Chewbacca threw switches to adjust the shields. Han pulled on a pair of skintight leather piloting gloves and bolted out of the cockpit.
Back in the main hold, Leia continued to sit by Luke. He shook his head sadly and said, “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
R2-D2 emitted a sympathetic beep. Although C-3PO was rarely at a loss for words, he remained silent.
Leia said, “There wasn’t anything you could have done.”
Just then, Han rushed into the hold. Looking at Luke, he said, “Come on, buddy, we’re not out of this yet!”
Leia and Luke jumped up from their seats, leaving the droids at the game table. While Leia ran to the Falcon’s cockpit, Luke shrugged off the blanket that Leia had given him and followed Han to the access hatch for the gunport turrets.
The access hatch opened to a narrow passage tube with a ladder that traveled between the dorsal and ventral quad laser cannons. Han climbed up the ladder and Luke climbed down. Each arrived in a windowed gunner’s enclosure that contained a maneuverable seat with firing controls and targeting instrumentation. Outside each window was a large swivel-mounted quad laser cannon. Luke was pretty sure the cannons were military issue. I don’t even want to think how Han got these weapons!
Luke and Han settled into their seats at each end of the passage tube. Han adjusted his comlink headset and spoke into the attached microphone: “You in, kid? Okay, stay sharp!”
Luke quickly familiarized himself with the controls. There was a targeting computer that worked in conjunction with the Falcon’s navigational computer and sensor array to calculate trajectories and attack and intercept courses. Grasping twin firing grips with built-in triggers, Luke shifted his wrists to the right; his seat automatically swiveled to the left, and the cannon’s four laser barrels—visible through the ventral window—swung hard to the right. Then he pulled back on the controls and the seat lowered as the cannon raised. Each movement was accompanied by the mechanical whine from the cannon’s tracking servos.
Suddenly, the Falcon shuddered as its shields took a laser hit from a distant attacker. In the cockpit, Leia and Chewbacca glanced from the scopes to the window, keeping their eyes peeled for the incoming Imperial sentry ships. Chewbacca spotted them first and barked. Leia said into the cockpit’s comlink, “Here they come!”
The sentry ships were four TIE fighters. They came in fast, flying in a tight formation toward the Falcon’s cockpit before they broke away from each other and fanned out around the freighter. Then the fighters looped back and fired again at their target. Green laserbolts hammered at the Falcon’s deflector shields.
The Falcon bounced and vibrated and the ship’s power surged. In the Falcon’s main hold, C-3PO clung to his seat beside R2-D2 as the lights dimmed and then came back on. Hoping to make himself useful, R2-D2 left the game table to inspect the engineering station. Not wanting to be left alone, C-3PO went with him.
A TIE fighter maneuvered above the Falcon. Han tracked the fighter and fired at it with his laser cannon, but missed. The TIE fighter looped back and streaked into Luke’s view, and Luke fired, too, without effect.
Two TIE fighters spat laserfire and the Falcon bounced as it took more hits. Luke hung tight to his controls and fired at one of the passing TIE fighters as it soared past his window. He shouted, “They’re coming in too fast!”
C-3PO and R2-D2 stumbled out of the main hold and into the passage tube just as more Imperial laserfire struck the Falcon. There was a small explosion at the floor. C-3PO shouted, “Oh!” as he was thrown against the passage tube’s wall.
In the cockpit, Leia watched the computer readouts as Chewbacca manipulated the ship’s controls. “We’ve lost lateral controls,” she reported.
Via comlink, Han answered, “Don’t worry, she’ll hold together.”
Near the droids, a control panel blew out in a shower of sparks beside the laser cannon access hatch. Han heard the explosion. Speaking directly to his ship, he said, “You hear me, baby? Hold together!”
R2-D2 hurried over to the smoking, sparking control panel. Among the astromech’s many useful devices was a fire extinguisher. He sprayed the control panel until the fire was out.
The TIE fighters continued their attack. Luke and Han swiveled madly in their turrets as they returned fire. Han followed a TIE fighter in his sights and pumped rapid bursts of laserbolts at it. He connected, and the TIE fighter exploded. Han laughed victoriously.
A moment later, another TIE fighter swept into Luke’s line of fire. Luke swung the cannon as he squeezed the firing grips and scored a direct hit, shattering the TIE fighter.
“Got him!” Luke shouted back to Han. “I got him!”
Han glanced down the passage tube, waved at Luke, and said, “Great, kid!” As he quickly returned his attention to his own targeting computer he added, “Don’t get cocky.”
From the cockpit, Leia reported, “There are still two more of them out there!”
The two remaining TIE fighters crossed in front of the Falcon, then veered away to attack from different directions. Han swiveled in his chair and followed one TIE fighter with blasts from his cannon, and Luke did the same as the other fighter streaked under the Falcon.
Both TIE fighters looped back, firing more rounds of green laserbolts. One fighter angled into Luke’s view, and he fired a laserblast at it. The fighter exploded.
The last of the attacking TIE fighters zoomed in and fired at the top of the Falcon. Han swiveled behind his laser cannon and squeezed the firing grips. The fighter was instantly consumed in a massive, fiery explosion. Han blew out a relieved breath.
Luke laughed. “That’s it! We did it!”
In the cockpit, Leia embraced Chewbacca and said, “We did it!”
“Help!” cried C-3PO from a tangle of sparking wires on the floor of the passage tube. “I think I’m melting!” Sighting R2-D2, he added, “This is all your fault.”
R2-D2 beeped in disagreement.
The nav computer found a hyperspace portal. It was only good for a short jump, but Chewbacca seized the opportunity to gain more distance from the Death Star. He punched the controls, and the Falcon blasted into hyperspace.
Darth Vader stood with Grand Moff Tarkin in the Death Star control room. Tarkin looked at the wide viewscreen and said, “Are they away?”
“They have just made the jump into hyperspace,” Vader said.
“You’re sure the homing beacon is secure aboard their ship?” Tarkin said.
Vader didn’t answer. He’d already told Tarkin that the homing beacon had been placed on the Corellian freighter and did not feel compelled to repeat himself. It had been Vader’s idea to use the rescue of Princess Leia to the Empire’s advantage. It had also been his idea to send the TIE fighters in pursuit of the freighter; if the princess and her allies suspected they’d been allowed to escape, they might not proceed directly to the Rebel base. The loss of the four TIE fighters and their pilots was an insignificant price for gaining the base’s location.
“I’m taking an awful risk, Vader,” Tarkin said. “This had better work.”
Again, Vader remained silent, but he thought, If we’d done things your way, Princess Leia would have been executed by now. And how would that have helped us find the Rebel base, Grand Moff Tarkin?
“Not a bad bit of rescuing, huh!” Han said as he returned to the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit, just as Chewbacca rose to leave and check the ship for damage in the aft section. Leia remained seated behind the piloting controls.
Sliding into the Wookiee’s vacated seat, Han pulled off his gloves and added, “You know, sometimes I amaze even myself.”
“That doesn’t sound too hard,” Leia said. “They let us go. It’s the only explanation for the ease of our escape.”
“Easy!” Han said, raising his eyebrows quizzically. “You call that easy?”
“They’re tracking us!” Leia insisted.
“Not this ship, sister,” Han said.
Let him think wh
at he wants, Leia thought. She said, “At least the information in Artoo-Detoo is still intact.”
“What’s so important?” Han asked. “What’s he carrying?”
“The technical readouts of that battle station,” Leia replied. “I only hope that when the data is analyzed, a weakness can be found. It’s not over yet!”
“It is for me, sister!” Han said angrily. “Look, I ain’t in this for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money!”
Leia glared at Han. “You needn’t worry about your reward,” she said. “When you get us to our destination, you’ll receive it.”
“Don’t you think it’d help if you told me where we’re going?”
“The fourth moon of the planet Yavin,” Leia said. “That’s where the base is. Then you can do whatever you like. If money is all that you love, then that’s what you’ll receive.”
Han looked out the window. Leia rose from the pilot’s seat and turned to leave just as Luke entered the cockpit. Looking at Luke, she said, “Your friend is quite a mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything…or anybody.” She walked out.
“I care!” Luke said, but Leia was already walking back to the main hold. Luke shook his head and sat down in the pilot’s seat. Then he looked at Han and asked, “So…what do you think of her, Han?”
“I’m not trying to, kid!” Han replied.
Under his breath, Luke said, “Good.”
Han glanced at Luke, who’d turned his attention to the ship’s controls. Realizing that Luke might have feelings for the princess, Han decided to have some fun. He said, “Still, she’s got a lot of spirit. I don’t know, what do you think? Do you think a princess and a guy like me—”
“No!” Luke said sharply, then looked away, glowering.
Han grinned. Now he knew Luke had feelings for Leia.
Because it was impossible for a starship to change course in hyperspace, the Falcon had to drop back into realspace before making another jump to the Yavin system. While checking the nav computer calculations for the journey to Yavin’s fourth moon, Han wondered if anyone—with or without the precious technical readouts—would be able to destroy the Death Star.
He doubted it very much.
The planet Yavin was an orange gas giant, nearly 200,000 kilometers in diameter. It had dozens of moons, three of which could support humanoid life. The innermost habitable moon was designated Yavin 4, and was covered by steamy jungles and volcanic mountain ranges. Thousands of years earlier, Yavin 4 had been the home to the Massassi, an ancient species of fierce warriors. All that remained of the Massassi were their scattered ruins, including a towering ziggurat—a terraced pyramid with successively receding stories—known as the Great Temple. It was in this long-abandoned structure that the Alliance—following their evacuation from the planet Dantooine—had relocated their primary base.
After the Millennium Falcon was cleared for landing, a Rebel sentry visually monitored the freighter’s atmospheric descent from an observation tower, which was little more than a barrel-topped pole that extended high above the jungle floor. The Falcon touched down near the Great Temple, where Rebel troops greeted Princess Leia and her rescuers.
Two military speeders transported Luke and the others into the main hangar deck, a large chamber that had been excavated from the lower level of the Great Temple. The hangar contained a few dozen single-pilot starships, mostly T-65 X-wing starfighters but also some older Y-wings. The X-wings were named for their two sets of double-layered wings, which were closed during normal space flight but deployed into an X formation for combat; the end of each wingtip sported a sleek laser cannon. The Y-wing starfighters were distinguished by a forward cockpit module that housed the pilot and the weapons systems, and had two ion jet engines that swept back from the main body. Both X-wing and Y-wing designs included a socket behind the cockpit where an R2 astromech could be inserted to handle all astrogation duties.
The two military speeders came to a stop inside the hangar. The group was then approached by Commander Vanden Willard, a gray-haired leader of the Rebel Forces on Yavin 4. Willard welcomed Leia with a hug and said, “You’re safe! When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst.”
“We have no time for sorrows, Commander,” Leia said. As Rebel technicians unloaded R2-D2 from the lead speeder, Leia added, “You must use the information in this Artoo unit to help plan the attack. It’s our only hope.”
R2-D2 was taken immediately to a computer console and debriefed. The stolen technical readouts were intact. An older, bearded Rebel general named Jan Dodonna methodically analyzed the data, searching the Death Star’s design for any weakness. If there were a single chink in the space station’s armor, General Dodonna was determined to find it.
Incredibly, he did.
On the Death Star, Darth Vader stood behind a chair in the conference room and watched Grand Moff Tarkin respond to a signal from the comlink on the large round table. Tarkin pressed a button and said, “Yes.”
Over the comlink intercom, a voice reported, “We are approaching the planet Yavin. The Rebel base is on a moon on the far side. We are preparing to orbit the planet.”
On Yavin 4, Luke was still wearing his clothes from Tatooine when he joined the orange-uniformed Rebel pilots who gathered in the base’s war room briefing area. Commander Willard had told Luke that the Alliance was short of experienced pilots, and Luke had volunteered on the spot. Because the controls of T-16 skyhoppers were similar to those of the X-wing starfighters, Luke had been assigned an X-wing. Luke sat beside another pilot, a dark-haired young man who introduced himself as Wedge Antilles. C-3PO, R2-D2, and some other astromechs stood behind Luke and Wedge. Wondering if there was any chance his friend Biggs had made it all the way to Yavin 4 too, Luke looked around the room. He didn’t see Biggs, but spotted Han and Chewbacca lurking against the back wall. I didn’t think they’d be here. Maybe they decided to volunteer too!
All heads turned to the front as Princess Leia, General Dodonna, and Commander Willard entered the room. Leia moved to stand beside Jon “Dutch” Vander, leader of Y-wing Gold Squadron. Dodonna stepped before a large rectangular viewscreen and faced the gathered pilots. The viewscreen displayed the technical readouts for the Death Star.
“The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the starfleet,” Dodonna said. “Its defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault. A small one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense.”
Given the Death Star’s firepower, the pilots had a hard time believing they stood any chance against the superweapon. Jon Vander said, “Pardon me for asking, sir, but what good are snubfighters going to be against that?”
Dodonna said, “Well, the Empire doesn’t consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat, or they’d have a tighter defense. An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station.”
R2-D2—happy to have been instrumental in carrying the plans—beeped proudly to a nearby R2 unit.
“The approach will not be easy,” Dodonna continued. As the viewscreen displayed a digital representation of the Death Star’s equatorial trench, Dodonna said, “You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It’s a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station.”
On the viewscreen, a simulation showed a starfighter launching a projectile into what appeared to be a small hole on the floor of the Death Star’s trench. As the starfighter pulled out and ascended from the trench, the projectile plummeted through a narrow shaft until it reached the reactor core at the very center of the space station. Then bright lines radiated out from the reactor core and the station’s image vanished.
Dodonna continued, “Only a precise hit
will set up a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you’ll have to use proton torpedoes.”
Dodonna’s presentation generated a rumble of mutterings from the pilots. Wedge said, “That’s impossible, even for a computer.”
“It’s not impossible,” Luke said. “I used to bull’s-eye womp rats in my T-sixteen back home. They’re not much bigger than two meters.”
“Then man your ships!” Dodonna ordered. “And may the Force be with you!”
The pilots rose from their seats and headed out through the door that led to the hangar. Luke caught Leia looking in his direction. He couldn’t tell from her expression whether she was concerned or disappointed. Then he realized she wasn’t looking at him but at someone behind him. Luke turned around, expecting to see Han and Chewbacca, but they had already left the room. The droids were still there, and R2-D2 beeped cheerfully to him. Luke looked back to Leia, but now she was gone too, along with the other Rebel leaders.
Everything’s happening so fast, Luke thought. I can’t believe it was just the other day that I was watching the suns set on Tatooine, wishing I were anywhere but on that moisture farm. And here I am, over halfway across the galaxy, fighting for a cause I believe in. It’s great, but…
I wish I didn’t feel so alone.
He thought of Ben, and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, first with sadness for their loss, then with anger at the Empire. Then he thought of the planet Alderaan, and the anger burned even more.
Luke went to get suited up for his mission.
On the Death Star, Grand Moff Tarkin and Darth Vader watched a computer monitor that showed the space station’s position in relation to the planet Yavin and the moon Yavin 4. As the planetary diagrams moved over and past each other on the monitor, a voice from the intercom announced, “Orbiting the planet at maximum velocity. The moon with the Rebel base will be in range in thirty minutes.”
“This will be a day long remembered,” Vader said. “It has seen the end of Kenobi. It will soon see the end of the Rebellion.”
Star Wars Trilogy Page 11
