Imperial Research Station 13

Imperial Research Station 13 was a modified Imperial escort frigate which had been completely converted into an immense laboratory facility. Unknown to the outside world, however, was the fact that the station had served as the site of experiments to tap into the Dark Side of the Force; experiments which successfully created a partially sapient, fog-like entity which fed on the life force of other sapient creatures, the Black Mist. The creature managed to kill all the crewmembers aboard the station and, through knowledge gained from them, reprogrammed all the R2 and 3P0 droids on board to form his personal army, arming them with blaster pistols and blaster rifles. Unfortunately for the creature, the last of the crewmembers managed to completely disable the ships sublight drives and hyperdrives before they died, forcing the creature to be trapped on the ship.

However, when the Sidewinder appeared from hyperspace in the vicinity of the research station while travelling from Tegrat to Tatooine, the Black Mist immediately took advantage of the situation. He cought the ship in the station's tractor beams and fired turbolasers at the sublight drivess to disable it from escaping. When the Sidewinder was taken into the hangar, the group on board found it strange that they were not boarded. They soon discovered that the station's tractor beams were causing a flux in the diagnostics systems, meaning that before they could effect repairs they would have to shut down the tractor beam projectors. While exploring the station in an attempt to shut them down, the group were attacked randomly by the droid army of the Mist, with only 2 droids ever attacking at one time. This was in fact a ploy by the Mist to force the group deep into the ship. He eventually appeared to them in the body of the last crewmember of the station although, when they attempted to capture him, he fell to the floor and his head broke apart in a shower of dry, crusty fragments. He then possessed a member of the crew, and proceeded to flee back towards the Sidewinder so that he could escape into hyperspace.

When he got to the ship, the Black Mist ordered his droid army to disengage the tractor beam which allowed the Sidewinder to float out of the hangar while he was performing repairs. Unfortunately for the Mist, these repairs were never completed as the former crew of the ship managed to blast the Sidewinder to pieces with the research station's turbolasers stranding both themselves and the Mist forever.