“Let go,” said Leia.
“Shh!” Han said, trying to listen for any unusual sounds outside the ship as he kept his arms around Leia.
“Let go, please,” Leia insisted.
“Don’t get excited,” Han said as he released his hold.
Leia fumed. “Captain, being held by you isn’t quite enough to get me excited.”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Han replied with a smirk. “We haven’t got time for anything else.” He opened the hatch and left the cockpit.
Leia turned to look out the window, but she was so flustered she couldn’t see straight. Why does he have to be such a jerk? she thought. And why do I let him get to me? She felt almost dizzy with anger as her brain fumbled for words that she might have used to tell off Han, once and for all. Then she realized her lips were moving, mumbling words that just wouldn’t come out right.
I don’t know what’s worse, Leia thought. Feeling furious at Han, or feeling…something else.
Something she didn’t want to acknowledge.
She raised her white-gloved hand and whacked the cockpit’s wall.
On Dagobah, the mist had dispersed a bit, but the swamp remained a gloomy place. Luke had retrieved a box of emergency provisions from his X-wing and set up his camp in a clearing. As he ignited a compact fusion furnace that he’d placed on a rotten log beside R2-D2, the droid beeped at him.
“What?” Luke said. “Ready for some power? Okay. Let’s see now.” He ran a power cable from the furnace to the droid. “Put that in there,” he said to himself as he plugged the cable into R2-D2’s socket. “There you go.”
R2-D2 beeped, apparently content for the moment.
Luke patted R2-D2’s domed head and said, “Now all I got to do is find this Yoda…if he even exists.” To himself, he thought, I don’t even know what Yoda looks like. Since he taught Ben, he must be very old. And strong, too, if he can survive in this environment. For the first time, Luke realized he’d been assuming Yoda was male, when in fact he didn’t have any idea.
Luke sighed as he stood and looked around. “It’s really a strange place to find a Jedi Master. This place gives me the creeps.”
R2-D2 beeped. Even though Luke didn’t have a portable droid translator, he had a feeling that the little droid agreed with him.
Luke sat down on a rock beside R2-D2 and removed a box of food rations from his stack of supplies. As he bit into a dehydrated nutrition bar, he continued, “Still…there’s something familiar about this place.”
R2-D2 beeped, wondering what Luke meant.
“I don’t know…” Luke said, glancing at the surrounding trees. “I feel like…”
“Feel like what?” a strange, croaking voice interrupted.
Luke’s blaster flashed from its holster and he was suddenly aiming at a short, squat alien who sat on a nearby stump. “Like we’re being watched!” Luke finished.
“Away put your weapon!” the creature said as he threw his arms up over his face. “I mean you no harm.” He wore a ratty old robe and clutched a small gimer stick that he held up defensively. He lowered his arms to peek over his sleeves, allowing Luke to get a better look at him. He had wrinkled green skin, long tapered ears, and large eyes that looked somehow alert and sleepy at the same time. His manner of speech was unusual and his words came out in a rhythmic croak. Luke didn’t recognize the creature’s species, but he appeared harmless.
The creature asked, “I am wondering, why are you here?”
“I’m looking for someone,” Luke answered warily.
“Looking?” the creature said with amusement. “Found someone, you have, I would say, hmmm?” He chuckled.
Luke tried to keep from smiling as he answered, “Right.”
“Help you I can. Yes, mmmm.”
“I don’t think so,” Luke replied. Looking away as he holstered his blaster, he didn’t see the creature smile slyly. Luke added, “I’m looking for a great warrior.”
“Ahhh! A great warrior,” the creature said, then laughed and shook his head. “Wars not make one great.” Easing himself down to the ground, he held his gimer stick forward as he hobbled on his stubby tridactyl feet over to Luke’s supplies. Luke had placed his nutrition bar on top of a box, and the creature picked up the bar and examined it.
“Put that down!” Luke said. “Now…hey!” Much to Luke’s surprise, the creature had just taken a tiny bite from the bar. Luke said, “That’s my dinner!”
As Luke snatched the bar and a box of rations, the creature’s face twisted with disgust at the bar’s taste. He said, “How you get so big, eating food of this kind?”
Luke considered finishing the nutrition bar, then thought better of it and tossed it into the swamp. “Listen, friend,” he said, “we didn’t mean to land in that puddle, and if we could get our ship out, we would, but we can’t, so why don’t you just—”
“Aww, can’t you get your ship out?” the creature asked.
Luke turned to see that the creature had set aside his gimer stick and had crawled headfirst into an open container. Luke couldn’t believe it. He’s rummaging through my supplies!
“Hey, get out of there!” Luke shouted.
“Ahhh!” said the creature as he dug out an electronic device.
Luke grabbed the device and said, “Hey, you could have broken this.”
Ignoring Luke, the creature dug faster, considered an item, then said, “No!” and tossed it over his shoulder. He picked out another object and tossed it after the other.
“Don’t do that,” Luke said. “Ohhh…you’re making a mess.”
“Oh!” cried the creature as he pulled out a tiny power lamp and regarded it with delight. He flicked it on and moved the light around his face.
“Hey, give me that!” Luke said.
“Mine!” the creature said, clutching the tiny lamp. “Or I will help you not.”
“I don’t want your help,” Luke said. “I want my lamp back. I’m gonna need it to get out of this slimy mudhole.”
The creature glared at Luke. “Mudhole? Slimy? My home this is.”
While the creature faced Luke, R2-D2 opened an access panel and extended one of his manipulator arms, then clamped onto the lamp and tried to snatch it from the creature’s tight grip. “Ah, ah, ah!” said the creature as he and R2-D2 began a tug-of-war contest with the lamp as the prize.
“Oh, Artoo, let him have it!” Luke said. But the droid ignored him and continued to tug.
With his free hand, the creature reached for his gimer stick and began whacking R2-D2 as he shouted, “Mine! Mine! Mine!”
“Artoo!” Luke cried out, prompting the droid to release his grip and allow the creature to win. As R2-D2 retracted his manipulator, the creature reached out with his gimer stick and playfully tapped the droid’s access panel shut.
Tired of the creature, Luke said, “Now will you move along, little fella? We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“No! No, no!” said the creature, wielding the tiny lamp as he hobbled over to Luke. “Stay and help you, I will.” The creature laughed and added, “Find your friend.”
“I’m not looking for a friend,” Luke said. “I’m looking for a Jedi Master.”
The creature’s eyes went wide and his tapered ears dipped. “Oohhh, Jedi Master. Yoda. You seek Yoda.”
Now it was Luke who was surprised. Bending down so his eyes were almost level with the creature’s, he said, “You know him?”
“Mmm. Take you to him, I will.” The creature laughed. “Yes, yes. But now we must eat. Come. Good food. Come.” The creature walked away from Luke’s camp, then turned back and repeated, “Come, come.”
Luke didn’t trust the creature, but he wasn’t afraid of him either. He turned to the astromech and said, “Artoo, stay and watch after the camp.”
R2-D2 watched his master follow the creature deeper into the swamp. The droid slowly rotated his domed head clockwise, looking for any other life-
forms that might be lurking in the darkness or the trees. He kept looking until he’d completed a full rotation and spotted Luke again, now farther away.
R2-D2 beeped an electronic sigh.
“Oh, where is Artoo when I need him?” C-3PO said with dismay as he shook his head. The golden droid was standing inside the Falcon’s main hold, and the ship was still in the cave on the moon-sized asteroid. C-3PO had just attempted to communicate with the ship’s computer by whistling and beeping into a control panel on the main hold’s wall. The control panel had responded with a mystifying whistle that left C-3PO slightly baffled.
Han entered the hold to check on some wires and cables. C-3PO said, “Sir, I don’t know where your ship learned to communicate, but it has the most peculiar dialect. I believe, sir, it says that the power coupling on the negative axis has been polarized. I’m afraid you’ll have to replace it.”
Han grimaced at the droid. “Well, of course I’ll have to replace it,” he said, then walked across the hold and looked up to an open access compartment in the ceiling. Chewbacca’s head peeked out to gaze down at Han, who handed a wire coil to the Wookiee and said, “Here! And Chewie…”
Chewbacca whined, waiting for Han to continue.
Han glanced back at C-3PO, who was still facing the control panel on the other side of the hold. Hoping only Chewbacca would hear his words, Han said in a low voice, “…I think we’d better replace the negative power coupling.”
Chewbacca responded with an affirmative bark.
From the main hold, Han stepped through an open hatch into the adjoining circuitry bay, a narrow-walled cluster of switches and valves that also served as a shortcut—via a second hatch—to the port side cargo hold. Inside the circuitry bay, Leia had just finished welding a valve. She had removed her white gloves, and was now struggling with a lever. Her back was to Han, and she was so focused on the lever that she didn’t hear his approach. But as he extended his arms past hers to reach for the lever, Leia was startled. And when she quickly realized it was Han who’d come up behind her, she was suddenly outraged. Still gripping the lever with both hands, she turned it hard with a thrust of her elbows to send Han back a step.
“Hey, Your Worship,” Han said. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Would you please stop calling me that?” Leia snapped, and tried turning the lever again.
Han shrugged. “Sure, Leia.”
Leia broiled. She’d been putting up with Han’s jibes about her royal title for so long that it seemed unfair that he should speak her name so easily. Still infuriated, she leaned into the lever and said, “Oh, you make it so difficult sometimes.”
“I do, I really do,” Han agreed. “You could be a little nicer, though. Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think I’m all right.”
Suddenly, her hands slipped on the lever and her bare knuckles smacked against the metal. She reflexively raised one hand to her mouth, as if she might kiss away the pain, then turned to face Han and said, “Occasionally, maybe…when you aren’t acting like a scoundrel.”
“Scoundrel?” Han repeated, and took her hands in his and examined them. “Scoundrel? I like the sound of that.”
Leia realized he was massaging her hands. She said, “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” Han replied, trying to look innocent.
“Stop that! My hands are dirty.”
“My hands are dirty, too. What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid?” The question caught Leia off guard.
Han said, “You’re trembling.”
“I’m not trembling,” Leia countered, and realized, He’s still holding my hands.
The space between them closed. Han said, “You like me because I’m a scoundrel. There aren’t enough scoundrels in your life.”
“I happen to like nice men,” Leia told him. She hadn’t meant to whisper, but she did.
Han replied softly, “I’m a nice man.”
“No, you’re not. You’re…”
And then their lips met. For a few seconds, Leia stopped thinking about whether her hands were clean, or about the Empire, or about…
“Sir, sir!” C-3PO said from behind Han, and tapped him on the shoulder. “I’ve isolated the reverse power flux coupling.”
Neither Leia nor Han had heard the droid enter the circuit bay from the main hold. Han eased out of Leia’s embrace, slowly turned, and advanced toward C-3PO, blocking the droid’s view of Leia and forcing him to step backward through the open hatch. Han said icily, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Not comprehending Han’s sarcasm, C-3PO said happily, “Oh, you’re perfectly welcome, sir,” then turned and walked away.
Han turned back to face the circuit bay’s interior, but if he’d hoped to find Leia waiting for him to get rid of C-3PO, he was too late. Leia had already left through the other hatch.
At Darth Vader’s command, the fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers was escorting Executor through the asteroid field. The warships fired at the obstacles in their path, but the asteroids far outnumbered the combined weaponry of all the warships, and the Star Destroyers were taking a severe pummeling. Incredibly, the Executor remained unscathed.
A large asteroid slammed into one Star Destroyer’s conning tower, and the ship was instantly engulfed by massive explosions. Evidence of the ship’s loss was immediately played out on the bridge of the Executor, where Darth Vader stood before hologram images of the commanding officers of his escort; one hologram, an Imperial captain, quickly faded and disappeared as his transmission—along with his ship—came to a violent end.
Vader ignored the vanished hologram and faced the three-dimensional projection of the Avenger’s Captain Needa, who reported, “…and that, Lord Vader, was the last time they appeared in any of our scopes. Considering the amount of damage we’ve sustained, they must have been destroyed.”
“No, Captain, they’re alive,” Vader said. “I want every ship available to sweep the asteroid field until they are found.”
With that, the conference was over. As the holograms faded out, Admiral Piett walked hurriedly onto the bridge and was almost breathless when he came to a stop before the Executor’s commander. Piett gasped, “Lord Vader.”
One look at Piett’s pallor, which was white as a sheet, and the Sith Lord knew the man was scared. “Yes, Admiral, what is it?”
Piett took a gulp of air, then tried to keep his voice from trembling as he said, “The Emperor commands you to make contact with him.”
“Move the ship out of the asteroid field so that we can send a clear transmission.”
“Yes, my lord,” Piett said as Vader’s menacing form swept off the bridge.
Vader proceeded to his personal quarters. When the Executor was out of the asteroid field, he stepped down from his meditation chamber to stand upon a circular black panel, a HoloNet scanner that allowed him to transmit communications across the galaxy. As the dark lord dropped to his left knee and bowed his helmeted head, the panel’s outer ring was illuminated. Vader slowly raised his gaze to the empty air before him, and the emptiness was instantly filled by flickering blue light.
The light assembled to form a hologram that was nearly as tall as the room itself: a large three-dimensional image of a cloaked head with eyes that blazed wickedly from shadowy, pitted features.
There was no mistaking the face of Emperor Palpatine.
Still kneeling before the immense hologram, Vader said, “What is thy bidding, my Master?”
From light-years away, on the planet Coruscant, the Emperor said, “There is a great disturbance in the Force.”
“I have felt it,” Vader said.
The Emperor continued, “We have a new enemy. The young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.”
“How is that possible?” Darth Vader managed to ask through his shock. Could it be…true?
“Search your feelings, Lord Vader. You will k
now it to be true. He could destroy us.”
“He’s just a boy,” Vader pointed out, the belief rising within him that Anakin’s son could exist. He thought, If the Emperor knows about the boy, then he also knows the fate of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Vader added, “Obi-Wan can no longer help him.”
“The Force is strong with him,” the Emperor said. “The son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.”
The Emperor had not said, in so many words, that the young Skywalker must die, which was fortunate because Vader had something else in mind. He told his master, “If he could be turned, he would become a powerful ally.”
“Yes,” said the Emperor, his expression thoughtful, as if he had not previously considered this possibility. Sith Lords had long maintained a rule of limiting their number to only two: one master and one apprentice—but now, the Emperor’s eyes seemed to ignite, and he repeated, “Yes. He would be a great asset. Can it be done?”
“He will join us or die, Master,” Vader said. He bowed, and the Emperor’s hologram faded out.
Nothing will stand in my way, Darth Vader thought. Nothing will stop me from achieving my goal. If I must search the farthest reaches of the galaxy, I will find Luke Skywalker.
R2-D2 found Luke inside a small house made out of mud.
It was raining, and it had been easy for R2-D2 to track Luke’s water-filled footprints from their camp near the spot where they’d landed on Dagobah. Although the astromech had been cautious to travel through the swampy forest on his own, he’d been even more rattled by the idea of remaining alone at the camp. Luke’s footprints had led the droid to the house that had been constructed under the overhanging roots of a towering gnarltree. With its sloping outer walls, the house appeared almost organic, as if it were growing from the ground. Only the windows—smallish oval portals—and a sculpted chimney indicated the moss-covered dwelling was not a natural formation.
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