A survey team crash-lands on an unknown planet. The planet is dark, and its fetid swamps are filled with flesh-eating flowers, fearsome swamp slugs, and deadly dragonsnakes. No one hears the survey team's distress signals. They are stranded.

Thirty years later, Zak and Tash Arranda and their uncle Hoole, with Boba Fett in hot pursuit, land on the planet. Descendants of the survey team--half-starved and crazed with strange fevers--are still alive. They call themselves the Children, and how they have survived is a mystery. Does the strange creature named Yoda have the answer?