Cover Artist: Drew Struzan

While Princess Leia is on a diplomatic mission to the world of Munto Codru, Chewbacca is seriously injured when Leia's children Jaina, Jacen and Anakin are kidnapped. What worries her the most about this crime is the fact that they must have been kidnapped by a Force user, because she can no longer sense them like she normally can. After spending most of the night sick with worry, she leaves the planet with Chewbacca and R2-D2 with the intent of finding her children. In the meantime, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and C-3PO have gone to Crseih Station because of several very cryptic messages that Han has received. Crseih Station orbits a unique black hole that has a white dwarf companion that is slowly crystallizing as it draws closer to the black hole. Luke hopes to find hidden Jedi while Han is looking to have an actual vacation. The kidnapped children wake to find they are on a small worldcraft with a man named Hethrir who tells them that their family is all dead and that he will be their hold-father. When the children attempt to use the Force to protect themselves from him, he smothers their attempts like a wet blanket and separates them, placing them with may other kidnapped children. While Leia searches for their children, she comes across a group of seemingly derelict ships that were used for forced immigration by the Empire. Boarding one of the ships, she finds that many of the people are still alive in their hibernation, and finds one female named Rillao who is being held in a torture apparatus. Disguising herself as a bounty hunter, she convinces Rillao to help her find her missing children. They are directed to Asylum Station, which is another name for Crseih Station, where the slave trade is being conducted. On Crseih Station, Han and Luke meet their anonymous informant, and discover that she is really Xaverri, Han's one time lover before she left him. She takes them to see a creature named Waru who apparently has the ability to heal people, But all is not as it seems, Han witnesses it kill one of its supplicants and realizes that the creature enjoys the killing. On Hethrir's worldship, the children manage to escape from their captors after Hethrir leaves for Crseih Station with Anakin. Leia drops out of hyperspace on the prompting of the Force, and manages to rescue all the kidnapped children, sending the worldcraft to wait at Munto Codru while she continues to track down her youngest child. back on Crseih Station, Hethrir leads his followers to meet with Waru so that he can sacrifice Anakin and gain the power he needs to overthrow the Republic and instate the "Empire Reborn". Purely by chance, Han sees his son being taken into the facility where Waru resides, and runs after them. Leia arrives at the station and makes her way to Waru's lair, intime to see the last of Hethrir's followers enter. She begins to give chase and encounters Han. Together with Luke, Xaverri and Rillao, they enter the facility to rescue their son. They manage to rescue Anakin just barely in time, nut Luke sacrifices himself to the creature instead. First Leia and then Han follow him in order to bring him back, and in the meantime, the rest of the Empire Reborn is stopped when their children slaves revolt. When Luke, Leia and Han escape from Waru, Waru takes Hethrir instead in order to use his lifeforce to return to where it came from. With one crisis averted, R2-D2 and C-3PO warn them that the white dwarf has fully crystallized and is about to fall into the black hole. The resulting explosion of x-ray radiation will be enough to destroy all life on Crseih Station, so they make their escape, bringing the Empire Reborn slavers to justice in the process

When I was younger, I don't think I really cared for this book. Now that I am older and have a couple children of my own, I found some parts of this book to be very disturbing. It was very hard to read about Hethrir and the emotional abuse he put the children through. This bothered me so much because I could imagine my own children in the place of the Solo kids, and I didn't like what I saw. I don't think I'll be reading this one very much because of the way I felt while reading it this time.