Cover Artist: Dave Seeley

For nearly two months, a warlord by the name of Shadowspawn has been conducting raids into Republic territory, leaving no clue as to where he is headquartered. Rogue Squadron executes a trap that allows the New Republic to finally track down his base to Mindor in the dangerous Taspan system, and Luke Skywalker is persuaded to lead a task force into the system to put an end to his piracy. His battle plan goes off without a hitch, and Shadowspawn comes to meet them in a shuttle when Luke realizes that he is none other than the missing former Director of Imperial Intelligence, Cronal, also known as Blackhole. This knowledge comes to late, as Cronal springs his trap, destroying Luke's flagship and forcing him to crash on the planet surface while Cronal's troops launch an all-out assault on the remaining Republic forces. While the battle rages overhead, all the survivors of the crash except Luke and R2-D2 disappear without a trace, Luke is captured by the Imperial forces and R2-D2 is salvaged by a mysterious group of soldiers. Elsewhere, Princess Leia is trying to negotiate a ceasefire with Imperial backed Mandalorian mercenaries, when she gets the impression that something has gone very bad for Luke. She sends Han Solo to find out what is going on, and when he learns that something really has gone wrong he takes Chewbacca and theygo to help as Lando Calrissian and Rogue Squadron arrive with Fenn Shysa, the Mandalore. A short time later, Leia goes to find Han, only to learn that he left after finding out that Luke was in trouble, and she convinces Wedge Antilles to take her to Mindor to find those she cares about. After arriving at the Taspan system, both groups fight their way through the Imperials and the abundant asteroids to land on the surface of Mindor, where Leia joins Han, allowing Rogue Squadron to join the battle above. As they try to find out what happened to Luke, they encounter the group who recovered R2-D2 and the two groups are attacked by TIE fighters. Han reluctantly takes on the other group and they evade the Imperials and hide in a cave, where the others, led by a woman named Aeona, hijack the Falcon, forcing Han and the others to flee. While this is happening, Lando realizes what has happened and he and Fenn Shysa convince the Mandalorians that they have done their duty and hire them to help at Mindor. At Shadowspawn's base, Luke is taken before Shadowspawn himself and is forced to fight him. Instead of killing him though, Luke is prompted by the Force to hit Shadowspawn in one particular place on the head after realizing that Shadowspawn was really "Shadow's Pawn". This action frees the man in the costume briefly from Cronal's influence and spoils his plan. Taking Luke prisoner, Cronal sets about to complete his plan by trying to transfer his consciousness to Luke's body where the rest of his plan will see him made Emperor. Luke thwarts him again by rousing Nick Rostu, the man who had been Shadowspawn, who manages to free Luke, who then disables all of Cronal's other Pawns, unintentionally killing them. As they leave the room, the commander of the stormtroopers sees Luke and his conditioning to treat him as the new Emperor takes over and Luke orders him and the troopers to care for all the slaves. Cronal then discovers that Luke has a sister, and assuming that she will be easier to take over than Luke was, begins focusing his efforts on her. Han, Leia, Chewie and R2-D2 are running through the caves when the floor opens beneath them and they fall through into a cave where it appears the rock itself has come alive and is attacking them. Fighting back, they are forced to flee trough the caves until they come to one that is full of bodies frozen into the rock, and realize that the bodies include the survivors of Luke's flagship. Luke and Nick run through the hallways until they find a place in the volcano where the Falcon is about to crash. Luke saves it, and after a brief exchange with the thieves, Nick is reunited with Aeona, who stole the ship in an attempt to rescue him. Together they escape into the tunnels underground and fly to where Han and Leia are, but they arrive too late to save Leia, as Cronal has used the body of Kar Vastor to take her to where he can begin his procedure. Luke realizes that the rock around him is actually living beings and uses the remnants of Cronal's procedure, which uses the same rock, to communicate with them, bringing them to help him. Just then, Cronal sets of a series of gravity bombs under his volcano stronghold, launching it into space and ensuring the destruction of Mindor itself as the radiation in the system becomes too much for biological beings. Shortly afterwards, Luke uses his celebrity as the supposed new Emperor to command a ceasefire from the stormtroopers, which allows them to rescue all the slaves from the volcano facility as the Republic's plan begins to destroy it. Through all of this, Cronal continues his attempts to overpower Leia, but is thwarted by Luke once again. Luke infiltrates the facility where Kar Vastor is with Leia, while Nick and Aeona fly a shuttle to find the asteroid where Cronal has hidden his own body. Cronal flees into hyperspace, but not before using his control of the rock to drive all his soldiers insane and forcing them to attack. Luke forces Han to take Leia and get out of the system while he chases down Kar Vastor. Together, they persuade the rock beings to leave their host bodies and return to their natural forms, which allows the Republic forces to escape the deadly system, even though the process killed all of the Imperial troops. As Luke and Kar Vastor sit in peace, waiting to die, they are saved through the efforts of R2-D2 and Nick Rostu. About a month later, Luke asks Lorz Geptun to use his investigative skills to learn everything he could about the incident at Mindor so that he can be tried for war crimes. Instead, Lorz writes a script for a holothriller and convinces Luke that he did all he could and the people want heroes. Luke reluctantly agrees and sits down to do some rewrites to make the script more accurate.