Star Wars Trilogy

by Ryder Windham

  Handing a blaster rifle to Luke, Han glanced at Leia and said, “If we can just avoid any more female advice, we ought to be able to get out of here.”

  Luke said, “Well, let’s get moving!”

  A loud, angry moan drifted out from the open hatch. Evidently, the dianoga had survived in the garbage room and was now even more hungry. The noise caused Chewbacca to jump and run away from the hatch.

  “Where are you going?” Han said, glaring at the Wookiee. Embarrassed by his copilot’s behavior, Han turned toward the hatch and raised his blaster.

  “No, wait,” Leia said urgently. “They’ll hear!”

  Too late again. Han fired the blaster at the hatch, and the noise echoed throughout the hallway. Disgusted by Han’s thoughtless action, Luke shook his head.

  “Come here, you big coward!” Han called to the Wookiee, who stood trembling beside a nearby stack of barrels. “Chewie! Come here!”

  Leia fixed her furious gaze on Han and said, “Listen. I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but from now on, you do as I tell you. Okay?” She walked past Han and began to lead the group through the hallway, but Chewbacca fell into step just in front of her.

  Catching up beside Leia, Han said, “Look, Your Worshipfulness, let’s get one thing straight! I take orders from just one person! Me!”

  “It’s a wonder you’re still alive,” Leia said. Glaring at Chewbacca, she added, “Will somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way?” She brushed past the Wookiee.

  Han shook his head and muttered, “No reward is worth this.”

  Ben was about to remove himself from his perilous perch upon the footbridge that ringed the generator tower’s power terminal when he heard footsteps approaching. He quickly readjusted a lever on the power terminal so any passerby wouldn’t notice his sabotage, then braced his body against the terminal, concealing himself from the bridge that spanned the trench.

  A detachment of stormtroopers entered through a doorway and stepped onto the bridge. The commanding officer turned to two troopers and said, “Give me regular reports, please.”

  “Right,” replied one trooper. The two troopers remained near the doorway by which they’d arrived while the other troopers marched across the bridge and through the facing doorway.

  Ben intended to exit the trench by the same route. As he readjusted the lever to shut down the tractor beam, he overheard the nearby troopers speaking.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” asked the first trooper.

  “Maybe it’s another drill,” the second replied.

  Ben moved cautiously on the footbridge and peered around the power terminal. The two troopers were still near the far doorway, facing each other. The first trooper said, “Have you seen that new BT-sixteen?”

  The second trooper said, “Yeah, some of the other guys were telling me about it. They say it’s, it’s quite a thing to—”

  Using the Force, Ben flexed his fingers and gestured at the two troopers. Both troopers suddenly heard—or thought they heard—a muffled explosion from the doorway behind them, and turned away from the power terminal.

  “What was that?” asked the second trooper.

  “That’s nothing,” said the first trooper. “Top gassing. Don’t worry about it.”

  Neither noticed Ben step onto the bridge and exit the generator trench.

  Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca entered a corridor that was on the same level as the command office for Docking Bay 327. Arriving at a window that overlooked the hangar, Han gazed down at the Millennium Falcon and said, “There she is.”

  Luke looked through the window and counted five stormtrooper sentries outside the Falcon. There was no sign of R2-D2 or C-3PO. Luke switched on his comlink transmitter and said, “See-Threepio, do you copy?”

  “Yes, sir,” C-3PO answered.

  “Are you safe?” Luke asked.

  “For the moment,” he replied. “We’re in the main hangar across from the ship.”

  “We’re right above you,” Luke said. “Stand by.”

  Leia tugged at Han’s sleeve and gestured at the Falcon. “You came in that thing?” she said. “You’re braver than I thought.”

  “Nice!” Han was thoroughly exasperated. “Come on!”

  They walked fast down a hallway, making their way to the lift tube that would take them to the lower level. Han made sweeping movements with his blaster rifle, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble. But as the group rounded a corner, even Han was surprised to run straight into seven approaching stormtroopers.

  “It’s them!” shouted the squad leader. “Blast them!”

  Han’s blaster rifle was already leveled at the squad leader, and Han didn’t hesitate to fire. The blast knocked the squad leader off his feet and the six remaining troopers stumbled back. Without any plan but to knock down every Imperial soldier in sight, Han fired again and charged the startled troopers, who turned and ran back up the hallway. As Han chased and fired after the troopers, he shouted to his allies, “Get back to the ship!”

  “Where are you going?” Luke yelled as Chewbacca ran after Han. “Come back!”

  Watching Han’s departure, Leia said, “He certainly has courage.”

  “What good will it do us if he gets himself killed?” Luke took Leia’s hand. “Come on!” They ran off in the other direction down the hallway.

  Hollering and firing his blaster rifle, Han chased the stormtroopers through a long subhallway. At the end of the subhallway, the troopers were forced to turn left around a corner. Not thinking about where the turn might lead, Han ran after the troopers and entered a TIE fighter hangar.

  Han stopped in his tracks. The hangar was filled with hundreds of stormtroopers, and it appeared that Han had interrupted their weapons drill. The stormtroopers he’d been chasing now stopped and turned with their blasters raised. The other troopers all looked his way. Han squeezed off a shot to fell one more trooper, then turned around and ran for his life.

  Chewbacca had been trying to catch up with Han when he heard the hail of blasterfire up ahead, then saw Han come racing back toward him. A hail of laserbolts slammed into the wall behind Han as he ran past. Quickly sizing up the situation, the Wookiee turned and ran even faster after Han.

  Before Luke and Leia could reach the hangar that contained the Millennium Falcon, they were spotted by yet another squad of stormtroopers. Luke fired his blaster rifle wildly as he and Leia rushed down a narrow subhallway, trying to elude the troopers who fired at them from behind.

  The subhallway ended at a short ramp that led up to an open doorway. Luke and Leia raced up the ramp and were through the doorway before they realized the floor ended at an enormous air shaft. Luke nearly lost his balance at the edge of the floor, but Leia grabbed hold of his arm and pulled him back.

  “I think we took a wrong turn,” Luke said, and heard his words echo as he surveyed the air shaft. The shaft’s steep walls seemed to stretch to infinity. Across the chasm, another open doorway was set in the facing wall. Luke and Leia realized they were standing upon nothing more than a shallow overhang that housed a retractible bridge.

  Blasterfire exploded behind them. Luke turned and fired at the advancing stormtroopers. Leia found a control panel that was embedded in the doorway. She reached to the panel, hit a switch, and the door slid shut behind them.

  “There’s no lock!” Leia said.

  Luke aimed his blaster at the control panel and fired, frying the door’s opening mechanisms. He said, “That oughta hold them for a while.”

  Looking to the doorway on the other side of the shaft, Leia said, “Quick, we’ve got to get across. Find the controls that extend the bridge.”

  Luke looked at the smoldering circuits on the panel in the doorway. “Oh,” he said, “I think I just blasted it.”

  There came a grinding sound from the door behind them. Leia warned, “They’re coming through!”

  Luke thought, There’s got to be a way out of this! Looking up, he spotted
an outcropping of large metal pipes that jutted down from above. Then he remembered: My stormtrooper utility belt has a grappling hook. But as he reached to the belt, laserfire hit the wall behind him.

  Luke and Leia fell back against the doorway’s alcove as more laserbolts whizzed past them. Glancing out from the alcove, they saw three stormtroopers firing from an upper-level doorway on the facing wall. Luke braced himself, aimed up at the troopers, and fired back.

  One trooper was hit in the chest, and fell forward into the shaft. The other troopers returned fire, and Luke threw himself back beside Leia in the alcove.

  “Here, hold this,” Luke said, handing the blaster rifle to Leia.

  Leia bravely repeated Luke’s movements, stepping out from the alcove to exchange fire with the stormtroopers before ducking back. While she kept the troopers occupied, Luke pulled the grappling hook from his belt. He was still paying out the hook’s thin cable when the door behind him began to open.

  “Here they come!” Leia shouted. She fired again at the stormtroopers across the shaft. One of her shots struck a trooper, and he collapsed.

  Luke tossed the hook high, letting its weight carry the cable up to the metal pipes. The hook whipped around one pipe and the hook’s tines locked onto the cable. Luke gave the cable a single tug to make sure it was secure, then pulled Leia to his side. Behind them, the door opened a fraction more.

  Leia kissed Luke’s cheek and said, “For luck!”

  Keeping her grip on the blaster rifle, Leia wrapped her arms around Luke as he pushed off from the overhang. They swung across the treacherous shaft and alighted on the opposite ledge, just as the stormtroopers broke through and fired at them from behind.

  Leia returned fire, then she and Luke scrambled through the doorway and ran into another hallway. This time, they wouldn’t get lost on their way back to the Falcon.

  Several stormtroopers rushed through a Death Star hallway. One trooper reported, “We think they may be splitting up. They may be on levels five and six now, sir.”

  Ben stood in the shadows of a narrow passageway that adjoined the hallway. When he was sure the troopers had passed, he drew his lightsaber from his belt. He did not activate the blade but held it ready. He had a feeling he would be using his weapon sooner than later. Much sooner.

  Ben proceeded into the hallway.

  C-3PO was becoming increasingly worried as he and R2-D2 waited for their allies to arrive in the docking bay. “Where could they be?” the protocol droid asked.

  R2-D2 plugged into the computer socket and responded with a beep. He didn’t know either.

  Han and Chewbacca raced through a corridor with several stormtroopers hot on their trail. As the man and Wookiee approached a wide doorway, a trooper shouted out from behind, “Close the blast doors!”

  Suddenly, thick metal doors began to slide out from the doorway’s frame. Chewbacca maintained a breakneck pace as he ran between the converging doors. Han spun and fired back at the stormtroopers, then turned again and leaped through the closing aperture at the last possible moment before the blast doors sealed off the corridor behind him.

  “Open the blast doors!” shouted the trooper. “Open the blast doors!”

  On the other side, Han and Chewbacca kept running.

  Ben still had his lightsaber drawn as he moved along through an access tunnel that led back to Docking Bay 327. Having disabled the tractor beam, his remaining goal was to make sure Luke and Princess Leia left the Death Star on the Millennium Falcon. But before he could reach the hangar, he sighted a tall, shadowy form at the end of the tunnel.

  It was his former apprentice, Darth Vader.

  Vader had already activated the red blade of his lightsaber. For a moment, he stood motionless. Then he approached Ben.

  Obi-Wan activated his lightsaber and stepped slowly forward. He’d fought Vader before. He hadn’t been afraid then either.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Obi-Wan,” Vader said as he moved closer to the elderly Jedi Knight. “We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete.”

  Obi-Wan assumed an offensive position.

  Vader continued, “When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.”

  “Only a master of evil, Darth,” Obi-Wan said. He made a sudden lunge at Vader but the dark lord blocked the attack. There was a loud electric crackle as their lightsabers made contact. Obi-Wan swung again and again, but each time Vader parried.

  Vader said, “Your powers are weak, old man.”

  “You can’t win, Darth,” Obi-Wan said. “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

  “You should not have come back,” Vader said.

  Their lightsabers clashed again. And again, and again. And as their battle continued, they moved closer to the main doorway that led directly to the hangar that contained the Millennium Falcon.

  Chewbacca and Han ran through a hallway until they arrived at a side door to the hangar that housed their captured ship. Bracing themselves against the wall, they peered into the hangar and saw the same five stormtrooper sentries they’d seen earlier, from the window at the upper level. The Falcon looked the same as they’d left it, with the landing ramp still down.

  “Didn’t we just leave this party?” Han said. He glanced to his left and saw Leia and Luke rushing up from the other end of the hallway. When they arrived at his side, he said, “What kept you?”

  “We ran into some old friends,” Leia replied, catching her breath.

  Luke asked, “Is the ship all right?”

  “Seems okay, if we can get to it,” Han answered. “Just hope the old man got the tractor beam out of commission.”

  Han was trying to think of a way to get rid of the stormtroopers in the hangar when Luke said, “Look!” Inexplicably, the stormtroopers trotted away from the Falcon’s landing ramp and moved past the deep elevator well.

  Inside the hangar, C-3PO also saw the stormtroopers run to the other side of the elevator well. C-3PO turned to R2-D2 and said, “Come on, Artoo, we’re going!”

  R2-D2 extended his retractable third tread to the hangar deck and rolled forward after C-3PO, heading for the Falcon.

  Back at the side hallway, Han said, “Now’s our chance! Go!”

  Chewbacca, Han, Leia, and Luke ran for the Falcon’s landing ramp. Luke glanced to his right and saw the stormtroopers had moved to the other side of the elevator well. They faced away from him, their attention having been drawn to a fight that was taking place in the hallway beyond the main doorway.

  It was a lightsaber duel. Luke could only imagine the identity of the tall, black-clad humanoid who wielded a red lightsaber. The other duelist wore a brown cloak, and Luke thought he recognized him immediately.

  “Ben?” Luke said, and came to a stop. Who’s he fighting?

  Ben looked to Luke and smiled, then he raised his lightsaber before him and closed his eyes. He looked almost serene.

  Darth Vader thought Obi-Wan was surrendering, but the dark lord was without mercy. Vader’s lightsaber swept through the air and sliced through Ben’s form. Ben’s cloak and lightsaber fell to the floor. His body was gone.

  “No!” Luke shouted.

  Hearing Luke’s cry, the stormtroopers turned and shot at him. Luke raised his blaster rifle and returned their fire, hitting one trooper, who tumbled forward into the elevator well.

  Han immediately joined in the fight, firing at the troopers while the droids and Chewbacca hurried into the Falcon. “Come on!” Han shouted to Luke.

  Darth Vader ignored the blasterfight and looked down at the old brown cloak and lightsaber that lay on the floor. Incredibly, Obi-Wan had completely disappeared. Where is he? How could he vanish? What sort of trickery is this? He had assumed Obi-Wan’s study of the Force had ended long ago, and that his powers had diminished over time. But Vader was wrong.

  Luke and Han kept firing at the troopers. Another trooper was shot down. Leia shouted, “Come on! Come on! Luke, it’s
too late!”

  Darth Vader looked away from Obi-Wan’s cloak, then turned and strode toward the doorway to the hangar.

  Han shouted, “Blast the door, kid!”

  Luke fired at the controls beside the doorway, then two blast doors slid out from the walls to seal off the passage before Vader could enter the hangar. Han and Leia ran into the Falcon. The three remaining stormtroopers continued to fire at Luke. Luke fired again, and reduced their number to two.

  Then, from out of nowhere, Luke heard Ben’s voice: “Run, Luke! Run!”

  Luke looked around, trying to see where the voice had come from. He saw nothing but chose to heed Ben’s words and raced into the Falcon.

  Chewbacca already had the ship’s sub-light engines started when Han rushed into the cockpit. Han stowed his blaster rifle, jumped into the pilot’s seat, and said, “I hope the old man got that tractor beam out of commission, or this is going to be a real short trip. Okay, hit it!”

  The Wookiee punched the controls. The Falcon launched out of the hangar in reverse, then spun and blasted away from the Death Star. As the Corellian freighter gained distance from the Imperial space station, Chewbacca barked at Han. Even though they now knew for certain that Ben had disabled the tractor beam, they still had a problem: The destruction of the planet Alderaan had spread so much debris across the sector that it was no longer safe to use the nearest designated portal to hyperspace. They’d have to enter hyperspace by a different route.

  In the Falcon’s main hold, the droids looked at Luke, who sat at the game table with a blank expression. Leia carried a blanket over to Luke, wrapped it around his shoulders, and sat beside him. Luke just stared at the center of the game table. Why didn’t Ben defend himself? Why?

  In the cockpit, Chewbacca was still waiting for the nav computer to come up with a new route into hyperspace when Han spotted four blips on a sensor scope. “We’re coming up on their sentry ships,” Han said. “Hold ’em off! Angle the deflector shields while I charge up the main guns!”