Han Solo at Stars ' End Han Solo at Stars ' End is the first novel of " The Han Solo Adventures " trilogy , written by Brian Daley . It was released on April 12 , 1979 . A sequel , entitled " Han Solo ' s Revenge " , was published on October 12 , 1979 . The whole trilogy was reprinted together on April 22 , 1992 . Publisher ' s summary . Han Solo trusts no one , and does no favors . But when the best illegal ship rebuilder in the galaxy disappears , Han and Chewbacca agree to go after him — after all , the " Millennium Falcon " needs some very special repairs . Their search pits them against powerful and ruthless enemies out to destroy them , and finally leads them to an airless speck of desolate asteroid — the Authority prison planet known as Stars ' End . Plot summary . 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 tech nicians 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 starfighter s . 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" ' s camouflage job is done , Han , along with Jessa and four other techs , fly against the Authority starfighters in outdated Z - 95 Headhunters .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 . Behind the scenes . In 1980 , a comic strip adaptation was written by Archie Goodwin and illustrated by Alfredo Alcala . The strip was collected and colorized in three issues of Dark Horse Comics ' s " Classic Star Wars " in 1997 and then was re - released in later that year . Cover gallery . This is a gallery of the different cover variations of " Han Solo at Stars ' End " . External links . Book review at TheForce . net