Pencils: Carmine Infantino
Inks: Gene Day & Bob Wiacek,
Colors: Janice Cohen, Carl Gafford, George Roussos & Bob Sharen
Letters: Rick Parker, Irving Watanabe, John Costanza & Clem Robins
Cover Artist: Carmine Infantino, Bob Wiacek & Terry Austin

While the heroes are returning to Yavin IV, Luke Skywalker falls into a coma-like trance. Han takes the Millennium Falcon out of hyperspace to find a medical facility, and they come across a destroyed cruiser. They find one live Rebel floating in the wreck, and he tells them it is a trick before he dies. An Imperial cruiser appears, and Han flees to a neutral gambling station called the Wheel to avoid them. After they land on the station, they split up to avoid the imperials. The droids take Luke to a med-bay, Han tries his hand at gambling to pay the fees on his ship until the only way he can get out of debt is to join the gladiatorial challenge that Chewbacca has already been forced to participate in, while Leia is taken prisoner by ex-Senator Simon Greyshade who hopes to persuade Leia to fall in love with him. Imperial Commander Strom arrives and persuades Greyshade to assist him in his plan to bring the Wheel under Imperial control, and persuades Greyshade to have the Rebel heroes killed. In his trance, Luke fights and defeats Darth Vader with the encouragement of Ben Kenobi, and breaks out of his trance. Leia manages to escape and find the droids, and together they find Luke. As they try to get to the bottom of the plot, they record Greyshade's men stealing the Wheel's profits back from the Empire and packing them aboard Greyshade's ship. They are then captured again by Greyshade, who forces Leia to leave the Rebellion for him when she witnesses Han killed by Chewbacca in the gladiatorial ring. As they prepare to leave, the Empire begins to take over the Wheel by force, and Greyshade has a change of heart, telling Luke and Leia to leave while he provides cover for them. As they escape, they are nearly captured by Darth Vader until the Millennium Falcon arrives and attacks the Star Destroyer. Vader gives chase to the Falcon until Luke lashes out with the Force, stunning him long enough for both ships to escape his clutches.