Rise of the Empire

Page updated: 3rd February 2008

Events that occur between 1,000 and 0 years before the Battle of Yavin.

		Title:		Nomad
		Author:		Rob Williams et al.
		Format:		COMIC STORY
		Published:		2004-2005

Synopsis:
A ship on a mission to return the deadly prisoner called Lycan to Coruscant crashes on the lands of Darca Nyl and he finds a dying Jedi Knight in the wreckage. The Jedi tells him of Lycan and gives Nyl his lightsaber. Nyl rushes back home and finds his son slain by Lycan, which causes Darca to pursue him.
Darca Nyl's pursuit leads him to a uninhospitable, colonized planet in the Outer Rim rich with ore, where he soon meets Samuel, the owner of the planet's mining facility. Samuel mistakes the lightsaber-wielding Nyl for a Jedi after he ends a conflict between Samuel's men and a boy accused of conspiring in the kidnapping of Samuel's daughter Leddar. Samuel reveals that Lycan has already left the planet a week earlier on a supply ship, but he asks Nyl to help return his daughter before he tells him Lycan's destination. Darca Nyl accepts the deal and ventures with Samuel outside the facility in protective suits to find Ledd. After a brief fight they managed to disarm the kidnapper and rescue Leddar. Samuel finally reveals that Lycan was heading for Molavar.
Darca Nyl's pursuit is interrupted when the crew of the ship he is on turns against him. He manages to take care of them, but the ship crashes on an unknown planet. He soon meets a woman named Jaren and her brother Ament who he rescues from a man on a speeder bike. The siblings lie about their reason of being chased, but they tell Nyl he can find a freighter in their hometown. The following night Nyl's emotional difficulties finally catch up with him when Jaren shows him a trick: An image of his son in a campfire. Upon seeing the image he is compelled to face his feelings of guilt and rage. The next day, Ament leaves and doesn't return. Darca, while searching for Ament, finds a bear-like creature that attacks him. He ends up killing the creature with the lightsaber, but runs back to the campfire when he hears Jaren scream. Ament had returned and was killing a similar bear-like creature that threatened Jaren's life. It turned out that Ament was a murderer and that Jaren had helped him escape from prison. Ament suffered of guilty conscience and Darca Nyl took him and Jaren to the bikers who were chasing them earlier, who were able to show Nyl where he could get a ride to Molavar.
On Molavar Darca Nyl continues his pursuit of Lycan, who had wreaked havoc in a local casino. Lycan had taken a ship of one of the people he killed in the casino and landed in the middle of the desert and in order to reach it Nyl joins a convoy led by a Molavaran called Tooth.
Four days later Tooth's convoy finds Lycan's ship, and Darca leaves to pursue on his own. He is soon found by a moisture farmer named Byrom, whose wife has just encountered Lycan in the desert. Byrom is troubled by a Molavaran gangster named Sleeth, whose mother is the reigning crime-lady of Malcraan. When Sleeth arrives to ask for protection money, Nyl chases them away and humiliates Sleeth. Darca wants to help defend Byrom, but Byrom insists that he continue his search for Lycan. Nyl leaves, and soon Sleeth's mother arrives to exact revenge. However, Darca returns with Tooth's convoy and Tooth forms an alliance with Byrom against Sleeth's mother. Darca leaves again in a borrowed landspeeder to pursue Lycan.

Chronology:
This story occurs approximately 32 years before the Battle of Yavin.

Related Stories (in chronological order):

Nomad

Availability:
This story was originally published in Star Wars Tales #21-24 by Dark Horse Comics and is collected in Star Wars Tales: Volume 6.

Comic Book covers: Published October 2004, February, April and July 2005 by Dark Horse Comics:

Cover: issue 21	Cover: issue 22	Cover: issue 23	Cover: issue 24


Cover: issue 21 (photo cover)	Cover: issue 22 (photo cover)	Cover: issue 23 (photo cover)	Cover: issue 24 (photo cover)

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