Star Wars Forces of Destiny, Volume 3

by Emma Carlson Berne (retail) (epub)

  © & TM 2018 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, 1200 Grand Central Avenue, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-368-01715-2

  Visit the official Star Wars website at: www.starwars.com.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Ewok Escape

  Imperial Feast

  Bounty of Trouble

  About the Author

  A Message from Maz

  Come here, friend. I’ll show you how the water rushes through the dark banks of the river. You can hear the roaring if you listen. But be careful! Light your way with this torch. What? Why do you stand there? I see you hear my words, yet you do not move? Do you trust me? Ah. I see now. Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose. Trusting creatures you have just met. Trusting that you can make a bad situation better—if only you stand your ground. Trusting that someone else will work just as hard for a cause as you will. Trusting a new friend that she won’t let you slip into the river. Once you do trust, though, well then—you might be surprised at how brave you can be. Here—take my hand. I’ll hold the torch high. Step closer.

  Trust me. And remember, the choices we make, the actions we take, the moments—both big and small—shape us into forces of destiny.

  Leia clambered over another massive fallen tree, her muscles still twinging from the fight with the stormtrooper. The furry, fierce little creature who’d helped her toddled determinedly ahead. He appeared to be on the verge of toppling over with every step, but his round little body was surprisingly effective at navigating the massive trees, tangled vines, and moss-covered boulders that littered the forest moon of Endor.

  “Hey!” She wove her way between two huge boulders rearing up from the soil and caught up with the Ewok. “Thanks for helping me out back there.” The furry animal turned around. His face was appealingly smushed, with a stubby black nose. He was completely covered in fur, but he wore a roughly cut hood over his head and shoulders, and carried a wooden staff topped with a stone spearhead. Leia had already seen how sharp the spear was, when he’d jabbed the stormtrooper trying to capture her just a few minutes before. Now there she was—speeder bike wrecked, her friends Luke, Han, and Chewbacca probably looking for her, stormtroopers everywhere—being led along by something that looked like a stuffed toy holding a spear.

  The mission had begun when the Rebel Alliance discovered that the Empire was constructing another Death Star, orbiting the forest moon of Endor. The second Death Star wasn’t complete, but it was protected by a powerful shield. To destroy the Death Star, an advance team needed to land on the forest moon and disable the generator that was powering the shield.

  That was where Leia and the others had come in.

  She, Han, Luke, and Chewie, along with the droids C-3PO and R2-D2 and some rebel soldiers, had boarded a stolen Imperial shuttle and taken it to Endor, slipping past Imperial guards on the moon. That was all very well and good, except the forest was crawling with stormtroopers.

  Chewie and Han confronted one pair of troopers while more troopers took off on their speeder bikes. Leia and Luke jumped on another bike, leaving Han and Chewie behind, and zoomed through the forest, chasing after the troopers. Leia steered their speeder up next to a trooper’s and Luke jumped onto it, throwing the trooper off.

  Using his lightsaber to deflect blaster fire, Luke took out at least one more trooper before Leia lost sight of him. She and another trooper exchanged fire before he clipped the tail of her speeder, sending her flying headfirst toward the ground. Luckily, she shook off the impact in time to see the trooper drive his speeder directly into a giant fallen tree, where it burst into flames.

  Bruised and aching, with her head ringing from the crash, she let herself relax on a bed of springy moss, and with her cheek pressed against the damp ground, she fell unconscious.

  The next thing she knew, she was being poked in the side by something sharp. She jolted awake to see the little furry creature, spear at the ready. He danced around, threatening her, clearly suspicious. It was hard not to laugh at him; he was so little, yet clearly so tough. She sat on a log, resting, and took off her helmet. He chattered at her in alarm. “You’re a jittery little thing,” she told him, and showed him that the helmet was just a hat. Food was always good to build trust, she’d found, so she offered him some of her rations to eat. That seemed to win him over, and it was a good thing, too, because the Ewok was smarter than he looked.

  Together, they had fought off two stormtroopers who’d found them soon after. The creature bashed one in the knee so Leia could finish him off, then she blasted the second one as the trooper tried to escape on his speeder.

  At least she could breathe for a second now that it was all over. Leia craned her neck to admire the massive trees towering into the filtered sunlight. She hadn’t been able to fully appreciate the splendor while she was being shot at by stormtroopers and riding a speeder.

  Then Leia bent down to the Ewok. “Look, I appreciate all your help, but I need to find my friends.”

  His black eyes glittered. He jerked his spear forward and gestured insistently.

  Suddenly, voices came from up ahead—high and squeaky, then loud. The Ewok halted, throwing his stubby arm across Leia’s legs. He pointed toward the sound, then took off running through the forest. He chattered at her over his shoulder.

  “Wait!” Leia ran after him. “Come back here!” She wove among the massive tree trunks, vines reaching down to brush her shoulders as hanging branches almost hit her in the face. Suddenly, the Ewok skidded to a halt and she nearly trampled him. He gestured and she saw the gleam of shiny white through the green-and-brown gloom.

  “Stormtroopers,” she whispered to him, and he nodded, holding his spear at the ready.

  Cautiously, they crept forward. The Ewok motioned Leia down behind a boulder. She dropped to the spongy damp ground and peered cautiously around the rock.

  Two stormtroopers loomed over two Ewoks. The little creatures wore the same rough hoods as her new Ewok friend and had finely woven baskets over their arms, filled with some kind of round purple fruit. The Ewoks chattered, gesturing wildly. They backed away from the troopers, clearly hoping to escape. Then the troopers grasped the creatures by the necks and pushed them roughly to the ground.

  “We have to help your friends,” Leia whispered to the Ewok.

  But the space beside her was empty.

  “Huh?” Leia sat up, looking around. Then she spotted a furry form moving up one of the trees as nimbly as a tooka cat. “What are you doing?” Leia hissed, crawling over to the Ewok on her forearms.

  The creature didn’t answer. Leia held her breath as the Ewok reached an upper branch and began carefully making his way across. The thin branch was shiny and slick with rain and moss. The creature stepped out a little farther. Then a little more. Suddenly, he slipped, wobbled, waved his arms. Leia gasped, her hand over her mouth, just as the Ewok grabbed another branch.

  In the clearing, the troopers were standing over their prizes, with the little creatures cowering at their feet. “Can you believe it?” one said. “These things are everywhere. Primitives. I’m surprised the Empire didn’t deal with them when we arrived.”

  Suddenly, one of the Ewoks on the ground, a mottled gray one, looked up and stiffened. Leia winced. The Ewok had caug
ht sight of Leia’s new friend on the branch. Don’t give him away, don’t give him away….As she watched, the small brown Ewok jumped from one branch to another.

  The trooper saw that one of the Ewoks was carrying a small spear and grabbed it from the creature. “Is this a weapon?” He shoved the gray Ewok back to the ground. The Ewok grunted with the impact of the shove and the other Ewok moved to help.

  Leia watched, riveted, as her buddy drew a rough stone knife from a pouch at his waist and slashed two thick hanging vines with expert ease. “Ah! Smart little guy.” Leia smiled to herself. He was going to lay a trap.

  The creature deftly tied the vines into a lasso. He released the loop, which snaked fast toward the ground, dropping neatly over the troopers and encircling their bodies. “Hey!” one of them yelled. “What? Whoa!” He pinwheeled his arms to keep his balance.

  The Ewok jumped onto the dangling end of the vines, clinging to it with his nimble strong hands, and slid to the ground, yanking the stormtroopers on the other end up into the air. The captured Ewoks applauded approvingly.

  But something was going wrong. Leia saw that the Ewok wasn’t heavy enough to keep the stormtroopers high above the ground. The burly troopers squirmed and kicked. Leia grimaced as the Ewok slowly rose into the air on his end of the vine until he was face to face with the troopers.

  For an instant, the troopers stared at the Ewok in disbelief as he dangled from the vine not two meters from their faces.

  “Hey!” one of the troopers shouted. “Blast him!”

  The other trooper managed to pull his blaster and fire off a shot. The Ewok did the splits, narrowly avoiding it. The Ewoks on the ground sent up a storm of furious chattering.

  He needs my help, Leia realized. The Ewok had done pretty well against two troopers three times his size, armed with blasters, but he might need a bit of assistance.

  Leia leapt out from behind the boulder, and quickly, before the trapped troopers could realize what was happening, she made a running jump and grabbed the vine from which the Ewok was hanging.

  With a hissing, sliding sound, the troopers swooped upward, pulled by Leia’s extra weight, and smacked both their helmets on the overhead branch with a thwack. The vine released just as quickly, and the troopers plunged back toward the ground as if involuntarily rappelling, this time landing in a messy vine-entangled heap on the forest floor.

  Leia leapt down off the vine, her friend right behind her. Leia caught her breath and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Hands on her hips, she and the Ewok surveyed the stormtrooper pile in front of them.

  “Nice work,” Leia said.

  The two captured Ewoks met Leia and her Ewok friend at the bottom of the tree. Taking care not to tread on the unconscious troopers, the three creatures led Leia through the forest, wending their way among the tree trunks, one on each side holding her hand and one leading. Leia strained her eyes through the trees, but all she saw was endless giant trunks, misty green light filtering through the branches, boulders, moss, ferns.

  At last, the creatures stopped. Leia looked around. More trees. More ferns. “How far is your village from here? I appreciate your help, but I need to find my friends.” Leia looked at her Ewok friend closely, hoping he understood.

  But he was gesturing wildly toward the sky. Leia looked up.

  There, far above her head, a beautiful village soared, with huts, bridges, fences, all perched as if by magic in the treetops. Furry creatures trotted to and fro, calling to each other, carrying piles of cloth, baskets, bundles of sticks. As Leia watched, a group of young creatures swung across the clearing on vines, their high-pitched laughter echoing through the trees. Her friend held out his hand and gestured again. His meaning was unmistakable.

  They were going up.

  At the top of the tree ladder, Leia paused. She could see the village better from up there. Long rope-and-stick bridges were strung from tree to tree. Platforms around the treetops supported groups of huts. Here and there, cook fires burned, with more of the creatures bent over them, stirring pots. Other groups sat in circles, weaving baskets, while outside a nearby hut, Leia could see a group of creatures skinning some sort of wild animal. Here and there, Leia glimpsed a tiny baby in a basket slung across its mother’s shoulders, the little head poking out of the top, all big eyes and fuzzy fur.

  A group of children ran up, surrounding them, chattering and staring with shiny black eyes. “Hey,” Leia greeted them. She held out her hands. The children chattered louder, nudging each other and laughing.

  Her friend said something to them sternly, then made a shooing gesture. The children scattered, shouting to each other, as slowly, ponderously, a larger Ewok approached. His fur was gray and his hood more elaborately made than her little friend’s. His brows were creased, giving him a serious expression, and he held a staff made from a large bone wrapped in cloth.

  As the larger Ewok approached, Leia’s Ewok friend bent his head and poked her, motioning that she should do the same. Leia obeyed. Who knew what these creatures were or what they had in mind for her, but two things were for sure: one, they were excellent warriors, if her friend’s skill with a spear and a snare were any indication, and two, they deserved her respect.

  The larger creature—she sensed he was the chief—chattered to her friend. The chief’s meaning was clear enough: Who is this, and why is she here?

  Her friend answered, gesturing with his spear toward the forest, then mimicking stabbing the first stormtrooper and then running, then snaring the other two. He pointed to Leia, still chattering, then took her hand and held it out to the chief.

  Leia raised her head cautiously. The last thing she wanted was to somehow show disrespect to the creature. “Yes,” she said. “He tells the truth. We worked together to save your people.”

  The chief looked her in the eye. She looked back at him. Somehow, she sensed it would be wrong if she looked away. For a long moment, he held her gaze.

  Then suddenly, the chief shouted something to his village, raising his stubby arms high. He shook his staff, then gestured at Leia.

  What? What was he saying? Did she do something wrong? Then her friend patted her arm reassuringly and chattered, pointing around them. Leia caught her breath. The villagers were flowing toward them, surrounding Leia, their chatter filling the air. They pressed up against her, warm and furry and solid, rubbing the fabric of her poncho, examining her fingernails, fiddling with her blaster belt.

  Then one of them shouted something, and as one body, they began to move her along the rope bridge, ushering her across the rickety boards. “Okay, okay!” Leia said. “I’ll stay, but only for a little while.” Luke and Han and Chewie were out there—somewhere—and they might be hurt. She shoved that thought aside. Either way, she had to find them. Food, rest, and then she’d set out again. Vaguely, she wondered what else was on that moon. Furry creatures, yes, stormtroopers, yes—but what else might she find among the trees? Best to be fully rested and armed before she ventured out to find her friends.

  Clinging to the ropes, trying not to slide off the slippery boards the creatures seemed to navigate so easily, she allowed herself to be nudged along until they reached what looked like a central hut on one of the platforms. It was larger than the others, and a lovely fire burned in front of it. Leia lowered herself to the ground. She arranged herself cross-legged and held her hands out to the friendly crackling flames. The forest air was damp and chilly, and the heat from the fire felt good on her face. Her Ewok buddy—apparently in some role as her host, since he had found her—settled on the ground across from her and nodded approvingly.

  A rough wooden cup was pushed into her hands, and a child approached carrying a bowl heaped with purple fruits. Bowing low, with a kind of murmuring repetitive chanting, the creatures backed away, making “eat, drink” gestures.

  Leia looked around at the ring of gleaming eyes and flat furry faces in the dusky twilight. She felt like she should make a speech or something; after all, it was c
lear she was their guest. She held the cup toward them. “Thank you.” Her voice rang out over the crowd. “I am honored to be a part of your tribe.” Was that right? No one seemed to take offense. Of course, they probably couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Anyway, it seemed to be the right thing to say, because the chattering turned approving and numerous little hands poked out from the crowd and patted her on the back and arms.

  The cup was full of a smoky-tasting brew—probably some kind of tea—and as Leia sipped it, she felt herself relaxing. Soon—too soon, really—the cup was empty and a group of creatures tugged her to her feet. They led her to a nearby hut, pushing back the hide door and gesturing her inside.

  It was dim and warm in there. Baskets and stone tools hung on the rough walls and a sleeping mat lay in the corner, covered with furs. Murmuring to each other, the Ewoks helped Leia lie down on the mat, which was deliciously soft. They covered her with another fur. Oh, it was lovely. Very soft and very nice. Much better than sleeping on piles of leaves out in the forest. Leia felt a wave of affection for these little creatures, whoever they were—apparently brave, clever, and kind, which really was a winning combination.

  One of them was bathing her face with something warm and damp. She smelled a sweet oil. Their murmuring was so soothing—like a lullaby….

  The hut was full dark when she awoke sometime later, and the creatures had gone. Leia pushed herself up, wincing at the stiffness in her muscles from the speeder crash. Leia pushed back the hide door and squeezed out.

  The village was quiet, with just a few Ewoks moving around the fires, which sent plumes of fragrant smoke up through the trees. Leia sighed at the quiet peace and leaned over the railing, feeling the damp forest air on her face.

  A sound made her look around. Her friend and two others were approaching. Her friend chattered, indicating something the other two were holding.