He was in an unmarked modified light freighter--why would the TIE fighters
come out shooting at them in the first place? Was it the New Republic ID
beacon? What was going on at Kessel? Leia sat around thinking about details
like that, analyzing the possibilities, and coming up with scenarios. With
her tremendous load of diplomatic duties, she was becoming more and more of
a thinker each day, trying to solve things by committee and negotiation. But
a political solution wouldn't work if an Imperial TIE fighter came in
shooting at you.
Another ship soared up from behind as they chased the TIE fighter toward
Kessel. Han shot off a few bursts from his laser, but they all missed; then
he turned his attention to the ship tailing them. The Falcon had no
operational shields back there. Chewbacca called out again from below; then
Han got his second surprise for the day. "I see it, I see it!"
An X-wing fighter approached from the rear, slowly gaining on the Falcon as
they neared Kessel. Han took another potshot at the TIE fighter. Even from
this distance the X-wing fighter seemed old and battered, as if it had been
repaired many times.
"Chewie, contact the X-wing and tell him we'd appreciate whatever help he
can give us." Han pressed his back against the firing chair and focused his
attention on his target.
The fleeing TIE fighter soared into the wispy tail of atmosphere behind the
planet. Han could see a bright pathway as the speed of the ship ionized the
gas. Then the X-wing fired on the Falcon from behind. The lasers scored a
direct hit, incinerating the protruding sensor dish mounted on the top of
the ship.
Han and Chewie shouted at each other, scrambling to figure what to do.
Chewbacca took the Falcon into a tight dive closer to the atmosphere of
Kessel. "Turn us around! Turn us around!" They had to get their unprotected
aft section out of the X-wing's line of fire.
The X-wing shot again, burning metal on the hull of the Falcon. All the
lights went out inside the ship. From the lurch of the cabin Han knew the
hit had been a bad one. He could already smell something burning below
decks. Emergency lights clicked on.
"We've got to get out of here!"
Chewbacca barked the Wookiee equivalent of "no kidding."
They ducked into the atmospheric tail, buffeted by the suddenly dense gas
particles pelting the ship. Around them streamers of heated gas glowed
orange and blue. The X-wing came in from behind, still firing.
Han's mind raced. They could skim around Kessel in a tight orbit, then
slingshot back out of the system. With the black hole cluster so close at
hand, no one would risk jumping into hyperspace without intensive prior
calculations, and neither he nor Chewie could spare the time to do them.
With the Falcon's sensor dish slagged, Han couldn't even send out a distress
call or try to sweet-talk the traitorous commander of the X-wing. He
couldn't even surrender! Talk about being stuck. "Chewie, if you have any
suggestions--'' He stopped talking as his mouth dropped open.
As they swept around Kessel, Han detected wave after wave of fighter ships
launching from the garrison moon, raising a defensive curtain the Millennium
Falcon would never be able to cross.
He saw hundreds of ships of every size and make imaginable, salvaged
warships and stolen pleasure cruisers. Reaching the safety of numbers, the
second TIE fighter did another tight loop to join the rest of the group. And
they all came in shooting with a blur of turbolaser bolts that looked like a
fireworks display. Despite the motley appearance of the Kessel fleet, Han's
sensors showed that their weapons worked just fine. The attacking X-wing
scored a direct hit. The cabin shook.
The Falcon took a turn upward as Chewbacca tried to flee the oncoming wave
of ships. Han sent a barrage of laser fire into the cluster and was
gratified to see the engine pod of a small Z-95 Headhunter fighter burst
into flames. The snub fighter dropped out of the attacking fleet and wobbled
toward Kessel's atmosphere. Han hoped it would crash.
Seeing that it would serve no purpose to keep firing against overwhelming
odds, Han dropped back down the access shaft of the gun turret to the
cockpit to see what he could do to assist Chewbacca.
Then the fleet of ships began pummeling them.
The X-wing fired again, scoring a second direct hit. A firestorm of laser
blasts struck their forward deflector shields. Chewie slewed the Falcon from
side to side in a futile evasive maneuver. Han settled himself into the
other pilot's chair just in time to see the indicator lights for the forward
shields wink out. They were now unprotected from the front and from behind.
Another hit rocked them, and Han's chest smacked against the control panel.
"There goes the main drive unit. We're space-meat in the next barrage. Take
us down, Chewie. Get us into the atmosphere. It's the only thing we can do."
Chewbacca started to express his disbelief, but Han grabbed the controls and
sent them lurching down toward Kessel. "It's gonna be a bumpy ride. Hold on
to your fur."
The swarm of attacking ships whirled in space as the Falcon plowed into the
white atmosphere of Kessel. Han grabbed his seat as the ship struck the
clouds. He suddenly felt the buffeting winds caused by gouts of air escaping
into space. From his control panels and the stench leaking from the back
compartments, Han knew that his maneuvering capabilities would be minimal.
By the groaning sounds from his copilot, he knew the Wookiee had realized
the same thing.
"Think of it this way, Chewie. If we land this thing in one piece, our skill
as pilots will be legendary from one end of the galaxy to the other!" Han
said with a humor he did not feel. 'I knew I shouldn't have come back to
Kessel.''
The Falcon was going down. Both Han and Chewbacca fought to keep a steady
downward course that would not burn them up in the insubstantial atmosphere.
Kessel's main defensive fleet swept into orbit and prepared for an orderly
descent. One sleek, insectile ship, which Han recognized as a
black-market-built Hornet Interceptor, peeled off, streaking downward in the
Falcon's backdraft.
Chewbacca saw it first. The ship, aerodynamically perfect, slid through the
atmosphere like a vibroblade, ignoring the heat generated on its hull. The
ship fired surgical strikes of turbolasers at the Falcon's maneuvering jets,
disabling them further.
"We're already crashing!" Han bellowed. "What more do they want?" But he
knew: they wanted the Falcon to be destroyed on impact, all occupants
erased. Han suspected he didn't need any help from the Hornet Interceptor.
As they plunged downward, the Falcon approached one of the giant atmosphere
factories, a huge smokestack mounted on the surface of Kessel, where immense
engines catalyzed the rock and cooked out gases into a cyclone of breathable
air.
The Hornet Interceptor fired again. The Falcon lurched from a near miss.
Chewbacca's face was grim. His fangs showed as he concentrated on keeping
them alive.
"Chewie, pull as close to the plume as you can. I've got an idea." Chewbacca
yowled, but Han cut him off. "Just do it, buddy!"
When the Hornet tried to outflank them, Han swept the ship aside as the
towering plume of atmosphere boiled into the sky. The Hornet Interceptor
tried to second-guess his move, but Han lurched sideways again, driving the
Hornet into the roaring upward flow of wind.
An aileron strut in the delicate insectile wing snapped off, and the Hornet
spun into the cyclone. Other parts of its hull broke apart as the ship tried
to escape but lurched deeper into the danger zone. Han gave a cry of triumph
as the ship exploded into flames that were pulled to tatters by the
atmosphere factory's vortex.
Then the surface of Kessel rushed up at them like a gigantic hammer.
Han fought with the controls. "At least we'll have a soft landing with the
new repulsorlifts we installed," he said. He grabbed at the panel, priming
the controls. Chewbacca barked at him to hurry. Han activated the
repulsorlifts as he simultaneously heaved a sigh of relief.
Nothing.
"What?" He slammed his fingers on the switch again and again, but the
repulsorlifts refused to operate. "I just had those fixed!" Han yelled above
the noise of screaming wind as he fought to bring the Falcon under some
semblance of control. "Okay, Chewie, I am definitely open for suggestions!"
But Chewbacca had no time to answer before the ship crashed into the rugged
surface of Kessel.
The towers of Imperial City rose to the sky, high above the shadowed surface
of the planet Coruscant. The cornerstones of the towers had been in place
for more than a thousand generations, dating back to the formative days of
the Old Republic. Over the millennia higher and higher structures had been
built on top of the ruined foundations.
Luke Skywalker stepped onto a shuttle-landing platform that jutted out from
the scarred, monolithic face of the former Imperial Palace. Gusts of wind
whipped around him, and he pulled back the hood of his Jedi robe.
He looked into the sky, pondering the thin layer of atmosphere that
protected Coruscant from space beyond. Wrecked ships still rode in haphazard
orbits, debris from the vicious battles when the Alliance had recently
recaptured the planet from Imperial control during civil war in the remnants
of the Empire.
Higher than the tops of the towers, kite-like hawk-bats rode thermal
currents rising from the canyons of the city. As he watched, one hawk-bat
swooped down, down, into the dark crevasses between ancient buildings,
finally emerging a moment later with something cylindrical and dripping--a
granite slug, perhaps--in its claws.
Luke bided his time, using a Jedi meditation technique to quell the anxiety
inside him. As a younger man he had been fidgety and impatient, filled with
uncertainty. But Yoda had taught him patience, along with so many other
things. A true Jedi Knight could wait as long as necessary.
The New Republic Senate had been in session for only an hour, and they would
still be working on mundane issues. Luke wanted to startle them after they
had been talking for a while.
The immense metropolis of Imperial City bustled around him, little changed
now that it was the seat of the New Republic instead of the Empire; prior to
that it had been capital of the Old Republic. The capitol building, formerly
Emperor Palpatine's palace, was made of polished gray-green rock and
mirrored crystals, sparkling in the hazy sunlight of Coruscant as it towered
over all other structures, even the adjoining Senate building.
Much of Imperial City had been laid waste during the months of civil war
following the downfall of Grand Admiral Thrawn. The various factions of the
old Empire had fought over the Emperor's home world, turning vast districts
into graveyards of crashed ships and exploded buildings.
But the tide of battle had turned, and the New Republic had driven back the
vestiges of the Empire. Many Alliance soldiers now turned their efforts to
repairing the damage, his friend Wedge Antilles among them. Top priority had
been given to rebuilding the former Imperial Palace and the Senate chambers.
The Emperor's own construction droids ranged through the battle-scarred
wastelands, automatically scraping up raw materials from the wreckage for
conversion into new buildings.
In the distance Luke could see one of the enormous droids, forty stories
tall, wrecking a half-collapsed building shell and plowing a path where its
programming had deemed a new elevated transport path should be routed. Its
girder arms toppled the stone face of the building, pulling free metal
support structures and feeding the debris into a processing mouth where the
materials would be separated and new components extruded.
the resurrected Emperor's stronghold in the galactic core, and there he had
allowed himself to learn the dark side.
He had become the Emperor's chief lieutenant, just like his father, Darth
Vader. The struggle had been great within him, and only with the help, and
the friendship, and the love of Leia and Han had he been able to break free.
...
Luke saw a diplomatic shuttle dropping down from orbit with its locator
lights rippling in a complex sequence. Its jets turned off with a whining
sound as it coasted toward a landing pad on the far side of the palace.
Luke Skywalker had been through the fire now.
Inside, his heart seemed a diamond-hard lump. He wasn't merely another Jedi
Knight--he was the only remaining Jedi Master. He had survived tests and
rigors more potent than routine Jedi training prepared him for. Luke
understood more about the Force now than he had ever dreamed possible.
Sometimes it terrified him.
He thought of the days when he had been idealistic and adventuresome, riding
the Millennium Falcon and dueling blindly with a practice remote as Ben
Kenobi watched. Luke remembered also the skepticism he had felt as he
swooped down upon the first Death Star during the Battle of Yavin, trying to
locate a tiny thermal-exhaust port; Ben's voice had spoken to him then,
telling him to trust in the Force.
Luke understood much more now, especially why the old man's eyes had held
such a haunted look.
Another hawk-bat swooped down into the dark maze of the lower levels of
buildings, flapping its wings as it climbed back up, holding a squirming
prize in its claws. As Luke watched, a second hawk-bat dove in on an
intercept course, grabbing the prey out of the first's grasp. Far away, he
could hear their cawing sounds as they slashed and tore at each other. The
squirming prey, no longer heeded, fell through the air, buffeted by rising
currents, until it struck ground somewhere in the alley dimness. The two
hawk-bats, locked in mortal combat, also fell as they struggled with each
other, until they too smashed into an outcropping of the abandoned lower
levels.
A troubled expression crossed Luke's
face. An omen? He was about to address
the New Republic Senate. The time had come. He turned and walked back inside
the cool corridors, pulling his robe tightly around himself.
Luke stood at the entrance to the Senate assembly chamber. The room swept
down to a giant amphitheater in which sat the inner circle of appointed
senators and outer rows of representatives from different planets, different
alien races. Realtime holos of the proceedings would be broadcast around
Imperial City and recorded for transmission to other planets.
Sunlight filtered through the fragmented crystal segments in the ceiling
high overhead, fanning out the spectrum in a rainbow effect over the most
important people at the center of the room, scintillating around them as
they moved--designed, Luke knew, by the Emperor himself to strike awe into
those observing him.
As she spoke now on the central dais, Mon Mothma, the New Republic's Chief
of State, seemed uncomfortable in the grandeur of the assembly chamber. Luke
allowed a smile to cross his face as he remembered the first time he had
seen Mon Mothma describing the plans of the second Death Star as the Rebels
approached Endor.
With her short reddish hair and soft voice, Mon Mothma did not look like a
tough-as-nails military commander. As a former member of the Imperial
Senate, Mon Mothma seemed to be more in her element now, trying to forge the
pieces of the New Republic into a strong, unified government.
Beside Mon Mothma sat Luke's sister Leia Organa Solo, straight-backed and
listening to every moment of the proceedings. Leia had been performing more