Luke said, “Come on!”
Leia ran past Luke and through the cell’s open doorway, and he followed her out.
Tarkin sat at the far end of the round table in the conference room. Darth Vader stood at the other end and said, “He is here.”
“Obi-Wan Kenobi!” Tarkin said. “What makes you think so?”
“A tremor in the Force. The last time I felt it was in the presence of my old Master.”
Doubtful, Tarkin said, “Surely he must be dead by now.”
“Don’t underestimate the Force,” Vader replied.
“The Jedi are extinct; their fire has gone out of the universe. You, my friend, are all that’s left of their religion.” A signal chimed from the comlink at the console in front of Tarkin’s seat. Tarkin pressed a button on the console and said, “Yes.”
On the intercom, a voice said, “We have an emergency alert in detention block AA-twenty-three.”
“The princess!” Tarkin said. “Put all sections on alert!”
“Obi-Wan is here,” Vader stated. “The Force is with him.”
“If you’re right, he must not be allowed to escape.”
“Escape is not in his plan.” Before turning for the door, Vader said knowingly, “I must face him alone.”
Han and Chewbacca were still in the detention security area when they heard an ominous buzzing sound from the lift tube doors. The Wookiee growled at the noise. Han shouted, “Get behind me! Get behind me!”
Chewbacca jumped away from the lift tubes as an explosion ripped a large hole through one door. The hole’s edges were still smoldering as the first stormtrooper stepped through. Han aimed and fired. The trooper fell, and another trooper pushed his way through the hole, followed by another.
Han and Chewbacca ran for the detention corridor. Behind them, one stormtrooper stopped the others and said, “Off to your left. They went down in the cell bay.” The stormtroopers fired their blasters down the length of the detention corridor.
Inside the corridor, laserbolts whizzed past Luke and Leia. Because the cell doorways were recessed, the surrounding metal frames served as shallow protective alcoves. As Luke and Leia instinctively ducked against a door to avoid being hit, Han and Chewbacca came pounding up the corridor and threw themselves into neighboring doorways. Glancing back down the corridor to the security area, Han shouted, “Can’t get out that way.”
“Looks like you managed to cut off our only escape route,” Leia said angrily.
“Maybe you’d like it back in your cell, Your Highness,” Han replied.
Luke remembered C-3PO and R2-D2 were still back at the command office that overlooked Docking Bay 327. Thinking the droids might be useful, Luke reached for his comlink and said into it, “See-Threepio! See-Threepio!”
From the comlink, C-3PO replied, “Yes, sir?”
Luke said, “Are there any other ways out of the cell bay? We’ve been cut off!” More laserbolts zinged through the corridor. Luke shouted into his comlink, “What was that? I didn’t copy!”
“I said all systems have been alerted to your presence, sir,” C-3PO answered. “The main entrance seems to be the only way in or out; all other information on your level is restricted.”
Just then, the droid heard someone banging on the command office’s door. From the other side of the door, a stormtrooper demanded, “Open up in there! Open up in there!”
“Oh, no!” C-3PO cried.
Back at the detention cell corridor, Luke told the others the bad news: “There isn’t any other way out.”
More laserfire sailed through the corridor, some blasts impacting dangerously close to Luke and his allies. Han edged out from his alcove, fired back at the stormtroopers, then said, “I can’t hold them off forever! Now what?”
“This is some rescue,” Leia said sarcastically. “When you came in here, didn’t you have a plan for getting out?”
Han gestured to Luke and said, “He’s the brains, sweetheart.”
Luke said, “Well, I didn’t…”
Leia grabbed Luke’s blaster rifle and fired at a small grate in the wall next to Han. The blast tore a hole through the mesh, and Han felt the force of the explosion against the leggings of his stormtrooper armor. He shouted, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Somebody has to save our skins,” Leia said, then tossed Luke’s rifle back to him. “Into the garbage chute, flyboy.” She jumped through the narrow opening she’d created in the grate.
Chewbacca and Han exchanged amazed glances. Neither had expected the princess to be so resourceful, let alone be bold enough to leap into a garbage chute. Chewbacca moved toward the shattered grate, then recoiled from it and yowled.
“Get in there!” Han yelled. “Get in there, you big furry oaf! I don’t care what you smell! Get in there and don’t worry about it.” He gave Chewbacca a big kick, and the Wookiee disappeared into the tiny opening. Then Han turned to Luke’s position and said, “Wonderful girl! Either I’m going to kill her or I’m beginning to like her. Get in there!”
Han continued firing back at the stormtroopers while Luke ducked laserfire and jumped through the hole. Han fired a few more blasts to create a smoky cover, then held his blaster forward as he dived into the chute.
He yelled all the way down. Like the others who’d preceded him, he landed in a deep pile of garbage.
The garbage room was a metal-walled chamber that contained heaps of trash, everything from broken metal beams and bits of plastic scrap to organic waste. A pool of foul-smelling muck completely covered the floor. Leia’s white gown and Luke’s stormtrooper armor were already covered with grime, and Chewbacca’s fur was matted with swill.
Han leered at Leia and said, “The garbage chute was a really wonderful idea. What an incredible smell you’ve discovered!” Seeing Chewbacca trying to open a metal hatch, Han drew his blaster and said, “Let’s get out of here! Get away from there.”
Luke shouted, “No! Wait!”
Too late. Han fired at the hatch, and the laserbolt ricocheted wildly around the metal-walled chamber. Everyone dived for cover until the fired bolt’s charge ended in a small explosion that didn’t even dent the metal wall.
“Will you forget it?” Luke shouted to Han. “I already tried it.” Gesturing to the hatch, he added, “It’s magnetically sealed.”
Livid at Han, Leia tilted her chin at his blaster and said, “Put that thing away! You’re going to get us all killed.”
“Absolutely, Your Worship,” Han replied. “Look, I had everything under control until you led us down here. You know, it’s not going to take them long to figure out what happened to us.”
“It could be worse,” Leia said.
Unexpectedly, a loud, inhuman moan worked its way up from the mucky pool. The moan echoed off the garbage room walls.
Chewbacca turned to a wall and cowered. Despite the hazard posed by the magnetically sealed walls, Luke and Han held their blasters out, ready to fire. Han said, “It’s worse.”
Luke said, “There’s something alive in here!”
“That’s your imagination,” Han said.
“Something just moved past my leg!” Luke reported, then glimpsed a thick, serpentlike body twist through the muck. Luke pointed and said, “Look! Did you see that?”
“What?” Han asked.
They all looked down around their feet. No one saw the single eyestalk that rose like a periscope from the muck. The eye belonged to a dianoga, a seven-tentacled omnivorous predator that had wound up on the Death Star quite by accident. The dianoga’s eye quickly surveyed the four figures who appeared to be a tasty alternative to garbage. Then the eyestalk submerged.
Suddenly, Luke was yanked under the muck.
Han shouted, “Kid! Luke!” He pushed aside some garbage, but there wasn’t any sign of Luke’s armored body. “Luke!” He reached into the muck but couldn’t get his grip on anything. Precious seconds ticked by, and Han, Leia, and Chewbacca became more anxious. Han shouted again, “Luke!�
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There was an explosion of muck as Luke broke the surface, gasping for air. A membraned tentacle was wrapped around his head, and Luke thrashed and struggled against the creature’s hold.
“Luke!” Leia cried out. She grabbed a long metal pipe, extended it, and cried out, “Luke, Luke, grab hold of this.”
“Blast it, will you!” Luke yelled. “My gun’s jammed.”
Not knowing where to shoot and afraid he might hit Luke, Han said, “Where?”
“Anywhere!” Luke hollered. Han fired downward, but the creature held Luke tight. Han fired two more blasts.
“Oh!” Luke shouted, then he was pulled under again.
Han called out, “Luke! Luke!”
Without warning, the walls of the garbage room shuddered, then went quiet. Han and Leia exchanged a worried look.
What now? Leia wondered.
With a rush of bubbles, Luke bobbed up through the muck.
“Help him!” Leia yelled as Han scrambled through the trash to lift Luke to his feet. Hoping Luke knew the cause of the walls shuddering, Leia asked, “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Luke gasped. “It just let go of me and disappeared.”
Han looked around at the walls and said, “I got a bad feeling about this.”
The walls rumbled again, but this time they pushed inward.
“The walls are moving!” Luke shouted, then realized, This room is a trash compactor!
“Don’t just stand there,” Leia said to Han. “Try and brace it with something. Help me!”
They reached for discarded metal beams and tubelike poles, then angled them between the closing walls. Because all the garbage kept shifting and pushing up around them, it was difficult work. Despite their efforts, the poles snapped and the beams bent, and the walls continued to close in.
“Wait a minute!” Luke cried, and reached for his comlink transmitter. “See-Threepio. Come in, See-Threepio! See-Threepio!” When no answer came, Luke said, “Where could he be?”
C-3PO had accidentally left his comlink transmitter on top of a computer console in the command office for Docking Bay 327, which still contained the Millennium Falcon. Fortunately, when the stormtroopers finally shattered the lock and burst into the office, their attention was immediately drawn to the motionless bodies of the gantry officer and his aide lying on the floor, and they didn’t notice the comlink transmitter.
The stormtrooper squad leader gestured at the abandoned computer station and said to one trooper, “Take over!” Directing another trooper’s attention to the gantry officer’s body, the squad leader commanded, “See to him!” Then the squad leader noticed the office’s supply cabinet door was closed and said, “Look, there!”
A trooper pushed a button and the supply cabinet slid open, revealing C-3PO and R2-D2. The stormtroopers had no idea that the droids had deliberately locked themselves inside.
“They’re madmen!” C-3PO exclaimed. “They’re heading for the prison level. If you hurry, you might catch them.” The protocol droid knew Luke and the others had already escaped from the prison level, and hoped his ruse would distract the stormtroopers.
Believing that the droids were victims and not allies of the invaders, the stormtrooper squad leader turned to five troopers and said, “Follow me!” To one trooper, he ordered, “You stand guard.” The squad leader and five troopers ran out of the command office.
“Come on!” C-3PO said to R2-D2, but when they moved away from the supply cabinet, the remaining trooper raised his blaster rifle at them. Thinking fast, C-3PO faced the trooper and said, “Oh! All this excitement has overrun the circuits in my counterpart here. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take him down to maintenance.”
“All right,” the trooper said with a nod.
C-3PO and R2-D2 hurried out of the office.
“See-Threepio!” Luke shouted into his comlink as the garbage room walls continued to rumble closer. “Come in, See-Threepio! See-Threepio!”
Chewbacca whined and pushed against a wall with his large paws. Han and Leia worked together, trying to brace a long pole between the contracting walls. All around them, garbage was snapping and popping as it was pushed together.
Leia began to slip down into the trash. Han placed his hands on Leia’s hips and lifted her as he said, “Get to the top!”
“I can’t,” Leia said, but managed with Han’s help.
Luke hung on to the comlink transmitter and tried to contact C-3PO again. “Where could he be? See-Threepio? See-Threepio, will you come in?”
After eluding the stormtroopers in the command office, R2-D2 and C-3PO returned to Docking Bay 327, where they took protective cover behind some barrels. C-3PO moved cautiously to see the Millennium Falcon still resting on the hangar deck. A group of stormtroopers exited the Falcon, carrying the bodies of the scanning crew and the two troopers who’d unwittingly donated their armor to Luke and Han. Five stormtroopers remained on guard beside the Falcon’s landing ramp. There was no sign of Luke and the others.
C-3PO turned to R2-D2, who stood beside a computer service panel that was embedded in a wall. “They aren’t here!” said the golden droid with dismay. “Something must have happened to them.” He gestured at the service panel and said, “See if they’ve been captured.”
R2-D2 extended his computer interface arm and carefully plugged it into the service panel’s socket. A complex array of electronic sounds spewed from the astromech’s head.
Impatient and filled with worry, C-3PO cried, “Hurry!”
In the garbage room, the converging walls were less than two meters apart and still closing. Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca struggled to avoid being crushed as they climbed the shifting heaps of trash.
“One thing’s for sure,” Han said. “We’re all going to be a lot thinner!” Seeing that Leia was losing her footing, he shouted, “Get on top of it!”
“I’m trying!” Leia shouted back.
Luke thought, Is this how we’re going to die?! He kept his comlink activated, but with the walls now barely a meter apart, the possibility of C-3PO being able to help was a hope that was fading fast.
R2-D2 searched the Death Star’s computer banks but found no record of any intruders being captured since the Falcon had arrived in Docking Bay 327. The astromech rotated his dome and beeped his report to C-3PO.
“Thank goodness they haven’t found them!” C-3PO said. Glancing at the Falcon, he asked, “Where could they be?”
R2-D2 noticed the device that C-3PO had recovered, then beeped and whistled frantically.
“Use the comlink?” C-3PO replied, then realized he was still holding the transmitter. “Oh, my! I forgot…I turned it off!” He activated the comlink and said, “Are you there, sir?”
“See-Threepio!” Luke answered.
C-3PO said, “We’ve had some problems—”
“Will you shut up and listen to me,” Luke interrupted. “Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level, will you? Do you copy? Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level.”
Inside the garbage room, the walls didn’t stop moving, and only seconds remained before they’d meet. Fearing C-3PO hadn’t heard him, Luke repeated, “Shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level.”
R2-D2 beeped a question to C-3PO, who replied, “No. Shut them all down! Hurry!”
R2-D2’s extension arm twisted in the computer socket, then he and C-3PO listened to the comlink. They’d hoped to hear that all was well, but instead, the droids heard their allies screaming.
Holding the comlink away from his head, C-3PO looked at R2-D2 and cried, “Listen to them! They’re dying, Artoo-Detoo!”
Hearing more screams, C-3PO said mournfully, “Curse my metal body! I wasn’t fast enough. It’s all my fault! My poor master!”
But then, from the comlink, Luke’s excited voice said, “See-Threepio, we’re all right!”
Inside the narrow confines of the garbage room, the hollering continued, not because
of injury but from the sheer joy that everyone was still alive and unharmed. Holding his comlink, Luke sat atop a pile of trash and communicated to C-3PO, “We’re all right. You did great.”
Chewbacca howled with relief. Despite themselves, Han and Leia embraced.
Luke saw a hatch against the far wall. To C-3PO, he said, “Hey…hey, open the pressure maintenance hatch on unit number…” He turned to Han and asked, “Where are we?”
Han checked numbers that were etched on the hatch and read aloud, “Three-two-six-three-eight-two-seven.”
C-3PO made sure R2-D2 heard the numbers correctly, and the astromech opened the hatch.
Darth Vader may have sensed Obi-Wan’s presence on the Death Star, but not a single Imperial officer, stormtrooper, or droid noticed Obi-Wan’s stealthy movement through the corridors as he made his way to the nearest generator trench.
Ben stepped through a doorway and surveyed the trench. It was formed by two incredibly steep facing walls, and the air between them was taut with high voltage electricity. A 1.5-meter-wide bridge without guardrails spanned the trench, and an even more narrow footbridge—only 25 centimeters wide, and also without guardrails—extended from the bridge’s side to wrap around a power terminal. The power terminal stood atop a cylindrical generator tower. From the schematics that R2-D2 had conjured up back at the command station, Ben knew he’d have to step onto the footbridge to reach the generator’s control panels, and that the generator tower was thirty-five kilometers tall.
Even for a Jedi Knight, that was a long way down.
Focused on his mission and fearless of the dizzying height, Ben moved across the bridge, then onto the footbridge. He edged carefully around the power terminal until he could reach the generator controls. He pressed one lever, then edged farther around the terminal until he found the controls for the tractor beam power coupling.
The hatch for trash compactor 32-6-3827 adjoined a dusty, unused hallway. Han and Luke had removed their stormtrooper armor but retained the troopers’ white utility belts, each of which carried blaster power cell containers, a tool kit, and a grappling hook attached to a fibercord reel. Chewbacca sat outside the open hatch and tried to brush the grime from his matted fur. Leia smoothed out her gown and checked the pins that held her hair in place.
Star Wars Trilogy Page 9
