by John Peel
It was up to me to come up with a plan. Before this, most of my plans were simple things like how to fix broken farm machinery, or how to pull a joke on Windy back home. Now I had to outthink Imperial troopers and rescue the princess from her jail cell, which was bound to be guarded.
But then I realized something: we were guards.
And instantly I knew how we could get into the detention area. I explained my plan to Han and Chewie. The Wookiee complained loudly, because it involved his looking like he was our prisoner. If we were taking him into the cells for some crime, the other guards would let us in. Then we would be able to get to the princess’s cell and get her out.
Of course, then we’d have to get back to the Falcon with her, hoping that nobody noticed. I thought that on a ship this size, there had to be women workers, so maybe a princess wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Of course, that was before I knew the Empire rarely uses women or aliens in their forces. That’s how narrowminded Vader and the rest are. They don’t think women are useful!
Anyway, instead I decided to concentrate on one problem at a time. When we had the princess safe, the rest of the plan could be worked out.
With any luck, that was.
Despite Chewie’s complaints, Han managed to convince him that my idea was good. We took him to an elevator bank wearing unlocked restraints. And nobody seemed to think we were anything other than two guards with a prisoner. Some of them gave the Wookiee odd looks, but nobody asked us questions or stopped us.
Until we reached the detention area, of course. There we ran into a major problem. There was an officer on duty at the entrance, and he was your typical Imperial by-the-book type. He wanted transfer papers and all sorts of authorizations for Chewie that we obviously didn’t have. There were a couple of guards with him, and they were starting to get suspicious.
Luckily, Han thinks fast. He had Chewie stage a breakout, and while everyone was staring at the mad Wookiee, he and I managed to shoot the guards. Unfortunately, not before the officer sounded the alarm.
I found out where the princess was being held and headed straight for her cell. Han and Chewie stayed behind to try and sort out the mess we’d caused. I was feeling the adrenaline pumping now, after that fight. I didn’t know whether I’d killed the guards I’d shot or simply stunned them. To be honest, I didn’t really care.
I’d have thought I’d have felt worse about killing someone, but right then I had more important things on my mind. Besides, the guard would have killed me, so it was definitely self-defense. And yes, he was holding and would have killed the princess. But he was also a human being, somebody with a family who maybe loved him. And maybe I’d killed him. It’s a really odd feeling, thinking about that.
But right then I was occupied with other things. Such as saving a princess.
I found her cell door and opened it without any problem. She was awake inside, and obviously expecting to be taken off for execution. She looked up at me, and all the things I’d been planning to say went right out of my head.
She was even more beautiful in person than she’d looked on the recording. There was a look in her eyes that told me she’d never beg for her life, and that she’d fight to the end to stay alive. So all of my Hi, I’m Luke Skywalker, and this is a rescue lines went clean out of my head. I just stood there, stammering a little.
And she asked me, “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” Like that was the only thing on her mind right then.
It was such an odd thing to say that it started my brain working again. I managed to tell her who I was, and I took off the helmet. That was so she could see my face and tell I was being truthful. It was also so I could get a better look at her. The eyepieces in the helmet were a little distorting.
She didn’t know who I was, of course, so I explained that we had her Artoo unit, and that we were there with Ben Kenobi. That got her attention, and she started to ask questions I didn’t have time to answer.
Suddenly there was a whole bunch of firing, and Han and Chewie came down the tunnel toward us, firing their guns behind them. It seemed that Han hadn’t managed to convince security that there wasn’t a problem, and there were more guards pouring into the area, all after us.
The princess wasn’t exactly thrilled with this news, and Han was even less thrilled with the princess. I could see that they’d both taken an instant dislike to one another. But they didn’t have too much time to express their differences. We were trapped inside a maximum security area, with guards coming at us from the only exit.
It was not a good place to be right then.
ELEVENTH ENTRY
I had to cut that last entry short to relieve Han for a while at the controls of the Millennium Falcon. And, to be honest, because I’m getting to the part I really dread—Ben’s death. But I’ve simply got to steel myself and get on with it. This way, I can try to get a handle on how I feel.
Well, Leia—she asked me to stop calling her princess because she hates formality—realized that I’d messed things up. “You call this a rescue?” she demanded.
I suppose I should have been annoyed that she wasn’t more grateful; Han certainly was irritated. After all, she’d been marked for execution, and we were doing our best to get her out alive. The problem was, there didn’t seem to be any way to escape all those stormtroopers. Han looked to me for a plan; I didn’t have anyone to look to.
And I was fresh out of ideas.
Leia wasn’t, though. I’d always pictured princesses as these pampered young women with great skin, gorgeous bodies, rich fathers, and brains permanently in neutral. But Leia’s nothing like that. Well, no, that’s not what I mean. She is beautiful, but she’s not pampered or spoiled, and her brain is obviously very active.
She grabbed my blaster and blew a hole in the tunnel wall. I didn’t know why, until she explained that it was the way the garbage went out, and if garbage went out, so could we. It sounded pretty reasonable, but with blaster bolts burning up the air from the troopers, almost anything would have sounded pretty reasonable right then. We didn’t have much choice but to follow her in.
There was a drop, and then thick, garbage-strewn water. What there wasn’t was a door out of there. The smell was awful, and I didn’t even want to think about what might be floating around with us. The water was about waist-deep; at least, I hoped it was water.
Then things got really bad.
There was something alive in there. I don’t know what, because we never actually saw it. There were only low-level lights in the place, so we saw mostly shapes and shadows. But whatever it was, it was big and it was aquatic. And, apparently, it ate almost anything. The Imperials must use it to get rid of organic wastes, which made sense. Anyway, the problem with that was that we were organic, and the thing went for us.
Specifically, for me.
Tentacles suddenly wrapped around me, and I was dragged under the water. I had just enough warning to allow me to gulp in a lungful of air. But I lost my blaster as I was yanked off my feet. I did have my lightsaber, but it was inside the armor I wore, and I didn’t think the monster that had me would allow me to get it out. I struggled in the dark, filthy water, trying to free myself, and trying not to breathe.
I’ll admit that I was scared stiff. There’s nothing worse than fighting something you can’t see, in slow motion because you’re underwater. I wanted to scream, and couldn’t. It was just me and this thing in the darkness.
Then I felt… its tongue, I guess. Something that rubbed along my armor and then across my face. I wanted to vomit, but I was too busy holding my breath. It felt rough, like sand grains on the skin.
And then it just let me go.
I don’t know why. Thinking back, the most obvious reason is that it’s a scavenger. It eats refuse. And I was alive, kicking—quite a lot—and a lot warmer than its normal food. I just didn’t suit its taste, so it let me go.
I staggered to my feet and took in a deep breath. I almost wished I hadn’t, bec
ause then I could tell what I smelled like, and it was awful. But I was so glad to be alive, I didn’t really care.
Then suddenly, we heard the sound of motors. I’d heard something rumbling while I was underwater, and probably the whatever-it-was under there had, too. Maybe that’s why it let me go: it knew what those noises meant, and it had some way out of the room.
We didn’t get it at first.
We weren’t just in a garbage chute; we’d fallen into a trash compactor. And we were going to get compacted along with the garbage!
I don’t know if the Imperials did this deliberately, or whether the compactor was simply running on a regular schedule. Either way, our luck had run bad. The walls were closing in, and we were destined to become a lot thinner.
We all panicked and tried to jam the walls apart. We didn’t have any luck, naturally. Things were starting to look really bad for us again, and Han and Leia were trading insults as the walls got closer.
Then the comlink sounded, and Threepio was on the other end. He and Artoo had run into some trouble, but I didn’t have time for any long-winded stories. I ordered him to have Artoo shut down the trash compactors and then open the door for us—fast!
It was an incredible relief to get out of there. We smelled repulsive, of course, and the body gloves Han and I still wore under the white stormtrooper armor were wet.
Somehow—even after falling into the trash—Leia managed to look lovely. Apparently, Han was too busy arguing with her to notice.
I was hoping we’d have an easy, uneventful trip back to the Falcon. But the stormtroopers had other ideas. They were after us again. We had no choice but to run for it and try to get to the ship from another direction. Somehow Leia and I got separated from Han and Chewie in the fighting and running. But at least we were armed with guns—which made us feel a bit better.
The troopers’ armor is supposed to reflect blaster bolts. That’s why they wear it in the first place. Only there are several weak spots you can hit if you’re a good-enough shot. The joints, for example, or the neck. And if you aim just right, the eyepieces. Most of the Imperials weren’t very good shots. Maybe because they’re used to just rounding people up and murdering them, which doesn’t take much skill. They had a hard time shooting at us, because we ducked and weaved and shot back a lot. I was a pretty decent shot back home—when you’ve got little else to do, you tend to practice shooting a lot. So most of the troopers I hit stayed down. What surprised me was that Leia was good, too. She’d obviously practiced a lot as well.
Our luck couldn’t hold, of course. Sooner or later we’d run into someone who actually could shoot straight. Leia and I ducked through a door and shot out the lock behind us, only to discover we’d sealed ourselves into trouble, not out of it.
We were at the top of a drop shaft, leading into the depths of the station. I don’t know how far down it went, but it had to be kilometers. This was a big station. There was a door on the other side of the drop, and absolutely no way to get over to it. There was a ramp that could be extended across the drop—providing we hadn’t already shot out the controls, of course.
So we were stuck, and the troopers knew it. All they had to do was blast through the door and push us off.
I wasn’t about to panic, though, and make the princess think I was a jerk. Instead, I considered our options. There was nothing to make a bridge out of, but my eye caught a length of piping about ten feet above where we stood.
We might be able to swing across.
In my belt I had several items that were handy around the farm, one of which was a spool of cable. It’s very high-tensile, because you never knew when you might need to pull a stuck droid out of a moisture sump or something. And there was a small hook on the end, enabling it to snap into place and hold on. So I took it out and flung it over the bar above us. It clicked and caught hold.
“Hang on!” I told Leia.
She understood what I was doing and grabbed me tightly. I wished I had longer to appreciate that hold, then she abruptly kissed me.
“For luck!” she explained.
Well, we certainly needed all the luck we could get. The touch of her lips burned on my cheek, and I took a deep breath and swung.
We made it, even if my landing was a bit wobbly. Then Leia opened the door and we were heading back to the ship. The Imperials still didn’t have the far door open, so they didn’t know we’d made it to the other side.
I was still all mixed-up inside as I ran with the princess. She’d kissed me! Okay, it was only a peck on the cheek, but she was the only woman who’d ever kissed me. Oh, Aunt Beru had when I was a child, but relatives don’t count. It made me feel so good. The princess was starting to like me! And I was crazy about her, of course.
I’d never known anyone quite like her. Leia has such a directness about her, such a certainty that what she’s doing is right. She doesn’t see her rank as one giving her rights, but as one giving her opportunities. You can’t help admiring her.
Well, I can’t, anyway.
Han can’t understand why she’s fighting for the Rebels. She’s rich! He says that what’s important in life is money, and that’s all he wants. Maybe that’s what he believes himself, but I don’t. I think there’s more to Han Solo than he wants people to see. Oh, he’s certainly interested in money, but I don’t think he’s as selfish as he pretends to be. He couldn’t be that shallow.
I may as well admit that I’m talking so much here because I don’t really want to talk about what happened next. But I can’t keep avoiding it, no matter how painful it is. So I’ll just take a deep breath and move on…
We made it back to the docking bay at about the same time as Han and Chewie. The droids were there, too, but Ben wasn’t back yet. Han and Chewie ran to the Falcon. Leia, of course, stared at it the way I had when I’d first seen it.
“You came here in that?” she asked us. “You’re braver than I thought.”
I’d figured it out by now, and tried to explain to her that Han deliberately made the ship look like it was junk. That way, when the Falcon zipped right past the Imperials, they’d be caught completely by surprise. I didn’t get far with my explanation because I suddenly felt this chill clean down to my bones. I turned around. Shocked, I saw Ben with his lightsaber activated.
His opponent was a figure I’ll never forget. He wore black armor and a long, black cloak. He was taller by a head than Ben, and obviously tremendously strong. Yet Ben was holding him off without too much effort.
Ben must have run into trouble while he was fixing the tractor beam. He caught sight of us as he fought and gave a nod to show he’d fixed it. We could leave.
Except we couldn’t abandon Ben, of course.
The person he was fighting could only be one man. I realized now that Ben had felt him when we’d landed. It had to be Darth Vader, the man who’d killed my father. I stared at him with hatred and loathing—not caring what Ben had said about such emotions laying you open to the dark side of the Force.
With everything I had inside me, I willed Ben to kill him.
And Ben knew this. I could tell. He could feel me through the Force. Then he did the most unbelievable, most idiotic thing he could have done.
He broke apart from Vader and said a few words to him. Then he raised his lightsaber—not to fight, but as a kind of mocking salute.
I couldn’t believe it! Ben had been winning, and he simply gave up!
Vader took advantage of Ben’s move, of course. He didn’t do anything noble or quixotic like saluting back. He brought his own lightsaber down over his head and right through Ben.
At least, that’s what should have happened. There should have been two pieces of Ben, sliced nearly down the middle, lying on the deck.
Instead, there was just the rustle of his cloak settling to the deck.
I didn’t understand it then, and I don’t understand it now. Somehow, Ben’s body had simply vanished. Vader had won the fight, but he didn’t have anything to show f
or it except Ben’s cloak and his deactivated lightsaber, rolling across the deck.
It didn’t matter. Ben was dead. I simply went crazy. Right then and there, all I wanted to do was to attack Vader and kill him. I just wanted to rush over there and take Vader apart, piece by piece. Despite the troopers that had appeared and were shooting at us. They somehow seemed unimportant to me. It never occurred to me that they might actually be able to kill me.
Only two things stopped me from getting myself killed. First of all, the Falcon was ready to lift off, and Han and Leia were ready to go with it. They weren’t going to let me stay behind and die. I fought to get free of them, to go and avenge Ben, but I was still sane enough not to want to hurt them.
And then it happened.
I heard Ben’s voice, quietly, in my ear, as definitely as I’ve ever heard anyone’s voice in my life.
“Run, Luke, run!” he ordered.
I didn’t even think about it then. If Ben wanted me to go, I’d do it. I turned and dashed into the ship. Han had her up and heading for the doors before I could even sit down. Luckily, the doors were on a proximity alert and opened as the Falcon approached them. Ben had indeed fixed the tractor beam, and we were off and away.
We had a new passenger now—Princess Leia Organa. But we’d left one behind in payment.
Why?
Why, when he could have won, did he let Vader kill him? I couldn’t understand it. It made absolutely no sense to me at all. If he’d done it to stop Vader from reaching us, maybe I could have accepted that. Ben giving his life to let us get away—yes, that would have been heroic. But that wasn’t it at all. He could have killed Vader, I’m sure of it. But he didn’t. Why?
