Lord Starkiller's Attack on Hoth

Starkiller, now borderline obsessed about finding Luke Skywalker, sent thousands of probe droids to scour the galaxy. One landed on the ice planet of Hoth and transmitted the image of a shield generator back to the Executor. Despite Admiral Ozzel's doubts, Starkiller followed the lead. Ordering an attack on Hoth, Starkiller had the entire Imperial fleet surrounded the planet. However, Ozzel cost the Imperials the element of surprise by coming out of lightspeed too quickly. For his failure, Ozzel was executed by Starkiller, being replaced by Firmus Piett before Starkiller prepared to lead the attack personally. Starkiller boarded an AT-AT and traveled down to the planet, where the AT-AT formation was met by Rebel snowspeeders.

After dispatching a snowspeeder with his lightsaber and exiting his AT-AT, Starkiller began his attack on Echo Base. Captain Martel Keenah - who was to act as Starkiller's attack group liaison - planned an infiltration route for the dark lord to enter Echo Base via ice caverns adjacent to the base. The caverns were infested with wampas, who he dispatched with ease. As ice columns the Sith had been jumping across started to collapse, Captain Keenah contacted Starkiller on his comlink to inform him of the cavern's instability and admitted that the most likely cause was the walker invasion force. Although the captain claimed the mistake to be unintentional and Starkiller was unharmed from the experience, the Dark Lord reached out with the Force to strangle the captain for his failure. Lieutenant Iyen Marsen was next in line as Starkiller's liaison and attempted to aid the Sith throughout the rest of the invasion.

The ice caverns adjoined to the Rebel base and presumably to prevent wampa and other attacks from the cave, the Rebels had set up a sentry auto turret defense. Easily dispatching the turret, the Dark Lord encountered Rebel troops who had come to investigate the disturbance. They stood no chance at defeating Starkiller, who continued to push his way into the base, violently slaughtering all Rebels as well as many wampas which entered the base during the battle. Lieutenant Marsen contacted Starkiller about the presence of a group of Rebels ahead of his location that likely had an officer with them - he was not incorrect, and Lord Starkiller had finally found Skywalker. Upon confronting Luke alone, Starkiller revealed the truth about Luke's father in an attempt to infuriate and confuse him, although he denied it. Despite the surrounding turmoil of the invasion, Luke kept his cool in the lightsaber and Force duel that followed. Luke even tried to turn Starkiller away from the dark side by telling him he could sense the good in him, but his attempts in all respects failed and Luke was forced to let two wampas out of containment to cover his escape. This did not distract him for long, and Starkiller continued to make his way through the base to trap Skywalker.

When Starkiller disabled the force field generator protecting the Millennium Falcon in the Echo Base hangar, the blast doors were closed to protect the ship as well as Princess Leia. Starkiller attempted to force open the doors with the Force, but Skywalker was waiting for him and Force Pushed him away, stepped through, and resealed the doors behind him. Luke claimed he would not run away from Starkiller or his own destiny. Another duel ensued, this time as the hangar was engulfed in fighting between Rebel and Imperial soldiers. Starkiller overpowered and continued to humiliate Luke, drawing Luke toward the dark side. As snowtroopers ran up to capture Skywalker, he tapped into the passionate forces of the Dark Side to defeat them and was reinvigorated for battle against Starkiller. Skywalker began using red force lightning, wild lightsaber attacks, and boasting that even though Obi-Wan Kenobi could not defeat Starkiller, he could.

Although Luke's powers were very aggressive and damaging, Starkiller absorbed his opponent's powerful lightning into his lightsaber and launched it back at him throughout the battle and beat him in lightsaber combat. Starkiller threw Luke into the path of an outbound T-47 Snowspeeder. Recovering, Luke, wildly attacked Starkiller. After blocking an attack with his lightsaber, Starkiller cut off Luke's right hand. As the Dark Lord readied for a final stab, the blast doors protecting the Millennium Falcon opened behind him and the ship shot off through the hangar, ready to escape the planet. Starkiller reacted quickly and withdrew from his attack to catch the ship with the Force. Starkiller told Luke that he could only save his friends with the power of the Dark Side of the Force and the now-fallen Jedi quickly obliged by shooting force lightning out again which Starkiller blocked with his lightsaber and sent it back to Luke pushing him across the hangar floor. Although Luke had succeeded in distracting Starkiller with the attack, allowing the Millennium Falcon to escape, he was still faced with battling the Sith Lord. Luke attempted to hold off Starkiller, but was easily overpowered by the Sith Lord and killed. Luke's death led to the training of his twin sister, Princess Leia, as a Jedi Knight.