by Jason Fry
© & TM 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Lucasfilm Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Lucasfilm Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.
Designed by Jason Wojtowicz
ISBN 978-1-4847-2500-9
Visit the official Star Wars website: www.starwars.com
Contents
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 01: Red Squadron to the Rescue
Chapter 02: The Call of the Force
Chapter 03: The Hand of the Empire
Chapter 04: Return to Devaron
Part Two
Chapter 05: Vision of the Past
Chapter 06: Into the Woods
Chapter 07: The Lost Temple
Chapter 08: The Living Force
Part Three
Chapter 09: The Weapon of a Jedi Knight
Chapter 10: The Secret of the Force
Chapter 11: Imperial Attack
Chapter 12: The Scavenger’s Staff
Chapter 13: My Ally Is the Force
Epilogue
About the Author
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.…
The REBEL ALLIANCE has destroyed the Empire’s dreaded DEATH STAR, but the galaxy remains convulsed by civil war, and the Imperial starfleet is hunting the rebels throughout the galaxy.
LUKE SKYWALKER, the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, is now hailed as a hero. But Luke seeks only to support the freedom fighters, serving the Rebellion behind the controls of his X-wing fighter.
Even as he flies alongside the pilots of Red Squadron, Luke feels stirrings in the mystical energy field known as the Force. And this farm boy turned fighter pilot begins to suspect that his destiny lies along a different path.…
JESSIKA PAVA couldn’t stop staring at her X-wing fighter.
She pushed her black hair out of her eyes and sighed, forcing herself to turn around so she could no longer see the compact, deadly starfighter where it sat on its landing gear in the center of the hangar. Her fellow pilots knew she wanted nothing more than to get back into space as Blue Three.
But Jessika was on droid duty that week. Her job was to inventory the base’s astromechs and make sure they were ready for duty—programming updated, flight instruments tested and confirmed as operational. It wasn’t the worst job in the squadron—assisting the maintenance techs with a fuel-system cleanout was much dirtier—but Jessika was sure it was the most boring.
Her datapad beeped for her attention, and she looked down at it with a sigh, then at the cone-headed R4 unit rolling by on its three stubby legs. The droid was painted in a green-and-white checkerboard pattern, probably the work of a bored tech with time to kill.
“You there, droid,” the young pilot called out. “Need you to hold up a sec for operations check.”
The astromech whistled mournfully, no happier than Jessika about the need for an inspection. But it came to a stop and popped open a panel on its dome to expose a diagnostics port. Jessika aimed her datapad at the port and the pad blinked, beginning to exchange data with the droid’s systems. She sat down cross-legged on the hangar deck and resigned herself to wait.
“Excuse me, but might I be of assistance?” a voice asked brightly.
Jessika looked up into the expressionless face of a protocol droid with a gold finish. It was an older model—practically an antique—with one arm clad in red plating and dozens of dings and dents.
“I don’t think so, but thanks,” Jessika said. “It’s droid duty—the diagnostics program pretty much runs itself.”
“But not terribly efficiently,” said the droid, sounding disappointed. “But where are my manners? I am See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations, at your service, Miss…?”
“Pava. Jessika Pava. Blue Three.”
“It is an honor to meet you, Miss Pava,” Threepio said.
“Call me Blue Three.”
“Oh. As you wish, Miss—I mean, Blue Three. As I said, perhaps I could be of assistance. I just installed a very exciting new Tranlang database and am fluent in nearly seven million forms of communication—including, of course, the relatively primitive languages spoken by astromechs and diagnostics readers.”
The R4 unit squawked indignantly at Threepio.
“Insult you?” Threepio said, drawing back in surprise. “I did nothing of the sort, you hypersensitive little dustbin. Your method of communication is primitive—I was merely stating a fact. Why, you don’t even have a proper vocabulator.”
The R4 unit honked and swiveled its dome to stare at the protocol droid with its single electronic eye.
“Don’t move,” Jessika said. “You’ll break the data link and then—”
Her datapad beeped plaintively.
“Now we have to start all over,” she said.
The astromech hooted accusingly at Threepio.
“My fault?” Threepio replied. “Don’t be ridiculous. She told you not to move. Blue Three, might I suggest—”
“You know what, See-Threepio? I’ve got this. It’s a simple procedure, really. I’m sure you have many more important things to do.”
“You would think so, given that my specialties include communications and protocol,” Threepio said. “But it so happens I have completed all my tasks for the day. I was going to suggest that this R4 unit might benefit from a memory wipe. When they start taking offense at every helpful suggestion, it’s often a sign of flux in the motivator cortex.”
The R4 unit blew an electronic raspberry at Threepio, but this time remained still while the diagnostic program ran. Jessika rolled her eyes as the golden droid continued to chatter away.
“Why, I often told Master Luke that Artoo’s behavior would have been improved by a memory wipe. His eccentricities have been more than I can bear for decades now. One time we were on a diplomatic mission to Circarpous when—”
“Did you say Master Luke?” Jessika interrupted.
“Indeed I did,” Threepio said. “Master Luke Skywalker. Do you know him?”
“Do I know Luke Skywalker?” Jessika asked incredulously, scrambling to her feet. “Of course I know him! Well, I mean, I’ve never met him, but everybody knows Luke Skywalker. He defeated the Emperor, and they say he’s the best star pilot in the galaxy.”
“You’d have to ask Artoo about that. Though I must warn you that Artoo has, shall we say, an inflated view of his own accomplishments. I myself find space travel most unpleasant—”
“Wait, do you mean Artoo-Detoo?” Jessika asked in amazement. “The astromech that assisted Skywalker when he destroyed the first Death Star?”
Threepio cocked his golden head slightly.
“Well, yes,” he said. “Artoo and I have been eyewitnesses to many momentous events during the Galactic Civil War, though he was usually off squabbling with a computer while I was performing some vital diplomatic service. With regards to the Death Star, Artoo was inoperative at the critical moment. So not even he can try to take credit for the outcome of that mission.”
The datapad beeped, indicating the diagnostics program had finished running. Jessika ignored it.
“Tell me about the Death Star mission,” she said. “How did Skywalker wind up destroying it?”
“It would be my pl
easure, Blue Three,” Threepio said. “Though that adventure began in rather dreadful fashion for me. We had crash-landed on Tatooine, with Artoo pursuing a secret mission for the Alliance in his typical stubborn manner. If not for my advice, he might still be wandering that dreadful Dune Sea—”
“On second thought, why don’t you tell me that one later?” Jessika asked hastily, sensing this version was shaping up to be mostly about Threepio. “Tell me a different story about your master—one that hasn’t been told a million times already.”
The R4 unit chirped inquiringly at her, and she patted its dome absentmindedly.
“Your programs are up to date—report to the droid pool,” she said, turning back to Threepio.
“There are so many stories,” Threepio mused. “Where to begin? I know—Artoo and I were present when Master Luke first used a lightsaber in battle, not long after the Battle of Yavin.”
“Tell me about that one,” Jessika said.
“Very well,” Threepio said. “It all began above the planet Giju, with a mission for Red Squadron.…”
LUKE SKYWALKER sensed the TIE fighter twisting for a shot at his unprotected stern even before Artoo-Detoo squealed a warning and his sensors began flashing red.
Luke didn’t know how he knew, just that he did. His hands went automatically to the control yokes of his X-wing fighter and hauled them back and to the left, sending the craft spinning to port. Laser fire stitched space where his fighter had been a moment before, leaving Luke blinking from the brilliant glare.
“I saw him! I saw him!” Luke told Artoo even as the X-wing completed its roll and locked on to the Imperial fighter’s tail. Luke mashed down the triggers and the TIE erupted into a ball of fire. Luke’s X-wing shot through the cloud of dust and gas, shuddering slightly.
From the droid socket behind Luke’s cockpit, Artoo let out a squeal of annoyance.
“It was not too close,” Luke said. “You keep the fighter flying and let me worry about what to do with it.”
Luke opened up the throttle and dodged a pair of freight tenders, their ion engines glowing a brilliant blue. Like many other starships above the planet Giju, they were racing away from the space lanes as fast as their engines could take them, desperate to escape the firefight that had suddenly erupted between three rebel X-wings and a patrol of TIE fighters.
Luke’s eyes jumped to his long-range scopes, noting the position of the two green arrowheads on the screen. Those two symbols represented the X-wings piloted by Red Three and Red Leader. Red Leader’s X-wing was in the lead, protecting a transport carrying underground rebel leaders being evacuated from Giju ahead of the Empire’s agents. Reds Three and Five—Wedge Antilles and Luke—were in the rear, keeping the TIEs busy.
Wedge had drifted too far to port for Luke’s liking; if his fellow pilot ran into trouble, Luke wasn’t sure he could get there in time to help. And there was no shortage of trouble up there—the Empire had apparently sent every fighter it had in the system to engage the rebel raiders.
“Tighten it up, Wedge—we’re each other’s protection out here,” Luke warned.
“Gotcha, Luke,” said Wedge Antilles. “I was chasing a bandit.”
“And did you get him?”
“His wingman did—flew right into him when I came up on their flank.”
“That counts,” Luke said.
“Less chatter, gentlemen,” said the cool, clipped voice of Red Leader, known outside the cockpit as Commander Narra. “With all this traffic out here there are a lot of places for enemies to hide. You need your eyes as well as your instruments.”
“Copy, Red Leader,” said a chastened Luke.
Narra was a veteran pilot, tapped by Alliance High Command to lead Red Squadron after the destruction of the Death Star. Twelve Red Squadron pilots from the rebel base on Yavin 4 had headed into space in X-wings to try to destroy the Empire’s battle station. Of the twelve, only Luke and Wedge had returned alive. Narra had asked them to continue to fly with Red Squadron, while making it clear that neither young man should expect special treatment for surviving an encounter with the Death Star, even if they did destroy it.
Which was fine with Luke; his sudden fame made him uncomfortable. Just a few months before, he’d been a farm boy on Tatooine, fixing vaporators and tinkering with skyhoppers and landspeeders. Now people treated him like some kind of hero—but he knew better. He was just a kid who’d made a million-to-one shot, guided by a mysterious power he barely understood.
Luke knew he had skill with the Force, the energy field created by life that bound the galaxy together. And now he knew he’d inherited that ability from his father. Luke’s Uncle Owen had always told him that his father had been a navigator on a spice freighter, but that had been a story meant to protect Luke. Ben Kenobi had told him the real story: that Luke’s father had been a Jedi Knight, a gifted star pilot and a cunning warrior. But Ben had also told Luke that his father was dead, betrayed and murdered by the Sith Lord Darth Vader. And Vader had struck down Ben aboard the Death Star just days after he’d started to teach Luke about the Force.
So Luke had skill with the Force, yes. But what good would that do him with no one left to instruct him?
“You in there, Luke?” asked Wedge, echoed by an inquiring beep from Artoo. “The boss wants us to turn to point two-two.”
“Right, right,” Luke said, mentally kicking himself. None of his musings about the Force would do him any good if he got himself killed—and daydreaming during a firefight was an excellent way to do that.
Luke banked to starboard until his fighter was on the course Narra wanted. Ahead of them, a line of bulk freighters was cutting across the space lanes, their bows turning every which direction as their pilots tried to avoid a collision. The ungainly ships reminded Luke of a herd of banthas huddled together for protection against predators back home on Tatooine.
“Get behind me, Wedge,” Luke said. “We’ll scoot and shoot.”
“Right with you,” Wedge said, hitting his retrorockets and dropping astern of Luke’s X-wing, then accelerating until he was flying practically on his tail. Any inbound enemies would be able to target only Luke’s fighter, with Wedge scooting up and down to emerge from cover and fire at their attackers. It was a tricky maneuver—both pilots had to know each other’s tendencies in combat, but more than that they had to trust each other completely. Even a month before Luke wouldn’t have dared to try it, but since then he’d flown numerous missions with Wedge. They could now fly in perfect formation, anticipating each other’s movements without speaking a word.
“Artoo, switch the deflectors to double front,” Luke said, ignoring the astromech’s sulky beep that he’d already done so.
He rolled across the topside of one of the bulk freighters, then dove beneath the next one, juking and weaving to throw off any Imperial that might be trying to get a bead on him. Ahead, three TIEs wheeled through space, green fire lancing out from their blaster cannons. Laser fire splashed against Luke’s shields, which flared with the impact. Luke broke to starboard while Wedge broke to port, their cannons spitting energy. One of the TIEs vanished in a fountain of fire, while another lurched drunkenly, one solar panel bent and spraying sparks. The third TIE was rising, up and away from the fight.
“Wedge! Down!”
Luke thrust his stick forward, throwing the X-wing into a dive that slammed him back in his seat, grunting with effort. Laser blasts burst all around him, dazzling his eyes. He dodged left, then right, ignoring Artoo’s flurry of protests. He had no time to peer at his readout and see if Wedge was still alive, or if his X-wing had been turned into a superheated cloud by the quartet of TIEs that had been lurking in the heart of the freighter convoy, waiting to ambush them.
“How did you—” Wedge began, then stopped. “You know, for just an hour I’d like to know what it’s like to fly with the Force watching my back.”
“It’s almost as good as having you watching my back,” Luke said with a grin. “Now let�
�s make them pay for that little trick. Artoo, dial up the inertial compensators.”
Luke slewed his fighter around in a tight turn, grimacing at the sound of some overstressed system groaning in the port wing. Wedge followed him, weaving around Luke’s X-wing and filling the space ahead of them with deadly spears of light. Two laser blasts ripped one of the TIEs in half, while another flew too close to a freighter’s engine wash and tumbled out of control.
“Two left,” Luke said. “I’ll take the one to port.”
He opened up the throttle, and the distance between him and the TIE ahead began to shrink. To starboard, he could see Wedge’s fighter matching his maneuver. The TIE dodged in every direction, the pilot’s desperation increasingly obvious, but Luke hung right on his tail.
And then…what was that? It felt like something was in his mind, something elusive. Like a word he couldn’t quite call to mind even though it was on the tip of his tongue. Artoo whistled urgently and Luke shook his head, trying to chase the odd feeling away. There were more pressing matters at hand.
Wedge rolled down and right, then up and left, bracketing the TIE in his sights. A moment later the Imperial fighter he’d been chasing was a bright cloud in their wake as they continued to race up and away from Giju.
“You need a little help there, Red Five?” Wedge asked.
Luke smacked the side of his helmet, annoyed with himself. He needed to focus.
“I’ve got it, thanks,” he said, rolling his fighter completely over and blasting the TIE’s starboard panel off with a volley of shots while flying upside down. He brought the X-wing right side up as the crippled TIE tumbled past him, the cockpit oscillating wildly around its remaining solar panel. Then Luke settled his X-wing in beside Wedge’s, their wingtips just meters apart.
“I was just asking,” Wedge said. “No need to get fancy.”
Artoo squawked derisively.
“Nice flying,” Narra said in their ears. “The package is clear and calculating the jump into hyperspace. Activate your scatter protocols and we’ll meet at the rendezvous point at 2300 hours.”
