Beware the Power of the Dark Side!

by Tom Angleberger

  Then they must climb several sets of stairs placed there for no reason other than their own inconvenience.

  There is no luxury in this throne room. It is all girders and catwalks and strange machinery that hums, buzzes, and sometimes growls.

  Even the throne is menacing, more like a chunk of black rock than a chair. It doesn’t even have a cushion.

  This whole throne room was designed for just one purpose: to intimidate.

  And, judging by the way his Imperial advisers1 cower together near—but not too near—the throne, it is working. On their own planets, these men walk about like gods. But here, they are humbled.

  Vader makes the long climb to the foot of the throne.

  “What is thy bidding, my master?” he asks.

  “Send the fleet to the far side of Endor. There it will stay until called for,” orders Palpatine.

  “What of the reports of the rebel fleet massing near Sullust?” asks Vader, eager to be rid of his job babysitting this space station and get back to the real work of the Empire. As soon as he heard about the whereabouts of the rebel fleet he was ready to lead an attack.

  But the Emperor has something different in mind.

  “Sullust is of no concern. Soon the Rebellion will be crushed and young Skywalker will be one of us! Your work here is finished, my friend. Go out to the command ship and await my orders.”

  Vader disagrees and the Emperor knows he disagrees. But he also knows what Vader will say next….

  “Yes, my master.”

  The Emperor has already turned back to his “advisers,” leaving Vader to stalk back through the throne room and go forth on his errand.

  THE MILLENNIUM FALCON really is a great ship. She started out as just a pretty good ship, but a string of owners modified her to fit their needs. And these needs usually involved being able to outrun and outmaneuver both local and Imperial law enforcement ships.

  Lando was one of those former owners and he flew her even better than Han Solo could. Or at least that’s what he would tell you.

  And now, as he faced the most daring mission of his life, Lando knew he’d need a great ship. And Han would be flying the phony Imperial shuttle. There was no sense in leaving the Falcon behind.

  After he told all these things to Han a few times, Solo reluctantly agreed.

  And now the two old friends stand in the hangar, looking at the Falcon, thinking back on all the scrapes and near misses she has been through.

  “Look,” says Han. “I want you to take her. I mean it. Take her. You need all the help you can get. She’s the fastest ship in the fleet.”

  “All right, old buddy,” says Lando, laughing off the danger both to the ship and to himself. “You know, I know what she means to you. I’ll take good care of her. She—she won’t get a scratch. All right?”

  Han knows better than to put trust in Lando’s boasting. But after what happened back on Tatooine, he does trust Lando himself.

  “Right,” he says and turns away. Then turns back. “I got your promise. Not a scratch!”

  “Look, would you get going, you old pirate.”

  They salute each other, as generals should. But they both recall times when their adventures weren’t nearly so noble.

  “Good luck,” says Lando.

  “You, too, buddy,” says Han and this time he does walk away, to climb into a sluggish stolen shuttle instead of his own ship, to try to bluff his way past an Imperial blockade, to fight his way across an alien moon, and to attack a well-defended Imperial outpost with a handful of soldiers, a Wookiee, a farm boy, a princess, and two droids.

  Thinking about it a second, he isn’t quite sure why he’s bringing along the two droids…but, he reasons, they might come in handy.

  “BRING HER OUT of lightspeed, Chewie,” says Han, and his furry copilot pulls the lever to disengage the hyperdrive.

  The blur of stars and cosmic clouds they’ve been watching for hours freezes and they are looking at an ominous sight: an immense star cruiser, one of the biggest ships in the galaxy, just ahead.

  Beyond it looms something far bigger: the Empire’s new space station, the new Death Star.

  Jerjerrod still doesn’t have it finished and one whole hemisphere trails off into a mess of scaffolding and girders. But even unfinished it still seems unnaturally large.1 An insult to the cosmos that has already thrown off the rotation of the nearby moon.

  But our heroes are not quite as frightened as they might be. After all…they’ve blown up one of these things before. And this one isn’t even working yet.

  And yet…Leia notices that Luke seems more worried than the rest.

  Han and Chewie are busy at the controls.

  “Get the nav computer to plot us a course out of here, Chewie. If they don’t go for this, we’re going to have to get out of here pretty quick.”

  “Yrrrggh,” agrees Chewie.

  But both wonder if this sluggish shuttle could really make the jump to lightspeed before being blown to bits by that star cruiser.

  A screen lights up. Incoming message. Han pushes a button and the voice of an Imperial flight controller hisses into the cockpit. A different flight controller this time, but this one has flipped his share of switches, too.

  “We have you on our screen now. Please identify.”

  “Shuttle Tydirium requesting deactivation of the deflector shield,” says Han, trying his best to sound like a bored Imperial pilot who has done this dozens of times before.

  “Tydirium, transmit the clearance code for shield passage,” comes the authentically bored reply.

  “Transmission commencing,” says Han, punching the appropriate button.

  “Maintain present course until code verification.”

  Han clicks off the transmit switch and they can do nothing but wait.

  “Now we find out if that code is worth the price2 we paid,” says Leia.

  “It’ll work. It’ll work,” promises Han, who, of course, has no way of knowing whether it will or not.

  Meanwhile, the shuttle’s course carries them closer and closer to the colossal Star Destroyer. The entire rebel fleet could fit inside it, thinks Han, and then he remembers that even if he and his team can get the shield down, the rebel fleet is going to have to fight its way past that giant ship to get to the Death Star.

  Luke is having even darker thoughts about the Star Destroyer. There’s someone on board who’s even more dangerous than the countless guns and cannons. Far more dangerous.

  “Vader’s on that ship,” he murmurs.

  R2-D2 gives a worried whistle and Leia turns to Luke in alarm.

  “Now don’t get jittery, Luke,” says Han. “There are a lot of command ships. Keep your distance though, Chewie…but don’t look like you’re trying to keep your distance.”

  “HHHARGH?”

  “I don’t know,” says Han irritably. “Fly casual.”

  “Wuggg!”

  LUKE WAS RIGHT, reader; Vader is on that ship. He has followed the Emperor’s orders and flown out to the Star Destroyer.

  Frustrated and restless, he paces back and forth in front of the viewports, accomplishing nothing but scaring the many navigators, flight controllers, petty officers, and other Imperial crewmen.

  Admiral Piett, commander of the command ship, really wishes Vader would go elsewhere, but, of course, he will never say so and he even tries not to think so….He has heard rumors that Vader can read minds.

  Nothing could be of less interest to Vader than the admiral’s mind. He is barely aware of Piett or any of the crew.

  His mind is searching, probing, trying to reach out across the galaxy and find his son….

  And then suddenly it does.

  And Luke isn’t on the other side of the galaxy. He’s right here!

  Vader turns to the viewport and sees nothing of interest, just another shuttle flitting by. But his mind sees so much more than his eyes. And he knows that Luke is there, on that shuttle.

  He turns and in just a f
ew strides is towering over Piett.

  “Where is that shuttle going?” he demands.

  Piett presses a button and speaks into a comlink. “Shuttle Tydirium, what is your cargo and destination?”

  “Parts and technical crew for the forest moon,” comes the reply.

  “Do they have code clearance?” demands Vader.

  Piett doesn’t know, so he gestures to the flight controller, who always prayed he would never have to speak to Vader.

  “It’s…an older code, sir, but it checks out,” he reports. “I—I was about to clear them.”

  The controller braces himself. He knows what his fate might be if this is the wrong answer.

  But Vader gives no response.

  The tension has spread to the other flight controllers. Everyone pretends to work, but really just waits to see if their comrade—and maybe even their admiral—is going to die over this seemingly routine shuttle landing.

  Finally, Piett can bear it no longer.

  “Shall I hold them?” he suggests.

  “No,” booms Vader. “Leave them to me. I will deal with them myself.”

  “As you wish, my lord,” says Piett. “Carry on, control.”

  Vader stomps away and everyone on the bridge relaxes….They have absolutely no idea what got Vader so agitated—and in fact they never will find out—but at least he is gone and they’re still breathing.

  THE IMPERIAL CREW members aren’t the only ones who were waiting nervously on Vader’s decision.

  Back on the shuttle, Han has kept both eyes on the Star Destroyer’s cannons, expecting them to swivel in his direction at any second.

  What could be taking so long? The code transmission went through several minutes ago!

  “They’re not going for it, Chewie,” mutters Han, putting a hand on the hyperdrive controls.

  But then comes a transmission.

  “Shuttle Tydirium, deactivation of the shield will commence immediately. You may begin your descent, bearing ten dot twenty-two.”

  “Okay!” says Han, then flicks off the transmitter.

  “I told you it was gonna work,” he tells his friends. “No problem.”

  But there is a problem and Luke knows it.

  “I’m endangering the mission,” he says. “I shouldn’t have come. Vader knows.”

  “It’s your imagination, kid,” says Han. “Come on. Let’s keep a little optimism here.”

  AH, THE FOREST MOON OF ENDOR! At last!

  Think what it’s been like for our heroes….

  That endless desert on Tatooine, then the stinking lair of Jabba.

  For Luke there was a brief visit to a swamp: all mud and muck, no sunlight.

  And the rest of the time has been spent on various rebel spaceships, and let’s face it, the rebels can barely keep those things flying. There is no time or money to spend on interior decorating.

  And that Imperial shuttle may look nice from the outside, but inside it has been trashed by the countless sweaty stormtroopers it has hauled around. It reeks of stale sweat and every surface is covered in TK numbers1 scratched by bored troopers.

  So think how wonderful it is for our heroes to tumble out of that junker and breathe in the air of Endor’s moon, air purified by a hundred billion trees.

  It’s hard for residents of developed worlds to wrap their heads around a planet covered in trees.

  They may know what a forest is like because they have taken a road or a path through a forest. But at some point, they came out on the other side.

  On this moon, the paths (there are no roads) don’t come out the other side. There is no other side.

  There are a few clearings here and there and those clearings are covered in grass. Grass! How long has it been since any of our heroes has seen a blade of grass?

  Oh, what a wonderful place, reader! Maybe the best place left in the galaxy….

  Which, of course, means the Empire couldn’t resist stomping on it with a big ugly boot.

  The shield generator could have been built in any of thousands of desolate, lifeless planetary systems. But the Emperor himself picked this spot from several suggested by Imperial engineers.

  The engineers liked the idea of burning up the moon’s resources to fuel the shield.

  And the Emperor liked the idea of crushing something beautiful.

  Deep in the official report on the generator site was a mention that the moon was inhabited by a primitive species called Ewoks. It included a hologram of one of these creatures—small, short, hairy with big eyes. They could be a nuisance, warned one engineer.

  The Emperor waved the whole species aside impatiently. What does he care about some overgrown rodents? Trod them underfoot and get to work!

  Ah, but, Palpatine…maybe you should have taken a closer look.

  VADER COULD HAVE alerted the whole Imperial network to the presence of Luke and his friends on the shuttle.

  But he didn’t.

  He told Admiral Piett that he would handle it personally—and that’s exactly what he wanted to do.

  However, he failed to mention to Piett that even he—Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith—would need to ask the Emperor for permission first.

  So Vader explained nothing. Instead, he sent for his own shuttle to take him back to the Emperor’s throne room. Meanwhile, Solo piloted the stolen shuttle down to the forest moon without any further Imperial interference.

  At the Imperial base on the moon, an overworked warehouse manager got a call about an incoming shipment he had never requested. He grumbled about this for a while, but when it never showed up he forgot all about it.

  And the Imperial scout troopers patrolling the forest? They didn’t get a bit of warning.

  Until—way, way out in the woods—one of the scouts hears a twig snap behind him.

  He whirls around, expecting to see another of those obnoxious Ewoks. Instead it’s a tough-looking human sneaking up on him…with a blaster pistol!

  This human—who is, of course, Han Solo—looks as surprised by the twig snap as the scout does.

  Scout troopers are chosen for their fast reflexes. This one punches Han with a rock-hard, armored glove just as Han pulls the trigger on his blaster.

  The shot goes wild, Han goes sprawling, and the scout yells to his partner, “Go for help!”

  The other scout jumps on his speeder bike—basically a gravity-repulsor engine with a seat and handlebars. Long stabilizers on the front allow for precise control even at high speed.

  And high speed is exactly what this scout has in mind.

  With a flick of the throttle, he’s flying through the forest, skimming less than a meter off the ground, and already going incredibly fast.

  But not faster than a laser bolt. Chewbacca leaps from behind a tree, levels his powerful bowcaster,1 and sends two screaming red blasts after the rapidly disappearing bike.

  The scout swoops low to duck the first blast—but the second hits the back of the speeder bike, knocking out the engine. He can’t pull out of his swoop, crashes into a fallen tree, and dies in the fiery explosion of the repulsorlift engine.

  Unfortunately for our heroes, that explosion brings the attention of another pair of scouts. They swoop in to see what is happening.

  Most of the rebel strike team is hidden, but the biker scouts see enough to know they’re outnumbered. They make a sharp turn—stabilizers shrieking in protest—and head back to the base. The rebels open fire, but the biker scouts are weaving between trees, making a direct hit impossible.

  We can’t let those two raise the alarm, thinks Leia, racing for the remaining speeder bike. (Han is busy smashing the owner of this bike into a tree.)

  “Wait, Leia!” yells Luke, charging after her.

  Leia trained on a similar, but much slower, speeder bike on Alderaan. Still, it takes her a few seconds to recognize the controls, giving Luke just enough time to jump on the back of the bike before she stomps the accelerator and shoots off through the forest.

&nb
sp; “Hey! Wait!” yells Han.

  But Luke and Leia are already half a mile away.

  LEIA IS INTENSE, dodging living trees, swooping over or under dead ones, struggling to get a glimpse—or even better, a straight shot—at the fleeing biker scouts.

  “See if you can jam their comlinks!” yells Luke.

  She takes her eyes off the forest for an instant to find the right switch. At this speed that’s nearly a fatal decision, but she looks up just in time to swerve around a stump just barely visible amongst the undergrowth.

  The switch is flipped just in time, cutting off a transmission from the lead scout to his commander back at base.

  The commander—curious, but not particularly alarmed—sends out another pair of biker scouts to investigate. They zip off eagerly. It’s probably Ewoks again and that means some fun target practice.

  Meanwhile, the two scouts already out there aren’t having much fun at all. Leia is actually gaining on them!

  Impossible!

  Impossible it is not, Luke thinks, remembering the teachings of Master Yoda.

  “Move closer!” he yells. “Get alongside that one!”

  The scouts swing wide to go around two close trees, but Leia actually shoots between the two massive trunks—so close that Luke feels the bark tear at his sleeves.

  The risky move pays off and now they’re racing side by side with the second scout. He jerks his handlebars and smashes his bike into theirs. He’s trying to shove us into that tree, realizes Leia. She splits off just long enough to dodge the tree and then jerks her own handlebars to swerve back, almost knocking the scout off course in return.

  The scout swings back to try the same trick again, but this time Luke is ready and makes a mad leap from the back of one bike to the other.

  He lands astride the bike and immediately begins grappling with the scout. As Luke guessed, this trooper is good on a speeder bike, but not much of a fighter. Luke wrenches him off the seat and hurls him off the speeder—just in time for the scout to smash into a tree.