Trilogy (24 page)

Kenobi heard the approaching commotion and spared a glance back into the hangar. The squad of troopers bearing down on him was enough to show that he was trapped.

Vader took immediate advantage of the momentary distraction to bring his saber over and down. Kenobi somehow managed to deflect the sweeping blow, at once parrying and turning a complete circle.

“You still have your skill, but your power fades. Prepare to meet the force, Obi-wan.”

Kenobi gauged the shrinking distance between the on
coming troops and himself, then turned a pitying gaze on Vader. “This is a fight you cannot win, Darth. Your power has matured since I taught you, but I too have grown much since our parting. If my blade finds its mark, you will cease to exist. But if you cut me down, I will only become more powerful. Heed my words.”

“Your philosophies no longer confuse me, old man,” Vader growled contemptuously. “I am the master now.”

Once again he lunged forward, feinting, and then slashing in a deadly downward arc with the saber. It struck home, cutting the old man cleanly in half. There was a brief flash as Kenobi's cloak fluttered to the deck in two neat sections.

But Ben Kenobi was not in it. Wary of some tricks, Vader poked at the empty cloak sections with the saber. There was no sign of the old man. He had vanished as though he had never existed.

The guards slowed their approach and joined Vader in examining the place where Kenobi had stood seconds before. Several of them muttered, and even the awesome presence of the Sith Lord couldn't keep a few of them from feeling a little afraid.

O
nce the guards had turned and dashed for the far tunnel, Solo and the others started for the starship—until Luke saw Kenobi cut in two. Instantly he shifted direction and was moving toward the guards.

“Ben!” he screamed, firing wildly toward the troops. Solo cursed, but turned to fire in support of Luke.

One of the energy bolts struck the safety release on the tunnel blast door. The emergency hold broken, the heavy door fairly exploded downward. Both the guards and
Vader leaped clear—the guards into the bay and Vader backward, to the opposite side of the door.

Solo had turned and started for the entrance to the ship, but he paused as he saw Luke running toward the guards.

“It's too late!” Leia yelled at him. “It's over.”

“No!” Luke half shouted, half sobbed.

A familiar, yet different voice rang in his ears—Ben's voice. “Luke … listen!” was all it said.

Bewildered, Luke turned to hunt for the source of that admonition. He only saw Leia beckoning to him as she followed Artoo and Threepio up the ramp.

“Come on! There's no time.”

Hesitating, his mind still on that imagined voice (or was it imagined?), a confused Luke took aim and felled several soldiers before he, too, whirled and retreated into the freighter.

XI

D
AZED
, L
UKE STAGGERED TOWARD
the front of the ship. He barely noticed the sound of energy bolts, too weak to penetrate the ship's deflectors, exploding harmlessly outside. His own safety was currently of little concern to him. With misty eyes he stared as Chewbacca and Solo adjusted controls.

“I hope that old man managed to knock out that tractor beam,” the Corellian was saying, “or this is going to be a very short ride.”

Ignoring him, Luke returned to the hold area and slumped into a seat, his head falling into his hands. Leia Organa regarded him quietly for a while, then removed her cloak. Moving to him, she placed it gently around his shoulders.

“There wasn't anything you could have done,” she whispered comfortingly. “It was all over in an instant.”

“I can't believe he's gone,” came Luke's reply, his voice a ghost of a whisper. “I can't.”

Solo shifted a lever, staring nervously ahead. But the massive bay door was constructed to respond to the approach of any vessel. The safety feature now served to facilitate their escape as the freighter slipped quickly past the still-opening door and out into free space.

“Nothing,” Solo sighed, studying several readouts with profound satisfaction. “Not so much as an erg of comehither. He did it, all right.”

Chewbacca rumbled something, and the pilot's attention shifted to another series of gauges. “Right, Chewie. I forgot, for a moment, that there are other ways of persuading us to return.” His teeth flashed in a grin of determination. “But the only way they'll get us back in that traveling tomb is in pieces. Take over.”

Whirling, he ran out of the cockpit. “Come with me, kid,” he shouted at Luke as he entered the hold. “We're not out of this yet.”

Luke didn't respond, didn't move, and Leia turned an angry face to Solo. “Leave him alone. Can't you see what the old man meant to him?”

An explosion jarred the ship, nearly tumbling Solo to the deck.

“So what? The old man gave himself to give us a chance to get away. You want to waste that, Luke? You want Kenobi to have wasted himself?”

Luke's head came up and he stared with vacant eyes at the Corellian. No, not quite vacant … There was something too old and unpleasant shining blindly in the back of them. Without a word, he threw off the cloak and joined Solo.

Giving him a reassuring smile, Solo gestured down a narrow accessway. Luke looked in the indicated direction,
smiled grimly, and rushed down it as Solo started down the opposing passage.

Luke found himself in a large rotating bubble protruding from the side of the ship. A long, wicked-looking tube whose purpose was instantly apparent projected from the apex of the transparent hemisphere. Luke settled himself into the seat and commenced a rapid study of the controls. Activator here, firing grip here … He had fired such weapons a thousand times before—in his dreams.

Forward, Chewbacca and Leia were searching the speckled pit outside for the attacking fighters represented by firepricks on several screens. Chewbacca suddenly growled throatily and pulled back on several controls as Leia let out a yelp.

“Here they come.”

The starfield wheeled around Luke as an Imperial TIE fighter raced toward him and then swung overhead to vanish into the distance. Within the tiny cockpit its pilot frowned as the supposedly battered freighter darted out of range. Adjusting his own controls, he swung up and over in a high arc intended to take him on a fresh intercept course with the escaping ship.

Solo fired at another fighter, and its pilot nearly slammed his engine through its mountings as he fought to avoid the powerful energy bolts. As he did so, his hurried maneuver brought him under and around to the other side of the freighter. Even as he was lowering the glare reflector over his eyes, Luke opened up on the racing fighter.

Chewbacca was alternating his attention between the instruments and the tracking screens, while Leia strained to separate distant stars from nearby assassins.

Two fighters dove simultaneously on the twisting, spiraling
freighter, trying to line their weapons on the unexpectedly flexible craft. Solo fired at the descending globes, and Luke followed with his own weapon a second later. Both fired on the starship and then shot past.

“They're coming in too fast,” Luke yelled into his comlink.

Another enemy bolt struck the freighter forward and was barely shunted aside by its deflectors. The cockpit shuddered violently, and gauges whined in protest at the quantity of energy they were being asked to monitor and compensate for.

Chewbacca muttered something to Leia, and she murmured a soft reply as if she almost understood.

Another fighter unloosed a barrage on the freighter, only this time the bolt pierced an overloaded screen and actually struck the side of the ship. Though partially deflected, it still carried enough power to blow out a large control panel in the main passageway, sending a rain of sparks and smoke in all directions. Artoo Detoo started stolidly toward the miniature inferno as the ship lurched crazily, throwing the less stable Threepio into a cabinet full of component chips.

A warning light began to wink for attention in the cockpit. Chewbacca muttered to Leia, who stared at him worriedly and wished for the gift of Wookiee-gab.

Then a fighter floated down on the damaged freighter, right into Luke's sights. His mouth moving silently, Luke fired at it. The incredibly agile little vessel darted out of his range, but as it passed beneath them Solo picked it up instantly, and commenced a steady following fire. Without warning the fighter erupted in an incredible flash of multicolored light, throwing a billion bits of superheated metal to every section of the cosmos.

Solo whirled and gave Luke a victory wave, which the younger man gleefully returned. Then they turned back to their weapons as yet another fighter stormed over the freighter's hull, firing at its transmitter dish.

In the middle of the main passageway, angry flames raged around a stubby cylindrical shape. A fine white powdery spray issued from Artoo Detoo's head. Wherever it touched, the fire retreated sharply.

Luke tried to relax, to become a part of the weapon. Almost without being aware of it, he was firing at a retreating Imperial. When he blinked, it was to see the flaming fragments of the enemy craft forming a perfect ball of light outside the turret. It was his turn to spin and flash the Corellian a grin of triumph.

In the cockpit, Leia paid close attention to scattered readouts as well as searching the sky for additional ships. She directed her voice toward an open mike.

“There are still two more of them out there. Looks like we've lost the lateral monitors and the starboard deflector shield.”

“Don't worry,” Solo told her, with as much hope as confidence, “she'll hold together.” He gave the walls a pleading stare. “You hear me, ship? Hold together! Chewie, try to keep them on our port side. If we—”

He was forced to break off as a TIE fighter seemed to materialize out of nowhere, energy bolts reaching out from it toward him. Its companion craft came up on the freighter's other side and Luke found himself firing steadily at it, ignoring the immensely powerful energy it threw at him. At the last possible instant before it passed out of range, he swung the weapon's nozzle minutely, his finger tightening convulsively on the fire control. The Imperial fighter turned into a rapidly expanding cloud of phosphorescing
dust. The other fighter apparently considered the shrunken odds, turned, and retreated at top speed.

“We've made it!” Leia shouted, turning to give the startled Wookiee an unexpected hug. He growled at her—very softly.

D
arth Vader strode into the control room where Governor Tarkin stood staring at a huge, brilliantly lit screen. It displayed a sea of stars, but it was not the spectacular view which absorbed the Governor's thoughts at the moment. He barely glanced around as Vader entered.

“Are they away?” the Dark Lord demanded.

“They've just completed the jump to hyperspace. No doubt they are at this very moment congratulating themselves on their daring and success.” Now Tarkin turned to face Vader, a hint of warning in his tone.

“I'm taking an awful chance, on your insistence, Vader. This had better work. Are you certain the homing beacon is secure aboard their ship?”

Vader exuded confidence beneath the reflective black mask. “There is nothing to fear. This will be a day long remembered. It already has been witness to the final extinction of the Jedi. Soon it will see the end of the Alliance and the rebellion.”

S
olo switched places with Chewbacca, the Wookiee grateful for the opportunity to relinquish the controls. As the Corellian moved aft to check the extent of the damage, a determined-looking Leia passed him in the corridor.

“What do you think, sweetheart?” Solo inquired, well
pleased with himself. “Not a bad bit of rescuing. You know, sometimes I amaze even myself.”

“That doesn't sound too hard,” she admitted readily. “The important thing is not my safety, but the fact that the information in the R-2 'droid is still intact.”

“What's that 'droid carrying that's so important, anyway?”

Leia considered the blazing starfield forward. “Complete technical schematics of the battle station. I only hope that when the data is analyzed, a weakness can be found. Until then, until the station itself is destroyed, we must go on. This war isn't over yet.”

“It is for me,” objected the pilot. “I'm not on this mission for your revolution. Economics interest me, not politics. There's business to be done under any government. And I'm not doing it for you, Princess. I expect to be well paid for risking my ship and my hide.”

“You needn't worry about your reward,” she assured him sadly, turning to leave. “If money is what you love … that's what you will receive.”

On leaving the cockpit she saw Luke coming forward, and she spoke softly to him in passing. “Your friend is indeed a mercenary. I wonder if he really cares about anything—or anybody.”