Star Wars.

Jedi Prince.

Prophets of the Dark Side.

by Paul Davids and Hollace Davids.

The Adventure Continues...

It was an era of darkness, a time when the evil Empire ruled the galaxy. Fear and terror spread across every planet and moon as the Empire tried to crush all who resisted-but still the Rebel Affiance survived.

The headquarters of the Alliance Senate are located in a cl.u.s.ter of ancient temples hidden within the rain forest on the fourth moon of Yavin. It was the senate that now led the valiant fight to establish a new galactic government, and to restore freedom and justice to the galaxy. In pursuit of this quest, Mon Mothma, the Rebel Alliance leader, organized the Senate Planetary Intelligence Network, also known as SPIN.

SPIN conducts its perilous missions with the help of Luke Skywalker and his pair of droids known as See-Threepio (C-3P0) and Artoo-Detoo (R2-D2). Other members of SPIN include the beautiful Princess Leia Organa; Han Solo, the das.h.i.+ng pilot of the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p Millennium Falcon; Han's copilot Chewbacca, a hairy alien Wookiee; and Lando Calrissian, the former governor of Cloud City on the planet Bespin.

Lando now runs a s.p.a.ce theme park known as Hologram Fun World. He had been forced to abandon his post as Governor of Cloud City after gambling away his position to Zorba the Hutt, a sluglike alien who is the father of the deceased gangster Jabba the Hutt.

Luke Skywalker and his twin sister Princess Leia follow the path of the Jedi. The Jedi Knights, an ancient society of brave and n.o.ble warriors, believed that victory comes not just from physical strength but from a mysterious power called the Force. The Force lies hidden deep within all things. It has two sides, one side that can be used for good, the other side a power of absolute evil.

Guided by the Force, and by the spirit of his first Jedi teacher, Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi, Luke Skywalker was led to the legendary Lost City of the Jedi. Deep underground on the fourth moon of Yavin, the Lost City proved to be the home of a twelve-year-old boy named Ken, said to be a Jedi Prince. Ken had no human friends and had never before left the Lost City to journey aboveground. He knew nothing of his origins-only that he had been brought to the Lost City by a Jedi Knight in a brown robe-and had been raised from early childhood by a loyal group of caretaker droids who had once served the ancient Jedi Knights. Ken has since left the underground city and joined Luke and the Rebel Alliance.

With the Empire's evil leaders, Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, now destroyed, a new era has begun. A bitter feud developed between Kadann, the Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side, and Trioculus, a three-eyed tyrant who was formerly Supreme Slavelord of the spice mines of the planet Kessel.

An impostor, Trioculus falsely claimed to be Emperor Palpatine's son. With help from Kadann and the Imperial grand moffs, Trioculus was aided in his rise to power so they could all share the rule of the Empire. Trioculus eventually failed in his rule and Kadann wrested control of the Empire for himself, although the grand moffs remained loyal to Trioculus.

The evil Emperor Palpatine did have a three-eyed son-Triclops, whose existence was kept secret. For most of Triclops's life, he remained a prisoner of the Empire, locked away in Imperial insane asylums. Eventually he escaped from the Imperial Reprogramming Inst.i.tute on the planet Duro and denounced his father's Empire. After being discovered by Luke Skywalker, Ken, and Han Solo, he took refuge with the Rebel Alliance.

While Trioculus and the grand moffs were feuding with Kadann, they also had a dispute with Zorba the Hutt. Trioculus eventually defeated Zorba by tossing the old Hutt into the Mouth of Sarlacc at the Great Pit of Carkoon on Tatooine, expecting to be rid of him at last.

But still Zorba survived when the Sarlacc spit him out, unable to digest the slimy Hutt's sluglike body.

Having also captured Princess Leia, Trioculus tried to turn her to the Dark Side, wanting to marry her and make her the Queen of the Empire. However, his plans were thwarted by a clever Alliance plan and a new Rebel weapon-the Human Replica Droid, which was a lifelike droid built to resemble the Princess. It fired lasers from its eyes, striking Trioculus in the chest and wounding him.

Safely rescued from the Imperial Moffs.h.i.+p, Princess Leia and Han Solo intend to resume their wedding plans, but not by eloping at Hologram Fun World as they attempted before.

Instead, it will be a formal ceremony at the Alliance Senate. Everything should proceed according to plan-as long as they steer clear of the ruthless tyranny of Supreme Prophet Kadann and his Prophets of the Dark Side!

CHAPTER 1.

The Final Hour.

Grand Moff Hissa steered across the security observation room inside the Imperial Moffs.h.i.+p, riding his hover-chair on a cus.h.i.+on of air. He swiftly approached the motionless body that was lying on the floor. Hissa, who had accidentally lost his arms and legs in a pool of toxic waste on the planet Duro, could hear the sounds of shouts and scuffling coming from the corridor on the other side of the locked door. Imperial officers were growing anxious and quarrelsome, as rumors about the fate of Trioculus, their three-eyed leader, spread throughout the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p.

Trioculus, who was mortally wounded but still alive, reached up from where he lay, grasping onto one of Hissa's artificial metallic arms. Those arms had been taken from an Imperial a.s.sa.s.sin droid and fastened to the stumps at Hissa's shoulders. It had proven impossible for the medical droids to attach artificial legs at the grand moff's corroded hipbone; therefore he would be confined to the hover-chair for the rest of his days.

"Hissa," Trioculus groaned, "those foul Rebels have a.s.sa.s.sinated me-I'm dying."

Cold sweat dripped down Grand Moff Hissa's neck as he stared in shock at Trioculus's horrible wounds. "This is a black day for the Empire, my Dark Lords.h.i.+p," Hissa said.

Grand Moff Hissa glanced away, noticing the remains of the Rebel Alliance's secret weapon.

The weapon, known as a Human Replica Droid, was a robot so lifelike that it had actually fooled Trioculus and Grand Moff Hissa into thinking it was the real Princess Leia. The grand moffs had stared in shock as fiery green laser rays burst from the Human Replica Droid's eyes, striking Trioculus at close range.

Now the droid's smoldering remains lay crumpled on the chamber floor, incinerated by blasts from Imperial laser pistols. Grand Moff Hissa grimaced as he inhaled. The room was filled with the scent of burned synthetic flesh and smoking scorched hair, mixed with the foul odor of melted droid microcircuits.

"Hissa," Trioculus gasped, "when I am gone, beware of Kadann. He will turn on you next, because you remained loyal to me until my death, rather than to him." Trioculus spoke slowly in a strained, rasping voice. "He will use his authority as Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side ... to oppose you with all his power and strength."

"Let him oppose us, then," Hissa said, nodding. "We'll fight back, even if it means an all-out civil war for the Empire. That black-bearded dwarf has proven to be even more of a scoundrel than Zorba the Hutt."

"Zorba, yes . . . we dropped Zorba into the Great Pit of Carkoon," Trioculus recalled in a weakening voice, "sent him plunging into the hungry Mouth of Sarlacc-a fitting end for that slimy slug. Curse him!"

"And curse Kadann and his Prophets of the Dark Side," Grand Moff Hissa added.

"Yes," Trioculus agreed. "But let the darkest curse of all . . . fall upon Luke Skywalker.

Promise me that . . . that you grand moffs," Trioculus struggled to speak, as the gasps between his words grew louder, ". . . that you will destroy that Jedi Knight once and for all." Trioculus's three eyes blinked and then half closed, as though staring off into the distance.

"It shall be done," Grand Moff Hissa said.

And then Trioculus exhaled, closing his three eyes for the last time.

A chill swept through the gray, dark room. For a frozen, shuddering moment, all was silent.

In a ceremony held before the officers and crew of the Moffs.h.i.+p, the grand moffs placed Trioculus's lifeless body into a cremation chamber.

The fires of the chamber raged. When all that was left of Trioculus was a small pile of ashes, the grand moffs put equal amounts of his remains into four small canisters.

Four Imperial missile probes were prepared, each probe containing one of the canisters of Trioculus's ashes. Then the probes were blasted away, zooming off into s.p.a.ce in four directions from the Moffs.h.i.+p to the north, south, east, and west-where they would travel to the farthest reaches of the galaxy in honor of their Imperial leader.

Trioculus was not the only three-eyed mutant who had a strong influence on the Empire.

Perhaps even more important than Trioculus, and certainly more strange, was Triclops.

Until recently Triclops had been an inmate in a ward for insane prisoners at the Imperial Reprogramming Inst.i.tute on the planet Duro. Luke Skywalker rescued him on Duro, and then, for security reasons, sent Triclops to the fourth moon of Yavin to the headquarters of the Senate Planetary Intelligence Network, known as SPIN. There he was kept under observation and armed guard.

Soon after, the secret was out: Triclops, not Trioculus, was the long-lost son of the dead, evil Emperor Palpatine. That gave Triclops a legal claim to be the heir to the Imperial throne, the new ruler of the Empire. And that made him extremely dangerous, despite his previous claims to believe in peace, disarmament, and an end to all war.

Triclops slept much of the time, as if he were the victim of some unexplained sleeping sickness or powerful spell from the Dark Side. At the moment, the task of monitoring and observing Triclops fell upon Princess Leia. For the past few days she had also been busy studying the secret Jedi files Luke had brought back from his last trip to the Lost City of the Jedi. In her spare moments, Leia also worked on organizing her wedding to Han Solo, which was shaping up to be a much bigger event than they had planned.

Seated at a viewing screen in the SPIN conference room, Leia continued to monitor Triclops. She turned to glance at her brother, Luke Skywalker, who had just dropped by to discuss the matter.

"We've allowed Triclops to move freely about the first-level bas.e.m.e.nt of the Senate building," Leia said, pointing to the screen. "He's sleepwalking again-it's as if he's in a trance. Look, Luke-he's gone to the storage area, and he's snooping around the old defense files."

"It's looking more and more like he is an Imperial spy after all," Luke said with a frown.

"I'm afraid all of his sincere-sounding statements about hating the Empire may be nothing more than an act."

From the moment Luke and the others had met him, Triclops claimed to be an enemy of the Empire that his father, Emperor Palpatine, had commanded. Triclops opposed the now-deceased Darth Vader and all Imperial forces. According to Triclops, his opposition to the Empire was the reason he had been shut away inside Imperial insane asylums for his entire life. The Empire would not tolerate anyone who favored peace and disarmament, or who questioned its objectives, and Triclops was considered a great threat.

But Luke always questioned whether Triclops was telling the truth. The Rebel Alliance had discovered that Triclops had been kept alive by the Empire for one reason and one reason only: because he was a mad genius who often spoke aloud in his sleep, developing formulas and designs for new weapons systems.

"Yesterday we ran a medical examination on Triclops," Leia explained. "He appears to have in his mouth an Imperial implant of some sort in his right upper molar. This is no ordinary dental filling. It goes directly through the root of the tooth, into his brain.

In fact, the implant seems to pick up the electromagnetic signals of his brain. Apparently it can broadcast Triclops's thoughts to the Imperial probe droids that have been invading our airs.p.a.ce."

"Is this a two-way system?" Luke asked. "Can the implant be used by the Empire to send electromagnetic signals into Triclops's brain?"

"That's a good question," Leia commented. "The answer seems to be yes, but only while he's in a state of very sound sleep."

Luke and Leia continued to watch the screen in the SPIN conference room, as Triclops disconnected an alarm and broke into a file storage bin.

"He certainly wants something desperately," Princess Leia said. "Do you think we should call in the sentries now?"

"Wait a moment," Luke cautioned.

They continued to watch calmly, knowing that Triclops's search of those particular files would gain him nothing of value. But as they exchanged worried glances, each was thinking the same thing: having Triclops in their midst might prove to be dangerous.

EEEE-AAAA-EEEE-AAAA . . . !.

An airs.p.a.ce-intruder warning sounded. A second viewing screen turned on automatically, this one showing an Imperial probe droid descending over the rain forest. This particular probe droid was a huge floating black device with outstretched limbs that resembled spindly tentacles, just like the one the Alliance had once fought against on the ice-world of Hoth. Suddenly an Alliance X-wing flew to counterattack.

"That's the third probe droid in two weeks that's entered the atmosphere of Yavin Four to spy on the senate," Leia said.

"They're very effective at deceiving our s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+eld radar defense system," Luke replied.

"What we need is something that can locate Imperial probe droids long before they penetrate the atmosphere-a device to go after them and explode the probes before they even get this close to us."

"You mean something like an Omniprobe?" Leia asked.

"Exactly."

Leia rose from her chair excitedly. "Luke, that gives me an idea. I've been going through the data you brought back from the Lost City of the Jedi. I've searched the file menu you gave me, and there are lots of secret reports that you never accessed. That computer may still contain thousands of secrets that could prove crucial to our fight against the Empire. One of the files I discovered, that you didn't bring back, has a design for a new type of Omniprobe."

Ken, who was on vacation from school at Dagobah Tech, walked in just in time to hear what Leia had said. Ken was a Jedi Prince, and the newest member of the Alliance. "Hi, Luke,-hi, Leia," he said cheerfully. "I couldn't help overhearing you talking about my old school project. I'd almost forgotten about it."

"What school project?" Luke queried.

"The new Omniprobe. When I lived in the Lost City, Dee-Jay, my droid teacher, a.s.signed me to study the blueprints for all the Omniprobes ever designed-both Alliance and Imperial-and he told me to try to invent a new Omniprobe, one that would utilize the best features of all of them. Well, I didn't know much about weaponry or laser systems, but Dee-Jay helped me, step by step, in coming up with a new Omniprobe design. That Omniprobe, if it were ever built, would be the perfect defense against Imperial probe droids."

"Do you think you remember enough about the design to redraw it?" Luke asked, raising his eyebrows in antic.i.p.ation.

"Not likely," Ken replied. "I could make a rough sketch perhaps. But Dee-Jay did most of the work, and there were things about it I never did understand. But if you want the designs, they're still in the Jedi Library. I'm sure Dee-Jay could help us locate the file that has it."

"It sounds to me as if you and Ken should take another journey back to the Lost City,"

Leia said.

Suddenly they were distracted by the image on the viewing screen. Triclops was trembling, reacting to a pain in his head. Luke and Leia watched the screen as Triclops reached up to press his scarred temples. Then Triclops pushed two of his fingers into the back of his mouth, pressing on his upper molar.

Just then Triclops dropped to the floor and stopped moving. Luke and Leia exchanged a concerned glance. For a moment, they wondered whether Triclops was dead, or if he was just unconscious.

CHAPTER 2.

Return to the Lost City.

Far away on the planet Tatooine, a huge, sluglike old Hutt crawled slowly like a giant worm across the baking sands. His big, yellow, reptilian eyes scanned the horizon, but so far he had seen nothing but sandstorms and mirages.

Zorba the Hutt, whose braided white hair and beard were now covered with sand, had been squirming through the desert for several days, surviving without food or water, as Hutts have been known to do. "The grand moffs thought they'd get rid of me by tossing me into the Great Pit of Carkoon," he said to himself aloud, "but no one can outsmart a Hutt! And no one can digest a Hutt, either! I'll bet the Sarlacc's been nauseous for three days since he spit me out -- a-haw-haw-haw . . . !"

Just then Zorba spied what he had been waiting to see. Off on the horizon, a metallic, boxlike shape was slowly rising from behind a distant sand dune. The object grew taller, until at last Zorba could see it rolling along on treads.

A sandcrawler!

"Surely my friends, the jawas, will give me a ride to the Mos Eisley s.p.a.ceport!" Zorba said to himself. Though Zorba called the jawas his "friends," the fast-talking desert traders known as the jawas despised all Hutts-especially Zorba. But Zorba was prepared to offer them a deal they couldn't refuse-a hundred slightly used Spin-and-Win machines from the Holiday Towers Hotel and Casino that Zorba owned back in Cloud City on the planet Bespin. Perhaps the machines could be resold by the jawas or installed in their sandcrawlers for entertainment.

"Once I get to Mos Eisley," Zorba continued, "I'll find a fearless cargo pilot willing to take me deep into the Null Zone, all the way to s.p.a.ce Station Scardia to see Kadann and his Prophets of the Dark Side. Just wait until the grand moffs see what I have in store for them. A-haw-haw-haw-haw-hawwwww . . . !"

Ken, the only human ever to have lived with the caretaker droids of the Lost City, was sure that he and Luke were getting closer to their destination. Ken had only departed from the Lost City on three occasions in his life: first when he tried to run away from home, then when he left in search of his lost computer notebook, and a third time after he had taken Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Chewbacca to the Lost City. On that last journey, Ken and Luke had taken special care to recall all the features of the twisting, weaving route through the heart of the rain forest-a path that eventually led to a hidden green round marble wall with a tubular transport in its center. However, the foliage of the forest had grown thicker since they had last been there together, and it was difficult to be certain they were going the right way.

Ken's pulse quickened as he thought about riding in the tubular transport, designed to travel down through miles of Yavin Four moonrock to reach the Lost City of the Jedi. The ancient Jedi Knights had constructed their secret hideaway in a buried cavern. That hideaway, the Alliance discovered, was the repository of Jedi files about the history of the galaxy and all its worlds.

Many explorers had searched for that tubular transport, but none of them had ever found it on their own. And Ken doubted that any ever would, because the rain forest in that region of Yavin Four was too dense, in spite of Trioculus's failed attempt once to burn it all down.

With every step he and Luke took, Ken thought about how exciting it would be to return to the Lost City, reunited with his feathery, four-eared pet mooka he had left behind.

At long last, Ken pushed away the leaves of a large bush. Beyond it Luke and Ken could finally see the green wall.

They entered the tubular transport, the metallic, bubblelike elevator with windows and streamlined controls. Then they took their positions alongside one another, getting ready for their descent.

"I can't wait to see the droids of the Lost City again, especially my teacher, Dee-Jay,"

Ken said. "He'll probably be astonished at all the wisdom I've gained since I left the Lost City and joined the Alliance."