Star Wars #57: Hello, Bespin, Goodbye
The Imperial administrator of Cloud City, Captain Hugo Treece, kicks Lando Calrissian off of the edge of the city's rotunda. Lando begins falling through the Tibanna gas clouds – to his death. His former aide, Lobot, dons a life-jet and dives off of the edge of Cloud City to retrieve his friend. He catches up to Lando and brings him safely down to the artificial marsh islet of Ugnorgrad – city of the Ugnaughts.
An Ugnaught Holonet crew led by Ars Fivvle and his camera man, Pordy, film every moment of Lando's descent. They are broadcasting the event as part of their news program, Action Tidings.
Within minutes Imperial Stormtroopers raid the Action Tidings Floatboat caravan. The Ugnaughts race about the boat desperate to forage as much weaponry as they can possibly find. Lando uses the belt drive from one of the caravan ships as a sling and catapults a reel of camera film into the Imperial skimmer's fan, causing it to explode.
On Cloud City, Luke Skywalker, R2-D2 and Shira Brie land their X-wing fighters on one of the platforms. They notice that the city is completely deserted. Luke has R2 plug into the central computer in order to determine what caused the evacuation. They discover that an Ugnaught uprising has taken place in the mining facilities and they have planted talking bombs all throughout the city. As of yet, none of the bombs have been detonated (thanks to the efforts of Lobot). Captain Treece discovers them and orders a squad of Stormtroopers to open fire on Luke.
Meanwhile, Ars Fivvle takes Lando to see the Ugnaught leader, King Ozz. Ozz tells Lando that Captain Treece turned Cloud City into an Ugnaught slave labor camp. This was the reason the disgruntled workers planted the bombs and abandoned the mining facility. Lando is disgusted to learn of this and promises to help King Ozz overthrow Captain Treece.
Imperial troop transports land on Cloud City and a new swathe of Stormtroopers begin firing at Luke and Shira. Lando, Lobot and the Ugnaughts arrive and join in the fight. Captain Treece shoots Lobot, but it is a glancing shot and the cyborg suffers no real damage.
Luke uses the Force to detonate the primer switches on all of the bombs throughout the city. The spectacle is enough to make everyone believe that he had actually detonated the bombs themselves. The ruse works and Captain Treece and the Stormtroopers retreat from Cloud City.
After the Rebels make sure that Cloud City is clean of Imperial influence, Lando has Lobot hack into Treece's illegal bank account on Aargau. He transmits a record of stolen funds from Treece's account to the private account of Darth Vader.
Star Wars #58: Sundown
Luke Skywalker, Lando Calrissian, and Chewbacca blast off of the planet Arbra in the Millennium Falcon. They enter hyperspace en route to meet a seedy merchant named Orion Ferret at a space station known as Bazarre.
Meanwhile, Princess Leia rejoins the Rebel fleet stationed above Arbra. She embarks upon a bold maneuver with which to conceal the fleet’s location from the prying eyes of Imperial scouts. Using a device known as a Kerts-Bhrg generator, the Rebels construct a large, pyramid-shaped force field that envelops the entire fleet. They move the ships within the corona of Arbra's sun, secure in the notion that the field generator will protect them from the deadly ultraviolet rays.
Princess Leia boards a shuttle craft to return to the planet's surface. Moments later, she discovers that the Kerts-Bhrg generators have malfunctioned. An absorption circuit within the cone of the control generator overloads flooding the maintenance bay with noxious fumes. All of the service personnel pass out from the chemicals. The only ones unaffected are the droids, C-3PO and R2-D2. In order to save the fleet, the droids space-walk between the control generator and one of the star cruisers. They run a conduit cable into the Kerts-Bhrg generator and stabilize the fluctating power levels. After the near-disaster, C-3PO contacts Princess Leia and provides an update on the crisis.
Meanwhile, the Millennium Falcon emerges from lightspeed and arrives at the space station known as Bazarre.
Star Wars #59: Bazarre
Lando Calrissian and Luke Skywalker arrive at the gigantic merchant station known as Bazarre, where they meet with a shifty administrator named Orion Ferret. Lando has had dealings with Ferret in the past and does not trust him. However, they need Ferret’s connections in order to secure a purchase of four black market Imperial TIE fighters. After receiving his payment, Ferret gives Luke and Lando a small shuttle-craft as well as coordinates for a planet known as Patch-4. Patch-4 is a garbage world and it is here that the TIE fighters have been secreted away. Luke and Lando leave Chewbacca on Bazarre while they fly the shuttle to the planet of trash.
With Luke and Lando off the station, Orion attempts to sabotage the Rebels’ mission. Ferret is greedy and believes that if he kills Luke and Lando, he not only gets to keep his money and his ships, but he also gets to keep the Millennium Falcon. Knowing that Chewbacca will harm him if he discovers the double-cross, he attempts to imprison the Wookiee inside of a gelationus spritzer solution. Chewbacca escapes and begins chasing Orion all throughout the station. Orion attempts to flee inside of his personal shuttle, but Chewbacca destroys it with a few well-placed shots from his bowcaster.
Back on Patch-4. Luke and Lando begin sifting through the wreckage and eventually come upon the half-buried TIE fighters. Suddenly, a large worm-like creature known as a Watchbeast bursts through the ground and begins attacking them. Luke and Lando retreat into a cave that leads into an immense underground network of tunnels. Here they meet, Serja Kesselrook – a homeless nomad. Serja invites them inside and introduces them to an entire colony of degenerates who have remarkably found a way to make Patch-4 their home. Serja tells the Rebels that the Watchbeast (whose name is Caesar) belongs to Orion Ferret. Ferret controls the beast by way of a sonic pacifier located on the shuttle-craft.
Luke and Lando return to the surface. Lando distracts the Watchbeast with blaster fire, allowing Luke the ability to sneak past it and get back to the shuttle. Retrieving the pacifier, Luke activates it causing the Watchbeast to fall asleep. With nothing left to disrupt their mission, they pick up Chewbacca and bring the four TIE fighters back to the Rebel base on Arbra.
Star Wars #60: Shira's Story
Members of Rogue Squadron pilot four TIE fighter ships and infiltrate the Imperial outpost on the planet, Spindrift. Swooping down, they begin strafing the command towers. An Imperial Major and his underling, Gerdy, attempt to flee in a sub-ter rover transport. They manage to get halfway across a suspension bridge, when one of the TIE fighters destroys the end of the bridge. Gerdy and the Major have no choice but to surrender. They are shocked to discover that the pilots of the TIE fighters are none other than the Rebel Alliance officers, Luke Skywalker, Captain Hanc Thorben, Shira Brie, Gemmer and Wald. After securing the base, Captain Thorben retrieves a set of route coordinates for a new Imperial armada. Rogue Squadron then returns to the Rebel base on the planet, Arbra.
Back at the base, Shira Brie informs Princess Leia that she needs to return to her home world, Shalyvane, on a personal matter. She asks Leia for the return coordinates, so that she’ll be able to come back after she is done taking care of business. Leia cites that the base coordinates are top secret and that she cannot reveal them to her. Luke volunteers to accompany Shira and takes responsibility for bringing her back. Thorben and Wald agree to go with them.
Arriving on Shalyvane, Shira heads to the Circle of Kavaan in the capital city of Chinshassa. Shira tells a story about how her people were wiped out by the savage tribes of the Em'liy when she was a little girl. After completing her tale of woe, a horde of Em’liy warriors appear over the horizon. The Rebels engage in a massive firefight and lay waste to the religious stones surrounding the Circle of Kavaan. The Em’liy keep Luke and the others pinned down with blaster fire, but Shira manages to circle around the war-zone and board her TIE fighter. She swings the fighter back around and decimates the Em’liy warriors. After the dust settles, everyone gets back into their fighters and heads back towards Arbra. Shria never reveals the true nature of her visit to Shalyvane.
Star Wars #61: Screams in the Void
An Imperial armada led by Admiral Mils Giel's flagship is transporting a captured Teezl to the Imperial capital. The Empire intends to use the Teezl's special communication abilities to allow instantaneous communication between Imperials throughout the galaxy. The Rebel Alliance knows about their plans and have devised a scheme to foil them, using specially modified TIE fighters to attack the Imperial armada.
Four Rebel pilots, Luke Skywalker, Shira Brie, Hanc Thorben, and Alph, pose as a returning Imperial patrol to bypass the sentries and attack the Star Destroyers causing confusion in their ranks. Giel orders to have the Teezl disrupt all communication frequencies except for the Imperial war band, preventing the Rebel intruders from talking with each other on their modified frequency. Luke finds the flagship where the Teezl is located, but there is a TIE fighter in his line of fire. Unable to use his communication device to detect whether the fighter is a friendly, Luke calls upon the Force to be his guide, and he determines that the fighter is an enemy. He destroys the fighter and then proceeds to fire upon the ship which houses the Teezl, disabling it and destroying the Teezl.
Luke returns to the Rebel base on Arbra to discover that Thorben brought back a visual recording of Luke's battle with the last TIE fighter, and from that recording they discovered that the pilot of the TIE that Luke destroyed was fellow Rebel Shira Brie.
Star Wars #62: Pariah
The news of Shira Brie's death reverberates throughout Salvation. Luke Skywalker is beside himself with grief and feels as if the Force has betrayed him, in allowing him to open fire on Shira's fighter. The Rebel Alliance personnel at the base look down upon Luke for his poor misjudgment. One of them, a belligerent soldier named Milo Fourstar accuses Luke of deliberately killing Shira because she rejected his amorous advances.
Luke goes down to the hangar bay where he finds Lando Calrissian standing outside the ramp of the Millennium Falcon. He tells Lando that he needs to use the Falcon to return to Shira's homeworld, Shalyvane. He needs to see if there are any clues left behind that could shed some light on this mystery. Lando is under orders to deny any such requests, but with a wink in his eye, he lets Luke know that the Falcon will be unguarded for fifteen minutes.
Luke and Chewbacca take the Falcon and fly to Shalyvane. They land at the capital city of Chinshassa – Shira's alleged home town. Almost immediately, a band of Em'liy warriors descend upon them and begin attacking. They run away and hide inside of an underground warren. There, Luke finds an injured old Em'liy named G'hinji. G'hinji explains that Chinshassa has never boasted a Human settlement and that anything Shira may have told him to the contrary has to be a lie. Luke is no closer to solving the mystery of Shira's identity than he was before. Suddenly, he remembers a bloodletting ritual he witnessed Shira partaking in once at the Circle of Kavaan. He races down to the ruins of the circle in the hopes that repeating the procedure might yield some clue as to Shira's background. Borrowing a knife from Chewbacca, Luke slices open the palm of his left hand and lets the blood drip down onto the ruined cairns. Within seconds, there is a brilliant flash of light and Luke, Chewbacca and G'hinji are surprised to find Darth Vader standing before them.
Star Wars #63: The Mind Spider
On the planet Shalyvane, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca and the Em'liy known as G'hinji stand before the visage of Darth Vader. They immediately go on the defensive until they realize that the image of Vader is merely a holographic recording. Vader tells Luke that his late friend, the Rebel pilot known as Shira Brie was actually an Imperial spy. Luke cannot believe his ears. The holographic emitter explodes after delivering Vader's haunting message. Unsatisfied with the revelation, Luke and Chewbacca decide to go to the databank vault located on Krake's Planet.
Later, on board the Executor, Vader meets with Admiral Mils Giel. Giel has recently failed to secure a rare creature known as a Teezl – a non-sentient alien that could have provided the Empire a tremendous advantage over the Rebels. Vader respects Giel's integrity though, so rather than kill him, he demotes him to the rank of lieutenant.
Meanwhile, Luke and Chewbacca arrive on Krake's Planet. They infiltrate the Krake Data Vault – a facility built from the mass of a giant Mind Spider. Luke goes to the kitchen area and tricks an Imperial officer into downloading information from one of the computer banks. He discovers that Vader had told him the truth. Shira Brie was born on Coruscant and genetically raised to be a perfect spy. By the time she was an adult, Vader personally selected her to act in the role of an Emperor's Hand. Although he is crushed, Luke can take some small satisfaction from the fact that the Force didn't betray him when it indicated that Shira was an enemy.
A squad of stormtroopers burst into the kitchen and begin firing at Skywalker. Luke manages to use one of the troopers as a Human shield and shoots the remaining soldiers. He regroups with Chewbacca and they hop into the Millennium Falcon. Chewbacca uses the Falcon's deflector screens to destroy the military outpost.
Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of the Executor, Darth Vader enters a special medical bay. Floating inside of a bacta tank is the barely-alive body of Shira Brie.
