Ambush in the Surd Nebula

Following the defeat of Darth Krayt and the end of the Second Imperial Civil War, a new Galactic Federation Triumvirate consisting of the Fel Empire, the Jedi Order, and the Galactic Alliance Remnant became the new galactic government. The new Galactic Empress Marasiah Fel embarked on an ambitious project to create a network of communication arrays to improve communications between the Outer Rim Territories and the rest of the galaxy. The Carreras system was designated as the last chain in this galactic-wide communications network. In 138 ABY, the Imperial Knight Yalta Val was assigned to supervise the finishing stages of the Carreras G51 communications array. His shuttle traveled through the Surd Nebula, a dense region of space where communications was difficult. Yalta Val was accompanied by a small force of stormtroopers and a communications droid.

Shortly after launching their comm droid, Yalta Val's shuttle was hit by a missile, causing them to crash-land on an uncharted planet: the enigmatic floating world of Mala. Unknown to Yalta Val and his crew, they had come under attack by two members of the underground One Sith order. At the urging of Darth Wredd, his master had opened fired on Yalta Val's shuttle. Darth Wredd had been forced to join the One Sith, who had destroyed his homeworld Mala and killed his family with a bioweapon. The Sith bioweapon had also loosened Mala from its orbiting, turning it into a rogue planet which wandered through the galaxy. Seeking vengeance against the One Sith, Darth Wredd had tricked his master into attack the Triumvirate starship. During the fighting, Darth Wredd had planned to take the opportunity to kill his master and to break free from the One Sith.

Yalta Val's pilot managed to landed their shuttle on top of a black cliff. Upon landing, the shuttle's stormtrooper escorts disembarked to make a perimeter around their shuttle in order to carry out repairs. Before they could complete their work, they were quickly attacked and killed by Darth Wredd's master, who wielded a Sith lightsaber. Yalta Val emerged from the shuttle only to be attacked from behind by the Sith master. During the lightsaber duel, the Sith master used the Force to push the shuttle down the cliff, killing the remaining crew aboard. Yalta Val narrowly survived being crushed by the shuttle and crossed lightsabers with the Sith. Using the dark side of the Force, the Sith master gained the upper hand over Val.

Before he could kill Yalta Val, the Sith master was impaled through the chest by his apprentice Darth Wredd. Putting his plan into action, Darth Wredd disarmed Yalta Val and forced him to strip off his armor and exchange clothes. During his captivity, Val was forced to wear Darth Wredd's Sith helmet, which was designed to drive its wearer to the dark side. Darth Wredd was thus able to impersonate the real Yalta Val and pretend to be an emissary of the Galactic Triumvirate, However, Darth Wredd was unable to find Yalta Val's lightsaber, which was recovered by Val's comm droid. The comm droid was shortly later hit by debris in the Surd Nebula, knocking it out of action. The droid and its precious cargo, the lightsaber, was later recovered by a pair of junk dealers who sold it to a young Human woman named Ania Solo, a distant descendant of Han Solo who owned a junk yard on the planet Carreras Major, the most populated planet in the Carreras system.

A week after the events on Mala, the false Yalta Val's escape pod was picked up in the Surd Nebula by the Carreras security forces. He was subsequently brought to the Carreras communications array, which was under the command of the local Governor Biala. "The Sith impostor claimed that he had been ambushed by the Sith, who had killed his crew and that his lightsaber had been lost during the fighting. Citing the threat of the Sith presence in the Carreras system, the Sith impostor coerced the governor into giving him full control of her security forces to deal with the threat. Meanwhile, the real Yalta Val was imprisoned at Darth Wredd's base on Mala.

Meanwhile, Ania Solo brought her recently-scavenged comm droid to her Mon Calamari friend Sauk, an engineer who worked as a miner on the ice rings orbiting Carreras Minor. Upon examining the comm droid, they found Yalta Val's lightsaber. Seeing an opportunity to get rich fast, they attempted to sell it to a technology dealer. However, they ended up in a scuffle with several Carreras security personnel, in which Ania killed one of the guards. Following a lengthy pursuit, Ania and Sauk managed to escape back to Ania's junkyard. This set the stage for a chain of events which brought Ania and her companions into Darth Wredd's insurgency against the One Sith and the Galactic Triumvirate.

The Ambush in the Surd Nebula served as the main exposition of Star Wars: Legacy: Prisoner of the Floating World, the first five-issue story arc in Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman's Star Wars: Legacy Volume 2 comic series. It introduced one of the protagonists, Yalta Val, and the main antagonist Darth Wredd.