Star Wars_ Episode VI_ Return Of The Jedi Part 15

He looked again into her eyes, comprehending. With a last, heartfelt smile, he whispered, 'I love you.'

'I know,' she answered simply.

Then the moment was over; and at an unspoken, instantaneous signal, Han whirled out of the line of fire as Leia blasted at the stormtroopers.

The air was filled with laser fire - a glinting orange-pink haze, like an electron storm, buffeted the area, sheared by intense flares.

As the smoke cleared, a giant Imperial Walker approached, stood before him, and stopped. Han looked up to see its laser cannons aimed directly in his face. He raised his arms, and took a tentative step forward. He wasn't really sure what he was going to do. 'Stay back,' he said quietly to Leia, measuring the distance to the machine, in his mind.

That was when the hatch on top of the walker popped open and Chewbacca stuck his head out with an ingratiating smile.

'Ahr Rahr!' barked the Wookiee.

Solo could have kissed him. 'Chewie! Get down here! She's wounded!' He started forward to greet his partner, then stopped in mid-stride. 'No, wait. I've got an idea.'

= IX =.

THE two s.p.a.ce armadas, like their sea-bound counterparts of another time and galaxy, sat floating, s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p, trading broadsides with each other in point-blank confrontation.

Heroic, sometimes suicidal, maneuvers marked the day. A Rebel Cruiser, its back alive with fires and explosions, limped into direct contact with an Imperial Star Destroyer before exploding completely - taking the Star Destroyer with it. Cargo s.h.i.+ps loaded with charge were set on collision courses with fortress-vessels, their crews abandoning s.h.i.+ps to fates that were uncertain, at best.

Lando, Wedge, Blue Leader, and Green Wing went in to take out one of the larger destroyers - the Empire's main communications s.h.i.+p. It had already been disabled by direct cannonade from the Rebel Cruiser it had subsequently destroyed; but its damages were reparable - so the Rebels had to strike while it was still licking its wounds.

Lando's squadron went in low - rock-throwing low - this prevented the destroyer from using its bigger guns. It also made the fighters invisible until they were directly visualized.

'Increase power on the front deflector s.h.i.+elds,' Lando radioed his group. 'We're going in.'

'I'm right with you,' answered Wedge. 'Close up formations, team.'

They went into a high-speed power-dive, perpendicular to the long axis of the Imperial vessel - vertical drops were hard to track. Fifty feet from the surface, they pulled out at ninety degrees, and raced along the gunmetal hull, taking laserfire from every port.

'Starting attack run on the main power tree,' Lando advised.

'I copy,' answered Green Wing. 'Moving into position.'

'Stay clear of their front batteries,' warned Blue Leader.

'It's a heavy fire zone down there.'

'I'm in range.'

'She's hurt bad on the left of the tower,' Wedge noted. 'Concentrate on that side.'

'Right with you.'

Green Wing was. .h.i.t. 'I'm losing power!'

'Get clear, you're going to blow!'

Green Wing took it down like riding a rocket, into the destroyer's front batteries. Tremendous explosions rumbled the port bow.

'Thanks,' Blue Leader said quietly to the conflagration.

'That opens it up for us!' yelled Wedge. 'Cut over. The power reactors are just inside that cargo bay.'

'Follow me!' Lando called, pulling the Falcon into a sharp bank that caught the horrified reactor personnel by surprise. Wedge and Blue followed suit. They all did their worst.

'Direct hit!' Lando shouted.

'There she goes!'

'Pull up, pull up!'

They pulled up hard and fast, as the destroyer was enveloped in a series of ever-increasing explosions, until it looked finally just like one more small star. Blue Leader was caught by the shock wave, and thrown horribly against the side of a smaller Imperial s.h.i.+p, which also exploded. Lando and Wedge escaped.

On the Rebel command s.h.i.+p bridge, smoke and shouts filled the air.

Ackbar reached Calrissian on the comlink. 'The jamming has stopped. We have a reading on the s.h.i.+eld.'

'Is it still up?' Lando responded with desperate antic.i.p.ation in his voice.

'I'm afraid so. It looks like General Solo's unit didn't make it.'

'Until they've destroyed our last s.h.i.+p, there's still hope,' replied Lando. Han wouldn't fail. He couldn't - they still had to pick off that annoying Death Star.

On the Death Star, Luke was nearly unconscious beneath the continuing a.s.sault of the Emperor's lightning. Tormented beyond reason, betaken of a weakness that drained his very essence, he hoped for nothing more than to submit to the nothingness toward which he was drifting.

The Emperor smiled down at the enfeebled young Jedi, as Vader struggled to his feet beside his master.

'Young fool!' Palpatine rasped at Luke. 'Only now at the end, do you understand. Your puerile skills are no match for the power of the dark side. You have paid a price for your lack of vision. Now, young Skywalker, you will pay the price in full. You will die!'

He laughed maniacally; and although it would not have seemed possible to Luke, the outpouring of bolts from the Emperor's fingers actually increased in intensity. The sound screamed through the room, the murderous brightness of the flashes was overwhelming.

Luke's body slowed, wilted, finally crumpled under the hideous barrage. He stopped moving altogether. At last, he appeared totally lifeless. The Emperor hissed maliciously.

At that instant, Vader sprang up and grabbed the Emperor from behind, pinning Palpatine's upper arras to his torso. Weaker than he'd ever been, Vader had lain still these last few minutes, focusing his every fiber of being on this one, concentrated act - the only action possible; his last, if he failed. Ignoring pain, ignoring his shame and his weaknesses, ignoring the bone-crus.h.i.+ng noise in his head, he focused solely and sightlessly on his will - his will to defeat the evil embodied in the Emperor.

Palpatine struggled in the grip of Vader's unfeeling embrace, his hands still shooting bolts of malign energy out in all directions. In his wild flailing, the lightning ripped across the room, tearing into Vader. The Dark Lord fell again, electric currents crackling down his helmet, over his cape, into his heart.

Vader stumbled with his load to the middle of the bridge over the black chasm leading to the power core. He held the wailing despot high over his head, and with a final spasm of strength, hurled him into the abyss.

Palpatine's body, still spewing bolts of light, spun out of control, into the void, bouncing back and forth off the sides of the shaft as it fell. It disappeared at last; but then, a few seconds later, a distant explosion could be heard, far down at the core. A rush of air billowed out the shaft, into the throne room.

The wind whipped at Lord Vader's cape, as he staggered and collapsed toward the hole, trying to follow his master to the end. Luke crawled to his father's side, though, and pulled the Dark Lord away from the edge of the chasm, to safety.

Both of them lay on the floor, entwined in each other, too weak to move, too moved to speak.

Inside the bunker on Endor, Imperial controllers watched the main view-screen of the Ewok battle just outside. Though the image was clogged with static, the fighting seemed to be winding down. About time, since they'd initially been told that the locals on this moon were harmless nonbelligerents.

The interference seemed to worsen - probably another antenna damaged in the fighting - when suddenly a walker pilot appeared on the screen, waving excitedly.

'It's over, Commander! The Rebels have been routed, and are fleeing with the bear-creatures into the woods. We need reinforcements to continue the pursuit.'

The bunker personnel all cheered. The s.h.i.+eld was safe.

'Open the main door!' ordered the commander. 'Send three squads to help.'

The bunker door opened, the Imperial troops came rus.h.i.+ng out only to find themselves surrounded by Rebels and Ewoks, looking b.l.o.o.d.y and mean. The Imperial troops surrendered without a fight.

Han, Chewie, and five others ran into the bunker with the explosive charges. They placed the timed devices at eleven strategic points in and around the power generator, then ran out again as fast as they could.

Leia, still in great pain from her wounds, lay in the sheltered comfort of some distant bushes. She was shouting orders to the Ewoks, to gather their prisoners on the far side of the clearing, away from the bunker, when Han and Chewie tore out, racing for cover. In the next moment, the bunker went.

It was a spectacular display, explosion after explosion sending a wall of fire hundreds of feet into the air, creating a shock wave that knocked every living creature off its feet, and charred all the greenery that faced the clearing.

The bunker was destroyed.

A captain ran up to Admiral Ackbar, his voice tremulous. 'Sir, the s.h.i.+eld around the Death Star has lost its power.'

Ackbar looked at the view-screen; the electronically generated web was gone. The moon, and the Death Star, now floated in black, empty, unprotected s.p.a.ce.

'They did it,' Ackbar whispered.

He rushed over to the comlink and shouted into the multi-frequency war channel. 'All fighters commence attack on the Death Star's main reactor. The deflector s.h.i.+eld is down. Repeat. The deflector s.h.i.+eld is down!'

Lando's voice was the next one heard. 'I see it. We're on our way. Red group! Gold group! Blue Squad! All fighters follow me!' That's my man, Han. Now it's my turn.

The Falcon plunged to the surface of the Death Star, followed by hordes of Rebel fighters, followed by a still-ma.s.sing but disorganized array of Imperial TIE fighters - while three Rebel Star Cruisers headed for the huge Imperial Super Star Destroyer, Vader's flags.h.i.+p, which seemed to be having difficulties with its guidance system.

Lando and the first wave of X-wings headed for the unfinished portion of the Death Star, skimming low over the curving surface of the completed side.

'Stay low until we get to the unfinished side,' Wedge told his squad. n.o.body needed to be told.

'Squadron of enemy fighters coming-'Blue Wing,' called Lando, 'take your group and draw the TIE fighters away-'I'll do what I can.'

'I'm picking up interference ... the Death Star's jamming us, I think-'

'More fighters coming at ten o'clock-'There's the superstructure,' Lando called. 'Watch for the main reactor shaft.'

He turned hard into the unfinished side, and began weaving dramatically among protruding girders, half-built towers, mazelike channels, temporary scaffolding, sporadic floodlights. The antiaircraft defenses weren't nearly as well developed here yet - they'd been depending completely on the deflector s.h.i.+eld for protection.

Consequently the major sources of worry for the Rebels were the physical jeopardies of the structure itself, and the Imperial TIE fighters on their tails.

'I see it - the power-channel system,' Wedge radioed. 'I'm going in.'

'I see it, too,' agreed Lando. 'Here goes nothing.'

'This isn't going to be easy-'

Over a tower and under a bridge - and suddenly they were flying at top speed inside a deep shaft that was barely wide enough for three fighters, wing to wing. Moreover, it was pierced, along its entire twisting length, by myriad feeding shafts and tunnels, alternate forks, and dead-end caverns; and spiked, in addition, with an alarming number of obstacles within the shaft itself: heavy machinery, structural elements, power cables, floating stairways, barrier half-walls, piled debris.

A score of Rebel fighters made the first turn-off into the power shaft, followed by twice that number of TIEs. Two X- wings lost it right away, careening into a derrick to avoid the first volley of laser fire.

The chase was on.

'Where are we going, Gold Leader?' Wedge called out gaily. A laserbolt hit the shaft above him, showering his window with sparks.

'Lock onto the strongest power source,' Lando suggested. 'It should be the generator.'

'Red Wing, stay alert - we could run out of s.p.a.ce real fast.'

They quickly strung out into single and double file, as it started becoming apparent that the shaft was not only pocked with side-vents and protruding obstacles, but also narrowing across its width at every turn.

TIE fighters. .h.i.t another Rebel, who exploded in flames. Then another TIE fighter hit a piece of machinery, with a similar result.

'I've got a reading on a major shaft obstruction ahead,' Lando announced.

'Just picked it up. Will you make it?'

'Going to be a tight squeeze.'

It was a tight squeeze. It was a heat-wall occluding three fourths of the tunnel, with a dip in the shaft at the same level to make up a little room. Lando had to spin the Falcon through 360 degrees while rising, falling, and accelerating. Luckily, the X-wings and Y-wings weren't quite as bulky. Still, two more of them didn't make it on the downside. The smaller TIEs drew closer.

Suddenly coa.r.s.e white static blanketed all the viewscreens.

'My scope's gone!' yelled Wedge.

'Cut speed,' cautioned Lando. 'Some kind of power discharge causing interference.'

'Switch to visual scanning.'

'That's useless at these velocities - we'll have to fly nearly blind.'

Two blind X-wings. .h.i.t the wall as the shaft narrowed again. A third was blown apart by the gaining Imperial fighters.

'Green Leader!' called Lando.

'Copy, Gold Leader.'

'Split off and head back to the surface - Home-one just called for a fighter, and you might draw some fire off us.'

Green Leader and his cohort peeled off, out of the power shaft, back up to the cruiser battle. One TIE fighter followed, firing continuously.