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Script: Dan Thorsland Penciler: Bill Hughes Inker: Andy Mushynsky Letterer: Steve Dutro Colorist: Pamela Rambo Cover Artist: Kilian Plunkett Book Design: Scott Tice Editor: Ryder Windham CHARACTER Featured Nak Pitareeze Supporting Kalarba tourist, Jarth Pitareeze, Meg Pitareeze, Huba, Muptupp, Ripter, Plixon Villain Olag Greck Other Xob, Bixon, Glurrg Cameo Boonda the Hutt CREATURE vynocks DROID C-3PO (See Threepio), R2-D2 (Artoo Detoo) LOCATION Kalarba STARSHIP Tharen Wayfarer VEHICLE Swoop bike (called 'hoppers, a.k.a. skyhoppers), lifeboat | ||
Related Issues | ||
Trade Paperbacks and Alternate Covers | ||
The title of this issue is culled from "The Kalarba Adventures" Trade Paperback.
The identity of the Hutt ganglord here is revealed in Droids, Volume 2 #4, as Boonda, when Greck tries to convince the Hutt that Movo Brattakin was actually responsible for the poisoning.
The page immediately following the story includes a three panel preview of the next issue plus asks readers to send in mail for the letter column Droid Barge.
On board the Tharen Wayfarer, the Pitareeze family is entertaining their guests on another of their family owned Kalarba Safari cruise, when a group of swoop bike mercenaries board it and begin robbing the passengers. Captain Huba says that they would normally be robbing the Greck cruisers, but since Olag Greck has disappeared, they will lower their standards.
Discovering that C-3PO was the cook of a delicious Stenness Pie, Huba decides to take the droids with him as well as young Nak. Stealing the Pitareeze cruiser, the Huba gang makes for their hideout, leaving the passengers safe in a lifeboat.
Once they have arrived, Nak steals a swoop and makes for an escape, but Ripter follows him and shoots him down. Threepio watches Nak's swoop crash into an island. Captain Huba apologizes to the droids for the actions of his crew. Nak washes up on the beach and is found by a mysterious person.
At the pirate hideout, the gang is sitting around a roaring fire, enjoying food specially prepared by Artoo and Threepio, while Muptupp and Huba recall the old times.
It seems that they were the finest chefs with a dream to open their own cantina when Olag Greck hired them to cook a meal for a Hutt ganglord he was preparing to close a deal with. Unbeknownst to them, Greck planned to kill the Hutt, but when the poison backfired and the Hutt survived, Greck blamed the chefs of serving bad food. Huba and his chefs were sent to serve in a crystal mine from which they managed to escape.
Nak awakens in a cave where Olag Greck and his Gamorrean bodyguard Xob are holed up with the remains of Greck's treasure. Greck had planned to use Nak as a hostage to get at his parents cruiser, but finding that Huba and his pirates have already taken the ship, Greck devises another plan.
The next morning Threepio and Artoo are attempting to escape, but are spotted by Plixon and Ripter, who challenge them to a game of vump-shugga. In order to regain their honor, the captain places them on a swoop bike and asks them to retrieve the captains pendant from atop a peak surround by vynocks, before Ripter can. Ripter manages to make it to the peak first and get the pendant, but with Artoo's careful flying Threepio manages to snag the pendant back from Ripter, before he becomes encased in vynocks and crashes into a peak.
The droids return with the pendant, but the captain refuses to take the object from a servant droid and throws it on the ground. Muptupp then mutinies against the captain, telling him that if he is refusing the pendant, then maybe it's time for a different captain.
Nak, Greck and Xob sneak in a back entrance to the pirate cave and see -- Artoo being hoisted up by the pirates as the new captain! Threepio finds young Nak and they rejoin the pirates just as Greck walks out with his blaster pointed on the lot of them.
Captain Artoo orders Greck to surrender, which Greck scoffs at. When Muptupp sees Ripter behind Greck, Olag scoffs at that as well. Well, Ripter really is behind Greck and manages to destroy his weapon before Xob drags his master to a swoop bike so they can return to their storehouse avoiding the vynocks in their way.
Artoo returns the captaincy to Huba and Nak strikes a deal with the gang to give them Greck's treasure if they return his parents ship. Huba agrees and they all celebrate with a grand feast.