Pencils: Rick Leonardi
Inks: Daniel Green
Colors: Wes Dzioba
Letters: Michael Heisler
Cover Artist: Tsuneo Sanda & Douglas Wheatley

Darth Vader is assigned to help hunt down one of Moff Tarkin's missing officers, Admiral Garoche Tarkin, his son. He went missing a month before in the Atoan system, in the so-called "Ghost Nebula". He is assigned the assistance of Captain Shale, a one time rival of Garoche's who will help track him down. When they arrive at the Atoan system, they attack an outpost and question the survivors. When they get no response, Vader orders that the population be devastated and the leaders drowned, but is forestalled by the appearance of Lady Saro, High Priestess of Atoa, who offers to help them, in exchange for being named Queen of her sector. After a troubling dream, Vader agrees, and she leads them to a derelict Star Destroyer. The defeat the Atoan starfighters, capturing one of the pilots, who leads them towards another planet with oceans of hot tar. While conferring with the Emperor, Vader suggests that Garoche can be killed, which will make Moff Tarkin more their tool, and the Emperor agrees to his plan. They land on the planet and mount an assault that is meant only as a diversion, while Vader, Shale and Saro lead a stealth strike on the floating fortress. The find there way to the prison cells, where a protocol droid hands Vader a bomb as a gift from Garoche. After they interrogate the survivors, Vader awakens from sleep with a warning of assassins from Shale. He kills them and finds his troops, and they go to find Saro, but she is gone. Taking a shuttle, they escape as the Star Destroyer explodes, and crash land on the planet at the heart of the system. They are ambushed, and Vader is taken prisoner because Garoche and Saro want him to join their cause. While prisoner, Vaderhas a vision of Padmé abandoning him, and it gives him the strength to free himself. He fights his way through the city, surviving a bomb blast from Shale, until he finds himself in the tunnels underneath. He has another vision of Padmé where she forgives him, but learns that it is simply Saro manipulating him. He uses the Force to bring the citadel down on them, killing Garoche and Saro, and then uses the Force to sustain himself until help arrives. After having his prosthetics repaired, he awaits his next assignment.