by James Kahn
“That’s all right, I asked for it. I want to lead this attack.” For one thing, he liked dressing up like a general. People gave him the respect he deserved, and he didn’t have to give up flying circles around some pompous Imperial military policeman. And that was the other thing—he was finally going to stick it to this Imperial navy, stick it so it hurt, for all the times he’d been stuck. Stick it and leave his signature on it. General Calrissian, thank you.
Solo looked at his old friend, admiration combined with disbelief. “Have you ever seen one of those Death Stars? You’re in for a very short generalship, old buddy.”
“I’m surprised they didn’t ask you to do it,” Lando smiled.
“Maybe they did,” Han intimated. “But I’m not crazy. You’re the respectable one, remember? Baron-Administrator of the Bespin Cloud City?”
Leia moved closer to Solo and took his arm protectively. “Han is going to stay on the command ship with me... we’re both very grateful for what you’re doing, Lando. And proud.”
Suddenly, at the center of the room, Mon Mothma signaled for attention. The room fell silent. Anticipation was keen.
“The data brought to us by the Bothan spies have been confirmed,” the supreme leader announced. The Emperor has made a critical error, and the time for our attack has come.”
This caused a great stir in the room. As if her message had been a valve letting off pressure, the air hissed with comment. She turned to the hologram of the Death Star, and went on. “We now have the exact location of the Emperor’s new battle station. The weapon systems on this Death Star are not yet operational. With the Imperial fleet spread throughout the galaxy in a vain effort to engage us, it is relatively unprotected.” She paused here, to let her next statement register its full effect. “Most important, we have learned the Emperor himself is personally overseeing the construction.”
A volley of spirited chatter erupted from the assembly. This was it. The chance. The hope no one could hope to hope for. A shot at the Emperor.
Mon Mothma continued when the hubbub died down slightly. “His trip was undertaken in the utmost secrecy, but he underestimated our spy network. Many Bothans died to bring us this information.” Her voice turned suddenly stern again to remind them of the price of this enterprise.
Admiral Ackbar stepped forward. His specialty was Imperial defense procedures. He raised his fin and pointed at the holographic model of the force field emanating from Endor. “Although uncompleted, the Death Star is not entirely without a defense mechanism,” he instructed in soothing Calamarian tones. “It is protected by an energy shield which is generated by the nearby Moon of Endor, here. No ship can fly through it, no weapon can penetrate it.” He stopped for a long moment. He wanted the information to sink in. When he thought it had, he spoke more slowly. The shield must be deactivated if any attack is to be attempted. Once the shield is down, the cruisers will create a perimeter while the fighters fly into the superstructure, here... and attempt to hit the main reactor...” he pointed to the unfinished portion of the Death Star “... somewhere in here.”
Another murmur swept over the room of commanders, like a swell in a heavy sea.
Ackbar concluded. “General Calrissian will lead the fighter attack.”
Han turned to Lando, his doubts gilded with respect. “Good luck, buddy.”
“Thanks,” said Lando simply.
“You’re gonna need it.”
Admiral Ackbar yielded the floor to General Madine, who was in charge of covert operations. “We have acquired a small Imperial shuttle,” Madine declared smugly. “Under this guise, a strike team will land on the moon and deactivate the shield generator. The control bunker is well guarded, but a small squad should be able to penetrate its security.”
This news stimulated another round of general mumbling.
Leia turned to Han and said under her breath, “I wonder who they found to pull that one off?”
Madine called out: “General Solo, is your strike team assembled?”
Leia looked up at Han, shock quickly melting to joyous admiration. She knew there was a reason she loved him—in spite of his usual crass insensitivity and oafish bravado. Beneath it all, he had heart.
Moreover, a change had come over him since he emerged from carbonization. He wasn’t just a loner anymore, only in this for the money. He had lost his selfish edge and had somehow, subtly, become part of the whole. He was actually doing something for someone else, now, and that fact moved Leia greatly. Madine had called him General; that meant Han had let himself officially become a member of the army. A part of the whole.
Solo responded to Madine. “My squad is ready, sir, but I need a command crew for the shuttle.” He looked questioningly at Chewbacca, and spoke in a lower voice. “It’s gonna be rough, old pal. I didn’t want to speak for you.”
“Roo roowfl,” Chewie shook his head with gruff love, and raised his hairy paw.
“That’s one,” Han called.
“Here’s two!” Leia shouted, sticking her arm in the air. Then softly, to Solo: “I’m not letting you out of my sight again, Your Generalship.”
“And I’m with you, too!” a voice was raised from the back of the room.
They all turned their heads to see Luke standing at the top of the stairs.
Cheers went up for the last of the Jedi.
And though it wasn’t his style, Han was unable to conceal his joy. “That’s three,” he smiled.
Leia ran up to Luke and hugged him warmly. She felt a special closeness to him all of a sudden, which she attributed to the gravity of the moment, the import of their mission. But then she sensed a change in him, too, a difference of substance that seemed to radiate from his very core—something that she alone could see.
“What is it, Luke?” she whispered. She suddenly wanted to hold him; she could not have said why.
“Nothing. I’ll tell you someday,” he murmured quietly. It was distinctly not nothing, though.
“All right,” she answered, not pushing. “I’ll wait.” She wondered. Maybe he was just dressed differently—that was probably it. Suited up all in black now—it made him look older. Older, that was it.
Han, Chewie, Lando, Wedge, and several others crowded around Luke all at once, with greetings and diverse sorts of hubbub. The assembly as a whole broke up into multiple such small groups. It was a time for last farewells and good graces.
Artoo beeped a singsong little observation to a somewhat less sanguine Threepio.
“I don’t think ‘exciting’ is the right word,” the golden droid answered. Being a translator in his master program, of course, Threepio was most concerned with locating the right word to describe the present situation.
The Millennium Falcon rested in the main docking bay of the Rebel Star Cruiser, getting loaded and serviced. Just beyond it sat the stolen Imperial shuttle, looking anomalous in the midst of all the Rebel X-wing fighters.
Chewie supervised the final transfer of weapons and supplies to the shuttle and oversaw the placement of the strike team. Han stood with Lando between the two ships, saying good-bye—for all they knew, forever.
“I mean it, take her!” Solo insisted, indicating the Falcon. “She’ll bring you luck. You know she’s the fastest ship in the whole fleet, now.” Han had really souped her up after winning her from Lando. She’d always been fast, but now she was much faster. And the modifications Solo added had really made the Falcon a part of him—he’d put his love and sweat into it. His spirit. So giving her to Lando now was truly Solo’s final transformation—as selfless a gift as he’d ever given.
And Lando understood. “Thanks, old buddy. I’ll take good care of her. You know I always flew her better than you did, anyway. She won’t get a scratch on her, with me at the stick.”
Solo looked warmly at the endearing rogue. “I’ve got your word—not a scratch.”
“Take off, you pirate—next thing you’ll have me putting down a security deposit.”
“See you soon, pal.”
They parted without their true feelings expressed aloud, as was the way between men of deeds in those times; each walked up the ramp into a different ship.
Han entered the cockpit of the Imperial shuttle as Luke was doing some fine tuning on a rear navigator panel. Chewbacca, in the copilot’s seat, was trying to figure out the Imperial controls. Han took the pilot’s chair, and Chewie growled grumpily about the design.
“Yeah, yeah,” Solo answered, “I don’t think the Empire designed it with a Wookiee in mind.”
Leia walked in from the hold, taking her seat near Luke. “We’re all set back there.”
“Rrrwfr,” said Chewie, hitting the first sequence of switches. He looked over at Solo, but Han was motionless, staring out the window at something. Chewie and Leia both followed his gaze to the object of his unyielding attention—the Millennium Falcon.
Leia gently nudged the pilot. “Hey, you awake up there?”
“I just got a funny feeling,” Han mused. “Like I’m not going to see her again.” He thought of the times she’d saved him with her speed, of the times he’d saved her with his cunning, or his touch. He thought of the universe they’d seen together, of the shelter she’d given him; of the way he knew her, inside and out. Of the times they’d slept in each other’s embrace, floating still as a quiet dream in the black silence of deep space.
Chewbacca, hearing this, took his own longing look at the Falcon. Leia put her hand on Solo’s shoulder, She knew he had special love for his ship and was reluctant to interrupt this last communion. But time was dear, and becoming dearer. “Come on, Captain,” she whispered. “Let’s move.”
Han snapped back to the moment. “Right. Okay, Chewie, let’s find out what this baby can do.”
They fired up the engines in the stolen shuttle, eased out of the docking bay, and banked off into the endless night.
Construction on the Death Star proceeded. Traffic in the area was thick with transport ships, TIE fighters and equipment shuttles. Periodically, the Super Star Destroyer orbited the area, surveying progress on the space station from every angle.
The bridge of the Star Destroyer was a hive of activity. Messengers ran back and forth along a string of controllers studying their tracking screens, monitoring ingress and egress of vehicles through the deflector shield. Codes were sent and received, orders given, diagrams plotted. It was an operation involving a thousand scurrying ships, and everything was proceeding with maximum efficiency, until Controller Jhoff made contact with a shuttle of the Lambda class, approaching the shield from Sector Seven.
“Shuttle to Control, please come in,” the voice broke into Jhoff’s headset with the normal amount of static.
“We have you on our screen now,” the controller replied into his comlink. “Please identify.”
“This is Shuttle Tydirium, requesting deactivation of the deflector shield.”
“Shuttle Tydirium, transmit the clearance code for shield passage.”
Up in the shuttle, Han threw a worried look at the others and said into his comlink, “Transmission commencing.”
Chewie flipped a bank of switches, producing a syncopated series of high-frequency transmission noises.
Leia bit her lip, bracing herself for fight or flight. “Now we find out if that code was worth the price we paid.”
Chewie whined nervously.
Luke stared at the huge Super Star Destroyer that loomed everywhere in front of them. It fixed his eye with its glittering darkness, filled his vision like a malignant cataract—but it made more than his vision opaque. It filled his mind with blackness, too; and his heart. Black fear, and a special knowing. “Vader is on that ship,” he whispered.
“You’re just jittery, Luke,” Han reassured them all. “There are lots of command ships. But, Chewie,” he cautioned, “let’s keep our distance, without looking like we’re keeping our distance.”
“Awroff rwrgh rrfrough?”
“I don’t know—fly casual,” Han barked back.
“They’re taking a long time with that code clearance,” Leia said tightly. What if it didn’t work? The Alliance could do nothing if the Empire’s deflector shield remained functioning. Leia tried to clear her mind, tried to focus on the shield generator she wanted to reach, tried to weed away all feelings of doubt or fear she may have been giving off.
“I’m endangering the mission,” Luke spoke now, in a kind of emotional resonance with his secret sister. His thoughts were of Vader, though: their father. “I shouldn’t have come.”
Han tried to buoy things up. “Hey, why don’t we try to be optimistic about this?” He felt beleaguered by negativity.
“He knows I’m here,” Luke avowed. He kept staring at the command ship out the view-window. It seemed to taunt him. It awaited.
“Come on, kid, you’re imagining things.”
“Ararh gragh,” Chewie mumbled. Even he was grim.
Lord Vader stood quite still, staring out a large view-screen at the Death Star. He thrilled to the sight of this monument to the dark side of the Force. Icily he caressed it with his gaze.
Like a floating ornament, it sparkled for him. A magic globe. Tiny specks of light raced across its surface, mesmerizing the Dark Lord as if he were a small child entranced by a special toy. It was a transcendant state he was in, a moment of heightened perceptions.
And then, all at once, in the midst of the stillness of his contemplation, he grew absolutely motionless: not a breath, not even a heartbeat stirred to mar his concentration. He strained his every sense into the ether. What had he felt? His spirit tilted its head to listen. Some echo, some vibration apprehended only by him, had passed—no, had not passed. Had swirled the moment and altered the very shape of things. Things were no longer the same.
He walked down the row of controllers until he came to the spot where Admiral Piett was leaning over the tracking screen of Controller Jhoff. Piett straightened at Vader’s approach, then bowed stiffly, at the neck.
“Where is that shuttle going?” Vader demanded quietly, without preliminary.
Piett turned back to the view-screen and spoke into the comlink. “Shuttle Tydirium, what is your cargo and destination?”
The filtered voice of the shuttle pilot came back over the receiver. “Parts and technical personnel for the Sanctuary Moon.”
The bridge commander looked to Vader for a reaction. He hoped nothing was amiss. Lord Vader did not take mistakes lightly.
“Do they have a code clearance?” Vader questioned.
“It’s an older code, but it checks out,” Piett replied immediately. “I was about to clear them.” There was no point in lying to the Lord of the Sith. He always knew if you lied; lies sang out to the Dark Lord.
“I have a strange feeling about that ship,” Vader said more to himself than to anyone else.
“Should I hold them?” Piett hurried, anxious to please his master.
“No, let them pass, I will deal with this myself
“As you wish, my Lord.” Piett bowed, partly to hide his surprise. He nodded at Controller Jhoff, who spoke into the comlink, to the Shuttle Tydirium.
In the Shuttle Tydirium, the group waited tensely. The more questions they were asked about things like cargo and destination, the more likely it seemed they were going to blow their cover.
Han looked fondly at his old Wookiee partner. “Chewiee, if they don’t go for this, we’re gonna have to beat it quick.” It was a goodbye speech, really; they all knew this pokey shuttle wasn’t about to outrun anything in the neighborhood.
The static voice of the controller broke up, and then came in clearly over the comlink. “Shuttle Tydirium, deactivation of the shield will commence immediately. Follow your present course.”
Everyone but Luke exhaled in simultaneous relief; as if the trouble were all over now, instead of just beginning. Luke continued to stare at the command ship, as if engaged in some silent, complex dialogue.
Chewiee barked
loudly.
“Hey, what did I tell you?” Han grinned. “No sweat.”
Leia smiled affectionately. “Is that what you told us?”
Solo pushed the throttle forward, and the stolen shuttle moved smoothly toward the green Sanctuary Moon.
Vader, Piett, and Jhoff watched the view-screen in the control room, as the weblike deflector grid read-out parted to admit the Shuttle Tydirium, which moved slowly toward the center of the web—to Endor.
Vader turned to the deck officer and spoke with more urgency in his voice than was usually heard. “Ready my shuttle. I must go to the Emperor.”
Without waiting for response, the Dark Lord strode off, clearly in the thrall of a dark thought.
= V =
THE trees of Endor stood a thousand feet tall. Their trunks, covered with shaggy, rust bark, rose straight as a pillar, some of them as big around as a house, some thin as a leg. Their foliage was spindly, but lush in color, scattering the sunlight in delicate blue-green patterns over the forest floor.
Distributed thickly among these ancient giants was the usual array of woodsy flora—pines of several species, various deciduous forms, variously gnarled and leafy. The groundcover was primarily fern, but so dense in spots as to resemble a gentle green sea that rippled softly in the forest breeze.
This was the entire moon: verdant, primeval, silent. Light filtered through the sheltering branches like golden ichor, as if the very air were alive. It was warm, and it was cool. This was Endor.
The stolen Imperial shuttle sat in a clearing many miles from the Imperial landing port, camouflaged with a blanket of dead branches, leaves, and mulch. In addition the little ship was thoroughly dwarfed by the towering trees. Its steely hull might have looked incongruous here, had it not been so totally inconspicuous.
On the hill adjacent to the clearing, the Rebel contingent was just beginning to make its way up a steep trail. Leia, Chewie, Han, and Luke led the way, followed in single file by the raggedy, helmeted squad of the strike team. This unit was composed of the elite groundfighters of the Rebel Alliance. A scruffy bunch in some ways, they’d each been hand-picked for initiative, cunning, and ferocity. Some were trained commandos, some paroled criminals—but they all hated the Empire with a passion that exceeded self-preservation. And they all knew this was the crucial raid. If they failed to destroy the shield generator here, the Rebellion was doomed. No second chances.
