
- "Fifty-one of my best reconditioned mole miners [taken]!"
- ―Lando Calrissian
Slayn & Korpil Plasma-Jet Mole Miners (also called drill-jets or mole miners) were large mining devices that could be used in vacuum. Lando Calrissian used mole miners when he created Nomad City on Nkllon.
During his campaign against the New Republic, Grand Admiral Thrawn stole a complement of mole miners to be used at the subsequent Battle of Sluis Van, where they were used to attack the New Republic Defense Fleet stationed at the Sluis Van shipyards.
Thrawn used these mining vessels as makeshift boarding craft, to drill into New Republic capital ships, and deliver boarding parties of spacetroopers and stormtroopers. As most of the ships were undergoing repairs, they only had skeleton crews, meaning that the small number of troops who could fit into the miners could easily take them over. This combined with the surprise of the unconventional use made the tactic highly effective.
However, the plan to steal the ships failed when Han Solo remembered that the mole miners had been remotely controlled and realized that the Imperials were not blocking comms. Han had Lando use his override codes to order the all of the miners to simultaneously activate their drills. This depressurized the ship's bridges, killing most of the standard stormtroopers, while New Republic starfighters killed the spacetroopers.
Although this further damaged the ships, it did prevent their loss to the Imperial Remnant. Despite the plan's failure, Thrawn was satisfied that the New Republic's victory had been a costly one.
Appearances

- Jedi Apprentice: The Day of Reckoning
- Jedi Apprentice: The Death of Hope
- The Last of the Jedi: Underworld
- The Last of the Jedi: Death on Naboo (Mentioned only)
"The Evacuation of Jatee" — Supernova
"Droids Defiant" — Star Wars Adventure Journal 9 (as mole miner)
"Elusive" — No Disintegrations (as mole-miner)
- Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire (Mentioned only)
- Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance
- X-Wing: The Bacta War (and unabridged audiobook)
- X-Wing: The Bacta War abridged audiobook
- Heir to the Empire (and unabridged audiobook) (First appearance, in book)
- Heir to the Empire abridged audiobook
- Dark Force Rising (and unabridged audiobook)
- Dark Force Rising abridged audiobook
- X-Wing: Isard's Revenge (Mentioned only)
- X-Wing: Isard's Revenge abridged audiobook (Mentioned only)
Sources
- Heir to the Empire Sourcebook
- Dark Force Rising Sourcebook
- The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook
- The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons
- Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance: Prima's Official Strategy Guide
- The Essential Chronology
- Scum and Villainy
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia (as mole miner)