Shadow Chaser

Shadow Chaser "It's beautiful. I've never seen anything like it."

- Luke Skywalker

Shadow Chaser was a unique shuttle produced by the Second Imperium, for use by the Shadow Academy. Though she was a unique prototype, the Shadow Chaser was of a recognizably Imperial design, probably standing in the same lineage as the Theta-class and Lambda-class shuttles. Before she was stolen by Luke Skywalker and his students, Brakiss considered the Shadow Chaser to be the Shadow Academy's finest small ship.

Characteristics
"The Shadow Chaser is state-of-the-art. At the moment she's the only one of her kind."

- Garowyn

Shadow Chaser was a small, compact ship, capable of carrying perhaps a dozen people. She had a sleek hull sheathed in nearly industructible quantum-crystalline armor, a technology pioneered in the Sun Crusher, which gave her a distinctive oiled-silver gleam. In the bows was a narrow cockpit with seats for two pilots, and the stern of the ship enclosed a small engineroom, but most of the hull was taken up by was a single main cabin, which contained passenger seating, with a series of escape pods in the aft bulkhead. Each of these could carry one person, but for security reasons, their homing beacon signals were encoded in a way that only the Shadow Academy could decrypt.

Other on-board amenties included several sleeping bunks and a small galley area, which were either located in the rear part of the main cabin, or else along the corridor leading aft to the engineroom. There may also have been a seperate cargo hold, though it is possible that the main cabin served this function as well.

The ship was armed with laser cannons in retractable turrets, and she had deflector shields in addition to her nearly impregnable hull armour.

History
"But we brought the Shadow Academy's best ship back with us. And you should see the design. State-of-the-art. Not like any of the models in the manuals, Dad!"

- Jaina Solo

The Shadow Chaser was originally piloted by a Nightsister named Garowyn, who used it to ferry Imperial supplies to the Great Canyon Clan on Dathomir, as well as to transport new Force-sensitive recruits from her homeworld to the Shadow Academy. However, the ship was stolen when Luke Skywalker and Tenel Ka, posing as promising new recruits for the Shadow Academy, threw Garowyn into one of the Shadow Chaser's escape pods and jettisoned it.

Skywalker and Tenel Ka planned to use the ship to gain access to the Shadow Academy and rescue Jacen Solo, his twin sister Jaina and Lowbacca the Wookiee, who had been unwillingly recruited as students there. When the Shadow Chaser came out of hyperspace on the course pre-programmed in by Garowyn, the Shadow Academy decloaked in front of her.

Skywalker and Tenel Ka guided the craft into one of the Shadow Academy's docking bays and encountered the Solo twins, Lowbacca, and a reprogrammed Em Teedee. After a confrontation with Brakiss and Tamith Kai, they escaped aboard the Shadow Chaser and brought it to the Jedi Praxeum at Yavin 4. After expressing her thanks to Skywalker for rescuing her children, Chief of State Leia Organa Solo allowed Skywalker to keep Shadow Chaser, telling him that he deserved it, and reasoning that the Academy could use a fast ship.

Subsequently, the Shadow Chaser was used as a transport by the Jedi Academy. Garowyn would later try unsuccessfully to recover her "one joy" from Jaina Solo and Lowbacca on Kashyyyk, but it did not see action during the Second Imperium's attack on Yavin 4, due to being trapped inside a hangar bay.

It is not clear what happened to Shadow Chaser after the battle, although there is no evidence that the ship was destroyed.

Appearances

 * Young Jedi Knights: Shadow Academy
 * Young Jedi Knights: The Lost Ones
 * Young Jedi Knights: Lightsabers
 * Young Jedi Knights: Darkest Knight
 * Young Jedi Knights: Jedi Under Siege