The Empire Strikes Back (Junior Novelization)

by Ryder Windham

  This isn’t really happening, Luke thought as he stared at the head, into its cold, dead eyes. It’s all some kind of a hallucination or nightmare. But…what could it possibly mean?

  While Luke made his way out of the cave, Yoda remained seated on the root. He looked at the ground and shook his head. Although Luke did not yet comprehend what had happened in the cave, Yoda knew that it had been a test. And that Luke had failed.

  On the bridge of the Executor, Darth Vader approached an assembly of six bizarre figures. Each had Vader’s clearance to be on the Executor, but none were entirely welcome.

  “Bounty hunters,” Admiral Piett muttered to two Imperial controllers on the bridge’s lower level. “We don’t need that scum.”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed one controller.

  “Those Rebels won’t escape us,” Piett added as he turned away from the controllers. He was immediately distracted by a growl from above. He looked up to see one of the bounty hunters, a tall humanoid reptilian whose long, clawed arms stuck out from an ill-fitting flight suit, which Piett guessed had once belonged to a human pilot. The hunter stared down from the upper level and bared his fangs at Piett.

  Piett stared back, hesitant to make a move that the creature might interpret as sudden. But the staring contest came to an end when another controller approached Piett and said, “Sir, we have a priority signal from the Star Destroyer Avenger.”

  “Right,” Piett answered as he tore his gaze from the hunter and followed the controller to a console.

  The menacing reptilian’s name was Bossk, and he remained standing at the edge of the bridge’s upper level while Darth Vader surveyed the other bounty hunters. There was Dengar, a brutal-looking man with a bandaged head who wore Imperial surplus armor; IG-88, an assassin droid that resembled nothing more than an ambulatory arsenal; Zuckuss, an insectlike alien whose face was partially concealed by a breathing mask, and his partner 4-Lom, a late-model protocol droid.

  Finally, there was the hunter who was widely regarded as the most dangerous of all: Boba Fett.

  Fett was clad in old green battle armor that he wore over a pale gray reinforced double-layer flight suit. His head was completely concealed by a green helmet with a T-shaped macrobinocular viewplate and a retractable targeting rangefinder that allowed him to view his surroundings without turning his head. He carried numerous concealed weapons, and openly clutched a late-model modified EE-3 blaster rifle. On his back, he wore a missile-firing jetpack.

  All the bounty hunters listened as Darth Vader said, “There will be a substantial reward for the one who finds the Millennium Falcon. You are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive.” Vader extended a black-gloved finger at Boba Fett and stressed, “No disintegrations.”

  “As you wish,” Fett said, his voice a nasty rasp. He was already on retainer for Jabba the Hutt, the Tatooine-based gangster who’d placed a bounty on Han Solo. Jabba also wanted the Falcon’s captain alive, so Fett had no intention of killing him. If he did the job right, he would be rewarded by the Empire and the Hutt.

  Boba Fett had another reason for wanting to capture Solo. Until recently, he’d had a perfect record for getting the job done. Any job, no matter how dirty or tough. But several weeks earlier, Fett had made a mistake: Another assignment had left him temporarily unable to follow a tip on Solo’s whereabouts, so he’d subcontracted Dengar, Bossk, and another bounty hunter named Skorr to search for Solo. The hunters not only found and captured Solo, but delivered him to the planet Ord Mantell, where Fett had arranged to meet them. But shortly after Boba Fett arrived on Ord Mantell, Skorr was dead—and Han Solo was gone.

  Both Dengar and Bossk had failed enough bounty hunts to assure that neither would ever have a perfect record, but Boba Fett was different. He had his reputation to maintain.

  Darth Vader turned as an excited Admiral Piett ascended to the upper level. “Lord Vader!” Piett said. “My lord, we have them.”

  The Avenger had the Millennium Falcon on the run. The destroyer fired lasers at the smaller ship, which weaved to evade not only the blasts from behind but the few asteroids that remained in its path.

  Inside the Falcon’s cockpit, Leia and C-3PO sat in the rear seats and watched nervously as Han and Chewbacca prepared for the jump to hyperspace. Glancing out the cockpit window, the droid said, “Oh, thank goodness we’re coming out of the asteroid field.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Han said. “Ready for lightspeed?” He reached for the throttle. “One…two…three!”

  On “three,” Han pulled back on the throttle. Outside the cockpit, the view of distant stars remained unchanged. Again.

  “It’s not fair!” Han protested.

  Leia rolled her eyes and gaped. Chewbacca whimpered and raised his furry hands in defeat.

  “The transfer circuits are all working,” Han said, then insisted, “It’s not my fault!”

  Leia couldn’t believe it. “No lightspeed?”

  “It’s not my fault,” Han said again.

  Suddenly, the Falcon was slammed hard as Imperial laserfire struck the stern.

  C-3PO glanced at a sensor scope and said, “Sir, we just lost the main rear deflector shield. One more direct hit on the back quarter and we’re done for.”

  Han looked to Chewbacca and said, “Turn her around.”

  Chewbacca barked in puzzlement.

  “I said turn her around!” Han said, jumping out of his seat to throw a set of switches on the cockpit wall. “I’m going to put all power in the front shield.”

  “You’re going to attack them?!” Leia said with alarm as Han jumped back behind the controls.

  When Han didn’t reply, C-3PO informed him, “Sir, the odds of surviving a direct assault on an Imperial Star Destroyer—”

  “Shut up!” Leia shouted.

  Han banked hard to port, then made a steep, twisting turn. In the next moment, the Falcon was racing toward the infinitely more powerful Destroyer.

  Standing on the Avenger’s bridge, watching the Falcon through the viewport, Captain Needa couldn’t believe his eyes. “They’re moving to attack position!” he exclaimed. “Shields up!”

  The Star Destroyer’s laser cannons fired at the oncoming ship, but none hit their target. From Needa’s position, it looked like the Falcon was coming straight for the bridge.

  Out of pure human reflex, Needa and his men ducked as the Rebel ship roared past the viewport. But instead of the expected collision, there was suddenly silence. Needa looked out the viewport.

  The Falcon was nowhere to be seen.

  Needa turned to the tracking officer and ordered, “Track them. They may come around for another pass.”

  The tracking officer checked his console screen, then said, “Captain Needa, the ship no longer appears on our scopes.”

  “They can’t have disappeared,” Needa said. “No ship that small has a cloaking device.”

  Consulting his screen again, the tracking officer said, “Well, there’s no trace of them, sir.”

  The Avenger’s communications officer looked up from his console. “Captain, Lord Vader demands an update on the pursuit.”

  Needa drew a breath, then turned to his first officer and said, “Get a shuttle ready. I shall assume full responsibility for losing them and apologize to Lord Vader. Meanwhile, continue to scan the area.”

  “Yes, Captain Needa,” said the officer.

  As Captain Needa left the bridge and headed for the shuttle hangar, the Avenger changed course to rendezvous with the Imperial fleet.

  On Dagobah, Luke’s muscles strained as his palms pressed against the dry mud. He was standing on his hands, with his legs extended up into the air and Yoda perched on his right foot. Then Luke slowly lifted his right hand and felt his weight shift down the length of his left arm.

  Still balanced on Luke’s foot, Yoda instructed, “Use the Force, yes. Now…the stone.”

  A short distance from Luke, two rocks
rested in the dirt. Luke stared at them and concentrated. One of the rocks lifted from the ground.

  “Feel it,” Yoda intoned.

  And even though Luke wasn’t touching the rock, he could sense its texture and weight. It’s dry on the top, slick on the bottom…not heavy at all. The rock hovered, then came to a gentle rest on the other.

  R2-D2 was standing at the water’s edge, watching Luke and Yoda with fascination, when he heard a bubbling noise from behind. The astromech rotated his domed head and saw the source of the sound: Luke’s X-wing was rapidly sinking into the mucky water.

  The little droid beeped frantically, distracting Luke.

  “Concentrate!” Yoda scolded, but it was too late. The upper rock slid off the lower, and Luke collapsed, sending Yoda tumbling across the ground. Luke rose quickly and hurried over to R2-D2, who was now chirping wildly. Luke watched his ship sink under the water until only the upper starboard wing remained visible above the surface.

  “Oh, no,” Luke said. “We’ll never get it out now.”

  “So certain are you,” Yoda replied. He had righted himself from the fall to sit facing Luke, and he wore an expression of mild contempt. “Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?”

  “Master, moving stones around is one thing,” Luke said, then gestured to the X-wing. “This is totally different.”

  “No!” Yoda said. “No different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.”

  “All right,” Luke said. “I’ll give it a try.”

  “No!” Yoda protested fiercely. “Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

  Luke turned his body to face the water. He closed his eyes as he extended his right hand, aiming his outstretched fingers at the submerged X-wing. He concentrated.

  He sensed the X-wing’s dimensions and sharp contours, felt the weight of the ship and the water’s pressure against its hull. Was the starfighter underwater so different from a small rock on dry land? Eyes still closed, Luke felt a stirring from within, and knew the X-wing was rising.

  As the starfighter’s nose lifted from the muck, Yoda’s eyes went wide with anticipation. But then Luke grimaced…It’s too big…too heavy…and the X-wing sank again.

  Looking defeated and drained, Luke turned away from the shore and dropped to the ground beside Yoda. He told the Jedi Master, “I can’t.” Then he added, “It’s too big.”

  “Size matters not,” Yoda said. “Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Mm?”

  Luke shook his head.

  “Mmmm,” Yoda murmured. “And well you should not. For my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we…” He pinched Luke’s shoulder. “…not this crude matter.”

  Yoda made a sweeping gesture and continued, “You must feel the Force around you. Here, between you…me…the tree…the rock…everywhere! Yes, even between the land and the ship!”

  Thoroughly discouraged, Luke said, “You want the impossible.” He got up and started to walk away.

  Yoda sighed. Slowly, he bowed his head and closed his eyes. Then he raised his small right hand in the direction of the sunken X-wing.

  The starfighter began to rise again.

  R2-D2 watched the displaced water flow off the starfighter as it lifted from the swamp. Long strands of moss and weeds dangled from the ship as it rose higher. The little droid began beeping wildly.

  Luke heard R2-D2’s cries and turned back. The X-wing was hovering high over the water’s surface. He looked to Yoda, then back to the X-wing. The ship slowly traveled through the air, then descended to land on an area of moss-covered ground.

  Luke examined the starfighter, brushing some muck from its hull to convince himself this wasn’t another hallucination. The X-wing was real, all right. Luke turned back to Yoda. He knelt before the Jedi Master and gasped, “I don’t…I don’t believe it.”

  With a touch of sadness in his voice, Yoda said, “That is why you fail.”

  After the Avenger met up with the Imperial fleet, Captain Needa traveled by shuttle to board the Executor. Minutes later, on the Executor’s bridge, Captain Needa spoke the words that would be his last. As Vader choked him from afar, he clutched desperately at his throat. But it was no use. He dropped to his knees, lifted his head, and tried to rise, then collapsed at the feet of Darth Vader.

  Vader said, “Apology accepted, Captain Needa.”

  As two black-uniformed Imperial soldiers lifted Needa’s lifeless body and carried it from the bridge, the Sith Lord walked to the nearby command console, where Admiral Piett and his aides were examining data. Seeing Vader approach, Piett stepped away from his console and stood at attention.

  “Lord Vader,” Piett said, “our ships have completed their scan of the area and found nothing. If the Millennium Falcon went into lightspeed, it’ll be on the other side of the galaxy by now.”

  “Alert all commands,” Vader said. “Calculate every possible destination along their last known trajectory.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Piett said. “We’ll find them.”

  Vader loomed over Piett and warned, “Don’t fail me again, Admiral.”

  Piett swallowed hard, then turned to an aide and ordered, “Alert all commands. Deploy the fleet.”

  The Millennium Falcon’s possible destination routes were quickly computed by the Imperials. As the Executor and Star Destroyers prepared to leave the area, every Imperial helmsman, navigator, controller, and technician kept their keen eyes on their consoles and monitors. And because all sensors had already indicated the Falcon had vanished from the sector, not one Imperial soldier thought to look out a window.

  But even if anyone had looked directly at the port aft of Avenger’s command tower, they might not have immediately spotted the Millennium Falcon, which rested flat against the destroyer’s hull, right where Han Solo had landed it. Because of the Falcon’s faded white exterior, the Corellian transport blended right in with the Imperial ship.

  “Captain Solo, this time you have gone too far,” C-3PO said from his seat behind Chewbacca in the cockpit.

  Chewbacca growled at the golden droid. C-3PO answered, “No, I will not be quiet, Chewbacca. Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?”

  Leia leaned forward in her seat behind Han. Both were looking out the cockpit window, watching the Star Destroyers move off in different directions.

  “The fleet is beginning to break up,” Han said. He glanced at Chewbacca and said, “Go back and stand by the manual release for the landing claw.”

  “I really don’t see how that is going to help,” the droid said as Chewbacca climbed from his seat and moved out of the cockpit. “Surrender is a perfectly acceptable alternative in extreme circumstances. The Empire may be gracious enough—”

  C-3PO’s sentence was cut short by Leia, who’d reached behind the droid’s neck to switch him off. The droid slumped forward against his seat belt and remained silent.

  “Thank you,” Han said.

  Leia felt the need to ask, “What did you have in mind for your next move?”

  Gesturing at the Star Destroyers, Han replied, “Well, if they follow standard Imperial procedure, they’ll dump their garbage before they go to lightspeed, and then we just float away.”

  “With the rest of the garbage,” Leia said, which made Han wince. “Then what?”

  “Then we’ve got to find a safe port somewhere around here.” Han activated a mapscreen on his control panel, and Leia leaned closer to him to study the map. Han asked, “Got any ideas?”

  “No. Where are we?”

  “The Anoat system.”

  “Anoat system,” Leia repeated thoughtfully. “There’s not much there.”

  “No,” Han said, then noticed something on the map. “Well, wait. This is interesting. Lando.”

  “Lando system?”

  Han grinned and said, “Lando’s n
ot a system, he’s a man. Lando Calrissian. He’s a card player, gambler—scoundrel.” He glanced at Leia and added, “You’d like him.”

  Leia smirked. “Thanks.”

  Han returned his attention to the mapscreen. “Bespin,” he said, giving the destination more consideration. “It’s pretty far, but I think we can make it.”

  Reading the displayed data on Bespin, Leia said, “A mining colony?”

  “Yeah,” Han said. “A Tibanna gas mine. Lando conned somebody out of it.” He leaned back in his seat and added, “We go back a long way, Lando and me.”

  From Han’s tone, Leia got the impression that his history with Lando wasn’t entirely friendly. “Can you trust him?” she asked.

  “No,” Han admitted. “But he has got no love for the Empire, I can tell you that.”

  Chewbacca barked over the ship’s intercom and Han quickly changed his readouts. Then he stretched to look out the cockpit window and saw a wide, rectangular hatch open on the Star Destroyer’s hull. Speaking into the intercom, Han said, “Here we go, Chewie. Stand by.” He waited for several large bits of metal refuse to float out of the open hatch, then said, “Detach!”

  The Falcon’s landing claw released, and the transport drifted away along with the debris that trailed from the Imperial cruiser. As they drifted farther from the ship, Leia felt increasingly elated. Granted, she would have been more relieved if the Falcon’s hyperdrive had actually kicked in when it was supposed to, but if it hadn’t been for Han’s quick thinking and cunning piloting skills…I have to give him some credit.

  As Han kept his eyes on the departing Star Destroyer, Leia touched his shoulder and said, “You do have your moments. Not many of them, but you do have them.” She kissed his cheek, then settled back into her seat.

  The destroyer’s three main ion engines flared brightly, then the ship launched forward and vanished into the distance. Han fired the Falcon’s sublight engines and veered away from the debris, heading in the opposite direction of the Imperial ship’s trajectory.

  As the Falcon sped away from the debris trail, there was a sudden flare from behind a large piece of drifting scrap—which wasn’t scrap at all. It was Slave I, a highly modified Firespray-class patrol-and-attack ship, equipped with numerous hidden weapons. And it was the personal transport for the bounty hunter Boba Fett.