Dark Empire (audio drama)

Publisher's summary

Six years after the Battle of Endor (from Return of the Jedi), the fight for freedom rages on. While Luke Skywalker delves deeper into the mysteries of the Force

Han Solo and Princess Leia, now married, struggle to protect their twin children from danger. Darth Vader is dead, but a reborn Empire—guided by a mysterious new leader—strikes back against the Rebel Alliance. But the Rebels discover that their greatest foe may be their closest friend: Luke Skywalker!^[2]

Opening crawl

Following the deaths of Darth Vader and the Emperor and the destruction of the second Death Star, the Rebel Alliance proclaimed a NEW REPUBLIC over three-fourths of the galaxy. But without the thousands of Jedi knights who formed the backbone of the Old Republic, the new confederation was a precarious one.
Long years of struggle followed, during which, Imperial factions consolidated control over a fourth of the galaxy. Whole systems became fortresses bristling with firepower.

Then, five years after the battle of Endor, the infamous Grand Admiral Thrawn mounted a terrible assault nearly bringing the fledgling Republic to it's knees. Ultimately, Thrawn was defeated, but within days of his downfall, surviving members of the Emperor's ruling circle staged a stunning assault on the Emperor's throne world, a planet called CORUSCANT, and that vital system once again fell under Imperial control.

It looked certain that a new empire was about to emerge from the ashes of the old. That very possibility triggered a ferocious civil war among the numerous Imperial factions. Who would sit in the Emperor's throne? Who had the right? And the might?

Meanwhile, the Rebels were quick to seize the opportunity to sow confusion among the feuding Imperials, using two captured Star Destroyers to conduct hit-and-run sorties into the war zone. One such raid, over the raging Imperial City battleground ended in disaster. The Alliance Star Destroyer, Liberator, commanded by Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian crash-landed on the planet's surface.

As our story opens, Princess Leia and her husband, Han Solo, have left their two children in safekeeping and together with the Wookiee Chewbacca, and the protocol droid C3P0 are on a daring mission to rescue their fallen comrades...

Plot summary

During the Imperial Mutiny, the Rebel Alliance sought to weaken the factions as much as possible by surreptitiously entering systems and battles with captured Star Destroyers broadcasting falsified signals, and provoking attacks by one group against another.

On one of these raids to the Coruscant system, in the Star Destroyer Liberator (formerly the Adjudicator), an Imperial-class Star Destroyer captured at the Battle of Endor and, over a five-year period, repaired and modified for covert missions, and its sister ship, the Emancipator (originally the Accuser), entered the Coruscant system, where three Star Destroyers demanded novel and unusual codes for clearance. The codes the Alliance had stolen or bartered with slicers for did not work, and Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian were shot down over the former Imperial City. They should have perished, but successfully landed the gargantuan vessel without many casualties on the surface of Coruscant. For the next several days, Luke, Lando, and their forces hid and fought Imperial battalions.

When the news reached Han Solo and Leia Organa, they rushed to the rescue along with Chewbacca and C-3PO. They arrived in the nick of time to rescue Lando and the crew of the Liberator. However, Luke informed them of a great disturbance in the Force. At that moment, a Force storm came out of a hyperspace wormhole. Luke told everyone to go, but R2-D2 stayed with him. As the Falcon took off, Luke and R2-D2 were sucked in by the anomaly.

Later, at the Alliance base on the fifth moon of Da Soocha, code-named Pinnacle Base, the Alliance leaders reported that the separate Imperial factions had disappeared into the unknown regions of the Galactic Core. Furthermore, the initial phase of Operation Shadow Hand had begun, launching fleets of World Devastators, brainchildren of Umak Leth: machines which destroyed everything in their path, plunging them into vast furnaces which produced weapons and items which could repair or build new World Devastators. The first target, selected for its long and steadfast support of the Rebellion, was the planet Mon Calamari.

The recently rescued Lando and his crew were dispatched aboard the Emancipator to fight a holding action while the main Rebel fleets assembled.

At this time, Luke Skywalker had reached Byss, a Deep Core world enveloped in the power of the dark side of the Force. There he met face-to-face with the Emperor reborn, who revealed that for many years, he took to transferring his mind and consciousness to clone bodies to attain immortality. However, the clones were one crucial step from long life; they were more ravaged by the dark side than sustained by the Force. But Palpatine had numerous clones to laugh in the face of death, allowing him to rule indefinitely. The Emperor offered him apprenticeship and the prospect of controlling the enormous fleet of Devastators, as well as the rest of the Imperial fleet. Faced with an impossible situation and with a looming threat of doom for his friends and allies, Luke acquiesced to becoming his apprentice, hoping he could defeat the Emperor from the inside. At this time, R2-D2 was modified to carry the Master Signal for the World Devastators.

Meanwhile, Lando's attack force began their attack on the Imperial fleet. Though they were able to break through the Star Destroyer defenses, the Devastator Silencer-7 turned the Emancipator to scrap and launched squadrons of robotic TIEs. This forced the crew of the Republic Destroyer to abandon ship.

At Pinnacle Base, Leia received a message from Luke, telling her not to follow him. Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo had gone to Nar Shaddaa, to find transport to the Deep Core. After landing the Falcon in Shug Ninx's garage, meeting Han's former girlfriend, Salla Zend, Han and Leia went to Han's old living quarters. Along the way, they encountered a woman named Vima-Da-Boda, who gave Leia a lightsaber. Upon arriving at Han's place, they discovered that Boba Fett was alive and that their friend, Mako Spince, betrayed them. Pursued by the hunters, Han and Leia made it to the Starlight Intruder, the ship that brought them to the Deep Core. Meanwhile, the Rebels in combat over the planet Mon Calamari received aid from the Alliance reserves, including the new E-wings. Suddenly, three Devastators fell into the sea because Luke Skywalker shut them down from Byss.

After arriving on Byss and missing Fett by a long shot, Leia piloted the Falcon to the Emperor's citadel. After she, C-3PO, Han and Chewbacca got off, Salla and Shug took the Falcon to a safe place. The four were brought before the Emperor and Luke. Despite trying to fight back, Leia was rendered unconscious and was brought to Palpatine's quarters to be turned. There, she discovered that he held hostage an even greater treasure: a mysterious and intelligent artifact called the Jedi Holocron, which the Emperor had stolen during the Great Jedi Purge from Ashka Boda. With both the Holocron and Luke Skywalker under his control, the Emperor appeared to reign supreme in the Force. He revealed that he planned to overshadow Leia's third child stirring in her womb as his next new body. In anger, Leia toppled Palpatine from his bed and stole the Holocron. She found Luke, who claimed he was free of the dark side, despite his eyes continuing to shine yellow. Meanwhile, Shug and Salla gained control of a Hunter Killer patrol droid to blast Han and Chewie free. After being joined by Leia, Luke and the droids, the Falcon took off from Byss. However, Luke revealed that he had cast an illusory projection of himself to make them believe he had boarded so they would escape.

The real Luke Skywalker then marched into the clone lab during Palpatine's last few moments before the transition. When he revealed his purpose, Palpatine allowed his current incarnation to die, hoping to reach one of the clones before Luke destroyed them all. Skywalker went on a destructive spree through the lab, hoping to beat Palpatine to the clones. But he missed one.

The newly resurrected Palpatine scoffed at Luke's attempts to vanquish him. When Luke attempted to subdue Palpatine, the Sith Lord seized one of the lightsabers he kept stored in the lab and engaged Luke. Despite his valiant efforts, Luke was disarmed and held at blade-point. Palpatine completed Skywalker's turn to the dark side, reducing him to an obedient watchdog.

Meanwhile, on Mon Cala, the Devastators were still invincible. However, Luke installed a code into R2-D2's memory banks to shut down the Devastators. Though the great war machines were down, the crew managed to power up the factories until control was restored, but R2-D2 created a new code to make the Devastators recycle each other.

But this was only a small part of the Emperor's plan. Great new fleets of the Empire were spreading across the Galactic Core, and soon the entire galaxy would fall under the sway of the dark side.

Luke traveled with the Emperor to capture his sister, aboard the recently completed and christened flagship, the Eclipse. Prior to the Eclipse's arrival, the Holocron which Leia had stolen from the Emperor delivered a thousand-year-old prophecy to the Princess, which told of her battle against the young Emperor.

As the Eclipse came out of hyperspace, the Emperor made his demands clear to Alliance Command for Leia to come to his flagship alone, with the holocron; he even promised to discuss a truce. Despite Han's objections, Leia boarded the shuttle, which took her to the Emperor's Eclipse-class Super Star Destroyer. It was she who appealed to the good inside Luke, redeeming him. Outraged, the Emperor fought Luke in a lightsaber battle, ultimately losing his hand.

However, an enraged Palpatine unleashed a titanic force storm to obliterate the Rebel Alliance fleet. Using knowledge taught to them, brother and sister turned the Force storm upon its dark master. The result was the destruction of the Eclipse and Palpatine. As the Eclipse was destroyed, the twins fled on a shuttle. Once safely aboard an Alliance cruiser, Luke, his eyes once again blue, proclaimed: "The Jedi Knights will rise again."

Continuity

• Overall expanding on the dialogue.
• General Dodonna is replaced with Admiral Ackbar.
• Two scenes of Luke exploring the Imperial Palace and coming across a hologram of The Emperor.
• Han and Leia view holographic pictures of their children, Jacen and Jaina.
• Boba Fett does not fight the Millennium Falcon over Byss.
• There is no mention of the Slave II.
• Emperor Palpatine does not build Luke a new hand.
• The Emperor does not destroy Leia's newly-gifted lightsaber.

Media

Editions

• ISBN 9781570420832; 1994; Time Warner Audio Publishing; Cassette^[3]
• ISBN 9781565112001; August 1, 1997; HighBridge Audio; Cassette^[4]
• ISBN 9781565119710; May 5 2005; HighBridge Audio; Compact disc^[1]

Collected in

• Dark Empire: The Collector's Edition

Credits

Appearances

Sources

• Sights and Sounds of Dark Empire on StarWars.com (original site is defunct)

Notes and references

External links

• Star Wars: Dark Empire on HighBridge Audio's official website (backup link)