Chapter Summaries

Su Ming and Harley searched a Franlo settlement for the archaeologist Aphra, but a local had not seen her. They rode to a nearby town and stopped at a high-tech building to continue their search.

• Su Ming calmed an angry Franlo herder by giving him purified water and asked whether he had seen a woman matching Aphra’s description.
• The herder said he had not seen her and suggested asking at the bigger settlement.
• Su Ming brought out a hover bike, and Harley rode with him toward town.
• On the way, Su Ming explained why he was searching for Aphra and described the unusual Star Wars galaxy and its planets.
• Su Ming rode past an Imperial office and stopped outside a high-tech building with Harley.

Su Ming joined the Milky Way Archaeology Association by submitting three unusual artifacts and asked it to contact Dr. Aphra. When Aphra arrived to sell a treasure, she learned her membership had been revoked.

• Su Ming left Harley in the waiting area with a Plasma Pistol and asked the reception robot to locate Aphra.
• The robot said Aphra had not visited in fifteen planetary rotations and required membership to help contact her.
• Su Ming submitted an ogre dung fossil, a terracotta figurine from the Ancient Troll Empire, and a Dalaran coin, then registered as Slade Wilson from Takodana.
• The robot contacted Aphra, who arrived hours later with Heckelsantan and her other teammates, carrying a mask to sell.
• Aphra tried to sell the mask and surrender its future proceeds, but the robot told her that her membership had been revoked.

Aphra lost her archaeological association membership after being accused of cheating, then confronted her estranged father, who admitted reporting her and demanded her help investigating Aldu Aspetu. He threatened to expose that she had stolen her advisor’s symbiote discovery if she refused.

• Aphra’s robot Zero Three explained that the association had placed her membership under review, and the clerk refused to accept her artifact.
• Aphra complained that she had cheated years ago and wondered how the association had found out, while Zero Three offered to play music.
• Aphra’s father revealed that he had reported her and urged her to atone for her past wrongdoing.
• Aphra accused her father of repeatedly abandoning her in danger as a child and blamed him for her mother’s death.
• Aphra’s father asked her to help investigate Aldu Aspetu, and she refused because she considered it a myth.
• Aphra’s father threatened to reveal that she had stolen the Bethel Symbiote discovery from her advisor.

Aphra confronted her father over his report and his claim that the mythical Aldu Aspetu existed, then left without killing him. Hungry and still in debt, she considered selling a strange mask before a man asked if it was for sale.

• Aphra threatened her father and demanded his evidence, but he insisted Aldu Aspetu was real because he had dreamed of it.
• Aphra ordered Zero Three to kill her father, then stopped the droid before it could hurt him.
• Aphra left with the mask and told her father to go home, while Zero Three repeated her threat.
• Aphra complained of hunger as Zero Three suggested eating someone in the lobby.
• A man asked Aphra whether the mask in her hand was for sale.

Su Ming examined the mask Aphra had brought and recognized its design as a possible clue to the Celestials. He considered paying her for its origins and pursuing the lead while continuing to focus on finding The Force and Lightsaber Crystals.

• Aphra agreed to discuss selling her discovery after Su Ming invited her and her companions to the lounge.
• Su Ming showed Aphra a mask and offered to inspect the goods she had brought.
• Aphra demanded at least thirty Credit Points before she would reveal where she had found the mask.
• Su Ming recognized the mask’s patterns and grille-like eyes as depicting the Celestials.
• Su Ming decided that Aphra’s possible Celestials clue was worth investigating in Franlo, though his main goal remained finding The Force and Lightsaber Crystals.

Su Ming, posing as Slade Wilson, hired Aphra to sell him any masks she found on an archaeological expedition, while secretly planning to gather evidence of her intended deception. As Aphra took him and Harley to eat, Boba Fett reported their meeting to Darth Vader, who began arranging to contact Aphra’s father through an old associate.

• Su Ming offered Aphra double the usual price for masks and asked to join her expedition with Harley.
• Aphra discussed the offer with her crew in Wookiee, and they agreed to sell Su Ming every mask they found for sixty Credit Points each.
• Aphra sent the Robot Duo toward a workshop and led Su Ming and Harley toward a tavern, believing Su Ming was a rich and unarmed fool.
• A Rodian watched the group and reported to Darth Vader that Aphra had made a wealthy friend.
• Darth Vader asked Boba Fett whether he could contact his old associate Heckelsantan, and Boba agreed to pass along a message.

Aphra took Su Ming and Harley aboard her ship, the Ark Angel, and flew them across the Wastelands while planning to lead the wealthy stranger into her scheme. Harley unsettled Aphra by suggesting she knew her secret, and the chapter ended as Aphra brought them to an inconspicuous crater where the mask was supposedly hidden.

• Aphra and Hegel Tanzan delayed at Deathstroke's meal before Hegel left to prepare for the plan.
• Aphra boarded Su Ming, Harley, and the robots onto the Ark Angel and set off after Zero Three updated his dismemberment program.
• During the flight, Aphra complained that Han Solo had foiled her chance to deliver Skywalker to Darth Vader.
• Harley teased Aphra about her secret and asked whether she liked killing people, leaving Aphra uneasy for the rest of the journey.
• After receiving the Wookiee's signal, Aphra landed beside a crater in the Wastelands, where a treasure hunter's corpse lay near the supposed location of the mask.

Deathstroke turned Aphra’s fake-mask scam against her, forced her to sign contracts, and revealed that he knew about her dealings with Darth Vader. Aphra agreed to work for him after he captured her robots and the Wookiee, but he left her under a magical threat tied to her father.

• Aphra tried to extort Su Ming with counterfeit masks, while Zero Three and BT threatened him and Harley.
• Deathstroke exposed the scam, disabled the robots, and put Aphra in the Regret Chair.
• Deathstroke ordered Harley to treat Aphra, while he threatened to dismantle Zero Three and melt him down for scrap.
• Aphra surrendered and signed the contracts after Deathstroke revealed that he knew about her dealings with Darth Vader and had captured the Wookiee.
• Deathstroke gave Aphra some Credit Points and warned that her father’s head would explode if she broke the contract or betrayed him.

Su Ming compelled Aphra and her droids to join his search beneath Franlo, then persuaded her with the promise of money and a new frigate. As Aphra repaired her team, Su Ming and Harley discussed robots, Sepulk, and Harley’s provocative idea for a game.

• Su Ming threatened Aphra with death and eternal torment if she disobeyed, then ordered her to repair her droids and help excavate beneath Franlo.
• Aphra warned that Franlo’s complex geology made underground exploration dangerous, but Su Ming said he would handle everyone’s safety.
• Su Ming offered Aphra’s team fifty thousand Credit Points and a frigate, and Aphra eagerly agreed to work for him.
• Zero Three introduced himself to Su Ming and asked to be his friend, while Su Ming told him to negotiate with Aphra about the money.
• Aphra repaired Zero Three first so he could help fix BT, and she planned to restore the rest of her team afterward.
• Harley asked Su Ming for a robot or washing machine, declined to move to Sepulk, and suggested a new intimate game.

Su Ming's group struggled to navigate the underground tunnels before he ordered Strangle to drill straight down. As they descended, Aphrodite asked about Strangle and learned that Su Ming considered him more powerful than a Bezen Symbiote.

• Aphra led the group through the worm's tunnels but repeatedly lost her way and reached another dead end.
• Zero Three explained how pain modules could help droids develop fear and emotions, and Harley praised Aphra's droids.
• Su Ming decided to dig downward to reach a solid layer, and Strangle formed a huge drill and bored into the ground.
• Aphrodite questioned Su Ming about Strangle, and he said Strangle was superior to a Bezen Symbiote.

Su Ming and his group descended through the underground chambers while Aphra revealed where she had hidden dormant Bezen Symbiotes. Their exploration reached an ancient cavern guarded by robots, which attacked and were destroyed by Deathstroke.

• Su Ming considered obtaining a Bezen Symbiote for Strangle, and Aphra explained that she had stolen dormant creatures from her former teacher and hidden them on an uninhabited planet.
• Su Ming refused Aphra's request to take a sample of Strangle as the group descended through the planet's connected underground chambers.
• Aphra dismissed Zero Three's warning that her remark about the quiet would bring trouble, and Strangle drilled into the eighty-ninth level, where green beams struck it.
• Su Ming deflected the beams with the Blade of Olympus, sent the Cloak and the others upward, and dropped into a cavern containing broken furniture and rusted tracked robots.
• Deathstroke tried to speak with the robots, but they repeated an order to eliminate intruders, so he cut them apart with a blue wave of divine power and was engulfed in explosions and fire.

Deathstroke and Aphra investigated the wreckage on Franlo, where the planet’s perfect spherical shape suggested it might be artificial. They prepared to explore its deepest layer while Hegel Santan waited with a drink.

• Deathstroke sent Aphra to examine the robot wreckage after the explosion, and she warned that the robots’ self-destruct mechanisms had likely erased their data.
• Deathstroke showed the group a star map, and Zero Three noticed Franlo was a perfect sphere unlike the other planets in its system.
• Aphra and BT questioned how natural materials could form a Death Star, and Deathstroke suggested a Celestial might have made Franlo.
• Deathstroke told Aphra to investigate the planet’s deepest layer at her own pace, while Hegel Santan waited without archaeological work to do.
• Deathstroke gave Hegel a keg of brandy, and Hegel drank as Deathstroke reflected on how Aphra’s growing debt kept the Wookiee tied to her.

Aphra dated the masks and robot fragments to at least eighty thousand years old, and Su Ming recognized the masks as Celestial Alloy. After drilling through Franlo, Su Ming and the others discovered an immense sphere of contained energy at the planet’s core, and he decided to take the planet for study.

• Aphra determined that the masks shared an unknown alloy and that the fragments were at least eighty thousand years old.
• Su Ming identified the masks as Celestial Alloy and planned to investigate the planet and have Adjutant study the technology.
• Strangle drilled deeper into Franlo and broke through into a vast cavern with no rock beneath it.
• Su Ming descended onto the glowing liquid sphere at Franlo’s core, while Strangle reported that it contained intense radiation without heat or energy leakage.
• Su Ming told Aphra he would pay her group five hundred Credit Points and ordered Adjutant to execute Plan Three to take Franlo.

Su Ming investigated the Celestials’ abandoned liquid-energy project, then learned Aphra had hidden Beicen Symbiotes on Yavin IV. Back at the settlement, Hegel Santan reunited with Boba, while Aphra worried that Boba might reveal her location to Darth Vader.

• Su Ming theorized that the Celestials had transformed the planet into a liquid world and left its energy and machine servants behind, then led the group back to the surface.
• Su Ming confronted Aphra about the Beicen Symbiotes she had stolen, and she admitted she had hidden the remaining specimens in an underground ice cavern on Yavin IV.
• Strangle sealed the cavern passage, and the group returned to the settlement aboard the Ark Angel.
• Hegel Santan recognized Boba at the landing pad and reunited with him, while Boba asked to speak privately over a drink.
• Aphra feared Boba would sell her out to Darth Vader, and Su Ming questioned whether Darth Vader already knew where she was.

Aphra explained why Darth Vader had forced her to search for the legendary Aldu Aspetu, while Deathstroke reassured her as the group traveled across Franlo. Hegel Santan returned with a lead on Aldu, leaving Aphra questioning whether the clue was genuine.

• Aphra told Su Ming and Deathstroke that Darth Vader had ordered her to find Aldu Aspetu and left her for dead when she failed.
• Aphra described the conflicting legends about Aldu and noticed someone in a brown robe watching her.
• Aphra told Su Ming she suspected a Jedi was following her, and he promised she would be safe with him before they left Franlo to find the Bezen Symbiote.
• Hegel Santan joined the group and reported that a friend had found a clue about Aldu Aspetu.
• Aphra questioned whether the clue was reliable, since both her father and Hegel's friend had now mentioned Aldu.

Deathstroke hired Aphra to find Bezen Symbiotes and Kyber Crystals, offering extra pay for each crystal. Aphra agreed and planned to trace the source of the rare black crystal used in the Darksaber.

• Aphra showed interest in investigating a legendary place, while Zero Three joked about killing her father.
• Deathstroke gave Aphra a list of targets, including a Bezen Symbiote from Yavin IV and Kyber Crystals.
• Deathstroke offered Aphra 500 Credit Points per fingertip-sized crystal, and Harley requested blue and pink ones while Deathstroke asked for yellow and black.
• Zero Three reminded Aphra that the Darksaber had used a black crystal, and Aphra said she could search for its source.
• Aphra planned to find Tarre Vizsla's tomb and look for clues to where he had discovered the black crystal.

Aphra, Su Ming, and the others left Franlo, where a black-armored army began an invasion in their wake. They reached Haven IV to recover Aphra’s hidden Beicen Symbiote, only to discover she had forgotten to keep its refrigerator powered; the group then teleported into the rainforest to investigate.

• Aphra’s group fled Franlo, and a fleet and teleporting armies arrived to purge the planet’s xenos for the Emperor.
• Su Ming and his companions reached Haven IV, where Aphra admitted she had forgotten to replace the refrigerator’s batteries.
• The Wookiee stayed aboard the ship while Cloak scouted the rainforest and planted a totem.
• Su Ming’s group teleported into the rainforest, where Aphra’s foul hiding place made her retch.
• Harley asked to take plants back for Poison Ivy, and Su Ming gave her permission to dig them up.
• Harley approached a five-meter-tall flower covered in sharp teeth and dripping green drool.

Su Ming, Harley, Aphra, Zero Three, and Feng Chu searched a rainforest planet for Aphra’s hidden Bezen Symbiote, but found that the cave had vanished despite signs the surrounding jungle was natural. Su Ming began an investigation with miniature Doom Bots, while Aphra admitted she preferred staying alive to satisfying her curiosity.

• Aphra worried that Beicen’s bugs might infect Deathstroke and cost her the payment, but Su Ming and Harley explained they were resistant to the insects.
• Harley knocked down a strange biting tree, and Deathstroke stored it in a wormhole as the group prepared to retrieve Aphra’s goods.
• Aphra found no cave at the coordinates, and Su Ming concluded that the thick, naturally layered humus showed the ground had not been flattened by the Beicen.
• Harley pointed out that the planet had the conditions for intelligent life but no inhabitants, while Zero Three said Haven IV’s records described it as unsuitable for life and offered little other information.
• Su Ming released miniature Doom Bots to survey the planet, and Aphra said she avoided excessive curiosity because it had gotten other explorers killed.

Su Ming carved a road through the rainforest and led the group toward a suspicious location while explaining his view of The Force. Harley teased Aphra during the flight, and the chapter left them approaching buildings concealed in the vegetation.

• Su Ming used the Blade of Olympus to cut a broad path through the rainforest.
• Su Ming flew the group along the new road on Cloak and explained that he focused on killing rather than studying The Force.
• Harley offered Aphra a business card and teased her about her attachment to Zero Three.
• Harley tickled Aphra, guessed that she liked women, and was stopped by Su Ming.
• Harley pointed out faint buildings hidden beneath vines and lichen beside the road.

Su Ming’s group investigated an abandoned Archaeological Association camp on Haven IV, where Aphra found signs that the expedition had met an unexplained fate. Zero Three bypassed the camp’s outdated membership authentication and opened its mission logs, revealing a video of the team leader.

• Su Ming confirmed the camp was empty and asked Aphra to identify its origin and what had happened there.
• Aphra recognized the buildings as an Archaeological Association camp, while Zero Three suggested records about Haven IV might have been deliberately deleted.
• Aphra identified the communications room and assigned BT and Zero Three to restore the camp’s power and processor.
• Aphra found intact Hazard Protection Gear in a meeting room but no corpse to explain why it had been used.
• Zero Three hacked the old communications system and opened a video featuring the archaeological team’s leader.