falcon for escape. Han manages to break Leia out of prison and they join the Alliance forces in orbit as the Ssi-ruuk attack. On Bakura, rioting breaks out as resistance forces launch an attack, coordinated by the now recovered Eppie Belden. Nereus brings Gaeriel Captison to him in an attempt to have her cede total control of Bakura to him. Nereus also reveals his sinister attack on Skywalker to her. They watch as the joint Rebel-Imperial force turns back the Ssi-ruuk, but, to Gaeriel's horror, Nereus then orders Thanas to attack the Rebels, decimating their forces. Surrounded, Han Solo prepares a suicide ramming move to allow the remaining Rebels to escape. At that point, Luke--who uses the Force to remove the parasites--uses the alien flagship to distract Thanas's fleet, and the Rebels escape. Thanas ultimately ceases fighting and surrenders. Back on Bakura, Nereus is overthrown by resistance cells and captured. Han, Leia, Luke and Chewie return to the planet, where Nereus, upon seeing Luke, attempts to attack them but is killed in the process. Bakura decides to join the Rebel Alliance and Commander Thanas defects as well. New Republic Intelligence later referred to the battle as the Bakura Incident, and believed that it would be best if the New Republic attempted to prevent widespread public knowledge of the Ssi-Ruuk, advice that was taken controversially at best. In addition, Skywalker finally makes his breakthrough with Gaeriel, though he must shortly leave her when the Alliance forces depart, to continue the ongoing fight against the Empire. + +After the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of the Emperor, the Empire is left without a true leader. The Supreme Prophet Kadann prophesied that the next leader of the Empire would wear the indestructible right-hand glove of Darth Vader. The Rebel Alliance and the Senate Planetary Intelligence Network, hoping to find information on the new emperor, send C-3PO and R2-D2 disguised to the planet Kessel. There they discover Grand Moff Bertroff Hissa introducing Trioculus, who claims to be Palpatine's son, as the heir to the Empire. Although he manages to trick his followers by seemingly producing Force lightning, he demands that his advisors find the glove so he can cement his power. After much searching and no clues on the glove's whereabouts, Captain Dunwell, the head of the Whaladon Processing Center on Mon Calamari, contacts him to inform him that he has found the glove, deep in the oceans of Mon Calamari. By chance, Luke Skywalker and Admiral Ackbar, after picking up the droids from Kessel, bring them to Mon Calamari to download the information that R2-D2 found. Although the whaling ship is destroyed and Captain Dunwell killed, Luke is unable to stop Trioculus from obtaining the glove and becoming the new Emperor. As he parts ways with Luke, Trioculus swears he will destroy him. + +After an attempted assassination by the Empire trying to blow up Luke's X-wing fighter, he has a vision of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan tells Luke of the secret Lost City of the Jedi hidden beneath the rainforests of Yavin 4. Unknown to Luke at the time, the city is home to a twelve-year-old boy named Ken, who is called the Jedi Prince. In the city, with the vast databanks on the computers, Ken learns the history of the Jedi and the Rebellion from his only companions, his caretaker droids. As Luke is searching the forests he meets a mysterious healer, Baji. With Baji he searched the forests, eventually encountering Ken, who had run away from the droids. Before he is questioned further, his caretaker droid finds him and they both vanish in a puff of smoke from Dee-Jay. Luke, more determined to find this city, returned to get help from the rest of the Rebels. Meanwhile, Trioculus, the new Emperor has a meeting with Supreme Prophet Kadann. Kadann tells him that he is not the true son of Palpatine, but still gives him the blessing of the Prophets. He also tells him of the Lost City of the Jedi, where the Jedi Prince lives, saying that this prince could end Trioculus' reign. Able to infiltrate the Rebel's meeting with an explosive device, he demanded that they reveal to him the location of the city. When they refused, he readied the device's explosion, while still taking in the beauty of Princess Leia. As Luke stopped the explosion Trioculus started his second plan: to raze the forests in order to find the entrance. During this implementation, he suddenly goes blind and orders the capture of the healer, Baji. Baji tells him that when he uses the power of the Glove of Darth Vader he is injuring his nerve endings, causing blindness and his body to rot. Baji tells him of a cure, but it can only be found in his hut, which is about to be destroyed by the fires. Unable to stop his troops, Trioculus rushes into the hut, and saves the cure, but is badly burned and scarred. As the Rebels attempted to stop the troops, Luke finally found the City. With the help of the droids at the weather controlling center, he created a rainstorm which put an end to the fires. Ken decided to leave with Luke and join the Rebels in their fight leaving the City and his caretakers. Without finding the city, Trioculus left the planet, vowing to destroy all of the Rebels except Leia, who he would make his queen. + +In order to help Ken become accustomed to the world outside of the Lost City of the Jedi, Luke brings him to Tatooine to experience the Droidfest. Although they are attacked by Tusken Raiders and bounty hunters hoping to get the reward Trioculus set for Ken, they manage to escape to Bespin with Han's housewarming gift, a housekeeping droid named Kate. Meanwhile, Zorba the Hutt, the father of Jabba, upon learning of his son's death, flies to Cloud City in order to claim Jabba's casino. Although the governor, Lando Calrissian, who has taken over the casino, refuses the claim, he agrees to bet the city and the casino on a game of sabacc. With Zorba marking the cards in an ultraviolet paint that only Hutts can see, Lando lost the city and left after warning Han and Leia. After a series of mishaps, Leia is captured by Trioculus' guards and brought to his factory on the planet and Ken is captured by Zorba. When Zorba learns that his son's murderer is in the custody of Trioculus he proposes a trade. Trioculus, however, won't give up his queen, and although has his stormtroopers ready to aid him, is defeated by Zorba's police force. Ken, however, is able to escape his jailers through a use of a Jedi mind trick and is reunited with Han. Luke is also able to rescue Leia and all are taken aboard the Millennium Falcon before Zorba destroys Trioculus' factory. Thinking that Leia was killed, he taunts Trioculus before freezing him in carbonite. The rebels leave the planet with Han wondering if he'll ever be able to ask Leia to marry him. + +With Trioculus imprisoned in carbonite, the Prophets of the Dark Side meet in Kadann's Chamber of Dark Visions to hear his new prophecy on the leadership of the Empire. Kadann spoke in quatrains, prophesying that Trioculus would never again get the blessing to be leader, the new leader is on Duro and finally about the last days of the Rebel Alliance. As the Moffs concoct a plan to retrieve Trioculus' body, Luke, Leia and Han fly to Dagobah. The rebels began to colonize Dagobah by building a school, which Ken is to attend, and a fortress that served as the Defense Research and Planetary Assistance Center, DRAPAC. DRAPAC was based on Mount Yoda, and was the subject of Kadann's prophecy While there, a Duro, Dustini, brings news that Duro is under attack by Imperial stormtroopers stealing artifacts. Though he managed to save some, one was a golden crown that was booby trapped and stabbed Dustini, seemingly fulfilling the prophecy. As the Rebels send a mission to Duro to stop the Empire, the Prophets destroy the block of carbonite, failing to discover it was fake and Trioculus was still alive. In a secret cavern on Duro, Luke, Han and Ken finally encounter Triclops, the true son of Emperor Palpatine. Though the Imperials attacked trying to abduct Triclops, with his help the rebels escaped and brought Triclops back to DRAPAC, with him promising to bring down his father's Empire. + +When a demonstration of a decoy Human Replica Droid of Leia goes wrong and the droid shoots a scientist, Han and Leia are forced to fly him to his home planet of Chad to get treatment. When they reach the planet's hospital a hurricane is ravaging it. After Han is able to bring the scientist to the doctors, he is trapped by falling rubble caused by the storm. When Leia eventually saves him, he reveals that the experience scared him that he wouldn't be able to reveal his big plans. Upon leaving the scientist in the doctors' care, Han proposes to Leia and they plan on eloping at Hologram Fun World, an amusement park. With the help of the new owner of the park, Lando Calrissian, they plan a wedding and visit many hologram attractions, including a trip through the Alderaan of Leia's memories. While they are at the park, one of Zorba the Hutt's spies in the park tells him that Leia is alive and he plans on capturing her and killing her on Tatooine as she did to his son. With some help, he manages to capture her during a magic show and take her to his ship, with the carbonite-frozen body of Trioculus, for the trip to Tatooine. Zorba's ship, however, is captured by the Moffship of Grand Moff Hissa. When they discover Trioculus is still alive, he is quickly unfrozen and only spares Zorba's life when Zorba reveals where Leia is. Hoping to turn Leia to his side, Trioculus drops Zorba into the Great Pit of Carkoon into the mouth of the Sarlacc. While Trioculus makes plans to marry Leia, Han and Lando, joined by Luke, Ken and the Human Replica Droid of Leia are able to infiltrate the Moffship and plan a rescue operation. They rescue Leia and are able to replace her with the Human Replica Droid, who goes to the wedding in Leia's place. While the Millennium Falcon escapes, the droid's lasers pierce Trioculus' heart. As he lay dying, unbeknownst to anyone, Zorba crawled out of the Sarlacc, as no creature in the universe can digest a Hutt. + +As Trioculus lay dying he made Grand Moff Hissa promise that he would make Luke Skywalker and the rest of the Rebels pay for killing him. Meanwhile, at the Rebel base, they realize that Triclops, while sleepwalking, goes through files at the base and transmits them, through an implant on his tooth, to Imperial probe droids which are evading defenses. Leia proposes that a defense probe be built from plans found at the Lost City of the Jedi. These plans happen to be from Ken's homework assignments, prompting him and Luke to return to the city. While there, Ken's caretaker Dee-Jay and the other droids tell them about a decoy transport to the city that now leads to an underground sea of lava and also warn them of a prophecy by Supreme Prophet Kadann which says While they return to the Rebel base on Yavin, Zorba the Hutt has a meeting with the Prophets of the Dark Side in their space station Scardia. He tells of the grand moffs betrayals and plans of making Trioculus leader once again. When the Moffship is captured, they are put to trial, and surprised to see Zorba as the main witness. All of the moffs are sentenced to certain death, with Hissa's being the cruelest, as the loyalest supporter of Trioculus. Back on Yavin 4, Luke decides to give Triclops false information about the decoy transporter. In order to stop the information leak altogether, Luke, Ken, and Chewbacca went to the planet Arzid to find a mushroom to deactivate the implant. While there they are captured by Imperial stormtroopers and brought to the Prophets. Kadann, using the false information from Triclops, sends Hissa to his death in the decoy transport and threatens that he will send Luke if Ken doesn't betray the location of the real transport. He also promises Ken that he will reveal who his father was. With that motivation, Ken betrays the city and is brought with the Prophets to it. There Kadann reveals that Ken's father is Triclops meaning his grandfather was the Emperor. Not wanting to believe them and crying, Ken is told that he will be bred to be the new Emperor and will know the Dark Side of the Force. Meanwhile, Luke, finally able to get free of his guards and rescued by Han and the others, is able to sneak into the city through a steam vent. He rescues Ken, but not before the city is shut down by the Imperials and an earthquake destroys the main computer. Although Luke and Ken are able to reach the surface, Kadann and the other prophets are trapped in the city. Ken is able to come to terms with his parentage, but is unable to speak to his father about it, as Triclops manages to escape and evade capture in the forests of Yavin. Leia, preparing for her wedding and seeing a vision of Han with their two children, wonders if they are twins. + +Wedge Antilles has gathered together a group of pilots to choose from to recreate the legendary Rogue Squadron, as a dual X-wing and commando squadron. Although Wedge is allowed to pick most of his squad, his superiors in the Rebel Alliance force him to choose certain pilots, in the hope of causing some neutral planets to join the Alliance. Wedge is able to convince Admiral Ackbar to allow him to choose his own executive officer, Tycho Celchu, who was a member of the original Rogue Squadron, but had been accused of being an Imperial spy after a solo-mission to Imperial Center left him as their prisoner. Although Tycho escaped, and was trusted by Wedge, his superiors weren't convinced of his loyalties, and Tycho was not allowed to fly an X-wing, wouldn't be able to command any weapons in battle, and would be under guard when not training with the Rogues. With Rogue Squadron complete, they begin training, and soon Corran Horn stands out above the rest. Though initially mysterious to his squadron-mates and very boastful, he is rebuked by Wedge, but is made a lieutenant and put in charge of the third flight of three other X-wings when Rogue Squadron is activated months before training was finished. On the way to their new base on Talasea, the squadron is pulled out of hyperspace by an Imperial Interdictor Cruiser, a capital ship which creates a gravity well to prevent hyperspace travel. Although surprised, the squadron survives their first battle, and save the Pulsar Skate, a smuggler's ship, captained by Mirax Terrik, that had been attacked by the cruiser. After a few more attacks by the Rogues, Kirtan Loor, an Imperial intelligence agent, realizes that they must be stopped. After being called into Imperial Center by Ysanne Isard, the Director of Imperial Intelligence, and told that Corran Horn, a man he worked with in the Corellian Security Force, was still alive, Isard gives him the mission to destroy Rogue Squadron. Although the Rogues always used multiple hyperspace jumps to hide their locations, Loor, a genius with a photographic memory, determines where they are based. Against his suggestion to send in a larger force, the admiral in charge of the sector covertly sends in only two squads of stormtroopers to kill the Rogues in their sleep. Even though six sentries are killed, the squadron has its first pilot loss, and multiple pilots are seriously injured, they survive and relocate to a new base to plan their next attack. The Alliance command then plans a large-scale attack on Borleias. Although their intelligence suggests that it would be an easy target, and could be captured and used as a step toward Imperial Center, it is actually a trap set up by General Evir Derricote. Although the planetary shields are taken down and the rebels begin to land attack shuttles, multiple squadrons of TIE fighters attack, the shield is reinforced, and planet-side defenses attack. Multiple ships are lost, including five of Rogues' X-wings. Only two of their pilots are killed, the rest able to eject safely. Although the mission is considered a failure, Corran, with the aid of one of the commandos, is able to plan a new attack on Borleias that would prevent an ambush by capital ships. With only six Rogues being the only air support for the first four hours of the mission, and a group of commandos on the ground, the battle is a success. Although Corran doesn't have enough fuel to escape and the rest of the squadron thinking him dead, he is rescued by the Pulsar Skate, and no Rogue is lost in the mission. Borleias is taken, and the Alliance takes a step toward liberating Coruscant. Ysanne Isard reveals to Loor the existence of an unnamed spy in Rogue Squadron. + +A month after the conquest of Borleias, the Rebels and Rogue Squadron have to deal with Imperial probes by the rogue Warlord Zsinj, the apparent death of member Bror Jace, and re-populating the squadron with new, hotshot members, Aril Nunb and Pash Cracken. With worries of attacks by Zsinj's forces, the Provisional Council of the Alliance, including Princess Leia Organa and Borsk Fey'lya, meet and decide that an invasion of Coruscant must proceed. With a decision that criminals from the Black Sun organization, imprisoned on Kessel, could be released on Coruscant to help bring resistance against the Empire, the Rogues are first sent to Kessel. After freeing a number of criminals that Corran himself sent there, including Zekka Thyne and his girlfriend, Inyri Forge, sister to former Rogue member Lujayne. After the Black Sun members are placed on Coruscant, Rogue's members are covertly inserted onto the planet in small groups. Corran and Erisi Dlarit are put together and meet with Alliance Intelligence agent Winter, Wedge and Pash Cracken are together and meet with agent and Corran's former partner Iella Wessiri, and the rest of the Rogues are brought by Mirax Terrik to the Invisisec, an underworld for many of the poor, non-Humans on Coruscant. After Mirax is compromised and meets with Wedge and Corran sees Tycho Celchu speaking to Imperial agent Kirtan Loor, the Rogues think they may have a traitor in their midsts. Meanwhile, the Imperial forces, led by Ysanne Isard, are creating a virus that attacks non-Humans, the Krytos Virus, and are planning on giving the Rebels Coruscant when it is ready. They believe that the Rebels will be taxed for resources if they try to help everyone with the virus and will soon lose Coruscant once again and be finally defeated. The Rogues are informed, after plans from Admiral Ackbar and Fey'lya are approved, that they must take down Coruscant's planetary shields at a precise time in order for the Rebel attack to succeed. After some minor failures and the capture of Aril Nunb, the group formulates a plan. Told of the Rebels impending invasion by a traitor in Rogue Squadron, Isard accelerates the plan to release the virus, informs Loor that he is to stay as a form of resistance when the Rebels invade, and readies herself for an escape from the planet. With help from Black Sun, a group of Bothan spies, and the rest of the Alliance Intelligence on the planet, the Rogues are able to take down the shields in time for the Rebel fleet to arrive. With only two Star Destroyers sent to defend the planet, it easily falls into Rebel hands. However, Corran, investigating a fleeing ship, crashes his Z-95 Headhunter when an outside force takes control of it. Although Aril Nunb is found safe and the non-Humans of the Rogues are treated and cured of the virus, the squadron ends in turmoil with Corran's apparent death and the arrest of Tycho as the apparent traitor responsible for his death. Corran wakes as a captive aboard a ship, where Isard informs him that he is on his way to the prison and torture facility Lusankya. + +The plot focuses on three key events that happen mostly simultaneously. The first is the occupation of Coruscant and the trouble the Empire left behind with its crippling bio-attack on the planet. The virus used in the attack is the Krytos virus, a biological weapon developed by General Evir Derricote and released under the orders of Imperial leader Ysanne Isard. Humans are apparently immune, while all other species are vulnerable. This, combined with Imperial Intelligence officer Kirtan Loor's terrorist activities while taking orders from the Palpatine Counterinsurgency Front, leaves Coruscant and the New Republic in a state of emergency. The second event is the treason trial of Rogue Squadron executive officer Tycho Celchu, who is suspected of murdering Rogue Squadron pilot Corran Horn, who was captured during the invasion. Finally, Corran Horn is being held prisoner by Ysanne Isard in her Lusankya prison facility. His attempts to escape lead him to uncover the secret of Rogue Squadron's mole, and it becomes a race against time to save the innocent and reveal the true traitor. + +After Wraith Squadron's first successful mission against Admiral Trigit, the squadron is transferred back to Coruscant. During a visit to one of the many bars on the planet, an anonymous cyborg, similar to Phanan, attacks them and starts a large bar fight. New Republic Military Police officers quickly arrive and break up the fight and arrest the members of Wraith Squadron. While being marched off, Face Loran hints that this may in fact be a trap, and the other members escape, subduing their captors. At the debriefing, it is revealed that the New Republic MPs were in fact covert agents working for Warlord Zsinj. For security reasons, Wraith Squadron is to be confined to the base. They also receive replacements pilots: Castin Donn, Dia Passik, and Shalla Nelprin. While at the base their new mission is to predict what Zsinj may be planning next. Meanwhile, Phanan recognizes that one of the officers who had debriefed them was Atton Repness, the corrupt officer who blackmailed Tyria into keeping quiet about his black market operation. Phanan and Kell devise an elaborate plot to bait Repness and expose him. Phanan and Face recruit Lara Notsil, who is actually Gara Petothel in disguise and offer her a spot in Wraith Squadron if she agrees to help bring down Repness. After submitting their predictions of Zsinj's plans, Wraith Squadron is sent to the Halmad system, an Imperial world with a large amount of resources. Their mission is to pose as a band of pirates and stage raids in an attempt to catch Zsinj's attention. They manage to sneak into an Imperial base and steal six TIE interceptors. As the Hawk-bats, the Wraiths begin staging pirate raids on freighters and ground targets. Meanwhile, at the pilot academy, Lara Notsil continues trying to bait Repness and succeeds. Using her Imperial Intelligence skills, she manages to hack into Repness' computer and anonymously sends the data to New Republic Intelligence. She then publicly rejects Repenss' offer to join his operation. Repness attempts to keep her quiet, but fails and is arrested. Lara is given Repness' old X-Wing and transferred to Wraith Squadron just in time to assist with a joint mission with Rogue Squadron. During the mission, Lara has the opportunity to shoot Wedge's X-Wing in the back, but can't bring herself to do it. After the mission, Wraith Squadron resumes the guise of the Hawk-bats and prepares for a massive raid on two Imperial airbases. Face begins to realize Phanan's deep depression, and Lara is covertly contacted by Warlord Zsinj, disguised as a job offer from the real Lara's brother. Lara is forced her to decide whether to join the New Republic or the Empire. Myn Donos passes by and provides some comfort, and offers to accompany Lara to see her brother, fearing that it may be a trap set by Zsinj. The Wraiths start their massive raid, but are quickly foiled when Zsinj ambushes them. Phanan's fighter is shot down and Face tries to rescue him. Unfortunately, Phanan is mortally wounded from the crash and dies. Shocked at the death of his best friend, Face returns to the Wraiths, where he finds out that Zsinj has offered the Hawk-bats to join his fleet. Meanwhile, Lara and Donos arrive at the rendezvous. Lara meets her brother, along with an Imperial Intelligence agent. Lara refuses to join them, and before they can do anything, Donos shoots both of them dead with his sniper rifle. Lara then lies to Donos by saying that both men tried to abduct her. Taking up Zsinj's offer, Face, Kell, and Dia go to meet Zsinj and obtain some intelligence on him. Castin smuggles himself on board their shuttle, believing that his tracer program will help destroy Zsinj. Unfortunately, Castin is killed trying to implant the program. Zsinj questions Face about the issue, and Dia is forced to kill Castin in order to prove their loyalty. Dia suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder for her actions, but Face manages to calm her down. The romantic ties between Face and Dia begin to reveal themselves. After reviewing the data that Zsinj provided, Wedge figures out that Zsinj wants to attack Kuat and steal a new Super Star Destroyer, the Razor's Kiss. Shalla is sent as the Hawk-bat's combat specialist to assist Zsinj's commando force, while the rest of Wraith Squadron will pose as the Hawk-Bats, and will aid Zsinj's forces in the assault on the Kuat shipyards. Shalla manages to install Castin's tracker program into the Razor's Kiss' computers, and sabotages the shield generators. A New Republic task force led by Han Solo ambushes Zsinj's forces at the rendezvous after the successful capture of the Razor's Kiss, destroying Razor's Kiss and severely damaging the Iron Fist. Face, after suffering severe injuries during the battle, returns to the Wraiths. They discover that he had removed his trademark scar. Face admits that Phanan forced him to, since his will stated that if Face did not undergo the operation, Phanan's considerable wealth would be given to Face's rival actor, Tetran Cowall. + +Wraith Squadron is once again tasked with destroying Warlord Zsinj. This time, they are assigned to General Han Solo, who is heading up the New Republic task force that is seeking Zsinj. At the same time, Face, who has just been promoted to Brevet Captain and given command of the squad, delves deeper into the history of Lara Notsil, finding out her secret and forcing her to abandon the group, though she would later help out the New Republic by creating an army of saboteur droids to cripple the flagship of the warlord. Wraith Squadron is absorbed into the New Republic Intelligence and Myn Donos, newly recovered from his depression, transfers to Rogue Squadron. + +Beginning their honeymoon in a resort on Corphelion to see the comets, Han and Leia Solo are disappointed when the large crowd gathered below leaves little privacy and solitude for them. Deciding on drinks, the pair begin their descent when the show starts but their enjoyment is brief as one comet breaks off and heads toward their location. The other guests take their leave, but Han reassures his new wife that everything is under control. Leia suspects Wedge's or Lando's involvement, playfully taking him aside where she questions how the smuggler did it. Han protests his innocence while privately fearing the pilot he hired may have overexerted his aim and will hit the resort. The comet sweeps past the dome at the last moment, its angle leaving a romantic display of lights in its wake against the resort's particle shield. Leia is impressed, the pair embrace and a cheer erupts overhead, their courtship in full view of the exiting comet watchers. Han and Leia decide it might be best to return to their ship, so they leave, hand in hand. + +While on Coruscant, Lumpawarrump catches a burglar stealing a datapad from Han and Leia Solo. Lumpawarrump then pursues the burglar into Coruscant's dangerous underlevels. Chewbacca and his wife, Mallatobuck, follows their son and finds him fighting the burglars and eventually getting kidnapped. The burglar and the thieves flee when they arrive. Chewbacca notices that Leia's datapad was stolen by the group. Before they can stop him, Lumpawarrump runs off to recover the datapad. When Chewbacca and Mallatobuck found him again they find the burglars carrying him into one of the secret detention centers Palpatine kept in the undercity. Chewbacca saves Lumpawarrump, but Mallatobuck is taken in his stead and dragged away. Chewbacca and Lumpawarrump learn that the burglars were attempting to assassinate the New Republic's leaders so Chewbacca comms Han to inform him of the plot. Chewbacca and Lumpawarrump invade the enemies' base to find an advanced IT-3 interrogation droid behind the plot. Chewbacca attacks and destroys the droid and frees Mallatobuck. Han then arrives with a New Republic security company, chases off the last of the pursuers, and takes Chewbacca to the nearest medical center. Security learns that this was a plot by the presumed deceased Ysanne Isard to seek the destruction of the New Republic's government after the Krytos Virus failed to destroy Coruscant. Han tries to free Chewbacca from his life debt again but the Wookiees refused once again. In the end Lumpawarrump heads back to Kashyyyk after learning a lesson about listening to his parents. + +Leia Organa Solo, her husband Han, his Wookiee companion, Chewbacca, and their protocol droid C-3PO travel to the desert planet Tatooine. Their mission is to recover an Alderaan work of art, titled the Killik Twilight, because within Killik Twilight lies a communications device that acts as a link between the New Republic and their spies acting as undercover agents all around the dying Galactic Empire. The Millennium Falcon gets into a space duel with Imperial forces, led by Grand Admiral Thrawn, but manages to arrive on the surface of Tatooine and dock under cover from the enemy forces. Then, under disguises at a local cantina, the Solos attend an auction there in order to retrieve the Killik Twilight. During the bid, one of the items on sale is a holographic image of the late Anakin Skywalker back in 32 BBY just after he won the Boonta Eve Podrace. Leia is distraught at the image of what had once been her father, whom she has only known as the evil Darth Vader in the Rebel Alliance's war with the Empire. The image is sold, nevertheless, to another auctioneer, and the disturbance of the image wrought upon by Leia leads into a conversation between her and Han, discussing the prospects about having children. Leia is reluctant to do so, because of her biological family's line in the Force and of her father's legacy as Vader. She fears that it may be too possible for whatever children she and Han tend to bear one day will fall to the dark side. By the time the Killik Twilight is up for grabs, violence breaks out from the Imperial forces attending the auction who intend to retrieve the art piece. During the fight, the Killik Twilight is lost. And so Han and Leia embark on a journey through Tatooine in order to retrieve the art piece, battling the Imperial forces and Tusken Raiders with the help of Jawas and a Squib trio, Emala, Sligh and Grees. During their voyage, Leia finds out more about her late father's past, and runs into Anakin's old friend, Kitster Chanchani Banai, who reveals to her what her father was like before he left Tatooine under the guidance of the late Qui-Gon Jinn. Leia also retrieves a holojournal recorded by Shmi, revealing details of her life in between Anakin's departure from Tatooine to his return to his home planet. After Leia saves Han from being dehydrated and lost in Tatooine's vast, dry desert, it is implied that they sleep together. Eventually, Leia finally comes to terms with her father's legacy and no longer fears that her children will fall to the dark side, after she learns that her father was once a young, innocent boy, and a fairly decent individual prior to his fall as Vader. She and Han then retrieve the communications device from the Killik Twilight while the art piece itself is taken by Grand Admiral Thrawn's forces. The Solos, Chewbacca and C-3PO leave Tatooine, mission accomplished, and Leia at peace with her dead father. + +Five years after Return of the Jedi, as the New Republic holds a fragile control of the galaxy, a new threat emerges. Having been posted so far away from action, Grand Admiral Thrawn, a cunning and intelligent Chiss commander, begins to gather his Imperial forces for a strategic attack on the New Republic. With the aid of Captain Gilad Pellaeon and Thrawn's personal bodyguard Rukh, they begin to set in motion an almost unbeatable plan. They enlist the aid of a mad clone of a dead Jedi Master and use the Emperor's hidden weapons vault on the planet Wayland, which the clone guards. The chain of events caused major unrest in the New Republic. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker encounters Talon Karrde and his gang of smugglers. The smugglers capture him but do not turn him over to the Imperials. The smugglers take him in just as Han Solo and Lando Calrissian come to see Karrde on the New Republic's interest to hire smugglers as traders. Then, as if things could not be worse, Grand Admiral Thrawn comes to visit Karrde just as Luke escapes. One of Karrde's employees, Mara Jade, chases Luke deep into the forest, where both ships crashed. Mara attempts to kill Luke because she believes that he killed the Emperor five years earlier during the Battle of Endor, and Mara was the Emperor's Hand at the time. However, she finds out that she needs Luke if she is to survive. Then Thrawn himself decides to interfere with Karrde's rescue attempts and tries to catch Luke and Mara first. The result is a firefight between Imperial troops and Karrde's men. In the end, Karrde wins, but has to evacuate his base. Han and Lando head to the shipyards at Sluis Van after they discover, thanks to Karrde, that Thrawn has plans there. The insane Jedi clone from Wayland, Joruus C'baoth, comes out of isolation thanks to Thrawn and learns about Princess Leia's unborn Jedi twin children. Thus, C'baoth decides he will train them in the ways of the Force, unintentionally the dark side due to his insanity. Basically, Leia's unborn Jedi twins and Luke Skywalker will either join him or die. Luke and Leia are both pursued across the galaxy. Princess Leia is repeatedly hunted down by a species of aliens known as the Noghri. In order to keep her safe from more kidnap attempts and to give her a break from all the work in the New Republic, Han sends Leia and Chewbacca to the planet Kashyyyk, where the Wookiees can protect her. But Thrawn deduces the fact. Leia is again hunted down by the Noghri on Kashyyyk, but she has a plan. With Chewbacca's help, she manages to escape, and one of the Noghri is captured. The Noghri, Khabarakh, recognizes her scent as that of a child of the Dark Lord Darth Vader, as the Noghri had apparently been secret bodyguards of the Sith Lord. Determined to discover more about the Noghri's situation, Leia persuades him to bring her to his homeworld. Meanwhile, the New Republic believes there is a spy among them that is leaking information on the New Republic's actions and plans to the Imperials. It is only known as Delta Source. Just as Han and Lando reach the shipyards of Sluis Van, Thrawn launches his planned assault on the location. With a cloaking device, Thrawn is able to give an element of surprise as his mole miners attempt to bore into the hulls of ships at Sluis Van, and steal them. But it just so happens that Rogue Squadron is at the scene. They fight off the TIE fighters while Han and Lando hatch a brilliant plan to stop the theft of ships. Thrawn is defeated in his first major offensive. The Imperials retreat and order is restored for now. + +Because of the events that led up to the Battle of Sluis Van, lead smuggler Talon Karrde has left his base on Myrkr and is now fleeing from Grand Admiral Thrawn's Imperial forces. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker meets the insane Joruus C'baoth and agrees to be taught by him on the planet Jomark to further his knowledge of the Force. However, when Thrawn captures Karrde, Mara Jade finds that she once again needs help from Luke, the man she so hates under the belief that he killed her beloved master, Emperor Palpatine, during the Battle of Endor five years earlier. So Mara travels to Jomark, and she and Luke defeat C'boath just as he tries to kill them for taking Luke away from the training, which Luke and Mara both know is psychologically compromised due to C'boath's insanity. The two of them infiltrate Thrawn's Empire and save Karrde. In the continuing search for Delta Source, the New Republic source believed to be spying for Thrawn, Han Solo and Lando Calrissian try to find evidence at the planet New Cov, with Luke helping before he left for Jomark. At New Cov, it is believed that one of Senator Borsk Fey'lya's advisers is a traitor to the New Republic for Thrawn, and is thus a primary suspect for Delta Source. But before Han, Lando, and Luke can find any real evidence concerning Fey'lya's adviser, they find out that Thrawn's forces have arrived on the planet. They manage to escape, and Han and Lando are saved by a third party, which takes them to an unknown location where they meet the legendary General Garm Bel Iblis, one of the initial members of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Bel Iblis declines to help the New Republic defeat Thrawn because of personal problems with Chief of State Mon Mothma. Elsewhere, Leia Organa Solo keeps the promise she made with the Noghri known as Khabarakh back on the planet Kashyyyk and arrives on Khabarakh's devastated home planet of Honoghr. Leia manages to get the entire Noghri race to side with the New Republic against Thrawn by exposing the fact that it was the Empire that devastated Honoghr, not the Alliance to Restore the Republic. The New Republic finds out from Talon Karrde that an old superior of his, Captain Hoffner, exposed the secret of the legendary Katana fleet to Thrawn. This fleet of 200 Dreadnaughts would tip the balance of power decisively in Thrawn's favor over the New Republic. During the battle for the Katana fleet, the New Republic manages to destroy some of the cruisers, but Thrawn wins most of them. + +Grand Admiral Thrawn put the next stage of his plan to destroy the New Republic in action. Meanwhile, the insane Dark Jedi Joruus C'baoth is impatient to get Leia Organa Solo, her unborn twins and Luke Skywalker as his apprentices -- the reward Thrawn promised him for his help. During the Battle at Ukio C'baoth senses Organa Solo's presence over Filve and sends the Imperial battle group in pursuit of the Millennium Falcon. Using the Cracken Twist Han, Leia and the Rogues escape. Meanwhile, Luke is trying to find Thrawn's cloning facilities. On Berchest he meets with Talon Karrde. Skywalker convinces the information broker to sell information regarding the movements of the Imperial forces to the New Republic. At the same time on Coruscant Mara Jade is recovering from the injuries sustained during the battle for the Katana fleet. During her stay at the Imperial Palace, Winter--Princess Leia's aide -- was serving as her hostess. In a brief conversation, Jade identifies Winter as the Targeter--a code name she had used only briefly. This prompts Winter to check Jade's background suspecting she is an Imperial agent. At the same time Luke had tracked the clones to the Inner Rim planet Poderis. The Imperial forces on the planet tried to capture him using ysalamirI but the young Jedi detects blank spots created by the creatures and leaps on a roof. Using a piece of cloth to fashion a protective wrapping for his hand Luke cuts a groove with his lightsaber on the outside of the shield-barrier connected to the roof he was on and sticks his hand in it. Holding the lightsaber in front of him Skywalker begins his descent by digging out a slanted path for his hand to follow in. After going about 100 meters across the wall he cuts a hole in the shield-barrier and goes back into the city. Reaching the spaceport Luke gets off Poderis and after a little skirmish with the Chimaera he jumps to hyperspace. When his X-wing's power cells run out of charge Skywalker decides to replace them on Honoghr, the Noghri homeworld. When he reaches the planet the Noghri guide him to a place they call The Future of the Noghri. There he meets Khabarakh. While waiting for the power cells to be delivered Nystao he experiences a vision of Leia and the twins being in danger. While Luke is on Honoghr, during a meeting of the Provisional Council Leia goes in labor. After 10 hours delivery, with Han by her side, she gives birth to Jaina and Jacen Solo. In the meanwhile, after an accidental meeting with his fellow smuggler Gillespee, Karrde sets a meeting of the top smugglers on Trogan. The meeting in Whistler's Whirlpool Tapcafe, which was attended by Brasck, Billey, Par'tah, Ellor, Dravis, Mazzic, Lishma, Gillespee, Niles Ferrier and others. The reason why Karrde called them was forming an alliance to find where the clones were being bred. At first, the smugglers want to stay neutral in the war but when the meeting was attacked by the Imperials, resulting in Lishma's death, they decide that the Empire needs to learn a lesson thus the Smugglers' Alliance is born. The attack on the meeting was actually arranged by Ferrier. He was trying to win Karrde's trust so he can betray him to the Grand Admiral. Thrawn, however, wasn't pleased since he didn't want to the smugglers turned against the Empire. Back at Coruscant, Leia is enjoying a few days away from politics after the birth of Jaina and Jacen. When Winter reveals her suspicions concerning Mara Jade the Princess goes to Jade's quarters in the Palace. She directly asks Jade if she was a spy and Jade reveals that she was once the Emperor's Hand--a special agent receiving orders directly from Palpatine. Jade also tells Leia that she is going to kill her brother. After saying that perhaps she is not the one who wants Luke's death, Leia leaves. Frustrated, Jade tries to contact Karrde and finds that the network is down. When her danger sense warns her that she's in danger, Jade finds that the Imperial Palace is infiltrated. Barefoot, she tries to sneak behind the commandos Lando Calrissian, who is on Coruscant trying to convince the New Republic to help his Nomad City after it was almost destroyed by the Empire, he draws a blaster at her thinking she is up to something. With Calrissian's help, she figures out the real target of the Imperials -- the Solo twins. Reaching out with the Force Mara warns Leia of the danger. Using her knowledge of the secret passages in the Palace, Jade helps Organa Solo in repelling the kidnapping attempt. The leader of the strike team Major Molo Himron identifies Jade as the Imperial agent who let them into the Palace, thus discrediting her in front of the New Republic leadership. Leia, however, didn't believe him. Organa Solo visits Jade, which is under house arrest, to thank her for her help. Just before leaving the Princess mentions by the way that Thrawn is using clones in his campaign. At the mention of this Jade remembers a trip with the Emperor to a planet called Wayland where he had stored, among other useful technology, cloning technology. Jade offers to provide the coordinates of the planet and Organa Solo orders her not tell anyone about what she knows. During this conversation, Luke returns to Coruscant. Sensing his sisters shock in the Force following Mara's revelation Luke and Han hurry to meet Leia. Later that night Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, Lando and Winter meet at Leia's office to discuss and decide what to do regarding the information provided by Mara. They decide that Luke, Han, Lando, Chewie, Mara, Artoo and Threepio will go to Wayland. At the same time, Karrde on board the Wild Karrde is present during an attack on the Bilbringi Shipyards by Mazzic and Ellor. The attack results in the destruction of an almost finished Star Destroyer. The attack itself was the two smugglers' revenge for their friend's death. Just before the beginning of the raid, Karrde counts twenty-two asteroids which the Grand Admiral would later use to attack Coruscant. Unfortunately for the smugglers, the Grand Admiral is present during the attack and recognizes Mazzic and Ellor's styles. While discussing his plans concerning the smugglers Thrawn is interrupted by the enraged Master C'boath who had found out that the last kidnapping attempt had failed. He demands to fly to Coruscant to take his Jedi. Thrawn agrees to take him to the Galactic Capital after the special cargo is loaded onboard. C'boath thinking that Thrawn intends to destroy Coruscant with Organa Solo and the twins still on the planet took control of the crew of the Chimaera. Thrawn manages to calm the insane Jedi down and with the asteroids onboard takes off to Coruscant. Back on Coruscant Leia's chosen bodyguards arrive dressed like jawas who turn out to be ten Noghri among which was Khabarakh. The same night Luke and Lando broke Mara out of her quarters. They board the Millennium Falcon and leave for Obroa-skai--the last stop Mara and the Emperor had made before reaching Wayland. Later that night Thrawn's forces attack Coruscant. Prior to the attack, C'baoth demands that he returns to the planet Wayland to wait for his wanted Jedi. Thrawn gives him the Draklor and puts it under General Freja Covell's command. After C'baoth sets off the Imperials launch the attack. Just before withdrawing his forces Thrawn orders the asteroids, which had been equipped with cloaking devices, to be launched. In addition to the twenty-two actual asteroids, Thrawn also stages 265 false launches. As the cloaked asteroids are undetectable to Coruscant's sensors, it is impossible for the New Republic to distinguish an actual asteroid launch from a false one. He lets the New Republic forces to disable one of the asteroids cloaking devices so they can see what's out there and then orders it destroyed. This way the Grand Admiral forces the Coruscanti to use the planetary shields permanently, meaning nothing can get in or out. This would ultimately have Thrawn win by starving his enemies into submission. During the attack Leia helps Mon Mothma and General Garm Bel Iblis to heal the rift opened between them years ago when Bel Iblis had left the Rebellion to fight his own personal war against the Empire. With this cleared out, the general takes command of the defense of the New Republic capital. After the Imperial forces jump out of the system Mara Jade's absence is discovered but Leia manages to convince Mon Mothma to keep it a secret and pretend that she is still their prisoner. Meanwhile, Ghent, the slicer who had stayed on Coruscant to watch over Mara while she was hospitalized, was able to break the pulse transmitter encrypt code that was used by Delta Source. Using the code Leia, Winter and Bel Iblis try to uncover the identity of Delta. By conducting pre-arranged conversations end relying on Winter's perfect recall they successfully neutralize Delta Source. Meanwhile, Karrde had set a new base in a ancient fortress on the planet Hijarna. The coalition he was trying to build is crumbling thanks to financial problems. Karrde sets a new meeting to discuss the continuation of their operations with the other smugglers if he provides the credits to pay them. Mazzic, however, is captured by the Imperials and is brought before the Grand Admiral. Thrawn, using the flimsiness of the attack on Trogan, sowed doubt in Mazzic's mind that Karrde is behind the attack. Mazzic leaves the Grand Admiral's flagship determined to find out the truth and Ferrier is send to incriminate Karrde. Around that time, Mara manages to pinpoint the coordinates to Wayland. Jumping out of hyperspace she confirms that this is the right planet. Setting down in the forests the team happens upon a pack of garrals and thus have to hike all the way to Mount Tantiss. After a few hours of hiking Mara asks Luke about the Emperor's final moments and Luke reveals that he was not the one who killed the Emperor. During the next several days Luke helps Mara to sharpen up her abilities in the Force preparing her for whats to come when they finally infiltrate Mount Tantiss. The plan is to destroy the cloning facility that Thrawn is using for his military forces. From the Noghri that had followed them Mara learns of Luke's parentage and the real reason why Palpatine wants him dead -- to extract revenge on his murderer. At this moment, she decides that it has to be her reasons for killing Skywalker and not because of her dead Master. At this moment, C'baoth tries to force her under his control but his contact is abruptly ended. Meanwhile, the New Republic plans to snatch a crystal gravfield trap from the Empire and use it to clear Coruscant's space. New Republic Intelligence had located one on Bilbringi. To throw the Imperial Intelligence off the real target the New Republic concentrates ships and personnel in a striking distance of the planet Tangrene where was located another gravfield trap. When the smugglers rendezvous at the fortress Mazzic accuses Karrde of orchestrating the attack on Trogan to make them turn against the Empire. However, on board the Wild Karrde Ferrier is exposed as the real traitor. After Karrde learns of the New Republic plans he decides that his Alliance could obtain a gravfield trap and sell it to the New Republic. Falling for the feint set by the Republic Karrde and his group targets the gravfield trap that is the Republic real objective. When the plans for the operation are made Karrde goes to Coruscant to get back his second-in-command Mara. Getting in orbit around Coruscant he comms Leia and asks about Mara's arrest. When Leia answers he insists on knowing why he can't land. Leia tells him about the siege Coruscant is under and the smuggler reveals that the number of asteroids they have destroyed matches the number of asteroids in total, meaning they can lower the shields. When Karrde mentions his time spent in the prison cells of the Chimaera Leia orders that he is given a permission to land. The mention of Karrde's rescue Leia finally figures out how Thrawn is breeding the clones so fast and realizes that her brother's mission is endangered. After she explains that to Bel Iblis he says that he'll try to convince Mon Mothma to send some ships to help Luke and Han. Knowing that the New Republic lacks the resources for two separate attacks Leia decides to ask Karrde to take her to Wayland. She meets him at the spaceport and tells him where Mara is. During the conversation Mobvekhar, one of Leia's bodyguards, captures Borsk Fey'lya who is eavesdropping. Fey'lya begs Karrde to take the Princess to Wayland so Mount Tantiss can be destroyed. Sensing the counselor's anxiety Karrde makes him pay him thus securing the credits to pay his allies. With Leia onboard Wild Karrde sets off for Wayland. As Luke's team draws near Mount Tantiss he finds out that he can't sense the mountain in the Force. At first, Han suggests ending the mission thinking that it's a trap but Luke argues that the ysalamiri have been put there to confine C'baoth. When a group of MyneyrshI approaches them Skywalker asks two of the Noghri to accompany and help them do as much damage as they can. At the same time a well armed group of Psadans attacks the main entrance. This proves to be a useful diversion. The team infiltrates the mountain through an air intake vent after Artoo deactivates the sensors. By that time Leia and Karrde had arrived on Wayland. Karrde suggests using his pet Vornskrs Sturm and Drang to find Mara. Han and the others find the cloning chamber and Mara suggest going to the throne room saying that the Emperor had probably built in a self-destruct mechanism. If such mechanism exists its controls would be in the throne room. While Luke and Mara make their way to the throne room Han, Lando and Chewie start setting the explosives just in case. After Luke and Mara had left Threepio warns Captain Solo that Artoo had found out where the Imperials keep C'baoth -- the throne room itself. Han sends the droid to tell Lando and Chewie and goes after Luke. Meanwhile, Thrawn's forces and the New Republic clash in the Battle of Bilbringi. The Smugglers' Alliance ships get caught between the Imperial and New Republic forces. At first, Mazzic decides that Karrde had betrayed them but when they see the alignment of Imperial ships the smugglers figure out that its a trap for the New Republic Navy. After that, they decide to continue according to plan and use the New Republic attack as a diversion. Aves contacts Wedge Antilles and Antilles decides to help the smugglers out of the shipyards. This way he gets the Rogues in the shipyards. Back in the battle in Mount Tantiss, Luke and Mara reach the throne room and face off C'baoth. The Dark Jedi had sent the Imperials from the Draklor, who he had put under his control through the Force, to destroy the ysalamiri in the mountain. Once his connection with the Force is restored C'baoth attacks Mara with Force lightning. Luke intercepts them on his lightsaber. C'baoth reveals his extra card -- a clone of Skywalker made from the hand he had lost at the battle of Bespin. The clone, Luuke, is armed with Skywalker's old lightsaber -- the one he had lost at Bespin. While Luke and his clone duel C'baoth is trying to force Mara into serving him. Meanwhile, Han and Leia meet on their way to the throne room. Using the Emperor's private turbolift Han, Leia and Karrde reach the throne room in the middle of the duel. When Solo tries to shoot C'baoth the insane Jedi Master goes berserk. To stop him Luke suggests staying with him if C'baoth lets the others go. Karrde contacts Lando and tells him that C'baoth is on the loose and Calrissian decides to blow up the entire facility by overloading the power reactors. C'baoth, however, is not content with getting only one Jedi and Luke and the clone resume the duel. Luke leads Luuke into a trap where Mara, using Organa Solo's lightsaber, kills the clone thus fulfilling the Emperor's dying wish to kill Luke Skywalker. C'boath then tries to bring the entire complex down, but Mara uses the same lightsaber which she used to kill Luuke to end C'boath's life. The Dark Jedi disappears in a flash of light, just as the late Emperor did back aboard the second Death Star during the Battle of Endor. The explosion had made a huge hole in one of the walls and Karrde orders the Wild Karrde to come and pick them up. Back at Bilbringi Chimaera receives a message from Mount Tantiss' garrison of the attack and that there are Noghri participating in it. Before Pellaeon can finish reading the report Thrawn's bodyguard, Rukh, betrays and kills the Grand Admiral by impaling him with his own dagger saying that this is a revenge for the Galactic Empire betrayal of the Noghri and the devastation of their homeworld. While Thrawn is himself avenged when Rukh is killed moments later elsewhere aboard the Chimaera, Captain Pellaeon, aware that without the Grand Admiral's tactical brilliance the Imperial forces have effectively lost the battle, orders a withdrawal. With Pellaeon ordering all remaining Imperial forces in the Bilbringi system to retreat the Thrawn campaign is over with a triumph of the New Republic. Luke and Mara, back on Coruscant, establish an uneasy friendship. Luke gives Mara the lightsaber that he had retrieved from Wayland. Before Luke goes back to the negotiations between the New Republic and the Smugglers' Alliance she calls him to wait for her. Together they leave the Imperial Palace's roof. + +After the death of Grand Admiral Thrawn in Timothy Zahn's The Last Command, the New Republic has decided to go after the numerous warlords terrorizing the galaxy. Its first target is Admiral Krennel. The mission seems straightforward at first, but then Isard appears from the dead, offering her services and using New Republic prisoners as bait. After several initial victories against Krennel, the New Republic begins taking savage political blows from Krennel thanks to Isard. Meanwhile, Iella Wesseri and Mirax Terrik begin investigating a series of strange events and clues, and discover that somebody is setting up a trap for Rogue Squadron. Unfortunately, they are too late to warn Rogue Squadron. While on a mission, the Rogues are ambushed by an entire wing of assorted TIE-Fighters. With the unexpected aid of a squadron of TIE Defenders, the Rogues manage to win, but not before losing Janson, Asyr, and their two replacement pilots. It is revealed that they were rescued by Isard, and that the Isard working for Krennel is in fact a clone. She makes a deal with Wedge, saying that in return for helping the Rogues defeat Krennel and retrieve the Lusankya prisoners, she is to be granted amnesty for all past crimes. Wedge has no choice but to agree. While most of the galaxy, including Krennel, believe that Rogue Squadron is dead, Mirax finds out that they are still alive when Whistler and Gate escape Isard's base. The New Republic then receives a message from Wedge outlining the final decisive attack on Krennel. During the battle, Isard betrays Rogue Squadron and denies their commando and fighter support. Corran decides to land his Defender and liberate the prisoners himself, taking Ooryl and Nrin Vakil with him. Fortunately, Admiral Ackbar suspected a trap and brought secret reinforcements, including a large commando force. Krennel and the Isard clone are killed in the battle, and the Lusankya prisoners are liberated. Meanwhile, Isard takes her extra forces and attempts to steal the Lusankya, which was captured by the New Republic during the Bacta War and almost fully repaired. However, Iella and Mirax predicted her actions and thwarted Isard's plan. Isard was killed in the process. At a party celebrating the success of the campaign against Krennel, Janson, who survived Isard's ambush, is reunited with Rogue Squadron. Asyr, who also survived, keeps news of her survival secret, wanting to return to Bothawui and try to change the Bothan way of life for the better. + +Han Solo and Chewbacca travel to Kessel as representatives of the New Republic, but are attacked and imprisoned by the ragtag forces of Moruth Doole. Doole fought for and won control of the spice mining planet and its prison facilities after the fall of the Galactic Empire, and holds a grudge against Solo from their smuggling days. Han and Chewbacca are forced to mine luminous glitterstim in the underground darkness where it grows. On Coruscant, Luke Skywalker is given governmental permission and resources to search for any Force-sensitive individuals that may be left scattered across the galaxy, in hopes of founding a new Jedi academy. He eventually finds Gantoris on Eol Sha and Streen on Bespin. Lando Calrissian's search of another lead on Umgul does not pan out, but does lead to an unexpected and much-needed financial payoff. Leia Organa Solo tries to balance her governmental duties with the return of her two older children, the toddlers Jaina Solo and Jacen Solo, from protective hiding. Han's disappearance weighs heavily on her mind, although he and Chewbacca manage to escape with fellow slave Kyp Durron, only to stumble on Maw Installation, a secret, hidden Imperial military research-and-development facility home to a Death Star prototype. Its residents are waiting in vain for Grand Moff Tarkin to send orders to deploy the deadly Sun Crusher. Han convinces scientist Qwi Xux of the evil her creations are used for, causing her to help steal the Sun Crusher and defect with the escaped prisoners. Kyp uses his latent Force abilities to guide the ship around a maze of black holes where they run into the recaptured Millennium Falcon, piloted by Luke and Lando. The pursuing fleets of Kessel and Maw Installation are left to battle each other. Meanwhile, Leia and Mon Mothma select the moon Yavin 4 as the location for a new Jedi academy. Luke is pleased with the selection, and invites Kyp Durron to join in future training. + +While the New Republic struggles to decide what to do with the deadly Sun Crusher--a new doomsday weapon stolen from the Empire by Han Solo--the renegade Imperial Admiral Daala uses her fleet of Star Destroyers to conduct guerrilla warfare on peaceful planets. And now she threatens Mon Calamari, the watery homeworld of Admiral Ackbar and important shipyard for the New Republic. But as the battle for a planet rages, an even greater danger emerges at Luke Skywalker's Jedi academy on Yavin 4. A strong but untrained student named Gantoris delves dangerously into the dark side of the Force and unleashes the spirit of the ancient dark-side master Exar Kun, who instructs him in the creation of a unique, three-crystal lightsaber that can be focused to extend beyond the normal length to that of a spear. The spirit of Exar Kun also tries, with disastrous consequences, to entice him toward the dark side. Although unsuccessful, this sets the stage for another of Luke's students, Kyp Durron, to face the same choice as Gantoris. Working together, they may become an enemy greater than any the New Republic has ever fought, more powerful than even a Jedi Master can face. Kyp Durron begins his Jedi training with Luke Skywalker, but first, he is being treated to the time of his life by Han Solo. Han felt that because Kyp had been in the mines most of his entire life, that he deserved to have a little fun. When he does get to the Jedi Praxeum, he starts learning the ways of the light side of the Force, astonishing all the other students with his extraordinary talent and his aptitude for Force-training; unfortunately, he also starts learning of the dark side of the Force after Gantoris' death. Exar Kun's spirit begins tempting Kyp. Kyp's power increases considerably, and he is tainted by the dark side and the lies Kun tells him of the history of the Jedi Order. After a violent disagreement with Tionne over ancient history, Kyp assaults Skywalker; with the dark aid of Kun, Kyp rips Luke's soul from his body, placing him in a coma. With his strength in the Force, Kyp reaches out and guides the Sun Crusher from the heart of the gas giant, Yavin, and sets out on a mission of vengeance against Admiral Daala and the Imperial Remnant. He knows that his brother, Zeth Durron, is still part of the Empire and he sets course for Carida, intending to rescue him by force if need be. + +A few days after his destruction of the Cauldron Nebula, under the influence of Exar Kun, Kyp Durron flew the Sun Crusher to determine the fate of his brother, Zeth, at the Imperial Academy. He transmitted an ultimatum to Ambassador Furgan, threatening to destroy the solar system if they didn't provide information about Zeth. Desiring the Sun Crusher himself, Furgan ordered a group of TIE/LN starfighters to attack Kyp, who had been distracted by a falsified story about the death of his brother. He destroyed most of them and responded by firing a resonance torpedo into Carida's sun, Caridan. Furgan ordered the evacuation of Carida with the limited transports available, giving priority on the basis of rank. He escaped aboard the Vendetta, bound for Anoth. Dauren, a lowly lieutenant, knew he had little chance of escaping and located Zeth. He told Kyp, who swooped down to save them, but Dauren stabbed Zeth with a plastisteel fragment. Before Kyp could save his brother, the sun went supernova, destroying the planet. Kyp was driven further to the dark side by his despair at having killed his brother. The disturbance in the Force caused by the destruction was felt by Leia Organa Solo and the Jedi students at the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. It also caused the spirit of Luke Skywalker to return to his body, which had been separated from his body by Exar Kun. However, Luke soon realized no one could see him and wondered what he could do to save himself. In the Maw Installation, Chewbacca and Wedge Antilles were leading a New Republic task force that was trying to capture the facility, now that Admiral Natasi Daala was no longer there to defend it. They captured it, but Tol Sivron and most of the Installation personnel escaped aboard the Death Star prototype. On Coruscant, Lando Calrissian and Mara Jade met to discuss a joint venture between him and the Smugglers' Alliance on Kessel. They agreed to meet there in a week, but she refused to take him with her. Han Solo had just arrived on Coruscant to try and find information about the location of Kyp, so he could try and talk some sense into him. Lando persuaded Han to let him tag along aboard the Millennium Falcon, so that Han could drop him off at Kessel if their search took them near it. Back on Yavin 4, the spirit of Exar Kun came to taunt Luke and then possessed Streen and tried to make him kill the Jedi Master. The Jedi students stopped him just in time. Shortly after, Terpfen arrived and warned Leia that Furgan was going to Anoth to capture her son, Anakin. They went to Mon Calamari to get the coordinates for Anoth from Ackbar. Han tracked Kyp to the Core Worlds and tried talking to him, but Kyp threatened to fire a resonance torpedo at the Falcon. At the same time on Yavin 4, the Jedi students worked together to destroy Exar Kun, which ended his hold over Kyp and returned Luke's spirit to his body. Kyp gave in and surrendered to Han. Leia, Ackbar and Terpfen arrived on Anoth with a New Republic battleship and engaged the Imperial forces, killing most of them. Furgan ran off with Anakin, but Terpfen got the infant back and chased after the Ambassador in an MT-AT. Furgan fell off a cliff and was killed. Then Terpfen tried to kill himself by walking off the cliff, because he felt guilty for giving the name of the planet where Leia's baby was hiding to Furgan; but was stopped by Ackbar. After taking Kyp and the Sun Crusher back to Coruscant, Han took Lando to Kessel. They met with Jade, but discovered that there was a small problem with their operation, in that Moruth Doole had holed himself up in the prison building. They led Smuggler's Alliance forces inside it and Doole tried to escape them, but was killed by an energy spider. Their problems soon got worse, as the Death Star prototype arrived in the system and destroyed the Garrison Moon. Smuggler's Alliance freighters attacked the prototype and it retreated back to the Maw. The Falcon had latched onto its superstructure and was taken with it. At the Maw, Admiral Daala had returned with the Gorgon and attacked the New Republic forces there. Luke and Kyp arrived at the Maw with the Sun Crusher, which they intended to send into a black hole to destroy it, while the Death Star prototype returned soon after them. Daala began to target the Maw Installation, in an attempt to destroy it, while Sivron prepared to fire the prototype. However, he was distracted by the Sun Crusher and pursued after it, but both craft were sucked into a black hole. Kyp had been piloting the Sun Crusher and escaped in a message pod, which Han saved using the Falcon's tractor beam, just before it was sucked down as well. The Installation exploded and seemingly destroyed the Gorgon, although it had escaped by jumping into hyperspace moments before. Terpfen had revealed to Ackbar that the dying Mon Mothma had been poisoned by Furgan with microscopic nano-destroyers. He asked Cilghal to come to the Imperial Palace and heal Mon Mothma, which she did. Leia, Han, Ackbar, Wedge, Chewbacca and Mon Mothma then attended the reopening of the Cathedral of Winds on Vortex, while Lando and Mara returned to Kessel and Kyp went back to Yavin 4 with Luke, to continue his Jedi training. + +Following a first-person narrative from the point of view of Corran Horn, I, Jedi starts out in 11 ABY, not long after the end of the Thrawn campaign and Operation Shadow Hand. Horn participates in a mission for Rogue Squadron: the ambush of a pirate raiding force said to be connected to the Invids. After the partially-successful mission, Horn returns home to Coruscant, only to discover that his wife, Mirax, is missing. Thinking her to merely be late coming back from a business trip, he goes to sleep, where he feels his instinctive, untrained force-powered connection to her being severed. Deeply shocked by this in a way he cannot understand, Horn seeks aid from ex-Rogue and General Wedge Antilles as well as Luke Skywalker. Going over what he had felt, and describing the situation, the Jedi Master decides that Horn has suffered a psychic wound, and needs time to heal. However, Horn declares that he must be the one to save his wife, and so, after weighing his options, chooses to accept an offer he had once declined--train in the ways of the Force with Master Skywalker at his Jedi Praxeum at Yavin 4. Resolving that only a Jedi could rescue Mirax, Horn becomes one of Skywalker's first students, one of only three with their own lightsaber, in his case the weapon that had belonged to his grandfather, Nejaa Halcyon. Horn trains under the alias of Keiran Halcyon and learns more about the legacy of his bloodline. When the apprentice Gantoris encounters the spirit of Exar Kun and is eventually devoured by the dark side manifestation, Horn aids Master Skywalker in conducting the investigation; using his talents with Force sight and Force Illusion, Horn continues to aid in thwarting the efforts of Kun's spirit to destroy the Jedi on Yavin 4, even after Skywalker is separated from his body by Kyp Durron, acting under the influence of Kun. With Skywalker incapacitated, Horn becomes the de facto leader of the Academy until the arrival of Leia Organa Solo and her children, Jaina and Jacen. When Kun tricks the old hermit Streen into using Force Whirlwind to kill Skywalker, the dark spirit also sends a number of battle hydras to finish the job. Appropriating Mara Jade's Z-95 Headhunter, which had been stolen by Durron and then returned after acquiring the Sun Crusher from the heart of Yavin Prime, Horn eliminates the hydras, gaining yet more insight into how Kun operates at the same time. At this point, Kun himself appears to Horn, offering him the means to reclaim his wife and to destroy the Invids; in exchange, all he need do is to kill Skywalker. Horn refuses the offer, however; furious, Kun declares that in time, Horn will seek him out before departing for the night. Eventually, Leia is called away to deal with the attempted kidnapping of her youngest child, Anakin Solo, personally leaving Horn in charge of keeping her brother safe. Eventually, Horn comes up with a plan to deal with Kun, which he presents to the rest of the Academy students. While Horn attempts to destroy the Temple of Exar Kun with nergon-14 explosives, the rest of the Academy's students prepare to do battle with Kun's spirit when it does arrive. Unfortunately for Horn, he underestimates Kun's abilities; the disembodied Dark Lord proceeds to physically and mentally torture Horn, until the timely arrival of Mara Jade, who distracts him with a few well-chosen taunts. Bragging, Kun departs for the Great Temple, where his spirit is finally annihilated by the combined strength of the other students' light side power. With Master Skywalker returned to his body, he announces that Kyp Durron will be brought back into the Jedi fold. Corran is disgusted however, at this turn of events as he sees Kyp as being unredeemable due to his willful murder of 25 million sentients and resigns from the Jedi Academy. Horn leaves the Academy, visiting his father-in-law Booster Terrik aboard the Errant Venture in order to garner aid in getting onto Corellia, where he visits his step-grandfather Rostek Horn to learn more about his biological grandfather, a Jedi named Nejaa Halcyon. He finds out that Rostek, a freelance horticulturist, has encoded Jedi lore, in binary form, into the genetic sequences of the hybrid flowers he has become famous for. After having what seems to be a prophetic dream, Corran comes to the conclusion that he must fall back on his CorSec training in order to save Mirax. With the help of Rostek, he is set up with the cover identity of Jenos Idanian, and sets out to infiltrate the Invids. Leaving Corellia aboard the Tinta Palette and intending to rendezvous with the Tinta Rainbow, Corran finds himself in the midst of an Invid raid led by the Invidious itself. After narrowing escaping the pirate attack aboard the shuttle Tinta Blue Seven, he again meets with Booster, this time armed with data about the Invids involved. Learning that they are staging out of Courkrus, in the Khuiumin system, Corran takes the appropriated shuttle to Vlarnya, offering it up as a prize in his bid to join any of the pirate gangs operating out of that world. Falling in with the Khuiumin Survivors, he starts out near the bottom, flying a clutch starfighter in Rock Squadron. After participating in a number of raids, culminating in an ambitious raid on Xa Fel, Horn soon finds himself leading Bolt, a high position within the Survivors. At the same time, Corran garners the attention--and lust--of ex-Moff Leonia Tavira, further exacerbating the already caustic rivalry with fellow Survivor Remart Sasyru. During the fight, however, he comes dangerously close to blowing his cover as a Jedi Not long after this, Corran and the Survivors join the Invidious in raiding the Caamasi Remnant colony Morymento, located on Kerilt. The raid is interrupted by the presence of the Thalassian slavers and their ship, the Harmzuay, which is soon dispatched by the Imperial Star Destroyer's superior firepower. On the ground, a number of his Bolts, led by Sasyru, go missing; Corran lands and goes out in search of the pirates, only to find them amidst a huddle of Caamasi circled around the fallen Trustant Elegos A'Kla. When Horn attempts to intercede on the Caamasi's behalf, a fight breaks out, leaving Sasyru battered almost to a pulp, his wingmates stunned by A'kla, and his own blaster carbine pointed at him. At this, A'kla takes up Corran's idea to have him as a bodyservant in order to maintain the fiction that had precipitated the brawl. With Sasyru killed by Tavira for his insubordination, the Admiral states her intention to have Horn--as Idanian--serve as her consort, promising that all of her resources would be put at his command in order to fulfill the cover story he had created to explain his desire to join the Invids. With help from A'kla, Horn is able to make the choice between the dark and light sides of his quest; with the Caamasi's help, he constructs a new lightsaber and makes plans to combat the pirates of Courkrus's Aviary. Engaging in a subversive campaign of terror aimed at undermining the morale of the various groups, Horn attacks bands of pirates who prey the planet's indigs, waylays groups of would-be Jedi hunters, and assaults the headquarters of the Blackstar Pirates. Eventually, the Hutt crime boss Shala attempts to call out the Ghost Jedi, luring him into a trap at his own lair. The trap proves to be a double-cross, and using his abilities with Absorb Energy, Horn manages to survive, though narrowly. Not long afterward, Admiral Tavira learns of what has been happening, and sets up her own force to deal with the mysterious Jedi, a team of five Jensaarai. The team manages to corner Horn down an alleyway, but he is rescued by Luke Skywalker, accompanied by Horn's longtime wingmate Ooryl Qrygg. After interrogating the captured Jensaarai with the assistance of an ysalamir, the two Jedi learn of the hidden community on Susevfi and the whereabouts of Mirax. Traveling there with Qrygg and A'kla, Skywalker and Horn set off at once to rescue her, encountering no resistance until reaching Tavira's headquarters in Yumfla. The group penetrates the palace, facing off against a large contingent of stormtroopers, and securing Horn's wife's release. As they attempt to make good their escape, however, the two Jedi, Qrygg, A'kla and Mirax are met by yet more Jensaarai, led by the Saarai-kaar, who claims that Horn's arrival as the Halcyon is a harbinger of their doom. After a short brawl, Skywalker neutralizes the Jensaarai Defenders, while Horn is able to distract the Saarai-Kaar with an illusion of her master, Nikkos Tyris, long enough to prevail against her. All of them are taken into custody just as the Invidious and the Errant Venture, accompanied by Rogue Squadron and Pash Cracken's A-wing group, arrive in the system. Delving deeply into Tavira's mind, Horn plants there a vision of the Venture as the infamous Super Star Destroyer Lusankya as it launches the Sun Crusher at her ship. Spooked by the illusion, Tavira flees the system, leaving the Jedi and the forces of the New Republic to reconcile with the Jensaarai and the Khuiumin Survivors. Shortly afterwards, Corran uses his X-Wing to destroy Exar Kun's temple on Yavin 4--not so much out of petty revenge on the dead Sith Lord, but because he'd realized a connection between the Sith inscriptions on Kun's temple and the Jensaarai Sith texts, and he wanted to do his part to keep Sith knowledge from corrupting more people. + +During the peak of the Galactic Empire's power, an automated Dreadnaught, the Eye of Palpatine, was sent on a mission to destroy a stronghold of Jedi children on the planet Belsavis. This plot was halted by Callista, a Jedi. Consequentially, Callista was forced to sacrifice herself and insert her life force into the Eye of Palpatine's systems. While Han Solo and Princess Leia learn of the Jedi planet of Belsavis from the insane Drub McKumb, Luke Skywalker encounters Callista aboard the Eye of Palpatine. The two quickly develop a close relationship, despite the fact that Callista is stranded inside the ship's data banks. Plus, the issue with the enigmatic Jedi children is still at large, and Luke, with the help of his students and the rest of the New Republic, works toward fixing that issue. In the end, Callista is revived as a human, though she is forced to take the body of Luke's former student, Cray Mingla, who was bound to die anyway with the destruction of the Eye of Palpatine, which occurred just as it arrived at Belsavis. Luke and Callista develop a close relationship. + +In the Jedi Academy trilogy, Admiral Daala was forced to retreat to the Core Worlds, where some of the remaining Imperial warlords bicker over the Empire's remaining forces in the region. Immediately thereafter, Luke Skywalker encounters Callista, a former Jedi who was trapped in the Eye of Palpatine. After being rescued, Callista is forced to take the form of one of Luke's former students. Luke and Callista immediately fall in love and work on building the Jedi Academy, though Callista still cannot use the Force. Meanwhile, Bevel Lemelisk is searching for a new assignment, which is given to him by Durga the Hutt. Darksaber was set eight years after the Battle of Endor, a time in which both Grand Admiral Thrawn and the resurrected Emperor were defeated, and the New Republic experienced a brief lull in conflict after the events in Children of the Jedi. While searching Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo learn that the Hutts are planning to build another superweapon. Meanwhile, in the Hoth Asteroid Belt, Durga the Hutt is planning a diplomatic mission to Coruscant, where he will secretly obtain the plans for the Death Star superlaser for Bevel Lemelisk, the Death Star's designer. Skywalker and Solo reveal their discoveries, but not before Durga's subordinates steal the plans from the Imperial Palace. In order to find out the location of the superweapon, the New Republic launches a covert operation to Nal Hutta, disguised as a diplomatic summit. Back at the Hoth asteroid belt, Lemelisk starts construction on the cylindrical superlaser, which he calls the Darksaber for its shape is similar to the hilt of a lightsaber. Luke and Callista embark on a journey to help Callista regain her Force powers. They discover that Callista can only tap into the Dark Side of the Force after they were attacked by some strange flying creatures on Dagobah. Their journey continues to the Hoth system where they encounter a group of stranded refugees. The group is attacked by a pack of Wampas, led by the same Wampa Luke dismembered several years ago. The refugees are killed in the attack, Luke and Callista try to escape only to find their ship wrecked. They lift off, but have little power and become stranded in the asteroid belt surrounding Hoth. They are rescued by Han and Leia Organa Solo, who just returned from the successful mission on Nal Hutta. However, Luke and Callista's rescue is mainly thanks to the Republic fleet, who arrived to launch Crix Madine and his squad to locate the Darksaber reported to be under construction in the region. While Madine succeeds in relaying the location to the fleet, he is captured and killed by Durga. However, Durga's triumph is short-lived when the Republic fleet spots the Darksaber and begins pursuit. The Darksaber attempts to fire its superlaser and make an escape, but the weapon fails and the ship is destroyed by two large asteroids. Meanwhile, Admiral Daala succeeds in uniting the remains of the Empire in the core systems by terminating the bickering Warlords during a conference. With the help of Pellaeon, she plans a strike force against a series of New Republic targets, including the Jedi academy on Yavin 4. They also attack Khomm, after Jedi trainees Kyp Durron and Dorsk 81 are caught infiltrating an Imperial summit and escape to Khomm. The pair of Jedi succeed in warning the Republic and the academy of the attack. Using the combined powers of the Force of the Jedi trainees back at Yavin 4, Dorsk 81 manages to physically throw Pellaeon and his fleet out of the Yavin system. Daala is forced to retreat when her Super Star Destroyer, the Knight Hammer, is destroyed. After the failed attack, Daala transfers control over the Imperial forces to Pellaeon. Meanwhile, Callista decides to temporarily leave Luke and venture on a journey to regain her powers. Luke is heartbroken, but decides to move on and continue to build the Jedi academy. + +Nam Chorios, a backwater world in the Outer Rim was infamously the center of the Death Seed plague centuries ago. It is now home to a fanatic religious cult which is plotting to use a new weapon system of quasi-intelligent crystals as unstoppable, unmanned starfighters to attack the New Republic. Leia Organa Solo unofficially goes on a trip to meet with Seti Ashgad, the leader of the Rationalist Party. Luke Skywalker is there after receiving a message from Callista Ming, an old flame. The worst happens for both -- Luke's ship is shot down and Leia is kidnapped by the ancient and corrupt Beldorion the Hutt. Solo realizes the plot of Seti Ashgad and Dzym, who is actually an evolved droch, and plans to run away. Skywalker meanwhile is looking for Ming under the name of, Owen Lars, when he realizes that the messages that the Rationalists have been hearing are elaborate fakes setup by an intelligent hacker named, Liegeus Vorn. He rushes to save Solo from what must be her captors in the temple of Ashgad. After a series of adventures, in which Solo kills Beldorion and Skywalker is imbued with the raw power of the Force, the two escape and end the political conspiracy between the Rationalists and the New Republic. + +Jacen Solo and Jaina Solo are now five years old, and their brother, Anakin Solo, is three. Therefore, they are at the age where they are easily manipulated and unable to make responsible decisions. Furthermore, space anomalies are common in the Star Wars universe, so it is not uncommon to see a mass influence in the Force. Finally, cults in Star Wars are often associated with the Force or some other mysterious power. On Munto Codru, Jacen, Jaina and Anakin are kidnapped by a man named Hethrir. Their mother, Leia Organa Solo, immediately dispatches a rescue operation. Meanwhile, Han Solo and Luke Skywalker go to Crseih Station and learn of a secret cult that influences the Crystal Star. Hethrir continues to manipulate the children for several days. He leads the Empire Reborn, an organization looking to resurrect the Galactic Empire. + +Chewbacca is trying to train his son to be a warrior when the son's test is interrupted by news of Han Solo's capture by the Yevetha. With his son and several other Wookiees, they mount a rescue operation in the Millennium Falcon. Meanwhile, a petition to recall Princess Leia as president has been issued, causing some issues with the coming war with the Yevetha. Some feel Leia is going to war for selfish reasons. Lando Calrissian and the cyborg Lobot unravel truths about the Teljkon Vagabond as it roams the galaxy, with a former Imperial governor in Lando's luxury yacht in pursuit. Luke Skywalker and Akanah Pell wake in hyperspace to find themselves in an embrace. Their search leads them directly into the coming war with the Yevetha. + +The Dark Jedi Kueller sets in motion a plan to bring down the New Republic and the new generation of Jedi. First, he kills over a million innocent natives of the planet Pydyr and then sets off a bomb in the New Republic Senate Hall. As Jedi Master Luke Skywalker searches for the one behind all of this, Leia Organa Solo has her own problems arising from conflicts with newly elected former Imperials in the senate, and the framing of her husband Han Solo by the smuggler Jarril, who is suspected to be responsible for the senate bombing. As Han Solo travels with Chewbacca to the Smuggler's Run to investigate the actions of Jarril in hopes of getting to the bottom of the Senate bombing, Luke Skywalker visits Brakiss on Telti looking for information, and Lando Calrissian heads to The Run after Han Solo who he fears is in danger. Meanwhile, Cole Fardreamer, with the aid of R2-D2 and C-3PO, discovers a plot to install all New Republic X-wing's with remote detonators. Leia becomes aware of this and concedes her position as president to Mon Mothma in order to rescue Luke from Kueller who has taken him prisoner on Almania. After Han rescues Lando, rather than Lando rescuing Han, from the clutches of the crime lord Nandreeson, and the two of them aide hundreds of smugglers after an accidental bombing of the Run, Han also heads to Almania to rescue Luke. Han arrives at Almania in the midst of a vicious battle between New Republic forces led by Wedge Antilles and Kueller's fleet. Han is also met by Talon Karrde and Mara Jade who have brought ysalamiri to assist in the battle against Kueller. After a long grueling battle against Kueller, in which Kueller has gained a tremendous amount of power fueled by Luke's own anger at himself for allowing Kueller to fall to the dark side, Luke is preparing himself for death at Kuellers hands as Han arrives on the scene with the ysalamiri, sapping both Luke and Kueller of their power, and in doing so allows Leia to finish Kueller with two lethal blaster shots. R2-D2 and C-3PO simultaneously thwart Kueller's plan to detonate millions of droids across the galaxy. This enables Leia to return to Coruscant and regain her post as president from Mon Mothma. + +Taking place eighteen years after the Battle of Yavin. The Corellian system consists of a group of habitable planets known as the Five Brothers: Corellia, Selonia, Drall, Talus, and Tralus. Because the system was known for possessing an inward-looking political structure, and was not recipient to any of the radical changes produced by the rapid overhauls in government of the last forty years, it came as a pleasant surprise then that the New Republic was able to set up a trade summit on Corellia to open the sector to the rest of the galaxy. Leia Organa Solo was then sent to spearhead the Coruscant delegation. Han Solo saw it as a good opportunity to bring his children along and show them where their old man grew up, make a vacation out of the proceedings. While he was prepping the Millennium Falcon on Coruscant, he was approached by New Republic Intelligence operative Lieutenant Belindi Kalenda, who warned him that six previous NRI operatives had been dispatched to Corellia to assess its political climate and had not been heard from since. She also requested that Han acted as suspicious as possible during his visit to distract whoever may be working against them, so that the NRI could insert more teams without their awareness. After Kalenda left, Han spotted, and with the help of Chewbacca, destroyed a reprogrammed Imperial probe droid which had been listening in on their conversation. Unbeknownst to Han, the droid was revealed to have been dispatched by Pharnis Gleasry, an agent of the Human League, working a mission for an elusive figure known only as the Hidden Leader. Gleasry’s primary mission objective was to deliver an encoded message with Luke Skywalker to Corellia, but only after Leia had already departed. Han did not reveal the probe droid incident to his wife, and the state of unrest in the Corellian sector and the possible danger they all face puts strains on the Solo family. Meanwhile, Luke, who was struggling with being an unneeded old war hero in a time of peace, was assigned a mission by Mon Mothma, mostly to keep him occupied. She predicts that Luke will soon inevitably delve into politics, where he would be needed more, in an interesting contrast to his sister's Jedi training. He was told to meet Lando Calrissian and travel with him on his quest to find a wife, which would presumably boost Luke's public relations skills as part of his political training. Lt. Kalenda made her way back to Corellia ahead of the Solo family, undercover as a lower-class trader with engine troubles. Her entry to the system was immediately greeted by hostile fire from a Pocket Patrol Boat, thus indicating that the NRI had been compromised. She crashed into the sea, with just enough strength to swim to shore. Luke sees the Solo family off and meets Lando in his newly-constructed Dometown, his latest project. Lando showed Luke a list he had compiled of potential wives, all women with money who were interested in marrying a young entrepreneur that could turn their fortune into an even bigger one. They set off to meet the first candidate, which forces Gleasry, who assumed that Luke would have been traveling to Corellia, to use an alternative delivery method for his encoded message. Lando’s first attempt at finding a partner nearly ends in death, when his potential suitor winds up being a life-witch. When the Solos arrived at Corellia, they were fired on by a trio of Uglies, which were destroyed by a group of PPB’s manned by the Corellian Defense Force. Han concluded that it had been a staged attack and rescue, meant to get Han to trust the CDF. He played along with the ruse. Pharnis Gleasry, needing a new courier after Skywalker’s departure, chose Mara Jade as the recipient of the encoded message, who was en route to the same Corellian trade summit. The Solo family, then on-planet, settled into a villa, discretely observed from an adjacent building by Lt. Kalenda, who had made it her mission to oversee the Chief of State’s safety. Leia hires a Drall tutor named Ebrihim to educate the children on Corellia’s history, while Han visited the capital city of Coronet. His findings were grim: the city was dilapidated and empty, save for a parade of drunk Human League members who took it upon themselves to knock him out and imprison him simply for being Han Solo. The Hidden Leader, still unrevealed, ordered his release, as a vague warning to the rest of the family. The following evening, Han and Leia met with Corellia’s New Republic-appointed Governor-General, Micamberlecto. The Frozian explained that he was largely ignored by the native populations of Corellia, as the absence of a tyrannical Empire had left them without the obligation to obey. Furthermore, the three primary races comprised the population were forming various alliances and enemies on the Five Brothers and made factions difficult to discern. The Solo family played sightseers for a while, waiting for the tipping point, and Ebrihim took them to a vast archaeological dig, manned by a staff bearing similar uniforms to the Human League. The dig was allegedly for the purpose of uncovering historical artifacts, but the cover story was thin. During a guided tour, little Anakin, using his special Force-sensitivity, sneaked away from the group, followed by his siblings, and found a secret pyramidal chamber, as of yet undiscovered by the diggers. The three children covered the vault entrance back up and rejoined their parents, without telling them of their discovery. Upon their return home, Han ushered his family ahead to Corona House, Micamberlecto’s residence and site of the upcoming summit. He doubled back to the villa and weeded out Lt. Kalenda, whom he had discovered was spying on them. He brought her food and instructed her to be on call for any potential trouble. Meanwhile, Lando’s next suitor lead him to Sacorria, an outlier world of the Corellian sector. Lando liked the new woman, Tendra Risant, enough to set up a future rendezvous with her before he and Luke were abruptly kicked off planet by the local government for unknown reasons. Lando considered his search concluded, so they started to make their way towards Corellia to meet up with the Solos. On the night of the trade summit at Corona House, everything came to a head. Mara Jade arrived with the encoded message, addressed to Leia. It was from the Hidden Leader, informing them that if his future demands were not met, he would begin to trigger supernova explosions within a number of stars in the Corellian system. Included were coordinates for those specific stars and the last on the list was Corell itself. The message was deemed credible since the first star on the list already had gone nova sixteen days prior. Hours after the message was decoded, uprisings all over the system began simultaneously. Corona House was attacked, and in the ensuing carnage, Han escaped to assist Lt. Kalenda in getting off-planet to deliver a distress message back to Coruscant. She stole a ship with the help of his explosive diversion, but Han was captured. Chewbacca grabbed the kids and flew the Falcon away in the company of Ebrihim, but his hyperdrive was damaged in the escape attempt. They decide instead to attempt to reach Drall at sublight speeds. Leia alone remained trapped in Corona House, awaiting demands. The following morning, the Hidden Leader made his first public appearance on holovid, revealing himself to be Thrackan Sal-Solo, Han’s sadistic cousin. He declared secession from the New Republic and demanded deportation of all non-human species from Corellia. Luke and Lando are abruptly yanked out of hyperspace at the edges of the Corellian system by an interdiction field, the largest known one in history. The field prevented any rescue attempts from outside forces, but helpless to do anything else, they immediately turned around and started the journey back to Coruscant to get help. + +In the heart of crime-ridden Hutt Space, a Jedi Scholar searches for justice. While trying to obtain the coordinates of a secretive, peril-packed, but potentially beneficial trade route, a novice Jedi is killed--and the motive for his murder remains shrouded in mystery. Now his former Master, Jedi archivist Mander Zuma, wants answers, even as he fights to erase doubts about his own abilities as a Jedi. What Mander gets is immersion into the perilous underworld of the Hutts as he struggles to stay one step ahead in a game of smugglers, killers, and crime lords bent on total control. + +Anakin Solo is now eleven--and headed for the Jedi academy! The Force is very strong with him--he can feel it. And his uncle Luke thinks it is time for him to start his training. On his first day at the Jedi academy, Anakin makes a new friend named Tahiri. The Force is with her too. Soon they find out that together they can accomplish feats that surprise even their teachers. But the teachers don't know what else Anakin and Tahiri do together. Every night, they both have the same dream of going down the river by the Academy on a raft. In the dream, they are drawn by the Force but for all they know, it could be the dark side! There is only one way to find out for sure. They have to go down the river all by themselves--for real! Anakin Solo arrives on Yavin 4 on the eve of classes starting at the Jedi Praxeum. Luke Skywalker welcomes him, and he meets another student named Tahiri. That night Tahiri has a nightmare about traveling in a raft down a river on Yavin 4, but then falling out of the raft and starting to drown. It is a recurring dream for her and she now recognizes the location as the jungle moon she is on. A new part of the dream is the appearance of Anakin. In the morning Tahiri tells Anakin about her dream, and his presence in it. Tahiri suggests the two off them sneak off and raft down the nearest river, but Anakin declines. They then go to classes which covers levitation of objects. That night, Tahiri rests peacefully, while Anakin is now plagued by the nightmare that Tahiri had been having. Come morning, Anakin has changed his mind and agrees to raft down the river with Tahiri, but they need to plan a way to sneak out of classes to do so. They then attend classes, but begin planning for the next day. Anakin starts to hear a voice telling him where to find a raft, and how to sneak out of the temple. He feels the voice is coming from an old Jedi Master. He falls asleep and has the nightmare once more, but this time Artoo is there as well. The next day, he and Tahiri attract Artoo's attention, then sneak out of the Praxeum with the droid, doing as the voice Anakin hears instructs them. However, once they are all on the raft, a storm suddenly appears, and Tahiri is tossed from the vessel. Unable to swim and caught in the rolling waves, Tahiri starts drowning. Fortunately, Anakin is able to save her with Artoo's help. They jump to the shoreline and levitate Artoo to them. Trying to find shelter in the storm, they stumble upon the Woolamander Temple. Tahiri goes exploring and finds a stairwell leading down. Anakin warns her not to go down there, but she ignores him. Feeling the need to stay with her, Anakin follows, leaving Artoo behind. They eventually stumble onto a chamber with Massassi writing and a large golden globe in it. Anakin and Tahiri feel pain and agony of trapped people coming from within it. They then see a small creature at the base of the globe. They wake it up, and it starts saying ‘Ikrit’ again and again. They can’t get close to the globe though, and when Anakin checks the time and realizes that he and Tahiri have been gone for far too long, they leave the globe behind and head back up the stairs with Ikrit, and then back to the Praxeum since the storm is over. Luke is waiting for them and they get into some trouble, and are sent to the dormitories. That night Ikrit comes to Anakin’s room and explains that he is a Jedi Knight and arrived on Yavin 4 four hundred years previously. He couldn’t do anything about the golden globe, so went to sleep until someone who could help would arrive. He tells Anakin that the problem with the golden globe can only be solved by a child, so he and Tahiri must not tell Tionne or Luke about it. Anakin agrees to help, and to keep it a secret. + +Prior to her training at the Jedi Praxeum, Tahiri Veila had lived with the dangerous Tusken Raiders in the deserts of Tatooine. The young Human remembers nothing of her parents and how she came to be with the Sand people. Despite this, she knew the day would come when she would learn about her past. At last, it has come! Before she and Anakin Solo could learn how to break the curse of the Golden Globe, the Sliven--leader of the Tusken tribe--that raised her demanded that Tahiri returned to Tatooine. But first, she will have to prove that she is worthy. This includes fighting a deadly krayt dragon that will test her skills as a Jedi. Both companions will have to use the Force as never before. If she succeeds, she will learn who her parents were and will be able to free the trapped souls within the Golden Globe. However if she fails, both will perish. + +Anakin Solo has been having terrible dreams of a secret cave on Dagobah. He asks his uncle Luke Skywalker if he can go there, to see if it is real. Luke agrees on the condition that Tahiri Veila, R2-D2, and the ancient Jedi Master Ikrit accompany him. Anakin and his friends encounter more danger than they bargained for in the swamps of Dagobah. But they do find the cave. But what lurks inside? Will Anakin be strong enough in the Force to face it? + +Anakin Solo, Tahiri Veila, Ikrit, Uldir Lochett and Tionne have just learned an incredible secret! The Sith Lord Darth Vader had retrieved Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber following their duel at the Death Star I and stored it at the Bast Castle on Vjun. The Jedi travel to Vjun to find the castle and the lost artifact. Unknown dangers lie ahead for this group of Jedi since no one knows what lies within the castle. In the past, Bast Castle had been a stronghold of the Galactic Empire. + +Anakin Solo's fellow trainee Uldir Lochett desires to be a Jedi Knight. However, despite his optimism, he lacked obvious Force sensitivity. In his own later, rueful opinion, all he had were good hunches, a whisper-like ability to sense when the Force was being used, and a habit of causing trouble. He believes that his key to being a Jedi Knight is from a Holocron retrieved from his previous adventure at Vjun. Worse, having being deceived by Mage Orloc during the previous adventure, he steals the Holocron along with Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber and travels to find Orloc. In response, Anakin, Tahiri Veila, Ikrit, and Tionne must find Uldir or he might be killed. They must also prevent the two precious artifacts from falling into Orloc's hands. + +There is a meeting between Talon Karrde and Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker. Karrde's people had earlier picked up an urgent transmission, addressed to Luke, coming from Admiral Voss Parck on the planet Nirauan. Before the message could be passed on, however, it had been stolen by a member of Karrde's own organization, one Dean Jinzler. Fearing that the message might be somehow connected with the unknown menace Parck and Baron Soontir Fel had warned them about two years previous. Luke and Mara decide to head out to Nirauan. There, they learn that the message had in fact come from Chiss Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano. The Chiss have found the remains of the pioneering Jedi expedition, Outbound Flight project, which had been mercilessly destroyed by Grand Admiral Thrawn many years previously. Now the Chiss wish to hand over their find to the New Republic, and Luke and Mara join the odd group, which includes a squad of stormtroopers from the 501st, a remnant of an alien people, the Geroons, who owe a strange debt to the people of Outbound Flight, and a false New Republic Ambassador, all of whom will visit the site of the tragedy. As they voyage on the Chaf Envoy deeper into Chiss space, through a treacherous cluster of stars known as the Redoubt, Luke and Mara grow more uneasy. Occurrences of sabotage and theft only serve to deepen their suspicions. On top of that, Mara begins to feel torn between her duty to the New Republic and her troubled respect for the Imperial Remnant. The expedition reaches its destination: the remains of the Dreadnaughts that made up the Outbound Flight project. Not only are the ships fairly intact, but Mara can sense life. There are survivors, possibly hundreds of them. Suddenly, everything comes together in a whirlwind of events. The supposedly peace-loving Geroons are revealed to be the bloodthirsty Vagaari, who desire revenge against the Chiss and Outbound Flight for their defeat at the hand of Grand Admiral Thrawn years before. Luke, Mara, the Chiss, the Imperials, and the embittered survivors must now work together against the Vagaari if any of them are to come out alive. They manage to defeat the Vagaari, who in turn sabotage the Chaf Envoy and commandeer one of the Dreadnaughts. The Vagaari then head back through the Redoubt to attack the Chiss command center, leaving Luke, Mara, and the others practically stranded. Following the welcome discovery of a Delta-Twelve Skysprite, however, Luke and Mara are soon pursuing the rogue Dreadnaught. They catch up to it and make their way aboard. They find out that the main Vagaari colony ship is actually a starfighter carrier that is beginning to overwhelm Chiss defenses. Using a fake signal, Luke and Mara trick the Vagaari into believing the Dreadnaught to be a friendly ship. However, Luke and Mara use the Dreadnaught under their control after a showdown with a droideka and the fanatical Vagaari Estosh, to aid the Chiss fighters and to defeat the other Vagaari forces. The survivors are entrusted into the care of the Empire of the Hand, and Luke and Mara finally have time to settle down and enjoy their marriage. But one disquieting thought occurs to Mara: the whole affair, resulting in a resounding victory for the Chiss, feels too much like something orchestrated by Thrawn, a master at manipulating his allies and enemies alike. When Luke objects that they inadvertently killed the clone of Thrawn beneath his base on Nirauan, Mara counters that it was possible, even likely, for Thrawn to have prepared other clones and scattered them around the Unknown Regions. + +After spending a month of training to become Jedi Knights at Luke Skywalker's Jedi Praxeum, Jacen and Jaina's father Han Solo arrives on Yavin 4 with gifts for the twins and a new Jedi trainee--Chewbacca's nephew, Lowbacca. Along with Tenel Ka--a seemingly humorless warrior girl who befriended them during the past month--the twins and Lowie become fast friends. To help Lowie communicate with his fellow students, Chewbacca and Han give him a small translator droid named Em Teedee, whose mannerisms bear an uncanny resemblance to those of the droid C-3PO. After assembling the T-23 skyhopper that his uncle had given to him as a going-away present, Lowie takes it on a test flight. He spots a shiny object glimmering in the branches of a Massassi tree, and returns to the Praxeum, vowing to return as soon as possible. After missing evening meal, Lowie shares his discovery with Jacen, Jaina and Tenel Ka. The next day the four Jedi trainees set out in the skyhopper to investigate Lowie's discovery. When they arrive at the site, Jacen, Jaina, Lowie, and Tenel Ka discover not just a TIE fighter's solar panel, but the rest of the TIE fighter as well. Somewhat envious of Lowie's skyhopper, and wanting to face the challenge, Jaina believes that the wrecked TIE fighter can be fixed. Scrounging up parts from the remains of the old Rebel base and the area surrounding the crash, the Jedi trainees go about the task of fixing the wrecked fighter. In addition to the repairs, Jaina decides to install an old hyperdrive unit onto the fighter as well. Unbeknownst to the Jedi trainees, their work is being watched closely by Qorl, the pilot who had crashed the fighter during the Battle of Yavin. During the past 23 years he has been waiting the opportunity to return to the Empire and help obliterate the Rebellion. One day while searching for more parts for the TIE fighter, Jacen finds an Imperial insignia that had come off Qorl's uniform. He searches further, eventually discovering what has been Qorl's home for the past 23 years. He rushes back to the site of the crash and warns Jaina, Tenel Ka, and Lowbacca of the pilot's survival. Immediately thereafter Qorl appears, brandishing a blaster and telling the Jedi trainees that they are his prisoners. Lowbacca escapes with his skyhopper and attempts to utilize its bulk in attempting to scare Qorl away. Qorl is unfazed, however, and uses his blaster to critically damage the skyhopper. Lowie flies away and lands the skyhopper. Grateful that it doesn't explode, he begins to make his way to the Praxeum. In the process of getting there, Em Teedee is detached from Lowbacca's belt and has an adventure with a pack of woolamanders. Lowbacca arrives at the Praxeum but no one can understand him because he lost Em Teedee. Frustrated, he recalls that Han and Chewbacca are still nearby, checking out Lando Calrissian's new GemDiver Station. He heads to the Praxeum's communications center and informs Han about the situation. Han tells Lowie that he will be back as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Tenel Ka flees into the jungle. She is then attacked by a number of battle hydras. She eventually stumbles upon a pack of woolamanders, who provide an effective distraction to the battle hydras. In the commotion she hears the voice of Em Teedee crying for help. She rescues him and uses his directional sensors to make her way back to the Praxeum. At the crash site, Qorl marches Jacen and Jaina back to his home at gunpoint. Once there, he restrains them and gives them something to eat. Jaina and Jacen realize that Qorl has had absolutely no contact with the outside world and inform him of the current political situation in the galaxy. The next day, Qorl marches the twins back to the crash site at gunpoint, ordering them to complete the repairs on the TIE fighter so that he may return to the Empire. The twins do so, and he blasts off, vowing to destroy the Praxeum before reporting back to the Empire. Han Solo and Chewbacca arrive at the Praxeum in the Millennium Falcon. Shortly before taking off with Lowbacca to save the twins, Han allows Tenel Ka and Em Teedee to board the Falcon. Once they are airborne, they notice a TIE fighter making a beeline for the Praxeum. Qorl tries to fire his laser cannons, but it turns out that the twins didn't restore them to good working order. The Falcon chases him as he flies out of the atmosphere and escapes, using the hyperdrive that Jaina had installed on the TIE fighter. Once the TIE fighter has made the jump to hyperspace, Han, Chewbacca, Lowie, and Tenel Ka head for the crash site, finding that Jacen and Jaina seem to be fine, though worse for wear. A few days later the Falcon carries the damaged skyhopper back to the Praxeum. Lowie and Jaina immediately begin work on the airspeeder. The four Jedi trainees contemplate whether Qorl made it back to the Empire. + +While on a tour of Lando Calrissian's GemDiver Station, Jacen, Jaina, Lowbacca, and Em Teedee are caught in the middle of an Imperial raid and kidnapped. After being informed of what happened by Lando, Luke Skywalker embarks upon a rescue mission in search of the missing Jedi trainees. Feeling guilty because she was not with her friends and therefore could not help them, Tenel Ka accompanies him. Meanwhile, aboard an assault shuttle that figured prominently in the attack on GemDiver Station, the twins and Lowbacca meet Tamith Kai, the woman who led the attack. The students learn from her that their destination is the Shadow Academy where they will be trained to use the dark side of the Force in the service of the Second Imperium. Once they arrive at their destination, Brakiss, one of Luke's former students and the headmaster of the Shadow Academy greets them and reiterates most of what Tamith Kai told them. Jacen, Jaina and Lowbacca are then confined to their own separate cells. Because GemDiver Station, and by extension Lando's Corusca gem broker, was the only way that the kidnappers could obtain the industrial-grade gems that were used to drill through the station's thick hull, Luke and Tenel Ka travel to Borgo Prime under the assumed names of Iltar and Beknit. They make their way through the seedy spaceport to an even more disreputable bar named Shanko's Hive. Several bribes later, they finally meet Lando's broker, whose professional ethics are tossed out of a viewport when presented with a bribe. Luke and Tenel Ka learn that a Nightsister purchased many industrial-grade gems from him. The pair leave and make haste to Dathomir. At the Shadow Academy, Brakiss and Tamith Kai attempted to sway the three Jedi trainees into using the dark side of the Force. After they disrupted Brakiss's attempts to extol upon the virtues of the dark side of the Force, Jacen, Jaina, and Lowbacca were once again separated. Splitting the training of the new recruits between each other, Brakiss took charge of Jacen and Jaina while Tamith Kai focused her efforts on Lowbacca. Brakiss believed that the best way to indoctrinate the twins would be to give them what they want. Knowing that one of Jacen's desires is to have his own lightsaber, Brakiss gave him one and allowed him to practice with it, dueling the Shadow Academy's holo-remotes. Jaina is made to do the same thing, however, she quits, insisting that she wants to see her brother again. Brakiss informed her that she may see her brother after one more dueling session. During this session, Jacen was brought into the training room. However, both of them were disguised as Darth Vader by the training room's holoprojectors. Qorl, the TIE/LN starfighter pilot who sparked the kidnapping attempt by relating his encounter with the Solo twins to Brakiss after returning to his Empire questioned the wisdom of making the twins duel each other. Brakiss, initially unreceptive to the criticism, decided that Qorl's concerns have merit and orders the holoprojector to be turned off. The twins, both drawing upon their anger toward Brakiss and Tamith Kai to bolster their strength were shocked to discover that they are battling each other. With that the duel ends. Tamith Kai utilized her penchant for sadism in her efforts to turn Lowbacca to the dark side. After Jaina was punished by Brakiss for disrupting his lecture, Lowbacca belied his tendency to be quick to anger. Tamith Kai decided to exploit this anger by subjecting him to unbearable temperatures, flashing lights, ice cold jets of water, and ear-piercing sounds emanated from a hardened sonic generator. She informed him that the only way that he will be able to end his ordeal will be to damage the sonic generator. The only way to do that will be to tap into the dark side. Despite Lowbacca's attempts to project a strong sense of resolve, they end up coming to naught when he gives up and smashes the sonic generator beyond repair. Tamith Kai later rewarded Lowbacca by giving Em Teedee back to him. However, the little droid had been reprogrammed to be loyal to the Second Imperium. "The Empire is your friend," the Em Teedee said. However, the words of the little droid had the opposite effect of what was intended on Lowbacca. The young Wookiee reaffirmed his commitment not to be indoctrinated. On Dathomir, Luke and Tenel Ka told the Council of Sisters of the Singing Mountain Clan that the two of them must be allowed to infiltrate the Nightsisters in order to find the twins and Lowbacca. The Council was at first hesitant to allow them to do so, but a visit by two recruiters from the Great Canyon Clan--the clan of the Nightsisters--convinced them to allow Luke and Tenel Ka to do so. After an overnight journey, the pair made it to the Great Canyon Clan's encampment, passing themselves off as willing recruits for the new order of Nightsisters. After being tested for their aptitude in control of the Force, Luke and Tenel Ka were picked up by a quantum armored supply shuttle named the Shadow Chaser. While aboard the Shadow Chaser, Luke and Tenel Ka were subjected to further tests by Garowyn, the Nightsister who captained the vessel. From Garowyn they learned where they were being taken: the Shadow Academy. Since the course to the Shadow Academy had already been programmed into the navicomputer by Garowyn, it was safe for Luke to hurl her into an escape pod and jettison it. The Shadow Chaser finally reached its destination and reverted out of hyperspace in the middle of nowhere. The Shadow Academy then decloaked right in front of them, its hangar doors opening. After yet another sadistic exercise, Jacen decided that it was time for him to escape from the Shadow Academy with Lowbacca and his sister. He broke out of his cell and freed his sister and his friend. Despite his new-found loyalty to the Second Imperium, Em Teedee helped them escape as well, but in the process set off an alarm which alerted Qorl, and in turn, Brakiss and Tamith Kai to the escape attempt. The Jedi trainees made their way to the hangar where a recently arrived vessel had landed. They were surprised to see Luke and Tenel Ka exit the vessel. They got into the Shadow Chaser while Luke and Tenel Ka went about the task of closing the doors to the hangar bay. In the process of doing so, Luke and Tenel Ka encounter a squad of stormtroopers, as well as Brakiss and Tamith Kai. The threats are dealt with but the docking bay's space door will not open for them. However, Qorl, believing that the new recruits have been more trouble than they are worth, decides to let them go free. The Shadow Chaser vanishes into hyperspace as recriminations fly between Brakiss and Tamith Kai. Back at Luke's Jedi Praxeum, Lowbacca and Jaina set about the task of creating a schematic of the Shadow Chaser, which her mother allowed Luke to have. Meanwhile, Jacen tells Luke that his time at the Shadow Academy taught him that he is not ready for the responsibility that comes with having a lightsaber of his own. Luke ominously predicts that because Brakiss is intent on forming a new order of Dark Jedi, Jacen might have to develop that responsibility all too soon. + +Jacen and Jaina Solo have returned to their home on Coruscant to take a month-long vacation from the strenuous curriculum of their uncle's Jedi Praxeum. Accompanying them are Tenel Ka and Lowbacca as well as Em Teedee, the young Wookiee's droid companion. The day after their arrival, Jacen and Jaina invite Tenel Ka and Lowbacca to meet their friend Zekk, an orphaned street youth. Ater an eventful meeting with Zekk, the five of them descend into the undercity of Coruscant, where Zekk has taken up the career of a scavenger--finding lost or abandoned objects for fun and profit. During this particular excursion, Zekk leads his friends to a the nest of a hawk-bat that he had scouted out earlier. Jacen, wanting to help his friend out, uses his ability to communicate with animals to get one of the hawk-bat's eggs. They manage to get back to the apartment that Zekk shares with his friend Peckhum, but not without a a hazardous encounter with the Lost Ones--a gang of detestable juvenile delinquents led by a bully named Norys. Over a meal of stormtrooper rations at the midlevel apartment which Zekk shares with Peckhum--an old spacer who took him in when he was orphaned--Jaina invites Zekk to a diplomatic banquet being held at the Imperial Palace in honor of the new Karnak Alphan ambassador two days later. Zekk accepts the offer and spends the next day buying new clothes so that he may look respectable when attending the banquet. The day after that, Zekk arrives at the Imperial Palace and is greeted by the Solos' protocol droid, who informs him that his clothes are extremely out of date and tries to comb out his hair. Zekk keeps to himself during most of the ceremony, deathly aware that he is out of place. Zekk's embarrassment becomes a nightmare when he mistakes a bouquet for a salad and after consuming it, makes a complimentary statement regarding its deliciousness. Zekk utters not one word for the rest of the evening and takes off from the Imperial Palace. After exiting he wanders the city's lower levels in a haze, until he encounters a woman who asks him for a moment of his time. He refuses, but he is restrained by her accomplices. She then scans Zekk with a strange device. After he refuses to come with her, Zekk is stunned and abducted. Zekk regains his consciousness in a cell and is greeted by a man who identifies himself as Brakiss. Brakiss apologizes to Zekk for Tamith Kai's enthusiasm and informs him that he is a Force-sensitive. Brakiss then begins the process of convincing Zekk to train at his Shadow Academy, showing him his potential, turning him against his friends, and asking him if he wants to be more than a mere trash collector for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, Jacen and Jaina are worried sick about Zekk. They repeatedly try to comm him but are unsuccessful in their efforts. Eventually, Peckhum--who is off duty from his job as a caretaker of one of the Orbital Solar Energy Transfer Satellites--shows up at their door asking them where Zekk went off to. To Jacen and Jaina this a sign that something serious has definitely happened to Zekk. Jacen and Tenel Ka set off into the undercity to see if they can find Zekk while remaining in constant comlink contact with the twins' younger brother Anakin and C-3PO. Meanwhile, Jaina, Lowbacca, Chewbacca, and Em Teedee join Peckhum for a flight up to the OSETS that he is charged with keeping an eye on to see if they can effect a number of repairs to keep it from breaking down entirely. While making their way through the undercity, Jacen and Tenel Ka find Zekk giving a speech to number of unusually subdued Lost Ones. They discover the reason for this when Tamith Kai appears after they confront Zekk and ask him what he is doing. Jacen and Tenel Ka are stunned and left behind. While they are aboard the OSETS, Jaina and Lowbacca take the opportunity to chart the debris that surrounds Coruscant--a project that they had been working on after they had learned that a shuttle named the Moon Dash had collided with something in the orbit of Coruscant. While she is taking a break from her task, Jaina views images of an earlier incident that had occurred near Coruscant when the bulk cruiser Adamant was hijacked by an Imperial strike force that had seemingly materialized out of nowhere. She puzzles over the problem presented by the presence of short-range fighters--that are not equipped with hyperdrive--during the raid. Lowbacca--who has been charting space debris all the while--notes an odd anomaly--an area of space impossibly devoid of any debris whatsoever. At the same time, Jaina is commed by Jacen, who tells her that the Shadow Academy is carrying out operations on the surface of Coruscant. Believing that all of these discoveries are not a coincidence, Jaina tells Peckhum to focus the light reflected from the mirrors of the OSETS upon the anomalous area of space as a fleet of New Republic ships descends upon that same area. However, the fleet is not fast enough and the Shadow Academy escapes, leaving behind a message pod. The message pod is taken down to the surface of Coruscant and opened by Jaina. Its contents consist of a central multitasking unit that Zekk had wanted to give to Peckhum and a message for his former friends, stating his reasons for wanting to be trained at the Shadow Academy. The Jedi trainees and especially Jaina feel a great deal of despair due to Zekk's choice. Their vacation is cut short and they are whisked away back to Yavin 4 by Luke Skywalker so that they may prepare for the struggle that lies ahead. + +Boba Fett has just chased down another bounty, a Rodian art dealer who sold fake works to Gebbu the Hutt. Meanwhile on Nar Shaddaa, Nom Anor, posing under the alias Udelen, recruits a Mandalorian named Goran Beviin to assassinate a politician named Tholote B'Leph on Ter Abbes, a grim industrial planet off the Perlemian Trade Route. Beviin quickly realizes that if the man is killed it will trigger a civil war, but even after he voices his misgivings to Fett he still carries out the mission. Nom Anor notes that Beviin did an efficient job of removing the target and plans to meet Fett for the second time on Mandalore and the capital city, Keldabe. Nom Anor notes that Mandalore is already on his list of a world that will be harder to subdue. Anor arrives on the planet, again under the alias of Udelen and provides Fett with the location of a rendezvous where he and a select number of Fett's troops are to meet. Anor plans to reveal his true nature to Fett as the location lies along the main invasion route the Yuuzhan Vong will take into the galaxy. As the Mandalorian fleet awaits the arrival of their client, Beviin becomes impatient and scouts around for Udelen. He soon encounters what he assumes to be an asteroid, but is actually a Yuuzhan Vong ship. Unsure of what to make of their new arrivals, the Mandalorians enter battle formation and wait. Soon though, Nom Anor makes contact with Fett and asks him to board the lead ship for a face to face meeting. Once aboard the miid ro'ik warship Fett orders Beviin to discreetly gather any samples he can, while Fett runs scans with his helmet. While touring the ship, Anor explains the Yuuzhan Vong vision for the galaxy and how the Mandalorians will play a part in shaping it and both Fett and Beviin witness first hand the plans the Vong have for the Humans they capture. Anor then gives Fett the plans for the next mission he has planned for the Mandalorians, to secure a landing zone on Birgis, in exchange for their continued service the Mandalore sector will be left alone. Fett knows this is a lie and that the Vong will come for them eventually, and he plans to ensure he's ready when that day comes. Fett plans to use the inside track he now has to do as much damage to the invaders as possible; while he appears to help them he will do all he can to hinder them at the same time. Nom Anor amends his report, now believing that enslaving the Mandalorians is the best way of dealing with them. One week after the invasion of Helska IV, the Mandalorians assault the spaceport on Birgis. Fett, Beviin and Cham, another Mandalorian warrior spearhead the assault. Fett hopes to use this moment to pass on vital intel to the New Republic. Passing the intel on to a pilot during the assault, Fett only hopes that the Republic won't blow their cover. Typically, the Yuuzhan Vong leave no survivors at the spaceport. New Holgha, however, the Vong's next target remains unevacuated, the Republic hasn't acted on the intel, obviously not trusting its source. With the planet´s defenses sabotaged and its troops relocated elsewhere, the world falls without a serious fight. Instead, the Republic diverted troops to Pedd 4 and now New Holgha suffers. As Fett observes a miid ro'ik digest everything around it for fuel, he is reminded of the Sarlacc. As he contemplates a better and more reliable way to pass intel to the Republic, a Vong warrior asks him to assist in killing a Jedi. While Beviin stalls the Vong, Fett and a few others subdue the Jedi, who is skeptical at first, but then believes Fett and agrees to take the information off planet. As the Jedi leaves for his hidden ship, Beviin arrives, followed by the Vong warrior. When he asks what happened to the Jedi, Fett and the others kill him, with Beviin using his crushgaunts to kill the warrior. While the others collect samples from the dead warrior, Beviin scalps him for a trophy. Briika, a Mandalorian female warrior, is fatally wounded in the encounter and dies when she reaches Slave I. Beviin, keeping a promise he made to her, adopts Dinua, Briika's daughter as his own child. Nom Anor lays plans to accelerate the coming invasion of Mandalore, believing that the reports of the Mandalorian savagery have been greatly exaggerated. He still plans to use them, by keeping them undercover from the rest of the Vong warriors, but ultimately he plans to erase their culture from the galaxy. Fett, traveling across Mandalorian space reflects that his plan is so far working fine. The Republic believe the Mandalorians are in league with the Vong, while his own engineers are working on weapons designed specifically to fight them. Then an X-Wing drops into pursuit course, but when it makes contact through one of Fett's own intel nodes, he stays his trigger finger. The Jedi he saved on New Holgha, a man named Kubariet asks to meet face to face. Working with New Republic Intelligence, Kubariet confirms that Fett has a deal, the Mandalorians will continue to masquerade as Vong mercs while at the same time passing intel to the Republic. Before he leaves, Kubariet asks if Fett will spare a few of his best commandos to act as a kind of new Cuy'val Dar to train planetary militias to fight the Vong. Kubariet gives Fett a secure datachip; if he wants to pass on intel then he can only do it through the Jedi, in return Fett hands over 'spare parts' he's collected from the Vong. When Kubariet asks if there's anything more he can do for him Fett tells the Jedi he was saved by Brika. + +Leia Organa Solo rides on the Jade Sabre. She, Jaina Solo, and Mara Jade Skywalker are going to Rhommamool to speak with its leader, Nom Anor. Rhommamool and its neighboring planet, Osarian, are on the brink of war. The Osarians don’t want Leia to go to Rhommamool, because they figure that it would rally support for the planet, which they consider their enemy. As a result, they send some Z-95’s out at them. The Jade Sabre is originally going to just evade the attackers, when Wurth Skidder, a Jedi who is staying on the Mon Calamari cruiser Mediator, which is between the two planets, comes out and destroys them. It is clear that it was mostly just so that he could have some fun. Leia is furious. A protocol droid, C-9PO, is captured by the Red Knights of Life on Rhommamool, and destroyed along with many others at the Square of Hopeful Redemption, with Nom Anor looking on in amusement. At ExGal-4, on the planet Belkadan, Yomin Carr, a Yuuzhan Vong agent, is waiting for the invasion to begin. When Carr sees the blip he was waiting for, he disables the communications of ExGal-4 and contacts Nom Anor, letting him know that the invasion has been initiated. On the way back, he picks up a beetle, a creature that he had brought, hoping that it would spread; indeed, it is spreading quickly. The other scientists discover the blip and think that it is an asteroid, because it is not transmitting any signals. A crew member suggests contacting ExGal Command, but they decide against the action as the blip could be an object from their galaxy that just rebounded back in. Carr is instrumental in having them arrive at this decision. Nom Anor sits more than halfway across the galaxy, excited to have heard from Carr that the move forward has begun. Luke Skywalker and Jacen Solo meet with the New Republic Advisory Council, headed by Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya on Coruscant. Luke is hounded by some councilors because some Jedi are playing law keeper too strongly. Luke suspects that their complaints are because Jedi are giving smugglers a hard time; he suspects that some councilors have illegal dealings with them, thus, when Jedi attack the smugglers, it affects the councilors. Luke and Jacen discuss their differences of opinion of what the Jedi should be, and whether or not the Jedi Council should be re-established. Nom Anor discusses with his underlings, explaining that he’s behind Mara’s disease. He hopes to learn how Mara was doing at this meeting. The meeting is terrible for Leia; Nom Anor is terribly rude to her. They leave. Anor instructs his underlings to see to it that their departure takes them by the Square of Hopeful Redemption. The protagonists share their opinion of Nom Anor, and show their reaction as they fly over the Square of Hopeful Redemption. Han Solo and Anakin Solo are trying to fix the Millennium Falcon, which Anakin damaged by trying to show off and be like Jaina. Han and Luke discuss the meeting and Lando Calrissian’s whereabouts with the council. Luke thinks if he could get someone from the Outer Rim’s thoughts and insights, he could use that to get the councilors to see his point of view. The scientists at ExGal-4 track the 'asteroid' to the Helska system. With its current vector, it will collide with the fourth planet in that system, which is made of ice. At this point they try to contact ExGal Command. It doesn't work. The extragalactic asteroid is actually a living worldship, led by Prefect Da'Gara. Tu Shoolb tells the Prefect that he'd been consulting his yammosk, the worldship's genetically engineered war coordinator. It is anxious to begin. The ExGal scientists detect a tail on their extragalactic object. They reason that it must be a comet. Only Yomin Carr knows the truth. He does something that will destroy the planet. Prefect Da'Gara and the 5,000 that are on board prepare for landing, and put on their protective ooglith cloakers and gnulliths, which help them to breathe. They follow the yammosk down into the ice to establish a base. The ExGal-4 scientists see the comet impact with the fourth planet of the Helska system; to their surprise, there is no explosion. They want to contact ExGal, but the communications were not operative yet. They considered taking their unreliable ship, Spacecaster, to send a communication, but decide to wait. Leia and Jaina are in the cockpit of Jade Sabre, near Coruscant. Mara is tired, so Jaina is piloting alone. Leia thinks of Nom Anor, and attempts to contact again. There is a huge Mon Calamari Star Defender, the Viscount, newly commissioned by the New Republic. Since they are nearing Coruscant, Leia goes to get Mara, as she requested. The disease has attacked Mara's womb this time, which greatly disturbs her. Jacen talks to Anakin, who is constantly practicing with his lightsaber, saying that Jedi are not to use the Force to right every wrong, and not to use the Force to gain glory for themselves. They decide to spar, to see whose philosophy wins out in a fight. Despite not practicing with the saber nearly as much as Anakin, Jacen wins out. Jacen then goes to see how Han and Chewbacca are faring. He finds Chewie in a very disagreeable mood. Mara meets back up with Luke, and they exchange stories. They decide to take a trip to the Outer Rim. Leia meets with the councilors to tell them of her mission. Han sends Chewie with her. Councilor Fyor Rodan comes out and begins hounding Chewie. Chewie disposes of him by hanging him by his collar on a coatrack. They meet up and inform Leia that they are going on a trip to talk to Lando. Three members of ExGal-4, Danni Quee, Cho Badeleg, and Bensin Tomri decide to go to the ice planet. They ask Carr, but he politely declines. His real reason is that he has orders to stay away from them. He discreetly damages the Spacecaster. He then contacts Prefect Da’Gara, and tells him to beware of Danni. Belkadan will soon be poisoned, yet Carr will survive onplanet, as he’ll have his ooglith cloaker. Yomin goes out with Garth Breise to fix the transmitter. They see some reddish brown beetles. Carr suggests that they may be the source of the problem. They decide to climb anyway. They find the problem. Carr, however, cuts Breise’s rope, and Breise falls to his death. Danni and the other scientists in the Spacecaster see a storm moving toward their ExGal-4 Base. They try to establish contact, but can hear very little. They decide to move on. Nom Anor launches missiles at Osa-Prime. He knows he’ll have to flee, but he does it mainly as a distraction for the New Republic. The Millennium Falcon, Jade’s Sabre, and Luke’s X-wing arrive at Reecee. Leia manages to leave without her Noghri guard, Bolpuhr, noticing. Luke and Jacen talk about re-creating the Jedi Council. Han and Chewie go to Riebold's Foam and Sizzle -- a place where fights, even deadly ones, are not frowned upon, as long as one cleans up after oneself -- to find out about Lando. They find a Sullustan Han knows, Dugo Bagy, and he tells them that Lando is looking for new mining techniques to apply to more profitable areas, like the asteroid in the Hoth system, known as Kerane's Folly, which contains pure platinum. Many have tried mining it, but were killed because of other asteroids. They also learn that Kyp Durron is causing a lot of trouble for the smugglers-Kyp and other pilots, known as The Dozen-and-Two Avengers. ExGal-4 scientists Jerem Cadmir, Tee-ubo Doole, Luther De'Ono, and Bendodi Ballow-Reese leave the base to investigate the storm Danni told them about as she was taking off. They find it; it isn’t a storm. It is a plague, probably caused by beetles, causing a molecular change in the plant life. It fills the air with poisonous gas. They don’t have enough air for all of them to get back. They all sacrifice their air so that Jerem will have a chance of surviving. Danni and the crew in the Spacecaster arrive at Helska IV. They are confused as to why the planet appears to be untouched. They assume that a ball of gas must have been what collided. They detect strange energy from the planet. They begin to circle the planet when they detect hundreds of chunks of debris. They find out that they are ships of some kind. The ships take out the Spacecaster’s ion engines and hyperdrive so they can’t escape, meaning that the attackers know about the workings of their ship. The Yuuzhan Vong send a villip, and Prefect Da’Gara communicates to them through it. He tells them to follow the coralskippers. They refuse, and are shot down. Jerem makes it back to base, only to be killed honorably by Yomin Carr. Carr takes his sample of the deadly gas and the beetle. He could still do as he was ordered -- he would see if the scientists that remained would be able to find a cure of the Plague. Danni wakes up down on the planet. She watches as the last member of her crew, Bensin, as he is killed by the Yuuzhan Vong. Da'Gara says that Yomin Carr demanded honor for her. He throws her down a hole, and he jumps in after her. Luke, Leia, Han, and the others go to visit Lando's new venture at Dubrillion, and its twin, less-habitable planet, Destrillion. They give Jaina a test in Luke's X-wing. They have R2-D2 feed her the wrong coordinates; she arrives just a little ways away. She adapts well and finds her way. They meet Lando again here. He shows them his TIE Advanced fighters he uses to run the belt. They are modified to be very safe, and Jaina wants to run the belt. The Solo kids take part in the run here, all making it on to Lando's board of best times. Jaina's run is outstanding. The plague is spreading at the ExGal-4 base. As the communications are being fixed, Carr re-destroys them, and kills Lysire Donabelle, the person making repairs. Nom Anor and his assistant escape from Rhommamool in a hidden, modified A-Wing. They do considerable damage to the Mon Cal cruiser in the process. Nom Anor contacts Da'Gara, and reports that his next target is Sernpidal. They discuss using the tactic called Yo'gand's Core, which uses gravity to pull a moon and a planet into a collision. Jacen and Anakin argue again about the Force, using Jaina's amazing flight to debate whether it was a result of the Force guiding her actions or the fact that she practiced piloting a lot. Then Kyp Durron walks in to say hello. He is obviously a little upset that Jaina has taken his record in running the belt, but offers them the opportunity to join his squadron, the Dozen-and-Two Avengers. Kyp leaves, and takes off with his squadron; the kids watch the disciplined and high-profile take-off, complete with music. Leia, Luke, Lando, and Mara watch the takeoff, too. Lando then offers to let Luke and Mara run the belt. Lando would have loved to have such names on his leader board, but they don't want to fly. They do, however, get Han and Chewie go together in the TIE bomber, in hopes of beating Moss Deevers and Twingo, a pair of cocky smugglers. When they go, there is a malfunction in the communications and shields. Kyp ponders the future of the Dozen-and-Two. They check for recent traffic. They detect a Spacecaster class vessel coming from Belkadan. They are headed to the Helska system. Kyp sends out a signal for someone to investigate Belkadan, while he takes his squadron to the Helska system. Luke flies into the asteroids to try to rescue Han and Chewie; Luke also has no shields. He finds and rescues them. They were exactly tied with Moss and Twingo when they lost communications, but Lando adds five seconds, so they hold the record for a twosome. Nearly all of Kyp's squadron is taken out by a squadron of Yuuzhan Vong coralskippers in a skirmish at Helska IV. Kyp escapes to hyperspace, along with another A-wing, but Kyp has 3 grutchins on him. Lando asks Han to go to Sernpidal to run some cargo, and Han reluctantly agrees. Luke and Mara go to Belkadan. Kyp’s X-wing has been damaged by the grutchins. He rerouts some power, and began making short hyperspace hops toward Sernpidal, the closest inhabited planet. The Yuuzhan Vong bring a man named Miko Reglia in with Danni Quee. He says that he is a Jedi with the Dozen-and-Two. The Yuuzhan Vong say he is not worthy. Danni and Reglia begin looking for a way to escape. Da’Gara reports to Nom Anor about the attack. He says that he thinks the two ships that had escaped were destroyed. They are now going to begin breaking the Jedi, in order to test the extent of his willpower. More Yuuzhan Vong are on the way soon: one more ship on this day, and one within the week. Danni and Reglia knock out the Yuuzhan Vong that enter their prison chamber, and take their cloakers and breathing creatures. Da'Gara stops them, and takes them to an assembly of Yuuzhan Vong. Another worldship arrives, and Prefect Ma'Shraid enters. They speak through the telepathic war coordinator, the yammosk. Then, they feed Miko to the giant creature. Han, Chewie, and Anakin arrive at Sernpidal, and something strange is going on. The planet's moon is abnormally close. Their ship is raided, and people make off with some of their cargo. They then take off, and do a reading. They find that something on the planet was pulling the moon closer and closer. The item is just east of Sernpidal City. Anakin volunteers to investigate, and the mayor goes with him, while Han and Chewie round up as many people to take on the Falcon as is possible. The planet has less than seven hours until the moon impacts. Luke and Mara arrive at Belkadan, only to find it covered with gas. They decide to land to see if there are any survivors. They go down, and have trouble locating the ExGal-4 outpost, but eventually, they succeed. Yomin Carr readies his weapons as he watches the Jade Sabre land. Luke and Mara land. The ground is covered with dead beetles. They get into the compound, and find one living beetle, but it is slowing down. Mara notices some goo at its mandibles. They search through, and all the computers are still on and working. They have R2 begin downloading everything from the main computer, as they split up to explore the compound. Mara finds the journal of a scientist, and a beetle in a bottle. In the journal, it says that Carr kept saying that the disaster was just a weather pattern. It ends here. She hears a screech from R2 in the other room, and runs there. Artoo is hit by Yomin Carr. Mara rushes in and fights him. She has many surprises from his fighting tactics and equipment, but ends up killing him. Before he dies, Yomin Carr says that she was worthy. They then regroup, finish the download, and take off. Mara’s disease worsens. They think that there might be some sort of connection between the beetles, Belkadan, and her disease. They find two balls there. One of them inverts, and says many things in a foreign tongue. They then look at some of the data Artoo downloaded. They find out that the comet came in the Helska system. They set coordinates for there. Miko struggles. The yammosk doesn't kill him; it just brings him in close many times over again, tormenting him. Danni feels bad for him in his suffering, but is only able to watch. Anakin and the mayor arrive at a crater, and find a living thing inside, the source of the problem. Anakin shoots at it, but it has no effect. The creature then reverses its pull, resulting in it moving deeper into the ground. The Falcon then comes to pick them up. The mayor refuses to go, and instead takes a thermal detonator and destroys both himself and the creature to ensure that it would not harm any other planet. Da’Gara connects his mind to that of the yammosk, and they exchange thoughts. He then contacts Nom Anor. He says that Sernpidal will die this day, but that several ships are escaping. He has dispatched four full battle groups to intercept and follow them to the next planet. There, open warfare will begin. Chewbacca loads two children into the relative safety of the Falcon, and then debris falls onto a shuttle. He and Anakin go to remove it. They succeed, allowing many lives to be saved. The winds are escalating now, as the moon is approaching. Anakin and Chewbacca save another toddler. The Falcon is too high for Chewbacca to get in. He tosses Anakin up to Han. Then, the ground shifts, and Chewbacca is thrown. Anakin rushes to the controls to move the ship to Chewbacca. Just as he is getting into position, the wind knocks a building onto the Falcon. Anakin realizes that if he waits any longer, they will all die. He heads skyward, leaving a helpless Chewbacca on the doomed planet. Luke and Mara arrive at Helska IV. Luke takes off in his X-wing to get a look. His systems are shut down, and he begins plunging toward the planet, caught in some sort of tractor beam. Han is very upset about Chewie's death. He takes his anger out on Anakin, saying that he was the one that left Chewie. Luke fires up his shields, only to have them depleted almost immediately. However, this distracts the beam, and he is able to move back up just a little bit. Luke shoots nine torpedoes and manages to get to the surface safely, but several of the coralskippers begin bearing down on him. He is having trouble escaping in his damaged X-wing. Han decides to go back to Sernpidal for a hopeless search for Chewie, when someone calls for help. Several insects are attacking them. The ship blows up, destroying the attackers, too. Then, Han sees a ship in the distance transmitting a distress signal. It is Kyp. Han calls Anakin for a copilot's help, but while he accepts his help as copilot, he shows no sign of forgiveness. The Falcon breaks from the convoy to get Kyp’s X-wing. Han thinks it is a trap when several of the insects are there and start attacking the Falcon. Anakin rushes to the guns, but can’t get them all, as some are on the hull. He rushes to the power re-routing area, and puts the main cable on the hull. This shocks all of the creatures, and they relinquish their grip. He then goes back to the gun and blasts them. They then attach a tow cable onto the X-wing and bring it back to the convoy. The Jade Sabre comes to pick up Luke's X-wing. They decide to go back to Dubrillion. There are thousands of rock-like ships on Helska IV; with an unknown number on nearby planets. Kyp is indeed alive, and he joins Han on the Falcon and informs him of the situation. They then detect some of the rocky starfighters. They have to get all of the ships, even the slow ones, to Dubrillion. Anakin does some calculations. They will beat the enemy there but not by a broad amount of time. Han is clearly angry. Here, he tries to blame Lando, saying that it’s his fault that he was there. Lando points out that Han saved many lives. He says that he has plenty of guns and ships; it won’t be a problem concerning a shortage of equipment; rather, it'll be a shortage of people to operate them. Leia tries to console Han. The kids sympathize with Anakin. Leia tries to contact the New Republic for assistance. The Rejuvenator is the closest ship with substantial firepower. It is 3 days away. The Yuuzhan Vong ships will be here in less than 2. No-one has heard from Luke. The kids convince their parents to let them commandeer some TIEs. They have to stay close to the planet, where they could use the projected shields. Leia occupies Chewie’s seat as copilot of the Falcon. Kyp flies as a gunner. The battle begins. The outer ships have trouble. Finally, they fall back near the Falcon. The Falcon's screen practically turns red, as the enemy blips are so concentrated. The Solo children start in the atmosphere, where Belt-Runner I can provide shielding for them, as they have been instructed by their parents. When the Belt-Runner I is disabled, they decided that they'd be just as safe here as they are in space. They head up and save a pilot, but as soon as their parents find out, they are not happy. The coralskippers are overwhelming them. They are instructed to go back. Anakin, however, has an idea; they'd run the belt before, so they should be able to outfly the enemy. They go in, and connect their minds and senses through the Force, giving them each extra pairs of eyes and ears. The link didn't last long, though, and Anakin soon finds himself spinning. He pulls the hyperspace lever to avoid being hit. Han and Leia are not happy. They instruct the twins to return to planet as they search for their youngest son. The twins land, and are greeted by cheering crowds. Jacen thinks about their mind connection, and regards the fact that his view of the Force needs amending. Anakin hoped that his siblings are alright; he doesn't want to have caused their deaths. Even though he is alone, he could accept his death, but not the death of Jacen and Jaina. He, too, considers his view of the Force, and considers amending it. The third worldship has arrived. They have tested the planetary defenses. The yammosk will soon spawn, and they will install the new one on either Dubrillion or Destrillion. Also, Belkadan is almost finished with its transformation; they will be able to grow yorik coral there. They are soon ready to begin the second level of conquest perpetuation. Han is furious. They set out, looking for Anakin. Leia senses him- he is alive, at least. Luke and Lando study the coralskipper, which is actually a living thing. Luke then learns of Chewie’s death. Luke tells Lando that he needs to get to Helska IV. He knows that’s where they are. He asks if he had any mining ships that could get through ice; Lando just laughs. Later, when Luke is alone, he heard Anakin’s call; he is alright. He knew that Leia heard it too, and that she'd soon bring him back. Leia and Han find Anakin through the Force. He comes back on the ship. Han hugs him, then scolds him. There is a description of how the mining craft will work here. C-3PO translates the message from Yomin Carr. It says that his work is done for now, and that the movement of the Praetorite Vong is under way. Threepio is then taken to the coralskipper to see what he can learn from it. He learned that it was living, and refueled by eating rocks, which it could spit out for ammo, or as one method of moving. The other method is by the thumb-sized creature on the nose, which works by focusing gravity fields. Luke reasons that the same type of creature was used to pull the shields from his ship in his earlier encounter with them. There is good news, though; some considerable New Republic firepower arrives to help guard. Mara is skeptical about Luke's mining plan. Luke reassures her that everything will be alright. Jacen and Jaina have different plans. They decide to take the mining vessel and its carrier ship, instead of Luke and Mara. They leave a message with R2. The Star Destroyer Rejuvenator's captain, Commander Warshack Rojo, wants to go and face the coralskippers on Helska IV immediately in order to get back to the more important issues of the New Republic. Leia wants to wait six days, when more firepower could be taken out to the system. Rojo is convinced he could handle it, though. Just then, they see the mining ship take off, and R2 comes in with a message. Han is angry at first, but Luke explains that they were Jedi; they would start having many big responsibilities. They then decide to move out, with Han, Leia, Anakin, and Lando in the Falcon, Luke and Mara in the Jade’s Sabre, and Kyp leading a squadron of fighters. Jacen fires off toward the ice planet. He fires a booster jet, and that may have alerted the enemies to his presence. Once he gets into the planet, he feels a cry for help. Jaina is concerned about the thruster jet that Jacen fired. She tries to hide her carrier ship, the Merry Miner. She is not successful, and some coralskippers begin closing in on her weaponless ship. Jacen begins swimming, and sees a base in the water. He senses the strange call near him, up near the crust of the planet. Several other swimmers approach him. Just as Jaina is about to be destroyed, the Rejuvenator came out of hyperspace to her rescue. Kyp Durron called to her asking sarcastically if she needed help. Jacen is waved toward the end of the line. The person in front of him has many tattoos and scars, and only one eye. The people have progressively fewer marks around their eyes, and Jacen figured that he was last. They get to a small room near the crust, and there are two people in there. Jacen recognizes the Jedi Miko, but he wasn't the source of the call. It was the girl with him. He is grunted at, and it is clear that he, as the lowest ranking warrior, is to wait outside as a sentry. Just as they are to take Miko away to kill him, they notice the saber on Jacen's belt. He begins to fight them. Prefect Da'Gara watches the Battle of Helska IV unfold through the yammosk. A battle ensues. At first things proceed well; then, thousands of coralskippers are launched from the planet. Things go downhill; Republic ships are being taken out. Rojo is taking his Star Destroyer down to the planet, but the brilliant coordination of the coralskippers is causing major damage to his ship. Anakin catches on to the tactic. He knows that the ships are somehow connected, like he and his siblings were earlier, through the Force. Jacen fights down on Helska IV. Danni manages to get one of the Yuuzhan Vong’s suits off and send him into the cold water. Then, a thud bug hits her. Rojo has clearly underestimated these forces. The coralskippers take out the Rejuvenator. Jacen is having trouble against the remaining four Yuuzhan Vong. He can defend for now, but cannot concentrate on attacking, or he'll be killed. 2 of the Yuuzhan Vong begin struggling, a Human hand on their faces. Miko manages to get to the Vong's noses, the release point of the cloakers, and then he takes them down into the cold water with him as a last, heroic act against the Vong. Jacen is able to take out the other two. He takes Danni, and the two squeeze uncomfortably into the cramped mining ship. The space battle is proceeding badly. The New Republic forces need to retreat, but Jacen is still on the planet. Just as they are getting desperate, Jacen blasts out of the planet. Jaina wastes no time and picks him up in a very impressive maneuver, and, as if in one action, escapes to hyperspace at the same time. The others follow her. Jacen comforts Danni in the small, cramped ship. The protagonists exchange stories, and they figure out that it was the yammosk that allowed the extremely efficient coordination of the coralskippers. They decide that they have to take it out. They decide to use shieldships, vessels Lando uses on Nkllon, in order to evaporate some ice, thus stealing energy from the planet and destroying it. The commanders of the Republic ranger ships don't want to go in; they want to wait for reinforcements. Luke knows that they need to catch the enemy by surprise, and the way to do that is to go back- immediately. Kyp decides to go with his starfighters. Some ships are lost coming out of hyperspace, as they have to come in extremely close in order to gain the full surprise. The battle begins. When Da’Gara realizes there is another attack, he rushes to the yammosk. He reckons the only reason they'd come back would be to rescue Danni, who may still be on the planet. He is baffled as to the use of the shield ships. The yammosk thinks the tactic is to reflect energy to take out the dovin basals and surface cannons. Da'Gara wants Danni Quee to remain with him. Luke, notices a drop in temperature. Dense fog gives him cover. Jaina is piloting the Jade Sabre with Mara next to her on the guns. She cannot establish a Force link with Han, as he is not Force-sensitive. But he is an excellent pilot, and they fly well together, anyway. She is startled when she makes a run on a coralskipper, and Mara fails to fire; she has passed out. Jaina jumps over to her, and the ship is hit, plummeting toward the planet. Jaina rushes back to the controls, but they keep falling. Luke keeps detecting the temperature dropping. He is dismayed when he sees his wife’s ship falling toward the planet. Leia and Han see it, too. Luke rushes to intercept, and just as he passes under it, he flips over, and fires his repulsors, giving the Sabre a lift, and it re-stabilizes. It is getting very cold. Ice crystals are forming in the atmosphere of Helska IV. It is looking bad for the New Republic forces. Some shield ships are being destroyed. Suddenly, some coralskippers begin colliding. The coordination is clearly lost. Coralskippers begin retreating back to the planet. The planet looked distorted, like they were looking at it through a glass globe. It is the fourth state of matter, the Mezzicanley Wave. Now the ice will begin expanding, and the planet will soon explode. Han has to turn the Falcon around, despite the fact that Luke is still down there, a similar situation, so similar, to Anakin’s retreat from Chewie. He has other lives to save on the Falcon; he cannot put them in danger for Luke. Helska IV blows. They are relieved to see that Luke’s X-wing has escaped. R2 is quite frozen from that chilling experience on Helska IV. The remaining Vong forces are being hunted by Kyp and others. Mara is losing her fight with her disease, and there is nothing Luke can do directly. But he could study the bug that she felt was connected to it on Belkadan. Mara had discussed going alone to Dagobah, or some other Force-fueled place, to meditate on what was happening inside her. Leia realizes what a threat they'd just faced and how much trouble they'd be in if more came. She knows she'll have to take on new responsibilities that she really doesn't want, as Ambassador Leia. Nom Anor is on a small core world, stirring hatred for the New Republic. He knows that there are Yuuzhan Vong warriors running throughout the galaxy, with no way to control them. He knows they would recover, though. Han remembers Chewie here, at the destroyed Sernpidal. He then feels as if the bubble that protects his family is broken, and the galaxy is suddenly a more dangerous place. He now isn’t so confident that Mara will survive. Leia tries to reassure him that she would, though. + +The alien Yuuzhan Vong have appeared throughout the Outer Rim, attacking different sectors mercilessly. Lando Calrissian's planet of Dubrillion is attacked and taken over. Luke Skywalker decides to deal with the Yuuzhan Vong's aggressiveness by mobilizing a select few Jedi for various reconnaissance missions. Luke and Jacen Solo go to Belkadan, Corran Horn and the arrogant Ganner Rhysode are sent to the planet Bimmiel to recover a group of missing scientists, and Anakin Solo accompanies Mara Jade Skywalker to Dantooine for the sake of Mara's rapidly deteriorating health. Luke and Jacen soon find the ExGal facility on Belkadan littered with the carnage of machinery, before discovering a Yuuzhan Vong outpost utilizing slaves as a means to grow their bioequipment. Corran and Ganner also find the group of scientists along with a Yuuzhan Vong outpost whose inhabitants are searching for the remains of a Yuuzhan Vong that died and was recovered by the group of scientists. All the while on Dantooine, Mara is teaching young Anakin ways of the Force previously unknown to the youth. Jacen follows a vision he has, engages in and loses a battle to a Vong warrior on Belkadan, and is taken prisoner and placed in the Embrace of Pain prior to Luke's rescuing him. The two Jedi, sensing trouble on Dantooine, depart the planet. Their foresight serves them well, as they arrive just in time to rescue Anakin and Mara from Yuuzhan Vong warriors who have discovered them on the planet and are hunting the two. The Yuuzhan Vong, chasing refugees fleeing from the destruction on Dubrillion, arrive in force to the planet. The resulting onslaught sees the slaughter of hundreds of the Vong's primary slave invasion force, along with a New Republic victory, though is costly because they lose half of their refugees during the battle. On Bimmiel, Corran and Ganner attempt to rescue two captured scientists. Ganner escapes with the two, leaving Corran to narrowly defeat the two Yuuzhan Vong warriors that appear; Ganner is forced to rescue the dying Corran, who then survives. Shedao Shai, a male Yuuzhan Vong commander, is later notified of the killing of his kinsmen, Neira and Dranae and the stealing of his ancestor's remains. Shai, overcome by vengeance, vows that he will taste the blood of the Jeedai responsible. + +Yuuzhan Vong Commander Shedao Shai's underling, Deign Lian, seems to be quite weak for a Yuuzhan Vong. Luke Skywalker and Anakin Solo set off on a quest to find a rogue Jedi named Daeshara'cor, who was infatuated with Miko Reglia, a Jedi killed early in the war against the Vong at the Battle of Helska IV in Vector Prime. Daeshara'cor plans on destroying the Vong out of vengeance, which would lead to the dark side of the Force, by collecting plans for a new space station with enough power capable of destroying the entire Yuuzhan Vong, similar to that of the two Death Stars, the Sun Crusher or the Eye of Palpatine. Meanwhile, Senator Elegos A'Kla plans to make peace with the Vong by letting himself be captured and meet with Shedao Shai, the current leader of the Vong. After the Battle of Dantooine, the New Republic fights on against the Vong. Jacen Solo, Corran Horn and Ganner Rhysode, along with a few Noghri commandos, travel to Garqi in order to destroy another Vong base. When a fight ensues between the strike team and the Vong, led by Krag Val and their slaves residing at Garqi, the Vong's vonduun crab armor closes in on them and shuts off their air supply because of a certain spore which the crab armor is allergic to. Corran orders the spores destroyed so the Vong won't know what can breach their armor. However, the Vong discover it otherwise and plan to destroy the main source of the spores at the peaceful planet of Ithor. Before the Vong invasion begins at Ithor, Shedao Shai realizes through Senator A'Kla and an underling named Runck Das that A'Kla is friends with Corran Horn, the Jedi who killed Shai's kinsmen on Bimmiel in Dark Tide I: Onslaught. So Shai then kills Elegos by strangling him to death and gives the senator's body parts, coupled with Vong jewels, to Corran in vengeance. When Corran receives the package, he vows vengeance on Shai and plans to kill him. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Deign Lian has ulterior motives in the war as he actually works for Warmaster Tsavong Lah of the Yuuzhan Vong and they plan on Shai's death. Just before the Battle of Ithor, the Jedi and X-wing squadrons, including the Imperial Remnant now lead by Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, plan on a defense against the Vong. The Chiss Expansionary Defense Force joins the New Republic in the war at Ithor, and Jaina Solo meets their leader, Colonel Jagged Fel. Senators from the Republic, including Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya, come to oversee the battle, along with Leia Organa Solo. Daeshara'cor, now brought back from her vengeance journey against the Vong thanks to Luke Skywalker and Anakin Solo, decides to join the battle. When the Battle of Ithor finally occurs, many warriors on the New Republic's side and on the Vong's are killed, including Daeshara'cor, who is mortally wounded by saving Anakin from Vong warriors, and Anni Capstan, a close personal friend and fellow fighter pilot of Jaina's. During the battle, Corran Horn meets up with Shedao Shai via a villip choir and they make a deal: in the next week, the New Republic and the Yuuzhan Vong will temporarily call off the war and then Corran and Shai will duel on Ithor over who gets the planet. The truce is settled immediately, and Anakin listens to Daeshara'cor in a medical unit that it wasn't his fault that she nor Chewbacca, who was killed back in Vector Prime, had died. Daeshara'cor then passes away into the Force. When the fight between Corran and Shai arrives, Luke and Deign Lian are witness to the fight. In the end, Corran kills Shai by impaling his lightsaber in him and the two Jedi tell Lian to have the Vong leave. However, Lian, who has taken Shai's place as leader of the Vong army, orders the entire planet of Ithor to be poisoned to death. When the New Republic realizes this, they destroy Lian and all the Vong on the worldship known as the Legacy of Torment, but not without a price. After Ithor is destroyed, the Jedi are blamed by the New Republic senate for Ithor's destruction, especially Corran Horn, who is deemed the killer of Ithor because of his acts in destroying the planet. Due to the public backlash, Corran exiles himself to his home planet of Corellia and remains there until he is called into fighting the Vong again just prior to the Battle of Coruscant. + +The Yuuzhan Vong War grows worse for the New Republic as the Yuuzhan Vong continue to advance toward Coruscant, the heart of the New Republic, with its latest capture of the information planet of Obroa-skai. And what's worse is that citizens of the galaxy are starting to side with the Vong, becoming a group known as the Peace Brigade. Seeing the Jedi as a threat, the Vong decide to unleash Priestess Elan and her aide/pet, Vergere, to pretend to be defectors from the Vong so she can get close to the Jedi and unleash a spore that will not only kill her but everyone around her, and she is ordered to do it against the Jedi. Meanwhile, Han Solo, with the loss of Chewbacca who died in The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime, separates himself from his family and friends and becomes a loner. Along the way, Han meets up with an old smuggler ally named Roa says he knows someone who is heavily involved with the Vong's plans, whose name, unknown to either Han or Roa, is Reck Desh, another past ally of Han's who was actually good friends with Chewbacca. So Han and Roa meet up with a contact at a space station at Ord Mantell named Fasgo, and Han gets into a fight with a mercenary named Bossk, an old enemy's of Han who hated Wookiees, therefore, he hated Chewbacca. Han, Roa, Fasgo and Bossk are transported to a prison but are freed by Boss Bunji, a smuggler who knew Han and said he owed him a great deal after saving his business with the death of Jabba the Hutt more than two decades earlier in Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi. However, around the same time, Elan and Vergere allow themselves to be captured by New Republic forces on Wayland, and feint attacks there and later on Ord Mantell are meant to prove that Elan and Vergere are indeed on the Republic's side now. However, at the false victory of the New Republic at Ord Mantell against the Vong, Roa and Fasgo are captured by Vong forces, and Han escapes the space station of the planet with several other people and Droma, an alien whose species is called the Ryn, where it is revealed that Ryn are hated by the galaxy. After the feint attack at Ord Mantell, the refugee and New Republic survivors from the battle, including Han and Droma, board the Queen of Empire, a large pleasure yacht whose next stop is at Bilbringi. However, Elan and Vergere happen to have boarded the ship so that when it goes to Coruscant and Elan makes her false treaty with the New Republic and Jedi, she will kill all of the Jedi who meet with her using the spores. Meanwhile, Han and Droma began to form a mutual friendship. Later, the Vong's plans for defeating the Jedi become foiled when a spy for the Vong among the New Republic, who would later be revealed as Senator Viqi Shesh in the Republic, actually believed Elan and Vergere are actual defectors, like the rest of the Republic, and tips off the Peace Brigade. A certain team in the Brigade, lead by Reck Desh, invade the Queen of Empire to capture Elan and Vergere and bring them back to their masters, but when the Vong are quickly informed of it, a battle for the ship takes place between the New Republic and the Yuuzhan Vong. After Elan and Vergere are taken by Desh and his troops, the members of the Brigade strike team are killed by some of Elan's spores and when Han and Droma show up to save the two defectors, Han figures out Elan and Vergere are still on the Vong's side. Elan decides to use more of the spores to kill Han. Fortunately, Han is saved by a device on a survival tool that his youngest son, Anakin, gave him which was made by Chewbacca years earlier, which provides Han breathable air, thus saving him from the spores. Elan, therefore, dies by herself, having failed her mission to destroy the Jedi. As for Vergere, she gives Han and Droma some tears of hers that she states is able to heal Mara Jade Skywalker's disease that is slowly killing her from the inside, which of course was thanks to the Yuuzhan Vong, and Vergere escapes. After the battle at the Queen of Empire, Han vows that he will help Droma reunite with his family, who are one of the many refugees of the New Republic fleeing from the Yuuzhan Vong, establishing the plot for The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse. + +Taking place just after The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial, Han Solo and Droma are still looking for Droma's family across the galaxy. Leia Organa Solo, meanwhile, is trying the best she can to save refugees from the clutches of the Yuuzhan Vong. Seeing that the New Republic needs major help, Leia turns to the Hapes Cluster and tries to convince the people of Hapes and its star systems to join the New Republic in the war against Vong. As for the Jedi, the tears that Vergere gave to Han and Droma in Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial appears to have worked, at least suppressing the disease which is eating away at Mara Jade Skywalker. Meanwhile, Wurth Skidder, one of Kyp Durron's Jedi, allows himself to be captured by the Vong to understand them, and Skidder begins a relationship with one of the Vong's yammosks, which are the battle coordinators for the Vong's coralskippers. Here, it is also revealed that Roa and Fasgo are incarcerated with Skidder under the hand of Chine-kal. Fasgo dies after the yammosk discovers Skidder's true identity and mortally wounds Fasgo in its reaction. During Han and Droma's adventure to find Droma's family, they arrive at the planet Ruan. They free a group of droids from being destroyed by the Ag Corps in appeasement to the Yuuzhan Vong. The New Republic guesses at the Yuuzhan Vong's next attack, and they believe that their next attack would be either at Corellia or Bothawui. As for the Vong themselves, they establish a treaty with the Hutts, but the Hutts, who know that the Yuuzhan Vong can't be trusted, are secretly passing the information to the New Republic about the Vong's attack strategies. Anakin and Jacen Solo travel to Centerpoint Station, to protect against the Vong's possible invasion of Corellia. Only Anakin can activate the Station since he was the one who shut it off several years earlier when the New Republic had problems with Corellia. When the time finally comes for the Vong's next attack, it turns out their target was neither Bothawui nor Corellia, taking the New Republic by surprise in attacking the planet of Fondor because of its shipyards. During the battle of Fondor, the Hapes Cluster joins in to fight off against the Vong with the Republic, and the Hutts openly betray the Vong for the New Republic. Droma's family happens to be at Fondor at the time on an abandoned shipyard, and Han and Droma join into the battle. Wurth Skidder dies during Kyp Durron and Ganner Rhysode's boarding of the Creche to rescue him, Roa, and the other captives. Unfortunately, the battle is effectively a victory for the Vong after Thrackan Sal-Solo fires a beam from Centerpoint Station to take out the Vong and wipes out most of the Hapan Fleet. Prince Isolder, in command of the Fleet, is disgraced by the Hapans, and blames himself after he ignored a warning from Leia when she had a vision of destruction after the Hapans joined the war. Sal-Solo is seen as a hero since the Vong were driven off with heavy casualties. As for Droma and his family, they and the rest of the refugees are shipped off to the planet Duro. Also, it is revealed that Senator Viqi Shesh in the New Republic is working for the Yuuzhan Vong, as she gets a visit from the Vong's own spy, Executor Nom Anor. + +Taking place two months after The New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse, Jaina Solo, who was on a mission with Rogue Squadron in a battle against the Yuuzhan Vong at the planet Kalarba, loses her astromech droid Sparky in the conflict and is forced to go EV; as a result, her vision is slightly impaired for a short time. Therefore, she is sent to the refugee planet of Duro on sick leave to meet up with her family, consisiting of her father, Han, and her oldest brother, Jacen, along with the resident Hutt, Randa Besadii Diori, who was a survivor of the Battle of Fondor. While residing on Coruscant, Anakin Solo is still in guilt over his responsibility for the destruction of the Hapan Fleet at the Battle of Fondor, and Jacen has a Force vision of missing a lightsaber tossed to him by his uncle Luke and letting the galaxy fall to the Vong's clutches, and followed by a voice telling him to stand firm. This leads him to believe that by using the Force any further, he will ultimately tip the galaxy to the Yuuzhan Vong's favor. So Jacen vows to suppress his Force abilities for the rest of his life. He finds that the galactic tipping point in his vision is still falling to the Yuuzhan Vong's side. Meanwhile, it is revealed that, thanks to the healing tears of Vergere and regular relations with her husband Luke, Mara Jade Skywalker realizes that she is pregnant. After the capture of a Vong agent on Coruscant by Mara and Anakin, which ended with the agent killing herself when she found herself tainted by the infidelities of the galaxy's natives, Mara, Luke and Anakin go to Duro to investigate if CorDuro Shipping has any affiliation with the Yuuzhan Vong, and even Leia Organa Solo is head of Settlement Thirty-two's partner, the Gateway Dome. Executor Nom Anor of the Yuuzhan Vong, who survived the events of Vector Prime and is posing as a New Republic scientist at Gateway Dome, unleashes a group of moths that chew on synthplas on Settlement Thirty-two, threatening to expose the refugees there to Duros' caustic atmosphere, leading to an evacuation of Settlement Thirty-two headed by Jacen and Han. The refugees of Settlement Thirty-two are placed in quarantine in Gateway to ensure that the moths do not infest Gateway too. Later, Mara and Jaina figure out that Nom Anor is impersonating a Duro scientist and confront him, only to be trapped under a cave-in while Nom Anor makes his escape. During this time, Jacen goes to Duro's capital orbital city of Bburru to discuss to Vice-Director Durgard Brarun about undelivered supplies to those of the refugees of both Gateway and the destroyed Settlement Thirty-two. Brarun holds Jacen as a hostage, lying to him about being his guest in Brarun's guest quarters, in order to exchange a Jedi to the Yuuzhan Vong to appease them. In the end, the Vong attack Duro. During the battle, though, Leia is captured and meets up with the Vong's leader, Warmaster Tsavong Lah, and Randa is killed by Lah's subordinate, Priestess Vaecta, while trying to protect Leia. Before she can be executed, however, Jacen breaks his vow of never using the Force anymore and saves his mother from the warmaster. Jacen and Tsavong Lah fight, and Jacen defeats him when he once again hears the voice telling him to stand firm and he uses a Force wind to knock the Vong out of a window using the objects of Leia's office that they are fighting in. When the Battle of Duro comes to its conclusion, the Vong have won again, as usual, and the New Republic saves what refugees it could, including Luke, Han, Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2, Droma and his family, and the Solo kids. The remaining survivors are captured, some are sacrificed by the Vong while others are made slaves, and it is revealed that Tsavong Lah survived his fall, but permanently broke his foot and plans to replace it with a living prosthetic. After the Vong find a way to broadcast their living technology to all New Republic tech, Tsavong Lah announces to the galaxy, that if they surrender all the Jedi, or kill them, especially bringing him Jacen Solo, the one who crippled him, alive, the Vong invasion will halt, and they will not attack Coruscant. + +After Warmaster Tsavong Lah of the Yuuzhan Vong proclaims the Jedi to be captured to stop the Vong invasion of the galaxy, Jedi are now being hunted down across the galaxy and are either killed or captured by the Vong, desperate citizens of the galaxy and/or the Peace Brigade. And on Coruscant, the New Republic figures out the Yuuzhan Vong will be taking over Yavin 4, which is where the Jedi praxeum is being held. Anakin Solo disobeys both his Uncle Luke and the New Republic and he goes to Yavin 4 to save the Jedi there. After he fights Peace Brigade forces stationed around orbit of the moon, he reaches the praxeum and he meets up with Master Ikrit and Anakin's old friend, Tahiri Veila. They and all the other Jedi, including Kam Solusar, his wife, Tionne, Valin Horn, and Sannah, have a brief reunion with Anakin's return. But the Peace Brigade attacks the praxeum, kills Ikrit and captures Tahiri while Anakin manages to hijack one of the Brigade vessels with Valin and Sannah and he has the vessel crash a long way from the praxeum. Later, the full Yuuzhan Vong force led by Tsaak Vootuh come to claim the moon finally arrive; they kill the Peace Brigade forces stationed at Yavin 4 and take over the jungle moon. Meanwhile, the rest of the Jedi are picked up by Talon Karrde's company, sent by Luke to save them. But due to Anakin, Tahiri, Valin, and Sannah still on the surface, Karrde and his forces don't leave the Yavin system and decide to play a game of cat-and-mouse with the occupying Vong forces long enough to get the four Jedi off the moon. Anakin, vowing to save Tahiri, leaves Valin and Sannah with a captured Peace Brigade member, Remis Vehn, and a former Imperial TIE fighter pilot, Qorl, who was trusted by Luke years earlier when Anakin's siblings, Jaina and Jacen attended the academy as kids. Anakin then begins a long trek back toward the praxeum. Meanwhile, the Yuuzhan Vong Shaper caste, lead by Master Shaper Mezhan Kwaad and her aide, Nen Yim, decide to begin shaping Tahiri and the whole jungle moon of Yavin 4 themselves, both mentally and physically for Tahiri, into making her think she is a Yuuzhan Vong. Back with Anakin, his long trek takes him into a fight with Vong forces that destroys the crystal in his lightsaber and his weapon becomes useless to him. Another confrontation with Vong forces nearly kills him had it not been for a rogue Vong who saved him and tended his wounds. As the New Republic figures out about Anakin's presence and intentions on Yavin 4, the rogue Yuuzhan Vong reveals he is Vua Rapuung. Rapuung tells Anakin that the only reason he saved him was because the Vong warrior's body chemistry had been physically altered by a Yuuzhan Vong shaper to Shame Rapuung by deforming him, turning him into the Yuuzhan Vong's outcast Shamed Ones society, and he needs Anakin's help to get to the praxeum and shame the shaper further. Since the Jedi praxeum is Anakin's destination anyway, the young Jedi agrees and travels with the Shamed Vong warrior, and along the way, the two develop an uneasy relationship because of their cultural differences that neither finds appealing toward the other. When Anakin and Rapuung finally arrive to the praxeum, Anakin is disguised as a slave for Rapuung and the young Jedi begins to understand the ways of the Vong in his false services to them. Along the way, Anakin discovers a lambent crystal that he puts into his lightsaber as a new blade. And not only does he become one with his old weapon again, but his connection with the lambent makes him able to detect the Yuuzhan Vong in a non-Force sense, albeit as unclear presences. When the Yuuzhan Vong find out that Mezhan Kwaad has been Shaping Tahiri using heretical practices, Tsaak Vootuh and his warriors attempt to take Kwaad, Yim and Tahiri off of Yavin 4 for execution on the count of heresy. Anakin and Rapuung soon find out about this, stop the Vong, and force her reveal to all Vong present about the heresy she committed onto Rapuung because he rejected her love for him. Instead of doing so, she proclaims that there are no gods, thus proclaiming her to be a heretical atheist in her kind, which is forbidden in Vong culture. This fulfills Rapuung's revenge, but Kwaad attacks Anakin and Rapuung, as well as killing her captors, and mortally wounds Rapuung. But the Shaped Tahiri decapitates Kwaad with her lightsaber in her guise as the Yuuzhan Vong warrior Riina Kwaad, but Anakin reminds Tahiri about who she really is and how much Anakin loves her. Tahiri is reminded about who she is but her Vong knowledge stays with her. The Vong of the praxeum proceed to attack Anakin and Tahiri, but Rapuung states that as long he lives, no one will touch Anakin, honoring the young Jedi as a warrior after he helped him. Then Vua Rapuung fights the Vong and dies in the battle, leaving Anakin and Tahiri on their own from the Vong as they steal the ship that was going to take Kwaad, Yim and Tahiri, and escape the praxeum with all the other captured Jedi. They get shot down, but survive. They're chased on foot from the Vong, but they get saved by Talon Karrde and his forces. Corran Horn, returned from his self-imposed exile on Corellia since after the Battle of Ithor in The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide II: Ruin, and Booster Terrik also come along to help Karrde with saving Anakin, Tahiri, Valin and Sannah, as well as Remis Vehn and Qorl. Along with Valin, Sannah and Vehn, all the protagonists get saved from the Vong and return home. In the aftermath, Anakin and Tahiri become valuable assets in the Yuuzhan Vong War because of Anakin's fuzzy sense of the Vong and Tahiri's knowledge of them in the aftermath of her shaping. Nen Yim plans to do heresy of the Vong tradition to defeat the New Republic. The Yuuzhan Vong have a caste known as shapers. The shapers plan on remaking the captured Jedi into Yuuzhan Vong. According to the plan, they will also keep their Jedi abilities--a deadly combination. Tahiri Veila is the only shaped Jedi. The Yuuzhan Vong implanted false memories, their language, and more into her, using a provoker spineray in an attempt to prevent her from remembering her old life. + +With the Jedi students residing aboard the Errant Venture following the Yuuzhan Vong's capture of Yavin 4, Anakin is looking after Tahiri, who is still recovering from the traumatic events she endured in the late Mezhan Kwaad's hands back on Yavin 4. Anakin decides to go with Corran down to the planet Eriadu to collect supplies for the Errant Venture, and Tahiri decides to come along. However, Anakin and Tahiri encounter a Rodian Jedi named Kelbis Nu who is killed by the locals, but before he dies, he utters the word Yag'Dhul to Anakin. Anakin and Tahiri are captured by the authorities, who are anti-Jedi, Yuuzhan Vong sympathizers. But the two Jedi escape the authorities' clutches and leave Eriadu via the transport shuttle with Corran. However, the Errant Venture was forced to make another erratic hyperspace jump to make sure that the Jedi students aboard are safe, as well as respond to a call by Luke Skywalker. So Anakin, Tahiri and Corran's shuttle try to follow through hyperspace as well, but they're pulled out by a dovin basal mine in a Yuuzhan Vong shipyard. They are spotted by the Vong forces, and their transport is destroyed, but not before the three Jedi manage to escape and secretly hop aboard one of the ships. The ship travels to Yag'Dhul as a scout ship for the rest of the armada that the three Jedi came out on, and during the hyperspace jump to the planet, Anakin, Tahiri and Corran take control of the ship by eliminating the warriors and getting the willful help from the Shamed Ones so that when the ship arrives at Yag'Dhul, the three Jedi are able to warn the Givin species about the invasion on their home planet. When they do arrive, the Givin are sceptical about the Jedi's claims, and have them imprisoned until this can be worked out. But when the Yuuzhan Vong invasion at Yag'Dhul begins, the three Jedi are freed to help the Givin, but are lead into a Vong warrior trap by Executor Nom Anor. Anakin comes up with a plan that could have him, Tahiri and Corran escape the Vong's clutches by challenging their group's commander, Shok Choka, into an honor duel. Anakin wins the duel by decapitating Choka, and cuts through the hull of the space station they're on just as the Vong stationed aboard elsewhere the ship begin to breach the station to space. Corran puts Anakin and Tahiri into a locker while he goes to find spacesuits, and with air running out steadily, Anakin and Tahiri share three kisses, figuring that they would die soon anyway. However, Corran returns with the spacesuits, thus saving all three of their lives, and they escape the space station as the battle continues. Meanwhile, Nom Anor, in order to protect his secret cowardice from getting out, uses a blaster to execute the remaining Vong warriors, including Qau Lah, a relative of Warmaster Tsavong Lah, who had all witnessed him turning down Corran's honor duel before Anakin decided to face off against Choka. Later, the Givin win the Battle of Yag'Dhul by default when the remaining Vong forces from the battle withdraw to Sernpidal in order to fend off the New Republic attack there, and thus, the unsteady truce between the New Republic and the Yuuzhan Vong that was made after the Battle of Duro is over, and Anakin and Tahiri's relationship has gone up a new level. Meanwhile, prior to the Yuuzhan Vong's withdrawal from Yag'Dhul to Sernpidal, Jaina Solo is tricked by Jedi Master Kyp Durron, along with all of his other fellow X-wing pilots and the bulk of the New Republic military, headed by General Wedge Antilles, into attacking the Vong shipyards at Sernpidal in order to destroy a superweapon that could be the downfall of the New Republic. But, in reality, the shipyards happened to be where Vong civilians were stationed at, as Jaina would find out when the Battle of Sernpidal ended, and when she would interrogate Kyp for this, he revealed that he did this to make the Vong realize what attacking the New Republic citizens across the galaxy felt. Jaina slaps him for this, and tells him that she wouldn't offer him any water even if it were her spit. + +Jedi sisters Alema and Numa Rar are attacked, aboard the Nebula Chaser, by the Yuuzhan Vong's newest creation, the voxyn, which can hunt down Jedi through their Force presences. Numa is killed by the voxyn, but Alema escapes with her corpse. The New Republic military begins to gain victories in Vong battles on planets outside of Coruscant's solar system, and Lando Calrissian creates Yuuzhan Vong Hunter battle droids that are designed to look similar to Vong warriors to mock them. These YVHs come equipped with weapons powerful enough to destroy the Vong's vonduun crab armor, making them a significant resource in the war against the invaders. Meanwhile, the Jedi learn of this new voxyn threat and, through research done by Cilghal, realize that the voxyn are clones of an original genetically modified beast native from Myrkr. In order to stop it, Anakin Solo suggests, and Luke Skywalker agrees, to send a Jedi strike team to the worldship at Myrkr to destroy the voxyn cloning lab. The idea faced some resistance, mainly from Han Solo who rightly believed that the mission was dangerous and was unwilling to send all three of his children right into Yuuzhan Vong territory. Ultimately, the choice was Luke Skywalker's, who is currently leading the Jedi, who thought that it was their only chance and volunteered himself for the mission. Anakin rejected his offer on the grounds that he was too valuable to the New Republic and the Jedi, as well as being too important and strong for the Yuuzhan Vong to consider taking alive. Instead, Anakin volunteers himself and others follow his lead. Lando gives the strike team two Yuuzhan Vong Hunter droids for assistance. The members include Jaina, Jacen and Anakin Solo, the latter the leader of the whole strike team, and they are accompanied by Alema, Lowbacca, Tenel Ka Djo, Tahiri Veila, Ganner Rhysode, Tesar Sebatyne, Krasov and Bela Hara, Ulaha Kore, Eryl Besa, Raynar Thul, Jovan Drark, Tekli, and Zekk. Lando, acting as a traitor to the New Republic, convinces a Vong force led by Duman Yaght that he has brought them Jedi in exchange for his homeworld's safety. The Vong take the Jedi, but the latter group, after passing behind enemy lines, escape with the help of their YVH assistants, YVH 2-1S and YVH 2-4S, and use the ship they were captured aboard, the Exquisite Death, to reach Myrkr. Ulaha Kore and one of the YVHs are lost during the team's escape, staying behind to hold back the enemy. After landing aboard the Vong worldship where the voxyn are being cloned, called the Baanu Rass, they encounter the captured Dark Jedi Lomi Plo and Welk, who agree to assist them after being freed from the Vong's clutches. Through encounters with Yuuzhan Vong forces several of the Jedi and their remaining YVH assistant are killed. Using their knowledge of the worldship, Plo and Welk guide the strike team, but are perturbed when they discover that the Jedi have no escape plan. In order to escape, they steal the Tachyon Flier, injuring Lowbacca and abducting the wounded Raynar Thul and M-TD in the process. Anakin becomes severely injured during one of their many confrontations with Vong forces and ends up sacrificing himself to hold off the warriors while the remainder of the team goes after the voxyn queen, right after Anakin achieves complete oneness with the Force. Jacen, replacing Anakin as leader, orders the remnants of the strike team to steal one of the Vong's frigate ships and escape the worldship while he kills the voxyn queen, who is being cloned several times to produce the voxyn. With the help of Vergere, Jacen confronts the queen and kills it by confronting it in a basal-comb. However, he is then captured by the forces of Nom Anor and Vergere. On Coruscant, Viqi Shesh, traitor to the New Republic for the Yuuzhan Vong, attempts to kidnap the infant Ben Skywalker for Warmaster Tsavong Lah. Leia Organa Solo senses Anakin's passing and is deeply grieved at the loss of her youngest child. The Yuuzhan Vong invasion on the city-planet begins. During this, Viqi is chased down by Leia after her failed attempt at kidnapping Ben, but Viqi nevertheless escapes and regroups with the Vong. Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker get shot down during the Battle of Coruscant and are almost killed had it not been for the Millennium Falcon saving them. Chief of State Borsk Fey'lya meets his end when Vong forces led by Romm Zqar raid the Imperial Palace and he sacrifices himself with a proton bomb blast, initially in order to kill Tsavong Lah, who, thanks to Vergere, sees through the plan and stays off of Coruscant at the time of the explosion. Fey'lya takes about twenty-five thousand Yuuzhan Vong with him. The adult Solos, Skywalkers, and their friends escape Coruscant, looking, despite the catastrophic loss of the New Republic capital, for a better tomorrow to the war. + +Jaina Solo and the rest of the survivors from the Jedi Myrkr strike team, including Lowbacca, Zekk, Ganner Rhysode, Tenel Ka Djo, Tahiri Veila, Tekli, Alema Rar, and Tesar Sebatyne, escape the Yuuzhan Vong worldship they were sent to in order to destroy the voxyn, Jedi hunters created by the Vong, by escaping in Executor Nom Anor's ship, the Ksstarr. Along the way, Jaina's oldest brother, Jacen, was captured by the Vong and his execution is delayed until Jaina could be kidnapped, due to how much the Vong take it seriously for twins to fight to the death in their culture. The survivors take the body of Jaina's youngest brother, Anakin, so he can have a proper funeral. Meanwhile, back at Coruscant, the New Republic and the Yuuzhan Vong are still fighting, and during the battle, Kyp Durron's X-wing squadron and the Ksstarr join the fray. When the battle is lost to the Republic, the survivors of that battle, including Kyp, Han Solo, Leia Organa Solo, Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker, along with the Ksstarr, all escape the captured New Republic capital planet. The survivors from the battle escape to the Hapes Cluster, which had lost its major Fleet in the Battle of Fondor nearly two years before in the war against the Yuuzhan Vong and is still recovering. The Cluster is now opening itself to refugees in the Yuuzhan Vong War, and on Hapes itself, Prince Isolder has had several assassination attempts on him due to his leading of their loss at Fondor. Queen Teneniel Djo of Hapes is losing her will to live because of the loss of her unborn child during the Battle of Fondor, and former queen mother Ta'a Chume is seeking a replacement for Djo. As for the survivors of the strike team, they all feel through the Force that Jacen Solo is now dead from the Yuuzhan Vong, except for Leia, who is certain that Jacen is still alive, and Jaina, who also strangely did not feel her twin's death. Jaina suspects that her anger and rage over Anakin's death had distracted her sense of Jacen, though she now cares very little of the dark side of the Force. Her reasoning is that because the Jedi and the New Republic dithered during the war, she finds that this has caused very little action in comparison to what all of the Jedi and Republic could have done had they not had, in Jaina's opinion, nonsense arguments over the matters of the war. Jaina finally begins to understand the Ksstarr with Lowbacca and contacts Warmaster Tsavong Lah of the Yuuzhan Vong. She discovers the frigate's nature, she realizes it is in tribute to Yun-Harla, the Trickster goddess of the Vong, since Nom Anor worships Yun-Harla. In an attempt to mock the Vong, Jaina renames the Ksstarr the Trickster after Yun-Harla's nature and how Eminence Harrar and Khalee Lah relates her deceptive talents to Yun-Harla. This would be considered blasphemy among the Yuuzhan Vong's culture if Harrar took this consideration seriously, and may even lead to his dishonorable execution. When the Trickster finally arrives on Hapes, Anakin is cremated and Jaina and Lowbacca begin to find ways to scramble the Trickster 's location. Ta'a Chume, seeing how much of a warrior Jaina is, plans to have Jaina marry Isolder so she can lead Hapes to war against the Yuuzhan Vong. Since Tenenial Djo is too weak to lead Hapes into war against the Yuuzhan Vong and Chume's own granddaughter, Tenel Ka, pledges her allegiance more to the Jedi than to Hapes, Jaina seems to be the proper candidate for queen mother of Hapes. During all this, Jagged Fel of the Chiss Fleet arrives to Hapes to support the New Republic after his failure at the Battle of Ithor early in the war. Kyp Durron becomes a member of Jag's fleet and in order to understand the more, Jaina becomes Kyp's apprentice, despite her disregard for him prior to the fall of Coruscant. In the end, Tenenial Djo dies from poisoning thanks to Ta'a Chume's machinations, and despite the former Queen Mother's attempts, Jaina refuses to become the next queen mother of Hapes. Ta'a Chume's granddaughter, Tenel Ka, becomes the new queen. Jaina's attempts at scrambling the Trickster 's location succeeds in defeating the Vong twice when Hapes is pitted against them, and even results in Khalee Lah committing suicide out of humiliation. + +Wedge Antilles, in command of Fleet Group Three, withdraws from the debacle at Coruscant to the Yuuzhan Vong-held Borleias, intent on re-taking the planet. With a vanguard that includes Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker, Corran Horn, Rogue Squadron, and the Wild Knights under Saba Sebatyne's command, the Star Destroyer Mon Mothma blows through enemy defenses, allowing Lando Calrissian and his YVH-Series battle droids to land on the planet, along with other New Republic troops. With the destruction of an enemy rakamat, the planet is quickly secured. Wedge lands his forces at the site of the old Alderaan Biotics facility and prepares to hold the planet, even with no idea of the state of the government or the whereabouts of his family. Meanwhile, former Kuati senator Viqi Shesh is in Yuuzhan Vong hands, soon to be executed for failing to capture Ben Skywalker. However, she persuades Warmaster Tsavong Lah to let her live by convincing him that his new arm implant is being sabotaged by the shapers and priests. Back on Borleias, Wedge's plan is complicated by the arrival of Councilor Pwoe and his cronies. With the death of Borsk Fey'lya, Pwoe claims to hold the position of Chief of State. He orders Wedge to hold Borleias in a rearguard defense, but plans to negotiate a settlement with the Yuuzhan Vong. Wedge agrees, but only after wresting control of the Lusankya, free reign over all the forces currently near Borleias, and the freedom to have volunteers join his forces. Pwoe begrudgingly agrees, leaving Wedge to his devices as he flees the planet. Wedge and several other key figures, including the Skywalkers, Lando, and Booster Terrik form a group known as the Insiders to set up resistance cells independent of the New Republic to fight the Vong on both conquered and so-far spared worlds. More information arrives to Wedge when Wolam Tser, famous documentarian, and his assistant Tam Elgrin arrive from occupied Coruscant. Little does Wolam or the New Republic forces know that Tam is under Yuuzhan Vong mental control, and is forced to spy for them, controlled by Viqi Shesh. Tsavong Lah responds to the New Republic occupation of Borleias by sending a large war fleet under Wyrpuuk Cha to retake the world and recoup the embarrassment suffered by the Vong there. Wedge plans on a long intensive campaign against the commander, allowing the Yuuzhan Vong to slowly accomplish their goals, but at a horrific price in personnel and material. However, during what was supposed to be an abortive battle, the Lusankya and the Millennium Falcon revert from hyperspace in the middle of the enemy fleet, and Wedge is forced to destroy the Yuuzhan Vong fleet immediately or lose more ships. Fortunately, Danni Quee reports to Wedge that the yammosk coordinators were quickly destroyed, giving the New Republic forces the edge they need to quickly defeat Cha and his fleet. Wedge, however, is highly displeased. Not only did the arrival of the Super Star Destroyer ruin his plan, but it is crewed with politically inconvenient personnel with little competence or experience. Lusankya's master is a mere Commander, named Eldo Davip, on a ship that rates an Admiral commanding it. Han and Leia Organa Solo meet up with Wedge, who recruits them into the Insiders. Their first trip will be to the Maw, to deliver the Jedi survivors of the Mission to Myrkr to safety. The loss of Cha's fleet irks Tsavong Lah, who is also trying to ferret out any treachery from the shapers and priests. Realizing that a more skilled commander is needed, he consults his father, Czulkang Lah, a famous but aged Yuuzhan Vong tactician who currently teaches young warriors. He convinces Czulkang to take a massive fleet to Borleias and utterly destroy the garrison there. At the same time, he also has Nen Yim brought to him to examine his implants for sabotage. While on Borleias, Luke Skywalker receives disturbing visions of the dark side of the Force on Coruscant. He begins planning to journey there, a plan strongly objected to by his wife, who insists on being close to the infant Ben. Iella Wessiri Antilles, freshly arrived on Borleias, offers the services of New Republic Intelligence, including Wraith Squadron in helping Luke. At the same time, Lando puts together a plan to surprise Yuuzhan Vong forces preying on refugee ships. When a Yuuzhan Vong ship interdicts a refugee ship, they get more than they bargained for when they are ambushed by Rogue Squadron and their boarding team faces Alema Rar and Lando's droids. That Vong team is immediately defeated and terminated in the ensuing engagement. Meanwhile, Jaina Solo, Kyp Durron, and Jagged Fel arrive on Borleias from Hapes. As Luke is going to Coruscant, he offers command of his own Twin Suns Squadron to Jaina so she can use psychological warfare against the Yuuzhan Vong by posing as an avatar of Yun-Harla, the Vong's Trickster Goddess. Jag and Kyp join this elite squadron also, and with Wedge's permission, Jaina commences her career as a Yuuzhan Vong goddess. While on a practice run, Czulkang Lah's fleet arrives, and one of the ships launches still living hostages on a ballistic course towards Borleias, dooming them to die as fiery meteors. Thanks to trick flying by Jag, Jaina, and Kyp, most of the hostages were saved. However, Wedge realizes that this new commander is much more formidable than Cha had been. To combat this new foe, Wedge concocts the Starlancer Project, a fake superweapon. Lah is quickly apprised of this weapon via Yuuzhan Vong scouts and Tam Elgrin, who has been spying on Danni Quee, but fails to take an opportunity to kill her, thinking that she does not deserve death. Jaina nearly decides to go to Coruscant with Luke and Mara, who has finally acquiesced and agreed to go with Luke, but Tahiri Veila talks her out of it, telling her that the Yuuzhan Vong place ultimate importance on the Twin sacrifice, and if Jacen is alive, she will be captured and most likely forced to fight to the death by Jaina's presumed dead brother Jacen. Tahiri agrees to go in her stead, leaving Jaina to work things out with Jag and Kyp. However, Jaina remains emotionally distant, isolating herself from others, because the Yuuzhan Vong War had been taking away those whom Jaina loved, such as Chewbacca and her youngest brother Anakin, and Jaina finds that if the war keeps up going as it is, she will be among the dead. She does not want those who love her, such as her parents, her uncle Luke and aunt Mara and others, to grieve deeply for her if she dies, just as Chewbacca and Anakin have died. Wedge launches a test of the Starlancer weapon while the Millennium Falcon begins its ferrying mission to the Maw and, as expected, Yuuzhan Vong forces converge on the New Republic deception. However, Czulkang Lah is not as interested in destroying the weapon as he is in capturing Jaina Solo, and thanks to a tracking creature fixed by Tam Elgrin, he knows which fighter is hers. Jagged Fel, with the help of a pair of Jedi shadow bombs, blows a hole in the interdiction net, allowing Twin Suns to escape, but is cut off in the process. Jaina refuses to leave him, and she and Kyp Durron disobey Wedge Antilles to rescue him. After they landed, Jag asks Jaina why she rescued him, and she tells him that she's tired of everyone leaving her. Jag tells her that he's not going to leave and, in her place, convinces Wedge Antilles that she did the right thing. Czulkang Lah, smarting from his failure to capture Jaina, reluctantly prepares an all-out assault on Borleias, egged on by his son, who is convinced of the danger of the Starlancer weapon. After the close encounter with death in combat, Jaina makes up with her mother upon Leia's return to Borleias, settling a years-old score between them. In the confusion surrounding the launch of the Yuuzhan Vong attack, Lando Calrissian ferries Luke, Mara, Tahiri and the Wraiths to Coruscant, where they descend from orbit onto the planet in disguised drop pods. Though the Record Time is destroyed, Lando escapes in a B-wing starfighter, with YVH 1-1A, back to Borleias. Back on Borleias, Tam overcomes his brainwashing and confesses everything, preventing the Yuuzhan Vong from tracking Jaina Solo. The New Republic forces, despite the advance warning of the assault, are slowly beaten back by the overwhelming numbers and not even the best efforts of Twin Suns and Rogue Squadron can stop the ground outpost from being taken. However, just as the New Republic troops and pilots are completely surrounded, the Lusankya unleashes a punishing orbital bombardment on the massed Vong troops, annihilating the invasion force. In light of the loss, Czulkang Lah withdraws his forces, and the New Republic forces, rejoined by Lando, celebrate the victory. + +Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, and Tahiri Veila have arrived on the recently-captured Coruscant, and on the planet they find a genetically-engineered monstrous Irek Ismaren, who had killed his mother Roganda, masquerading as Lord Nyax. Nyax, his mind having been replaced almost entirely with electronic parts, is bent on opening a Force nexus located beneath the old Jedi Temple. Meanwhile, Tsavong Lah, taking Viqi Shesh's advice to heart, discovers a conspiracy amongst members of the shaper caste and of the priest caste who plan to control him through manipulation of his implant. With the help of shaper Nen Yim, Tsavong Lah discovers the traitors involved, which include Ghithra Dal and Takhaff Uul, and executes them by use of a rancor. Han and Leia Organa Solo are traveling to sectors of the galaxy that are most likely to join the Yuuzhan Vong in order for leniency for their own planets, people, and especially governments. Han and Leia's goal is to make contact with secret resistance cells on each planet in order to support them in making sure that their governments won't align with the Vong, and that they'll also be able to fight the invaders. One particular journey to Aphran IV gets them locked away in a prison cell, which forces C-3PO and R2-D2 to help them escape. Han and Leia fight past the forces holding them and they escape, with the government of Aphran IV unlikely to join the Vong. Back on Borleias, Wedge Antilles continues to operate the defenses there, holding Czulkang Lah's forces off for the majority of the events and increasing Yuuzhan Vong sentiment that both Jaina Solo was the physical manifestation of one of their Trickster goddess Yun-Harla, and that the pipefighters were capable of being utilized as a superweapon to attack Coruscant's defense fleet. Luke, Mara, and Tahiri were able to kill Nyax with the help of Wraith Squadron, but not before he was able to open the Force nexus he'd been after. Following Nyax's death and during the strike team's escape from Coruscant they confronted Viqi Shesh, who had been sent to the planet to help capture them. At the same time Denua Ku, the dying Yuuzhan Vong warrior who'd led the Yuuzhan Vong warriors to find the Jedi on Coruscant, caught up with her. Shesh committed suicide to avoid being captured and, most likely, killed by either side. Upon returning to Borleias the strike team found the Lusankya in a state of horrible disrepair, though this was ultimately part of General Antilles's plan. Using the pipefighters to distract Czulkang Lah's forces from the true weapon, Lusankya was smashed into the Domain Hul worldship, executing Operation Emperor's Spear and fulfilling the objectives Antilles had set for himself and the Borleias defense crew in the war against the Yuuzhan Vong. The final battle of the New Republic campaign at Borleias also sees to the death of Yuuzhan Vong veteran coralskipper pilot Charat Kraal, who had been part of the Vong occupation of the planet since before the New Republic invaded. The New Republic abandoned Borleias following their defensive victory, though they had ultimately gained the government a great deal of time with which to plan their next moves and alliances, exactly what then-Chief of State Pwoe had instructed the fleet to do. + +Jacen Solo is being tortured aboard a Yuuzhan Vong ship. He receives frequent visits from Vergere, who betrayed him to the Yuuzhan Vong after he killed the voxyn queen at the end of the Mission to Myrkr. Vergere begins showing Jacen that there is no dark side of the Force and that the dark side is rather the full power of the Force. During this time, Vergere helps the Vong shape Jacen into one of their own. This process is observed by Executor Nom Anor. Eventually, Jacen is sent to a Yuuzhan Vong seedship, the seedship being for the purpose of forming a new planet for the Vong to have as a home. Jacen is given the task of tending to the non-Yuuzhan Vong workers developing the ship into a planet, and he begins to have a belief that the cruel non-Vong workers need to die after the death of a Devaronian, which those workers caused, who was assisting Jacen in an assignment. At the beginning of his stay on the seedship, Jacen is implanted with a slave seed in his chest by Vergere to connect him with one of the dhuryam of the seedship. During the course of this bond, the dhuryam realizes Jacen cannot be broken and forced into doing work, so the dhuryam resorts to a mutual partnership with Jacen. Soon more Yuuzhan Vong forces arrive at the seedship in order to select one of the dhuryam for a World Brain. The dhuryam would then be able to have complete independence in controlling a Yuuzhan Vong-formed planet, in a ceremonial ritual. But Jacen refuses to join the ceremony. The dhuryam he is bonded to then allows him to take control of the immature amphistaffs and wear them as armor as he goes through the seedship and causes a great massacre that kills Yuuzhan Vong and non-Yuuzhan Vong alike, and further, he makes all the other slaves attack the Vong with immature weapons, which turns out to be as much a danger to them as it is to the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen reaches the dhuryams and kills all of them save the one he is bonded to, for when he is about to kill that one, Jacen believes he sees his late brother Anakin telling him not kill the dhuryam because of their partnership. Vergere convinces Jacen not to kill the last dhuryam, and he falls unconscious. When Jacen wakes up, he finds he is on the Yuuzhan Vong homeworld of Yuuzhan'tar, and thanks to Vergere, who aids him on his trek to the city capital, he realizes it was once Coruscant, now captured by the Yuuzhan Vong. Jacen learns that he can sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force, a result of the slave seed Vergere had implanted in him on the seedship to make him obey the Yuuzhan Vong. He uses this Vongsense to escape Yuuzhan Vong forces on Coruscant. After a confrontation with the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen and Vergere travel underground on Yuuzhan'tar to get underneath what was once the old Jedi Temple that was destroyed after the fall of the Old Republic and the rise of the Galactic Empire. Vergere questions Jacen further as to who he is, while blinding him in the dark of the underground. Jacen states proudly that he is a Jedi, and Vergere tells him that it was all a game and that Jacen has lost. She reveals that he is surrounded by Yuuzhan Vong with Nom Anor. Jacen slips into unconsciousness and unleashes the dark side of the Force upon Vergere and the Yuuzhan Vong. When confronted by a wounded Vergere about it afterward, she argues that there is no difference between the light and the dark sides of the Force: they are both the same. Jacen, shocked at this revelation, leaves Vergere to discover who he is and chases after what he believes to be the spirit of Anakin. However, this is a hallucination and Jacen unwittingly enters a cavern beast. Inside the belly of the gargantuan animal, he hears a voice, crying for help. He tries to shut it out, believing it to be another hallucination. Then, to his horror, he realizes that it has a presence in the Force. He tries to rescue the girl crying for help, but to no avail. But when he unleashes the hate inside himself, he uses the dark side to rescue the child. This confuses him and draws his mind back to Vergere's teachings: that the dark side was simply the Force's unleashed potential. He discovers more survivors, refugees of the conquest of Coruscant. He assumes that they, too, were drawn in by illusions and false hopes. Through his confusion, though, he also finds anger and rage. The refugees have a rule: whoever arrives last in the beast would be sent to feed its ravenous hunger. The girl arrived last, and she was undergoing an execution. The survivors and, most enraging to Jacen, the girl accuse him of being the last and then try to send him on his way to the stomach. Enraged, he draws on the anger he feels and uses the Force to make the animal believe that humans are poisonous, triggering it to forcibly eject all of them. Bereft of their shelter, the survivors would most likely die from Coruscant's many dangers. Lost and confused, he leaves them and goes on. Jacen then arrives at the Solo's now ruined apartment and is saddened by how much things have changed, his home and his life now a perversion of its former self. Shortly after his arrival he is visited by what he thought to be Anakin's spirit. This also challenges his thoughts on the Force. The apparition of Anakin engages in the playful banter they had once shared, and Jacen tells him of the things he has done, and also his confusion. Jacen also asks Anakin whether he is real or an illusion. Anakin counters, asking Jacen if there is a difference, saying that life, like the Force, is all one and that there is no difference, akin to Vergere's earlier teachings. Jacen then thinks that Anakin really is an illusion and tries to shut him out, falling into a deep depression. Vergere arrives and wakes him, once again challenging Jacen's beliefs. They are soon joined by Nom Anor and his entourage of warriors, who confront Jacen, saying that they believe him to be an avatar of Yun-Yammka, offering him Anakin's lightsaber if he would convert to the Yuuzhan Vong religion. Jacen agrees, although Nom Anor is unaware at this time that he is lying. Ganner Rhysode has been searching for Jacen due to rumors of him being alive. On a New Republic camp ship that keeps refugees from the Yuuzhan Vong war, Ganner finally confronts Jacen and the Yuuzhan Vong forces and is captured. After Ganner's capture, he is sent to Yuuzhan'tar, and Jacen reveals he has not really converted to the Yuuzhan Vong ways and that he is simply acting. The Yuuzhan Vong do not know whether or not they can trust Jacen to be an avatar, and Nom Anor now knows that Jacen is acting. However, they still bring Jacen and Ganner to the Well of the World Brain where the Galactic Senate once met. Jacen and Ganner lock themselves in, their plan being that Jacen would destroy the World Brain that used to be the dhuryam he was partnered with at the seedship while Ganner would then escape. However, Ganner tells Jacen he will sacrifice himself so that Jacen will be able to kill the World Brain in time. Ganner confronts all the Yuuzhan Vong warriors who come his way after Jacen gives him Anakin's lightsaber and kills nearly all of them in combat, but he dies himself from the wounds inflicted upon him. Meanwhile, Jacen does not kill the World Brain, but convinces it not to make things imperfect for the Yuuzhan Vong in order to teach them compromise in the course of their invasion of the galaxy. Vergere, in the meantime, manipulates Nom Anor into revealing the location of his personal escape ship that would let him escape in case trouble came to Yuuzhan'tar. Vergere betrays Nom Anor and lets biological lifeforms trap him while she and Jacen escape to become a third party of themselves in the Yuuzhan Vong War as they head back to the New Republic. + +Han and Leia Organa Solo are flying through space in the Millennium Falcon while they are shipping Imperial officer Vana Dorja to the planet Bastion and work out a deal with Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon. The deal consists of getting the Imperial Remnant back into the Yuuzhan Vong War on the New Republic's side. Leia then experiences a flash in the Force that feels like her son, Jacen's, presence. Leia tells Han that Jacen might be alive after all, which inspires some hope in both the Solos. However, while riding to Bastion, the Millennium Falcon gets pulled out of hyperspace by a dovin basal mine and is confronted by several coralskippers. Nevertheless, Han rides the Falcon around and close to the mine in a battle that destroys nearly every coralskipper, then Han, Leia and Dorja are saved from the remnants by Jagged Fel and a group of Chiss clawcraft. At Obroa-skai where Jaina Solo leads a strike force against a giant Yuuzhan Vong worldship belonging to the Vong leader, Supreme Overlord Shimrra. The battle first starts off as an advantage for the New Republic forces, but it soon becomes a stalemate until Hapan Battle Dragons, led personally by Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo of Hapes, turn the tide of the battle for the New Republic's favor and destroy the worldship. However, it turns out it didn't belong to Shimrra, and that it was actually the worldship commanded by Supreme Commander Komm Karsh, who is second rank to Warmaster Tsavong Lah. And during the battle, Jaina experienced a little flash in the Force that felt like her twin brother, Jacen's, presence, like how Leia felt at the beginning. After the fall of Coruscant and the operation at Borleias, the New Republic moved its assets and its Senate to the planet Mon Calamari. Pwoe, who replaced the late Borsk Fey'lya as Chief of State of the New Republic, was vetoed out as the ruler and the Senate began a vote for Chief of State, with Fyor Rodan in the lead as being voted. Those of the New Jedi Order are trying to help Rodan's opponent, Cal Omas, into being voted so he can establish a new Jedi Council. Luke Skywalker feels Jacen's presence, and says out loud, "It's the turning point." Meanwhile, Jacen Solo and Vergere, piloting Nom Anor's stolen coralcraft from their escape from Yuuzhan'tar, are heading for Mon Calamari, and before their arrival, Vergere tells Jacen about how and why she joined the Yuuzhan Vong. Vergere reveals that 57 years earlier, she was a Jedi Knight in the Old Republic Jedi Council. She was sent to investigate a strange alien group known as the Far Outsiders, which would later become known as the Vong, and went to a mysterious planet called Zonama Sekot which had all kinds of life, particularly plants and vegetation. The Vong attacked Sekot and resulted in a grand scale battle. Vergere later met with the Vong that were attacking Sekot and she was angered by the fact that she couldn't sense them in the Force when she met them. However, she saw how the Vong valued life in their own perverse way as one of the Vong had an avian pet similar to Vergere. She then fooled the Vong by displaying her powers and saying it was the power of Zonama Sekot. The Vong were pleased that they found a living planet, and decided to go back to their own galaxy to collaborate on the full scale invasion of the galaxy. But instead of going back to the Jedi Council and report this to the Old Republic, Vergere decided to go with the Vong and study them in their own galaxy. However, before she left, she left a message for Sekot to display to any Jedi who went to Sekot to find her about the Far Outsiders. As for Sekot, it turned out that the planet had repulsorlifts that let it travel further to the edges of the galaxy. Vergere states it is unknown if any Jedi received her message. Vergere says that because of her choice to go with the Vong, she started the galactic invasion by the Vong. Jacen and Vergere come to Mon Calamari and Jacen reunites with his friends and family in a vacation given by Admiral Traest Kre'fey on the water planet while Vergere is detained by New Republic Intelligence to see if she is a spy for the Yuuzhan Vong, especially considering that she had aided Elan's failed plot to destroy the Jedi. All of Jacen's friends and family, including Jaina, Luke, Mara Jade Skywalker, Han and Leia, all hate Vergere for torturing him. Vergere also reveals she avoided revealing her Force potential to the Vong yammosks by using her mastery in Force potential to hide her Force abilities and even rearrange molecules for different purposes, which is how she created her healing tears that cured Mara of her coomb spore disease earlier in the series. The wise old Jedi even gives Luke her opinion that the Yuuzhan Vong actually do exist in the Force, but they are out of every Force-sensitive's perception to sense them. It is also revealed that Danni Quee and her team of scientists have found a DNA pattern that all Vong-formed life, even the Vong themselves for that matter, share that makes them invisible from the Force. Commander Dif Scaur of the Republic used this knowledge with the Chiss early in the war to create a secret project called Alpha Red, which is an airborne virus that will only kill the Vong and all the life they created with their bioengineering. Meanwhile, on Yuuzhan'tar, after Jacen's manipulation of the planet's World Brain, the Vong themselves are having trouble adapting to their new environment. The Bothans have declared ar'krai, a total state of war, against the Vong, meaning the Bothans won't stop killing the Vong until the invaders are all dead to the last individual, and until the very name of the Vong species be wiped from history. Nom Anor's agents learn that if Cal Omas is elected Chief of State of the New Republic, he will support the New Jedi Order that will make a bigger threat for the Vong. So Anor sends two of his agents to assassinate Omas, but the plot is foiled by Mara Jade Skywalker who happened to have been investigating for Vong infiltrators using YVH technology from Lando Calrissian and Talon Karrde of the Smugglers' Alliance. Lando and Karrde also manage to blackmail most of the Senate into cancelling their votes for Fyor Rodan and make them vote for Cal Omas by threatening them into revealing their corruption to the public. With Omas now Chief of State, he manages to make the military on good terms with the Senate since the military was planning on mutiny against the New Republic for all the losses that they have taken in the war. The Jedi Council is also reestablished with half the members Jedi and the other half good trusting members from the Senate and military, so it is established as the High Council. At this time, Scaur reveals his Alpha Red project, and former Admiral Ackbar, now old and dying with Winter Celchu taking care of him, returns with a plan to wipe out the Vong. Han and Leia's attempts at getting the Imperial Remnant to join with the New Republic fails in one meeting with Admiral Pellaeon. Supreme Overlord Shimrra is heavily displeased with the discomforts created by the World Brain, has Master Shaper Ch'Gang Hool executed for his incompetence, and is angered by Tsavong Lah at the heavy casualties the Vong took in the war so far. So he tells Lah to have the Vong hold back on major offenses until they can repopulate properly for warriors, and have all warriors sixteen years or older reproduce. The Shamed Ones and workers are also beginning to have a new blasphemous faith against the Vong by believing that the Jedi will be their saviors. Hence, Nom Anor begins to investigate the blasphemous religion while Shimrra states that the Shamed Ones should learn that the Jedi won't save them, but if they won't listen, they should be killed on contact. Anor later learns, during his investigation, that everything that Shimrra ever stood for was a lie and that the Vong are fighting for a false cause. Jaina manages to train the rookies that have decided to join the fight against the Vong very well, and when Ackbar reveals his plan to destroy the Vong, he finds out about a hidden Imperial fortress in the Deep Core of the galaxy known as Tarkin's Fang in the Ebaq system. On the gas giant of Ebaq's ninth moon, Ebaq 9, there is an old abandoned factory the Empire was saving up in crucial times in its war against the Rebellion more than two decades earlier. Ackbar plans to lure the Vong there using bait they can't resist in capturing or killing. Later, Cal Omas decides that Jaina, Jacen and all the other Jedi who survived the Mission to Myrkr be promoted to full Jedi Knights in a public ceremony for their actions in the war. Those who died at Myrkr, including Anakin Solo, are remembered, and every one of the Jedi apprentices are knighted, especially Jaina, whom Luke declares the Sword of the Jedi, the bravest Jedi of all. After all the Jedi are knighted, Vergere learns of Scaur's Alpha Red project and sabotages it, then escapes Mon Calamari to an unknown location. Vergere's sabotaging is realized by New Republic Intelligence, and Jacen is called through the Force by Vergere to Kashyyyk. Vergere asks for Jacen's help to find a place in the galaxy where the New Republic can't find her, but this plan is foiled when Jacen realizes that it is now the new Jedi Knights' top priority to find Vergere and capture her. And while Jacen keeps Vergere's presence a secret from everyone else, he leads Admiral Kre'fey's fleets into battle and tries to teach Tahiri Veila how to sense Yuuzhan Vong since she was captured and experimented by them back on Yavin 4. Jaina, Lowbacca and Tesar Sebatyne, as well as their pilot teams are placed on Ebaq 9 as bait for the Vong. Meanwhile, Nom Anor, disguising himself as a worker on Yuuzhan'tar, figures out that the eighth cortex of Vong-life shaping doesn't exist and Supreme Overlord Shimrra demanded for Nen Yim and a team of her shaper caste to actually create the eighth cortex. Also, the New Republic finds out it has Vong spies among them so they trick Nom Anor's agents into making them think that the Vong aren't being baited at Ebaq 9. Fooled by this deceit, Anor promises Shimrra if the Vong are lead into a trap that will result in an epic catastrophe, Nom Anor will die. So five large squadrons, lead by Tsavong Lah himself, attack Ebaq 9, but during the resulting battle where Jaina's forces fight back, they are aided by the Smugglers' Alliance, lead by Han and Leia, and other New Republic divisions. While Luke Skywalker persuades Garm Bel Iblis into joining the Battle of Ebaq from Fondor, a large portion of the Vong forces are destroyed in the battle, and Tsavong Lah realizes if he keeps on having the Vong fight the New Republic, they will all die. Meanwhile, Nom Anor becomes aware of the results of the battle from Yuuzhan'tar and escapes from impending doom he promised Shimrra, killing his superior, High Prefect Yoog Skell in the process. Back on Ebaq 9, Lah commands most of his remaining members of the squadrons to attack Ebaq 9, with the other Vong to retreat to preserve their lives for the future of the war, as the voxyn he brought with him to the battle tell him about Jedi being on the moon. The New Republic does its best to hold the Vong off the moon, but the invaders get through and hunt down Jaina, Lowbacca and Tesar, as well as all the surviving pilots in their squadrons that made it out of the battle alive. Most of Tsavong Lah's retreating ships are killed by New Republic forces participating outside the battle. Jacen, who leads the Force meld into Vong battles on Admiral Kre'fey capital ship, the Ralroost, realizes about Jaina's danger and goes against Kre'fey's orders to fly to the moon to help Jaina and her comrades escape. Vergere fails to stop Jacen from taking his X-wing to the moon, and Tsavong Lah invites all Jedi to join in the hunt on the moon while all non-Jedi will be killed by the Vong forces if they proceed to the moon. Jacen safely lands, bringing the odds to 10,000 Yuuzhan Vong vs. 4 Jedi, and is hunted down by Vong forces. However, while Bel Iblis and his forces arrive in the battle, Vergere, knowing Jacen wouldn't survive in the hunt, steals an A-wing from the Ralroost and crashes it onto Ebaq 9, destroying its air supply immediately and killing nearly every Yuuzhan Vong on the moon, as well as herself in the resulting explosion of the A-wing. This is after she convinced Lah that she was Force-sensitive. But before she died, she created a Force projection of herself to Jacen to warn him about the resulting loss of air supply, so he builds a Force bubble around him that gives him his oxygen and after talking to the projection, he realizes Vergere is dead. Meanwhile, Jaina, Lowbacca, Tesar and several New Republic pilots survive the air loss by quickly activating their vacuum suits. Tsavong Lah is the only Vong survivor of the air loss thanks to his personal guards who protected him and his gnullith from the thousands of suffocating warriors. They put an ooglith cloaker on him to save him from cold and air loss. He falls unconscious but soon wakes up, wounding Lowbacca and sticking Jaina, Lowbacca and Tesar in blorash jelly, resulting in a fight between Jaina and Lah. The battle ends as Jaina defeats and kills Lah by impaling her lightsaber through his throat while Tesar treats Lowbacca's wounds. Later, a few days after the Battle of Ebaq 9, while the New Republic reformed itself into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances, Jaina is the last to return to the newly-formed Galactic Alliance and reunites with her friends and family. Shimrra places a death mark on Nom Anor for the Yuuzhan Vong to hunt him down and kill him after the disaster at Ebaq 9. Shimrra and his Shamed underling, Onimi, laugh maniacally after they both realize they have to redouble their efforts in defeating the natives of the galaxy since Ebaq. + +Saba Sebatyne arrives at Barab I and finds that it has been completely destroyed without a single survivor by the Yuuzhan Vong. Saba duels in a space battle with a group of coralskippers in Barab I's orbit, defeats them and takes out a large, organ-like ship which is also by the Vong. The organ-like ship spills out its contents into six-pointed stars and Saba realizes that the ship had carried her people. She had effectively helped the Vong into endangering her own species. Three months later, Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, Jacen Solo, Tekli and Danni Quee all decide to leave Mon Calamari to search for the lost living planet of Zonama Sekot. Jacen believes that the living world can help the Galactic Alliance win the war against the Yuuzhan Vong based on what his late tutor Vergere told him. Luke decides to take Saba along to deal with the grief of killing her own species. Their first stop: Bastion, capital of the Imperial Remnant. Meanwhile, Han Solo, Leia Organa Solo, Jaina Solo, Jagged Fel and the rest of Twin Suns Squadron with a small Galactic Alliance fleet go on a mission to reestablish contacts in the Unknown Regions, starting with Galantos, home of the Fia, for the Alliance. Leia chooses Tahiri Veila to come along after she blacks out on Mon Calamari and no one, not even Tahiri, knows why, although when Tahiri called Jaina before she blacked out, she screamed out insanely that the late Anakin Solo was trying to kill her. On Yuuzhan'tar, after his failure to the Yuuzhan Vong with the Battle of Ebaq, former Executor Nom Anor is hiding in the underworld of the Vong home planet in order to avoid being killed or captured by the warriors that Supreme Overlord Shimrra dispatched to kill him. Along the way, Nom Anor comes across a Shamed One named Vuurok I'pan who tells Nom Anor about a group of rising Shamed Ones and workers who intend to establish a new Vong religion that will look up to the Jedi as saviours, and Nom Anor is taken to the group. He begins his established trust with them and also plans on how to get his reputation back without getting killed by Shimrra's forces. Luke, Mara, Jacen, Danni and Saba all arrive at Bastion to find that it is being attacked by the Yuuzhan Vong. The Imperial forces that survived the attack flee to Yaga Minor and Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon is presumed deceased after the attack. However, the Chimaera, Pellaeon's flagship Star Destroyer, makes it to Yaga Minor almost completely destroyed and it is revealed Pellaeon is in a coma after the attack. Fortunately, Pellaeon is saved by Tekli who gets him out of the coma in a bacta tank, but Pellaeon will have to remain in the tank for quite some time before he can fully recover from the injuries of the attack. However, Pellaeon still becomes part of the plan to stop the next Vong attack, via an internal earpiece, and everyone agrees to lead the next battle between the Imperial Remnant and Vong to the planet Borosk. On Galantos, while Han, Leia and Tahiri are living in one of Al'solib'minet'ri City's suites, and Jaina and Jag are in orbit with the rest of Twin Suns Squadron with the Pride of Selonia, Tahiri wanders off and comes to a suite with a totem of the Vong god, Yun-Yammka, the Slayer. A group of Fian guards come for Tahiri and she confronts them with her lightsaber, but before any real violence can break out, she faints again. Meanwhile, after hearing about this, Jaina goes to N'zoth, home of the Yevetha, to investigate as to why they are not planning an attack on the Fia. But when she arrives, she finds that it has been destroyed by the Vong, and a surviving Yevethan pilot, who sends a message to her about how the Vong are the greater species than the Yevetha, self-destructs his own ship, sending Jaina back to Galantos. The Vong then arrive to attack. At Borosk, the showdown between the Empire and the Vong begin at the still-bacta-encased Pellaeon's command. Jacen finds out who the Vong and Peace Brigade infiltrators in the Empire are and gathers them into a meeting in one room. The Vong warriors battle Jacen and die with the help of a group of stormtroopers while the Brigaders are arrested and Saba notices a slaveship, an organ-shaped ship she saw back on Barab I, and decides to send in a Katana fleet Dreadnaught, naming it the Braxant Bonecrusher, as bait for the slaveship to take in her and Danni so they can save the people inside the ship. The plan works, and Danni sends in a group of YVH mouse droids to poison the two Vong stationed at the console of the slaveship. After a while, the poison works on the Vong, and Saba cuts a hole at the slaveship that frees her, Danni and the surviving captives with the hardening blorash jelly protecting them from the vacuum of space. The frigate Widowmaker, with Jacen in command, saves Danni, Saba and the slaves. Eventually, the Vong invasion at Galantos is repelled by Galactic Alliance forces and it is revealed that the Ryn are now spies secretly looking in on Yuuzhan Vong operations after an agent is helped by Tahiri off of Galantos. The Ryn agent tells Han, Leia and Tahiri to send the party's accompanying Galactic Alliance forces to the next planet that has been out of communications with the Galactic Alliance: Bakura. Back at Borosk, the Empire wins its showdown against the Vong invasion force and repels them away from Imperial space. Pellaeon fully recovers from the bacta tank and declares that the Imperial Remnant officially join the Galactic Alliance. At first, the Moff Council extremely disagree with this notion, but after Pellaeon convinces them that it will help repel another future Vong invasion, they all agree. Moff Kurlen Flennic still doesn't agree with the official truce to be declared, and even pulls a blaster on Pellaeon to emphasize his point when he loses support from the rest of the Council. After Flennic is repelled by stormtroopers, Pellaeon gives him the choice of incarceration for his treason or to be pardoned and agree on the alliance between the Galactic Alliance and the Empire. Flennic chooses the latter and he is pardoned by Pellaeon for his treason, but Pellaeon emphasizes that this event will never be forgotten. With that, Luke, Mara, Jacen, Danni and Saba depart the Empire with help from the Imperial Remnant's very own Widowmaker, commanded by Captain Arien Yage, and xenobiologist Soron Hegerty tags along to study Zonama Sekot. The characters all head for Chiss space to continue their search for the living planet. On Yuuzhan'tar, Nom Anor, disguised as a separate Yuuzhan Vong individual, escapes death from Vong warriors when nearly all the members in the camp that he is being sheltered in are killed. The only surviving member with him is Kunra, a Shamed warrior. Then they meet Shoon-mi Esh, a Shamed Intendant, and the brother of Niiriit Esh, a Shamed One whom Nom Anor came to be an acquaintance to and who died thanks to the invasion of the Vong warriors. Nom Anor, Kunra, and Shoon-mi all decide to revive the Jedi heresy that the Shamed Ones are living by and Anor establishes a new identity known as Yu'shaa, the Shamed-worker prophet. + +Nom Anor is disguised as Yu'shaa the Prophet on Yuuzhan'tar, perfecting his praise of the Shamed Ones' heresy against Supreme Overlord Shimrra during each of his appearances. Meanwhile, he is trying to find a suitable spy to enter Shimrra's courtroom, but all attempts have failed, and these failures have been leading to the decreasing amount of faith in the heresy. However, Nom Anor finally meets Ngaaluh, a priestess of Yun-Harla who has entered into Nom Anor's sanctuary to team up with him and bring Shimrra down. She does not believe that the Yuuzhan Vong War is worth serving Shimrra, and agrees to play a spy for Nom Anor in entering Shimrra's throne, since the Supreme Overlord still trusts her. In the Unknown Regions, Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, Jacen Solo, Danni Quee, Saba Sebatyne and Tekli, along with some help from the Imperial Remnant, have been searching for the living planet Zonama Sekot. Now traveling with the Imperial xenobiologist Soron Hegerty, the group arrive at the planet Munlali Mafir. Luke, Jacen, and a squad of stormtroopers land on the planet in an Imperial shuttle and are met by a tribe of native Krizlaw. Upon Luke’s request, the Krizlaw tell the travelers that Zonama Sekot visited their star system years ago and stayed for months during which great environmental disasters befell them. When Luke attempts to explain how the environmental issues befell them, the Krizlaw grow enraged and attack the Jedi and Imperials. Unable to effect the two minds of the Krizlaw with mind-tricks the group is forced to flee with the Krizlaw pursuit. During the retreat, Hegerty is severely wounded, requiring medical attention, all but one of the stromtroppers are killed and the remaining one was eaten by a Jostran, and the other members of the envoy mission manage to escape in their shuttle. En route back to the Jade Shadow, a patrol of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force arrives to meet them. The patrol is led by the female Chiss Commander Irolia, who demanded to quickly meet with Luke. After a heated discussion in which Irolia questioned the motives of the Imperial/Jedi expedition, she gives them a disk with instructions to the planet Csilla where they need to be approved of being allowed within Chiss territory. They then travel to Csilla to find library records of where Zonama Sekot might be hiding now. But Luke and his company only have two days to look through the whole library to search for systems in the Unknown Regions that have gained any planets all of a sudden in the last fifty years. And along the way, Jacen meets and befriends Wynssa Wyn Fel, daughter of Soontir Fel and Syal Antilles Fel, and sister of Jagged Fel, all of whom are trusted allies of the Chiss. But when rogue Chiss who believe that Soontir is more of a danger to the Chiss because of allowing Luke and his company access to Chiss records, they try to kidnap Wyn. However, thanks to Jacen, Wyn is saved and Luke and the rest of his party manage to unveil the rogue Chiss to the Chiss High Council. Because of this, Luke and his company are granted an extended access into Chiss records for their search for Zonama Sekot. But Jacen begins to lose hope in finding Sekot until he guesses that the living planet might actually be hiding as a moon. The search party for the living planet take note of this and decide to look for systems that have actually gained moons in a quick amount of time in the past fifty years, and they estimate that Zonama Sekot must now be orbiting the gas giant Mobus. So Luke and his party depart Csilla and go to Mobus. Han Solo, Leia Organa Solo, Jaina Solo, Jagged Fel and Tahiri Veila all arrive at Bakura to try to bring the planet into the Galactic Alliance in the Yuuzhan Vong War. But Bakura is going through a revolutionary stage right now--the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium's former slaves, the P'w'eck, have decided to consecrate the planet by the permission of the Bakuran government, lead by Prime Minister Molierre Cundertol. But Cundertol has just recently been kidnapped, and all the blame is being directed to Malinza Thanas and her group of rebels who don't believe the P'w'eck should consecrate Bakura. Immediately, though, Cundertol returns from an escape pod from a ship that explodes once it reached the Bakura system and explains how he managed to overpower his kidnappers and return just as Malinza has been arrested for her accused crime of having the Prime Minister kidnapped. However, it turns out that Cundertol had actually betrayed the planet to the actual Ssi-ruuvi Imperium to be put into a human replica droid. Meanwhile, one of Cundertol's assistants, Blaine Harris, had also secretly been working with Malinza but would betray her by killing all of the important figures before the Keeramak completely consecrates the planet. Harris would do this by bombing certain areas of the arena where the consecration will take place in, including Cundertol's area. Elsewhere on Bakura, Jaina unwittingly breaks Malinza out of prison after hearing her side of the story concerning Cundertol's kidnapping. Jaina is brought by Malinza to her rebel group, but they are all betrayed and brought to Harris by Malinza's Rodian member, Salkeli. Meanwhile, Tahiri meets the next Ryn contact, Goure Conor, to help crack down Cundertol's betrayal. Tahiri, thanks to Han and Leia, learns that the inner conflict that had been bothering her since before she left with Jaina and everyone else from Mon Calamari was that it came from Riina Kwaad. Riina was the Yuuzhan Vong persona implanted by the late Master Shaper Mezhan Kwaad which had been suppressed thanks to help from the late Anakin Solo, who had been Tahiri's one true love and had died on the Mission to Myrkr to destroy the voxyn. Ever since Tahiri had moved on from grieving from Anakin's loss, her guilt over Anakin's death, and the guilt of moving on from it, dragged Riina back into her life. So Tahiri separates herself from Han and Leia and buries herself into cracking down Cundertol's betrayal with Goure. This all leads to Tahiri and Goure saving Jaina, Malinza and her rebel group and defeating Harris and Salkeli. But the bomb which will kill many in the arena will go off soon, so Tahiri heads off in a vain attempt to stop it. It explodes before she can deactivate it and Harris's plan succeeds, and Cundertol appears to be among the dead. Nevertheless, the Keeramak still consecrates the planet despite the bombing, and |the second Ssi-ruuvi invasion on Bakura begins. As it turns out, the P'w'eck were still the Ssi-ruuk's slaves. However, just as the Galactic Alliance are about to lose, the P'w'eck turn on the Ssi-ruuk and bring victory to the Alliance in the end. The Keeramak is also shot dead by his P'w'eck aide, Lwothin. Cundertol also reveals he is alive and executes Harris by shooting him, but his betrayal to Bakura with the Ssi-ruuvi is figured out so he tries to flee. After a brief fight with Jaina who unsuccessfully tries to stop him, he goes off and Jaina figures out that Cundertol was a Human Replica Droid, since she had cut off his arm with her lightsaber at the end of the fight. But Cundertol's failure does not go unpunished when the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium general he meets up with reveals that he was actually a Yuuzhan Vong and uses a remote on Cundertol to pause his body long enough for the Yuuzhan Vong to kill him. Meanwhile, back on Bakura, it is revealed that when the bomb in the arena went off, Tahiri did manage to survive by putting a Force bubble around herself, but she went into a coma immediately afterwards. As for Goure, he told Jaina and her party the next location they should go to, which is Onadax, in order to reestablish contact with the rest of the galaxy for the Galactic Alliance. + +With Ngaaluh at his side, Nom Anor, still in his guise as the Shamed Ones' Prophet Yu'shaa, gets many inferences into Supreme Overlord Shimrra's court, and realizes that the heresy Nom Anor organized is becoming a threat to the Yuuzhan Vong way of life on Yuuzhan'tar. And, taking advantage of this, Nom Anor decides to use Ngaaluh to report lies to Shimrra about certain enemy colleagues of Nom Anor. These lies state that Nom Anor's antagonistic colleagues were corrupt and supporting the Jedi heresy, and the lies pass successfully well in Anor's enemies' eliminations. But Shoon-mi Esh, one of Nom Anor's most trusted assistants, turns on Nom Anor and tries to kill him with a band of other heretics because Shoon-mi knew that Anor didn't care about all those who died for the heresy, and so Shoon-mi is aiming to establish another heresy to overthrow Shimrra. But the Shamed warrior Kunra, another trusted ally of Nom Anor's, saves him from Shoon-mi and the betraying band of heretics, and Nom Anor kills Shoon-mi in retaliation. On Onadax, Goure Conor told Jaina and her party to go to next after the Battle of Bakura, the plan to reestablish contacts ends badly. But Droma makes it out and gets to Han and Leia and tells them that the Yuuzhan Vong have been attacking certain planets in the Outer Rim to stop contacts between Mon Calamari and the Unknown Regions, and the next target is the starless planet of Esfandia. Jaina, Han, Leia, Droma and Jagged Fel all arrive to Esfandia just in time for the Yuuzhan Vong to attack the planet, but the Galactic Alliance forces are backed up by the Imperial Remnant. So while the Alliance and Remnant forces battle against the Vong above Esfandia, Han, Leia, Droma and C-3PO all go down to the planet to find the Esfandia Long-Range Communications Base. But the Millennium Falcon accidentally kills several of Esfandia's natives, dubbed the Cold Ones by the Communications Base inhabitants, the former being ectoplasmic species that are the only thing alive on Esfandia. Han and his company realize about the ignorant massacre they accidentally caused, thanks to help of understanding them by C-3PO, and establish trust between them and the Cold Ones by saving them from a Yuuzhan Vong orbital bombardment. And with that, the Cold Ones lead the Falcon over to the Communications Base. There, the Falcon crew are informed that things are going bad because everyone figured out that there is a traitor among them who works for the Vong, since the Base team found a villip within their station. And on the top hit list of suspects is a suspicious Noghri named Eniknar. Meanwhile, Tahiri, still in her coma, is having a mental lightsaber duel against Riina Kwaad that she cannot win because they are one and the same, and Riina chips away Tahiri's sanity by reminding her about how guilty she felt after she moved on with her life from Anakin Solo's loss. But Jaina, who left the Battle of Esfandia, joins Tahiri in a Force-meld to battle against Riina. However, after Tahiri learns that Jaina is trying to help, Tahiri manages to finally defeat Riina by mentally joining with her. Hence, Tahiri finally comes out of the coma as a new person, who is a blend of the Jedi she once was but has the toughness and loyalty of a Yuuzhan Vong. Hence, she decides to help in the Battle of Esfandia by tricking the Vong in their attack for the Communications Base. The battle goes sour for the Vong, and at the behest of Commander B'shith Vorrik, the surviving leaders die in a vain attempt at a suicide run against the Galactic Alliance and Imperial Remnant forces. And with that, communication between Mon Calamari and the Unknown Regions is safe, and Eniknar, who notably sacrificed himself in order to further the Battle of Esfandia in the Alliance and Remnant's favor, turns out not to be the traitor after all. The traitor turns out to be an Ugnaught named Tegg, who is captured and arrested. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, Jacen Solo, Danni Quee, Saba Sebatyne, Soron Hegerty and Tekli all find Zonama Sekot finally. And after a Yuuzhan Vong battle force is defeated by Sekot's forces, Luke and his company are taken in by the planet's power and are introduced to the Ferroans, a people who worship Sekot yet are unkind to outsiders such as Luke and his accomplices. And Jacen figures out that Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke's father and original Jedi Master respectively, were here many years before prior to and during Wilhuff Tarkin's failed invasion of the sentient world, with Anakin having a legacy of using the Force to kill the Blood Carver Ke Daiv. Luke and his company meet Sekot's Magister, Jabitha Hal, who explains that she was a friend of Anakin's all those years before and begins to discuss with them to get Sekot to join the Yuuzhan Vong War to finally end it. One night, the group is attacked, and Danni is captured, by a group of rogue Ferroans and Jacen and Saba follow them to the point where they allow themselves to be captured by the Ferroans and taken to their leader, Senshi. But afterward, just after they meet Senshi, the rogue Ferroan band leave and are trapped by a group of boras trees that go rogue and try to attack the group. But Jacen calms them down through the Force. Meanwhile, Luke coerces Sekot not to destroy the sole surviving member of the Yuuzhan Vong battle group and lets it get away so the living planet wouldn't succumb to the dark side of the Force. Sekot then contacts both Jacen and Luke at the same time--to Jacen, the planet appears as Jacen's late master, Vergere, and to Luke, Sekot appears as his father, Anakin. Sekot asks the both of them if they really want it to join the war. Jacen, through his own conscience, believing he doesn't want to be responsible for the extinction of the Vong, says no, but Luke, for the sake of the galaxy, says yes. Sekot agrees to Luke's terms and gets the entire planet ready for a hyperspace jump back to known space. On Yuuzhan'tar, Nom Anor witnesses Shimrra reveal that Ngaaluh is a traitor to his court. Watching this event unfold, Nom Anor is horror-stricken when he sees through the villip connection that Ngaaluh has that she kills herself by slitting her throat before she could be executed. Her body is dumped with the corpses of Anor's dead rivals, and with Ngaaluh dies the best chance of overthrowing Shimrra. + +On Yuuzhan'tar, Nom Anor's underground Jedi heresy cult is steadily losing faith in him as Yu'shaa the Prophet because of his failed attempts at bringing Supreme Overlord Shimrra down. However, Nom Anor remembers from his late agent Ngaaluh that Shimrra greatly fears an alleged living planet known as Zonama Sekot. Therefore, as Yu'shaa, Anor declares to his Shamed followers that on the day of Shimrra's downfall, a great planet will appear in the skies of Yuuzhan'tar to herald the end of the traditional Yuuzhan Vong way of life for the betterment of the Shamed Ones. Anor's followers are pleased with this news, and coinciding with Anor's false prophecy, he learns that Master Shaper Nen Yim is examining the starship brought back from Zonama Sekot, and learns that the starship has biological components, like a Yuuzhan Vong ship, as well as mechanical components, like one of the galaxy's own starships. So Nom Anor, still in his guise as Yu'shaa, makes a deal with Nen Yim: after he contacts Tahiri Veila to rescue the both of them from Yuuzhan'tar, they will all go to Zonama Sekot to learn the nature of the planet. This also coincides with Yim's dealings with the priest Harrar, who is secretly against Shimrra's order, and also wants to go to Sekot to see if Yu'shaa's prophecy of it bringing Shimrra's order down is true. Tahiri, on the planet Mon Calamari, receives Yu'shaa's message to extract him and Nen Yim from Yuuzhan'tar and bring them to Zonama Sekot. Tahiri accepts, and takes Corran Horn with her. Despite short notice of Harrar's joining on the voyage to Sekot, all five of them escape the Yuuzhan Vong capital planet and go to the living planet via the ship that Nen Yim was studying that came from the latter world. Once they arrive on Sekot, the ship dies, and the five of them begin to study the planet, with the three Vong members formally renouncing their species' violent ways to defeat Shimrra. Tahiri and Nen Yim also realize that the memories implanted into the former by the late Mezhan Kwaad actually came from Nen Yim. Eventually, Nen Yim comes to realize the truth of Zonama Sekot's nature. However, Nom Anor realizes that if he can somehow find a way to kill Zonama Sekot and return to Shimrra's favor for bringing the living planet's end, he will be redeemed in the eyes of the traditional Yuuzhan Vong. So he then kills Nen Yim and travels into the planet's depths to sabotage its hyperdrive capabilities and end its life. But Yim lives long enough to tell Tahiri of Nom Anor's intentions, and dies in her arms. Tahiri, Corran and Harrar try to stop Nom Anor, who manages to sabotage the living planet. Nom Anor evades Tahiri and Corran, and gets into a brief confrontation with Harrar, ending with Harrar being knocked off a cliff, his fate being presumed dead. Then, as Sekot appears to be dying off, the Yuuzhan Vong escort vessels, whom Anor had earlier called via his creche-cousin Phaa Anor prior to his mission of sabotaging Sekot, arrive to take Nom Anor back to Shimrra so he can be promoted back into the traditional Vong society. Tahiri and Corran are saved by Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade Skywalker, Jacen Solo and Saba Sebatyne to be taken into a bunker. Here, it turns out that Sekot has managed to rid itself of Anor's machinations, and it heads for hyperspace. Its ultimate destination--Yuuzhan'tar. + +In the Yuuzhan Vong prisoner-of-war camp on the planet Selvaris, a Jenet named Thorsh and three Bith memorize a code mathematically encrypted on a smuggled computer chip, courtesy of the Ryn Network. The four prisoners escape but are soon chased down by Yuuzhan Vong security patrols. The chase kills two of the Bith while the last one is captured. Thorsh, however, is saved by the crew of the Millennium Falcon, and he is taken back to the Galactic Alliance in order to give out the mathematical code. After the code is translated, they find out that the prisoners on Selvaris are due to be publicly sacrificed on Yuuzhan'tar, the captured Coruscant and planetary capital of the Yuuzhan Vong. The Selvaris system is also the rendezvous point for the Yuuzhan Vong's prison transfer convoy, so the Galactic Alliance's plan is to save most, if not all, of the prisoners at the planet. The reason that the Galactic Alliance sees to saving the prisoners of this particular convoy is because the likes of Captain Judder Page and Major Pash Cracken are needed to lead and rally other planets against the Yuuzhan Vong. Commander Malik Carr, overseer of the prisoner-of-war camp, fails to divulge this information from the captured Bith as he uses a tkun to strangle him to death for the mathematical code in front of the other prisoners. Though the rescue attempt goes well enough despite a battle erupting as a result, several prisoners are shipped off to Yuuzhan'tar nevertheless. Meanwhile, the Millennium Falcon is greatly damaged in the conflict by specialized Yuuzhan Vong ships, coercing it to make a random hyperspace jump that places it in the Caluula system. Here, it turns out that the system's inhabitants have been fending themselves off against the Yuuzhan Vong for several weeks since the disruption of the HoloNet thanks to the Vong's adaptability in their biotechnology. Nevertheless, despite the fighting, the crew aboard Caluula Orbital agree to fix the Falcon up. And though Han and Leia Organa Solo help out in the space station's last stand against the Vong, they eventually escape to ship their load of freed prisoners back to the Galactic Alliance, despite the fact that some of them, such as Pash Cracken, have decided to stay behind in order to keep fighting the Vong. Later on, however, the Alliance finds out that Caluula had willingly surrendered in the fall of its space station, but asked the Vong to allow scientists on the planet because of a natural phenomenon called the Nocturne of the Winged-Stars, which occurs quite rarely on the world. Han and Leia, with several other accomplices--Meloque, Wraw, Kyp Durron, and Judder Page--arrive on the planet disguised as scientists and meet up with two other spies, Ferfer and Sasso, to help them kill Caluula's yammosk, which appears to prove crucial to the Yuuzhan Vong's plans in attacking the Galactic Alliance capital world of Mon Calamari. The team members, however, are intercepted by specialized Vong patrols, with both spies killed, and Han, Leia, and the others are captured and are taken to be executed at the yammosk. But the Yuuzhan Vong on the planet, commanded by Commander Carr, along with the yammosk and all the rest of their artificially grown biots, mysteriously die off just as Lando Calrissian, Talon Karrde, and Shada D'ukal arrive to rescue Team Meloque. Kyp theorizes that the Vong on Caluula died because of an earlier deployment of the Alpha Red pathogen on the world. Wraw confirms this, saying that he was sent here to report on Alpha Red's effectiveness; this explains why Caluula had willingly surrendered in the first place. Han, Leia, and most of the others find this to be a potential galactic catastrophe because Alpha Red could even harm and/or kill other life across the galaxy, just as the indigenous life, notably the winged-stars, on Caluula had suffered, which also explains the hindering of the Nocturne that had been noticed earlier. The situation is compounded by the fact that if they wipe out the Yuuzhan Vong, then they will be committing genocide, an act not beneath the Vong themselves. It is all the more unfortunate for them as a specialized Yuuzhan Vong ship on Caluula had made takeoff--its crew fully aware of what they are harboring--in order to report back to Yuuzhan'tar so that they can warn the Elite high command there of the pathogen. The group, most of them emotionally weary of what will be done, proceed to return to the Galactic Alliance just as the forces of its military at Mon Calamari are fighting the invading armada. This battle sees Jaina Solo losing her astromech droid Cappie and nearly getting killed as the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong armada nearly overwhelms the GA defensive fleet. Elsewhere, the living planet of Zonama Sekot is still traveling via hyperspace for the Coruscant system. The characters taking refuge in the planet's caves and other safety features--Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, his wife and fellow Jedi Mara, Jedi Knights Jacen Solo, Corran Horn, Tahiri Veila, Tekli, Saba Sebatyne, Force-sensitive scientist Danni Quee, and the astromech droid R2-D2--recover the Yuuzhan Vong Priest Harrar, who was thought dead in his confrontation with the treacherous Nom Anor. Since then, Harrar had lost faith in his religion after discovering the connections between his species and the living planet. This was originally discovered by the late Vong Master Shaper Nen Yim, who was killed by Nom Anor in order to prevent her from stopping him from trying to malfunction Zonama's hyperdrive cores and subsequently killing it in the process. Sekot comes to recognize Harrar by his species via the encounter that it had with the Vong a few decades earlier. Because of Sekot's recognition of the Vong, it explains to the characters, through its possession of Magister Jabitha Hal, that the original Yuuzhan'tar back in the Yuuzhan Vong's home galaxy had stripped the species of their Force-sensitivity. The reason for this was because the ur-Vong were becoming a violent race who craved war and brutality, which was what led to their hatred for mechanical machines as they fought the opposing droids that invaded their galaxy. So the ur-Yuuzhan Vong's original homeworld had seen fit to cut them off from the Force. This caused them to experience great pain, as they had lived in symbiosis with the original Yuuzhan'tar, rendering them unable to contact the Force or be detected in it ever again. This was among one of the reasons that the Vong hold pain and death as such an essential part in their religion, because, when they were cut off from the Force, they realized that pain and death were the only other forms of living symbiosis that they could achieve. Thus, the ur-Vong had cemented this new way of life into their religion by creating gods who look so positively upon their creations as those creations embrace what all living beings must suffer in life and more. And when the ur-Yuuzhan Vong had devastated their own galaxy as a whole in the Cremlevian War, they were forced to journey into the Intergalactic Void in search of another galaxy for them to conquer and live in, thus leading into the eventual invasion of this galaxy. Meanwhile, Jacen Solo experiences the return of the voice that told him to stand firm at Duro three years earlier, along with the vision of failing to catch the lightsaber tossed to him by his uncle Luke. From this, Jacen begins to wonder if he will make the right decisions in the near future against the Yuuzhan Vong. On Vong-shaped Yuuzhan'tar, Nom Anor is accepted back into his species' society by Supreme Overlord Shimrra Jamaane, who also promotes the former outcast to the rank of Prefect of Yuuzhan'tar. This promotion was influenced under the mistaken belief that Nom Anor had killed Zonama Sekot. But unfortunately for him, he still has to bare the existence of High Prefect Drathul, who is secretly a Quorealist, a member of the forbidden party who believes that Shimrra's late predecessor, Quoreal, was killed dishonorably by the current Supreme Overlord, and that Quoreal was right about refusing to conquer the galaxy. Drathul is vaguely aware of Nom Anor's lack of faith in the Vong religion and in Shimrra's competency as the Supreme Overlord. So the High Prefect tries to use this as leverage in order to coerce Nom Anor into being a Quorealist. And what is even worse for Nom Anor's return to Vong society is that his own Jedi heresy, which he conducted as Yu'shaa, Prophet of the Shamed Ones, continues to stand strong by the will of the Shamed and worker castes even without his leadership, thanks to his once-trusted aide, the Shamed warrior Kunra. This is evident as the heretics break up the sacrifice of the Alliance captives, saving many of them, including Major Cracken, even at the cost of some of their own lives. And even with Shimrra demanding the deaths of many heretics and potential heretics alike, the Jedi heresy still stands strong. All of this simply adds to the list of problems that Shimrra and the rest of Yuuzhan'tar are going through with the World Brain still making unpleasant activities to disturb the Yuuzhan Vong high command in spite of Shimrra's attempts to tame it, the rumors that the Supreme Overlord is growing mad with power, and that loss to the Galactic Alliance is inevitable. One of the few things guaranteeing Shimrra's position in power is his own royal guard of Slayers, genetically modified warriors designed not only to protect him loyally, but also specialized to kill Jedi. Eventually, Zonama Sekot arrives in the Coruscant system, coinciding with Nom Anor's false prophecy to the heresy as it appears in Yuuzhan'tar's skies. This coerces Warmaster Nas Choka to recall his armada from their winning battle against the Galactic Alliance at Mon Calamari to Yuuzhan'tar. It also distorts the mainstream social hierarchy of the species and causes great joy in the Shamed Ones and workers for bringing their oppressive rulers down. Shimrra even seems to go insane, as Nom Anor sees from the demands that the Supreme Overlord makes to the highly placed officials at his command. This apparent insanity is further proven when Shimrra, who believed that the Yuuzhan Vong no longer need their gods, whether or not the deities actually existed, tells Nom Anor that he declares open war on Yun'o, even though it was likely that Shimrra never really believed in the gods throughout the course of his reign, while he tells the rest of the Elite that it is time to prove themselves independent of Yun'o. The Dread Lord explains himself by saying that Yun'o fear that they will lose their own power over the Yuuzhan Vong as the species gain their independence from the deities; pitting Zonama against the Vong is just one final test to see if the species is worthy of ruling the galaxy, and, as Shimrra announces, the galactic invaders have already been provided the means of killing the living planet thanks to the Alpha Red-infected Slayer ship. Suspicions to Shimrra's insanity further increase when he orders the deaths of all potential future Supreme Overlords meant to replace him when it was time for his reign to end, and to put an end to worshiping all gods but Yun-Harla in order to provoke anger from the other deities, as part of the declaration of open war. But despite these suspicions, these orders from the Dread Lord are successfully carried out as he also demands for the deaths of all the rioting heretics, which the warriors begin enacting loyally. Meanwhile, as the Galactic Alliance loses its great Admiral Gial Ackbar from old age, its military passes through Vong defenses at the captured planet of Corulag after a victorious battle, making it possible for an advance on Yuuzhan'tar. Soon, the Galactic Alliance forces finally arrive at Yuuzhan'tar, and Shimrra telepathically orders the World Brain to destroy Yuuzhan'tar so that if the Yuuzhan Vong lose against the Alliance, they will not have Coruscant to reclaim. As a result, Nom Anor, realizing the full extent of Shimrra's insanity when the World Brain begins enacting this order, returns to his guise as Yu'shaa the Prophet and sides with the heretics and their Alliance allies against Shimrra's order. All of this marks the beginning of Recapture of Coruscant. And while the Galactic Alliance forces duel the Vong fleet in space, on Yuuzhan'tar, around Muscave, and at Zonama Sekot, Han, Leia, and Harrar lead a mission aboard the Millennium Falcon to either convince the World Brain to cease its efforts of trying to destroy Yuuzhan'tar or kill it. But they are then captured by Yuuzhan Vong forces led by Drathul, and Han, Leia, Harrar, C-3PO, R2-D2, Cakhmaim, and Meewalh are taken by them in order to be executed at the Well of the World Brain as sacrifices to the creature. Meanwhile, Mara Jade Skywalker, Tahiri Veila, and Jedi Master Kenth Hamner fight alongside the heretics and their Alliance allies against Shimrra's forces, and Tahiri comes into contact with Nom Anor. She captures him and holds him for Mara to come over so that the latter can see it her way as to how he should be punished for all of the wrong that he had committed throughout the war. However, Nom Anor escapes Tahiri's grasp and flees, but Mara chases him down into an abandoned building. After a brief fight between the two of them, Mara defeats and nearly kills Nom Anor for giving her the coomb spore virus years earlier and for all of the other misdeeds for which he had given the Jedi and the late New Republic during the invasion. But the false Prophet pleads for mercy, telling Mara that he had changed as Yu'shaa; he also knows that even if his species wins the war, Coruscant could never be Yuuzhan'tar; and finally, killing Nom Anor would be an act of vengeance, of the dark side of the Force, which would greatly break Mara's son, Ben's, heart. So, even though Mara does not believe a word he said, she spares him for others to decide his fate after the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar, assuming that the Galactic Alliance will win. He also tells her that Shimrra had ordered the Alpha Red-infected Vong ship, transferred from Caluula, to Zonama Sekot, as it is set to kill the living planet. So the Jedi and heretics travel to the Well of the World Brain to save Han, Leia, Harrar, and the others from being executed and subsequently warn the Galactic Alliance forces about the Alpha Red-infected Vong ship headed for Zonama Sekot. The latter situation is all for naught as that ship successfully evades the Alliance and Zonama's defensive forces to arrive at the living planet. Despite this, Drathul's forces are overwhelmed at the Well of the World Brain, even by backup traditional warriors who have seen the error of Shimrra's ways, while the High Prefect himself is strangled to death by Nom Anor, being that they were obvious personal enemies. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker and the Solo twins, Jacen and Jaina, set off to kill Shimrra and bring the war to its end with his death on the Galactic Alliance's victory. With Captain Judder Page and his Katarn Commandos, Luke and the Solo twins travel to the Dread Lord's Citadel via the Sacred Precinct in order to assassinate the Supreme Overlord. Jacen, thanks to the mental connection that he made with the World Brain, breaks Shimrra's own telepathic connection over the planet-controlling dhuryam and convinces it to cease its destruction of Yuuzhan'tar. This prevents Han, Leia, and Harrar from killing the World Brain. Jacen also convinces the Yuuzhan Vong biots, Sgauru and Tu-Scart, who are nicknamed the Biter and Beater respectively by the Vong, into helping him, his uncle, and his sister enter the Citadel. While Page and the Katarn Commandos storm the lower levels of Shimrra's Citadel, Luke and the Solo twins battle their way through Vong warriors as they travel up the mountainous worldship. During this time, Luke seemingly surrenders himself to the Force, letting it engulf him so that he is an unstoppable force of nature which no Yuuzhan Vong can counter, and which neither Jacen nor Jaina can comprehend visually or through the Force as their uncle. Eventually, Luke, Jacen, and Jaina arrive at Shimrra's private coffer, which acts as an emergency evacuation ship for the Supreme Overlord, at the top of the Citadel and the Jedi proceed to kill the Dread Lord. But Shimrra is joined with his guard of Slayers and he sends them to duel Luke, Jacen, and Jaina. Then the Citadel begins to sway and tip in all directions, making the Jedi think that the World Brain is doing this in order to help them combat the Slayers, but the battle becomes all the more difficult for both parties because the swaying and tipping is affecting both groups' performances against each other. In the end, though, the Slayers are all killed in combat against the three Jedi despite the special Yuuzhan Vong warriors' efforts thanks to their opponents' awesome skills with their lightsabers, combat training, and the Force. However, after apparently forcing his Citadel to stay put in its regular placement because of the mental connection that he has with it, Shimrra knocks Jacen unconscious when the latter tries to attack him, knocks away his lightsaber, and begins to suffocate Luke with his special amphistaff, the Scepter of Power. Then the Supreme Overlord prepares to kill Luke by utilizing the lightsaber of the late Anakin Solo. Disregarding the Vong's hatred of mechanical technology by harboring Anakin's lightsaber in order to show Luke how it feels to be fighting something that is part of, or at least bears similarities to, their society, Shimrra reflects on his species' battle against Zonama Sekot, the living planet that they feel should be sacred to them, but was thrust into fighting them by their enemies and, apparently, their gods. Meanwhile, Jaina follows the Supreme Overlord's Shamed familiar, Onimi,, into the control section of the coffer. At the bottom of the semi-staircase leading to the coffer's controls, the familiar knocks her unconscious via poison in his fang and then mounts her in between statues of two Vong deities on the vessel's bridge. Back with the confrontation between Luke and Shimrra, Luke manages to reclaim Anakin's lightsaber from Shimrra's grasp, despite being poisoned by the Scepter of Power, so he could cut the Scepter of Power into pieces with both his and his late nephew's lightsabers, preventing the Scepter of Power from cutting off his air supply any further, and uses both Jedi weapons in his hands to decapitate the Supreme Overlord. The Jedi Master then collapses from the poison injected into his system by the Scepter, and then he throws Anakin's lightsaber to Jacen, who woke up from being knocked out by Shimrra. But Jacen misses the lightsaber, reflecting the vision that returned to him on Zonama Sekot of failing to catch the weapon. Despite this, Jacen is sent by the faltering Luke to retrieve Jaina. On the bridge of the Citadel's coffer, Jaina wakes up to Onimi, who reveals that he was actually the real Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong ever since Shimrra seemingly ruled the species. Onimi believes that the Jedi are the avatars of the Vong gods, with Jaina being Yun-Harla, the Trickster goddess, which she used as a persona in the latter half of the invasion as psychological warfare against the Vong. This supports Onimi's motivations as he explains that he was once a Shaper who fused his brain with yammosk tissue in order to gain knowledge for what he discovered to be the empty eighth cortex of Shaper science. The eighth cortex was meant to find a way to save the Yuuzhan Vong from the decades of violence against each other as they crossed the Intergalactic Void in order to arrive in the galaxy. Onimi, in his goal of trying to find a way to save his people via the yammosk fusion to his brain, became a Shamed One for this. He then blamed Yun'o, especially Yun-Harla, for his afflictions in their motivation for retaliation against the Shaper who was trying to divulge their divine knowledge. However, Onimi found that he had regained the Yuuzhan Vong's lost connection to the Force, and then used it to manipulate Shimrra via mind-control into invading the galaxy. Behind the scenes, at Shimrra's throne, Onimi was the one who really led his species into the invasion, as he previously confirmed, and he originally thought that the war was just a test by Yun'o assigned to him and his species in order to see if they were worthy of the worlds that the galaxy had provided. But as the war went on, Onimi later evaluated that the gods wanted to destroy him and his rule with Shimrra acting as his puppet, and thus, destroy the Yuuzhan Vong as a whole. He asserts that Yun'o would not want one with such power to be stronger than they were if this was the reason that their creations were losing the war, especially with the living planet of Zonama Sekot now among those battling the Vong. Since these events have transpired, Onimi had lost his mental hold on what was left of Shimrra's psyche because he had been preoccupied with defeating the Yuuzhan Vong's enemies, which was what brought upon the false Supreme Overlord's insanity, as Nom Anor observed as the final battle of the Yuuzhan Vong War begun. It is also revealed by the real Supreme Overlord that he was responsible for the swaying and tipping of the Citadel. Onimi performed this by using the mental connection that he had with it, which was obviously greater than Shimrra's, in order to increase the chances that the Slayers had in winning the battle. Now, even with the presence of Zonama Sekot, Shimrra's death, and the fall of Yuuzhan'tar, Onimi believes that he will be able to become a god with Zonama's destruction via Alpha Red. He has now gone so insane that he plans to wipe out every single living being and thing in the galaxy. Before Shimrra's coffer launches under Onimi's command, the Jedi, the Yuuzhan Vong heretics, their traditional Vong captives, and some of the Galactic Alliance soldiers and commandos involved in the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar arrive at the Citadel. As Captain Page and his commandos return to the surface to meet up with their allies, their mission in the lower levels of Shimrra's Citadel successful, a division of the worldship's arriving party investigates the upper levels of the Citadel, where they find Shimrra's decapitated form and Luke dying. Mara then takes Luke aboard the Millennium Falcon for healing, while Harrar announces to the heretics and their traditional Vong allies and captives that Shimrra is dead, which enhances the joy of those who were against Shimrra, while those still loyal to the false Supreme Overlord are either in a state of surrender or disbelief. Meanwhile, Nom Anor, who is shocked with Shimrra's demise, leads Han and Leia aboard the launching coffer in order to search for the Solo twins, and then the evacuation ship launches. And as the vessel reaches for space above Yuuzhan'tar, Jacen arrives on the ship's bridge and confronts Onimi, who senses in him the divine glow of Yun-Shuno, the Pardoner goddess of the Shamed Ones, and the betrayer of everything that the real Supreme Overlord has set out to create. Meanwhile, Warmaster Nas Choka disbelieves the reports of Shimrra's death, especially when he sees the coffer launch from Yuuzhan'tar, mistaking it for riding under the control of the false Supreme Overlord. After the voice that told him to stand firm returns to Jacen one last time, having him realize that it came from his late grandfather, Anakin Skywalker, Jacen launches into a fight against the Supreme Overlord. And the young Jedi Knight who started out in the war as a doubtful and hesitant individual manages to achieve oneness with the Force in order to fight without fighting, countering and throwing off Onimi's actions at every turn without making a single misstep or mistake in the combat himself, fulfilling the request made by his grandfather. The Supreme Overlord does his best to fight off his opponent with martial prowess, the poisonous toxins which he uses inside his own body, and the Force, but to no avail. Jaina attempts to help Jacen against Onimi through the Force, but the former communicates to her with the energy source that they share as Jedi to save her power in order to recuperate herself from the Supreme Overlord's fang poison. Then Jacen realizes that he could not catch the lightsaber in either his vision or in real life because he is the lightsaber who will defeat Onimi, the true Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong, the darkness of everything that the invaders stand for. The Jedi Knight then becomes too powerful for his opponent to fight off, and then Jacen uses the Force's pure energy to pin Onimi to the bulkhead at the latter's back; as a result, Jacen effectively defeats the one responsible for bringing about the whole war in the first place. Shortly after, Han, Leia, and Nom Anor come aboard the bridge to see Jacen's victory, and they find that he has seemingly aged by five years, erasing any trace of his childhood--an event which, coupled with the backdrop of stars and fighting space forces shown from the evacuation ship's transparent hull, burns into Leia's memory and will remain with her until the end of her life. Meanwhile, thanks to Jacen's Force energy fixing the Supreme Overlord of his Shamed deformities, Onimi has been shapen properly again. But, because his disfigurements were the result of his individual gain of the Force in the first place, the loss of the deformities and the Force also results in the loss of control over the poisons in his own body. As a consequence, the Supreme Overlord slides down along the bulkhead behind him and dissolves into a puddle of foul hydrocarbons. Onimi's liquid remnants are then sucked in by the yorik coral deck of the vessel like a stain, marking the end of the true Supreme Overlord of the Yuuzhan Vong. Following Onimi's death, the coffer starts to die off because of the connection that it had with him, now severed thanks to his passing. The process of the vessel's own death begins as Shimrra's Citadel on Yuuzhan'tar explodes because of the same reason. Jacen picks Jaina up off the Vong statues which Onimi put her in between, explaining that he refused her help against the Supreme Overlord so that she could use it to heal herself, confirming what he already told her through the Force. Then Nom Anor tries to kill the Solos for the misdeeds that they have given him by nearly tricking them into going into a garbage chute, making them think that it was an escape vessel known as a yorik-trema. But because of Jacen's Vongsense, he detects Nom Anor's treachery and prevents the deaths of his family and himself by providing this information to all those present. Nom Anor desperately tries one last attempt to escape them by using his plaeryin bol in order to shoot poison out at Jacen and use a device, disguised as a finger on his hand, to depart. But Jacen uses a Force technique taught to him by the late Vergere on rendering Nom Anor's poison barren in terms of its intended effects in order to transform it into water, thereby saving himself. At the same time, Leia stops Nom Anor from escaping by quickly cutting off the hand from which he tried to pull the device with her lightsaber, immobilizing him. After Jacen tells him that it did not have to be this way, Nom Anor proclaims that it did, because he fit in neither with the native galactic society for his hatred of the Force or the Yuuzhan Vong for his atheism. Regardless, he is offered by Han to escape the dying evacuation ship when the Solos enter the real yorik-trema anyway. But Nom Anor finds that since the Yuuzhan Vong have lost the war, he does not want to have any part of what is to come, and that he will die with Onimi, as they were both alike. So he pushes Han aboard the yorik-trema with the latter's family, then leaves himself aboard the dying evacuation vessel as it explodes above Yuuzhan'tar, displacing nearby Yuuzhan Vong battleships in its wake. This ends the life of Nom Anor, the Vong agent responsible for approximately half of the war as the Solos survive in the escape vessel, which is picked up by the Millennium Falcon, piloted by Mara, and which has the dying Luke aboard. Jacen then uses his mother's tears and his own to heal Luke, and the Jedi Master quickly recovers from Shimrra's amphistaff poison. The Solos and the Skywalkers then reunite in a bittersweet embrace, while C-3PO and R2-D2 watch on, with Threepio telling Artoo that he envies over what joy humans must feel in times like these. In the wake of the destruction of Shimrra's coffer, with Warmaster Choka witnessing this event, he knew then that the Supreme Overlord died with it. Now, for the first time in the history of the species, the Yuuzhan Vong are without a Supreme Overlord. Seeing that they have lost under the belief that their species had lost Shimrra as the species' conduit to their gods and that their deities had turned against them, Choka ordered all of his forces in the galaxy to either surrender to the Galactic Alliance, keep on fighting for their own sakes, or commit suicide, officially heralding the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War. As for the Alpha Red-infected ship, Zonama Sekot managed to repel it before the vessel could arrive at the living planet. The rest of Alpha Red is destroyed by the Galactic Alliance, considering that it is no longer needed. Director of the Galactic Alliance Intelligence Service Dif Scaur, for his actions in creating Alpha Red with the Chiss Ascendancy, is quietly forced to resign by Alliance Chief of State Cal Omas and is replaced by Belindi Kalenda. Sekot also brought down all warships in its immediate vicinity--both the Alliance's and the Vong's--down to Zonama's surface, getting rid of the invaders' weapons and halting the entire battle around it. And after the Battle of Yuuzhan'tar, the Peace Brigade is disbanded and Choka makes a deal with the Galactic Alliance at the Sekot Accords; the species will be spared, in spite of the invasion that they had caused, which resulted in 365 trillion native galactic deaths, and the Vong will be brought to Zonama Sekot. During this time, Sekot realizes that it is the seed of the original Yuuzhan'tar, and, taking on the form of Vergere, it shares this information with Luke, Jacen, and Harrar, which is something that the Yuuzhan Vong themselves will soon come to realize. After Choka and his remaining obedient forces collect all other remaining Yuuzhan Vong forces across the galactic invasion corridor for Zonama--especially those who have not heeded Choka's orders to agree to the Sekot Accords. The living planet then takes the remaining Vong in the galaxy and travels into hyperspace. From this hyperspace jump, Zonama Sekot disappears back into the Unknown Regions so that the Vong will be safe from vengeful galactic denizens, such as the Bothans, who still have their ar'krai declared against them. On the planet Zonama, and by the intelligence Sekot, the once-violent species will learn the meaning of peace and regain their connection to the Force. Joining Zonama Sekot and the Vong are the likes of Danni Quee, Tekli, and Tahiri Veila, because Danni and Tekli want to study the living planet while Tahiri, being half a Vong because of her fusion with her Riina Kwaad personality, wants to help the species regain the Force and become peaceful. The Galactic Alliance also automatically reclaims Yuuzhan'tar as Coruscant as part of their victory, rebuilding what the Vong have destroyed and keeping some of what they introduced to the planet for vanity reasons, including the World Brain, a sign of compromise that even Bothan Admiral Traest Kre'fey appreciates. Though it would be unlikely that Coruscant could be properly habitable within any foreseeable amount of time, the citizens of the galaxy are optimistic. In the meantime, the Galactic Alliance relocates their capital to Denon as Coruscant heals thanks to the Galactic Alliance and help from Vong Shapers that Zonama Sekot didn't take off with. Admiral Kre'fey, meanwhile, is promoted to Supreme Commander for his heroic efforts in rescuing Coruscant from the enemy's clutches, replacing Sien Sovv. Luke announces that coinciding with the war's end is the beginning of the New Jedi Order's belief of the Unifying Force, which combines both the light and dark sides into a perfect harmony. This belief also allows the Jedi to embrace the idea that the best way to serve the Force is to act accordingly to their consciences and, for all those who wish it, stay out of the affairs of the Galactic Alliance in the postwar galaxy. Jacen, in the aftermath of achieving oneness with the Force in his fight with Onimi, decides to go off on a sojourn throughout the galaxy in order to study numerous beliefs and theories about the Force, train under them, and find out which Force belief will be the most appropriate for him to follow now that the war is over. Meanwhile, Imperial Remnant Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, as a token of his gratitude to the Galactic Alliance for helping the Remnant fight back against the Yuuzhan Vong, gives Han and Leia the Alderaanian moss painting, the Killik Twilight, which Han and Leia lost to Grand Admiral Thrawn 21 years earlier when the recently-married Solos were on a mission to Tatooine. Cherishing it as one of the few remnants of her destroyed homeworld, Leia is especially thankful to Pellaeon for giving her the memorabilia. Jaina is forced to finish her relationship with Colonel Jagged Fel because of Jag's duties to the Chiss and Jaina's duties to the rest of the galaxy, though Jag promises that whenever he can, he will visit Jaina as a galactic ambassador of the Chiss Ascendancy. Many of the characters, including Jacen before he leaves for his sojourn, go back to Kashyyyk in order to honor the late Chewbacca, who gave his life early in the war at Sernpidal so that Han and Anakin Solo, along with many other inhabitants of the planet gathered aboard the Millennium Falcon at the time, could live when the Praetorite Vong, the specialist--and treacherous--advance force of the extragalactic invaders, destroyed the world. Han plants Anakin's lightsaber on Chewbacca's memorial so that if another threat like the Yuuzhan Vong were to arise in the galaxy ever again, as Luke announces, someone worthy of Chewbacca's honor and courage will take the weapon and conquer that potential menace. The characters then have a celebratory feast, finding humor and relief in the fact that, once again, the galaxy is at peace. + +We see that Jaina Solo, Lowbacca, Tesar Sebatyne, Tahiri Veila, Tekli, and Jacen Solo are receiving a call through the Force that lures them toward the Unknown Regions. They decide to heed this call. On the mostly reformed Coruscant, the members of Luke Skywalker's Masters' Council, which is the new Jedi Council of the New Jedi Order, are discussing the several problems in the galaxy created by the absences of the Jedi Knights, who have left their duties and are all survivors of the Mission to Myrkr during the Yuuzhan Vong War. An envoy from the Chiss Ascendancy, Mitt'swe'kleoni, appears before the Council to file a formal complaint of why the Myrkr survivors are involved in a border dispute with an unknown aggressor. When Luke tells the envoy that the Council has no knowledge of the Knights' involvement with this dispute, the envoy leaves. At the behest of Galactic Alliance Chief of State Cal Omas, Luke is prompted to take his wife, Mara, their son Ben, and Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne to head to the Unknown Regions in order to retrieve the Myrkr survivors. Meanwhile, the Jedi Council sends Kyp Durron to ask Han Solo and his wife, Leia, to fill in some of the role gaps created by the Jedi Knights' departures into the Unknown Regions. But instead of complying with this request, Han and Leia decide to head into the Unknown Regions, rendezvousing with Luke and Mara at a mysterious insect-like space station in order to look for the Knights as well. They receive the help of Captain Jae Juun and his copilot, Tarfang, to head to the planet Yoggoy to look for the Myrkr survivors. The Skywalker-Solo clan also learn of a species of humanoid bugs, later revealed to be the long-assumed-to-be-extinct Killik race, as well as groups of other beings called Joiners, humans and aliens from all over the galaxy who bonded with the Killiks to the point of sharing their telepathy with them. The members of the Skywalker-Solo clan are worried that this is what the Jedi Knights, especially Jaina and Jacen, may have become. Meanwhile, R2-D2 is having malfunctions that impede his abilities and activities. On Yoggoy, the Skywalker-Solo clan learn that the Killiks are being led by Raynar Thul, another survivor of the Myrkr mission. He was thought to be dead when he was kidnapped by the Dark Jedi Lomi Plo and Welk aboard the Tachyon Flier from the Baanu Rass, which, piloted by Plo and Welk, abandoned the survivors to find another way off of the Baanu Rass before the latter party completed their mission of destroying the voxyn. Raynar reveals that he obviously survived the crash of the Tachyon Flier when it hit the planet, but he doesn't seem to remember Lomi Plo and Welk. He was saved from dying in the aftermath of the Crash by the Killiks when they turned him into a Joiner. However, his Force-sensitivity made him more than just a mere Joiner like all of the others; he became the UnuThul via integrating with the nest of Unu, leader of the entire Killik race, as he organized the once-disorderly species into a hive-mind known as the Colony. And during the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, UnuThul began a campaign to rest the nests of the Killiks in the Qoribu system, which is a light year away from Chiss space. Following the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War, UnuThul used his Force call to gather up the survivors of Myrkr in order to help him in the Killiks' border dispute against the Chiss. After UnuThul's exposition, the Skywalker-Solo clan visits the Flier Crash site, where Leia sees a vision of Jacen revealing the location of the Killik nests. This vision stems from Jacen's earlier visit to Yoggoy to investigate the Crash, where he flow-walked back in time when the Crash occurred in order to find a horribly burned Raynar saving a similarly burned Lomi Plo and Welk from the flames of the wrecked freighter. After that, the Skywalkers, Solos, and Saba are attacked by blue Killiks. Though they survive the attack, they question UnuThul of what happened, to which he denies any knowledge of. The clan, now suspicious of the Killiks' motives, decide to leave Yoggoy for Qoribu. At Qoribu, the Myrkr survivors, teamed up with the Killiks, battle Chiss forces around the nests. The Skywalker-Solo clan arrive in-system and are again attacked by Killik forces. This makes Luke nearly drain himself of his energy through the Force in order to defend the Jade Shadow, giving him an almost sickly appearance of the late Palpatine. The Skywalker-Solo clan make it through the attack and join down on Jwlio, one of Qoribu's moons made for the nest of the Taat, a Killik division, after the battle ends. They meet up with the Myrkr survivors, who reveal what the Killiks do in order to survive. The survivors justify their actions in risking negative relations between the Galactic Alliance and the Chiss by defending the Killiks, who are nothing more than a displaced species trying to find a permanent home in the galaxy. The Skywalker-Solo clan try to convince the survivors to come with them, leave the Killiks behind, and let the Masters' Council find another way to resolve the Killik-Chiss dispute before it escalates to total war. Jacen, Tahiri, Tekli, and Tesar decide to go with Luke, Mara, Ben, and Saba back to the New Jedi Temple on Ossus to see how the Killiks gather up Joiners. Alema Rar decides to go with Han and Leia. Jaina and Zekk decide to stay behind, if only to save Lowbacca, who was lost in space during the recent battle against the Chiss. But before the parties leave for Ossus, Saba is attacked in a cave by Welk and a few of the blue Killiks, which UnuThul still denies any knowledge of, and Saba is severely wounded, with Welk escaping her grasp. The parties are all aware that at least Welk, if not Lomi Plo, also survived the Yoggoy Crash, and UnuThul refuses to believe this. Regardless, the parties leave with the Jedi Knights they have. But Saba, in her wounded state, who is being taken by Han and Leia, fails to divulge the hypothesized information she thought of after her fight with Welk; that one of the blue Killiks has sneaked aboard the Jade Shadow with Luke, Mara, and Ben aboard. And on the Shadow, Ben gets into trouble for eating too much gelmeat by Mara, who thinks that Ben is lying when he says that he is feeding the gelmeat to his new Killik pet/friend. Meanwhile, Luke decides to fix R2-D2 in order to find out what's wrong with his functions, and finds a recording of his late father, Anakin Skywalker, and an unnamed woman who Luke suspects of being his mother. Artoo ends the recording, saying that it's a malfunction to his programming, but Luke doesn't believe in the astromech droid, wondering why he'd keep the information of his parents so secret. Meanwhile, aboard the Millennium Falcon, Leia subtly tries to coerce information from Alema as to why she decided to go aboard, especially since Alema decided this just after Saba was wounded, and to the surprise of Jaina and Zekk--something that shouldn't happen within a hive mind. When Leia presses too hard, Alema demands that "you follow our demands," giving Leia the information she needed to know that Alema has been completely taken over by the Killiks. Later, the Falcon is sabotaged, secretly by Alema, and they land on a planet that is amidst a group of other planets in an unnamed nebula. Leia and Alema decide to investigate the malfunction of the Falcon when Alema turns against Leia and tries to escape. She fights Leia and her Noghri bodyguards, Cakhmaim and Meewalh. But though the bodyguards are defeated, Han manages to activate an escape pod, which knocks Alema unconscious. After repairing the Falcon, they bring Alema back to Ossus with the other Jedi Knights in Luke's company in order to see what's wrong with her. On Ossus, medical healer and Jedi Master Cilghal examines the Jedi taken by Luke and Mara, and finds that the Killiks and the Joiners are all interconnected through a limited kind of telepathy that only works when the members of the nests are in close proximity to each other. And before the Jedi are tested for this, Saba awakens and warns Luke and Mara about the supposed blue Killik aboard the Jade Shadow. Realizing that Ben wasn't lying about the gelmeat, Mara confronts Ben and the blue Killik, whose nest is that of the Gorog. Mara and the Gorog fight, and she defeats it. The Jedi taken by Luke and Mara are further tested for their connection, and Alema and the Gorog are also tested. They find that Alema and the Gorog are more closely linked than the other Jedi are to the Gorog. Cilghal postulates that UnuThul denies all knowledge of the Gorog not because he's lying about their existence, but because he doesn't know. Cilghal states that the Gorog are most likely the unconscious part of the Killik nest, who operate without the knowledge of UnuThul, thus the attacks upon the Skywalker-Solo clan denied by the former Raynar. So the Gorog must be controlled by an outside party, most likely by Lomi Plo, and definitely by Welk. And Alema is among them because the Gorog had taken advantage of her grief over her late sister, Numa, and manipulated that grief to join the nest via the dark side anger that Alema pented up over the years. Knowing that the Gorog, or the Dark Nest, are controlling UnuThul to lead the Killiks into war against the Chiss, the Jedi figure that the Dark Nest must be stopped before terrible bloodshed occurs. In order to do this, they allow Alema and the Gorog who Mara defeated to steal a ship so that they could follow it via tracking beacon to where the Gorog nest is located. But before they do follow her, the hacker known as Zakarisz Ghent manages another recording from R2-D2 that depicts a conversation between Luke and Leia's supposed mother, whose name is revealed to be Padme, and a younger Obi-Wan Kenobi, who tells Padme that he is aware of the love between her and Anakin. Meanwhile, the Killiks receive the help of the Hapes Consortium thanks to a visit to Hapes by Jacen, who persuaded Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo, the only Myrkr survivor to refuse the call of UnuThul through the Force by locking herself in her own home, to give the Killiks the backup forces that they need to counter the Chiss offensive. Jacen convinces Tenel Ka to do this by spending the night with her. And Tesar receives the help of Raynar's mother, Aryn, to help the Killiks, especially since her son is leading the prime forces against the Chiss. Lowbacca, in the meantime, is captured by Chiss forces, led by Jagged Fel. At Qoribu, when the Killik-Chiss conflict is at its height thanks to Raynar's mother's forces and the forces of the Hapes Consortium, the Skywalker-Solo clan track Alema and her Gorog companion to the Qoribu moon of Kr. There, while Han and Leia busy themselves between Hapan and Chiss forces as the Battle of Qoribu and the Battle of Kr commence, Luke and Mara follow Alema and the Gorog into an underground cavern inside Kr. They then fight off many Gorog insects just to get to the prime nest, and when they do, they battle several more Gorog, Alema, and Welk. The Millennium Falcon manages to get to the Kr underground lair with a few YVH droids and Jedi Masters. Many Gorog are killed by the invading forces of the Skywalker-Solo clan, Alema escapes after Luke permanently disconnects her arm from the rest of her body with his lightsaber, and Welk is killed in single combat via lightsaber duel by the Jedi Master. After the Chiss are told about the nature of the conflict, they stand down and UnuThul investigates the incident at Kr. He is shocked to find that the Gorog nest does exist, producing their larvae through Chiss captives, as well as eating those captives, which explains the Dark Nest's motivation for going to war with the Chiss. UnuThul finds that he is indirectly responsible for its existence by saving Lomi Plo and Welk from the Crash, though the others try to tell him otherwise. The next step from here, UnuThul agrees, is for the Killiks who are not Gorog to build temporary nests aboard Hapan fighters until they are relocated to their new home at the set of planets Han and Leia visited before Leia had to fight Alema. Afterward, the Chiss return Lowbacca, and UnuThul severs the Joiner connection between the Jedi Knights and the Killiks, since they served their purpose of helping the race against the Chiss. However, Jaina and Zekk still have a powerful Force connection between each other from the Killik-Chiss conflict that disallows them to separate, and they can even read each other's minds. This serves as an awkward stance in Jaina's relationship with Jag Fel. Han and Leia both agree that Leia's place is not as the copilot of the Millennium Falcon, and that Jae Juun, who has been with them since before Yoggoy, can easily replace Leia as the copilot. However, despite her professionalism as a politician, she doesn't want to return to government, having sworn politics out of her life before the Yuuzhan Vong captured Coruscant during the war against them. So she chooses the one remaining alternative left to her--she decides to be taught as a Jedi under the teachings of Saba Sebatyne, something she promised Luke she'd do years earlier, since before the Thrawn campaign. + +Jaina Solo and Zekk, who are still communicating via their Joiner connection since their time with the Killiks has made them mentally inseparable. Jaina and Zekk are tracking down robbers who are stealing Tibanna on Bespin, and they find that the robbers are acting under the influence of black membrosia. They realize, in horror, that the Gorog, or the Dark Nest, is still alive. In the Utegetu Nebula, where the Colony established their nests since the Qoribu Truce, the Killiks are having problems with the Galactic Alliance. It turns out that the Killiks are allegedly harboring pirates and smugglers who steal starship fuel and run on black membrosia. Han and Leia Organa Solo, accompanied by C-3PO, travel to the planet Woteba, the nest of the Saras, in order to find out from UnuThul about the Killiks' side of the story concerning the pirates and smugglers, and if Han and Leia can find out the nature of this pirate-smuggler harboring, then Chief of State Cal Omas will grant the Ithorians a new home planet. Though UnuThul denies any knowledge of the pirates and smugglers, he does keep another end of the bargain that the Colony promised to keep; to tell Mara Jade Skywalker, who is accompanied by her husband, Luke, Saba Sebatyne, and R2-D2, why the Dark Nest has a vendetta against Mara. It turns out that the founders of the Dark Nest were not actually Lomi Plo and the late Welk, as was once thought, but the wife and daughter of the late Imperial bank accountant Daxar Ies, who Mara killed during her time as Emperor's Hand. Mara had killed Ies because he had embezzled two billion credits from Emperor Palpatine's personal bank account. After she killed Ies, she busted into his home in order to find a list that contained all of the other bank accounts that he placed the two billion credits in. When Ies's wife and daughter came home and caught Mara, her conscience prevented her from killing the wife and child, so she sent them off to hide in an unknown location in the galaxy and change their identities. So in obvious conclusion, the Dark Nest's hatred of Mara really stems from Ies's wife and daughter's anger against Mara for killing Dexar. Before UnuThul tells the Skywalker-Solo company all of this, however, the company finds that Woteba is undergoing an epidemic called the Fizz, which degenerates the Killiks and kills them. And following the meeting where UnuThul tells Mara why the Dark Nest are after her, Luke and Han, along with C-3PO and R2-D2, agree to stay on Woteba to not only track down the Dark Nest on the planet, but to also discover the nature of the Fizz. It also turns out that the Killiks believe that the Galactic Alliance gave them the Utegetu Nebula because they knew that the Fizz would kill them, as this epidemic is spreading throughout all the other planets in the nebula, in vengeance for the Killiks causing so much trouble at the Qoribu crisis. But when the company leaves Luke, Han, C-3PO, and R2-D2 on Woteba, the four of them then encounter Alema Rar and the Dark Nest. Alema works out a deal with Luke; if the Galactic Alliance leaves the Dark Nest alone, then they will not interfere in Luke and Han's attempts at combating the Fizz problem. And Alema promises to seal the deal by unlocking a code in R2-D2's memory banks that will reveal more footage of Luke's parents' past every week. The one footage that Alema does decide to show them is a scene that reveals that Luke's father, Anakin, promising his wife, Padme Amidala, that he will stop her from dying in childbirth while she is carrying Luke and Leia in pregnancy. Regardless, going behind the Dark Nest's back, Luke and Han continue their journey to not only solve the Fizz problem, but also the Dark Nest problem. Meanwhile, at the funeral of Sien Sovv, Cal Omas, as part of Sullustan funeral customs, issues a short statement of Sovv and his life. However, his statement that suggests his death was thanks to foul play. It turns out that Sovv and his crew were killed when their ship collided with a smuggler ship because the crew of that ship was under the influence of black membrosia. Omas doesn't just blame the Dark Nest for Sovv's death, but the entire Killik race. In fact, he finds the New Jedi Order to be incompetent in solving the Killik problem and swears to Kyp Durron and Kenth Hamner at the funeral that he will take matters into his own hands if the Jedi do not solve this problem soon. On Hapes, Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker arrive in secrecy to respond to a call by Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo, which took them from a camping trip at Endor. Tenel Ka reveals to Jacen, and unintentionally Ben, their new baby daughter, to whom Tenel Ka used the Force to slow her birth, which is why she is a week old when she should have been a few months old because of the last time Jacen and Tenel Ka met. Tenel Ka reveals that since the baby was born out of wedlock, which is forbidden in Hapan customs, the knowledge of her existence toward the rest of the kingdom is dangerous for the baby, especially if her paternity is ever figured out. In fact, the Dark Nest attack Tenel Ka's palace, and Jacen and Tenel Ka learn via Ben, since he still has a connection to the Gorog, that the Dark Nest wants to kill the baby. Fortunately, the Gorog's attempt fails when Jacen and Tenel Ka successfully kill the assassins, and Tenel Ka deduces that it was her manipulative grandmother, Ta'a Chume, who somehow hired the Gorog to assassinate the baby. For this, Jacen interrogates Ta'a Chume herself by mentally torturing her with the Force in order to find out why she wanted her great-grandchild dead. She reveals that the Dark Nest came to Ta'a Chume for navigation technology for reasons unknown, because Ta'a Chume never asked the Gorog as to why they wanted the technology. She made a deal with them, however, and the deal was this: If the Dark Nest assassinated Tenel Ka's daughter, then the Gorog could get their navigation technology. Ta'a Chume wanted the baby dead because, as heir to the Hapan throne, she posed a threat to Ta'a Chume's future attempts at coming back as Queen Mother, and that she did not want the throne to be ruled by the child of two Jedi. In retaliation for trying to kill his daughter, Jacen plunges Ta'a Chume into a coma. Then he gets an apocalyptic vision of an eternal war involving people, Chiss, and the Killiks. Back on Woteba, Luke, Han, C-3PO and R2-D2 track down five smugglers, one Neimoidian and four Aqualish, where they trade starship fuel to members of the Dark Nest for star amber. Soon, a fight erupts between the two parties, where the smugglers and Dark Nest members are killed by the Fizz, and Luke and Han deduce that the Fizz is some sort of chemical that kills everything on Woteba that harms the planet. They tell this to UnuThul, who, in the Colony's gratitude, give them a spinglass replica of Luke's X-wing which he flew to destroy the first Death Star in the Battle of Yavin, and a spinglass replica of Han's Millennium Falcon. However, Alema returns and convinces UnuThul to imprison Luke and Han for a long enough time to become Joiners. And during their imprisonment, they unlock another holofeed from R2-D2's memory banks that shows Anakin, now as Darth Vader, hunting down Jedi children at the old Jedi Temple during Order 66. This unsettles Luke and makes him meditate to calm his feelings of the horrendous actions his father had committed. Then Han decides to formulate a plan for him, Luke, C-3PO, and R2-D2 to escape by the aid of Jae Juun and Tarfang, who are running the spinglass replicas for the Killiks, which they have delivered to the Fifth Fleet. Han shatters his Falcon replica, which turns out to be Gorog assassins in disguise. Luke and Han kill the assassins, and they all realize that Juun and Tarfang have delivered something that can destroy the Galactic Alliance. At the New Jedi Temple on Ossus, Cilghal finds out from the sample of Fizz that Leia and Saba brought back with them that the Fizz was part of some sort of biological terraforming system that destroys anything that doesn't run parallel to the ecosystem of Woteba. This applies to all other planets in the Utegetu Nebula, because the blast that had formed the nebula had somehow ingrained the biological agents of the Fizz into the planets, which was why they did not have any animals at the time Han, Leia, Alema Rar, Jae Juun, Tarfang, C-3PO, R2-D2, Cakhmaim and Meewalh had first found the nebula. Leia and Saba depart via the Millennium Falcon, with Mara in her StealthX X-wing starfighter, back to Woteba to extract Luke, Han, C-3PO and R2-D2 and tell the Killiks about the Fizz. But the Galactic Alliance has now set up a blockade run by Admiral Nek Bwua'tu by the orders of Cal Omas, who has finally decided to take matters into his own hands. When Leia and Saba try to penetrate the blockade with Mara, they are captured and held prisoner by Bwua'tu's forces, though Mara manages to evade capture. As for Omas, when he decided to take action against the Killiks by setting up the blockade, he also took advantage of the New Jedi Order's apparent lack of leadership in Luke's absence on Woteba by having Corran Horn become temporary leader of the Order. Omas knows that Corran will act as his temporary puppet in controlling the ruling faction of the New Jedi Order, whereas Kyp Durron decides to take action against this government-Jedi alliance, like he did during the Yuuzhan Vong War, to save Luke, Han, Leia, Mara, and Saba. This causes a rift in the New Jedi Order, and Jacen decides to take advantage of this distraction to gather up his peers who he worked with alongside the Killiks at Qoribu in order to make a preemptive strike against the Chiss so that he can halt the coming eternal war that he has seen. They then make a raid on a storage facility with no Chiss casualties, but Jaina looks down on her brother's actions for intentionally starting the conflict when they could have done it with stealth. After the mission is complete, Jaina vows to Jacen that she will never fly with him again. On Woteba, Luke, Han, C-3PO and R2-D2, thanks to Juun and Tarfang, escape the planet, where they then travel to an unnamed world in the Tusken's Eye after a brief battle against pirate forces working for the Dark Nest. Then the company hops aboard a nest ship for one of the Killik nests. It travels into hyperspace toward the Murgo Choke where the Alliance blockade is set up to prevent anyone going in or coming out of the Utegetu Nebula. This begins the Battle of the Murgo Choke. Aboard the Admiral Ackbar, Bwua'tu's battleship and where Leia and Saba are imprisoned, the two Jedi escape but fail to convince Bwua'tu to call off the blockade. However, when the Dark Nest attacks via the spinglass busts handed to them by Juun and Tarfang, Leia convinces Bwua'tu to work with her in order to survive. Then Leia, Saba, and Bwua'tu, along with the other surviving crew members of the Admiral Ackbar, find that with the Dark Nest attacking the ship from the inside, it would be best to abandon ship to the enemy. But not before Leia and Alema launch into a lightsaber duel rematch from their last time on Woteba. Leia severs one of Alema's lekku, wins the duel, but Alema escapes. Aboard the Gorog nest ship where Luke, Han, C-3PO, R2-D2, Juun, and Tarfang traveled on to go to the Murgo Choke, they travel along its length so that they can find the spot where Mara, in her StealthX, can blow the hyperspace generator for the nest ship and Luke can kill Lomi Plo. However, when Luke does duel Lomi Plo, it turns out that she is invisible, therefore the unseen queen of the Dark Nest, because she uses the doubts of others in order to stay invisible through the dark side of the Force. The doubt that Plo uses against Luke is the doubt sprouted by UnuThul's story that it was indirectly Mara's fault that the Dark Nest exists by sparing Dexar Ies's family. Though Mara successfully destroys the Dark Nest ship's hyperspace generator, Lomi Plo escapes, and Luke, Han, C-3PO, R2-D2, Juun, Tarfang, and Mara all retreat to the Mon Mothma, Admiral Bwua'tu's new flagship since the Killiks took the Admiral Ackbar. Luke narrowly survives a decompression death from his leaking spacesuit that resulted in his fight with Plo. The characters aboard the Mon Mothma are then thrown into sorrow because of the events of the Battle of the Murgo Choke, as well as the Jedi Knights' Chiss raid. And because of these events, the Swarm War has begun. + +The Chiss launch a bomb on the planet that doesn't go off, and Jaina Solo, Zekk, Tesar Sebatyne, Lowbacca, Tahiri Veila and Jacen Solo all go to the bomb to stop its activation, but they have to dodge through Chiss fire raining from orbit. They race to the bomb against a Chiss shuttle craft, which has Jagged Fel aboard. This stirs up emotions in Jaina, which makes Zekk jealous in their Force-meld. The shuttle craft dismounts a Chiss commando squadron which the Jedi Knights fight against, and during the battle, the shuttle with Jag aboard is destroyed. Jag survives thanks to some Force manipulation by Jacen, who has Jag activate the bomb when the Chiss commandos have failed. The bomb's effects would kill the Killiks on the planet. Jaina holds it against Jacen for going against them. The story then shifts over to the New Jedi Temple on Ossus where Jedi Master Luke Skywalker has called for an audience from all of the Jedi in the galaxy. Because of the Dark Nest Crisis and the concurrent Swarm War, Luke has found that the New Jedi Order and its ideals from the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War are insufficent in this crisis--considering their separate viewpoints and how they had been manipulated by the likes of politicians such as Galactic Alliance Chief of State Cal Omas. Therefore, he makes this announcement: He will become the Grand Master of the New Jedi Order, taking total control of it like his late Master Yoda did with the previous Jedi Order. Also, those who cannot place their Jedi duties above all else must resign. Though Leia Organa Solo finds Luke's action to be brash, she understands why he had to do it. And from Luke's actions, Jedi like Danni Quee and Tenel Ka Djo resign because of Danni's studying of Zonama Sekot and Tenel Ka's duties as Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium and her daughter, Allana. Concerning Allana, neither Jacen nor Tenel Ka have revealed to anyone, not even Jacen's own family, that Jacen is Allana's father. Following Luke's crowning of himself as the ruler of the New Jedi Order, he moves on to other business with the Jedi Masters, Han, Leia, and Jacen. With Tahiri, Tesar and Lowbacca returning with Jacen, the Masters have noted Jaina and Zekk's absence, officially declaring their knowledge that they have become Joiners, fighting alongside UnuThul and the Killiks against the Chiss. Jacen offers a suggestion that can end the war by destroying the Colony--killing UnuThul along with Lomi Plo. This disconcerts Tahiri, Tesar, and Lowbacca, who are just barely Joiners. Luke considers that they would indeed have to somehow remove UnuThul from leadership of the Killiks alongside killing Lomi Plo. Later, Zakarisz Ghent makes another breakthrough in R2-D2's memory banks concerning Luke's parents, Darth Vader and Padme Amidala. The scene shown is when Vader returns to Padme's residence on Coruscant after he returned from the old Jedi Temple in order to fulfill Order 66. Han, Leia, C-3PO, Saba Sebatyne, Meewalh, and Cakhmaim travel to a Lizil nest in disguise of being weapons merchants seeking to profit from the Swarm War. Their mission is to find out where Jaina and Zekk are now in the war, and Han and Leia get their information from the Squibs trio, Emala, Sligh, and Grees, who they have met years earlier on Tatooine and Pavo Prime. Though the trio reveals that Jaina and Zekk are fighting the Chiss on Tenupe, they later try to have Han and Leia killed aboard the disguised Millennium Falcon by sending over the Squibs' younger relatives. However, Captain Jae Juun and Tarfang, now intelligence agents under the employ of Admiral Nek Bwua'tu, tell Han and Leia about this. With help from Leia's Noghri bodyguards, they defeat the Squibs, who reveal that they have sent assassin Squibs onto Tenupe to kill Jaina in revenge for Han and Leia meddling in their affairs on Tatooine and Pavo Prime. Luke and his wife Mara are invited by Madame Aryn Dro Thul to dinner, which leads to the discussion that Luke and Jacen had which suggested eliminating Raynar to end the Swarm War. Luke has discussed that killing Raynar will only be a last resort and that if he can, he can help him become Human again. Despite the emotional unsteadiness that she is going through that the only possible way to end the war would be to kill her son, especially since she lost her husband years earlier, Aryn gives Luke an R2-0 unit which contains the necessary part needed to open up more of Artoo's memory banks in order to fully reveal Luke's parents' past. And the conversation has also led to revealing that Tesar and Lowbacca have divulged the information of possibly killing Raynar to Aryn. When Luke and Mara confront them about this, along with Tahiri, who didn't know that Tesar and Lowie revealed the information when she brought them to Aryn, they defend their position by saying that it's wrong to kill Raynar, another Jedi Knight, in order to end the Swarm War. This conversation leads to the three confronted Jedi arguing that Luke confides too often in Jacen on matters of the Killiks. They then accidentally reveal that they believe that Jacen had mind-wiped Ben when they got back from Endor to prevent him from remembering something. Luke exiles Tahiri, Tesar and Lowbacca to Dagobah in order to reaffirm their allegiance to the New Jedi Order. Then Luke and Mara confront Jacen about mind-wiping Ben, and Jacen lies by saying that he mind-wiped him in order to protect him from a traumatic memory when a monster attacked an Ewok village, when really, he mind-wiped him so that he wouldn't reveal that he was the father of Tenel Ka's daughter. Luke and Mara look fondly on Jacen again without suspicion from the lie, and they also successfully launch a mission that results in the Battle of Nickel One. Though they succeed in the mission, they get the bad news on a comm channel from Supreme Commander Gilad Pellaeon that the Killiks have captured Thyferra and have taken hold of the Galactic Alliance's bacta supply. Later, Luke, Mara, and Jacen watch another holovid from Artoo's memory banks that reveals Vader and Padme's last time together on Mustafar. Though the recording ends on an incomplete bit, ending just after the Sith Lord Force-threw Padme away, Luke feels ready to kill Lomi Plo despite his own grief that his father would do something like this to his own wife. Along with several other Jedi, Luke, Mara, and Jacen launch a mission on the Gorog nest ship at Sarm, launching the battle in the attempt to kill Lomi Plo. Luke duels Plo inside the nest ship while Mara and Jacen battle off against her Dark Nest forces. The fight ends up with both Mara and Jacen receiving grievous wounds from Plo herself that would have been fatal had the Gorog nest ship not been falling apart by the Jedi's attack. Plo escapes, and so do the surviving Jedi, including Luke, Mara, and Jacen. Returning to the Galactic Alliance, with Mara and Jacen having to spend weeks in a medcenter for recovery because of the decrease of bacta supplies since the Killiks captured Thyferra, Luke decides that he will kill Lomi Plo himself the next time they meet. Then Jacen uses a Force-technique to summon up Luke's fears of losing Mara, and Jacen tells him that in order to be fully invulnerable to Plo's influences whenever they fight is to disparage those fears--that way, Plo wouldn't have anything to use in the Force against Luke. In order to fully rid himself of his grief over his mother, Luke watches the rest of the holovid that started out from Vader throwing Padme on the Mustafar platform. While Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi duel, C-3PO and Artoo take Padme's unconscious form aboard her starship, where Obi-Wan later returns after he has finished his duel to fly Padme to the Polis Massan medical facility. There, he, along with Yoda and Bail Organa, witness Luke and Leia's birth just as Padme dies in childbirth. While his grief over his mother's death hasn't been lifted, Luke could at least disparage of the horrible notion that his father killed his mother before she birthed him and Leia. Regardless, Luke refuses to give into his own will with the Force in his final battle with Lomi Plo, as was the late Vergere's philosophy. At Tenupe, where the battle there between the Killiks and Chiss is raging, Jaina defeats the Squibs trying to kill her and joins Zekk in their StealthX X-wing starfighters to combat the Chiss in the air. Meanwhile, the latter species capture the Millennium Falcon and interrogate Han and Leia to reveal their intentions. Interrogating Leia, they trick her into believing that they are torturing Han so as to get the sufficient information out of her. However, before she is set free by her escaping companions, Leia manages to find out that the Chiss plan to release a bioweapon on Tenupe that can wipe out all of the Killiks. When the Solo company escape in the Falcon, Leia warns Jaina and Zekk through the Force that the Chiss are going to drop their bioweapon soon on Tenupe. Alema Rar then arrives on the scene with her own StealthX and manipulates Jaina and Zekk through their connection as Joiners to act as decoys while Alema herself will destroy the Chiss ships containing the bioweapons. One ship is destroyed, while the other falls onto the surface of the planet, damaged, and lost to both Chiss and Killik parties. They both decide to search for the bomb for completely different reasons; the Killiks wanting to destroy the weapon, the Chiss wanting to activate it. Jaina and Zekk are also shot down, but survive, leading to Han looking for his daughter and her friend. And beforehand, Leia shoots down Jagged Fel, stranding him somewhere on the planet. Leia and Saba then search for the bioweapon bomb, which leads to Leia and Alema's final duel in this trilogy. Leia defeats Alema by having one of Tenupe's jungle beasts, a spidersloth, attack the Twi'lek, and they both disappear into the dark reaches of the jungle, with Alema presumed dead. Leia and Saba successfully find the bomb, and they have it detonate under a river where it can't take any affect on any of the Killiks or the planet. In space above Tenupe, Luke launches a YVH squadron to attack the Admiral Ackbar to confront UnuThul. Luke and UnuThul fight while the YVH bugcrunchers combat the Killiks. Luke, after defeating UnuThul by cutting his arm off, convinces Raynar to return as a Human and revoke all control of the Colony to reduce the Killiks back into the disorganized civilization they were before he Joined them. Lomi Plo enters, and Luke, having dispensed with his emotional weaknesses, easily chops Plo into pieces and kills her. The Dark Nest dies off, along with the Colony's organization. Raynar returns to the Galactic Alliance for intense psychological treatment under the Jedi's eye. The Swarm War is now over, with the Killiks back as a mindless species and the Chiss agreeing to back off from trying to exterminate the insects. Leia is declared a full-fledged Jedi Knight for her actions during the Swarm War. Leia then asks Luke what will happen to the New Jedi Order if he were to ever be absent again, now that he's in complete control of the Order. + +On Coruscant, with Luke Skywalker awake in bed, and thinks that a mysterious man in his dreams doesn't exist to his wife Mara. He wonders if it might be someone like Raynar Thul, whom Luke confronted four years earlier at the end of the Swarm War. Luke and Mara consider that it might not be anything important, although Luke still has his doubts. On Adumar, at the Dammant Killers company, Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker are investigating what the company has in terms of safety procedures for their employees. Duly, Jacen and Ben find that the Dammant Killers are producing illegal weapons for other planets without the permission of the Galactic Alliance, and they narrowly escape from being killed by the resurgent employees. Outside the building, after more employees try to kill them, Jacen and Ben escape Adumar, with Ben transmitting the information about Adumar producing the weapons and sending this information to the Galactic Alliance. Later, at the Solos' apartment on Coruscant, Han and Leia have a reunion with their children, Jaina and Jacen, the Skywalker clan, and Zekk, who is still with Jaina because of their Force connection made by their Joining with the Killiks five years earlier. During the reunion, when Han is told about the Dammant Killers operating with weapons without the Galactic Alliance's supervision, he is offended, because Adumar is an example of the countless planets around the galaxy who want to secede from the Alliance. This is because the Alliance is now being seen by all of these planets as approaching the tyrannical behaviour of the Galactic Empire in its heyday. Disturbingly, Han's home planet of Corellia happens to be among those planets opposing the Galactic Alliance. Knowing this, Luke confers with Jacen to brief him about a Corellia-related mission; recently, Galactic Alliance Intelligence had collected information that Thrackan Sal-Solo has just reactivated Centerpoint Station and that he plans to use it to further the cause of Corellian independence from the Galactic Alliance's rule. Luke asks Jacen if he can stop Centerpoint from being reactivated, and leaves it up to Jacen if he wants to take Ben along. Jacen accepts, and he confirms that he is taking Ben along on the mission. As they head back to the reunion, Luke notices a mysterious woman in the far darkness watching him. Meanwhile, retired Galactic Alliance General Wedge Antilles is kidnapped from his home of Corellia by Galactic Alliance agents, who trick him into coming with them willingly because they think that he is part of the Corellian rebellion against the GA. Of course, Wedge manages to escape from his captivity on Coruscant and heads back to Corellia as the Galactic Alliance enter the Corellia system in an attempt to cement their authority there. Corellia decides to act against the Alliance by attacking them. During the battle, Luke leads Hardpoint Squadron against the defenders as Jaina, Zekk and two Jedi apprentices, Kolir Hu'lya and Thann Mithric, attempt to kidnap Five World Prime Minister Aidel Saxan so as to convince the Corellians to fall back under Galactic Alliance rule. However, because of an earlier meeting with Han and Leia, who told her that the Galactic Alliance might pull off something like this, Saxan comes prepared and has her convoy that Jaina, Zekk and the two apprentices capture be equipped with YVH droids. The four Jedi battle the droids, and report their mission in kidnapping Saxan to be a failure. With that, the Jedi manage to grab a shuttle and head away from Corellia along with Hardpoint Squadron. Meanwhile, aboard Centerpoint Station, Jacen and Ben carry out their mission to deactivate Centerpoint. Jacen confronts Thrackan Sal-Solo and chases him throughout the station, fighting past his bodyguards, but in the end, Sal-Solo escapes. Ben, on the other hand, meets Anakin Sal-Solo, a giant robot who believes that he is the resurrected Anakin Solo. When Ben convinces him that he is just a robot, and that Thrackan somehow managed to utilize the late Anakin Solo's DNA aboard the station to create the robot, and thus, reactivate Centerpoint, Anakin Sal-Solo, depressed about the revelation of his nature, decides to set off false self-destruct alarms in order to evacuate everyone aboard the station, then shut the whole station down. With that, Jacen and Ben succeed in deactivating Centerpoint. After the failed attempt to convince Corellia to fall back under the GA's rule, the Galactic Alliance captures Tralus. The Galactic Alliance and Corellia decide to negotiate terms to resolve the conflict between the two governments at Toryaz Station. But during the negotiations between Supreme Commander Gilad Pellaeon and Prime Minister Saxan, the station is attacked by dying Corellian warriors, and Saxan is killed, while Pellaeon is only saved because he was smart enough to have a decoy fill his place and save his life with the impostor's death. But, because of Saxan's death, any peace between the Galactic Alliance and Corellia will be that much harder to achieve. During the investigation on the station for who may have been responsible for hiring the warriors, Wedge discovers an object made of tassels, and passes it on to Jaina for investigation, who shows it to Jacen. Jacen finds a special meaning to this tassel pattern, which he takes with him to further his own part in the investigation, as he tells Jaina. However, in reality, he wants to find out about the secret meaning to the pattern. He finds a source at the planet Lorrd, taking Ben with him again with the same lie he told Jaina, and the two Jedi meet Jedi Knight Nelani Dinn, who is a guardian of the planet and can help Jacen find out what the tassel pattern means. But during the three Jedi's stay, a series of suicidial-homicidal incidents occur because of Jedi-related obsession from each of the peace violators for different reasons, to which Jacen willingly lets die. In fact, he even helps because the circumstances had called for those victims to die in any case. At the end of this disastrous series of events, the three Jedi meet a Force-sensitive woman named Brisha Syo, who the Lorrd Security Force had captured for suspicious reasons. She tells the three of them that she has been having some bad dreams that seem to be affecting all of those individuals and inciting their suicidal acts. She tells them that she can take them to the source of where the Force has been corrupting her; the Home, which can also help fully translate the meaning of the tassels. While the Corellian forces retake Tralus from the Galactic Alliance and Leia is forced to secretly betray GA forces in order to save her husband and Wedge, Brisha takes Jacen, Ben and Nelani to her asteroid habitat near Bimmiel. When they arrive, Brisha informs them that she suspects that there is a Sith Lord in the caves beneath the asteroid, and that she needs the Jedi to get rid of him. They agree, and they follow Brisha down into the bowels of the asteroid. Brisha, who is really the Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiya, deliberately separates herself and Jacen from Ben and Nelani to launch the ghost battles. She does this by using the dark side of the Force to have Jacen fight Luke and Ben fight Mara through the Force, and all sides of the fights see their opponents as the dark side versions of who they are really fighting, while Nelani fights a strange man and dark side apparitions of mynocks. Lumiya ends the fights by releasing her concentration of sustaining the apparitions and reveals to Jacen her Sith artefacts in her home within the Home, telling Jacen that not all Sith throughout the centuries have been evil, such as Darth Vectivus. Prior to Vectivus being a Sith, he had supervised the mining operation on the asteroid before it became the Home centuries earlier because of the dark side emissions from it, and he used his knowledge not to destroy the Jedi or rule the galaxy, but to improve on his own knowledge of the dark side for his own way of life. Lumiya seduces Jacen to the dark side by telling him that he can stop the upcoming war between the Galactic Alliance and Corellia by giving in to the Sith, which was what the late Vergere wanted of him during his captivity with the Yuuzhan Vong. Nelani is with Jacen when Lumiya tells him about this, and the two women fight. Lumiya surrenders and allows Nelani to arrest her for her actions during the Galactic Civil War, but when Jacen sees into the future using the Force, he finds that this will only lead to bloody conflict, and even destroy the Home, thus wiping out any chance that Jacen could use as knowledge to stop the GA-Corellian conflict. So it goes; he saves Lumiya and fights Nelani, killing her. Jacen then takes Ben's unconscious form from his fight with Mara, erasing his memory about Lumiya and Nelani, and they leave for Coruscant. Lumiya then speaks to the future Jacen as a Sith Lord, saying that the present Jacen's fate is sealed, and that his destiny as a Sith will be fulfilled. The future Jacen also reminds Lumiya that if the present Jacen ever finds out that she was responsible for the Toryaz attack, thus ruining the one chance that the galaxy had in avoiding the coming war, Jacen will kill her. The meaning of the tassels is also revealed as a prophetic message of the dark steps that Jacen must take as a Sith Lord to bring peace to the galaxy. Mara gives the news to Luke that Jacen and Ben are returning to Coruscant, with Luke sensing that his unknown enemy is near. + +Now deformed from the spidersloth attack in her last duel with Leia Organa Solo, former Night Herald Alema Rar of the now dead Gorog is hunting down Leia's son, Jacen, in revenge for their duels on Woteba, the Admiral Ackbar and Tenupe during the Dark Nest Crisis. But Alema finds herself being similarly stalked by someone else, and manages to elude her stalker and finds it to be Lumiya. Alema follows Lumiya back to Jacen, who is conversing with the World Brain because of the latter's helpfulness with the Galactic Alliance Guard's raids against Corellian terrorists on Coruscant. Alema tries to kill Jacen via a blowgun, but she misses and strikes the World Brain. Jacen tries to kill Alema, not knowing who she is because of the unclear haze created by the Brain, but Lumiya reminds Jacen not to be a servant to his emotions and concentrate more on his responsibilities than his friends. With that, Jacen spares Alema, who is in hiding from Jacen and Lumiya using the dark side of the Force to cloak her presence. Several light years from the blockaded Corellia, in the Kiris Asteroid Cluster where a Corellian battle fleet lays in wait to conquer Galactic Alliance forces, Han Solo and his wife Leia are sent to come aboard the Thrackan Sal-Solo to meet Dur Gejjen and his Corellian party members in order to discuss persuading Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo into having Hapes help Corellia's cause for independence and turn away from the Galactic Alliance, which will be difficult because of Hapes' loyalty to the GA. The Solos accept and depart for Hapes. But before they go into hyperspace, their daughter, Jaina, and her friend, Zekk, manage to get an approximate reading of their destination from the Kiris Asteroid Cluster, considering that it is difficult to get exact hyperspace coordinates thanks to the Transitory Mists, which Jaina has to report to Admiral Nek Bwua'tu. Despite that Jaina conceals her parents' identities, Bwua'tu figures it out anyway. Later, after the World Brain has died from the poison shot by Alema Rar, Luke Skywalker fears that his son, Ben, and nephew Jacen, are being corrupted to the dark side of the Force by Lumiya. So he sends Jedi Master Tresina Lobi to spy on Jacen and Ben as they approach Fellowship Plaza, and Ben leaves after they discuss Ben's position in the Galactic Alliance Guard and the faltering relationship between him and his father. Jacen and Lumiya meet for Jacen to give Lumiya a list of suspected Bothans in the True Victory Party, who Jacen suspects of being responsible for the World Brain's death. But before Lobi can transmit the information about Jacen and Lumiya's partnership, just as Jacen leaves Lumiya, Alema, also spying on Jacen and Ben, stops Lobi, figuring that the best way to get back at the Skywalkers and Solos for the misdeeds that they have brought upon her is by furthering Jacen's fall to the dark side. Alema duels the Chev, and Lumiya helps Alema fight Lobi when Alema falters in her duel against the Jedi, and the Twi'lek decapitates Lobi, thus entering into a partnership with Lumiya. On Hapes, Han and Leia are waiting for their scheduled appointment with Tenel Ka to discuss turning Hapes's allegiance to Corellia from the GA. But they figure out via Tenel Ka's secretary that an appointment was not scheduled, and discern that they have been setup for a coup against Tenel Ka. They try to reach Tenel Ka to warn her of such a trap before a group of assassins decide to act upon Han and Leia's arrival at Tenel Ka's latest party and they battle the honor guards. Han and Leia flee with a mysterious assassin named Nashtah helping them. Following this event, eyewitness accounts wrongly state that Han and Leia were involved in the assassination attempt against Tenel Ka because of Nashtah helping them escape. When Jaina and Zekk investigate this with Tenel Ka, they find that the eyewitnesses have all mysteriously died, most likely from some poison or another assassin hired to silence them on giving any indication as to who wanted Tenel Ka dead. Tenel Ka then hypothesizes that someone within the Hapes Consortium wants her dead, and that someone may be trying to gather up a fleet to overthrow the Hapan Queen Mother to establish a new Hapan order. In order to counter such a coup, Tenel Ka plans to gather up all of the Hapan nobles loyal to her, and sends Jaina and Zekk to round up one such noble - the Ducha Galney of Terephon, whose sister is a close consort of Tenel Ka's. When Jaina and Zekk, the latter who states that he has lost interest in Jaina as a girlfriend, which makes Jaina feel like she lost something and comes to respect Zekk more, arrive at Terephon, they find that the Villa Solis hunting retreat has been abandoned by Galney and her household. Though an annoying woman named Entora Zar, who is a consort to Galney, tells the Jedi that the leader of Terephon left because she was disgusted by Jaina and Zekk's rapid reentry into Terephon's atmosphere, they find out anyway that Galney left because she did not want to be questioned by the Jedi over the assassination attempt on Tenel Ka's life. Therefore, Galney is a traitor to Tenel Ka. To confirm this conclusion, two YVH droids attack Jaina and Zekk, accidentally killing Zar, but the Jedi defeat their robotic opponents. However, following this, Ducha Galney's fleet then proceed to burn down the whole planet's capital city in order to kill Jaina and Zekk, seeing as how they are Jedi who are very hard to kill. But, being who they are, they manage to survive. Back on Coruscant, Luke and Mara investigate Lobi's death and trace it back to Fellowship Plaza, finding Lumiya's apartment. Though she is not there, they find that she has been accessing GAG files in order to kill Bothans across Coruscant. The Skywalkers suspect that Lumiya has been working with GAG and is not just manipulating Jacen, but working with him. Knowing that at least Ben is not being directly corrupted, they find out that he has joined Jacen and GAG aboard the new Star Destroyer, the Anakin Solo, on its shakedown cruise toward Hapes in order to help Tenel Ka against whatever traitors want to overthrow her. Still within the Hapes Cluster, Han and Leia trick Nashtah into thinking that they were hired to assassinate Tenel Ka so that Nashtah can take them to her employer and find out who is plotting to overthrow the Queen Mother. Nashtah takes them to a dingy bar in Nova Station to meet with her employer, and they come across Jagged Fel, who is in exile from the Chiss because of releasing Lowbacca following the Battle of Qoribu early in the Dark Nest Crisis, and Lowbacca caused much damage to the Ascendancy during the subsequent Swarm War. This had his family pay for the damages that Lowbacca personally did, and while his family can be redeemed in the eyes of the Chiss, Jag is forever banned from the species. But prior to his exile, when the Chiss were trying to find him on Tenupe for two years after Leia shot him down during the battle, he came across a clue that supports the fact that Alema Rar is still alive - a Twi'lek memory cord, which led him to hunt Alema down across the planet for the entirety that they were in the jungle for those years. Jag then advises Han and Leia to watch over themselves because of what Alema may be feeling - vengeance against the Skywalkers and Solos - and leaves just before Han, Leia and Nashtah fight the Hapan soldiers hired to kill them in the bar. They are slightly drugged thanks to their drinks, but manage to defeat their opponents. However, Han is wounded in the shoulder thanks to a blaster shot, having Leia take over as pilot of the Millennium Falcon temporarily, and the trio come across Nashtah's employer, Lady Lalu Morwan. Morwan tells Nashtah that in order to earn her fee, she will have to kill Tenel Ka's daughter, Allana, while Tenel Ka herself will be dealt with. Nashtah takes her leave via Morwan's ship to assassinate Allana while Han and Leia take Morwan with them, in the guise of a courtesy, to find out who she is working for, because who she is working for wants Tenel Ka and Allana dead. They do extract from Morwan that Nashtah's real name is Aurra Sing, the infamous Jedi killer in the dying years of the Old Republic, and when they learn that Morwan worked aboard the Hapan Battle Dragon known as the Kendall during the Second Battle of Qoribu, they also learn that she is working for Ducha AlGray. Therefore, AlGray wants to kill Tenel Ka and Allana, and Han transmits this information to Hapes. Orbiting over Hapes, aboard the Anakin Solo, Ben is sent by Jacen to Terephon to pick up Jaina and Zekk, as they had been gone for too long to gather Ducha Galney, and Luke and Mara arrive soon after to learn this. With Tenel Ka joining the conversation, they learn that Jacen has sent out search and detain warrants on his parents not only for their fighting on the Corellian side of the war, but also for their suspected involvement in Tenel Ka's failed assassination. Luke also discusses about Lumiya's involvement with GAG and Lobi's death. Though Jacen denies any knowledge as to Lumiya's involvement with GAG, Luke's suspicions about Jacen falling to the dark side have not faltered, considering that Jacen showed some genuine shock at Lobi's death. Luke is doubly worried that Jacen would be so harsh against his parents. They are later shown the transmission from Han that reveals AlGray as a traitor to Tenel Ka, Aurra Sing is going to kill Allana and that Han and Leia are innocent in the assassination attempt. Though he does not cancel out the arrest warrants on his parents, Jacen does give them the benefit of a doubt as to their involvement against Tenel Ka's life. He then sends out an order for Ben to rendezvous at Roqoo Depot following his mission to collect Jaina and Zekk at Terephon. Luke and Mara go to Roqoo to pick up Ben, and Jacen then double-crosses the Skywalkers and Lumiya by sending the latter to Roqoo to turn the Skywalkers' fears of Lumiya stalking Ben against them when Ben arrives from his mission. This would make Jacen look innocent to them, assuming that they survive. Lumiya is aware of this treachery, but as she tells Alema, she is proud of Jacen for doing it, as she was beginning to have her doubts about training him to be a Sith if he wasn't willing to take the proper sacrifices and betray those closest to him. At Terephon, Ben and his accompanying shipmates pick up Jaina and Zekk. But after Jaina and Zekk tell Ben and his shipmates about Ducha Galney being a traitor to Tenel Ka, they deliberately disobey Jacen's orders of rendezvousing at Roqoo Depot and head straight for the Anakin Solo at Hapes to apprise Tenel Ka of this information. This then foils Jacen's plan of using Luke and Mara's fears of Lumiya stalking Ben when she attacks them. Chaos ensues as Luke duels Lumiya while Mara is brought away from her husband when she is forced to fight Alema. She knocks the Twi'lek unconscious, but instead of killing her, as it goes against her principles of killing an unconscious opponent, she searches Alema for any weapons that she could use when she would wake up. She finds that Alema has a proton bomb strapped to her chest set to go off if her heart stopped beating, and considering that Alema hit her head when she was knocked unconscious, the concussion could be fatal, and thus, set off the bomb. Mara disarms the bomb while Luke is weakened in his fight with Lumiya. However, just as Lumiya has Luke beaten, Luke takes a blaster from one of Lumiya's victims in the fight and shoots her. Though Lumiya does not die from the shots, Mara comes back from disarming Alema's proton bomb and shows Lumiya's bomb to Luke. Seeing as how she is dying, they rush for the exit of the depot and barely escape with their lives before Lumiya's bomb detonates. Despite the explosion, the Skywalkers doubt that she had perished. Aboard the Anakin Solo, Jacen finds out that Aurra Sing is aboard the Star Destroyer and is hunting down for Allana. He races for Allana's room just as Sing arrives as well. They fight, and Sing is beaten when Allana injects a drug into the assassin's thigh via a sleep stick. Sing is then taken to a detention center aboard the Anakin, thus ensuring Allana's safety. The Millennium Falcon meets up with the Hapan usurping fleet, who go by the identity of the Heritage Council, which Ducha AlGray is part of, and they all travel to Hapes to overthrow Tenel Ka with the help of a Corellian fleet, thus confirming Corellia's involvement in trying to overthrow Tenel Ka. But before they do travel with the usurping fleet, Han transmits a signal for the Galactic Alliance to come to Tenel Ka's aid in order to defeat the Heritage Council. And after the hyperspace jump, the Battle of Hapes begins with the usurping fleet getting pounded by Tenel Ka's prepared fleet. But the usurpers manage to fight back, and the battle is equalized just as Lady Morwan realizes that Han and Leia betrayed Ducha AlGray by sending the information about AlGray being a traitor to Tenel Ka. She points a blaster into Han's ribs to make him a hostage to convince Leia to turn the Falcon back to the battle and help AlGray. But Han fights back by braking Morwan's nose, despite having his hand burned by a blaster scorch and frying the ship's control circuits. Regardless, Cakhmaim and Meewalh take Morwan prisoner and place her in a detention center aboard the Falcon. Then the Galactic Alliance forces led by Admiral Bwua'tu arrive, but so does Ducha Galney's fleet. And just as Jacen sends an assisting fleet to help Tenel Ka's forces battle against Galney's fleet, Alema comes aboard the Anakin to warn Jacen that his ploy against the Skywalkers at Roqoo Depot failed and that Lumiya is dead. The only reason that Jacen did not kill her for the shared knowledge that she had from the Dark Nest that revealed that he was Allana's father was because doing so would reveal such information anyway. So Alema told him this with that blackmail hanging over him, and this gives Jacen time to find out what to tell the Skywalkers when they confront him over the incident at Roqoo Depot. Alema leaves just as the GA and Tenel Ka's forces destroy the usurpers and win the Battle of Hapes. However, before the battle is over, the Falcon picks up Jaina, Zekk, Ben and a Twi'lek shipmate, Gim Sorzo. Despite the fact that who the Falcon picked up were Galactic Alliance members, Jacen orders for the Falcon to be fired upon. Cakhmaim and Meewalh are killed during this attack, and Ben tries to arrest Han aboard the Falcon, accidentally wounding Zekk with his lightsaber. Jaina takes Ben and the other two with her off the Falcon while it escapes the Hapes system via hyperspace. After the battle, Luke and Mara discuss with Jacen and Ben about their actions recently, and Luke further asserts his suspicions of Jacen falling to the dark side, which Jacen vehemently denies. Jacen and Tenel Ka say goodbye to each other as lovers, and Jacen disappears from her life once more. + +Several weeks after the Battle of Hapes, Jacen Solo is alone in his office aboard the Anakin Solo, unable to sleep not because he feels guilty about firing on the Millennium Falcon near the end of the battle, but because he feels like he should feel guilty. Then his mother, Leia, appears and uses a Force wave to shatter the viewport of Jacen's office, sucking them both out into the vacuum of space. Then Jacen wakes up, finding out that it was just a dream. Later, a group of smugglers led by Captain Uran Lavint try to run the blockade of Corellia, but they are easily captured even after the plan they made was supposed to have been foolproof against the Galactic Alliance forces making up the blockade. Afterward, Lavint meets Jacen for her money in return for betraying her comrades, but takes her ship, the Breathe My Jets as an Alliance asset, assigning Lavint a new ship, the Duracrud. For this, Lavint asks Jacen what it was like to once be a hero, and in retaliation, after she leaves, Jacen assigns for the Duracrud to have a hyperdrive malfunction so that she will be stranded in the middle of nowhere when she gets out of hyperspace. This will be just for her to learn a lesson about insulting others, assuming that she survives. One hour later, Jacen meets up with Corellian Admiral Wedge Antilles to discuss terms of ending the Second Galactic Civil War. But the meeting goes nowhere as Wedge refuses Corellia's surrender, but tells Jacen, as a friend, something that Wes Janson once told him back when they were fighting in the Rebel Alliance - when you have lost your sense of humor over something, you have become a fanatic, reflecting on Jacen's recent personality in the course of the war. With that, Wedge leaves, leaving Jacen to wonder how he changed from a warm, humorous boy to that of the cold, logical man that he has become. He correlates this with his captivity with the Yuuzhan Vong and the late Vergere, which changed him from a thoughtful, positive young man to that of the Sith he will become. With that, Jacen finally rests, knowing where the previous Jacen has gone, and that he will not miss him. On Coruscant, as the remainder of the GA fleet dispatched at the Battle of Hapes returns, Jedi Master Kyp Durron meets up with Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker to bring them to see Chief of State Cal Omas and Supreme Commander Cha Niathal to discuss promoting Jacen to be a Jedi Master. When the Jedi trio discuss this matter with Omas and Niathal, the latter two say that it will boost public opinion and relations between the GA government and the New Jedi Order, and this idea had been inspired by something that Kyp said. Kyp tells Omas and Niathal that it was a part of taras-chi, a form of debate among Jedi Masters where they throw in potential solutions for certain problems, and then the opposing Masters would counter that suggestion with their own arguments. They would then argue until they find a solid solution that they could all agree on, and Kyp suggesting Jacen become a Master was just that - a suggestion. Regardless, the three Jedi do tell Omas and Niathal that they will consider promoting Jacen to a full Master, and then leave. Afterward, Kyp reveals to Luke and Mara that taras-chi is just a bug in the space mines of Kessel. Regardless, Luke still thinks that taras-chi, as a form of debate, is a good idea and that they will actually ingrain it into the actual New Jedi Order. On Coronet City, the capital of Corellia, Wedge meets up with Five World Prime Minister Dur Gejjen and his cohorts to discuss Corellia's recent actions of trying to assist the Heritage Council with overthrowing Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo. Wedge had not been apprised of the failed coup, and questions the morality of the Corellian government trying to kill foreign rulers rather than fighting for its own freedom and independence from the Galactic Alliance. So Gejjen and his cohorts decide to downgrade Wedge from Admiral to a civilian volunteer in the Corellian military, and he will be replaced by someone younger, who had led the Corellian forces with the Heritage Council fleet to the Battle of Hapes, Admiral Genna Delpin. But rather than being humiliated like this, Wedge decides to quit altogether from the Corellian military, and agrees to send a farewell address to the people of Coronet. However, now knowing what lengths that the likes of Gejjen will go through for Corellia to be a sovereign state, Wedge prepares himself to escape Corellia following his farewell address so that none of Gejjen's assassins will be able to kill him. On Gyndine, where Lando Calrissian owns a refueling and repair station, the heavily damaged Millennium Falcon lands with Lando welcoming Han and Leia Organa Solo, but dispenses with any humorous greetings when he sees how wounded Han is and how distressed both the Solos are. He takes them in and treats them after they tell Lando what happened several weeks before. He then decides for the Falcon to be repaired free of charge for old times' sake and to help the Solos return to Corellia to find out who in the Corellian government gave the authorization for a Corellian fleet to try to overthrow Tenel Ka. They, under assumed names, take Lando's new ship, the Love Commander, to Corellia for that purpose, which coincides with Wedge declaring his retirement from the Corellian military. After his speech is over, he sneaks out of Prime Minister Gejjen's company with the help of his wife, Iella. But Wedge is soon attacked by figures who appear to be Jedi Knights who are easily defeated by those helping Wedge and Iella escape - Wedge's younger daughter Myri and Corran and Mirax Terrik Horn. However, they are unable to actually escape the planet, but take refuge in the Elmas private spaceport. Back with Han, Leia and Lando, they finally arrive in Coronet and meet up, in a bar, with the secret turncoat in Gejjen's company, Denjax Teppler. Teppler reveals that it was Gejjen himself who issued for the Corellian fleet to help the Heritage Council try to overthrow Tenel Ka. After providing that information, the foursome are attacked by the Corellian police, and a blaster fight ensues while Leia cuts a hole in the bar floor with her lightsaber. They drop into that hole to evade the police, and Teppler discreetly leaves their company to rejoin Gejjen, seeing as how he came disguised to provide them the information. Han, Leia and Lando retreat back to the Love Commander, which is at the Elmas spaceport with Wedge, his family and the Horns. Both parties join up with each other to evade the police in their respective ships and escape Corellia, even penetrating the GA blockade to meet up with Booster Terrik. With Booster as an ally, they would be able to use his Star Destroyer known as the Errant Venture as a base of operations for GA soldiers and use what they can find of them to discover who is pulling the strings behind the war. This had been influenced by the vague idea that most of the characters have that the nature of the war extends beyond the political and ideal differences between the GA and Corellia. Back at the Home, Lumiya returns, heavily wounded from her duel with Luke at Roqoo Depot. Despite this, she is able to gradually heal and communicate to Jacen via the Force about her survival and his plans to further his development into a Sith Lord. They discuss the potential that Ben Skywalker has that can make him his apprentice rather than Jacen's sacrifice to become the Dark Lord of the Sith and bring peace to the galaxy. But they agree that Ben needs to be tested. So Jacen and Lumiya plan a mission for Ben, sending the information to him in secret via a Jedi apprentice named Seha Dorvald. Ben is tasked to retrieve the Amulet of Kalara, which has the power to turn a user of the Force invisible from others, from the moon of Almania known as Drewwa in the offices of Tendrando Arms. This is to prevent any dark side user from claiming this object for his/her potential gains. Without anyone else knowing, not even his parents who continue their search for Lumiya, Ben arrives at Drewwa to accomplish his mission. However, when he finds that he needs to eat, his credits somehow have no value to get the food that he needs. So he is forced to steal credits via his Force abilities and is not caught. Then, after being fed, he goes about his mission to find the Amulet of Kalara, but instead of finding the Amulet, he finds a note from an individual named Faskus Olvidan from the planet Ziost that claims that he had taken the Amulet. Ben then steals a Y-wing, making sure that no one catches him, and flies to Ziost with an R2 unit named Shaker. And all this time, Ben is being observed by a Bothan named Byalfin Dyur, who is under Lumiya's payroll, and his shipmates, so that when Ben begins his search for Faskus, Dyur's party destroys the Y-wing, stranding Ben and Shaker on Ziost. Regardless, Ben and Shaker continue their mission and find the campsite set up by Faskus. Ben attacks him and manages to take the Amulet of Kalara. However, he finds that Faskus has been mortally wounded when his ship was shot down by a TIE fighter, and that he didn't steal the Amulet, but it was given to him by a Bothan who told him to take the Amulet to a cave. Faskus dies from his injuries, leaving his daughter, Kiara, an orphan. Ben decides to leave Kiara behind to fulfill his mission of bringing the Amulet to Jacen by finding a shuttle on Ziost, but his conscience, and a voice of reason from Shaker, has him take Kiara along after they bury her father. But during their trek to find a ship, Ben begins to hear voices that tell him to eat Kiara so that he could survive long enough to fulfill his mission. However, he refuses, and this furthers his starvation as the trek continues. And what makes the journey all the more difficult is Dyur's party trying to kill him via the TIE fighter which brought Faskus's ship down. This is because, after Dyur reported that Ben is making inadequate progress to leave Ziost, Lumiya finds that Ben is unworthy to be Jacen's Sith apprentice and orders Ben's death. But he manages to fend off Dyur's machinations to make it inside a mountain where he finds a peculiar ship that runs not on technology or navigation, but by thought and feeling alone. Ben takes pilot of the ship, uses it to blast off of Ziost with Kiara and Shaker and defeat Dyur's forces with the ship's weaponry. Afterward, Ben tells the ship to take them back to Coruscant, and it disappears to hyperspace for the destination. Meanwhile, Lumiya continues to manipulate the course of the war, this time on Corellia's side. She tricks such worlds as Bothawui and Commenor, once avid supporters of the Galactic Alliance, into betraying the GA and siding with the Corellian Confederation, in particular using Alliance Admiral Matric Klauskin as a key figure in her machinations; Klauskin later retires from the military service after completing his actions for Lumiya. In what commences as the Battle of Corellia, the Corellians and their new allies destroy the blockade of Corellia and scatter the GA forces out of the system, and then plan to hold a vote as to who should be the Supreme Commander of the Confederation forces. For this, Jacen, who was tricked by the Skywalkers into using the Errant Venture as an information hub on the GA's side, encounters Captain Uran Lavint again, who survived from being stranded thanks to the help of Alema Rar. Jacen tasks Lavint again with the promise of no treachery on his part to find out where the Confederation meeting to elect their new Supreme Commander will take place. Elsewhere, the Skywalkers come across evidence in their search for Lumiya that suggests that the woman who took Jacen, Ben and the late Nelani Dinn to the Home wasn't Lumiya herself, but rather her daughter, Brisha Syo. When they confront Jacen about this, Jacen lies by giving an estimated guess that it was Ben who fought Lumiya's daughter when he thought he was dueling the dark side apparition of Mara. And now aboard the Venture, thanks to Lavint, Alema continues her revenge plot against Leia by locating Han so that she can kill him and bring great sorrow to Leia. Concerning Leia's position in the New Jedi Order, as she has sided with Corellia in the war, the Jedi Council agrees that she is still a recognizable Jedi Knight despite her turncoat decisions. And besides, the Skywalkers go aboard the Venture to reunite with the Solos to get the information that they, the Antilles family and the Horns have found. Meanwhile, Jagged Fel arrives on Coruscant to meet up with the Skywalkers to set up a task force to hunt down and neutralize Alema Rar. Jaina Solo and Zekk become Jag's teammates in hunting down Alema, and while Jaina and Jag gradually rekindle the old flame of their relationship that ended prior to the Swarm War, Zekk becomes the jealous lover and tries to impose his way through the relationship, despite setting aside his feelings for Jaina Regardless of hard feelings between the three, they all agree to work well enough to take down Alema. An opportunity arises when they are notified of her presence aboard the Errant Venture. Teaming up with Leia and Corran Horn, the Alema Rar Task Force tracks down and tries to eliminate her while she evades them all throughout the ship. Despite her pursuers' efforts, Alema escapes by taking the Duracrud with her, stranding Lavint aboard the Venture. She is promised a new ship by Han and Leia when she provides the information that the Confederation forces are setting up their election of their Supreme Commander at Gilatter VIII, which she also passes on to Jacen for the GA. The GA forces arrive in secret to Gilatter VIII with Jacen and Lumiya acting as spies to sabotage the election of the Supreme Commander. But it turns out to have been a trap set up by the already-elected Supreme Commander Turr Phennir who used the election meeting to lure Jacen and the GA forces into an obliteration. Jacen manages to warn the Jedi in the GA fleet about the trap, and the Jedi in turn send this information to the rest of the fleet as the Confederation forces attack. Between the two forces, it becomes an all-out brawl that results in the Battle of Gilatter VIII. Meanwhile, despite all that he has done throughout the war, the Skywalkers and Solos feel obliged to save Jacen from the Confederation guards attacking him. Lumiya, still in disguise as an obscure partner to Jacen, meets up with Alema and the two women decide to attack the Skywalkers and Solos. Alema fights Leia, who is assisted by Han as he shoots at the Twi'lek, Mara fights the guards with Jacen and Luke duels Lumiya again. But this time, Lumiya shows that she is not doing anything to get revenge on Luke, but wants to save the galaxy. She even holds out her hand peacefully for Luke to touch, and nothing happens, indicating no animosity from Lumiya to Luke. However, as the battle proceeds, Alema uses an autopilot in the Duracrud to smash into the false election meeting room. Lumiya and Alema escape, and so do the Skywalkers and Solos. However, they are shocked to learn that, even when they risked their lives to save him, Jacen abandoned them for the GA fleet. He returns to the Anakin Solo to be in the battle, and when it is over, the Battle of Gilatter VIII turns out to be a stalemate between the GA and the Confederation, despite the Confederation looking upon it as a victory. Jacen meets with Lumiya again in his office aboard the Anakin to think about the ultimate sacrifice that he will need to make in order to become a Sith Lord, and he considers his parents; whether he loves them or not, Jacen figures that the galaxy will be better off with both of them dead. + +Mara Jade Skywalker worries about her son, Ben, since he had gone missing. Her husband, Luke, tells her that there is nothing to worry about, as he can sense Ben through the Force. Mara says that she can, too, but her worries extend beyond that of Ben's safety. Ben returns from his mission to Ziost piloting the Sith Meditation Sphere aboard the Anakin Solo and giving the Amulet of Kalara to his cousin, Jacen Solo. With the ship put under restriction by Jacen's crew, Lumiya decides to take the ship under his supervision and reminds him that the time for his sacrifice is nearing. On Mandalore, Boba Fett declares the nation's neutrality in the war before he sets out with his granddaughter, Mirta Gev, to find the clone with the gray gloves that she mentioned when she first met him. They find the clone, Jaing, and ask for a sample of his blood so that it can be used under experimentation in order to find a cure for Fett's cell degeneration, as the double-aging process in Jango Fett clones had been neutralized in Jaing thanks to the machinations of his late adoptive father Kal Skirata. Jaing refuses to give Fett and Mirta what they want, leaving the two of them empty-handed as they return to their home planet. But they are greeted by the discovery of new lodes of beskar that was revealed thanks to the Yuuzhan Vong's attack during the war against them. The Mandalorians decide to make new invulnerable ships called with the new lodes, and thanks to Fett, they decide to side with the Verpines on Roche against Murkhana, as Roche declared Murkhana to be selling similar products in the market. What the Mandalorians want in return is trade with Roche. And because Murkhana is a Galactic Alliance state, it appears as though that the Mandalorians will be siding with the Confederation in the war. In the meantime with Fett, he meets the man nicknamed Kad'ika, whose real name is Venku, and he gives him the cure to his degeneration for reorganizing Mandalore as a true leader. Fett, after being cured, realizes that his ex-wife, Sintas Vel, was not dead, but frozen in carbonite for 38 years. In the Galactic Alliance, Jacen decides to cement more of his power in the government by improving weaponry conditions for the Galactic Alliance Guard. He also assigns Ben with fellow GAG agents Jori Lekauf and Lon Shevu to the planet Vulpter in order to assassinate Corellian Prime Minister Dur Gejjen while he is on a meeting. But GAG also finds out that the nature of Gejjen's meeting is to discuss terms of peace with GA Chief of State Cal Omas without the consent of the Alliance government. Jacen and his military ally Supreme Commander Cha Niathal decide to plot a coup against Omas and take over the government for the sake of Coruscant and the rest of the GA until the war ends. Then, on Vulpter, Ben assassinates Gejjen by shooting him in the head, but before he is able to escape with Lekauf and Shevu, Vulpter Security begins to check everyone in the area for weapons to root out Gejjen's assassin. Lekauf takes the weapon that Ben used to kill Gejjen from him and acts as a Corellian terrorist who was against Gejjen. He backs up to a Corellian shuttle with an innocent woman as a hostage, and after letting the hostage go as Lekauf enters the shuttle, he blows himself up to Ben's horror. Ben and Shevu escape. Then, following the assassination, Jacen arrests Omas after he returns to Coruscant, and he and Niathal formally declare their takeover of the government, though neither of them are formally the Chief of State. Ben, still grieving and blaming himself for Lekauf's death, eventually finds out that Jacen and Lumiya are working together after overhearing a conversation between them. Ben then tells his mother about this, and she confronts Jacen to try to coerce him into coming back as a genuine Jedi. But Jacen refuses, prompting Mara to plan his death, as she follows him through Lumiya and her Sith ship via a tracking beacon placed upon the latter. Jacen visits his lover Tenel Ka Djo and his daughter Allana on Hapes, and Lumiya, through the Force, finds out about Jacen's love for them. Despite this, she does not prompt him to choose either of them as his sacrifice, though he does try to kill her for this knowledge, and then Mara attacks Jacen in a StealthX X-wing starfighter duel while Ben captures Lumiya and the Sith ship. However, Mara's StealthX is shot down and she lands on Kavan, luring Jacen to hunt her down. They fight each other in a sewer tunnel and Jacen wins by killing Mara via a poisonous dart in the leg. Mara accuses Jacen as being as bad as the late Emperor Palpatine, despite Jacen's claims that he is trying to improve the galaxy, before she dies. Her death is sensed by both Ben and Luke, and they are thrown into shocked grief. Lumiya, meanwhile, feels a turning point in the Force which wordlessly tells her that Jacen has made his sacrifice, and he is now powerful enough to be a Sith Lord. Luke immediately blames Lumiya for Mara's death, tracks her down onto Terephon and duels her. He wins the duel by decapitating Lumiya, believing that he has avenged Mara. The Sith Meditation Sphere is stolen, and Ben later takes Mara's corpse back to Cilghal for evidence as to her death, where Ben tells Luke that he was with Lumiya at the time Mara died, therefore, Lumiya could not have killed Mara. With that, Luke falls into even deeper grief, for not only is Mara dead now, but he killed the wrong person, and he killed Lumiya for the wrong reasons. In conclusion, Lumiya has hurt Luke more than she ever could have in life. In the aftermath of Mara's death, Jacen acquires new Force powers that allow him to direct GA battles with precise accuracy. He then names himself Darth Caedus, the new ruler of the Sith. + +Jacen Solo, now Darth Caedus, Dark Lord of the Sith, manages to affirm Tahiri Veila's allegiance to him by teaching her to flow-walk back in time. This is so that Tahiri can correct the mistake of not sharing a kiss with her late boyfriend, Anakin Solo, during the Mission to Myrkr during the Yuuzhan Vong War. The present Tahiri manages to push younger Tahiri into Anakin's embrace and they share a kiss, and this has Caedus and present Tahiri go back to the present so that they will not interfere with the time stream any further. Later, Caedus speaks to Tenel Ka Djo, his secret lover, who promises to lend him the Hapan Home Fleet for the upcoming Battle of Kuat if he amends his relationship with his uncle, Luke Skywalker. At Mara Jade Skywalker's funeral, Caedus sends GAG troops to arrest his parents due to their allegiance with the Confederation, as Leia was supposed to deliver Mara's eulogy. As Saba Sebatyne delivers the eulogy, none of the Jedi Masters suspects that Jacen is Mara's true killer, though they do look upon Jacen with scorn for his actions as of late. Caedus then resumes his position aboard the Anakin Solo, his personal Star Destroyer, above Balmorra during its battle. His cousin and apprentice, Ben Skywalker, contacts him to ask if he killed Mara. Caedus denies this and implies that Cal Omas is responsible. On Coruscant, Ben finds Omas, who is under house arrest after having been deposed of. Ben tells the former Chief of State that he truly believes that Jacen was behind Mara's death. Omas commits suicide by deliberately impaling himself on Ben's lightsaber so that Ben could have a reasonable excuse to return to Jacen, causing shock to an already grieving Luke and the other Masters. Luke, disapproving of Jacen's activities, refuses to help him at the Battle of Kuat. This causes Caedus to pull his forces out of the system to prevent a disastrous defeat that would endanger Tenel Ka. In the meantime, Jaina Solo, Jagged Fel, and Zekk pursue Alema Rar, piloting the Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship, to Ossus, as Luke has wrongly identified her as Mara's killer. The Twi'lek Dark Jedi escapes, and Caedus takes the Jedi Academy hostage, with Salle Serpa overseeing the occupation. Though many Jedi are killed and injured during the GAG takeover, Jaina and the others manage to defeat the enemy forces and reclaim control of the Academy. Meanwhile, Alema later arrives on Korriban after getting a belated message from the Home, where she finds the One Sith, who strongly disapprove of Caedus, and thus, refuse to help him. Han Solo and Leia arrive on Kashyyyk to gain Wookiee support against Caedus, and Luke arrives, saying that he can no longer support Jacen and his rule of the Galactic Alliance. Soon after that, Caedus arrives into Kashyyyk's orbit and develops a sinister strategy: he uses his Star Destroyer's long-range turbolasers to bombard the planet's forests and cities in order to pull the Confederation navies away from the Core. Ben, who has been waiting patiently to strike against Caedus, chooses his time to attack. However, Lowbacca drops a shadow bomb on the Star Destroyer, putting an end to Ben's attack. Han truly believes that his son is dead, and Luke and Jaina lead a battalion of StealthX X-wing starfighters against Caedus's fleet. A shot from Jaina's fighter seemingly kills Luke. On Hapes, Leia feels the shock from Luke's death. She then duels Tahiri Veila, who attempts to arrest her and Han. Tenel Ka arrives to break the fight, and the Solos convince her to stop supporting Jacen. Simultaneously, Caedus tortures his cousin in a chamber of the Anakin Solo. Ben understands how Luke feigned his death and tells Caedus that he will soon arrive. Caedus refuses to believe this, but Luke immediately arrives and duels his deranged nephew. The duel harms them both, but Luke emerges as the victor after Ben frees himself from the Embrace of Pain and tosses a vibroblade in between Caedus's shoulder blades. But Ben wants to kill Caedus, and Luke refuses to let him do so, knowing that this could turn either of them to the dark side of the Force. The Skywalkers leave the ship, while a heavily injured Caedus limps to the infirmary for medical attention. He eventually resumes command just as the Hapan Home Fleet, commanded by Tenel Ka, arrives. Caedus initially thinks she is there to help him, only to learn that she has turned on him via a communication with her and his parents. He now feels utterly alone; however, he feels that all of the actions he commits are necessary sacrifices to keep peace and order in the galaxy, even though he is causing more harm than good. His fleet narrowly escapes thanks to some subtle Force manipulation from Caedus combined with Alema's help. This tricks the forces crucial to getting in Caedus's way to move for him as the Anakin Solo enters hyperspace and returns to Coruscant. The warring factions hold a parlay aboard the Dragon Queen. The New Jedi Order declares that though they will not support the Confederation in the war, they will still act against the Galactic Alliance as long as Jacen is in control; the Hapes Consortium declares that it still supports the Alliance, but not Jacen; and the Confederation agrees to stay out of the Jedi's and Hapes Consortium's way. After the meeting concludes, Luke, severely injured from his duel with Caedus, gives Han and Leia a sympathetic look before returning to the infirmary to heal with Ben. Later, Han and Leia console each other aboard the Falcon, sadly knowing that they are now at war with the man who was once their son. + +On the planet Kashyyyk, the Wookiees and their new Confederation allies quell the fires spread across the world, first set by the Anakin Solo that sparked the Battle of Kashyyyk. Han Solo helps stop some of these fires aboard the Millennium Falcon while his wife, Leia, works with Waroo for the same goal. The Falcon gets ready to pick Leia and Waroo up when Alema Rar appears in the ship's cabin, looking like she was prior to her duels with Leia during the Dark Nest Crisis. Alema threatens to kill Han when Leia came aboard so that she could watch as her husband dies and Alema would finally take revenge for their duels. However, Han dials down the inertial compensator so that gravity could take over and then he throws the Falcon into wild maneuvers in order to get rid of the Twi'lek as Leia and Waroo board the ship. Leia and Alema fight, despite the difficulty of the multiple gravities set by the dormancy of the intertial compensator, but Leia holds back on actually striking Alema when she strangely sense double presence of Waroo in The Force and none of Alema. After brief hesitation Dark Jedi simply leaves the ship, disappearing. Much later, the Alema Rar Task Force respond after this attack by trying to look for evidence, but after finding none, they come up with the idea that Alema used a dark side apparition of herself to combat Leia, similar to how the late Lumiya had used dark side apparitions to launch the ghost battles. Then they receive a package from an unnamed sender that reveals Mandalorian beskar armor, crushgaunts and a note to use the provided Mandalorian gifts to kill his son after Jacen killed the sender's daughter, indicating that the gift was from Boba Fett. Despite that he is now fighting his son, Han refuses to use them to kill Jacen, but Jagged Fel decides to use provided pieces of material when he finally confronts Alema. Jag also manages to get Jaina Solo to find out that despite her continuous training in preparation to combat Alema and Jacen, she is setting herself up for failure, as she has not been having giving enough time for herself. For getting Jaina to calm down, Zekk decides to soften his relationship with Jag, which makes it all the more comfortable to work with each other as partners. In the aftermath of escaping Kashyyyk, Darth Caedus continues to strengthen his hold over the Galactic Alliance on Coruscant and makes a plan to cement the Hapes Consortium's loyalty to the GA. Caedus takes a little girl named Tika, who appears a lot like his daughter Allana, with him to Hapes, with Caedus disguised as a shuttle copilot as he arrives on the planet. He kidnaps Allana, replaces her with Tika, and when Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo figures out through the Force that her daughter is being taken, she is too late to stop Caedus as he sets off an explosion in the hangar that prevents Tenel Ka and her guards from saving Allana. After Tenel Ka and the survivors of the explosion recover, Prince Isolder gives Tenel Ka a message from Caedus: if she does not give the Consortium's complete loyalty to the Galactic Alliance, then Allana will die. Tenel Ka decides not to commit the Hapan forces to the GA's loyalty, even to Caedus, but decides to look for Grand Master Luke Skywalker and the New Jedi Order's help in retrieving her daughter. She locates them on the forest moon of Endor, where the new Jedi outpost is located. Meanwhile, the Jedi Masters plot a mission to place a tracking beacon on Caedus's person so that they will be aware of his movements. Master Kyle Katarn decides to lead this mission with three Jedi Knights - Thann Mithric, Valin Horn, and Kolir Hu'lya - and apprentice Seha Dorvald, who was the one who provided the information to Ben Skywalker for his mission to Ziost back in Legacy of the Force: Exile, much to Luke's chagrin. She was also personally founded into the New Jedi Order by Jacen when he found her in the undercity of Coruscant following the Yuuzhan Vong War. Katarn and the three Knights ambush Caedus outside Senate Building on Coruscant and duel him while Seha, out of sight from the battle, using The Force places an unnoticeable strip of a beacon onto the Sith Lord's cloak. However, despite this success, and while the other two Jedi Knights escape, Katarn is gravely wounded from the battle and Mithric is decapitated by Caedus. Regardless, the survivors of the mission escape, and Caedus resumes his duties as joint Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance. Later, following the GA's devastating attack on Commenor, citizens of Commenor bloodline bring about a virus on Coruscant in retaliation for the attack that even affects the already-wounded Katarn, though he would later be cured and healed back on Endor. Despite this, the GA gets a message from Corellia that states that the government wants to broker a deal for their return to Alliance membership. The GA forces, led by Caedus aboard the Anakin Solo, and the Corellian forces meet halfway between Coruscant and Corellia to open talks for a ceasefire between them. With the tracking beacon placed on him, Han, Leia and the Alema Rar Task Force decide to use this as a resource on the New Jedi Order's behalf to look into the memory of the Anakin Solo in order to find out where the Sith Meditation Sphere, which Alema pilots, had set its last coordinates. With this information, they might be able to find Alema and neutralize her. Leia distracts Jacen by talking about the ethics of his actions in taking over the GA government right before Caedus's forces meet up with Corellia's. Leia then uses this as another distraction to return to Han and the Alema Rar Task Force as they gather up their information and leave, tracking Alema down to the Home, located nearby Bimmiel. Then, when talks of a treaty between the GA and Corellia fail predictably, a battle is launched with Corellia's allies in the Confederation dropping out of hyperspace. And during this battle, a StealthX wing task force led by Luke plans to hunt down and kill Caedus while the battle is going on. But the Sith Lord, having suspicions about same tactics Leia would use as he used when he kidnapped Allana and blew up the hangar, he quickly take Allana and they board TIE Reconnaissance Fighter nicknamed the Blur among pilots, to leave the Anakin Solo. As the battle proceeds, Allana senses the deaths of those who are dying in the conflict while Twool, the Rodian member in the StealthX task force, tracks Caedus down and all of the members try to blow him out of space. Caedus assumes that they are tracking him by detecting Allana's open Force presence and he sends out a wave of anger which soon has Luke detect that a little girl is with Caedus. So he pulls the task force away from trying to kill Caedus just as the battle between the GA and Confederation climaxes with a beam of light fired by the reactivated Centerpoint Station back in the Corellian system. Many GA and Confederation forces are killed in the blast, but Caedus, Allana, the Jedi and everyone aboard the Anakin Solo survive. The StealthX pilots jump back to Endor and Caedus heads his forces back to Coruscant. There, he speaks with fellow Chief of State Supreme Commander Cha Niathal into capturing Centerpoint for the GA. Meanwhile, the Corellians are forced to fix the problems with Centerpoint in the aftermath of the shot during the battle, and because the rest of the Confederation was not apprised of Centerpoint getting involved, Confederation Supreme Commander Turr Phennir tells Five World Prime Minister Sadras Koyan that the rest of the Confederation will no longer support Corellia against the GA in the war. Meanwhile, on the Sith planet of Korriban, a member named Dician proclaims that although Alema Rar is not an actual threat to the One Sith, she does carry the power of casting dark side apparitions, something that can be useful to the order should the need ever arise, or can be turned into a threat against them by even Alema herself should circumstances ever come to that. So Dician is given the starship known as the Poison Moon to go to the Home and extract the information of casting the dark side apparitions from Alema, or at least destroy it. But as the Poison Moon arrives at the Home, so does the Millennium Falcon. The Poison Moon tries to destroy the Falcon while Alema projects the same dark side apparition of her former self to duel Leia on the ship, and the Alema Rar Task Force enters the Home to track down and neutralize her. Alema has another dark side apparition fight Jaina and uses dark side mynocks to busy Jag. But Zekk manipulates the Sith Meditation Sphere into leaving Alema, which it does, and it returns to Ziost, with the Poison Moon following it, but not before the latter ship fires explosives into the Home. Though Dician has not gleamed any information from Alema, she figures that she and her fellow Sith will learn enough from Ship. The Falcon decides not to follow the Moon in order to extract the Task Force, and eventually, Alema dissipates the dark side apparitions against her opponents when she realizes that Ship has abandoned her. Jaina confronts Alema, but Jag appears and tells her to help Zekk straighten himself out, as coercing Ship into leaving Alema has opened him to the dark side of the Force and having him resist the urge to fall back into its embrace. After Jaina leaves for Zekk, Jag confronts Alema, giving her one last chance to surrender, but she Force-jerks his blaster out of his hand and into hers, and then monologues on how she will enjoy his death. But, because the blaster was set to self-destruct after a few seconds of being away from Jag's person, it blows her hand off and Jag proceeds to kill her by snapping her neck with a crushgaunt. But before he does, Alema implants the thought that he will remember her as she was during the Yuuzhan Vong War and prior to the Dark Nest Crisis. Jag says that he will, and then ends her life. Afterward, the Home begins to fall apart from the explosives placed by the Poison Moon, but all three members of the Alema Rar Task Force make it out and survive as the Home is blown up with nothing remaining. Han, Leia and the now disbanded Task Force return to Endor. In the aftermath of Alema's death, Luke, still under the belief that it was she who killed his late wife Mara, feels satisfied that his wife has been avenged. But his son, Ben, reveals to him that with Mara supposedly avenged, he is now planning when to die and who to give hold of the New Jedi Order to in his death. Ben explains that this is what the original Jedi Order avoided; attachment, which is what Luke now feels toward his wife as he wants to join her in death, under the belief that she has been served justice. So Luke takes Ben's advice, confronts his feelings over Mara, and decides to let go of his attachment, but not his love. While still grieving over his wife's loss, he does not plan to die anytime soon, as long as the war goes on. Prior to the GA's mission to capture Centerpoint, Caedus reveals to Allana that he is her father, and she accepts him as someone she loves after initially hating him for kidnapping her. Then, once the GA move in to capture Centerpoint, the New Jedi Order, the Millennium Falcon passengers and their anti-GA/anti-Confederation allies proceed to once again try to kill Caedus and save Allana for Tenel Ka. Han, Leia and Iella Wessiri Antilles save Allana, and when Caedus senses his daughter being taken from him, he retreats from confronting Luke, Ben and Saba Sebatyne, and the latter three also pull out with Han, Leia, Iella and Allana aboard the Falcon, leaving a heartbroken Caedus gasping for breath at the airlock. Meanwhile, Toval Seyah, Kyp Durron and several others, including Valin Horn and Jaden Korr, drop into Centerpoint to destroy it so that neither the GA nor Corellia can have it. Seyah initiates a program that will cause Centerpoint's next shot to destroy itself, and the members of the strike team leave the station. Down on Coronet City, Denjax Teppler gets the rest of the Confederation's help to counter the GA and by promising Supreme Commander Phennir that Prime Minister Koyan will soon be removed from power. Then Teppler tricks Koyan into giving command of Corellia to him and Admiral Genna Delpin, and when Koyan tries to evacuate Centerpoint, he is shot by a GA agent who accidentally set her blaster on kill when it should have been on stun. Koyan dies, leaving Teppler and Delpin in charge of Corellia, similar to the GA being led by Caedus and Niathal. Then Centerpoint blows up when a crazed member nicknamed Vibro attempts to destroy Coruscant due to his hatred of Coruscanti. Caedus, depressed at losing Allana, orders a retreat and returns to the bridge, where he learns one of his officers, Lieutenant Patra Tebut, inadvertently allowed Luke's strike force to board the Anakin Solo. Caedus finally snaps and Force-Chokes Tebut to death in his rage, just like his grandfather did whenever his subordinates failed him years ago; then, with his wrath vented, he retires to his quarters. Elsewhere, the strike teams led by Luke that are against both the GA and Corellia manage to make it out of the Corellian system in time before Centerpoint blew up, and they head to Gyndine to resupply and celebrate on their victory. Han and Leia figure out that Allana is their granddaughter and Jaina decides to go find the man who will help her defeat her brother. + +Jaina Solo contemplates what kind of monster that her brother, Jacen, has become, and that one day, she will have to kill him. But not before she is properly trained by Boba Fett to neutralize Jacen. Determined to prove that it was Jacen who killed Mara Jade Skywalker on Kavan, Ben takes fellow Galactic Alliance Guard member Lon Shevu--who makes sure that his boss, Heol Girdun, doesn't find out what he is doing--to Kavan in order to find proof over who Mara's killer really is. During their investigation where Ben found his dead mother, he sees her Force ghost, and, as well as telling each other that they still love each other, Mara implies to look for hair samples from Jacen's StealthX that would be hers, thus proving that he killed her. Ben and Shevu do this, and continue in other elements into their investigation, such as to Jacen and Mara's whereabouts, his visit to Hapes at the time, etc. The second story revolves around Jaina realizing that she cannot take on her brother because, even though they are equally powerful, Jacen is more mastered in the Force than Jaina is, and thus, would be able to defeat her more likely. So she goes to Mandalore where she receives training from Boba Fett and his Mandalorian allies into unconventional fighting that would make her a more dangerous opponent to her brother. Meanwhile, Fett finally has his ex-wife, Sintas Vel, unfrozen from carbonite, but she recovers slowly over time, letting her memories catch up with her, getting her sight back, etc. The third story revolves around Darth Caedus trying to recruit the Imperial Remnant into the Second Galactic Civil War on the Galactic Alliance's side by offering the Moff Council more territory in the way of Bilbringi system and Borleias. Though Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon is reluctant, he agrees to lend the Imperial Remnant's help to the GA's aid in order to defeat the rebelling Fondor. Meanwhile, Caedus's fellow Chief of State Cha Niathal sees the error of her colleague's ways and secretly betrays the Galactic Alliance by lending pertinent information of the GA military's tactics to the New Jedi Order for Luke Skywalker and his Jedi cohorts to sabotage their efforts at Fondor. And as for Pellaeon, predicting that Caedus would do something brash, he gets the help of Admiral Natasi Daala to counter Caedus in case he does anything stupid. To help Pellaeon, Daala hires out Fett and his Mandalorian lackeys to defeat Caedus if Pellaeon's predictions became true. Jaina decides to go on this mission with Fett and the other Mandalorians. After Niathal and Pellaeon are assured that Caedus will not be beyond their control, the combined GA-Imperial Remnant fleets attack and launch the Second Battle of Fondor. Initially, the battle does not go to the GA-Imperial Remnant's favor, but Caedus improves chances of victory by mind-manipulating the commanders and crews of the other ships in his command to become more aggressive and press their attack against Fondor. The battle eventually turns to the GA-Imperial Remnant's favor, and Fondorian President Shas Vadde begs his planet's surrender. Niathal and Pellaeon comply, but Caedus continues even after a decisive victory, wanting to press home the advantage so that Fondor can never be a threat to the GA ever again, which is also decided by the rage of the dark side of the Force that he had built up inside himself. When Caedus refuses to follow Niathal's orders to withdraw his forces, she officially renounces him of command and tells her forces to aid Fondorian battle forces against Caedus. However, Caedus still has loyalty among the forces, and he takes in more than Niathal in terms of numbers to totally defeat Fondor. Meanwhile, aboard Pellaeon's Star Destroyer, the Bloodfin, Pellaeon refuses to help Caedus, prompting Tahiri Veila, acting as a liaison to the Sith Lord, to threaten the Grand Admiral at blaster point in his day cabin to assist in defeating Fondor. Pellaeon still refuses, and Tahiri shoots him. However, before dying, Pellaeon finds that the Moffs, led by Quille, will take over and agree to help Caedus, but the Grand Admiral manages to notify Daala on his comlink to attack Caedus's forces and that the Moffs have betrayed him. With that, Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, ruler of the Imperial Remnant, dies. As the Second Battle of Fondor progresses, Daala and her fleet arrives to decimate Caedus's forces. But as the battle nears its end, Caedus's forces manage to hold their own, and the Sith Lord, disguised as an evac medic aboard a medical transport, goes over to the Bloodfin to help evacuate Tahiri as Fett, Jaina, and the other Mandalorians also board the Star Destroyer to neutralize the Moffs for Daala. Both operations go successfully, although some of the Moffs like Drikl Lecersen manage to escape, even after one of the Mandalorians, Baltan Carid, nearly kills Caedus, but is held back via comm by Fett so that Jaina can kill her brother. However, Caedus and Tahiri escape severely wounded, but they make it back to the Anakin Solo alive. And because Caedus controls a majority proportion of the GA military, Niathal is branded a traitor to the government and is forced into exile with her obedient forces. Following the Second Battle of Fondor, Caedus confesses to Shevu that he was responsible for Mara's death, and that he is a Sith Lord. Shevu takes this in stride, but because he had a wire on him, recording everything that Caedus has said, Shevu gives the recording to Ben. Finally having evidence that positively matches Jacen's involvement with Mara's death, Ben shows this to the rest of the Solos and Skywalkers, confirming their suspicions as to how low Jacen Solo has sunk. Sintas finally recovers her memories thanks to the healing abilities ex-Jedi Mandalorian Gotab. Sintas reconciles with Fett, despite the age difference thanks to the carbonite freezing, as her assumed hatred toward him was nonexistent, and that their late daughter, Ailyn, had misinterpreted her mother's feelings toward her ex-husband. Fett's granddaughter, Mirta Gev, gets married to fellow Mandalorian boyfriend Ghes Orade, and Jaina comes to grips with her morals as a Jedi thanks to Gotab, revealing himself to be Bardan Jusik, Jedi veteran of the Clone Wars. Jusik tells Jaina to set aside those morals until she can kill her brother, and then she can ponder her actions when the war is over. At the new undisclosed Jedi base, moved from Endor, Luke sleeps and Ben still wonders what to do now that he knows that Jacen killed his mother. Then Luke wakes up in his tent and begins to talk to someone that Ben cannot see, but he knows who it is. With that, and a tear shed, Ben falls asleep, finally at peace with his mother's death. + +Jaina knows that she can always rely on her brother as an ally. Jaina and Boba Fett travel throughout the interior of Nickel One as Darth Caedus's Galactic Alliance and Imperial Remnant forces raid the asteroid during the First Battle of Roche. Jaina and Fett find that the Remnant is using some sort of aerosol nanokiller attack used to kill the Verpines working in the asteroid. Jaina leaves at Fett's command to get back to the Jedi Coalition while he stays behind to do as best he can to fight off the invaders with the Verpines in order to honor his mutual-aid treaty with them. Jaina makes it back to the Jedi base at Shedu Maad where she, her family and the rest of the Jedi High Council plan to sneak onto Coruscant and get information as to Darth Caedus's whereabouts. Later, on Coruscant, Ben Skywalker meets up with his friend and Galactic Alliance Guard spy Lon Shevu who discreetly tells Ben that Caedus is located at Nickel One. Unfortunately, Ben figures out that they are being spied upon by the rest of the GAG, and he tries to escape, resulting in the Skirmish on Coruscant. But Ben is captured by Tahiri Veila and her forces, along with Shevu, who is arrested for aiding Ben in his failed escape. Jaina and her mother, Leia, try to save Ben using a commandeered medical frigate, but they run headlong into a GAG ambush that forces Jaina to abandon Ben on Coruscant as she and her mother make their escape. Despite Ben's capture, his father, Luke, tells Jaina and her parents, when they get back to Shedu Maad, that he expected Ben to get captured because he had foreseen it in his visions, as he had been countering Caedus's own powers to muddy his visions. This is so that when Jaina would finally meet Caedus in a duel to the death, the Sith Lord would not expect it coming. The only reason that Luke himself will not go after Caedus, as he is clearly more powerful than him, is that when Luke killed Lumiya in vengeance for the death of his wife, Mara, he had been tainted by the dark side of the Force. And knowing that Caedus is Mara's actual killer, Luke also knows that he would end Caedus not for the good of the galaxy, but because to enact his vengeance, thus losing himself to the dark side completely. Now, in the aftermath of Ben's capture, Luke had also foreseen Ben getting his information from Shevu, which had reveals to the Jedi Coalition that Caedus is at Nickel One. Luke, Leia, her husband Han, Saba Sebatyne and Jaina all take a Skipray 24r Blastboat to Nickel One. While Saba, the Skywalkers and the elder Solos distract Caedus's holding forces with the help of Fett and the Mandalorians, Jaina inserts herself into Nickel One to carry out killing her brother. She meets up with the dispatched Mandalorian forces inside who were sent by Fett to kill the Moff Council. The Mandalorians invade the meeting room where the Moffs hold their meetings, and fight off their guards and stormtroopers as Jaina finds herself a sniping position for when Caedus would reveal himself in the battle. He shows up, but does not give Jaina an opportunity to take him down as he defeats the rest of the Mandalorian forces. He then tells the Moffs and the remaining two stormtroopers to find a safe location while he deals with the sniper, who he does not know is Jaina. Jaina and Caedus then lightsaber duel, but the latter thinks that the former is Luke. However, at the end of the fight, when Jaina cuts off his arm and Caedus immobolizes her with Force lightning, Luke loses hold of Jaina through the Force, thus shattering the illusion cast upon to the Sith Lord, and Caedus sees his real opponent. Jaina then escapes, having failed her mission and too wounded to carry on, and Caedus is left believing that Luke was physically involved in the fight. And after Jaina recovers from her injuries, having returned to the Jedi Coalition, she finds that Caedus has left a blood trail on her that is used in a similar technique harnessed by the Nightsisters of Dathomir, as it can have anyone who put the blood mark on the individual be able to track the latter down. When Luke discovers this, he declares to everyone else in the Coalition that Caedus will now track them down to Shedu Maad and possibly obliterate them if they do not fight back. Back on Coruscant, Tahiri interrogates Ben as to where the Jedi base is, but when he refuses to comply, Tahiri uses Shevu's life as leverage. Ben relents, but Tahiri accidentally electrocutes Shevu to death. She is horrified at what she has done, and Ben manages to escape, knocks Tahiri unconscious, threatens the guards into compliance and manages to get Shevu's body properly disposed of. Then he later gets a message telling him to meet someone he is familiar with at Nova Station, and meets up with Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo's cousins, Trista and Taryn Zel, who agree to ship him back to Shedu Maad. However, Caedus's fleet tracks him down and attempts to take the Zels' ship, the Blue Slipper. But Prince Isolder's fleet manages to counter Caedus and allow for Ben and the Zels to escape. However, Isolder's fleet is defeated and captured. Ben arrives back at Shedu Maad and is aprised of the fact that Caedus now knows where the base is, thanks to Jaina's mark. The entire Jedi Coalition, along with the help of the Hapes Consortium, prepare for battle against Caedus. As Caedus's fleet arrives in the Maad system and battles off the forces of the Jedi Coalition, Jaina manages to get aboard the dying Anakin Solo, as it has been weakening thanks to the attacks brought upon it by the Coalition's forces. However, Zekk has been lost in the raid, and his fate becomes unknown for the rest of the battle. Meanwhile, Caedus finds out that the Moffs have managed to create a nanokiller from Isolder's biology that they plan to bring onto Tenel Ka's flagship, the Dragon Queen, and kill everyone aboard of royal bloodline to level the playing field in the battle where the Hapans are concerned. Caedus disallows this, although he even knows that they are lying about their compliance. The Sith Lord, when asked by Tahiri why he simply cannot go back in time and fix such problems with flow-walking, then reveals to her that going back in time to see the late Anakin Solo did not really change the past, as the flow-walks have been too insignificant to be of any consequence. Though she hates him for deceiving her in such a way, Tahiri remains loyal to Caedus and goes down to Shedu Maad to plant a bomb that can wipe out the Coalition's base. Then Caedus tries to enlist Isolder's help in trying to stop the Moffs from unleashing their nanokiller against those board the Dragon Queen. Isolder believes that Caedus is lying, which forces the Sith Lord to break the prince's neck, killing him. Then Caedus takes Isolder's body to an immolation pit to dispose of the corpse, but Jaina tracks him down there and they duel again. Caedus tries to convince Jaina that he needs to save Tenel Ka and his daughter, Allana, from the Moffs' nanokiller, but Jaina thinks that he is lying, like Isolder. Their fight continues, and they both sustain many injuries. But eventually, Caedus's injuries become too great for him to carry on, so rather than wasting the last of his life against Jaina, he becomes Jacen Solo again and alerts Tenel Ka of the danger that she and Allana face. He is unable to complete this warning before Jaina strikes him down with her lightsaber, ending Darth Caedus's life just as his sister realizes what he was trying to do. On Shadu Maad, Ben confronts Tahiri and stops her from activating the baradium bomb to destroy the Jedi base. Making her see that she is a better person than Caedus, Ben redeems Tahiri and she turns back to the Jedi's side. Meanwhile, aboard the Anakin Solo, the Coalition forces defeat Caedus's GA forces and round up the Moffs, thus ending the Second Galactic Civil War. They threaten to unleash them to the Hapans for their nanokiller attack on the Dragon Queen, which killed many of royal bloodline, such as Allana, but not Tenel Ka, and unless the Moffs let Jagged Fel rule the Imperial Remnant, they will face certain death by the Hapes Consortium. The Moffs let Jag become their ruler and agree to help clean up the mess that the war has brought upon to other planets. The Solos, despite all that Caedus has done, fall into grief over his death, as he was still Han and Leia's son, and Jaina's brother. What is worse is that Jaina failed to believe that Caedus had told the truth about trying to save Tenel Ka and Allana, and that she had killed him when he became Jacen again in order to alarm Tenel Ka of the nanovirus attack. This makes Jaina evaluate what being the Sword of the Jedi really means. Jaina is recovering from her injuries from her last duel with Caedus. Han and Leia show that in a way, Caedus had won the war, as the worlds of the Confederation and the Imperial Remnant have allied to restore the Galactic Alliance, bringing a united galaxy that Caedus had sought for. Natasi Daala is the new Chief of State, Zekk remains missing and it turns out that Allana had survived the nanokiller attack. The incomplete warning that Jacen had given Tenel Ka through the Force was enough to to save herself and Allana from the nanokiller, and then the Queen Mother had given Allana, renamed Amelia, a war orphan, to Han and Leia so that, with everyone else believing that she is dead, no one will go after her via Hapan assassination. Jaina fondly accepts Amelia into the Solo family. + +The story opens in the year 5000 BBY with a newly Jedi-turned-Sith, Saes Rrogon, mining Lignan in the Phaegon system, completely demolishing Phaegon III's moon to do it. The Lignan allows a Force-sensitive to strenghten their connection to the dark side, and Saes believes that his shipment will turn the tide of the current battle at Kirrek, and heighten his standing among the Sith. However, two Jedi, Saes's former Jedi Master Relin Druur and his new Padawan Drev Hassin, have orders from the Old Jedi Order to stop the Sith at all costs. Relin boards Saes's ship, the Harbinger, and attempts to sabotage the hyperdrive. Saes engages him in a duel, resulting in Relin's loss of an arm and extensive exposure to radiation from the hyperdrive core. However, the damaged hyperdrive misjumps, and launches the ship into the future, damaging its sister ship Omen along the way. Relin's escape pod is caught up in Harbingers wake and follows it into hyperspace, and Drev is killed when he rams his fighter into Harbinger's bridge, doing further damage. The ship is eventually yanked out of hyperspace by Saes using the power of the Lignan, safe but 5,000 years in the future. Meanwhile, Jedi Knight Jaden Korr has a Force vision with such Jedi and Sith as Kam Solusar, Mara Jade Skywalker, Lumiya, and Lassin warning him of a problem in the Unknown Regions and telling him to go to the planet Fhost for help. Once there, he finds two down-on-their-luck salvagers, Khedryn Faal and Marr Idi-Shael, and enlists their help, after saving them from Reegas Vance, and the ship Junker to go into the Unknown Regions, guided by evidence recently found by the pair of a crashed ship or installation on the frozen moon of an unknown gas giant. Once there, they encounter the recently-jumped Harbinger, and pick up the escape pod containing Relin Druur. Saes soon realizes where Relin is, and sends out Blade fighters to intercept them. Through brilliant flying, Marr and Khedryn avoid and destroy them, and take refuge in an asteroid field. Little does anyone know that another party is watching the battle unfold--Kell Douro, a hired Force-sensitive Anzat assassin who is keeping tabs on the frozen moon per the orders of the One Sith, specifically Darth Wyyrlok. Douro is also personally involved, convinced that by feeding on Jaden he can gain revelation and be omniscient. After the Blades' failed attack, the crew of the Junker split up, with Relin and Marr going to try and defeat Saes, and Jaden and Khedryn going on to continue Jaden's investigation into the frozen moon. Once there, Jaden and Khedryn find an abandoned Thrawn-era Imperial cloning facility, with evidence of a pitched battle. In the computer room, they find recordings detailing a Jedi-Sith cloning project, apparently splicing Jedi and Sith DNA together to create super-powerful Force-sensitives. Apparently the clones went mad from their dual origins and became homicidal. Jaden continues on while Khedryn returns to the shuttle, seeing proof of the clones' madness including piled human heads and messages painted in blood like Mother is hungry. Jaden grows disturbed when he sees this, and even more so when he finds an old Spaarti cloning cylinder full of decomposing bodies. One of the mad clones, who appears to be copied from Kam Solusar's DNA, finds him there and after a brief duel resulting in the loss of three fingers, Jaden kills the clone. After Khedryn comes looking for Jaden and kills Kell Douro, who was attempting to feed on Jaden, the two head to their shuttle, where they learn that the other clones stole Douro's ship and fled deeper into the Unknown Regions. Meanwhile Relin and Marr successfully board the Harbinger and Relin, fueled by his hatred toward his fallen apprentice and the Lignan ore, cuts a bloody swath through the ship before sending Marr back and confronting Saes alone. Relin, knowing he has fallen to the dark side, decides not to fight Saes with his lightsaber and the two use the Force to batter one another. Relin, weakened by his numerous wounds and radiation poisoning, is overwhelmed by Saes who uses Force Choke to subdue him. At the last second, Relin is able to momentarily choke Saes and uses the Force to tear his lightsaber from his grip and kills him with his own lightsaber. Relin then channels the full power of the Force from his fallen apprentice and the Lignan ore in order to create a powerful explosion, killing Relin in the process. As the three survivors watch the Harbinger fall into the atmosphere and explode, they acknowledge the loss of Relin. Marr asks Jaden to train him in the Force; initially Jaden is hesitant to do so, but soon realizes that the doubt that has followed him his entire life is what centers him, and that his master Kyle knew so all along. Jaden agrees to train Marr. + +Jaden Korr wakes up aboard an unknown station, wondering where his friends, Khedryn Faal and Marr Idi-Shael, are. He soon realizes that he will confront something truly monstrous. Jaden and Khedryn discuss what will happen to Marr, since Jaden is considering having him join the Jedi Order as an apprentice. Another topic they bring up is the ship full of Jedi-Sith clones that had escaped the unknown frozen moon where Alpha and Kell Douro died. Aboard the Predator, the Jedi-Sith clones that escaped are undergoing a collective illness that had been accelerated after they flew through the fiery remains of the Harbinger. The only exception from this illness is Soldier, who was the last clone produced by the dead scientists on the frozen moon, and the most faithless of the clones' belief that they will be saved by Mother. According to the clones' prophet, Seer, Mother is an entity who will bring all of them salvation from the illness--and they are traveling to her. Meanwhile, Mother, who really exists, lies in wait for the Jedi-Sith clones to arrive at her home. On the One Sith world of Korriban, Darth Wyyrlok holds a private meeting with Nyss Nenn, secretly watched by his sister Syll Nenn, two mysterious Umbaran siblings who, while not necessarily Force-sensitive, somehow suppress Force-users through their own power. Wyyrlok shows Nyss Nenn the record inadvertently taken by Kell Douro through his optic nerves, which had been secretly installed thanks to the One Sith. The footage shows Jaden Korr's fight with Alpha, and Wyyrlok and Nyss noticed that during the fight, Jaden had utilized green Force lightning on his fingers summoned by fear or anger, a sign that he's falling to the dark side. They agree that it is too early for Korr to turn to the dark side, and after that, Syal Nenn reveals her presence. The siblings agree to do what they can in order to stall Jaden from falling too early and Darth Wyyrlok gives them two mindspears, pieces of ancient Rakatan biotechnology for mind transfer. He also tells them to take the Iteration, a clone of Jaden, with them. After Jaden tells Grand Master Luke Skywalker the events that had occurred in the unidentified system, Skywalker agrees to send help for him to track down the Jedi-Sith clones, but it won't come for quite a while, leaving Jaden to take care of the situation with Khedryn and Marr. Skywalker also allows Jaden to teach Marr to become a Jedi. Later, Jaden and Khedryn bring up Marr's training and how it will affect his position aboard the Junker, but the Cerean is steadfast that he will remain even as a Jedi. Then his training with Jaden begins even as they manage to track the Jedi-Sith clones down at Fhost. On Fhost, most of the clones, such as Maker, Scar, and Two-Blade, as well as two of their children Blessing and Gift, have already died from the illness, leaving Soldier, Seer, Hunter, Runner, Grace to leave the Predator and continue their journey. The clones travel to Farpoint so they can hijack a medical shuttle for the medication that has allowed the surviving clones to live through the illness so far. However, when they arrive at the medical station, much trouble has been caused by them, alerting the city's local authorities just as Jaden and his party, as well as the Nenns, arrive to confront them. Jaden confronts the clones, surprised to find that Seer is a clone of the late Lumiya, Runner is a clone of Jaden's own Master Kyle Katarn, and Soldier is a clone of himself. Jaden fights Soldier and Runner, but he is defeated, allowing the clones to make it to the hospital's roof, where, despite Khedryn trying to stop them, they hijack the shuttle and take it off-world. They take Khedryn with them so that he can tell them how Jaden tracked them down. Meanwhile, Nyss had already stowed aboard the shuttle before the clones took it. In the aftermath of the chaos in Farpoint, Jaden and Marr, after they collect Jaden's R6 astromech droid, manage to track down the shuttle because of a beacon that Jaden placed on it before his fight against the clones. As they follow the stolen shuttle into space, Syll follows the shuttle because of her brother's own signal there. After the clones drop the shuttle out of hyperspace in a random system to interrogate an awakened Khedryn as to how Jaden found them on Fhost. Khedryn admits that it was simple happenstance in their search for the clones, so Seer orders Runner to eject Khedryn out into the vacuum of space. Nyss takes this time to cut out the shuttle's lights and he attacks Runner in a fight that he wins by ending the clone's life. He cuffs Khedryn up, hoping to use him as leverage on Jaden, and then he kills Hunter. He fights Soldier, who turns out to be the clone of Jaden who the One Sith also want, and despite Soldier being partially immune to Nyss's Force-repressing ability, the Umbaran defeats the clone in time for Jaden and Marr to arrive, and in time for Syll to arrive. Nyss blackmails the Jedi over communications into trading himself in exchange for Khedryn, which Jaden has no choice but to agree to as he suits himself up in a hardsuit and rockets over to the medical shuttle. However, Khedryn, who had been cut free by Grace earlier, reluctantly, and briefly, allies with Soldier, cutting him free of the bonds that Nyss had tied him up in, and this commences another fight between Soldier and Nyss as Khedryn flees to one of the shuttle's escape pods. Nyss, not wanting to kill Soldier as per Darth Wyyrlok's orders, also flees, allowing the surviving clones to retake control of the medical shuttle. However, as Syll reels him onto their ship, he orders her to blast Khedryn's escape pod even as Jaden rockets toward it. The attempt to kill Khedryn fails when Jaden uses his lightsaber, and his power in the Force, to deflect the laser blasts back at the ship, killing Syll. Marr saves Jaden, who had two leaks in his hardsuit thanks to Syll, and Khedryn in time, while Nyss, in his grief over his sister's death, vows to kill everyone associated with Jaden and Soldier after he captures them for the One Sith. The medical shuttle travels into an irradiated system where they find Mother, an entity imprisoned in a space station likely constructed by the ancient Rakatan Infinite Empire. The Junker and Nyss track the shuttle there as the clones meet Mother. The entity, however, turns out to be a false promise when she takes hold of Seer's body and uses her as a vessel to go free in the galaxy. Meanwhile, Jaden and Marr confront Nyss again, and after the Umbaran knocks Marr unconscious, Jaden manages to kill Nyss by strangling the life out of him. However, because of the fight against the Umbaran, Jaden falls unconscious, allowing the Iteration to use a mindspear to transfer Jaden's mind out of his body, effectively killing him and storing his memories and personality in the device. Marr fights the Iteration and defeats him, but holds off on killing him to use the mindspear to transfer all that was Jaden into the Iteration. Jaden is reborn in his own clone body, unknowing of it, and staggers to the direction of Mother, just as he did at the beginning. Marr, who hid Jaden's previous body so that he wouldn't discover what had happened to him, is taken captive by Soldier, but in the incoming threat of Mother, they all decide to become allies, especially when Jaden sees that Soldier, who had never personally caused any of the trouble back on Fhost, just wants to save Grace from the illness plaguing her. Jaden, Marr, and Soldier fight Mother, but after she proves to be too strong for all of them to take on, they decide to flee with Grace as Jaden instructs Khedryn, who meets them from elsewhere aboard the station, to load the docked medical shuttle's power core to blow, destroying much of the space station. However, Soldier decides to take himself and Grace over to the medical shuttle to take what medication he can to help Grace while Jaden, Marr, and Khedryn make it the rest of the way to Junker. Unfortunately, it is unable to break them out of the station's hold even as it suffers from numerous explosions following the destruction of the medical shuttle, which causes the station to fall to the planet that it orbits. Despite the power of Mother, Junker manages to break free and shoot out into space while the station with Mother crashes in a fiery explosion, killing the entity. As Junker proceeds to return to Fhost, Jaden notices that a scar that he had all his life is gone, and begins to have suspicions even as Marr begins acting odd around him, in light of the fact that he knows that Jaden is not in his real body. Soldier and Grace, manage to collect the medication off of the destroyed medical shuttle in time and escape in Nyss' ship, flying out into the Unknown Regions to start a new life together. + +The galaxy is still steadily recovering from the fallen Darth Caedus's brief but brutal reign as Chief of State of the Galactic Alliance. The partnership between the GA, Imperial Remnant and the Confederation, headed by GA Chief of State Natasi Daala, is working well enough to bring the Galactic Alliance back to its previous status. Unfortunately, Jedi Knight Valin Horn suddenly believes that everyone around him is an imposter as he detects through their Force presences. He then goes on a rampage on Coruscant trying to find where the real people are. After two extended chases throughout the upper levels of the GA capital planet, with several Jedi in pursuit of Valin, he is caught and brought into the medical custody of the New Jedi Order, despite the resentment presented towards the Jedi by the others chasing Valin, such as Galactic Alliance Security, led by Captain Oric Harfard, and the bounty hunters hired by Daala to chase down the rogue Jedi. However, as Jedi Master Cilghal tries to examine Valin, she finds that he is somehow blocking out her brain sensors from discovering what is going on in his mind, a trick harnessed by Jacen Solo prior to his fall to the dark side of the Force. Meanwhile, Grand Master Luke Skywalker is arrested by Daala under the charge of dereliction of duty in lieu of Darth Caedus's reign of terror, having failed to prevent his fall to the dark side. Daala's plan is to hold the Jedi accountable for their actions as ordinary superhumans, for not bringing Jacen under their control during the Second Galactic Civil War and for abandoning the GA at the Battle of Kuat. Luke arranges to go into a ten year exile in an effort to learn how and why Jacen fell to the dark side. Should he effectively demonstrate that Jacen's fall was not his fault to a board of Galactic Alliance members of Daala's choosing, he will be pardoned of all charges. Luke's son, Ben, decides to go with him to also gain some closure from Jacen's machinations toward him during the previous war, such as nearly apprenticing him as a Sith, having him do many horrible deeds as he served in the Galactic Alliance Guard, Jacen killing Ben's mother, Mara, etc. Luke leaves Jedi Master Kenth Hamner as acting Grand Master, as Luke cannot be within five light years of a Jedi Order Temple or Academy, nor can he advise in any Jedi affairs. The Order gives him a warm send off as a reminder of his achievements and contributions to the New Jedi Order he founded. Meanwhile, Han and Leia Organa Solo sneak off of Coruscant with their granddaughter, Allana, C-3PO, and R2-D2, to respond to Lando and Tendra Risant Calrissian's help in the glitterstim mines of Kessel. Han is reluctant to go due to his experiences on the planet with Kyp Durron and the late Chewbacca decades earlier, but Leia convinces him to go help a friend, as they can't do much else. Not much later, the New Jedi Order members are given individual observers to ensure what happened with Valin Horn and Seff Hellin doesn't occur again. Jaina Solo is assigned Dab Hantaq, who was given reconstructive surgery to look like Jaina's dead brother, Anakin, during the Yuuzhan Vong War by the late treacherous Senator Viqi Shesh. This was in an attempt to distract Han and Leia with the loss of their son so that Shesh could kidnap an infant Ben Skywalker for the Yuuzhan Vong. Tahiri Veila, meanwhile, is freed from observation in court, due to Nawara Ven's legal savvy. She meets Dab again since the war against the Vong, and is visibly shaken. Luke and Ben arrive at Dorin, where the Baran Do Sages' Temple is situated. Luke requests a meeting with Mistress Tila Mong, who later allows an audience after Ben defeats the student apprentice, Tistura Paan. They discover that Jacen came to the Sages for their own mastery of the Force and techniques. Luke easily masters what Jacen had learned. At a ceremony for Charsae Saal, Luke and Ben realize the Master had not died, but merely concealed himself in the Force, and transported himself underground to assume a new identity and die in obscurity. Apparently, none of the Masters of the Baran Do Sages--not even Koro Ziil, the Master in charge when Jacen was present--have died, and the Skywalkers invade a transport for Saal. They go with him to where he goes, and they are informed that they have to choose new names, for Luke and Ben Skywalker are dead. The reasoning for the underground Kel Dors' plan is that in case if another Jedi purge were to occur, and the Baran Do Sages on the surface of Dorin were wiped out, then the underground Sages would be safe from such an onslaught, resurface, and then teach what they learned for the future of their order. On Kessel, Han and Leia are informed by Lando and Tendra that there are groundquakes occurring throughout the planet. The Solos find out that these quakes are resulting from groups of machines, guarded by strange phantom-like beings, interspersed across the globe that are exerting gravitic anomolies that Leia calculates would completely destroy the world very soon. So they get the help of Rogue Squadron, with Wedge Antilles once again leading the team, to destroy the machines as Han and Leia help in the Millennium Falcon. Eventually, the machines are destroyed, and Kessel is safe. Lando, Tendra and Nien Nunb's glitterstim enterprise continues, and Han, Leia, Allana, C-3PO and R2-D2 prepare to go home back to Coruscant. However, Allana is visibly shaken from an unknown dark side presence that she feels is above Kessel. After convincing the Kel Dors present in the underground caverns that their mission here would backfire on them and showing them that their leader, the Hidden One, was keeping secrets from them, the Skywalkers orchestrate their escape. Ben bests Chara in combat to prove the underground organization's lack of efficiency in terms of Force-using and combat, as Luke does to the Hidden One when the latter refuses to let his followers go. Most of the other Baran Do Sages down with the Skywalkers leave after the family's victory. The Skywalkers then decide to continue their journey to find out what Jacen learned through his travels via information from the Hidden One who told them of Jacen's next location prior to the quiet revolution that Luke provoked. On Coruscant, Jaina and her Darkmeld organization secretly capture Seff Hellin for medical study, believing him to be afflicted with the same condition as Valin Horn, who was frozen and detained by the government in carbonite. Soon after, thanks to Nawara Ven again, the Jedi Order is reprieved of their observers. + +In 41 ABY the Sith Dician and her ship Poison Moon are orbiting the planet Ziost, having followed a Sith Meditation Sphere called Ship instead of destroying Alema Rar, the Home, and the Millennium Falcon. Dician attempts to convince Ship to come with her to the One Sith, but Ship refuses, believing them to be too weak for choosing to hide from the galaxy. Ship eventually arrives on Kesh, where a stranded Lost Tribe of the Sith remain isolated from the rest of the galaxy. Ship takes special interest in Sith Tyro Vestara Khai and offers to teach her in the ways of the dark side of the Force. Several days later Vestara is called into the Circle Chambers before the Circle of Lords. She tells the Lords that she and Ship shared their thoughts. The Lords then reveal that they will use Ship to learn more about the Sith, and also use Ship to fly offworld. Vestara is made Sith apprentice to Lady Rhea and will also fly and be trained by Ship. Ship then reveals to the Lords that the Sith do not rule the galaxy and are very few in number. This revelation completely shatters the Lost Tribe's long-held belief that the Sith have ruled the galaxy for thousands of years. Two years later, in 43.5 ABY, Jysella Horn is still attempting to get over the loss of her brother Valin, who has been encased in carbonite after contracting a mysterious illness. While in the New Jedi Temple with Jedi Master Cilghal, Jysella is suddenly stricken with the same illness. Now believing that everyone is an imposter, she flees and is pursued by other Jedi. During her escape, Jysella begins to flow-walk and she is able to avoid capture based on what she sees in the future. She escapes the Temple and battles Bazel Warv and Yaqeel Saav'etu, two of her closest friends. However, she is caught by GA security. Chief of State Natasi Daala arrives and announces that Jysella will be encased in carbonite alongside her brother. Meanwhile, on the Jade Shadow, Luke Skywalker and his son Ben continue their journey to gather information about Jacen Solo's five year sojourn. Cilghal contacts them and informs them about the recent events. Luke is concerned that each Jedi who has contracted the illness has displayed Force powers that they hadn't learned, and furthermore, powers that Jacen had possessed. Luke speculates that Darth Caedus may have flow-walked into the past and planted a kind of Force bomb that would trigger the illnesses if he did not succeed in his quest for power during the Second Galactic Civil War. Luke and Ben decide to travel to the Kathol Rift in order to find the Aing-Tii, a xenophobic species with strange time altering Force powers. Jacen was known to have visited these beings, and the Skywalkers suspect that this is where he learned to flow-walk. Once the Skywalkers reach the Rift, they encounter an Aing-Tii ship. After receiving directions, Luke and Ben arrive at a small moon and find an Aing-Tii craft waiting for them. The lone Aing-Tii presents them with a challenge: to communicate with him via the Force. While using the Force, the Skywalkers are shocked to find that the monk shines in it just as brightly as Luke, but the Aing-Tii's presence differs from any other Force-user that they have felt before. The encounter is too much for Ben, and he is forced to give up. Luke, however, maintains contact for quite some time and passes the test. They learn the Aing-Tii's name is Tadar'Ro. Tadar'Ro gives them the coordinates to the Aing-Tii homeworld. Arriving at the coordinates, the Skywalkers find it is a rocky and mostly barren world. They are greeted by the Aing-Tii with a mixture of aggression, welcome, and neutral disinterest. Tadar'Ro tells them via an Aing-Tii translation device that the monks' peaceful society is being torn in two. Recently, a prophet who had made many accurate prophecies proclaimed that Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil would return in his lifetime, then he died. This has led to much controversy, which is tearing apart the Aing-Tii's society. Tadar'Ro agrees to tell the two humans about Jacen's visit, teach Luke the ability to teleport objects using the Force, and teach Ben the ability to flow-walk. In return, the two Skywalkers must collect relics, various sacred artifacts that have a residue of Force power in them and ordained by Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil to be collected, but the Aing-Tii are culturally forbidden from touching them. Back on Coruscant at the Livestock Exchange and Exhibition, the Solo family and Jedi Knights Radd Minker and Natua Wan are all attending. Han and Leia also wish to search for a pet for Allana. After viewing the tamer animals Allana decides she wants to see the more ferocious and dangerous creatures. As they enter the exhibit holding the dangerous species, Wan suddenly contracts the same mysterious Force illness that has presented itself in the Horn children and Seff Hellin. The Falleen Jedi flees to the command center of the station and locks all of the doors of the dangerous animal exhibit. She starts to retract the bridges over the cages leading to the doors and opens the animal pens. One spectator is injured and a child is almost eaten by a boar-wolf. He is saved by Leia, who in turn chases Wan, who throws her voice using the Force, another ability of Jacen's. Leia, Jaina, and Radd engage Wan and render her unconscious. Unfortunately for the Jedi, much of what happened was recorded by journalist Javis Tyrr. Tyrr is also able to sneak a device into the lower areas of the Temple and get a recording of Seff Hellin's imprisonment there. Tyrr broadcasts both of these events on the HoloNet. Daala immediately demands a meeting with the Jedi, where she both humiliates them and tries to detain Hellin and Wan. The Jedi refuse but grant the GA full access to the two Jedi so a cure can be found. In return each of the Jedi who had been in on this plot, namely those involved in Darkmeld, has to be named and interviewed on the HoloNet. The exception is Tahiri Veila who had resigned so Jaina did not give her name in. That night Jaina returns very tired to her quarters and finds Jagged Fel waiting for her. Jag then asks Jaina to marry him, which she happily accepts. On the Aing-Tii homeworld, the monks are becoming restless and Tadar'Ro decides that even though the Skywalkers are not ready, they must travel to the Embrace, a series of caverns where the relics are stored. The Aing-Tii hope that the two humans will be able to discover an item that would solve the species' problems. After a two day hike the trio arrive at a cave. Inside the Skywalkers find thousands upon thousands of items. On Kesh, Vestara Khai has flown and learned from Ship, as have many others. The Lost Tribe of the Sith have destroyed various ships and then repaired them. They have now acquired the equivalent of a small fleet. Vestara has been put on the Eternal Crusader under her master Lady Rhea. While hauling back two new ships Rhea feels a great presence in the Force at the same time as Luke touches a relic called the Codex. Inside the Embrace, Luke is temporarily stunned after the Codex enhanced his powers tremendously. He says afterward that he felt a disturbance in the region of space called the Maw and that he and Ben must travel there. Upon returning to the surface the Skywalkers stand in front of the Aing-Tii crowd and tell them that though they have learned much, none of the relics have said anything that can guide the species. Therefore, the Aing-Tii must decide on their own whether to believe that the prophet was right; to accept the new beliefs that time was pre-ordained or return to the old ways. Though briefly enraged, the Aing-Tii finally accept the advice and step closer to filling in the rift between them. Luke and Ben express gratitude to Tadar'Ro and tell him they were going into the Maw. The monk warns them against it and reveals that Jacen also touched the Codex and felt a disturbance. The Skywalkers are warned of the Mind Drinkers who dwell there. But before the Skywalkers leave the planet, Ben goes to the spot where Jacen was taught to flow-walk. He finds that even though his late cousin was not his dark side self yet, he was inevitably going down that path, and there was nothing that Ben could do to stop it. Though experiencing great emotional pain at having failed to seek closure over his cousin falling to the dark side, Ben rejoins his father as they lift off in the Shadow, not knowing exactly what awaits them in the Maw. On Kesh the leaders of the Lost Tribe of Sith discuss Luke Skywalker--they had all felt his presence when he touched the Codex and his Force powers were tremendously magnified. Lady Rhea describes her experience and how the Grand Master had felt alone and unprotected. Vestara suddenly cries out, feeling Ship abruptly leave Kesh. The Lords' discussion ends as they decide to track down and recapture Ship rather than dedicate their fleet to stopping Luke. On Coruscant Allana opens up for the first time after the excitement at the Exhibition. She expresses her wish for a nexu cub that had lost its mother to Leia in the fray. Tahiri Veila is sitting in her apartment contemplating the events of the past few days when she hears a knock at her door. She opens it to find armed GA officers who declare that she is under arrest for treason and murdering Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon two years earlier. + +In the basement levels of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, captured Jedi Knights Seff Hellin and Natua Wan are held captive for the Force psychosis that they are suffering. Han and Leia Organa Solo are visiting to check up on the two Jedi. They also visit Raynar Thul, who has been virtually healed from his burn scars since the Tachyon Flier crash on Yoggoy, as well as the mental scars since ruling the Killiks as UnuThul. He is diagnosed by Cilghal fit enough to leave, although Raynar expresses his own doubts on his readiness. Han and Leia act as distractions for Seff so that Cilghal and Tekli can see how his mentality is. Seff sees through the ploy and gets into a brief confrontation with Leia that ends with him being knocked out, thus concluding Cilghal and Tekli's brief experiment regarding his mental capacity. In another part of the galaxy, Luke and Ben Skywalker are continuing their journey to find out what led the late Jacen Solo down the path of the dark side of the Force. They journey to the Maw, and after nearly getting killed by the missing Jedi Knight Qwallo Mode, the Skywalkers arrive in a space station, which looks like a miniature version of the destroyed Centerpoint Station. Running parallel to this, Ben senses a dark presence in the system that he hadn't felt since his time as an infant in the Maw. On board the station, they find the group known as the Mind Walkers, a group of Force-sensitive beings who are meditating themselves to death in order to pass beyond shadows, with Qwallo Mode among them. They believe that the real world is nothing more than an illusion, and a higher plane of existence in the Force awaits them. The Mind Walkers reveal that Jacen was with them during his sojourn, and they explain that when he left, he wanted to right the galaxy of any wrongs as he prepared to leave them. Luke concludes that this is where Jacen had begun his fall to the dark side, but the Mind Walkers disagree, even after being informed that Jacen had become the Sith Lord Darth Caedus before he died. To prove their case to Luke, the Mind Walkers have him pass beyond shadows with them to seek what Jacen sought which made him turn to the dark side. That way, Luke could understand what Jacen's motives were prior to his fall. On Coruscant, Yaqeel Saav'etu and Bazel Warv are the next two Jedi to fall to the Force psychosis. Though they are quickly knocked out by the three remaining Solos and Jagged Fel, the Solos and Jag are demanded to relinquish Yaqeel and Bazel to Galactic Alliance Security. The Solos and Jag discover that GAS found out about the two Jedi's fall to the psychosis via a cleaning droid installed by the reporter Javis Tyrr. This droid has a holocam mounted on it to record such vital information within the New Jedi Order, revealing how Tyrr was able to get a recording of Seff Hellin's incarceration beneath the Jedi Temple. Jag uses his diplomatic immunity as Head of State of the Galactic Empire, Jaina uses a legal threat that can have Tyrr arrested for spying, and Han and Leia pull off a bait-and-switch that gets Yaqeel and Bazel into Jedi custody. GAS begrudgingly allow the Jedi alone, while Cilghal states that with Yaqeel and Bazel in custody, she will be able to draw conclusions as to how this Force psychosis is targeting young Jedi Knights. One theory she draws is that each Knight has been in the Maw at a very early age to keep from being targeted by the Yuuzhan Vong during the war against them; therefore, there could be something in the Maw affecting the minds of these young Knights. Meanwhile, Jag tells Jaina that he had overheard a conversation between Chief of State Natasi Daala and her assistant Chief of Staff Wynn Dorvan where Daala had suggested bringing in Mandalorian mercenaries against the Jedi in order to bring them in line with the Alliance government. Jaina promises Jag to keep this a secret, as Jag believes that he can use this information to his advantage in order to actually help the Order somehow. Elsewhere, near Sinkhole Station, a portion of the small fleet collected by the Lost Tribe of Sith continues to hunt down the Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship. The Tribe uses Vestara Khai, the Sith Tyro that Ship had first contacted back on the Tribe home world of Kesh, to track the Sphere down. However, they soon learn that Ship is leading the fleet toward the source that had coerced him to leave the Tribe in the first place. They track Ship down to an unknown planet, but the Sith members are steadily killed off by the planet's dangerous plants. However, just as they find Ship, he evades their grasp once again and they meet a mysterious woman named Abeloth, who can change her physical appearance at will. She provides the Sith protection from the dangerous plants, but Vestara is suspicious of Abeloth's motives. These suspicions are heightened once the Sith find Ship again and Vestara's Master Lady Olaris Rhea is nearly killed by a plant beneath one of the planet's crimson rivers. Vestara communicates through the Force with Ship and finds that he can't obey her or any of the Sith's commands, as it was designed to, because of the strange presence that lured him away from Kesh. Vestara concludes that it was Abeloth who was responsible for luring Ship over to the planet and that she is keeping the Sith on the world because she is lonely. The probable reason that the plant beneath the crimson river nearly ate Lady Rhea was because she didn't want Ship to be found, considering that Rhea is the official leader of the Sith squad on the planet. These suspicions are what allow Vestara to see Abeloth for who she truly is--a hideous, ugly monster. Despite these suspicions, the Sith and Abeloth reclaim Ship, and the Sith then use it to travel to Sinkhole Station. Back on Coruscant, Wynn Dorvan tells Han and Leia that Daala is planning to use a pack of Mandalorian supercommandos against the Jedi, information that he deliberately gave to Jag by secretly allowing him to overhear his conversation with Daala regarding the matter. The Solos are dubious, believing it to be a trick of Daala's but Wynn insists that, unlike Daala, he knows the Jedi are needed to protect the galaxy from worse threats. The Solos give this information to the Jedi Council, who promise to use this information to their advantage, while the Masters give the Solos the task of defending Tahiri Veila in court for the murder of Gilad Pellaeon two years earlier. Meanwhile, Jaina investigates into the bug planted on the cleaning droid thanks to Tyrr, and traces it back to Moff Drikl Lecersen. She calls Jag to come over so that she can give him this information, and then she is confronted by her parents over Jag keeping the secret of Daala preparing to use the Mandalorians against the Jedi. Noting Jaina's lack of shock and subsequent defense of Jag, Han and Leia learn that she, too, knew the situation regarding the Mandalorians and didn't bother to tell the Order. This causes a schism between Jaina and her parents, who look down on Jag for keeping this secret from everyone but Jaina. Jaina still tells Jag about Lecersen's involvement into causing conflict between Daala and the Jedi, and he promises to take this information to Daala to reaffirm her view of the Order. However, on the day of Tahiri's arraignment, when Jag does tell Daala about Lecersen's likely involvement in the conflict, she still refuses to release any hold of the public prejudice held against the Jedi. She explains that it was thanks to Darth Caedus who set her on this mental path, as he was a Sith, and to Daala, a Sith is nothing more than a fallen Jedi. Later, the Jedi plan to get Valin and Jysella Horn out of Daala's secret prison on Coruscant, and they disguise their reconnaissance as a visit to check up on whether they are physically stable in their carbonite-frozen forms. Though Valin and Jysella's mother, Mirax, knocks out the manager of the prison, Wruq Retk, for using her children as office decorations, the plan fails because Daala arrives at the scene. She then promises to make sure that the Horn children's carbonite-frozen forms will be treated with more dignity. Meanwhile, Han and Leia, with the help of a few Jedi Knights, plan to transport the Jedi that they have to the Jedi base on Shedu Maad. But Mandalorian supercommandos attack, and though they are defeated, Bazel is provoked into killing one of them using a Force ability that no one is aware of: killing the mercenary by phasing his arm through his armor without even denting it. Fortunately, after the Mandalorians' defeat, Raynar Thul uses Bazel's Force psychosis to the Order's advantage by threatening that if he didn't come with them to Shedu Maad, then he will leave Yaqeel, his friend, and the other Knights alone with the imposters. Bazel complies and goes with his fellow Knights to Shedu Maad. In Sinkhole Station, Ben overcomes the distractions provided by Rolund and Rhondi Tremaine and travels beyond shadows with his father and the Mind Walkers' leader Seek Ryontarr, as Ben is worried that Luke is spending too much time beyond shadows. Ben wishes to quickly get their information of Jacen's fall to the dark side and get out of the station. With the help of their guides beyond shadows, the Skywalkers journey to the Lake of Apparitions where they meet the souls of Anakin Solo, Luke's late wife and Ben's dead mother, Mara, and finally, Jacen. None of the deceased characters that Luke and Ben encounter tell them about the mysterious female presence who Luke senses in the Lake of Apparitions, and the feelings between the Skywalkers and Jacen are still difficult, considering all that he had done to them during the Second Galactic Civil War. Nevertheless, Luke asks Jacen what prompted him to fall to the dark side, and he confirms what Luke already suspected--a great threat to the galaxy which coerced him to do whatever it took to ensure peace. Jacen also tells Luke that, in the visions they shared of someone ruling with an iron fist on a great throne, it wasn't Luke on the throne. And Jacen is pleased to learn that when Luke had the vision, he saw the former's daughter, Allana, ruling in a time of ensured peace, surrounded by friends. With that, the Skywalkers depart the Lake of Apparitions, and subsequently beyond shadows, and return to the real world. They are about to depart when they confront the surviving members of the Sith squad, led to the station by the Sith Meditation Sphere and Abeloth. But thanks to the Skywalkers' superior fighting abilities, with one of the Skywalkers killing Ahri Raas and the treacherous ambitions of individual Sith members killing rival colleagues, all but one of the members are killed--the last member being Vestara. However, instead of killing or capturing her, Luke uses the Dathomiri blood mark on Vestara and allows her to leave using one of the abandoned ships in the station's hangar. Luke and Ben still residing in the Maw aboard the Jade Shadow, wait for Vestara to make her move and leave the star cluster. They would be able to use the blood trail on her to track her down to her home planet, where the Sith reside. Ben asks who Jacen saw on the throne in his visions, and Luke says that, to Ben at least, it doesn't matter and it never will. + +Luke and Ben Skywalker narrowly survive an attack by a Sith assassination squad while exploring Sinkhole Station. The lone survivor of the Sith squad, Vestara Khai, escapes to the planet Dathomir to send a message to the rest of the Lost Tribe of Sith back at their home world of Kesh, all the while intentionally leading Luke and Ben to her location. Luke and Ben soon receive help from Dathomiri individuals such as Dyon Stadd into finding Vestara while Han and Leia Organa Solo, with their daughter and granddaughter, Jaina and Allana respectively, and the latter's nexu cub Anji, C-3PO, and R2-D2, also come to heed the Skywalkers' call. The group soon encounter two tribes; one, a company of Force-sensitive Witches called the Raining Leaves, and the other, a group of freed male slaves called the Broken Columns. These two clans are scheduled to be united after a marathon of physical trials that will last for several days. However, the unification summit is repeatedly attacked by the machinations of the infamous Nightsisters. In order to combat these attacks, Luke and Ben gather up both clans into a singular unit to repel the dangers that the Nightsisters bring. Meanwhile, during the unification summit, R2-D2 goes missing in the docking bay. Allana, left alone with C-3PO, escapes his presence aboard the Millennium Falcon and decides to investigate Artoo's disappearance. She soon finds out that the astromech droid is being held by the local docking bay worker, Monarg. Allana is caught by Monarg when she tries to free Artoo, but C-3PO arrives and distracts Monarg by letting him beat him while Allana gets the restraining bolt off of Artoo. The little girl and the two droids escape Monarg's shop, but the docking bay worker and his friends try to capture them when the trio escape back aboard the Millennium Falcon. Fortunately, Allana manages to pilot the legendary YT-1300 light freighter away and into the forests of Dathomir without destroying the Falcon. Meanwhile, Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala is encountering more and more public resistance regarding her treatment of the Jedi. This has been occurring after she sent in a Mandalorian attack squad to try to capture recently stricken Jedi who the Order took before the military could. With public and military dissension growing and increasing comparisons to Palpatine cropping up, she reaches out to Han and Leia, who she gets off of Dathomir with Jaina after Allana is recovered, in hopes of repairing the relationship between the Galactic Alliance and the New Jedi Order. Daala's problems are further exacerbated by an assassination attempt on Imperial Head of State Jagged Fel, conducted thanks to a secret political faction hoping to depose Fel and replace him with Moff Drikl Lecersen. Then there is criticism to her attention to get Tahiri Veila imprisoned for killing Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon two years earlier, which is backed by the fact that Admiral Cha Niathal, who assisted Darth Caedus during the Second Galactic Civil War like Tahiri, hasn't been arrested. This point draws conclusions with Daala being especially biased against the Jedi while letting those like her--those in the military--go free. To counteract this criticism, she asks Niathal to come over to Coruscant in order to face trial and be freed in the end by Daala's hand. But Niathal believes that, even if she is found innocent, no one will ever respect or forgive her for what she did for aiding Caedus, nor can she ever respect or forgive herself, since she doesn't consider helping him to be a mistake. So the Mon Calamari douses her water tank with carbon monoxide and kills herself. Daala grieves for Niathal's loss as she is given a funeral on Coruscant, though the Chief of State is unable to attend the retired Admiral's funeral due to the fact that Daala is facing so much public resistance. Back on Dathomir, the combined forces of the Raining Leaves and Broken Columns manage to counteract the Nightsisters' constant rancor attacks. The increased morale in staving off these assaults causes the two clans to marry automatically and become the Bright Sun Clan. Eventually, the attacks gradually die off and the Nightsisters are defeated. The Bright Suns Clan are able to live in peace on Dathomir. Later, Lecersen attempts to break the cementing peace between Daala and the New Jedi Order by having terrorist Kester Tolann attack the Solos and Jag Fel at dinner in a local restaurant. Tolann is killed, alongside the YVH droids at his side. However, despite the implications from the attack that can point to Daala being the culprit in provoking the assault, Jag is looking for other potential suspects in the Empire who would want to usurp and replace him, with Lecersen being on this list. The Sith eventually arrive and abduct the remaining Nightsisters so that they may join the Lost Tribe, whether they want to or not, despite the attempts of Ben and Luke to stop them. Even as Vestara is caught, so, too, is Halliava Vurse, the traitor to the Raining Leaves who was really a Nightsister; Vurse is left to the justice system of the Bright Suns Clan to determine her fate. With Vestara in custody, as she had always been working for her Sith masters, Luke and Ben return to the spaceport but before leaving, Luke confronts Monarg with the accusation that Vestara's ship didn't crash, but was given to him in exchange for credits to make a hyperspace transmission to the Sith fleet. Vestara acknowledges this, and Monarg is blackmailed into helping the Skywalkers and Dyon Stadd leave Dathomir. Upon leaving the planet, the Jade Shadow is stopped by a fleet of Sith warships. Having no choice, Luke and Ben kill the engines and prepare to be contacted by the Sith. + +Luke and Ben Skywalker are surrounded over Dathomir by the Sith fleet summoned by Vestara Khai, their Sith prisoner. The Sith commander, High Lord Sarasu Taalon, sends a message to discuss a truce with the Jedi. He proposes that the Sith and the Skywalkers work together to destroy the malignant Force entity known as Abeloth, who is causing the Force psychosis plaguing the young Jedi Knights back on Coruscant, as well the Sith's own apprentices. Vestara's father, Gavar, asks to come aboard, and Luke reluctantly agrees. Once Gavar is aboard, Luke lets Vestara and her father use his room for a private chat, but uses recording devices planted there to eavesdrop. Nevertheless, the Khais speak in the Keshiri language as an added precaution. Gavar reveals to Vestara that the Sith apprentices are just fine and that the lie was merely a means to convince Luke of their mutual interest in destroying Abeloth. He also senses that Vestara has developed feelings for Ben, and encourages her to pursue them; at worst he's a source for information and at best she may turn him to the dark side of the Force. Vestara agrees, thrilled at the prospect of having Ben join the Sith. As they leave Luke's room, the Jedi Master finds them and agrees to assist the Sith in destroying Abeloth. However, he refuses to let Vestara rejoin the Sith just yet; begrudgingly, her father accepts this and they decide to head to Klatooine; the closest supply point leading back to the Maw. Meanwhile, Luke begins having dreams of his late wife, Mara, luring him to the Maw. On Coruscant, Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala faces mounting criticism of her heavy-handed attempts to suppress the Jedi. In order to dispel the growing assertions that she is another Palpatine, she dismisses Nawara Ven and the Jedi Court to show that she will not treat the Jedi any different from other people. As Tahiri Veila's court date approaches, Jaina Solo asks her fiance Jagged Fel to try to get Tahiri a lawyer who has a chance at clearing her name. Jag, though reluctant to interfere in Galactic Alliance politics, agrees. On Klatooine, Luke calls Lando Calrissian and asks if he can borrow an old starship of his that can assist in guiding him and the Sith fleet through the Maw. Lando agrees to help him, but tells Luke it would take him a week or two to get the ship ready. Luke then contacts C-3PO and sends him a recording of the conversation Vestara had with her father and asks him to translate it. Threepio, thrilled that someone actually commed him, begins translation attempts at once. Ben and Vestara meanwhile are sent down to the planet's surface with one of their scouts from Dathomir, Jedi-washout Dyon Stadd. While there, Dyon falls victim to Abeloth's Force-psychosis and steals a speeder and heads for a sacred landmark known as the Fountain of Hutt Ancients. Ben and Vestara manage to stop Dyon before he can desecrate the Fountain, but all three of them are arrested by the Klatooine police. Luke comes to bail them out with Gavar and recover their afflicted ally, and is disturbed with Vestara's flirtations with Ben, just as Gavar is with the harmless connection between the two of them, though Vestara convinces him that it is simply a way to trick Ben. The Klatooinians agree to hand Ben, Vestara and Dyon over, stating they don't have the facilities to hold Jedi. Once back on their ship with an immobilized Dyon, Luke warns Ben that Vestara can't be trusted. Ben, furious, storms off to his room. Back on Coruscant, the Jedi Temple is once again attacked by Mandalorian mercenaries under Daala's orders to recover two recently afflicted Jedi, Sothais Saar and Turi Altamik, and to block the Jedi's attempts to launch a fleet to assist Luke. Kenth Hamner's assistant, a young Jedi girl named Kani Asari, is brutally gunned down by the leader of the Mandalorian mercenaries, Belok Rhal in broad daylight. Han and Leia Organa Solo, watching the scene on the HoloNet, manage to sneak medication in through the substructure of the Jedi Temple attached to small animals in order to keep the crazed Jedi sedated. Wynn Dorvan, Daala's chief of staff, realizes that, shortly, Raynar Thul would be heading outside the Temple for his lunch break. Dorvan rushes to the temple and manages to stop the Mandalorians from gunning him down as well, and then the two of them take Asari's body back into the Temple. It is during this time that Jaina, realizing how often she asks Jag to bend or break the rules for her, decides to call off their engagement as their careers will always get in the way. She leaves a stunned Jag and rushes off to help her uncle. Meanwhile, Hamner refuses to openly move against Daala because he has made a secret deal with Admiral Nek Bwua'tu, who promises to get Daala off the Jedi's backs. Over Klatooine, C-3PO presents a rough translation to Luke which confirms his suspicions that the Sith were lying to him and that Vestara is intentionally manipulating his son. He shows the recording to Ben, which leaves him feeling humiliated, though he is still attracted to Vestara. Lando arrives with his starship, the Rockhound, and Luke and most of the Sith fleet head back to Sinkhole Station. Some Sith are ordered to stay behind in order to relay messages; however, they also have orders to take samples of the Fountain structure as it is made of some super-strong material. This causes the planet's populace to erupt into anarchy as the Fountain is desecrated. Jaina and Lando are asked by the Klatooine elders to act as judges to determine who should be held liable for the incident: the Sith for desecrating the Fountain, or the Hutts for failing to protect it, as was their promise in the Treaty of Vontor about twenty-five thousand years earlier. Jaina and Lando reach their verdict and declare that the Sith are to blame, and the Klatooinian elders promptly sentence those who desecrated the Fountain to execution, namely Captain Vyn Holpur and his crew. However, because of the riots resulting from the incident, it appears unlikely that the Hutts can regain control of the planet, and thus, lose a large accumulation of slaves. This prompts the outbreak of multiple anti-slavery movements across the galaxy that are supported by the underground organization known as the Freedom Flight. These movements compound the criticisms of Daala for her persecution of the Jedi. During the voyage to Sinkhole Station, a handful of Sith ships are destroyed, and Luke is shocked to find that the station itself has been destroyed, leading him to believe it was definitely keeping Abeloth in check. With Vestara's help, they manage to land on Abeloth's planet, and go Beyond shadows to find and kill Abeloth herself. Luke manages to contact Mara from Beyond Shadows, telling her that he has finally responded to his dreams of her calling him to the Maw, but she tells him that she never contacted him. Luke now knows that he has been set up, and he and the Sith leave Beyond Shadows to find Abeloth in the real world. Meanwhile, as part of a sabotage attempt against Abeloth, Vestara reawakens Dyon and assists in his escape. He makes his way to Abeloth, who nearly kills him by feeding off of his life force. Luke and the others find Dyon, as Vestara had let him go so that they can track him in the Force, and Dyon is relieved that he has come back to his senses; he states that everyone around him still feels wrong but he knows that they are not imposters. Luke and the Sith confront Abeloth, and he is shocked when her human appearance is that of Luke's long lost love, Callista Ming, who left him decades earlier in order to find a way to reconnect with the Force. At first, Luke believes that Abeloth is Callista, but soon understands that Abeloth actually killed Callista and absorbed her life force years ago, resulting in Abeloth possessing Callista's memories and appearance. During a vicious battle with Abeloth, Luke manages to overpower and eventually kill the monster despite her tricks to mislead him. With Abeloth's death the Force illness affecting the Jedi Knights Cilghal's custody is lifted. Luke and Ben return to Lando's starship and are surprised to see Jaina waiting for them; she informs them of the siege on the Jedi Temple and the new development that Kenth Hamner and a number of senior Jedi now have out-standing warrants for their arrest. In the meantime, the alliance between the Jedi and Sith remains in force, if only to discover more about Abeloth's nature by studying her corpse. Meanwhile, now free from Abeloth's control, Ship escapes from a dogfight with Jaina's StealthX X-wing starfighter, which results in Jaina nearly being killed when Ship destroys one of her engines. Ship then goes into hyperspace while Jaina is saved by Lando. Daala and her secret lover, Nek Bwua'tu, meet for dinner where Bwua'tu intends to persuade her to call the siege off, but before he can do so, he decides that it would be a useless gesture, considering her anti-Jedi rant to him. Sometime later, he leaves her apartment and is accosted by two apparently crazed Jedi. After realizing that they are not Jedi he manages to kill one with a shot to the head; however, the body falls on top of him, driving the lightsaber still clenched in his hand into Bwua'tu's torso. Tahiri's trial first appears to be going in her favor thanks to her lawyer, Eramuth Bwua'tu, the Admiral's uncle. However, it takes a turn for the worst when a recording of Gilad Pellaeon's murder is played onto the record. With that, she believes that all is lost for her. + +Jaina Solo and Lando Calrissian are traveling back to Coruscant to inform the New Jedi Order of Luke and Ben Skywalker's situation. However, they find themselves near Kessel, which was not on their intended course. Jaina and Lando soon discover that the ship's droid crew are being manipulated by an unknown source. Jaina goes to her damaged StealthX X-wing starfighter despite Lando's protests and finds that the StealthX's weapons are being dismantled by one of the droids. Jaina then learns that on the Rockhound's stop at Klatooine, the ship had received a mouse droid as a new delivery. Jaina, in conclusion, determines that whoever is manipulating the droids--she suspects the Lost Tribe of the Sith--is using that mouse droid to maneuver the Rockhound toward Kessel instead of Coruscant. She then tells Lando to search for the mouse droid while she goes out in her StealthX wing, now equipped with only four shadow bombs, to ward off anyone trying to take hold of the Rockhound. Several skiffs arrive in the system, and Jaina fights them off, using all four of her shadow bombs to destroy most of the skiffs and their mothership. Now unable to defend herself against the remaining skiffs, Jaina pilots her StealthX back to the Rockhound, where Lando has located and destroyed the manipulative mouse droid. They escape into hyperspace. Jaina now has confirmation that the attackers were in fact Sith pirates, based on the how they knew where to fire whenever she used the Force to launch her shadow bombs. On the mysterious planet where the Skywalkers and the Lost Tribe of Sith fought and apparently killed the mysterious entity known as Abeloth, Luke Skywalker is working with High Lord Sarasu Taalon and Sith Saber Gavar Khai to find clues about Abeloth's origins by searching her lair. Meanwhile, aboard the Jade Shadow docked some distance away from Abeloth's lair, Vestara Khai tells Ben Skywalker that the Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship has contacted her through the Force, telling her that he is coming back to serve the Lost Tribe. They agree to take this information to Luke. But Vestara first has Ben check in on their patient, Dyon Stadd; while he does so, she locks him inside the Jade Shadow's medical bay. She now can go directly to either Taalon or her father rather than to Luke in order to inform them of Ship's impending arrival. However, Ben cuts his way out of the medical bay with his lightsaber and catches up to Vestara before she can make it to Abeloth's lair, forcing her to promise not to betray the Skywalkers or tell either Gavar or Taalon of Ship coming to the planet. With that, they continue on to the lair where, despite the presence of Gavar and Taalon, Ben is able to communicate to his father about Ship while Vestara, even under the threat of punishment, does not inform either of her masters as to why she and Ben left Dyon alone back on the Jade Shadow. Knowing that the Jedi-Sith alliance would crumble if either Taalon or Gavar received this knowledge, Luke proceeds to save Vestara from abuse at Taalon's hands, but more as a distraction than genuine concern for her well-being. This way, Ben is able to attempt to take Abeloth's body away so that he and his father can get her back to Coruscant for examination by Cilghal. Vestara and Taalon see what Ben is up to and Taalon nearly kills him before Vestara stops the High Lord to point out that during the scuffle the sheet covering the corpse was knocked off, revealing not Abeloth's body, but Dyon Stadd's. They conclude that what they thought had been an illusion of Abeloth killing Stadd during their battle was real, and that Abeloth faked her death and took Stadd's place aboard the Jade Shadow. On Coruscant, Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala continues her Mandalorian siege on the New Jedi Temple, demanding that the most recent Jedi Knights to fall prey to the Force psychosis, Sothais Saar and Turi Altamik, be turned over into GA custody. The two Jedi are brought outside, where Daala's Bith surgeon, Thalleus Tharn, looks them over for a brief preliminary test to confirm that they're not impostors or still insane. Tharn tests to make sure of this by kneeing Saar in the groin, which prompts Altamik to stop the surgeon by raising him up in the air with the Force to prevent any further attacks from the Bith. Using this action as basic evidence that Saar and Altamik are not still insane, considering how the latter Knight controlled herself in the event of the attack, and that Tharn's practiced eye would have seen any work of plastic surgery meant to disguise impostors, Tharn concludes that the Force psychosis is indeed gone, and the Knights are sane again. Daala then calls off the siege, but says that until she knows that the Jedi are holding nothing back from her, Valin and Jysella Horn will remain in Galactic Alliance Security's custody. Later, the Jedi High Council hold a meeting over how they can convince Daala to thaw Valin and Jysella out of carbonite. Acting Grand Master Kenth Hamner insists that they confront Daala through non-violent means while the rest of the Council's members argue that they must go into an all-out war against the Chief of State in order to reclaim the Horns. Things get even more heated when news reports from the world of Blaudu Sextus reveal several Mandalorians gunning down Octusi, peaceful protestors fighting for their freedom from slavery at the hands of the Sextuna Mining Corporation. The meeting ultimately leads to Hamner having to reveal that, in an effort to have Daala stand down against the Jedi, he made a secret deal with someone, whose identity he refuses to divulge, just to convince the Council not to make any active moves against the Chief. Hamner's position in the Council becomes even more tenuous than before as a result, but the other Masters do agree to do it his way after Corran Horn says that the time and circumstances aren't right for a regime change--at least not yet. Things get even more complicated for the Council, and for the Jedi Order as a whole, when Jaina and Lando report the pirate attack on the Rockhound and present data indicating that the Lost Tribe have spread throughout the galaxy. Meanwhile, in order to have a bill passed that will substantially support the Jedi, the Solos' and Lando meet with Sullustan Senator Luewet Wuul. Wuul inadvertently reveals that Kenth Hamner's secret deal was made with Admiral Nek Bwua'tu during the Mandalorian siege on the Jedi Temple. Wuul then reluctantly reveals the terms of the deal: if Hamner makes sure that the Jedi don't launch their StealthX wing to help Luke Skywalker, then Bwua'tu would convince Daala to lighten up on the Order. Back on the mysterious planet in the Maw, the Skywalkers and the Sith, now aware of Abeloth's survival, find Ship. Despite the Skywalker's earlier fears, the Jedi-Sith alliance remains intact because they must still work together to kill Abeloth. Ship, who appears to vow complete loyalty to the Sith, transports the Jedi-Sith party to the Pool of Knowledge so they can use it to find Abeloth. The Pool shows them an image of Abeloth running on along shore of the island that the party is on. But before they can go after her, the Jedi-Sith alliance finally breaks when the Sith see an image in the Pool of a Jedi queen on a throne surrounded by many Force-users--the same vision Luke had received in Fate of the Jedi: Abyss. This prompts Luke and Ben to fight Taalon and the Khais so that the Jedi Queen's existence is kept a secret. During the fight, Taalon dives into the Pool. The Skywalkers barely escape alive, aware that Abeloth has already taken Ship and the Jade Shadow off planet, so their only way off-world is to the Emiax, the Sith's shuttle. They decide to take Vestara with them, using her as a hostage to protect them from the Sith, and because they hope to extract the location of the Lost Tribe's home world from her. Luke convinces her to come with him and his son by reminding her that since she failed her duty to lead the Skywalkers to their deaths, Taalon and Gavar will likely try to kill her. Now off-world, the Skywalkers, with Vestara in tow, begin their search for Abeloth. On Coruscant, Tahiri Veila's trial continues to be go badly, especially now that her lawyer, Eramuth Bwua'tu, appears to be incompetent. The Solos hire a second defense attorney named Sardonne Sardon to help Bwua'tu prove that Tahiri was acting under orders from the late Darth Caedus to kill the late Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon if she couldn't persuade him to side with Caedus in the Second Battle of Fondor during the Second Galactic Civil War. Unfortunately, Bwua'tu and Sardon's different legal methods impede Tahiri's case theory that she was acting under orders, which prompts Tahiri to fire Sardon, believings that Bwua'tu works better alone. He reveals his acts of incompetence were to make Tahiri look good with the jury and not so much like a fool, despite the fact that it was harming her case. Bwua'tu manages to admit into evidence, a holovid recorded aboard the Star Destroyer Bloodfin. This holovid shows the prosecution's star witness Imperial Lieutenant Lydea Pagorski's failure to act when it became apparent that Pellaeon's life would be in danger. With Pagorski's credibility shattered, her testimony is stricken from the record and she is removed from court for perjury. Meanwhile, Admiral Nek Bwua'tu is in a coma after being attacked by fake Jedi. Even Chief of State Daala knows that the Jedi couldn't have been behind it because it was tactically unsound for them to attack such a high-placed officer in the Galactic Alliance military; furthermore two Jedi would have easily killed Bwua'tu rather than botch the attempt. In her quest to find out who was behind Bwua'tu's attack, Daala finds out that the Admiral seems to be stimulated by the sight of reporter Madhi Vaandt on the HoloNet reporting the anti-slavery revolt on Blaudu Sextus. Daala doubts that Bwua'tu is stimulated by her sexually, and starts to believe that Vaandt might be behind the attack. Later, Daala meets with Imperial Head of State Jagged Fel to show him the video footage that her spies had taken on Jaina Solo and Lando Calrissian presiding over the trial against the Sith on Klatooine during the planet's slave revolt. Jag understands Daala is trying to blackmail him when it becomes apparent that Jaina and Lando only allowed half the Sith who stood trial be sentenced to death while letting the others go free. Daala tells Jag that if he doesn't lend her Imperial support to put down the pan-galactic slave revolts, then she will broadcast the video throughout the galaxy to expose the Jedi's alliance with the Sith. It isn't long before the revolt on Blaudu Sextus again erupts into violence instigated by Belok Rhal's Mandalorians. Though the Mandalorians are stopped by Sothais Saar and Avinoam Arelis, Madhi Vaandt is killed by Rhal. This outrages the Jedi, with the Council except for Kenth Hamner, believing that now is the time to take the fight to Daala. Then, when Han Solo forces Hamner to reveal that he made a secret agreement with Nek Bwua'tu during the Temple siege, the rest of the Jedi Masters informally vote him out as their leader. This results in a complex plan to free Valin and Jysella Horn from their carbonite prison and to respond to Luke Skywalker's recent distress call for the Jedi StealthX fleet to assemble at Abeloth's suspected location: Almania's moon of Pydyr. However, Jagged Fel tells the Solos that he and the Moffs have decided that as long as Daala rules the GA, the Imperial Remnant will never join the Alliance. So he plans on leaving soon and advises the Jedi to move quickly with their plans before Daala finds out about everything. The Order agrees, while Jaina and Jag renew their engagement. On Pydyr, the populace appears infected with a plague, though in reality it is an illusion cast by the Fallanassi to deter outsiders. Luke immerses himself in the White Current to see through the illusions, but declines to inform either Ben or Vestara of the nature of the plague. He reasons that Vestara would likely call her Sith masters to Pydyr, but if she doesn't know the plague is an illusion, then she can't pass this information on to the Sith. Ben must also be kept in the dark, because Luke feels there is a substantial risk that he might tell Vestara the truth. So as Luke sets off to find Abeloth himself, leaving Ben and Vestara aboard the Emiax, he encounters Akanah Norand Goss Pell, an old Fallanassi acquaintance, and learns that the Fallanassi are hiding Abeloth, believing the entity is one of their own. Ben and Vestara disobey orders to stay behind aboard the Emiax and join up with Luke. The Sith also arrive, having been tipped off by Vestara while Ben was distracted. On Coruscant, the Solos and several allies--including C-3PO, Zekk, and Taryn Zel--break into the prison where Valin and Jysella are being held and retrieve them. Meanwhile, Booster Terrik holds a celebrity sabacc tournament aboard the Errant Venture, intending to use the highly-placed people aboard, as hostages while the Venture fires at orbiting satellites around Coruscant. This is a distraction to lure the Sixth Fleet's attention away from the Jedi Temple as the Jedi prepare to launch their StealthX fighters. As the Fleet chases the Errant Venture into hyperspace, the StealthX launch is nearly stopped by the actions of the disgraced Kenth Hamner. Hamner, believing he is acting in the Order's best interest, tries to regain his authority on the Council by attempting to kill Saba Sebatyne, who is leading the Jedi against Daala. As he and Saba engage in a duel, Hamner tries to disable the hangar doors to prevent the StealthXs from launching. In the end, Saba is forced to kill Hamner in order to ensure the success of the launch. With Hamner now dead, the StealthXs make it off Coruscant and set course for Pydyr. The other Masters formally elect Saba as acting Grand Master of the Order. Saba, however, is stricken with grief at having to kill a fellow Master, and vows to accept whatever punishment Luke places on her when he resumes his position as Grand Master. On Pydyr, it is revealed High Lord Taalon's dive into the Pool of Knowledge has caused a strange transformation: his Force powers have increased, and he begins to resemble Abeloth. Luke agrees to help Taalon and the rest of the Sith find Abeloth so that she can tell Taalon what is happening to him and then they can kill her. They quickly find Abeloth, who has now taken over Akanah's body. To protect the entity, the Fallanassi use their illusions to attack most of the group, leaving only the Skywalkers, Taalon, and Vestara free to confront Abeloth. Abeloth then leads the four of them into a meeting hall where she promises to tell Taalon about his transformation if he orders Vestara to turn on the Jedi. As Ben duels both Vestara and Taalon, Luke and Abeloth fight. Luke kills Abeloth's Akanah body, only to find out that she has another body in the form of Callista Ming. In the end, Luke and Ben are both defeated, severely wounded, and about to be killed by Taalon. Vestara, knowing that Abeloth is the greater threat and that she intends to use Taalon as her puppet to control the Sith, turns on the High Lord and kills him. As Abeloth flees following Taalon's death, the StealthX fleet arrives and battles the Sith forces, who have recovered from the Fallanassi's illusory attack. Although Vestara still refuses to embrace the light side of the Force, she knows that she cannot return to the Sith after murdering a High Lord. She decides to stay with the Skywalkers as they are her only remaining allies. Luke and Ben allow her to join them only if she treats them as true allies. She agrees and helps them fight off several Sith. The three of them reclaim the Jade Shadow, make a brief report to the Errant Venture, and prepare to continue the hunt for Abeloth. In the aftermath of the StealthX launch and the rescue of the Horn siblings, Daala threatens to attack the Jedi Temple. However, Saba, Corran Horn, and Cilghal all warn her that any drastic measures will be met with reprisals against the hostages aboard the Errant Venture. While Daala doubts that the Jedi would ever go that far, she nevertheless backs down--at least until the hostages are returned. Allana Solo, her Jedi guardian Bazel Warv, and her pet nexu Anji discover a hidden catacomb deep within the New Jedi Temple where Tesar Sebatyne and three other Barabel Jedi have made a nest for their spawn. The Barabels wish to keep the nest a secret, and decide they must either kill Allana, Bazel, and Anji, or have them join them for the next two months. Allana reveals her true identity as the granddaughter of Han and Leia Organa Solo, and daughter of the late Jacen Solo and Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo. They compromise and agree to keep each other's secrets. The Barabels let Allana, Bazel, and Anji leave so that they can join Han, Leia, Corran, and Mirax Terrik Horn in watching Cilghal and Tekli unfreeze Valin and Jysella from their carbonite prisons. + +The Circle of Lords meet to determine whether or not they should accept Abeloth's offer of an alliance to destroy Luke Skywalker and the Jedi Order. The Lords are divided, but in the end, despite his reservations over Abeloth's intentions, Grand Lord Darish Vol decides that the Lost Tribe of the Sith must accept Abeloth’s offer. Vol then contacts Gavar Khai, who has brought Abeloth and Ship to Kesh, and tells him that they must delay Abeloth's arrival on the planet so they can prepare a celebration for their powerful new ally. After Khai relays this information to Abeloth, the entity is skeptical and suspicious of Vol's motives, but accepts the conditions. Abeloth then tells Khai that he and everyone in his fleet should return to Kesh to visit with friends and family members. Khai acquiesces and spends the night with his wife, Lahka. The two discuss the implications of their daughter's actions and her choice to side with the Skywalkers. Gavar kills Vestara's pet uvak, Tikk, as a result of convictions that Vestara must be punished. Eventually, Abeloth is officially welcomed to Kesh with a lavish parade and masquerade. During these events, Grand Lord Vol closely observes Abeloth to understand her motives. After all of the festivities are completed, and Vol retires to his bed chamber and is assaulted in his dreams by Abeloth. However, Vol lures Abeloth into a mental trap and launches his own assault on the dark side entity. But when Abeloth is attacked, she sends out a Force shock-wave that destroys Kesh's capital city of Tahv, killing millions of citizens, Sith and non-Sith alike, including Lahka Khai. Vol is weakened while Ship picks up Abeloth and leaves with her. Depsite his wife’s death, Gavar Khai and the Sith under his command remain loyal to Abeloth and accompany her into hyperspace. Later, Abeloth views footage of an interview with Rokari Kem, the beloved leader of the freedom fighters of Qaras, and takes great interest in Kem. Luke, Ben, Vestara, and Jaina Solo discuss a list of Ship's possible retreats, including a number of planets with strong historical links to the Sith. Jaina suggests that they investigate Korriban first, and proposes that Vestara accompany the Jedi on the investigation. Luke agrees, though he has reservations about taking the young Sith to a planet so heavily steeped in the dark side of the Force. When they do investigate Korriban, specifically the Valley of the Dark Lords, they're confronted by dog-like guardians known as the tuk'ata. Vestara speaks to the tuk'ata in the ancient Sith language to ward them off and to ask them to lead the party to any other Sith on Korriban. While the guardians fulfill their first demand from Vestara, they're unable to fulfill her second request due to the fact that there are no Sith left on Korriban. When she reports all of this to the Skywalkers and Jaina, she neglects to mention that she had a third demand for the tuk'ata; if there are anymore Sith who come, the guardians must tell them to hide for their own safety. On Coruscant, Galactic Alliance General Merratt Jaxton is replaced by former GA Chief of Staff Wynn Dorvan as a member of the governing triumvirate, which also includes Kuati Senator Haydnat Treen and Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne. The triumvirate and their chief advisers are doing their best to manage the Galactic Alliance's affairs in the wake of former Chief of State Natasi Daala's fall from power. They are primarily concerned with the series of revolutions on slave-holding worlds that have resulted in the formation of new anti-slavery governments that wish to join the Galactic Alliance. These developments all favor the machinations of Imperial Moff Drikl Lecersen and his co-conspirators, who all seek to overthrow their respective governments so that they can rule in their wake. A new member is added to their conspiracy: a new Senator from a recently liberated world, Kameron Suldar. Meanwhile, Daala remains on the loose in the galaxy with Boba Fett. The bounty hunter reveals that he and his Mandalorians have discovered that Lecersen was responsible for starting Freedom Flight specifically so they could cause trouble for Daala make it easier for his conspiracy to stage their coup. Daala allies herself with Moff Porrak Vansyn and they lead Lecersen into a trap in Imperial space. There, Daala offers an ultimatum to Lecersen; either she will kill Lecersen for his betrayal and reveal to the galaxy evidence of Lecersen's connections with Freedom Flight, or the Moff can join her in fulfilling her plans. Meanwhile, the Squib trio of Emala, Sligh, and Grees meet up with the Solos in order to divulge Daala's whereabouts in exchange for credits and safety from their Imperial pursuers. The Squibs carry out their end of the bargain, but when they meet Imperial Head of State Jagged Fel to ask for amnesty, the alien trio are forced to reveal that they had also stolen an Imperial chemical that reverses aging. Jag blackmails them into returning the chemical in exchange for amnesty. Luke, Ben, Jaina, and Vestara's search for Abeloth and her Sith allies leads them to the ancient Sith world of Dromund Kaas. There, they confront a strike team of ten Sith Sabers loyal to Abeloth led by Gavar Khai. While the Skywalkers and Jaina defeat and kill most of their attackers, Vestara is forced to fight her father. With Gavar’s mind clouded by Abeloth’s influence, Vestara is able to strike him down. This experience provides the last push needed for Vestara to embrace the light side of the Force. Ben and Vestara ultimately admit their love for each other, and she asks to become a Jedi apprentice. After probing her thoughts for deception, Luke sees that Vestara is sincere in her desire to become a Jedi, and accepts her into the Order. Vestara's redemption also allows Ben to view his late cousin, Jacen Solo, not as the Sith Lord Darth Caedus, who he died as, but as the good man he once was before the Second Galactic Civil War. Afterward, they return to Coruscant--with Luke's sentence of exile from the GA capital world officially lifted since Daala's deposition--in order to accomplish two goals: to search the Jedi Archives for clues about Abeloth and her allies' whereabouts, and for Luke to make an announcement. First though, Luke decides that Saba Sebatyne won't be punished for killing Master Kenth Hamner, as she did it for the good of the Order. He then declares that the Jedi Order shall become a separate entity from the Galactic Alliance. This effectively dissolves the GA triumvirate, prompting the Galactic Alliance Senate to hold an emergency session in order to elect an acting Chief of State. While the Jedi prepare to leave Coruscant, Jagged Fel meets with the Solos, who give him the custody of escaped GA convict Tahiri Veila. Tahiri, wishing to atone for killing Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, offers to serve as Jag’s bodyguard until such time as she can stand trial in an Imperial court. Jag accepts this arrangement, though he has no desire to see Tahiri come to any harm. As the Jedi depart Coruscant to investigate the Sith world of Upekzar, Leia stays behind in order to help advise in the Galactic Alliance leadership, while Tesar Sebatyne and his fellow Barabel Jedi secretly guard the Jedi Temple from the caverns they nest in. In the aftermath of the Jedi’s departure, Senator Suldar and many other newcomer Senators in the GA form an anti-Jedi subcommittee that substantially influences the vote for acting Chief of State; instead of front-runner Wynn Dorvan being elected, former terrorist/freedom fighter Senator Padnel Ovin is sworn in as the Chief. But Ovin is sharp enough to realize that his voters decided on him due to his simplistic leadership style, which they believe would allow them to manipulate him as a puppet. So Ovin hires Dorvan back in his old position as Chief of Staff in order to help Ovin cope with the political machinations of Suldar’s faction. As it turns out, Kameron Suldar, whose real name is Ivaar Workan, and all of the other Senators in the anti-Jedi subcommittee are really the human members of the Lost Tribe of the Sith doing their duties whilst their Keshiri colleagues scour the Jedi Temple. The subcommittee quickly has Leia arrested on trumped-up charges, but she does not resist; as it turns out, Luke was aware of the Lost Tribe's infiltration of the GA early on, which was what partially persuaded him to remove the Jedi from the Galactic Alliance and Coruscant. While this does allow the Sith to secretly control the government, it gives the Jedi time to deal with Abeloth, Ship, and their Sith allies; when Abeloth and the others are taken care of, the Jedi will swoop in on Coruscant and wipe out the remainders of the Lost Tribe in one swift stroke. In the meantime, Leia, gets involved in a new conspiracy circle called Club Bwua'tu, which includes the newly-reawakened Admiral Nek Bwua'tu, his uncle Eramuth, Wynn Dorvan, and a few others; their intention is to expose the Lecersen conspiracy still boiling within the Galactic Alliance. Because of all this, the Lecersen conspiracy gradually dissolves, beginning with Stavin Thaal telling Senator Treen that it's time to disband. Treen kills Bramsin, making it look like he died of old age, and then retires from politics in order to return to her home world of Kuat. Parova is caught by Club Bwua'tu, but before she can reveal any information, she is killed in a refresher by Ivaar Workan's Sith. Jaxton is forced to commit suicide by Thaal, who in turn goes into hiding, and the Imperial-Alliance conspiracy ends. Meanwhile, Jag confronts Moff Tol Getelles on the experiments the Squibs discovered, which leads to him shooting Jag aboard the Bloodfin and Getelles reporting to Daala that Jag is dead. However, unknown to Daala, Getelles actually staged the whole thing, only stunning Jag and then defect to Daala. In an attempt to stop Daala's plan for becoming Empress of the Imperial Remnant, Jag, together with the vanguard of the Empire of the Hand and his own loyal forces of the Remnant, track her down to a meeting of her Maw Irregular Fleet and the forces of Lecersen, Vansyn, Trevin, and Getelles, surprising them in the Exodo system. With Jag attacking her from the front, killing Trevin and his forces, and Getelles turning on Daala, it looks as if Jag can defeat Daala quickly. But the tide of the battle changes when Lecersen destroys Jag's hidden base, the hollowed-out moon Boreleo, as well as the Pellaeon hidden near the moon. Jag, Kthira'shi'ktarloo, and Tahiri manage to escape to the Bloodfin , commanded by Admiral Vitor Reige, but now face a hard battle. Grand Lord Vol, arriving on Coruscant, learns from Lord Workan that Rokari Kem, the new and charismatic Senator from Qaras, is not who she claims to be and could be a threat to the Sith. Vol decides to kill her as a result, only to be killed by Kem herself. Kem then tasks Workan, in his guise as Senator Suldar, to get her elected as Chief of State in place of Ovin. Using the Force, she gives the Chief of State a heart attack. Ovin filibusters the Senate with a speech about his homeworld. Ovin dies, and Kem is almost immediately elected Chief of State. She then takes up residence in the abandoned Jedi Temple, where she learns that Leia has escaped prison with the help of Club Bwua’tu, but that one of the conspirators, Wynn Dorvan, has been captured. Kem then goes to Dorvan in order to learn what she can from him, and reveals herself to be Abeloth. Meanwhile, on Upekzar, Luke leads the vast majority of the Jedi Order in the hunt for Abeloth, only to discover that she set a trap by using the body of Sith Saber Tola Annax as a Force bomb. The Jedi manage to escape, though the explosion sets of a massive groundquake. At the same time, Ben, Vestara, and Natua Wan are tasked by Luke to explore the inactive lava tunnels below the planet and are attacked by a mutated Dream Singer; while fighting it, Ben is incapacitated by hallucinations created by the beast. Vestara, seeing no other way to save his life, kills Natua by feeding her to the beast, which then retreats into the tunnel. Despite managing to save his life, making the choice to kill a Jedi instead of trying to fight the beast some other way makes Vestara realize that she might be too much of a Sith to ever truly become a Jedi. Vestara reflects that one day, she will be forced to completely return to her Sith roots, and which may require her to kill Ben as a result. + +On Coruscant, the Jedi begin their secret invasion of the planet in order to free it from the covert control of the Lost Tribe of the Sith. They enter the planet, with the likes of Jaina Solo and the Horn siblings, Valin and Jysella, getting past the security checks, which are led by undercover Sith. However, Yaqeel Saav'etu and Yantahar Bwua'tu get into a bit of trouble when they are sniffed out by a Sith, Captain Suhale, forcing one of their colleagues, Bazel Warv, who had arrived with Seff Hellin and Vaala Razelle, to pretend to be a spicer in order to save their lives, and then escape later. BAMR News cites this as the operations of a Jedi spice cartel afterwards. Elsewhere on Coruscant, Luke Skywalker, his son Ben, and recently-defected Sith apprentice, and now current Jedi apprentice, Vestara Khai also run into a Galactic Alliance Security patrol, led by the Sith named Ruku Myal. But Luke manages to outwit Myal by dimming the lights of the spaceport they're in and forcing him to unleash his lightsaber. As Myal deflects the shots headed his way from his own men, who confused him for a Jedi, Vestara manages to kill the Sith by using the Force to plunge his own shikkar into his body. Luke uses the Force to make sure the shikkar kills Myal quickly before he, Ben, and Vestara leave during the confusion. Since his capture by the Sith, Wynn Dorvan had been tortured for weeks by Abeloth, who, as a disguise, is leading the Galactic Alliance as the latest Chief of State, Rokari Kem, and who has so far been unable to coax any information from him regarding the Jedi Order's whereabouts. Regardless, she manages to slowly coerce him over to her side as she makes him her co-Chief of State; that way, he could provide advice on matters such as bringing Imperial Lieutenant Lydea Pagorski back into Imperial space. When Abeloth elects to do so, she absorbs Pagorski's being into herself. Prior to their upcoming attack on Coruscant, the Jedi Order sends out a widespread message over the HoloNet, asking all Sith to surrender or die. Many Sith elect to fight, but they are quickly killed in the process. Examples include Jestat Vhool, who is killed by Corran Horn, and Kayala Fei, who is killed by Octa Ramis. Meanwhile, as Ben and Vestara are sent to distract Sith High Lord Ivaar Workan, who is posing as Senator Kameron Suldar, Vestara secretly gives out her identity to her fellow Sith just so that she and Ben can get closer to Workan. As a result, Ben and Vestara are held hostage while Luke and the other two Jedi in the strike team against Workan, Seha Dorvald and Doran Sarkin-Tainer, invade his office. In the ensuing battle, Vestara, not wanting Workan to be captured alive--since his continued existence would lead to an interrogation wherein he would reveal how he figured out that Ben and Vestara were spies, and thus reveal Vestara's true intentions--tricks the other Jedi into simply shooting Workan dead as he duels Luke. Ben is the one who kills Workan by shooting him in the head. Elsewhere, at Ossus, Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo participates in a Hapan flotilla to help in the evacuation of Jedi from preying Sith who proceed to invade the planet. With Tenel Ka is her daughter, Allana, who was left in her care aboard the Dragon Queen II since her grandparents, Han and Leia, are now participating in the Jedi evacuation as well. Allana has a vision of the nests of the Barabel Jedi in the bowels of the New Jedi Temple being attacked, and she panics, wanting to save the Barabels' hatchlings. But she tries not to compromise her promise to Tesar Sebatyne and the other Barabel Jedi--Dordi, Wilyem, and Zal--to her mother regarding the secret of the hatchlings. Tenel Ka reminds her daughter that, in her desperate haste to act upon the visions she receives, she must remember that how she takes it is more important than the actions she actually takes, which reminds Allana of how her late father, Jacen Solo, failed to realize that. Tenel Ka promises her daughter that as soon as the evacuation is complete, they will inform Jedi Master Saba Sebatyne of the danger to the Barabels. The evacuation of the Ossan students proceeds successfully, with one exception; one of the evacuation vessels is secretly boarded by Sith infiltrators. Thanks to quick thinking on Han Solo's part, he convinces Tenel Ka to have the ship captured, which forces it to elude the Hapan forces and destroy itself in a suicidal baradium blast. It becomes clear that it was an assassination attempt on the Queen Mother's life. Following this, Allana argues to come to Coruscant in order to talk to her friend, Bazel Warv, so that she can tell him to warn the Barabel Knights about the danger posed to their spawn--she informs her grandparents of this without spoiling the existence of the hatchlings, and only after Leia's attempt in contacting Saba fails. Regardless, Han and Leia refuse and apparently take off without her. Only when they arrive at Coruscant, as the battle between the Jedi and Sith rages, do they find out that she stowed away in order to accomplish her mission. Meanwhile, Jedi Knights Raynar Thul, Lowbacca, Tekli, and their accompanying protocol droid C-3PO visit the Celestial Palace, located on an unnamed world within the Maraqoo sector, specifically in the Reo system. There, the Jedi and C-3PO meet with the Killik hive nest of the Thuruht in order to meet with its queen. They ask the queen what they know about Abeloth, as Thuruht seems to be connected with the ancient and mythical beings once known as the Celestials, which the Killiks claimed to have worked for eons earlier; the Thuruht nest had even imprisoned Abeloth on the unknown world themselves. When the queen asks why the Jedi want to know about Abeloth, Raynar informs her that Abeloth is on the loose in the galaxy and no one knows where to find her. The Thuruht nest then begin performing their duties in a rush, and C-3PO translates for the Jedi Knights that they are doing this because, according to the queen, the End of Time has come. Raynar takes advantage of Thuruht's panic in order to learn what they know about Abeloth even as he inadvertently slips back into the Killik hive mind. The Jedi learn that Abeloth once lived with the Ones, a group of Force entities who represented the Balance of the Force, consisting of the Son, Daughter, and Father. When she realized she starts aging unlike them, she secretly immersed herself with the Pool of Knowledge and drunk from Font of Power. Father realizing what Abeloth done, abandoned her and left with Son and Daughter. Lonely, desperate and changed by drinking from Fountain of Power and bathing in Pool of Knowledge, Abeloth became the Bringer of Chaos, an entity who promises to rise whenever the galaxy falls into such uncontrollable strife that she can cause a pan-galactic apocalypse that will renew the galaxy into a new peace, a cycle that repeats itself every several thousand years. The Thuruht's role in stopping Abeloth in preparation for a galaxy-wide apocalypse is a result of their call-to-arms by the Son and the Daughter, both of whom would team up to defeat Abeloth in order to protect what they cherish most. Unfortunately, it is soon discovered that the Ones had died decades earlier because of a visit made by Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi to the Ones' second homeworld of Mortis. Wynn Dorvan convinces Abeloth that if she wants to defeat the Jedi, she will have to lure them over to the Jedi Temple, where the Sith can act as defenders and defeat the Jedi in a swift ambush. This, of course, is a ploy for the Jedi to wipe out the Sith in one swift stroke, which they plan to do with the help of Void Jumpers led by Admiral Nek Bwua'tu. A Jedi strike team consisting of the Skywalkers, Vestara, the Jedi Horn family members, Jaina Solo, her astromech droid Rowdy, and several others secretly enter the Temple in order to lower its shields, allow the commandos to storm in, and kill as many Sith as possible. However, because of Abeloth, the Sith prepare for this attack and they strike, killing many of the strike team's members. In the initial assault against the strike team, Vestara is separated from the rest of the Jedi. Fleeing for her life from a Sith team, she finds herself cornered at the slowly-opening entrance of the Temple's underground evacuation tunnel. This group reveals that they want to take her alive and torture her for information in order to find out what she revealed about them and/or their plans to the Jedi. Vestara decides to save her own life by revealing that she knows who the Jedi queen is--Allana Solo, going by the false name of Amelia Solo under Han and Leia's supervision; Vestara had deduced this fact from several other pieces of information she became aware of. The leading Sith of the pact hunting her, Lady Sashal, gives her the opportunity to prove herself when the Solos, with Bazel Warv, appear in the evacuation tunnel after the entrance to it completely opens up for Vestara. She is quickly given a thermal detonator that she can use to assassinate Allana, but she deliberately misses and it blows off the forward part of the Millennium Falcon instead. In the ensuing conflict, as Vestara leaves, with her treachery now known by the Solos, Bazel is killed defending Allana just as the rest of the Solos, with R2-D2, run away and regroup with Zekk and other Hapan soldiers who finish off the rest of the pursuing Sith. The Barabel Jedi come along and help, allowing for the existence of their hatchlings to go out in the open, especially after hearing that Bazel died so that he could at least try to tell them that their spawn may be in danger. Seeing how her avatar in Rokari Kem is dying because it cannot take her Force power, Abeloth tricks Wynn Dorvan into killing her so that she can transfer her consciousness into the Jedi Temple's computer core, where she can control its inner systems against the invading Jedi even as she combats them in one of her other avatars in Lady Korelei. The combat against Abeloth-Korelei elicits a certain amount of hopelessness that allows Luke to promote Jaina to the rank of Jedi Master. Meanwhile, as Luke, Jaina, and Corran Horn try to get the Temple's shields lowered, Ben, the Horn siblings, and Rowdy are sent off to deal with the computer core so that they can open the Temple's entrances to make an easier invasion for the Void Jumpers. With Abeloth arriving in the Imperial Remnant as Lydea Pagorski, she allies with Admiral Natasi Daala to begin the first Imperial democratic electoral campaign against Head of State Jagged Fel. Just as Jag has his loyal Admiral Vitor Reige enter the vote against him in order to split the military vote against Daala, he and his bodyguard, Tahiri Veila, determine through some hard evidence that Pagorski is really Abeloth in disguise. So he sends Tahiri to Hagamoor 3, where Moff Tol Getelles's secret de-aging serum operation was previously in the works, after Tahiri finds a lead on Boba Fett there, which both she and Jag hypothesize could lead to Abeloth-Pagorski due to the latter's affiliation with Daala--since Daala is also affiliated with Fett, a connection between Fett and Abeloth may very well be possible. Sure enough, at Getelles's secret factory, Tahiri meets up with Fett, who is looking for the scientists who concocted the nanovirus that plagued his home world of Mandalore three years earlier, and they confront Abeloth-Pagorski. Though they kill her avatar, it occurs just before the orbital bombardment of the facility that Tahiri had previously ordered in the event that she wouldn't return from her mission in time. The bombardment results in the death of the two scientists, Drs. Jessal Yu and Frela Tarm, who Fett wanted to use in order to bring about a cure for his planet. He does manage to get data on the nanovirus itself so that a cure may be concocted elsewhere. As Abeloth's avatar in Pagorski dies, it coincides with Abeloth's avatar in Lady Korelei suffering inexplicable pain, which has her depart unexpectedly from her fight with the Jedi. Luke, Jaina, and Corran Horn all take note of this. Meanwhile, as Abeloth controls the Jedi computer core, she manages to separate Ben Skywalker from the Horn siblings and Rowdy and brings him aboard the Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship. There, as Abeloth begins bringing about Coruscant's apocalypse by commencing earthquakes and volcanic activity amidst the battle between the Jedi and the Sith, she abducts Vestara Khai with Ben and takes them back to her home world as Korelei. Elsewhere, as Luke, Jaina, and Corran succeed in their mission, and the Void Jumpers storm the Temple with their Jedi leaders, the surviving members of the strike team are quickly extracted, healed as quickly as possible to minimal shape, and they have a Council meeting with the other Masters on how to defeat Abeloth and the Sith once and for all. The raging apocalypse amidst the roaring battle only leads to a further sense of doubt and loss for the Jedi once Tekli and Lowbacca, absent Raynar Thul now that he's back with the Killiks, reveal what they know of Abeloth from the Histories of Thuruht. And with Ben and Vestara traveling back to Abeloth's planet under her hold, they all determine that Abeloth wants to recreate her family of the Ones, with Ben taking the Daughter's position in the light side and Vestara taking the Son's position in the dark side. Because of the events on Hagamoor 3, Jag knows that he will not win the Imperial vote. So he signs out, much to Daala's shock, after he reveals that she was previously sponsoring Moff Getelles's droch de-aging serum program. Daala loses the campaign against Vitor Reige, and, as a result, Reige becomes the Imperial Head of State just as Jag and Tahiri depart for Coruscant in order to help their allies there. With Saba Sebatyne and several other Void Jumpers, led by Gef Olazon, they move in on the Temple to rescue the Solos, their surviving Hapan bodyguards, Zekk, the Barabels, and their hatchlings. Saba, Tahiri, and their contingent of Void Jumpers then proceed to carry out their mission of killing Abeloth's computer core avatar just as Tahiri is considered part of the Order again by Saba. Meanwhile, Luke and Jaina depart in the Rude Awakening to rescue Ben and Vestara. Along the way, Luke receives a message from the Solos, which tells him of Vestara's attempt on their lives. Luke then conveys this information to Jaina. As the Rude Awakening approaches Abeloth's world, Jaina engages Ship in combat while Luke enters beyond shadows--where he sees the likes of the late Numa Rar, Ganner Rhysode, and Tresina Lobi--to find help from his late wife, Mara. But Mara tells him that she cannot help him, and his late, treacherous nephew, Jacen Solo, reminds him of this even as Luke scolds him on account of the fact that his actions in the Second Galactic Civil War were what allowed Abeloth to roam freely in the galaxy. Luke is soon joined by a mysterious Sith who agrees to help him defeat Abeloth, and they soon engage in combat against her. Meanwhile, Ben and Vestara are tempted by Abeloth to immerse themselves in the Font of Power in order to slake their physical thirst for water, but they manage to overcome their temptation and fight her off. As the three battles against Abeloth commence--in the Jedi Temple, on her own world, and beyond shadows--Abeloth is steadily weakened and killed in each conflict. Beyond shadows, Luke and the mysterious Sith manage to drain Abeloth of her power, and she dies off there. Meanwhile, Saba is able to lure Abeloth out of her computer core avatar and then she kills her by chopping her head off with her fangs. And Ben and Vestara kill off her Korelei avatar after Ben uses the Sith's own shikkar against her, similar to what Vestara did to Ruku Myal, and then Abeloth-Korelei is finished off when she is then crushed by the fight's resultant debris. Beyond shadows, Mara tells Luke that, in spite of the literal spiritual wounds that he and the Sith stranger have incurred in their fight against Abeloth, he must go on in life to lead the Jedi Order toward their future. Luke turns to Jacen and tells him that because of him and his change of the future, Abeloth was set free just so he could prevent the Sith stranger, who both Luke and Jacen recognize in their dreams nearly half a decade earlier, from sitting on the Throne of Balance. The stranger tells Luke not to be so confident in his theory that Jacen merely changed the future, for he could have only delayed it, and the stranger may yet sit on the Throne of Balance. He departs with that, and Jacen finally tells Luke why he didn't simply come to him in order to prevent his vision--Jacen's goal wasn't to stop the Sith from sitting on the Throne of Balance; he merely wanted to make sure that Allana wouldn't stand next to him when the stranger did, as he saw. On Abeloth's world, with Vestara's treachery well known to the Jedi Order by now, Jaina prevents her from boarding the Rude Awakening and only allows for Ben to see Luke. After Ben sees a horrifying future of shadowy Sith over Coruscant as they wage a war against Allana, the foreseen queen of the Jedi, Jaina informs Ben of Vestara's assassination attempt on Allana. Ben then completely renounces his trust in the Sith girl before he and Jaina debark to confront her. Meanwhile, because of Jaina refusing to let her aboard, Vestara deduces that the Jedi have found out that she is still a Sith, and Jaina has told Ben of her attempt on Allana's life. She is soon assured by the approaching presence of Ship, no longer in Abeloth's control since her demise, that she will be accepted by other Sith who will find use in her because of what she knows of the Skywalkers and the Jedi overall. As Ship deigns Vestara to be a Sith Lord, she stalls off Ben and Jaina from capturing her long enough for Ship to rescue her and take her to the other Sith. She is saddened by what became of her relationship to Ben, but Ship reminds her that her love will only fuel her power in the dark side, thereby making her a stronger Sith for it. Three months after Abeloth's deaths, the apocalypse of Coruscant has ceased, but the casualties for civilians alone range in the billions. Because of what happened, the majority of the populace blame the Jedi for what has occurred and they have voted for them to leave against their will. Luke agrees for the Order to leave voluntarily anyway, especially after they learn that, because of what the Histories of Thuruht have determined, Abeloth may return again in another time of great chaos. This is further proven after Sothais Saar and Avinoam Arelis were attacked by a random tentacle, which could only have belonged to Abeloth, that had appeared spontaneously from the Force, and which had disappeared just as quickly. Luke concludes that with the galaxy slipping into darkness and Abeloth's return all too likely, the Jedi and the Sith must become the Ones in order to ensure the Balance of the Force. With the Sith survivors knowing full well who the Jedi queen is, Allana decides that it's time to drop the charade of her moniker of Amelia and fully embrace her role as heir to the Hapan throne, letting the galaxy know who she is. The Millennium Falcon's forward hull is soon patched up with replacement parts courtesy of Lando Calrissian. Wynn Dorvan is left as the temporary Chief of State before a new candidate can be properly elected. A Jedi team dubbed the Ten Knights is sent out to find the Mortis monolith, which is what will allow the Jedi to find the Dagger of Mortis, which, according to legend, is the only weapon that could kill Abeloth for good, in case she ever returns. But in spite of the Jedi's knowledge that the galaxy is leaning to the side of darkness, Jaina Solo walks across the hangar deck of the Dragon Queen II, ready to marry Jagged Fel in their wedding. The final few lines depict an unknown woman, who may very well be the woman depicted in the first few lines of the series' opener, Fate of the Jedi: Outcast, lighting a candle against an all-encompassing darkness, symbolizing the glimmer of hope that the Jedi have for the future. + +Imperial Admiral Kosh Teradoc meets up with a Captain Hachat for a priceless work of art. They rendezvous in a bar on the world of Ryvester, and after the work of art is examined by Dr. Mulus Cheems, Teradoc elects to take all of the riches from Hachat. When Hachat begins insulting him as a result, Teradoc threatens to imprison him. The confrontation spills out into violence as Hachat, who is really Garik Face Loran, captures Cheems and evacuates with the rest of Wraith Squadron, which included Elassar Targon, Voort Piggy saBinring, Kell Tainer, Hohass Runt Ekwesh, Shalla Nelprin and Bettin. During the resultant chaos, Teradoc takes the work of art. With Cheems now in Wraith Squadron's company, they tell him that they saved him from Teradoc, since Cheems was in fact a prisoner, and he is grateful for what they did for him. And as for the work of art, it was really just a set of explosives that managed to kill Teradoc in his own base just as it goes off. In 19 ABY, Wraith member Piggy is on yet another mission with fellow Wraiths Shalla and Runt to successfully blow up an Imperial station just before the New Republic's war with the Empire ends. During this, Piggy regrets that Shalla will retire now that the war will end soon. In 29 ABY, near the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War, on the world of Chashima, Piggy acts as a sniper for Runt and Estoric Sandskimmer just as the latter two are getting away from a shaper damutek with a new secret weapon that the Vong had developed. Unfortunately, in spite of Piggy's help, both Wraith members are killed, and Piggy is forced to perform a mercy killing on Runt by shooting him through the chin so he wouldn't have to continue to suffer the effects of the amphistaff venom that poisoned him. Piggy later resigns and renounces his nickname not only because Runt died painfully and under his hand, but because his death was pointless; the weapon that the Vong had developed at that point wouldn't be able to help them against the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances given that the GA has them on the ropes now. On the world of Ayceezee, Voort, a mathematics professor, soon runs into Face Loran who convinces him to return in order to prove that Galactic Alliance General Stavin Thaal was part of the Lecersen Conspiracy. Voort and Face travel back to Coruscant where Face hands Voort off to Myri Antilles and Trey Courser even as Wraith Squadron is on a mission-in-progress, which involves blacking out a spaceport and the hijacking of a GA military hauler. Myri and Trey, with Voort, travel to their unsafe house where they meet up with the rest of Wraith Squadron, which includes its leader Bhindi Drayson, Jesmin Tainer, Turman Durra, and Viull Scut Gorsat, the latter of whom turns out to be an Extolled member of the Yuuzhan Vong. After Wraith Squadron escapes the pursuits of the GA military, Voort is initially distrustful of Scut because of who he is. Regardless, in spite of Scut's own personal problems with Voort, they manage to learn to work with each other as they and the rest of the squadron plot to reveal General Thaal's guilt as a member of the Lecersen Conspiracy. While the rest of the squadron pursue to prove Thaal's guilt, Voort, Myri, and Trey are sent off to Vandor-3 for a droid subversion mission, as the planet is occupied by soldiers, called Pop-Dogs, who are loyal to Thaal; this mission may help the squadron in their investigation. After a few days, the trio of Wraiths fool the occupying soldiers into believing that they're dealing with an anti-violent movement called the Quad-Linked Militant Pacifists. Bhindi, though, soon calls Voort and Trey off of Vandor-3 to rejoin the rest of the squad while Myri is to stay behind to continue with the Vandor-3 mission. Wraith Squadron travel to Imperial space and board the Bastion Princess to further their investigation into Thaal's guilt. After several procedures in which they sabotage the ship, they evacuate via escape pod to be picked up by a Burst Fire-class Deep-Space Patrol Vessel called the Concussor. Wraith Squadron soon take over the ship and strand the crew on a habitable planet with substantial provisions to live off of before they can be picked up later on. Bhindi then sends Myri a message that she is to give to Thaal back on Coruscant, which is from that of Turman, disguised as Imperial Lieutenant Commander Avvan Hocroft, telling Thaal that he wants to work with him for power; if Thaal shows up, Wraith Squadron will be able to get evidence on the General that proves his guilt in the Lecersen Conspiracy. Myri is able to send the message to Thaal, but unfortunately, he has Alliance Captain Voyce Evlen, commanding the corvette Starhook, confront the Concussor instead. The Wraiths' plan is soon discovered by Evlen, who then attacks the Concussor with the other Alliance vessels that she brought with her. The attack quickly cripples the Wraiths' commandeered patrol vessel, which forces them to evacuate via shuttle, with Voort taking a TIE interceptor with him to cover for the rest of the squadron. Wraith Squadron then secretly return to Vandor-3 by way of Tatooine in order to reconvene with Myri. Although Thaal didn't respond to Hocraft's proposal, the Wraiths, by Voort's logic, determine that Thaal is definitely guilty, and that he is deliberately making himself look stupid; he is planning to retire soon. So they decide to infiltrate the Caridan animal exhibit that, while it doesn't have any definite connections to Thaal, is still suspect to be under his ownership given his occupation of Vandor-3 during the Yuuzhan Vong War. On Coruscant, Face interviews the most recent of Thaal's ex-wives, Zehrinne, to find any evidence as to his guilt regarding the Lecersen Conspiracy. He doesn't get any substantial evidence other than the fact that Thaal has been having several wives prior to Zehrinne. Face later finds out that during the run of the Lecersen Conspiracy, much equipment under HyperTech Industries, particularly comlinks, had been stolen and pirated but never recovered by any means. He manages to relay all this information to Wraith Squadron just as they are arriving to Vandor-3 from Coruscant, which is what justifies their investigation into the animal exhibit. Face, however, is soon tailed by a trio of assassins later on. He manages to kill two of the assassins and later tricks the remaining one into thinking that he died via a bomb planted in his airspeeder. In the meantime, though, Wraith Squadron believes that Face is dead. The remaining assassin, however, is later killed by Face's wife, Dia Passik, when he tried to kill her and her daughter, Adra. The squad's investigation leads them to discover that Thaal has stored and has been secretly selling thermal detonators and various other illegal products, including sabotaged comlinks meant to secretly relay information back to Thaal to help his criminal enterprise. Myri and Trey also discover and release Usan Joyl and Dashan Joyl, the former who is an identity forger whose reputation Myri is greatly familiar with. The squad proceeds to leave before they run into another Wraith Squadron led by Sharr Latt, whose members consist of Thaymes Fodrick, Drikall Bessarah, Wran Narcassan, and Huhunna. They are also out to prove Thaal's guilt. Both Wraith Squadrons are soon discovered by the exhibit's security, forcing them to make a fast getaway. Their pursuers soon force them into a predicament where Myri and Jesmin have to return to Ackbar City on foot in order to call for backup and extraction while Bhindi and Huhunna take cover on the ground to shoot down their pursuers. However, Bhindi is shot while the rest of the two squads hole up in Mount Lyss to fend off against their attackers for a few days. During this time, Usan explains that Thaal has been using him as part of a plan to surgically, and even genetically, change his and his loyal soldiers' appearances so that they would be able to escape punishment for crime and treason; Thaal is even having background histories for himself and his soldiers changed as part of the plan. Huhunna soon arrives with a wounded Bhindi. In spite of Drikall's efforts to heal her wounds with his medical expertise, Bhindi dies off from her injury and fails to pass on command. Regardless, Voort takes command of the squadron of his own initiative in spite of Scut's obvious reluctance. Voort then privately discusses with Scut about the Yuuzhan Vong's personal problems with the Gamorrean, and Scut cites that Voort is acting irrationally and has no love for anything, both which cloud his judgment. Voort continues on with his leadership anyway as they get backup in the form of Wedge Antilles and Tycho Celchu piloting StealthX X-wing starfighters as they escort a shuttle, piloted by Kirney Slane, meant to extract both Wraith teams. However, before the Wraiths leave, they leave Bhindi's corpse behind to be blown up via a dead man's switch that would inadvertently activate a bomb that will kill any of Thaal's searchers, which works. In the aftermath of this, Thaal believes that the late Ton Phanan is still alive and leading the Wraiths. The next destination in the combined Wraiths' journey is the world of Kuratooine, where they have reason to suspect that Thaal will retire as the millionaire Thadley Biolan, possibly intending to take a local famous singer, Ledina Chott, as a lover and wife. Voort resolves his problems with Scut, and with himself over Runt's death, even as he fully aligns himself as the leader of the new squadron, coming up with a final plan to bring Thaal to justice. Dr. Cheems comes to help Wraith Squadron to forge jewels for the plan; he helps them not only because they saved him 31 years earlier, but because he is the human who adopted Scut. Voort then has Trey disguised as Biolan/Thaal and he and some other Wraith members kidnap Ledina in order to frame Thaal before they bring the singer to a warehouse that acts as one of the bases where Thaal conducted his criminal activities. Voort and Myri cause enough chaos in X-wings to summon the military's attention as the rest of the Wraiths do so whilst performing their duties elsewhere on Kuratooine. Thaal soon arrives, having been tricked by Turman into believing that he is part of a species containing valuable jewels that could add to Thaal's wealth. In the end, the Wraiths are able to use Thaal's genetic disguise against him once they convince the public that he's wearing makeup that makes him appear what he looked like prior to his transformation. Thaal is arrested, and the Wraiths leave the planet in secrecy, with Voort, now retaking the moniker of Piggy again, having enjoyed himself. Face survives the assassination attempt and he confronts the current head of Galactic Alliance Security, General Borath Maddeus. Face calls out Maddeus as being part of the Lecersen Conspiracy with Thaal, and had even helped him escape prison on Coruscant following the events on Kuratooine. Face reiterates that Maddeus hired him to reassemble Wraith Squadron to uncover Thaal's guilt as a front; so Face had assembled two in order to throw Maddeus off of Face's true intentions. Maddeus is soon taken in even as Thaal is brought back to prison. Face then takes over as the head of GAS, with Wraith Squadron now a secret, unofficial unit. + +Aboard Brink Station in a cantina called the Red Ronto, Han and Leia Organa Solo are waiting for Lando Calrissian. Lando had called Han and Leia down here because he wanted to discuss with them how they could solve the pirate problem plaguing the Chiloon Rift where he had established his latest asteroid refinery. Instead, they are met by a mysterious young man named Captain Omad Kaeg of the Joyous Roamer, an asteroid-tugging ship in the Rift that is currently undergoing repairs from a recent pirate attack. Kaeg informs the Solos that Lando sent him and he offers himself as a guide inside the nebula. Han and Leia are suspicious, as they ask him several questions, one of which is why Lando didn't come or inform the Solos of it ahead of time himself. Kaeg tells them that he is just as in the dark as they are. Before they can come to any agreement, however, three members of the exotic species known as the Nargons walk into the cantina with two Mandalorians. Kaeg informs Han and Leia that the Nargons and Mandalorians were hired by Galactic Exploitation Technologies, or GET, a giant conglomerate looking to rob the business of the independent miners, like Kaeg, in the nebula; the Mandalorians were hired to act as security against the pirates, with the Nargons helping them. The Solos and Kaeg are met by the Mandalorians, Scarn and Jakal, and one of the Nargons, Qizak, and it turns out that Kaeg owes them a massive debt of one million credits from a sabacc tournament he participated in. Scarn informs Kaeg that he can easily settle the debt by signing away all of his shares in the mining cooperative he's involved in to Galactic Exploitation Technologies, something that Kaeg refuses to do. When Qizak threatens Kaeg to do so, Han and Leia determine that Kaeg had been deliberately set up by GET since the pirate attack that crippled the Joyous Roamer; Kaeg had been manipulated into participating in that sabacc tournament and Scarn had cheated since he has a prosthetic eye that could help him win just so that Kaeg would end up in this situation. In spite of Scarn's insistent protests to the contrary, he agrees to leave Kaeg alone and refund him the money he owed. However, Qizak calls Scarn out as a coward for not standing his ground, and it all eventually devolves to violence when Qizak kills Scarn and seriously wounds Jakal before attacking the Solos and Kaeg. During the brief fight, Leia cuts off both of Qizak's arms, then later his head, and Han notes that the Nargon's insides are composed of machinery. He manages to steal one of Qizak's arms as he flees with Leia and Kaeg from the other two Nargons for investigation. He later sends his findings and what happened in the Red Ronto to the Jedi Temple on Shedu Maad. Grand Master Luke Skywalker receives the transmission and decides to go to the Chiloon Rift to investigate for himself. He starts off on Coruscant incognito where he meets Sullustan Senator Luewet Wuul privately. Wuul tells Luke that the owners of GET, Columi brothers Marvid and Craitheus Qreph, are operating in the Chiloon Rift as criminal masterminds, a fact known unofficially. Their activities in the Rift are part of their hostile takeover of practically every major industry in the galaxy. After Luke departs to the Rift with this knowledge, Wuul is killed thanks to the Qrephs' machinations. In the Chiloon Rift, the Qreph brothers are trying to buy Lando Calrissian's asteroid refinery, but Lando, aware of the Qrephs' reputation, stalls from even agreeing to give his refinery away, especially after Han and Leia inform him of the incident in the Red Ronto. As a result, the Qrephs send their spy in Lando's company, Dena Yus, to sabotage the refinery and destroy it, something that Han, Leia, and Lando fail to stop. However, after Han and Leia join up with Luke, they agree to investigate further, but Han gets captured by mercenaries Mirta Gev and Savara Raine, who were working for the Qrephs. Luke, Leia, Lando, and Kaeg manage to track down the Ormni, the ship where Han was located, thanks to a tracking beacon Luke placed on the vessel that took Han. But the Qrephs, having figured out what Luke did to the vessel that took Han, manage to take off to their Base Prime in the heart of the Chiloon Rift before Han can be rescued, leaving Luke and Leia to fend for themselves as they fight their way aboard the Ormni. There, they hold off from getting captured by the ship's forces before Lando, Kaeg, and Jedi Knights Ben Skywalker and Tahiri Veila manage to save them. After Luke and Leia are saved, they're briefed about Dena Yus's betrayal as well as the knowledge of the Qrephs' Base Prime, which was uncovered by the astromech droid of missing Knight Ohali Soroc, Ninette. The group then travels to Base Prime, which is located atop a structure which may or may not be the Mortis monolith, with a squadron of YVH droids for support. As the invasion on Base Prime commences, Han manages to break free of his captivity with Ohali Soroc, her clone Ohali Two, and a psychotic Force-sensitive Mandalorian named Barduun, who later dies in the midst of the showdown with Ohali Two. Meanwhile, Craitheus is used as a shield by Savara Raine, who is really Vestara Khai and was in combat against Ben Skywalker, amidst the fired shots, rendering Craitheus half-dead as a result. Marvid betrays Vestara in turn by leaving her to die and replacing her with a human-Columi clone of her named Savara Two, which Marvid had organized the creation of previously. But Vestara manages to escape with Mirta with the help of the Sith Meditation Sphere known as Ship. Luke, Han, and Leia all reunite in time to confront the Qreph brothers inside the mysterious monolith that Base Prime is atop of, something that the Qrephs intended to do previously. There, all six of them, including Savara Two, are transported to a mysterious world where the Qrephs are granted extraordinary Force powers. Savara Two is killed by Luke, who used the Force on her, and then he and Leia fight the Qrephs from escaping back into the mortal realm. In the end, with both of them using the Force against the brothers, Leia kills Craitheus and Luke kills Marvid, before the human siblings disappear into the Force, leaving Han completely alone. However, he manages to bring Leia back first by saying her name, and Luke is brought back when his name is said. The three of them then leave the mysterious world thanks to Lando's guidance from the outside, and they leave with the knowledge that the light and dark sides of the Force are there to balance the Force out. Three months later, Base Prime has been destroyed, the heart of the Chiloon Rift was cordoned off to prevent anyone from interacting with the enigmatic monolith, and Dena Yus is waiting to be judged for her betrayal. Luke, Leia, Han, Lando, Ben, Tahiri, Kaeg, Ohali Soroc, and Jaina and Jagged Fel celebrate their victory in the Red Ronto. + +The Clone Wars are over, and the Republic commandos now wear the white armor of the stormtroopers in service to the Galactic Empire. But not all those commandos are loyal to the Emperor, turning the fight against the rebels into a war between clone brothers! The newly-fledged Empire is strengthening its foothold on Mandalore, but Kal Skirata's clan of clone deserters and fugitive Jedi face a new threat as an older, more insidious enemy emerges from decades in hiding. The Death Watch is back. The loathed Mandalorian hardliners - the brutal nationalist faction that murdered Jango Fett's parents - are now on the Imperial payroll, threatening to bring civil war to the Mandalore sector. As Clan Skirata prepares to settle old scores, knowing they may lose the battle, Imperial commandos Darman and Niner arrive on a covert mission that will put them on a collision course with their former brothers. Their task: to hunt down and kill eccentric Jedi Master Djinn Altis, an unlikely ally of Clan Skirata. But Darman has plans of his own that he hasn't even revealed to Niner. He's come looking for his son, Kad. The galaxy is a dangerous place for a kid who's half-Force user, half clone, and Darman's set on getting Kad out of the reach of both the Emperor and the last of the Jedi any way he can - even if that means taking on the man he's always called father. +