by George Lucas
“I hope you’ll both remember that,” Solo advised him, “when Chewbacca is pulling the arms off you and your little friend.”
“Besides that, however,” Threepio continued without missing a beat, “being greedy or taking advantage of someone in a weakened position is a clear sign of poor sportsmanship.”
That elicited a beep of outrage from Artoo, and the two robots were soon engaged in violent electronic argument while Chewbacca continued jabbering at each in turn, occasionally waving at them through the translucent pieces waiting patiently on the board.
Oblivious to the altercation, Luke stood frozen in the middle of the hold. He held an activated lightsaber in position over his head. A low hum came from the ancient instrument while Luke lunged and parried under Ben Kenobi’s instructive gaze. As Solo glanced from time to time at Luke’s awkward movements, his lean features were sprinkled with smugness.
“No, Luke, your cuts should flow, not be so choppy,” Kenobi instructed gently. “Remember, the force is omnipresent. It envelops you as it radiates from you. A Jedi warrior can actually feel the force as a physical thing.”
“It is an energy field, then?” Luke inquired.
“It is an energy field and something more,” Kenobi went on, almost mystically. “An aura that at once controls and obeys. It is a nothingness that can accomplish miracles.” He looked thoughtful for a moment.
“No one, not even the Jedi scientists, were able to truly define the force. Possibly no one ever will. Sometimes there is as much magic as science in the explanations of the force. Yet what is a magician but a practicing theorist? Now, let’s try again.”
The old man was hefting a silvery globe about the size of a man’s fist. It was covered with fine antennae, some as delicate as those of a moth. He flipped it toward Luke and watched as it halted a couple of meters away from the boy’s face.
Luke readied himself as the ball circled him slowly, turning to face it as it assumed a new position. Abruptly it executed a lightning-swift lunge, only to freeze about a meter away. Luke failed to succumb to the feint, and the ball soon backed off.
Moving slowly to one side in an effort to get around the ball’s fore sensors, Luke drew the saber back preparatory to striking. As he did so the ball darted in behind him. A thin pencil of red light jumped from one of the antennae to the back of Luke’s thigh, knocking him to the deck even as he was bringing his saber around—too late.
Rubbing at his tingling, sleeping leg, Luke tried to ignore the burst of accusing laughter from Solo. “Hocuspocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side,” the pilot sneered.
“You don’t believe in the force?” asked Luke, struggling back to his feet. The numbing effect of the beam wore off quickly.
“I’ve been from one end of this galaxy to the other,” the pilot boasted, “and I’ve seen a lot of strange things. Too many to believe there couldn’t be something like this ‘force.’ Too many to think that there could be some such controlling one’s actions. I determine my destiny—not some half-mystical energy field.” He gestured toward Kenobi. “I wouldn’t follow him so blindly, if I were you. He’s a clever old man full of simple tricks and mischief. He might be using you for his own ends.”
Kenobi only smiled gently, then turned back to face Luke. “I suggest you try it again, Luke,” he said soothingly. “You must try to divorce your actions from conscious control. Try not to focus on anything concrete, visually or mentally. You must let your mind drift, drift; only then can you use the force. You have to enter a state in which you act on what you sense, not on what you think beforehand. You must cease cogitation, relax, stop thinking … let yourself drift … free … free …”
The old man’s voice had dropped to a mesmerizing buzz. As he finished, the chrome bulb darted at Luke, Dazed by Kenobi’s hypnotic tone, Luke didn’t see it charge. It’s doubtful he saw much of anything with clarity. But as the ball neared, he whirled with amazing speed, the saber arcing up and out in a peculiar fashion, The red beam that the globe emitted was neatly deflected to one side. Its humming stopped and the ball bounced to the deck, all animation gone.
Blinking as if coming awake from a short nap, Luke stared in absolute astonishment at the inert remote.
“You see, you can do it,” Kenobi told him. “One can teach only so much. Now you must learn to admit the force when you want it, so that you can learn to control it consciously.”
Moving to one side, Kenobi took a large helmet from behind a locker and walked over to Luke. Placing the helmet over his head effectively eliminated the boy’s vision.
“I can’t see,” Luke muttered, turning around and forcing Kenobi to step back out of range of the dangerously wavering saber. “How can I fight?”
“With the force,” old Ben explained. “You didn’t really ‘see’ the seeker when it went for your legs the last time, and yet you parried its beam. Try to let that sensation flow within you again.”
“I can’t do it,” Luke moaned. “I’ll get hit again.”
“Not if you let yourself trust you,” Kenobi insisted, none too convincingly for Luke. “This is the only way to be certain you’re relying wholly on the force.”
Noticing that the skeptical Corellian had turned to watch, Kenobi hesitated momentarily. It did Luke no good to have the self-assured pilot laugh every time a mistake was made. But coddling the boy would do him no good either, and there was no time for it anyway. Throw him in and hope he floats, Ben instructed himself firmly.
Bending over the chrome globe, he touched a control at its side. Then he tossed it straight up. It arched toward Luke. Braking in midfall, the ball plummeted stonelike toward the deck. Luke swung the saber at it. While it was a commendable try, it wasn’t nearly fast enough. Once again the little antenna glowed. This time the crimson needle hit Luke square on the seat of his pants. Though it wasn’t an incapacitating blow, it felt like one; and Luke let out a yelp of pain as he spun, trying to strike his invisible tormentor.
“Relax!” old Ben urged him. “Be free. You’re trying to use your eyes and ears. Stop predicting and use the rest of your mind.”
Suddenly the youth stopped, wavering slightly. The seeker was still behind him. Changing direction again, it made another dive and fired.
Simultaneously the lightsaber jerked around, as accurate as it was awkward in its motion, to deflect the bolt. This time the ball didn’t fall motionless to the deck. Instead it backed up three meters and remained there, hovering.
Aware that the drone of the seeker remote no longer assaulted his ears, a cautious Luke peeked out from under the helmet. Sweat and exhaustion competed for space on his face.
“Did I—?”
“I told you you could,” Kenobi informed him with pleasure. “Once you start to trust your inner self there’ll be no stopping you. I told you there was much of your father in you.”
“I’d call it luck,” snorted Solo as he concluded his examination of the readouts.
“In my experience there is no such thing as luck, my young friend—only highly favorable adjustments of multiple factors to incline events in one’s favor.”
“Call it what you like,” the Corellian sniffed indifferently, “but good against a mechanical remote is one thing. Good against a living menace is another.”
As he was speaking a small telltale light on the far side of the hold had begun flashing. Chewbacca noticed it and called out to him.
Solo glanced at the board, then informed his passengers, “We’re coming up on Alderaan. We’ll be slowing down shortly and going back under lightspeed. Come on, Chewie.”
Rising from the game table, the Wookiee followed his partner toward the cockpit. Luke watched them depart, but his mind wasn’t on their imminent arrival at Alderaan. It was burning with something else, something that seemed to grow and mature at the back of his brain as he dwelt on it.
“You know,” he murmured, “I did feel something. I could almost ‘see’ the outli
nes of the remote.” He gestured at the hovering device behind him.
Kenobi’s voice when he replied was solemn. “Luke, you’ve taken the first step into a larger universe.”
Dozens of humming, buzzing instruments lent the freighter’s cockpit the air of a busy hive. Solo and Chewbacca had their attention locked on the most vital of those instruments.
“Steady … stand by, Chewie.” Solo adjusted several manual compensators. “Ready to go sublight … ready … cut us in, Chewie.”
The Wookiee turned something on the console before him. At the same time Solo pulled back on a comparatively large lever. Abruptly the long streaks of Doppler-distorted starlight slowed to hyphen shapes, then finally to familiar bolts of fire. A gauge on the console registered zero.
Gigantic chunks of glowing stone appeared out of the nothingness, barely shunted aside by the ship’s deflectors. The strain caused the Millennium Falcon to begin shuddering violently.
“What the—?” a thoroughly startled Solo muttered. Next to him, Chewbacca offered no comment of his own as he flipped off several controls and activated others. Only the fact that the cautious Solo always emerged from supralight travel with his deflectors up—just in case any of many unfriendly folks might be waiting for him—had saved the freighter from instant destruction.
Luke fought to keep his balance as he made his way into the cockpit. “What’s going on?”
“We’re back in normal space,” Solo informed him, “but we’ve come out in the middle of the worst asteriod storm I’ve ever seen. It’s not on any of our charts.” He peered hard at several indicators. “According to the galactic atlas, our position is correct. Only one thing is missing: Alderaan.”
“Missing? But—that’s crazy!”
“I won’t argue with you,” the Corellian replied grimly, “but look for yourself.” He gestured out the port. “I’ve triple-checked the coordinates, and there’s nothing wrong with the nav ’puter. We ought to be standing out one planetary diameter from the surface. The planet’s glow should be filling the cockpit, but—there’s nothing out there. Nothing but debris.” He paused. “Judging from the level of wild energy outside and the amount of solid waste, I’d guess that Alderaan’s been … blown away. Totally.”
“Destroyed,” Luke whispered, overwhelmed at the specter raised by such an unimaginable disaster. “But—how?”
“The Empire,” a voice declared firmly. Ben Kenobi had come in behind Luke, and his attention was held by the emptiness ahead as well as the import behind it.
“No.” Solo was shaking his head slowly. In his own way even he was stunned by the enormity of what the old man was suggesting. That a human agency had been responsible for the annihilation of an entire population, of a planet itself …
“No … the entire Imperial fleet couldn’t have done this. It would take a thousand ships massing a lot more firepower than has ever existed.”
“I wonder if we should get out of here,” Luke was murmuring, trying to see around the rims of the port. “If by some chance it was the Empire …”
“I don’t know what’s happened here,” an angry Solo cursed, “but I’ll tell you one thing. The Empire isn’t—”
Muffled alarms began humming loudly as a synchronous light flashed on the control console. Solo bent to the appropriate instrumentation.
“Another ship,” he announced. “Can’t judge the type yet.”
“A survivor, maybe—someone who might know what happened,” Luke ventured hopefully.
Ben Kenobi’s next words shattered more than that hope. “That’s an Imperial fighter.”
Chewbacca suddenly gave an angry bark. A huge flower of destruction blossomed outside the port, battering the freighter violently. A tiny, double-winged ball raced past the cockpit port.
“It followed us!” Luke shouted.
“From Tatooine? It couldn’t have,” objected a disbelieving Solo. “Not in hyperspace.”
Kenobi was studying the configuration the tracking screen displayed. “You’re quite right, Han. It’s the short-range TIE fighter.”
“But where did it come from?” the Corellian wanted to know. “There are no Imperial bases near here. It couldn’t have been a TIE job.”
“You saw it pass.”
“I know. It looked like a TIE fighter—but what about a base?”
“It’s leaving in a big hurry,” Luke noted, studying the tracker. “No matter where it’s going, if it identifies us we’re in big trouble.”
“Not if I can help it,” Solo declared. “Chewie, jam its transmission. Lay in a pursuit course.”
“It would be best to let it go,” Kenobi ventured thoughtfully. “It’s already too far out of range.”
“Not for long.”
Several minutes followed, during which the cockpit was filled with a tense silence. All eyes were on the tracking screen and viewport.
At first the Imperial fighter tried a complex evasive course, to no avail. The surprisingly maneuverable freighter hung tight on its tail, continuing to make up the distance between them. Seeing that he couldn’t shake his pursuers, the fighter pilot had obviously opened up his tiny engine all the way.
Ahead, one of the multitude of stars was becoming steadily brighter. Luke frowned. They were moving fast, but not nearly fast enough for any heavenly object to brighten so rapidly. Something here didn’t make sense.
“Impossible for a fighter that small to be this deep in space on its own,” Solo observed.
“It must have gotten lost, been part of a convoy or something,” Luke hypothesized.
Solo’s comment was gleeful. “Well, he won’t be around long enough to tell anyone about us. We’ll be on top of him in a minute or two.”
The star ahead continued to brighten, its glow evidently coming from within. It assumed a circular outline.
“He’s heading for that small moon,” Luke murmured.
“The Empire must have an outpost there,” Solo admitted. “Although, according to the atlas, Alderaan had no moons.” He shrugged it off. “Galactic topography was never one of my best subjects. I’m only interested in worlds and moons with customers on them. But I think I can get him before he gets there; he’s almost in range.”
They drew steadily nearer. Gradually craters and mountains on the moon became visible. Yet there was something extremely odd about them. The craters were far too regular in outline, the mountains far too vertical, canyons and valleys impossibly straight and regularized. Nothing as capricious as volcanic action had formed those features.
“That’s no moon,” Kenobi breathed softly. “That’s a space station.”
“But it’s too big to be a space station,” Solo objected. “The size of it! It can’t be artificial—it can’t!”
“I have a very strange feeling about this,” was Luke’s comment.
Abruptly the usually calm Kenobi was shouting. “Turn the ship around! Let’s get out of here!”
“Yes, I think you’re right, old man. Full reverse, Chewie.”
The Wookiee started adjusting controls, and the freighter seemed to slow, arcing around in a broad curve. The tiny fighter leaped instantly toward the monstrous station until it was swallowed up by its overpowering bulk.
Chewbacca chattered something at Solo as the ship shook and strained against unseen forces.
“Lock in auxiliary power!” Solo ordered.
Gauges began to whine in protest, and by ones and twos every instrument on the control console sequentially went berserk. Try as he might, Solo couldn’t keep the surface of the gargantuan station from looming steadily larger, larger—until it became the heavens.
Luke stared wildly at secondary installations as big as mountains, dish antennae larger than all of Mos Eisley. “Why are we still moving toward it?”
“Too late,” Kenobi whispered softly. A glance at Solo confirmed his concern.
“We’re caught in a tractor beam—strongest one I ever saw. It’s dragging us in,” the pilot muttered.
“You mean, there’s nothing you can do?” Luke asked, feeling unbelievably helpless.
Solo studied the overloaded sensor readouts and shook his head. “Not against this kind of power. I’m on full power myself, kid, and it’s not shifting out of course a fraction of a degree. It’s no use. I’m going to have to shut down or we’ll melt our engines. But they’re not going to suck me up like so much dust without a fight!”
He started to vacate the pilot’s chair, but was restrained by an aged yet powerful hand on his shoulder. An expression of concern was on the old man’s face—and yet, a suggestion of something somewhat less funereal.
“If it’s a fight you cannot win—well, my boy, there are always alternatives to fighting …”
The true size of the battle station became apparent as the freighter was pulled closer and closer. Running around the station’s equator was an artificial cluster of metal mountains, docking ports stretching beckoning fingers nearly two kilometers above the surface.
Now only a miniscule speck against the gray bulk of the station, the Millennium Falcon was sucked toward one of those steel pseudopods and finally swallowed by it. A lake of metal closed off the entryway, and the freighter vanished as if it had never existed.
Vader stared at the motley array of stars displayed on the conference-room map while Tarkin and Admiral Motti conferred nearby. Interestingly, the first use of the most powerful destructive machine ever constructed had seemingly had no influence at all on that map, which in itself represented only a tiny fraction of this section of one modest-sized galaxy.
It would take a microbreakdown of a portion of this map to reveal a slight reduction in spatial mass, caused by the disappearance of Alderaan. Alderaan, with its many cities, farms, factories, and towns—and traitors, Vader reminded himself.
Despite his advances and intricate technological methods of annihilation, the actions of mankind remained unnoticeable to an uncaring, unimaginably vast universe. If Vader’s grandest plans ever came to pass, all that would change.
