Pencils: Stephen Thompson & Iván Fernández
Inks: Mark Irwin, Drew Geraci, Denis Freitas & Jason Gorder
Colors: Michael Atiyeh
Letters: Michael Heisler
Cover Artist: Ariel Olivetti

After the Imperial takeover, one wealthy industrialist's son was killed by Darth Vader. In his thirst for vengeance, he hired assassins to kill Darth Vader, but one by one they all failed. After eight assassins had failed, he tracked down one supposedly unstoppable assassin and hired him for the job. Insisting on seeing who he was hiring, the price for what he saw was his eyes. In the Outer Rim, an Imperial ship picks up a man in an escape pod with a circular green tattoo on his torso, who turns out to be a suicide bomber. His pod is a homing beacon and the ship is utterly destroyed by a mysterious beam weapon, leaving the survivors to hide on the moon below. On Coruscant Darth Vader saves the Emperor's life from a bomb in the throne room. Taking two Royal Guards with him, Vader tracks down the person who set the bomb and finds that he also has the green circular tattoo, and also sets off a bomb inside himself. The Emperor explains that the tattoo is called the headless snake and it is the symbol of a supposedly long dead ancient cult. He directs Vader to a moon where they were once located, and stresses caution. Vader arrives at the moon, to find the destroyed cruiser floating in orbit. He boards the remains and finds that the destruction followed a saboteur with a headless snake tattoo. Assuming that the survivors retreated to the moon's surface, he and his guards follow to find that the survivors were killed and eaten by monstrous beasts. He makes his way to the source of the beam, followed by the assassin hired by the industrialist. His surviving guard comments that they should perhaps call for backup, just as the crest a hill and find that that had already happened with no success. Leaving his remaining guard behind unknowingly to be killed by the assassin, Vader enters an ancient temple that appears to be the source of the weapon, where he is greeted by a large number of beings who claim to have been expecting him. He is taken along a hallway with ancient paintings on it that appear to depict himself killing two snakes and cutting the head off a third that lives forever. He asks to be taken to the control room for the beam, and they do so but only after he completes a purification ritual in which he has a vision of himself killing Obi-Wan Kenobi and then the Emperor and then ruling the galaxy forever. In the control room for the beam, Vader learns that the beam itself is controlled by the mind of the cult's leader, but it's power is focusedand amplified by a crystal found only on that moon. Fulfilling their prophecy, he takes what he needs and destroys the temple and all within it. As he leaves the area of destruction, the assassin tries to get away because he was discovered, but Vader finds him and tries to convince him to join the Empire's payroll. When he fails, he kills the assassin and then takes his ship back to it's source, killing the being who commands the assassin. He returns to the Emperor to report his success and the Emperor commends him on his strength while commenting that perhaps Moff Tarkin will have a use for the crystal Vader discovered. While the Emperor thinks about how easily he controls Vader, Vader makes his way to the industrialist that hired the assassin and kills him.