This issue is a interlaced flashback of Superboy
watching as events unfold, unable to help, wandering the streets of
Kurtzberg in civilian clothes, and remembering recent happenings.

Guardian and a cadre of Cadmus
soldiers arrive in Kurtzberg to investigate reports of a strange figure
in the woods nearby. Kon-El looks on as he's recently lost his powers.
Director Cannon
has taken the kid off of active duty considering everything that's
happened. He's also called in a special doctor to examine the him.

Guardian's team now includes the "reformed" villain Heat Wave, though Guardian is not happy about it at all. Heat Wave swears he's changed, but Guardian doesn't trust him. Doc Angel is the specialist Micky has called in. She and Serling Roquette
prepare to examine Kon-El, but when she asks the kid to strip, Serling
figures it's better that she leaves. Doc Angel says she won't just need
to examine him but his costume as well so it may be some time before he
gets it back. Kon-El had a confrontation with Hex before the examination. She decided to be a bounty hunter and left with Grokk the Living Gargoyle.
Superboy also asked Guardian to train him as a field agent. Guardian
responded by saying that he was just trying to prove himself and that he
wasn't ready for such a thing--so he tells him to go out and experience
life while he has a chance.

Superboy goes to a graveyard and has a flashback of when Tana Moon's body was being loaded on a plane for Hawaii. Tana's parents blame Superboy for her death and Dubbilex
blames himself. Dub will be accompanying the body back and has also
decided to leave Cadmus permanently. Dub remarks that Tana was the
kid's link to the normal world and now he has to sort everything out and
decide where he stands, just as he himself has to figure things out.
Kon asks that Dub do what he has to in order for his jacket to be buried
with Tana, though he cannot bring himself to say her name, almost like
he's afraid if he says it than she'll truly by gone.

Kon also had a chat with the Wild Men which led them to Habitat. Being as how it was abandoned, Howler claimed it in the name of King Tuftan.
The trio asks Superboy to come with them as they explore the world.
Even though it's tempting, the kid says he can't just now. All he ever
wanted was to lead his superhero life and now everything has been ripped
from him. He remarks that Tana never cared about his powers, all she
wanted was for him to have a normal life, but he's always considered
everyday stuff too slow and boring. The Wild Men tell him just how
remarkable the real world is and he realizes how totally clueless he is
to it.

Kon-El realizes that's how he honor Tana's memory, by trying to
have a normal life. Still, he wants to continue the good fight, so he
tracks down the Director (who has just convinced Doc Angel, apparently
an old flame of his, to stay on at the Project for a while) and asks to
see the Gadget Guru.
Kon-El has some plans involving his Legion flight ring that will let
him be Superboy once again. The Guru had been working on a crashed
space ship recovered from the Demolition Run a the time at accidentally
sets off a signal.

Far away, the signal is intercepted by an alien known as Kossak
the Slaver who decides to head for Earth straight away and reclaim a
lost prisoner -- and pick up some new metahuman slaves along the way ...