Return of the Jedi (Junior Novelization)

by Ryder Windham

  Realizing that their allies were probably unaware of the incoming Imperial troops, C-3PO cried, “Oh, my! They’ll be captured!”

  Wicket chattered urgently in Ewokese, then darted away from the droids and into the forest.

  “Wa-ait!” C-3PO wailed. “Wait, come back!” He clapped a hand down on top of R2-D2’s dome and said, “Artoo, stay with me.”

  Back inside the main control room, Han was about to plant an explosive charge when an Imperial officer appeared in the doorway that overlooked the turbine generator and said, “Freeze!”

  Han spun fast and threw a bag of explosives at the officer. The officer cried out as the bag hit him in the chest and carried him over the railing behind him. Before Han could make another move, an overwhelming number of stormtroopers flooded into the control room.

  Han, Leia, and the others had no choice but to relinquish their weapons. Chewbacca howled in anger.

  A black-uniformed Imperial commander walked up to Han and said, “You Rebel scum.”

  The Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace and blasted into the Endor system. In the Falcon’s cockpit, Lando and Nien Nunb looked through their window to see Endor’s forest moon and the unfinished Death Star, which appeared to grow larger with each passing second of their approach. Lando glanced at his sensor scopes and watched dozens of blips appear as the rest of the Imperial fleet emerged from hyperspace behind him.

  Lando’s comm unit designation for the mission was Gold Leader. He said into his comlink, “All wings report in.”

  “Red Leader standing by,” Wedge Antilles answered from his X-wing starfighter.

  “Gray Leader standing by,” came the reply from a Y-wing.

  “Green Leader standing by,” said the commander of the A-wing starfighters.

  Wedge said, “Lock S-foils in attack positions.” Wedge’s squadron included S-foil-equipped X-wings and B-wings; in response to his command, the X-wing pilots unlocked their wing-connecting assemblies to spread their double-layered wings, and the B-wings’ cannon-tipped airfoils extended from their primary wings.

  All the Rebel ships headed straight for the Death Star. On the Mon Cal cruiser, Admiral Ackbar watched the starfighters massing outside his viewport and said, “May the Force be with us.”

  In the Falcon’s cockpit, Nien Nunb tried to get a reading on the Death Star’s energy shield but found nothing on his scopes. He pointed to the control panel and said, “Ah-teh-yairee u-hareh mu-ah-hareh.”

  Fortunately, Lando understood his Sullustan copilot and replied, “We’ve got to be able to get some kind of a reading on that shield, up or down.”

  Nien Nunb could imagine only one possibilty: The Death Star was using long-range sensor jammers to deceive the Rebel fleet. “Mu-ah-hareh mu-kay, huh?” he asked.

  Lando said, “Well, how could they be jamming us if they don’t know…we’re coming.” And then Lando realized the truth: They know. Somehow the Empire had anticipated the Rebel assault.

  “Break off the attack!” Lando yelled into his comlink. “The shield is still up.”

  “I get no reading,” Wedge answered over the comm. “Are you sure?”

  “Pull up!” Lando ordered. “All craft pull up!” The Falcon and the fighters of Red Squad veered off desperately to avoid the invisible energy shield.

  Inside Admiral Ackbar’s cruiser, alarms sounded. “Take evasive action!” Ackbar commanded his crew. Turning to a comlink, he said, “Green Group, stick close to holding sector MV-Seven.”

  A Mon Calamari controller called out, “Admiral, we have enemy ships in sector forty-seven.”

  Ackbar swiveled in his seat to face the controller and said, “It’s a trap.”

  Sure enough, the Falcon and the other ships had veered straight for an armada of Imperial Star Destroyers. At a glance, Lando guessed there were about twenty. He recognized the largest vessel—a Super-class Star Destroyer—as the same ship that had nearly captured the Falcon after he’d helped rescue Luke from Cloud City.

  Then Lando saw the TIE fighters.

  “Fighters coming in,” he said into his comlink. It was an understatement. Hundreds of TIE fighters were streaking away from the Star Destroyers and racing for the Rebel fleet. Most of the Imperial fighters were Interceptors, identifiable by their bent and elongated dagger-shaped solar collector panels. The Interceptors were the latest in Twin Ion Engine design, and were far more lethal than standard TIE fighters. In an instant, dozens of fierce dogfights ensued around the giant Mon Cal cruisers.

  Lando adjusted the Falcon’s targeting computer so he could fire the turbolaser cannons from the cockpit. The number of speeding TIE fighters and all the crisscrossing streaks of laserfire were so overwhelming that it was almost impossible to see the stars beyond the battle zone. Nien Nunb steered after a pair of TIE fighters and Lando fired the Falcon’s cannons.

  “There’s too many of them!” a Rebel pilot shouted from his starfighter’s cockpit. A moment later, the pilot’s ship was struck by enemy fire and was gone.

  Flying through the battle, Lando ordered, “Accelerate to attack speed! Draw their fire away from the cruisers.”

  “Copy, Gold Leader,” Wedge answered, and instructed his X-wing squad to follow his lead. The starfighters angled off from the larger Rebel ships.

  High atop the Death Star, the space battle was visible through the tall circular window behind the Emperor’s throne. From his seat, the Emperor faced Luke and said, “Come, boy. See for yourself.”

  Luke moved toward the window. In the distance, Rebel and Imperial starfighters appeared as swirling pinpoints of light. Laserfire streaked between the fighters. There were many explosions.

  The Emperor said, “From here you will witness the final destruction of the Alliance and the end of your insignificant Rebellion.”

  Luke’s lightsaber rested on the right arm of the Emperor’s throne. The Emperor extended his bony fingers to the lightsaber and said, “You want this, don’t you? The hate is swelling in you now.”

  He’s right, Luke thought. I hate him for everything he is, and everything he’s done.

  “Take your Jedi weapon,” the Emperor continued. “Use it. I am unarmed. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger.”

  Luke turned away from the Emperor. I won’t give in. I won’t.

  The Emperor continued, “With each passing moment you make yourself more my servant.”

  “No!” Luke shouted as he spun to glare at the evil wretch.

  “It is unavoidable,” the Emperor leered. “It is your destiny. You, like your father, are now mine!”

  Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and the Rebel commandos were led out of the bunker by their Imperial captors. Outside, they found the other members of their strike team standing together with their hands clasped behind their heads. They were surrounded by more than a hundred Imperial troops. One captured commando was especially conspicuous: He had obtained a scout trooper uniform before being apprehended, and he still wore the armor, minus the helmet. Obviously, he’d failed in his effort to infiltrate the Imperial soldiers.

  An 8.6-meter-tall, two-legged All Terrain Scout Transport walker loomed above the soldiers; the AT-ST’s pilot was visible atop the vehicle, his upper body rising through the hatch of the command cabin. Although not as tall as four-legged AT-AT walkers, the AT-ST was still an intimidating vehicle, especially since its blaster cannons were trained on the Rebels.

  Leia spotted another AT-ST lurch past the trees on the ridge from which the Rebels had first glimpsed the bunker. It was all a trap, Leia realized. She thought of the Bothan spies who’d died in their effort to acquire and deliver the secret data regarding the new Death Star to the Alliance. The Bothans were pawns. Everything—the data, the stolen Imperial shuttle, the clearance code for the shield passage—was a scheme to bring the Rebel fleet to Endor.

  “All right, move it!” said a stormtrooper behind Leia. “I said move it! Go on!” As Leia’s group
walked over to join the other Rebels, Leia glanced at Han. From his stunned expression, she knew he was thinking the same thing: Their situation was hopeless. They were more surprised than relieved when they heard a familiar voice call out from the forest, just beyond the clearing where they stood.

  “Hello!” shouted C-3PO as he stepped out from behind a tall tree’s wide trunk to stand beside R2-D2. “I say, over there! Were you looking for me?” The droids moved back behind the tree.

  Chewbacca howled at the droids, urging them to run. Leia thought, The droids are up to something. But what?

  The bunker commander turned to a squad of stormtroopers and said, “Bring those two down here.”

  “Let’s go,” said the stormtrooper squad leader. The white-armored troops headed off into the forest.

  As the stormtroopers approached the droids, C-3PO turned to R2-D2 and said, “Well, they’re on their way. Artoo, are you sure this was a good idea?”

  The stormtroopers ran up and aimed their blaster rifles at the droids. “Freeze!” said the squad leader. “Don’t move!”

  “We surrender,” C-3PO said, raising his hands.

  But just as the stormtroopers were about to seize the droids, a band of Ewoks jumped down from the surrounding bushes. The Ewoks carried clubs, stones, knives, and spears, and every one of them had been itching to fight the invaders who’d cut down so many trees on their world. Their attack was swift and ferocious, and most of the stormtrooper squad fell without knowing what had hit them.

  “Ohhh!” C-3PO cried as the brave Ewoks pummeled the stormtroopers. “Stand back, Artoo.”

  R2-D2 looked up to see Wicket arrive with Logray, Chief Chirpa, Teebo, and a small army of Ewoks. Wicket waved to the droids and chittered.

  In a nearby tree, an Ewok raised a hollowed horn to his lips and sounded a battle call. The call was heard and repeated by an Ewok in another tree. Then the Imperials and Rebels were mutually astonished when hundreds of Ewoks rose from the bushes that surrounded the bunker’s perimeter.

  Most of the Ewoks wielded wooden bows. The archers took quick but careful aim, then released a flurry of stone-tipped arrows at the Imperial soldiers.

  Stormtroopers screamed and dived for cover. Han grabbed the nearest stormtrooper and flung him hard into another. Chewbacca did the same. Leia saw her blaster amidst a pile of confiscated weapons and snatched it up fast. She kicked a stormtrooper aside, then raised her blaster at the AT-ST pilot who hadn’t been fast enough to lower himself into his vehicle. Leia fired, disabling the pilot.

  The other Rebels quickly engaged the stormtroopers in hand-to-hand combat and took back their blaster rifles. As the clearing outside the bunker became rapidly littered with white-armored bodies and fallen weapons, several stormtrooper squads returned fire at the Ewoks. Most of the furry archers went scrambling into the woods, and the squads went after them. A pair of scout troopers hopped on their speeder bikes and joined in the pursuit.

  Han spotted his blaster on the ground. He picked it up, knocked yet another stormtrooper aside, then moved fast alongside Leia, heading for the bunker’s open doorway. But as they neared the bunker, the door slid shut to seal off the entrance. They dived against the recessed door as Imperial laserfire tore around their position. Most of the stormtroopers had gone after the Ewoks; Han and Leia fired back at the ones who hadn’t.

  In the woods, the stormtroopers fired at anything that moved. But despite their superior firepower, they rarely found their targets; the forest’s density made it difficult to get a clear shot at anything, and the troopers frequently lost their balance on the uneven terrain.

  The Ewoks exploited the stormtroopers’ disadvantages at every opportunity. Swinging from vines and leaping out from behind bushes, they knocked the troopers off their feet and sent them tumbling down hills and into sinkholes, where they were met by more Ewoks with stones, clubs, and axes.

  The AT-ST walkers proved to be a greater challenge for the Ewoks. Each armor-plated walker was equipped with maneuverable blaster cannons and a concussion-grenade launcher, and the pilots and gunners did their best to keep the Ewoks running. As a group of Ewoks scurried out of the way from a cannon-firing walker, they saw two of their fellows soaring high above the forest floor in stick-framed, leather-winged gliders. Both of the daring flyers carried stones.

  As one flyer swooped over the walker, he dropped a stone that merely bounced off the vehicle’s upper hull. The other flying Ewok had more success when he unloaded two stones onto the heads of stormtroopers. But as one trooper collapsed to the ground, his blaster fired a stray shot that went straight up and punched a hole through the second glider’s wing. The Ewok shrieked as his glider spiralled out of control and crashed near the base of a large tree.

  The fallen Ewok’s allies raced to pull him out of the path of an oncoming walker, then slung a vine across the ground and held tight to the vine’s ends in an effort to trip the vehicle. But when one of the walker’s footpads snagged the vine, the Ewoks were instead yanked off their feet and dragged across the ground. Releasing the vine, they rushed to see if their nearby comrades had readied the catapults.

  Elsewhere, Wicket had hastily enlisted with a division of Ewoks who hunted with bolas. They waited in the bushes until a group of stormtroopers rushed toward their position, then stood up, swung the bolas over their furry heads, and released the stone-weighted ropes at their targets. The bolas whipped around the troopers’ heads, shattering their helmets and breaking bones. Wicket gave it his best try, but wound up getting tangled in his own bola and knocked himself down. Luckily, only his ego was bruised.

  Back at the bunker, Leia reached for the control panel that was set within the doorway’s frame. The door wouldn’t open. “The code’s changed,” she said. “We need Artoo!”

  Han looked below the control panel, found a socket, and said, “Here’s the terminal.”

  The stormtroopers hadn’t confiscated Leia’s comlink, probably because they’d assumed it wouldn’t be of any further use to her. They were wrong. She pulled the device from her pocket, switched it on, and said, “Artoo, where are you? We need you at the bunker right away.”

  R2-D2 was still with C-3PO, watching the Ewoks fight the stormtroopers, when he received Leia’s transmitted communication. The astromech beeped to the golden droid, then moved away from beside the tree where they’d been standing.

  “Going?” C-3PO said with alarm. “What do you mean, you’re going? But—but going where, Artoo? No, wait! Artoo!” Artoo kept moving, and C-3PO hurried after him. “Oh, this is no time for heroics. Come back!”

  In the woods, the Ewoks loaded heavy stones onto primitive catapults, then fired at an AT-ST walker. The stones flew past the trees and hammered at the walker’s command compartment, but barely left a dent. Then the command compartment rotated to aim its cannons and fired back. The Ewoks fled as their catapult was blasted to bits.

  The battle against the Empire didn’t seem to be going much better in space. The Rebel fleet was greatly outnumbered. As more starfighters were lost to TIE interceptors, all Lando could do was fire at Imperial ships and try to stay alive.

  Through the Falcon’s cockpit window, he sighted Wedge’s X-wing. “Watch yourself, Wedge!” Lando shouted into his comlink. “Three from above!”

  Wedge saw the three TIE fighters on his scopes and said, “Red Three, Red Two, pull in!”

  The other pilots did as ordered and went after the TIE fighters. Red Two blasted one into spacedust and said, “Got it!”

  Red Three said, “Three of them coming in, twenty degrees!”

  “Cut to the left!” Wedge said. “I’ll take the leader!” A moment later, Wedge fired his cannons and the lead TIE fighter was gone. Another TIE fighter zoomed in on Wedge’s tail. Wedge sent his X-wing into a tight bank away from a Mon Cal cruiser. His pursuer failed to execute the bank and exploded against the larger ship’s hull.

  Wedge saw three more TIE fighters veer past his ship
. He said, “They’re heading for the medical frigate.”

  Lando steered the Falcon through a complete roll as he fired at one of the three TIE fighters. The TIE fighter exploded, and Lando went after the other two. As he wrapped around the medical frigate, the soldier who was serving as his navigator said from behind, “Pressure steady.”

  More laserfire spat out from the Falcon’s cannons, and two more TIE fighters exploded. But as Lando started to loop back to the medical frigate, he noticed the Star Destroyers had continued to maintain their distance from the battle. He said, “Only the fighters are attacking. I wonder what those Star Destroyers are waiting for.”

  On the main bridge of the Super Star Destroyer Executor, Admiral Piett and the Imperial Fleet Commander stood before the bridge’s wide viewport and watched the battle that raged near the Death Star. Another officer approached them from the walkway that bisected the bridge and said, “We’re in attack position now, sir.”

  “Hold here,” Piett ordered.

  “We’re not going to attack?” asked the Fleet Commander, surprised.

  “I have my orders from the Emperor himself,” Piett stated with pride. “He has something special planned. We only need to keep them from escaping.”

  On the Death Star, the Emperor, Darth Vader, and a mortified Luke continued to watch the warring starships in the distance. From his throne, the Emperor said, “As you can see, my young apprentice, your friends have failed. Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station.” The Emperor pressed a button on his throne’s armrest and said into his comlink, “Fire at will, Commander.”

  Luke, in shock, glanced at the Emperor, then returned his gaze to the Rebel fleet.

  In the Death Star control room, buttons were pressed and switches were thrown. A black-helmeted Imperial gunner reached overhead and pulled a lever. Commander Jerjerrod gave the command: “Fire!”

  The giant laserdish on the completed half of the Death Star began to glow. Then a powerful beam shot out toward the Rebel fleet and smashed into a Mon Cal cruiser. The cruiser exploded in a blinding flash.