The Empire Strikes Back (Junior Novelization)

by Ryder Windham

  Stormtroopers! Luke suddenly realized that the Empire was definitely involved with whatever was going on at Cloud City. Looks like Ben and Yoda were right.

  The procession passed out of Luke’s viewing range. Keeping his blaster out, Luke moved quickly down the hallway until he’d arrived at the next corridor. Peering around the corner, he saw the end of the procession—the backs of the departing stormtroopers—just before they rounded a corner and he lost sight of them again.

  R2-D2 had followed Luke through the hallway, and beeped as he arrived at his master’s side. Luke raised a hand, signaling the droid to be silent and stay put. R2-D2 obediently stopped beeping and rolled back from him.

  Trusting that the procession was now far enough ahead of him that he could follow unnoticed, Luke stepped forward into the corridor. Which was a mistake.

  Boba was positioned near the same corner where Luke had lost sight of the two stormtroopers. The bounty hunter’s blaster rifle was aimed at Luke. Boba fired.

  Luke fell back into the hallway as the laser bolt whizzed past him and impacted at the hallway wall. He realized too late that he must have been spotted by Fett’s targeting rangefinder as the hunter had led the others past the hallway. Fett quickly fired two more bolts, which smashed into the corridor wall near Luke’s position, then fired a fourth bolt that followed the first into the hallway wall.

  Leia was walking down a corridor with Chewbacca and C-3PO—the droid’s pieces still strapped to the Wookiee’s back—when she heard four blaster shots. The shots sounded like they’d come from behind, so Leia looked back, but all she saw were two of the four stormtroopers in her escort. The other two were in front of her, and in the lead were a gray-uniformed Imperial lieutenant and Lando Calrissian.

  Lando heard the fired blasters, too. He continued walking without missing a step but adjusted his cape slightly so neither the lieutenant nor anyone behind him was able to see what he did next. With his left hand, Lando reached to a thin comlink that was strapped to his right wrist, tapped a key sequence, and sent a signal to Lobot.

  R2-D2 beeped frantically. Luke patted R2-D2’s dome, trying to reassure the astromech that he’d be all right. Around the corner from Luke, the two shots that had struck the corridor wall had left smoldering scorch marks.

  Luke held his blaster pistol and edged out into the corridor. No sign of Fett. He pressed forward, trying to pick up the bounty hunter’s trail.

  As Luke approached another side hallway, he heard more footsteps. He passed a window as he entered the hallway and did not consider that the light from the window might cast his shadow onto the hallway’s wall.

  The Imperial lieutenant was walking just behind Calrissian when he saw a shadow glide across the wall of an adjoining hallway. The lieutenant stopped, gestured at Lando to open a nearby door, then signaled the stormtroopers under his command. As the stormtroopers took up firing position, the lieutenant grabbed Princess Leia and yanked her after Lando.

  Luke jumped back against the hallway wall as the waiting stormtroopers fired their blaster rifles at him. After several laser bolts whizzed past him, he risked a quick glance up the hall and was almost overwhelmed by what he saw.

  Four stormtroopers. Chewbacca and Leia! That Imperial officer’s holding Leia like a body shield! Is that C-3PO on Chewie’s back? Who’s the caped man opening that door?

  The stormtroopers kept shooting at him, but Luke held his fire and watched as the caped man stepped through the open doorway. As three of the stormtroopers shoved Chewbacca through the doorway, Leia saw Luke and shouted, “Luke! Luke, don’t—it’s a trap!”

  The Imperial officer dragged Leia after Chewbacca, but Leia gripped the doorway and shouted again, “It’s a trap!” Then Leia was pulled through. One stormtrooper fired two more shots at Luke, then exited the same way as the others.

  The doorway remained open.

  So it’s a trap, Luke thought. But what happens to my friends if I don’t try to rescue them?

  Luke headed for the open doorway.

  His blaster pistol at the ready, Luke stepped through the open doorway and into a dark antechamber. R2-D2 tried to follow, but a moment after Luke entered, the door slid down and locked behind him, leaving the little droid in the outer corridor.

  There wasn’t any sign of Luke’s friends or the stormtroopers in the antechamber. Except for the locked door behind Luke, the only visible exit was an open lift tube. The lift’s floor was circular, and only large enough to carry a single passenger.

  Luke stepped onto the lift, and was instantly transported up through a hole in the ceiling. He’d been delivered to the top of an elevated platform in a large chamber. There was steam everywhere. Luke looked around at the pipes and hoses that lined the walls and ceiling, and he tried to determine the chamber’s function. As he stepped off the lift, a metal grate slid over the lift and locked in place.

  Luke realized an unseen enemy was controlling his movements, drawing him into a predetermined path and sealing off his avenues of retreat. He looked at his blaster pistol. How effective will a blaster be against someone I can’t even see? Uncertain of where to proceed, he kept his blaster drawn as he moved away from the sealed lift.

  “The Force is with you, young Skywalker,” a deep voice rumbled from behind him, causing Luke to turn fast. “But you are not a Jedi yet.”

  It was Darth Vader.

  The dark lord was positioned above Luke, standing on a grated floor that was connected to the elevated platform by a stairway. Luke holstered his blaster as he climbed the steps to stand before Vader, then drew his lightsaber and ignited its blue blade.

  Vader activated his own red-bladed lightsaber. Luke stepped forward and raised his weapon. There was a mild electrical crackling sound as the two men crossed sabers.

  Luke swung first, but Vader blocked the blow with ease. Luke pulled away and swung again, but Vader blocked and pushed back with considerable strength, knocking Luke to the floor. Keeping his lightsaber angled up toward Vader, Luke rose to his feet and assumed a defensive position. Vader swung at Luke, but Luke blocked and swung back, and soon their lightsabers were sweeping and clashing faster than the eye could follow.

  The duel had just begun.

  What’s happening to Luke? Leia wondered. She and the droid-toting Wookiee were being led through yet another corridor, with two stormtroopers behind them, two in front, and Lando and the Imperial lieutenant back in the lead. Glancing at the back of Lando’s head, she swore, If I ever get out of this, I’ll fix Lando so he never smiles again.

  As the group proceeded past an intersection in the corridor, Leia glanced to her right and saw Lobot approaching with a group of Cloud City guards from a connecting hallway. To her surprise, more guards suddenly materialized from adjoining hallways, then drew and aimed their sleek blaster pistols at the Imperial lieutenant and stormtroopers. Outnumbered and unprepared, the stormtroopers raised their armored arms and held out their blaster rifles in surrender.

  Lando shoved the Imperial lieutenant toward one of the guards, then turned to the two stormtroopers behind them and took their weapons. Leia gaped as Lando stepped past her and handed both blaster rifles to Lobot.

  “Well done,” Lando said to his aide, then turned to the two stormtroopers behind Leia and Chewbacca and took away their blaster rifles. Turning back to Lobot, Lando said, “Hold them in the security tower—and keep it quiet. Move.”

  As Lobot and the Cloud City guards escorted their Imperial captives out of the corridor, Lando handed the two blaster rifles to Leia, then turned his attention to the binders that were locked around Chewbacca’s wrists.

  Surprised by this turn of events, Leia asked Lando, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “We’re getting out of here,” Lando replied.

  From the net at Chewbacca’s back, C-3PO chimed in, “I knew all along it had to be a mistake.”

  The moment Chewbacca’s binders were unlocked, he reached out and wra
pped his hairy fingers around Lando’s neck. Leia glared at Lando and said, “Do you think that after what you did to Han we’re going to trust you?”

  “I had no choice…” Lando gasped.

  “What are you doing?” C-3PO cried, twisting at Chewbacca’s back in a desperate effort to see the others. “Trust him, trust him!”

  Leia said, “Oh, so we understand, don’t we, Chewie? He had no choice.”

  Chewbacca tightened his grip on Lando and leaned forward, forcing Lando to his knees. Lando’s voice was a choked whisper: “I’m just trying to help—”

  “We don’t need any of your help,” Leia said.

  Lando gasped, “H-a-a-a…”

  “What?” Leia said.

  “It sounds like Han,” said C-3PO, who had the best ear for languages.

  Lando clutched at Chewbacca’s wrists and rasped, “There’s still a chance to save Han…at the East Platform.”

  Leia said, “Chewie,” and the Wookiee released Lando. Still on his knees, Lando breathed hard, taking in deep lungfuls of air. As Leia and Chewbacca started running out of the corridor, he looked up to see C-3PO’s parts bouncing in the net at Chewbacca’s back.

  “I’m terribly sorry about all this,” C-3PO said as he moved away from Lando. “After all, he’s only a Wookiee.”

  Even though he hadn’t completely gotten his breath back, Lando rose from the floor and started running after the others. Leia was right: They had no reason to trust him. But if there was any chance of saving Han, Lando wanted to be there when it happened.

  “Put Captain Solo in the cargo hold,” Boba Fett instructed the two Cloud City guards. The guards guided the floating carbonite block up Slave I’s sloped landing ramp and through a narrow access hatch. Fett stood beside a stormtrooper on the landing ramp and kept his gaze on the walkway that extended from the landing platform. There was a door at the end of the walkway. If anyone came through the door before Slave I lifted off, Fett would see them.

  Boba had already received payment from the Empire for tracking the Millennium Falcon to Cloud City, and he looked forward to collecting the bounty that Jabba the Hutt had placed on Solo. But Fett was well aware of the fact that other bounty hunters were still hoping to collect that bounty, and a lot could happen between Cloud City and Jabba’s palace on Tatooine.

  The guards exited the hatch and left with the stormtrooper. Boba Fett entered Slave I, locked the hatch behind him, and went to the cargo hold to secure his valuable merchandise.

  With C-3PO’s parts clattering in the net against his back, Chewbacca ran behind Leia as Lando led them around a curved terrace that overlooked the city. Leia and Chewbacca were armed with the blaster rifles that Lando had taken from the stormtroopers. The sky was red.

  As they ran toward another corridor, C-3PO spotted a familiar droid in a nearby alcove. “Artoo!” the droid cried. “Artoo! Where have you been?”

  Hearing C-3PO’s words, Chewbacca stopped and turned around to bark at R2-D2, but his sudden action left C-3PO staring at the corridor wall.

  C-3PO said, “Wait, turn around, you woolly—!” As Chewbacca turned to catch up with Leia and Lando, C-3PO was again able to see R2-D2, who was racing after the Wookiee. “Hurry, hurry!” C-3PO cried. “We’re trying to save Han from the bounty hunter!”

  R2-D2 whistled frantically after C-3PO.

  “Well, at least you’re still in one piece!” C-3PO replied, bouncing along at Chewbacca’s back. “Look what happened to me!”

  Leia was the first to reach the door to the East Platform. She ran through the doorway, followed by Chewbacca, but they stopped in their tracks as Slave I began to lift and rise away from the platform. Chewbacca roared and fired his blaster rifle, but the laser bolts glanced off the ship’s energized shields.

  Leia watched Slave I blast into the sky. The bounty hunter was getting away, doubtlessly heading for Tatooine. Leia had a horrible feeling that she might never see Han again.

  “Oh, no!” C-3PO cried. “Chewie, they’re behind you!”

  Leia spun, and for once she was glad that C-3PO’s parts were dangling at Chewbacca’s back. Otherwise, they might not have been aware until too late that they had been followed by the two stormtroopers.

  The two were visible through the open doorway, in the corridor that had led to the East Platform. Lando jumped away from the doorway just as the stormtroopers fired, sending red blaster bolts over R2-D2’s domed head and past Leia and Chewbacca. The Wookiee returned fire and felled a stormtrooper on his first shot, then squeezed off a series of bolts at the remaining stormtrooper while Lando and Leia darted back through the doorway, heading for a lift tube.

  R2-D2 beeped nervously as the laser bolts sailed past his body. Chewbacca kept firing at the stormtrooper and moved fast after Leia and Lando. As the group hurried for a lift tube, Leia wondered again about Luke’s fate.

  Luke thought, Doesn’t Vader ever get tired? He’d been engaged in battle with Darth Vader for several minutes, and the dark lord had not let up at all. Luke, on the other hand, was already sweating hard, and not just from the physical effort of the duel. All the steam was making the air in the chamber feel more humid than Dagobah’s oppressive climate.

  Yet Luke was holding up, matching Darth Vader’s fighting prowess blow for blow. As steam billowed around them, Vader said, “You have learned much, young one.”

  “You’ll find I’m full of surprises,” Luke replied. He swung his lightsaber at Vader, and Vader swung back with enough power to knock Luke’s weapon from his grip. Luke’s lightsaber spun and fell away, then automatically deactivated as it clattered against the upper surface of the elevated platform.

  Hoping to recover his lightsaber, Luke threw himself down the stairway, rolling painfully upon the metal steps until he landed on the metal platform. Darth Vader leaped into the air, passing over the steps to land with a loud clang near his opponent. Luke flinched at the sound, and looked up to see the tip of Vader’s lightsaber dangling in front of his face.

  Luke rose to his feet and backed away from Vader. Where’s my lightsaber? I can hardly see a thing down here!

  “Your destiny lies with me, Skywalker,” Vader said as he slowly advanced toward Luke. “Obi-Wan knew this to be true.”

  “No!” Luke cried, then backed right into the open pit at the center of the raised platform.

  “All too easy,” Vader intoned.

  At the bottom of the pit, Luke quickly struggled to his feet. He instantly recognized the metal columns inside the pit as freezing coils, and just as quickly knew he had to get out of the pit. Fast.

  Still atop the elevated platform, Vader gestured at the nearby carbon-freezing controls and used the Force to pull a lever. Had Vader not looked away from the sudden blast of steam that erupted from the freezing pit, he might have seen Luke’s form shoot from the pit to the ceiling.

  Vader returned his gaze to the pit, waiting for the billowing steam to clear. Thinking Luke was frozen and that his words would go unheard, Vader said, “Perhaps you are not as strong as the Emperor thought.”

  There was a loud clank from overhead, and Vader looked up to see Luke clutching at a tangle of pipes and cables. “Impressive…most impressive,” Vader commented, then raised his lightsaber and swung at a dangling hose. Steam blasted from the sliced ends of the hose, temporarily clouding Luke’s vision.

  But Luke flipped away from the ceiling and—on his way down—reached out with his left hand to grab a length of the sliced hose. Landing on his feet, he twisted the hose to spray steam directly into Vader’s helmeted face. As the dark lord snarled and recoiled, Luke spotted his own lightsaber, resting on the other side of the platform. He extended the fingers of his right hand, and the lightsaber launched through the air and smacked into his palm. Vader swung his red-bladed lightsaber through the steam just as Luke ignited the blue beam of his own weapon. The lightsabers clashed as more steam flooded the chamber.

  “Obi-Wan has taught yo
u well,” Vader said. “You have controlled your fear…now release your anger.” He launched another attack, trying to goad Luke into unleashing his emotions. “Only your hatred can destroy me,” he continued, swinging again at his opponent. But Luke leaped and executed a mid-air somersault, landing behind Vader. Vader was caught off guard as Luke lashed out with his lightsaber, and the dark lord backed up, stepping past the edge of the elevated platform.

  Vader snarled as he fell to the darkness below.

  With all the steam and noise on the platform, Luke was not surprised that he didn’t hear Vader’s impact. Luke peered over the edge and looked down, but saw no sign of Vader or his red lightsaber.

  Luke thought, Should I go after him? Then he remembered Yoda’s words: Stopped they must be.

  Luke deactivated his lightsaber, clipped it to his belt, and jumped down into the darkness. Landing on the floor of the freezing chamber, he edged past a wall until he stood before a circular metal vent. The vent slid open, revealing a narrow, tubular tunnel that descended at a slight angle. Another opening hatch and passage, Luke observed. Vader wants to lure me in.

  He entered the tunnel, walked through its short length, and stepped down into a wide room. Behind him, a double hatch slid over the tunnel’s opening. He’s trying to rattle my nerves. But I won’t be rattled. If that tunnel’s my only way out, my lightsaber will slice through the hatch.

  Luke moved across the room, searching for Darth Vader.

  Vader stood in the shadows of the reactor control room and watched Luke walk toward a large circular window. Beyond the window was Cloud City’s reactor shaft, a central wind tunnel nearly a kilometer in diameter.

  Vader thought, You were unwise to follow me down here. It would have been so much easier on you if you’d allowed yourself to be frozen in carbonite.

  Yes. Search the room for me. I’m not hiding. I’m right here. You see me now? Good.

  Go on. Activate your lightsaber. The blue blade still looks so pure. Do you know I’m familiar with that particular weapon? The very one you’re holding? The one that Obi-Wan must have given you. No, I don’t believe you know that. Not yet.