Star Wars: Return to Tatooine

Backstory

2012-06-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

I had read and greatly enjoyed Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy a couple years earlier. The follow-up books by other (I would say lesser) authors did not impress me. So being a dumb arrogant kid, I decided I would take matters into my own hands.

The result is this novella. As the title suggests, it's about a return to Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine for him and the whole gang. The primary purpose really was to hook up him and Mara Jade, which had been thwarted in the official follow-up books. (This was rectified two years later by Mr. Zahn, who got things back on the right track with his Hand of Thrawn series.)

A special note is that this was written before the bloody awful prequels so if some of the continuity doesn't jive with that it's because they didn't exist yet--and we were all better off.

Please enjoy "Star Wars: Return to Tatooine..."

Epilogue

2007-06-13T06:14:00.000-07:00

Epilogue

Vnus was the last smuggler to sign the agreement and then all of the smugglers applauded. The alliance between the smugglers and the New Republic had now been made official in the lounge of the Millenium Falcon. Han, Leia, Luke, Chewie, Wedge, and the droids witnessed the signing from afar, but they were still witnesses to the grand achievement that had been made. The smugglers had shown their willingness to cooperate with the New Republic on a long-term basis, something that could prove to be very valuable in reviving galactic trade for the New Republic. All of them knew that it was a step towards restoring peace to the entire galaxy.

After the signing, Mara and Luke went up to the cockpit to talk in private. Luke could sense that something was wrong, and as he sat down he knew that he would not like what Mara was about to tell him.

“I’ve got to go with the smugglers when they leave here. There’s still a lot of work to do in integrating the cooperation agreement with all of the smugglers’ organizations. It may take months or years, I’m not sure. This means that we won’t be seeing each other for a long time,” she began and Luke wished that he hadn’t been right.

“That’s all right, when you come back...”

“When I come back, I want us to be friends. It wouldn’t work for us to try a relationship. You’ve got Jedi to find and train and I’ve got to help organize the smugglers. You’ll be on one side of the galaxy and I’ll be on the other. We wouldn’t ever get to see each other, it just wouldn’t work. So, we should just be friends for now. Maybe in a little while when things settle down...”

“I know,” Luke said dejectedly.

“It’s not that what we said to each other earlier meant nothing, it really did, but I just know that it wouldn’t work out. I still...I still love you, but as a friend only. Don’t worry, you’ll find someone someday, but it’s not going to be me. I’m sorry.”

“I understand, and I know that you’re right. It’s just that...it’s just that I don’t want to end up alone. Maybe it’s just not possible for a Jedi to find love.”

“No, that’s not it at all. You are a very special, a great man Luke. You’ll find someone who’s right for you someday.” Mara kissed him lightly on the cheek and then walked away. He heard the sound of her boots as she went down the ramp. She was soon aboard a freighter and lifting off. An unexpected tear came to her eye as the Falcon dropped out of view. She turned away from the window and wiped the tear away. She took the lightsaber off of her belt and knew that a part of Luke Skywalker would always be with her.

Luke looked up in the sky, thinking of how he was leaving Tatooine with an ache in his heart that hurt nearly as much as the first time he had left the planet with Ben Kenobi after the death of his aunt and uncle. He had loved Mara for that brief time when they had been together. They had been through so much and she was one of the few people who understood him, understood the Force and the ways of the Jedi. She had understood his commitment to finding and training other Jedi. He sat in the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon and watched the twin suns set. Then he stood and walked back to the lounge where the others were talking.

This was one of the many times that he was glad to have such friends. He stood in the doorway and saw Threepio and Artoo chattering in a corner, Wedge and Chewie were playing a game and it appeared that Chewie was losing, and Han and Leia were cuddled up together and watching the game. These were the people he had come to count on for friendship, support, and understanding. No matter what went wrong, he could always count on them being there for him. He stepped into the lounge and Leia smiled, motioning for him to take a seat near them. He returned the smile and watched the game.

Two weeks later the halls of the Imperial Palace on Coruscant were decorated with New Republic banners. Dignitaries wandered the halls and soldiers stood guard in full dress uniform. Mara Jade was dressed in a formal gown, something she had not worn in a long time. But today was a special occasion. There was a big ceremony going on, one she didn’t want to miss. She went to the doors of the council chambers and was admitted by the guards. She looked around the room, where ranks of soldiers stood with the council members. Mara walked to the front row of the crowd where various smugglers stood along with Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie, the droids, and Wedge Antilles. At the front of the room stood Mon Mothma, the head of the New Republic.

Horns sounded and New Republic flags were raised. The doors opened and three men stepped in, each one decorated in a new New Republic officer’s uniform. They marched briskly to the head of the room and stood before Mon Mothma. The music subsided and all the soldiers stood at perfect attention.

“Today,” Mon Mothma began, “we are here to honor three men whose heroism not only saved the lives of their comrades, but saved the inhabitants of an entire world from tyranny. Their names are Hak Vnus, Bilhok Jibuv, and L’ng Starm. Their brave act destroyed the Imperial Star Destroyer that was attempting to take over the world of Tatooine. By destroying one of the ship’s engines they caused the destruction of this vessel, and for that they have the thanks of every citizen of Tatooine and the New Republic.

“With this act they saved the lives of their fellow smugglers and the populance of Tatooine. They did this act unselfishly and with great courage. For this they have received the highest possible honor we have to offer,” Mon Mothma stopped and held up three medals. With precise and deliberate movements she put medals around each man’s neck. They turned and faced the crowd and everyone applauded.

“We are also here today to welcome the three newest starship captains in the New Republic fleet. These same three men have elected to foresake smuggling and use their talents to command New Republic vessels. They have all been granted the rank of Captain for their distinguished service and have been given command of three combat vessels. Their experience will further aid our cause to elimate the tyranny of the Empire from every section of the galaxy.” The room erupted into applause and the music sounded again. The ceremony broke up and the three newly-commissioned officers marched out of the room.

Vnus sighed with relief and fingered the medal. He had been given command of his own ship, the Phoenix, which had been allowed to join the New Republic fleet. They had tried to get Vnus to accept command of a larger ship, but he couldn’t imagine leaving his ship. He had built it himself and he would never leave it. It would be like losing a friend or even his own child. Now though, he would have a full-time crew on the ship and access to facilities where he could repair it when it needed it. He smiled to himself, he couldn’t wait to get on board and start to work on repairing the weapons systems, and this time he would actually repair them and not just hotwire them.

Jibuv had been given command of a corvette and his damaged shuttle, which had been found badly damaged in the hangars on Tatooine, was on board. He looked forward to fixing it up once again. He too could not leave his ship behind, for it was too much a part of him. Although he had once been an Imperial pilot, Jibuv felt that the New Republic still had a lot of work ahead of it and that he could help to destroy the Empire forever.

Starm, who was still a little depressed after hearing of the attack on his homeworld, was in command of a frigate that was to lead a relief convoy to help the planet. There had been survivors and he knew that he had to help them, because they were his people. Even though he had been exiled, Ingra would always be his home. He was hopeful that he could help his planet, and earn the respect of his people, as he walked towards the spaceport where he could catch a shuttle that would take him to where the newly-renamed frigate, Nan Mews, was berthed.

Before they went their separate ways, the three men shook hands and said their good-byes. “I’m going to miss you guys. We’ll have to get togehter sometime. Good luck on the relief mission Starm,” Vnus said to his friends.

“Good luck on fixing that crate of yours Vnus. I still can’t believe that they let you keep that thing. That’s no privateer, it’s a flying deathtrap!” Starm joked and patted Vnus on the back.

“Well, I’ll see you two. I’ve got to try and get my ship working again. It wouldn’t be good if the ‘Captain’s Private Shuttle’ wasn’t even spaceworthy,” Jibuv remarked and then walked towards the shuttle to take him to his corvette. Vnus and Starm shook hands again and then they walked away, neither one looking back.

After the ceremony, Mara had pulled Luke aside. He smiled at her and extended his hand. “I’m glad that you could come,” he told her.

“I’m glad I could too, because those three guys deserve those medals. It’s too bad that we smugglers have to lose three of our own to the New Republic.”

“I hear that Talon Karrde’s been thinking of retirement.”

“He has been. I’ve got to meet with him soon and see what his plans are. I think he wants to turn the entire outfit over to me. I don’t blame him for wanting to retire, smuggling can get pretty tiring. Sometimes you want to just settle down,” she replied and touched his cheek. She wanted to kiss him again, but held back. She turned away and called over her shoulder, “I’ll keep in touch!” Then she walked away and Luke knew that it would be a long while until he saw her again. But he knew now that he had gained a friend today. Sadly, he turned away and walked to his quarters. He stood at the door, shrugged, and then walked up to the roof. The wind whipped at him and he looked out over the city.

He saw a lone vehicle in the sky, its running lights on. He could feel Mara in it and he imagined her sitting there and then he wished that he could reach out and touch her one last time. The aching in his heart was still there and he turned away to leave; he had to get his X-Wing out of Maintenance tomorrow to go back to Deysdon IV. As he walked back across the roof, he could almost hear Mara’s voice saying: ‘Good-bye Luke’. He nodded and the door to the roof slammed shut behind him.

[END]

12

2007-06-13T06:13:00.002-07:00

Luke dodged another shot from the AT-AT closing with the speeder bike and curse all Imperial technology. The speeder bike’s engine was giving out and he had to decrease speed to keep it from failing totally. The AT-AT and the smaller vehicles with it were gaining on them now and Luke knew that there was nowhere to go. They were out in the open desert, with no hills or mountains that could be used as cover. And now they could no longer outrun the Imperials. It was getting more and more hopeless.

Mara could feel Luke’s uneasiness and she wanted to comfort him, to reassure him that they would be all right, but she knew that there was nothing that she could say. She had found that recently she had worried more and more about Skywalker. He had done so much for her, rescued her on several occasions, taught her the ways of the Force, and given her the lightsaber which he had once carried, a very personal gift. But now there was nothing that either of them could do to avoid the Imperials pursuing them.

Mara grabbed her captured blaster and fired in defiance at the AT-AT coming closer. The shot glanced harmlessly off of the AT-AT’s armor and Mara noticed that the speeder bike was slowing even further. She looked over Luke’s shoulder and then saw a huge dust cloud ahead. He was aiming right for it and she knew what his plan was. If they could get into that sandstorm then they might be able to use it as a smokescreen to head off in a new direction and lose their pursuers.

Luke gunned the engine and heard it squeal in protest. He was able to milk a short burst of speed out of the engine and then they were in the cloud of sand. Only it wasn’t a sandstorm, it was another Imperial patrol. The engine on the speeder bike gave out for good and both Luke and Mara jumped off and began to run. They knew it was futile, but they had no choice.

Their change in course had taken them to another area of high ridges and cliffs. They ran for the ridges, hoping to use them to hide. The vehicles that had been following them emerged from the dust cloud and Blous saw the burning remnants of the speeder bike. He looked around and then saw the fleeing figures. Recognizing the search party, he contacted them.

“There are two Rebels heading for the mountains on foot. I want them cut off and surrounded,” Blous commanded.

“But sir, what about the other Rebels? The landspeeder?” The leader of the search party asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“We found a landspeeder with suspected Rebels aboard.”

“Forget them! The ones on foot are the ones that we want!” Blous barked and the other officer obeyed. His AT-AT swung around and tromped after the Rebels. Blous had his forces fan out to block the Rebels’ escape if they chose to try and double-back.

Leia wiped the tears from her eyes, the product of the smoke streaming from the landspeeder’s engine. She had run into an Imperial patrol and had taken a direct hit from an AT-ST’s cannons. They had been limping out of the area with the Imperials in pursuit, when they had broken off. She could feel Luke somewhere nearby, as well as Mara. She still couldn’t get a message to them, but at least she knew that they were close by. Then she heard the roar of engines and looked over at Threepio.

“Take the controls,” she said and grabbed her blaster. She turned to shoot but all that she saw was the Millenium Falcon. Never before had she been so glad to see the ugly ship. Leia took the controls back from Threepio, who was jabbering excitedly. She landed the landspeeder on a ridge and the Falcon landed beside them. Han came down the ramp and they embraced, sharing a long kiss while Threepio and Artoo had their own joyful reunion.

“Artoo, I’m so glad to see you! I’ve had a most terrible day!” Threepio moaned as the two droids went up the ramp. Han and Leia slowly boarded the ship and then they went up to the cockpit. Chewie growled an affectionate greeting and Leia took a seat.

“Han, Luke’s somewhere close by, I can feel him. He’s with Mara and I’m not sure what kind of danger they may be in. An Imperial patrol is close by, they may have gotten both of them. We’ve got to hurry!” Leia explained rapidly.

“All right. Chewie let’s get going. I want you and Leia to get into the laser turrets, we may have to fight our way out of this mess,” Han mumbled grimly and his wife and friend got out of their seats and went back to man the laser turrets. Han gulped and activated the repulsorlifts. The Falcon rose into the air, momentarily obscuring the twin suns before it leapt forward.

Isel felt the deck plates beneath him tremble as another shot rocked the ship. The Rebels and their allies were hitting the Star Destroyer with everything they had and the Ravage’s turbolasers were being overwhelmed. A freighter dropped in just below the bridge and fired two missiles into the superstructure. Isel heard the latest reports from the engineers. The patchwork repairs they had made after the Ravage’s last big battle were beginning to fall apart and the hull integrity was decreasing by the minute. The shields were also failing and the suicide shuttles were all destroyed. The situation was quickly turning more and more bleak for Isel.

He turned to Bysal as the entire ship rattled from the shots pounding it. “Concentrate all firepower on the frigate until it was destroyed and fire all ions at the smugglers to keep them busy,” Isel ordered and Bysal nodded.

Mews was standing now, and she could feel that they were close to winning. The Star Destroyer was being overwhelmed with targets big and small and she knew that they could not last forever. Only a few shots hit the frigate every now and then and engineers had been able to boost shield power a little so that they could remain in the fight longer. A smile came across the tired helmsman’s face and she knew that the Imperials were going to be beaten again. Ship by ship the New Republic was destroying the Empire’s might in the galaxy. Soon their power would be broken forever and a new era of peace would encompass all of the wartorn galaxy.

It was then that all fire from the Star Destroyer ceased and Mews knew that they were done for. But just as quickly the Star Destroyer began to fire again, directly at the frigate. Ions lit up the blackness of space and smacked against the shields of smuggler ships. A huge barrage of energy hit the frigate head-on and the shields collapsed. Around the bridge consoles blew and the few crewman around Mews flew in all directions as the ship was torn apart. Mews felt the deck buckling under her feet and she struggled to get back to the helm. She hit a few buttons and activated the withdraw course. As she was pulling back on the levers the Star Destroyer fired again and Mews’ console exploded. She took the brunt of the blow and was thrown across the bridge and into a battered console. She was conscious just long enough to feel her skin start to burn as fire swept through the bridge. Then she closed her eyes and died.

Wedge had been going in for another go at the Star Destroyer when the ions had started to fire. He had ordered the fighters to pull back, so as to not get hit and become stationary targets. He saw explosions rock the Ranger and then shielded his eyes as it exploded in a huge fireball. Debris flew in all directions, but Wedge could see no escape pods when he looked around. The entire crew of the New Republic frigate Ranger had been lost.

“Rogue Leader to all allied forces. Commence attack on the shield generators and bridge structure.” Wedge put his engines to full, seeing the fiery deaths of the Ranger’s crew in his mind’s eye. He dove onto the Star Destroyer with a vengence, targeting the shield generators with his two torpedoes. An attack on the shields had been considered too risky earlier, but without the frigate, the allies had no choice but to take the risk. One of the shield generators exploded and two X-Wings from Rogue Squadron dove onto the other one and took it out with their torpedoes. The smuggler ships followed and began pounding the bridge structure on all sides with everything they had.

Isel struggled to maintain his footing as the Rebels’ attack intensified. “Open fire on all Rebel ships! Destroy them!” He screamed and the badly depleted turbolasers began firing once again. Bysal was getting off of the lift, coming back after consulting with the engineers in engineering about the ship’s hull, when the entire bridge exploded in a cloud of debris and fire. He was propelled forward and flung into a crew pit where he hit against a console. The techs in the pit were already dead from when their consoles had overloaded and exploded. He could feel the searing heat of fire all around him, but suddenly two strong hands pulled him out of the pit. He looked up and saw that his captain had pulled him out.

“Captain, sir, I’m sorry...” Bysal moaned as Isel dragged him across the shattered bridge deck.

“It’s not over yet, Lieutenant. Helmsman! Can anyone hear me?” Isel called out across the fireswept bridge. He got a feeble response from a dying crewman, the navigation officer. “Set a course back to Ingra and get us into lightspeed as soon as possible!” The navigator slowly inputted the cooridinates, his fingers growing slower as the blood drained out of him.

“Sir, we’re retreating?” Bysal whispered increduously.

“For now, Lieutenant. Just for now. But as soon as we’ve made repairs we’ll be back,” Isel said and the navigator finished the lightspeed calculations. Shots were pounding the Star Destroyer from all sides yet, and Isel knew that his tired and battered ship couldn’t take much more.

Vnus saw the Star Destroyer beginning to move and looked over at his two companions, the two men who had become his friends in the short span of only a few days. “Starm, fire everything we’ve got at them! We can’t let them get into lightspeed!” Vnus shouted, concentrating on avoiding a random shot from the nearly-depleted turbolaser batteries on the Star Destroyer. The ship was accelerating quickly as it approached the velocity for lightspeed. Vnus looked over at Starm hopefully.

Starm’s hands flew across the controls as he aimed and then fired. The ship rattled violently as all the guns on the strange-looking ship fired. The Star Destroyer was almost ready to hit lightspeed when the Phoenix’s last two torpedoes hit the ship’s hull. The torpedoes broke through one of the spots in the hull, that had been badly weakened by the previous battles, and began a chain reaction. Circutry overloaded and sparked, starting fires all over the ship. The ship’s emergency systems had already been destroyed and the fires lit off the remaining fuel for the shuttles and TIEs in the hangar bay.

This explosion triggered more up and down the hull of the ship. It was then that the ship reached lightspeed. The forces of the continuing internal and external explosions turned the otherwise-normal lightspeed jump into an express elevator to Hell. Immeasurable physical stress was placed on the ship’s weakened hull because of the unusal forces of the explosions reacting with the natural forces that were associated with making the jump to lightspeed.

Isel smiled down at Bysal, his fellow and Ingranian and officer, and knew that they were both going to safe. When he looked back up, Isel saw that the starlines were turning into flames. The deck below him trembled and shook and the ship began to break apart. He grasped Bysal’s hand in a sign of friendship, and of acknowledging loyal service to the Empire. It was then that the deck plate heaved upwards and the ship was torn apart.

Vnus, Starm, and Jibuv were ready to turn around when a huge supernova of light blinded them all. Shockwaves shook the ship and Vnus was barely able to keep control. When the explosion was over, there was nothing left of the Star Destroyer, except for debris that had been flung in many different directions and would be found throughout the galaxy. The three men on board the strange-looking freighter unstrapped, hugging and cheering.

Wedge gave a sigh of relief and then he saw the ship that had finished he Star Destroyer off, the cobbled together ship called the Phoenix. The one that had led the smugglers into the battle in the first place. The New Republic air group formed up and Wedge saw that nearly half of Rogue Squadron was destroyed. They had paid a heavy price for this victory, but they had won nonetheless.

“This is Rogue Leader to the Phoenix. That was some very good work you guys did back there. You just bagged yourselves an entire Imperial Star Destroyer,” Wedge laughed and ended the transmission. He knew that his fighters had no home, but he hoped that the smuggler ships could make room for them until New Republic reinforcements arrived.

Mara scrambled up the ridge, with Luke trailing behind her. They were being pressed on all sides by the enemy walkers. Shots whizzed past Mara and she narrowly missed being hit. She reached the top and then looked for cover. Luke scrambled up after her and now all of the walkers were in perfect firing posistion.

“Surrender at once Rebel scum or we will be forced to destroy you!” Blous announced over loudspeakers. Luke looked back at Mara gravely.

“Run Mara, you must save yourself! Remember all that you have learned,” Luke said and took his lightsaber in hand. Mara saw the look of defiance in his face and she grabbed her own lightsaber.

“I can’t leave you here,” she said and then added, “I love you.” Luke didn’t even flinch, he seemed to have expected her to say that. She cast her gaze down, not wanting to see the rejection in his eyes. To her suprise he took a step forward and reached out, bringing her chin up.

“I love you too, but you must go. I cannot ask you to stay here and die, someone must preserve the Jedi.”

Mara felt a renewed inner strength and ignited her lightsaber. “I won’t leave you. We’ll just have to die together,” she smiled and he sighed, knowing that he couldn’t dissuade her. They turned to face the AT-ATs and AT-STs with their lightsabers ignited and the two of them in fighting stances. Blous scoffed at the pitiful display.

“Ready all weapons, fire on my command,” Blous ordered and then he made sure that the sights were centered on the Rebels that had eluded him for so long. He was just about to give the command to fire when something rocked the walker. He looked around and then he saw the ungainly Correllian freighter. It was firing at his walker, the shots being absorbed harmlessly by the vehicle’s armor.

Han flew over the walkers and dropped down on the ridge, next to where Luke and Mara were standing. They ran towards the ramp that was lowering, the walkers starting to fire at them now. The Falcon took a few hits and Han winced, but only a few seconds later Luke and Mara were aboard and he lifted off. He turned the shields back on and they absorbed most of the heavy bombardment brought forth by the enraged Imperials.

Luke and Mara embraced each other just inside the hatch and engaged in a long and passionate kiss. Neither of them could stop their feelings of love at the moment, they had been through too much together. Leia stood nearby, watching them and smiling. She had always hoped that Luke could find someone to love. For over five years he had concentrated more on his Jedi training than his love life and Leia was glad to see that he could still love someone. After they were done kissing, Luke hugged his sister and then they went up to the cockpit.

When they got there, Luke heard Wedge Antilles’ voice over the speakers. “You can come into orbit, the Star Destroyer is destroyed. Unfortunately, so was the Ranger.” There was an uneasy silence for a moment and then Wedge continued. “Have you got Mara Jade with you?”

Han looked back and saw her standing there with Luke and Leia. “Yeah, she’s right here,” he responded.

“The smugglers up here would like to know when they can get together and approve the alliance with the New Republic. It seems that after how they were treated by those rogue Imperials, most of the smugglers are more than willing to accept the New Republic’s offer.”

Mara took a step forward and said, “Tell them to land on the far side of the planet and then they can come aboard.”

“Well thanks for asking me,” Han said, his voice feigning that he was hurt.

“This is official New Republic business Solo. Am I right?” Mara looked over at Leia.

“That’s right Han. She has the right to use your ship as long as it’s official business. And since the Ranger was destroyed, there’s nowhere else to sign the agreement,” Leia answered.

“I’ll be sure to pass that on. It’s good to hear from you guys again,” Wedge broke in.

“It’s always good to hear from you Wedge, just like old times,” Luke said.

“Yeah, just like old times. I’ll see you when we land.” Wedge broke the connection and then Han looked over at Mara.

“So, Your Highness, where would you like me to put it down?” Han asked with a smile.

“Keep talking like that, Solo, and I’ll fly this thing myself,” Mara returned and then pointed out the coordinates. Chewie brushed past them and took the co-pilot’s seat, grumbling a question to Han.

“She’s taking over my ship, that’s what she’s doing here,” Han replied as the Falcon headed towards the rendeavous point.

11

2007-06-13T06:13:00.001-07:00

Wedge made it to the bridge and found a nervous Mews sitting in the command chair. She stepped aside and Wedge sat down. “What’s up?” He asked uneasily.

“Sir, we have reports of at least two dozen shuttles launching from the Star Destroyer. They appear to be lightly armed, but I don’t know why the Imperials would send shuttles against us,” Mews shrugged and took the helm.

“Order all fighters out of their bays and intercept the shuttles. Lieutenant, you’re in charge while I’m gone,” Wedge ordered and jumped out of his chair. He hurried to the launch bay and to his X-Wing. He quickly put on his gear and then strapped into the fighter as the R2 unit was loaded. The bay was mostly empty already and Wedge was the last one to launch. “All fighters, you are to intercept and destroy those shuttles.”

Wedge heard the acknowledgment as he wondered what the Imperials could be up to. They definately weren’t abandoning ship, that was for certain. The shuttles must have a different mission. He put the engines to full throttle as he leapt out into the dark void of space. Against the brown background of Tatooine Wedge could see the shuttles racing towards the New Republic fighters. He could see the first A-Wings and X-Wings blasting apart the shuttles and then he noticed how much larger than usual the explosions were.

“Lieutenant, get the ship out of here now! Those shuttles are boobytrapped!” Wedge called over the radio. “Make the first jump and I’ll signal you when we clear the area.”

“Aye sir,” Mews responded and a minute later the frigate went to lightspeed. Wedge sighed with relief and then fired upon the first shuttle. The shuttle exploded and Wedge banked away to avoid the debris. He looked all around and saw X-Wings and A-Wings easily blowing away the mindless suicidal shuttlecraft. Suddenly, something hit his shields and Wedge turned to see a TIE Fighter on his tail. The remaining fighters on the Star Destroyer had come from the far side of the planet, using the shuttles as a distraction. All six TIEs opened fire with a barrage of missiles and Wedge heard several New Republic pilots scream in agony as their fighters were hit.

It was a trap, Wedge thought. But he had been through two traps before and the New Republic had won on both occasions. He spun his craft around and blasted the TIE Bomber to bits and turned to shoot another one. But the shuttles were still flying all over the place, deadly mines that collided with two maneuvering Rebel pilots and obliterated them. The badly depleted starfighter squadrons were being worn down even further, and Wedge wasn’t sure if they could hold out much longer. They couldn’t retreat though, they couldn’t leave the shuttles to launch themselves at the Ranger as soon as it returned.

“All fighters, this is Rogue Leader. Concentrate on the shuttles, we’ll use their own trick against them,” Wedge said over the radio and hoped that this worked. He shot two of the shuttles in one shot and caught a TIE between the explosions. It spun out of control, out of the fight for good. The New Republic pilots blasted as many shuttles as possible, forcing the less-skilled Imperial pilots to dodge explosions and laser blasts. Soon all that was left was a single TIE Interceptor and a handful of shuttles. Wedge shot the lead shuttle and it exploded, setting off two more. The Interceptor flew through a cloud of flame and debris and when it emerged the remaining New Republic starfighters were on him. They unmercifully dogged him and finally shot his fighter to pieces, very small pieces. Wedge finished off the shuttles and then signaled the frigate. It was time for them to take the offensive.

Luke didn’t like carrying the blaster, he hadn’t used one in years, but to keep up with his disguise he had to. He and Mara were in the hangar where the smugglers were kept. The fighting outside seemed to have intensified.

“We’d better hurry,” Luke said and Mara nodded a little, the helmet virtually nullifying the motion. They strolled amongst the smugglers and then Luke mentally gave Mara the signal to begin firing. They threw off their helmets and opened fire on all the guards in the room, the surprised stormtroopers falling before they could sound any alarms. Luke threw the blaster down and snatched his lightsaber, igniting it and leaping high into the air. He came down near a stormtrooper and slashed it with the blade. Mara kept firing and looked around at the smugglers. Most were standing, but some were still too dazed to move.

“Let’s go everyone! Get to your ships and take off!” Mara shouted and the smugglers began to rush for the doors, some grabbing fallen blasters on their way out. Reinforcements arrived and Luke and Mara stood surrounded on all sides. Luke deflected the first shots aimed at him and then he flung the lightsaber. By using the Force, he was able to direct the lightsaber through a series of maneuvers that cut down most of the Imperial soldiers and allowed him and Mara to break for the door. He called the weapon back to his hand and they backed out of the door, Mara firing a steady stream of shots that kept the Imperials’ heads down. Then they hurried back to their speeder bike, their mission accomplished.

Vnus finished his work on rerouting the engine power and leapt out of the maze of wires just as they came to life. He lay panting on the deck and the engines finally came back to full power. He struggled to his feet, but the forces of gravity kept him pinned as Starm put the ship into a vertical climb. Vnus finally got to his feet and made his way to the cockpit to see that the ship was high in the atmosphere.

“What’s going on?” He asked Starm.

“The others someone got out of there. I figured we’d better get out of there before we were fried,” Starm replied and Vnus took his seat.

“Someone else busted them out? How?”

“I don’t know, we don’t have any details, but we did receive a few complimentary messages. The most interesting one was from Mazzic. He sounded pretty surprised when we told him that it was us making all of this commotion up here,” Jibuv said with a smile. Vnus nodded and then saw other smuggler ships rising into the air. They had done it, they had really done it! He wiped his sweaty brow and checked the weapons power. They still had to get out of orbit with that Star Destroyer waiting up there.

Blous was furious. His AT-AT had taken damage to its legs and could barely move. Not only that, but the smuggler ship that had attacked him had remained undamaged. The bulk of his forces defeated by a single smuggler ship, it was unreal! Then he had received a call that the smugglers had broken out of the hangar and were making for their ships. The worst part was that the two escaped Rebels had broken them out singlehandedly! Blous knew that Isel would have his head unless he did something quickly.

“Move all of our forces around the main hangar where the smugglers’ ships are beind detained. I don’t want any of them to escape alive. Give all forces permission to fire as soon as they get into range. Also have all search parties return here and set up a perimeter around the city. No one gets in and no one get out, understood?” Blous commanded angrily.

“Yes, sir!” The crewman responded and Blous surveyed the area. It was then that he saw a speeder bike with a man and a woman, wearing stormtrooper armor, flying straight at him.

“Concentrate firepower on that speeder bike and fire immediately!” Blous shouted and all the guns on the AT-AT fired. Luke was at the controls of the speeder bike and he saw the shots heading right for him. He put the bike into a steep climb and could see that the Imperials were blocking entrance to the hangar. Although most of the smugglers were gone, the Imperials were destroying the hangar, pounding it with a tremendous volume of firepower. He knew that his A-Wing was probably destroyed, and they had no choice now but to go back on the run. He put the speeder bike to full throttle and it spen away from the city, with Blous’ AT-AT following. Blous was determined not to let the Rebels escape again.

Leia awoke in the farmer’s house with Threepio at her side. She felt much better now and she sat up without any problem. “Mistress Leia, you’re awake!” Threepio exclaimed joyfully.

“Where’s Han and Chewie?” Leia asked groggily.

“They left to find Master Luke. Captain Solo thought it best to leave you here to recover while he conducted his search.”

“How very thoughtful of him. Have the Imperials left yet?”

“I’m afraid not yet. The last reports indicated that they had captured and leveled Mos Eisley.” Leia got to her feet and suddenly she could feel a disturbance in the Force. She could feel that Luke was in danger, and reached her fledgling powers out to search for him. Hundreds of miles away, Luke heard her call. He could only hear her voice echoing her name, there was nothing more. Leia stumbled backwards a bit and then caught herself. She reached for her comlink and tried to contact Han. All she heard was static and threw it down in disgust.

The farmer came into the room and Leia asked him, “Do have a vehicle we may borrow? It’s very urgent.” The farmer sighed and nodded. He led them outside to an old landspeeder, which was similar to the one Luke had once owned. Leia thanked him and climbed into the driver’s seat.

“Oh dear,” Threepio moaned as he climbed into the old vehicle and strapped in.

“I wish you good luck on your search. And tell your husband that he’s welcome to stop by here any time!” The farmer said as the landspeeder’s engine came to life.

“I will! Thank-you for all your help!” Leia called over the engine’s droning. The farmer took a few steps back and the landspeeder lifted off and was soon miles away. Although it was old, it was still in decent shape and Leia could handle it easily. She only wished that it was armed; for she knew that Luke was in big trouble.

Han checked the sensors again and shook his head. They had scanned almost everywhere and still there was no sign of Luke. It was then that he looked up and saw a group of AT-ATs and AT-STs approaching. Remembering Hoth, he immediately pulled up and hoped that he could dodge them. But a speeder bike scouting ahead of the main force spotted him and thought him to be one of the escaped smugglers. He climbed in pursuit and soon all guns were pointed skyward. Chewie roared discouragingly and Han nodded.

“I know we’re outnumbered! We’ll just have to ditch these jokers,” Han grinned grimly and put the Falcon’s engines to full. The speeder bikes were able to follow for a few seconds, but there was no way they could keep up with the fastest ship in the galaxy. A few badly-aimed shots were absorbed by the rear shields and then Han heard something from the back. This was one of the rare times he wished Threepio was here to interpret for Artoo.

Artoo was chirping furiously and Han unstrapped and went back to see what he was jabbering about. When he got there he saw that Artoo was trying to show him something the sensors had picked up for just a few seconds. It was a speeder bike with two humans on board being picked up somewhere around Mos Eisley. He would have dismissed it except that it seemed to be going away from the Imperial forces in the area. Han ran back to the cockpit and turned the ship towards Mos Eisley. It was then that he heard someone trying to hail them.

“Han, this is Leia can you hear me?” He heard her say over the static.

“Leia! I hear you! What’s going on?”

“Luke’s in deep trouble, I can feel it. We’ve got to help him!”

“Right, I know. Look, I think I know where he is. Where are you?”

“I’m not sure, but Threepio and I are in a landspeeder. We’ll try and find...” The link was suddenly broken and before it went out Han thought he had heard the sound of shots being fired. He turned back towards the Imperial patrol, fearing the worst.

Mews sat at the helm station, waiting for Wedge’s signal to reenter the battle. She was worried about what these short jumps were doing to the ship’s structure, if the hull was put under too much stress it could rupture and rip the ship apart. She couldn’t help but be a little afraid about the whole plan. They were taking a battered frigate, with half of its weapons and only a few fighters, against one of the mightiest class of ships the Empire had ever produced. The battle would be nearly impossible with a fully operational frigate, but the Ranger was in no shape for combat.

Still, she knew that they couldn’t run, couldn’t abandon Tatooine until help arrived. She rechecked the computer’s calculations, hoping that they were right and the ship would end up next to the Star Destroyer, not in it. There were only a handful of people left on the bridge, most to monitor weapons and shields. All nonessential personnel had already taken to the escape pods and evacuation plans had been made to get as much of the crew off as possible.

“Ranger, this is Rogue Leader. You are cleared to make your grand entrance. Good luck,” Wedge said and Mews’ hand shakily pulled the handles that took the ship into lightspeed. The jump was short and only a few seconds later the ship came out of it.

The New Republic vessel was juxtaposed with the Star Destroyer, and Mews was quick to make sure the two ships didn’t collide. “Fire all batteries! Shields up!” Mews commanded and the frigate’s weapons began pounding the Ravage. At such close range, the Star Destroyer’s shields were much less effective and soon Mews could see pieces of the hull flaking off.

Isel stood bolt upright from his command chair and saw the Rebel frigate right next to them. “Status on turbolasers?” Isel inquired.

“Fully charged and ready,” Bysal reported.

“Very well, target the Rebel ship and fire with all starboard batteries. Have all remaining shuttles launch and attack,” Isel commanded and Bysal hurried and carried out the orders.

On the bridge of the Ranger, Mews saw the awesome display of firepower as the Star Destroyer’s turbolasers fired. The frigate was firing every gun and missile it had at the other ship, but like the Ravage, the Ranger’s shields were less than effective at such close range. The ship rocked from the turbolaser shots hitting it and Mews put the ship in full reverse to try and get some distance between them.

Wedge led the remnants of the Ranger’s air wing on an attack against the Star Destroyer. He dove past the bridge tower and down to the main hull of the ship. Turbolaser batteries were firing rapidly and he jinked past the shots and boldly fired at some of the guns. He wanted to try and get as many of the turbolaser batteries as he could to try and even the odds. It was only then that he saw the suicide shuttles rushing out of the hangar. He banked his X-Wing away from the Ravage and went after the shuttle. Only seconds later it impacted against the hull of the frigate.

“Concentrate all firepower on those shuttles!” Wedge shouted as he fired and sent one shuttle careening out of control. The space battle continued and Wedge could see that the frigate was nearly done for. “Lieutenant Mews, retreat to a safe posistion.”

He heard no response and slapped his console in frustration. One of the shots must have hit the bridge, or taken out the communications link. He quickly nailed another shuttle and then he noticed that the Star Destroyer’s fire had decreased in intensity. He turned towards it and saw that someone was shooting at it from the other side, it was another ship!

“You guys need a hand?” Vnus’ unfamiliar voice asked. A flotilla of angry smugglers trailed the Phoenix and began firing on the Star Destroyer.

“You bet we could! Let’s get ‘em!” Wedge shouted and began picking off the shuttles once again, this time with a sense of hope. They might just pull this one out!

10

2007-06-13T06:12:00.000-07:00

The boulder swayed and then slowly lifted into the air. It hovered a foot off of the ground and happiness filled Mara for an instant. And then the boulder hit the ground and split in half.. Her eyes opened and she barely held back a frustrated scream. But Luke grabbed her shoulder and she calmed down.

“You did better this time. Just remember, it’s not the size that matters. Try again with this one over here,” Luke said and pointed to another boulder. Mara nodded and closed her eyes. The boulder wavered and then slowly lifted into the air. It hovered high over Mara and then she slowly lowered it back to the ground. She opened her eyes and couldn’t keep a smile from her face. “Very good, you are learning rather quickly.”

Mara sat down inside the sm cave they were using for cover and caught her breath. “I did it,” she panted.

“Yes, you’re making great progress. You’re a quick learner.”

“Thanks. I’m sure you’ll have this much fun teaching the twins. Have...have you ever thought about having children of your own? I’m sure that you’d make a great father for your own pair of Jedi twins.”

“I haven’t...I haven’t found the right person for that yet.” He looked at her and wondered if she could be the right woman for him. After all, he had come all of this way to rescue her. He sighed and thought of all of the women he had met. But nothing had ever worked out for him and he had to admit that the thought of spending the rest of his life alone didn’t really appeal to him. When he saw how happy Han and Leia were, he wished that he could have something like that.

Mara looked over at Luke and couldn’t help but remember that he had rescued her from the Imperials. No one had ever done that for her, except Talon Karrde, but he was more like a father to her than anything else. She thought of how patient he was with her, slowly teaching her about the Force. They drew closer and neither one could help themselves. Their lips met and they kissed. After only a few seconds Luke pulled away and walked out of the tiny cave. Mara sat there for a second and then ran after him.

“What’s wrong?” She called to his turned back. She came closer and tried to turn him around to face her, but he shook her off. “What are you afraid of?”

“This...this isn’t right. We’ve got a rescue mission to plan for!” Luke said weakly.

“Can’t you stop thinking about the mission for a minute! When does Luke Skywalker the Jedi Knight make time to be Luke Skywalker the person? You can’t deny yourself your life!” in anger she turned away and went back to the entrance of the cave. She concentrated on lifting a rock, anger clouding her vision. She channeled all of her Force abilities into the lift and when she opened her eyes she saw that there was nothing left of the rock except dust. Luke, trying to decipher his thoughts, felt the dark side of the Force nearby. He turned and saw Mara lifting the boulders. He watched it crumble and walked over.

“Don’t give in to your anger!” He shouted. She gave him a nasty look and then hurled a smaller rock right at him. Luke ducked and grabbed his lightsaber all in one motion. He ignited it and got into a fighting posistion. Mara snatched her own lightsaber up and lit it. Her features were clouded with hatred behind the blue blade. Overcome with rage, she charged at Luke. “Don’t do it!”

But it was too late to talk any sense into her. She had given herself to the dark side. The two lightsabers crossed and Mara pushed hard with all of her weight to try and knock Luke over. Luke was fighting only a defensive battle, not wanting to hurt Mara. He had never seen her like this before. There was raw hatred and maddness in her green eyes and he could feel the power of the dark side radiating from her. He took a step back and she swung again, the blade crashing onto Luke’s. She quickly brought it up and swung again and again.

Luke blocked each blow, but was tiring quickly. Finally he concentrated on Mara’s hand and tried to pull the lightsaber from her grip. Mara laughed hoarsely and her lightsaber arced towards Luke. Luke knew that he couldn’t get his own lightsabeer back to block the blow and instead threw himself to the ground. Mara’s arms reached over Luke and he jumped back up, throwing his shoulder into her chest. The lightsaber flew from her grasp and Luke seized the opportunity to reach out with the Force and snatch it. Mara hit the ground and Luke quickly rolled to his feet. He turned off both lightsabers and took a few steps away from Mara. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow. Then something flew at Luke and he dodged the flying rock.

Mara lay on the ground, unconscious, and Luke knew that she was wrestling with herself. She was trying to purge herself from the dark side, which was something that she only could do by herself. He sat down and watched her. He saw the twin suns falling and for a brief moment he wished that he could see his aunt and uncle again. He didn’t notice Mara stir and walk over to the rock he was sitting on. The hatred had run out of her eyes and Luke looked up to see her standing nearby, a tear in her eye.

“I’m sorry Luke, I don’t know what came over me. I was just so angry...” Her voice broke off and now she was sobbing. He couldn’t really blame her. He had fought the dark sides many times himself and he knew all about how it felt to nearly kill someone you cared for. He had nearly killed his own father on the second Death Star because he had given into his hatred. She sat down next to him, face buried in her hands. He held her and knew that they still had a long way to go.

Blous watched the battered smuggler be hauled away and smiled. Even though he had gotten no important information from them, Blous had enjoyed watching them beg and plead for their lives to be spared. He looked over at the stormtrooper commander.

“We’re finished here for now. I want a status report on the search for those two Rebels,” Blous said and the commander nodded. A few minutes later the commander handed Blous a data pad. He looked at the latest report and saw that nothing had changed. There was still no sign of the Rebels. They had disappeared since slaughtering the speeder bike patrol. Blous hadn’t expected them to pick up the trail quickly. Tatooine was a large planet and it would be hard to track down two people on it.

But he still wanted to find them before they had to leave the planet. He leaned back in his chair and thought of where they could go. There were few large cities on the planet and many smaller towns that the Rebels could use to hide in. The search party would have to search the hills and each of these communities. He knew that the Rebels couldn’t run forever, eventually they would be caught. And then he would have the pleasure of killing them himself. No one could escape him, no one. He laid the data pad on the desk and couldn’t wait until he left this dustball of a planet. There was an entire rebellion to crush and he, General Mychelvek Blous, would crush it.

Wedge stepped into the bridge of the frigate and saw that it was still badly damaged. Large metal plates had been welded onto damaged areas and the lights were dim, making it hard to see. So this is my flagship? Wedge thought to himself. He shook his head and surveyed the instruments. Replacement crew members manned the bridge stations. Wedge stopped at the weapons station and saw that only half of the ship’s weapons were operational. The shields were only at half strength now and slowly building up. It would be a long time before they could launch any sort of attack.

Lieutenant Mews walked behind Wedge silently. Only a few hours ago she had been an the navigation officer, now she was second-in-command of the entire ship and serving under an officer she didn’t even know. She had of course heard of Wedge Antilles, who had been in attacks on both Death Stars and had been instrumental in the battle at the -------------- Shipyards. But he had never commanded a frigate against a Star Destroyer. She wished that Captain Ayhem was still here, he was an experienced starship captain and had commanded a Corellian Corvette during the fight against the Emperor. His experience would be sorely missed now, when they needed all the help they could get.

Wedge finally took the chair that had been hastily installed as the captain’s chair. “Are the engines working?” Wedge asked. Mews took her station and checked the instruments.

“Our engines are at full power, sir,” Mews answered.

“Good, pull back a few kilometers and then cut all power to engines. That Star Destroyer has stopped coming at us, so let’s get farther away to recharge our batteries. Transfer as much power as possible to the guns and the shields. Also have all missiles on standby. We also need two fighters on patrol at all times until our sensors are fully operational again. Contact Blue Squadron’s commander and have him get up here so that we can set up a rotation,” Wedge commanded and leaned back in his chair.

Mews nodded to Wedge and carried out the orders. Wedge knew then that it was going to be a long day, and night.

Han checked the instruments again, seeing that Artoo’s repairs had managed to get the engines running at seventy-five percent power. That was still very slow for the Falcon. He sighed and wondered what he had been thinking, making a head-on run at a Star Destroyer. But he knew the answer; he had been trying to help the New Republic forces that were going to be taken by surprise. Instead he had only drained the Star Destroyer’s turbolasers a little and gotten his ship shot up. It was a foolish thing to do.

“Chewie, let’s take her down. We’ve got to find Luke,” Han looked over at his partner and then pushed the nose of the freighter down. The ship plunged through the atmosphere and then Han pulled up, so that the ship was high in the skies of the planet. The sensors were soon scanning the planet and Han looked at the readings. Mos Eisley was gone, except for the hangars. He couldn’t see at this altitude where Luke was though. He saw that so far Artoo had not been able to get the shields working. He put the ship on autopilot and walked back to find Artoo, they had to get the shields up.

As he stepped out of the cockpit, Leia stumbled into him. She was still a little dizzy from the cut on her head, but she could feel that Luke was close. Han kissed her on the cheek and then helped her stand up straight.

“We’ve got to go down and find him, we’ve got to find Luke!” It was obvious that Leia was still dazed.

“We are, we are. You just get back into bed and I’ll take care of it,” he took he arm and steered her towards the bunk she had been laying on. She tried to resist him, she wanted to go to the cockpit and find Luke. She went limp in Han’s arms and he picked her up. He carried her back to the bunk and set her down. He sat on the bunk and stroked her hair as he wished that they were back on Coruscant with the twins. He shook his head, kissed her again and then went back to see Artoo.

It was dark now, but Luke knew that they were getting closer. It wouldn’t be long until they were at Mos Eisley and their rescue mission would begin. Mara was lagging behind him and they walked in silence. He knew that she had grown stronger from the experience, and next time she would know better than to give into her anger and hate. It was a hard lesson, and Luke hoped that he didn’t have to fight her again.

They stopped near a cliff and looking down, Luke could see lights from the Imperial forces at Mos Eisley. They were only a few miles away now, and they would now have to sneak into the city to rescue the smugglers. He turned to look for Mara, but saw that she had disappeared. She had walked behind a boulder to look around. Then he heard a loud roar, sandpeople! He remembered the last time he had fought with them. That had been a long time ago and Ben Kenobi had had to save him. This time he would have to save Mara.

He dashed away from the cliff to find her and then heard a scream. He literally leapt over the boulder and landed with his lightsaber ignited. He could see right away that three sandpeople had jumped her. Her lightsaber had fallen and she was on the ground, unconscious. He ran to her side and stood over her to protect her from the sandpeople, who were a little surprised by his appearance.

They soon came out of their shock and charged at him, grunting fiercely. He swung the lightsaber and landed a blow on the first sandperson, sending the creature sprawling to the ground. Then he swung again and sliced the second sandperson’s weapon in half, he lashed out with his foot and knocked the sandperson over. He quickly whirled around and cut the third sandperson in half. Mara stirred and he helped her stand. She called her lightsaber to her hand and lit it. They stood side-by-side as the two remaining sandpeople struggled to their feet. Luke nodded to Mara and then brought the lightsaber down on the first sandperson’s head, cutting it off. Mara swung her blade and the remaining sandperson was killed. They both sighed and Luke wished that they hadn’t had to kill the sandpeople. They weren’t evil creatures, just very afraid of strangers. He closed down his lightsaber and looked around.

A few seconds later a dark shape came charging at Mara and him. It was one of the woolly creatures the sandpeople rode. He knew that his lightsaber wouldn’t do any good against such a large creature. He jumped into the air, did a flip, and landed squarely atop the creature. He pushed the sandperson riding it off and then slashed the creature’s neck with the lightsaber. The creature howled and Mara dove out of its way as it stampeded towards the cliff. Luke jumped off of its back and it ran over the cliff and smashed into the ground. He brushed himself off as he stood. Mara walked up next to him and peered over the cliff. Seeing the carcass of the animal, she took a step backwards.

“We’d better hurry before more coming looking for them,” Luke indicated the sandpeople with his boot. Mara nodded and then they looked for a way to descend the cliff. It was too sheer to climb down without any sort of equipment. It was then that Luke heard the now-familiar sound of a speeder bike approaching.

Vnus lay on the bunk, trying to sleep. Starm stood watch while Vnus and Jibuv slept, only that Vnus couldn’t sleep. He thought of how the other smugglers were probably being tortured by the Imperials even as the three of them tried to fix the ship. He may not like all of the smugglers, but they were smugglers like him, his comrades-in-arms. He had to save them, but he also knew that he needed sleep so that he could be at his best when he went to rescue them.

He looked up at the ceiling and wished that he could leave right now, but the ship’s weapons still weren’t fully operational and without the weapons he had no chance of getting the smugglers free and getting into orbit. He sighed and thought of the plan that he and the others had made. After a few minutes his comlink beeped and Vnus got up to relieve Starm. He pulled out his blaster and sat in the cockpit, turning on the sensors and hoping that no one found them. He leaned back in the captain’s chair and checked the weapons and shields.

The weapons were now hotwired into the backup systems. Unfortunately, the backup systems charged very slowly and once the weapons were drained it would take a long time to get them recharged. That would leave them with only the missiles if they met any resistance in orbit. And with a Star Destroyer in orbit, they were almost guaranteed to meet some resistance. So something needed to be done to get more power to the weapons. But there was no other power available, so what they needed to do was get more power.

It was then that the sensors started beeping and Vnus looked down to see what was going on. Something very big was approaching, although at this distance he couldn’t tell if it was a walker or not. He waited until it closed before he turned on the engines. Whatever it was, it was coming his way. He didn’t bother turning on the weapons and activated the repulsorlifts to get the ship airborne.

The hulking vehicle was coming closer and Vnus crossed his fingers, hoping it didn’t fire at him. It was then that he saw that the sensors weren’t showing an AT-AT walker, but a Jawa Sandcrawler. He sighed with relief and set the ship back down. Jibuv and Starm stumbled into the cockpit and looked around.

“What’s going on?” Starm asked.

“We’ve been found by a Sandcrawler,” Vnus replied with obvious relief. Jibuv took a seat next to Vnus and scanned the instruments.

“We’d better get out of here. If the Imperials home in on that crawler we don’t want them to find us too,” he explained and Vnus nodded. He slowly turned the ship around and headed away from the Jawa craft. Jibuv monitored the sensors and then they found a place to land. It was a flat area of desert that was less than an hour away from Mos Eisley. There was still a lot of work to do on the ship before it could rescue the smugglers. Vnus got out of his chair, stretching his muscles before he opened the access panel under the main console. He looked at the maze of wire and wished that he had more time.

Isel paced the bridge, willing the turbolasers to charge more quickly. He looked out one of the bridge windows and saw the Rebel frigate hanging a few kilometers away, blackened and battered. Bysal was nowhere to be seen. The ion barrage had been less than effective, the batteries had been drained of sufficient power before the frigate had been disabled. Now they could only watch the other ship and wonder what was going on. There weren’t even enough TIE fighters to mount a strike on the ship.

So all Isel could do was wait and watch. He had thought about pulling back to recover Blous’ men and the smugglers, but that would give the Rebels a chance to escape. And he knew that if he ordered Blous to rendeavous with the ship then those blasted X-Wings and A-Wings that the Rebels flew could intercept the transports and eliminate the few starfighters he could scramble to protect the transports. So until he could get some more fighters or eliminate the Rebels, Blous would have to stay put.

Bysal finally came into the bridge, looking tired and showing the stubble from days without time to sleep, much less shave. It was unprofessional, but at this point Isel didn’t care about regulations imposed by the shattered Empire. This was his ship and right his crew needed to only worry about destroying Rebel scum. He collapsed mightily into his captain’s chair and looked around him, reassured to see that everyone was busily working at their stations. Bysal handed him a new data pad, and Isel scanned with no particular interest.

Little had changed over the past few hours. The turbolasers were not yet charged enough to finish off the frigate and there were less than six TIEs left; three TIE Fighters, two TIE Interceptors, and a single TIE Bomber. Isel knew that such a puny strike force could no more stop the Rebels than a flea could stop an angry bantha. As he scanned the data pad, Isel began revolving a plan in his mind. One that could decimate the Rebels if it worked.

“Lieutenant, how many shuttles are in the hangar bay?” He asked quickly.

Streaking over the desert, the Millenium Falcon looked for a place to land. Han scanned the sensor readouts, looking for somewhere where he could set down and drop Leia off. She was still in no shape to participate in the search for Luke. Over her protesting Han had told her in no uncertain terms that he was going to find somewhere to drop her off before he searched the vast landscape for his friend. Finally he saw a small farm and knew that it was as good of a place as any. In the darkness, the large freighter set down with repulsorlifts screaming. An old farmer emerged from an igloo-shaped house, a rifle in his gnarled hands.

Han opened the ramp and Chewie scooped Leia up and joined him. Han met the farmer halfway to the house. “Please sir, I need your help,” Han began.

“I won’t give help to any strangers,” the farmer protested.

“My wife, she’s hurt and she needs to recover. Please, could you put her up?” Han was begging and he knew it. But he didn’t have Leia’s diplomatic skill and he was only concerned with getting his wounded wife to relative safety. By this time Chewie had reached Han’s side, roaring angrily at the stubborn farmer, and the farmer’s wife had reached her husband’s side. “Look, she would be in great danger if she stayed in my ship. We have a very important mission to do for the New Republic, to rid this world of the Imperial influence. But to do that we need to find someone, and our search could put my wife in danger. You won’t have to do anything for her, my droid will take care of her and if you want the New Republic can reward you for this.”

The farmer looked impassive and asked bluntly, “Who are you looking for?”

Han wanted to tell the farmer to mind his own business, but thought better of it. “Have you ever heard of Luke Skywalker, the Jedi Knight? That’s who we’re looking for,” Chewie growled something in support of Han’s words and the farmer’s wife looked surprised.

“Luke! Of course we know Luke! His uncle was a friend of ours. He used to come over here when he was little, to play with our son Garret. Garret signed up with the Imperials and last we heard, he was serving in a fighter squadron on Darth Vader’s own ship!” The woman beamed and Han knew that her son was dead.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but...Darth Vader’s ship was destroyed over the moon of Endor over five years ago,” Han said sympethetically.

“No! No! I can’t believe it, I won’t believe it! Liar! Liar!” She screamed and ran back into the house. The farmer watched her go and turned to Han.

“I’ve known about his death for some time now, so has she. But she won’t come to grips with it. If you are friends of Luke Skywalker then you may stay here,” the farmer said slowly and quietly. Han nodded and took Leia from Chewie’s arms. She was still pale and Han wondered if there might not be something else wrong with her. Threepio emerged from the ship, he would watch Leia while the others searched for Luke.

Han carried Leia into the farmhouse, setting her on a small yet comfortable bed. She moaned softly and her eyes fluttered open. He had thought that she had just banged her head, but it looked as though something else was wrong, something that the Falcon’s medical facilities couldn’t handle.

“Han...” She breathed.

“It’ll be all right, Threepio will take care of you. We’re going to find Luke,” he held her hand and tried to sound as soothing as he could. He lightly kissed her and she seemed to moan contentedly as she closed her eyes. He let her hand go and turned away to look at Threepio. “Take good care of her,” Han said sharply as he walked back to the ship.

Chewie was in the copilot’s seat, checking over all the instruments as the ship prepared to take off. Artoo twittered something as Han ran up the ramp. The astromech was hooked into a computer terminal and would monitor the sensors to aid in the search. Han sat in the pilot’s seat and fired up the repulsorlifts. The farmer waved at them as they took off into the darkness of Tatooine’s night.

Luke stood absolutely still as the speeder bike approached. He could also hear the one and he stretched out with his senses and could feel that only one bike was coming. It was the opportunity they had been waiting for. Mara was prone and ready, clutching her lightsaber. Luke also stood ready and without speaking they made their plan.

The bike had broken down and had been ordered back to base. The young soldier riding atop it wished that he could have been part of the search, to see some real action. Instead he was nursing a wounded speeder bike back to base. At this rate he would never see promotion. As the soldier rode along, he never thought to keep his blaster within easy access.

He neared the cliff and suddenly a black shape was spinning towards him. It landed on his shoulders and knocked him off of the bike. The soldier hit the ground and desperately tried to reach his pistol. But the dark shape was pummeling him and just before he died the whole world lit up with green light. Luke stood up, looking down at the young face of the soldier. His cracked helmet lay nearby and Luke couldn’t help but think of that first time in the cave of Dagobah, when he had fought a Darth Vader that had been himself. He turned away and saw that Mara had been able to take control of the bike. He climbed on the back, feeling a moment of pride that Mara had been able to mentally read his plan. Her skills had grown considerably since she taken that wild speeder bike ride with him out of Mos Eisley.

They were again riding a speeder bike, this time into the city. Mara nudged the bike over the cliff, and they both silently screamed as the repulsorlifts sputtered and died. Luke tried to stay calm, but another part of his mind was overwhelming him with fear. Mara stabbed at the starter button and Luke looked over her shoulder, his hands digging into her sides. They were falling quickly and Luke could see the desert, his native land, rushing up at him. Mara was going into a frenzy and with one last attempt she pounded on the controls.

The repulsorlifts kicked in and less than a hundred feet off of the ground the bike hung in the air. They both sighed with relief and Mara eased the bike to the ground. “Let’s find somewhere to rest,” Luke suggested and Mara nodded wearily. They had gone only a kilometer when the bike’s engines quit for good. Luke hid the bike and Mara looked for somewhere where they could sleep. She saw an overhang of rock and they set up camp below it. They both relaxed and Luke looked over at her and smiled.

“What?” Mara demanded.

“I was just thinking of how your skills have grown since we started this adventure. If you keep this up, you’ll be a Jedi in no time.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get too attached to it. Let’s get some sleep, huh.” She laid down and rolled over. Luke sighed, suddenly feeling weary. All of the activities of the past few days were catching up to him. He slowly nodded off to sleep, his head resting on his chest.

The hangar bay of the Star Destroyer was a mess as crews rushed to finish preparing the shuttles for their task. Isel and Bysal supervised the work from a catwalk. Isel watched as crews loaded heavy space bombs into each shuttle. He smiled grimly as he thought of striking back at the Rebels.

The shuttles were each carrying a single space bomb that was set to detonate when the shuttle impacted against anything. The controls were modified to be remote-piloted from the Star Destroyer itself. Isel went down into the hangar bay to find the chief technician at work. The technician was conferring with a group of technicians on the shuttles when Isel and Bysal found him.

“Captain!” The chief exclaimed and everyone went to rigid attention.

“I need a status report on the shuttles,” Isel growled to the chief.

“Well sir, we been having some trouble modifying the avionics of the shuttles, but they should all be ready to fly within six hours,” the chief stammered.

“I need as many as you can prepare in two hours. I expect at least seventy-five percent of these shuttles to be ready by then,” Isel spun on his heel and marched away from the hangar bay. His fists clenched and he gritted his teeth. He couldn’t wait to finish the Rebels off once and for all.

Wedge and Mews met in his quarters to discuss the situation. So far, things seemed rather bleak. Wedge leaned back and listened to Mews’ disheartening news.

“Given the situation of the ship, and our lack of spare parts, our engineers estimate that we can get the ship only sixty percent operational within the next twenty-four hours. But, they said that weapons and shields will be at full strength within the hour. Also, our X-Wing patrol has reported no activity from the Star Destroyer. It seems that we have a stalemate for the moment,” Mews reported grimly.

“Not for much longer, Lieutenant. That Star Destroyer will be back on us as soon as its turbolasers recharge. Is there any way that we could evacuate the ship to the surface?” Wedge asked, knowing that the Ranger couldn’t last much longer.

“No sir, not unless that Star Destroyer leaves orbit and decides to leave us alone. Also, we’ve had damage to many escape pods, I’m not sure that theyre would be enough for everyone.”

“All right then, we can’t run, so I guess we’ll have to stay and fight. We do have lightspeed operational?”

“Yes sir. I thought you said that we couldn’t run away?”

“We can’t, but we can jump a little ways away and then come back again within firing range of that Star Destroyer. Then we can fire and quickly enter hyperspace again.”

“That’s some pretty tricky flying.”

“I’m sure you can handle it Lieutenant.”

“Me?”

“You were the navigator of this ship, weren’t you?”

“Yes, but...”

“Well, I’m sure you can fly this thing one last time.”

“Yes sir.”

“All right, I want to know as soon as the weapons and shields are ready. Keep the patrols out until the last possible moment and have the lightspeed jumps already calculated. I’ll give you the coordinates after I look over the charts and decide where we should go. Dismissed,” Wedge ordered and Mews left. Wedge paced his quarters, examining the charts and plotting the ship’s course. He wished that he didn’t have to command this ship into battle. Finally he made his descion as the red alert sounded.

“What’s going on?” Wedge asked silently as he raced out the door and to the bridge.

Vnus put the last access panel in place and wiped his forehead with a rag. He breathed in slowly through the cloth covering his face, trying not to breath in too much of the blowing desert soil. The work on the Phoenix was complete, and now it was time to rescue the smugglers. They still didn’t have a lot of power, but with some extra hotwiring they had boosted the power so that the ship might be able to escape from orbit.

Vnus opened the hatch and climbed into the ship, meeting Jibuv and Starm just inside. “We’re all set,” Vnus said and they all three smiled.

“Let’s go get ‘em!” Starm exclaimed.

“Right!” Jibuv added. Vnus nodded and rushed to the cockpit, flipping switches and activating systems, crossing his fingers and hoping the ship would fly. Starm took the co-pilot’s seat and Jibuv took the seat behind him. All the indicators showed that the ship was ready to launch as Vnus stapped into the pilot’s seat. He activated the repulsorlifts and the ship began moving up. The three smugglers cheered in unison as Vnus activated the main engines and put the ship on a course directly to Mos Eisley.

Luke and Mara awoke to the sounds of engines. Luke stood up and looked wearily around. He could feel that a ship was approaching, although he wasn’t sure whose ship it was. He scrambled outside and looked around. Then he saw an ungainly hulk heading towards Mos Eisley, kicking up a sandstorm in its wake. Mara joined him at the cave’s entrance and looked up at the sky. The ship flew past them at high speed and contiued towards the city.

“That’s Hak Vnus’ ship! I’d recognize that cobbled together hulk anywhere!” Mara shouted to Luke.

“What’s he going to do?” Luke asked.

“I’m not sure, but he can’t do it alone! Let’s go!” Before he could stop her, Mara was on the speeder bike and kickstarting the engine. Luke sighed and raced after her, jumping onto the back of the bike as it lifted off.

Luke knew that this was foolish, going back into the heart of occupied Tatooine, but he hoped that the smuggler ship would at least provide a good enough diversion for him and Mara to break the rest of the smugglers out. He peeked over Mara’s shoulder and saw that the ship was being fired upon by AT-ATs, AT-STs, and speeder bikes all over the city. Mara took the speeder bike down to a ground-skimming level, hoping that the gunners would be too busy with the ship to worry about a lone speeder bike.

They whipped around one corner and two stormtroopers threw themselves out of the way. They hurriedly drew their rifles and fired, bolts glancing off rubble and rocks, but missing the bike. The lead trooper activated his comlink to call Blous.

“General, I’ve spotted those escaped Rebels. They’re right here in the city and are riding a speeder bike,” the stormtrooper said unemotionally. The stormtrooper turned to look for his partner and was grabbed from behind. Luke threw him to the ground and pulled off his helmet. He knocked the man out with the hilt of his lightsaber and then groaned.

“This is getting real tiresome,” he mumbled as he began pulling on the stormtrooper’s armor. Mara was silent as she looked around through the restricted view the stormtrooper helmet provided her. She clutched the stolen blaster tightly in her hands and hoped that they would soon break the smugglers free. She looked over at Luke and wished that she could see his face, to be reassured that they were going to be successful. She could feel him reassuring her in his head and nodded before hopping onto the bike. She activated the controls and Luke climbed on behind her. She was starting to sweat in the armor, but she knew that it was necessary to disguise themselves to avoid detection.

The speeder bike shot into the air and Mara could see nothing but smoke ahead. She feared the worse for Vnus and headed for the hangar that held the smugglers. Silently she thanked Vnus for the distraction as the smoke rose higher and higher in the air.

Vnus saw lights go red as he banked right to ditch a pair of speeder bikes on his tail. He pulled up just shy of hitting a sand dune and headed straight for an AT-AT with the speeder bikes lagging a little ways behind him. Starm armed the turbolasers and placed on the AT-AT’s vulnerable neck as they streaked over it. The next exploded and the AT-AT swayed uncertainly. The speeder bikes sped through the debris just as the AT-AT exploded. Their fiery machines spun out of control and impacted against the legs of the AT-AT as they teetered and collapsed. Starm gave a whoop as Jibuv took control of the smaller laser cannons.

Several AT-STs stood in a line and fired upwards at the intruding vessel. Starm pounded them with the turbolasers and Jibuv fired the smaller cannons. Vnus expertly piloted around the walkers, giving the ship the clearest shots possible. He checked the gauges and then unstrapped from his seat. The engines were losing power and the ship would have to land unless he got them back on-line quickly.

“Starm, take over!” Vnus called as he ran to the rear of the ship and began working on the engines. The ship rocked and rattled and Vnus struggled to keep his footing. He tried rerouting the engine power, but still the engine power declined. He knew that the ship was going down, and would soon be easy prey for the Imperials. He closed the access panel he was working in and then opened another and literally dived in it. He was up to his neck in wires and circuits and grabbed his tools.

Blous stepped into the AT-AT’s cockpit and surveyed the battle. Some smuggler ship was attacking his forces, taking out a precious AT-AT and several smaller walkers. Plus the two escaped Rebels were lose in the city, and so far his men had been unable to find them. No help could be sent from the Ravage, which had problems of its own. His patrols that had been looking for the Rebels had not come back yet and he was left with a much smaller force to combat this crazy ship with.

The ship design was one that was easily recognizable as a cobbled together conglomeration of parts and technologies, the type of ship only a smuggler would use. This smuggler was flying his ship like a madman, strafing walkers head-on and flying at very low-level. So far his AT-ATs had not been able to get a shot at the invader and the smaller craft hadn’t put a dent in it. Blous clenched his fists in disgust. The might of the Empire being defeated by these traitorous swine! Blous thought angrily as he looked over at the gunner.

“Intercept that ship and throw everything we have at it,” Blous commanded. The crewman nodded and the walker began to move. Blous knew that he could crush this ship if he could get his walker into firing range. He gritted his teeth and waited for the ship to come into view.

9

2007-06-13T06:11:00.001-07:00

An exhausted Mara threw herself to the ground as night settled on Tatooine. Luke kept telling her that this would only be a short break, but she wasn’t listening. All of the muscles in her body ached and she knew that it wouldn’t be long before she would literally collapse to the ground. “How do you do it, Luke?” She asked hoarsely.

“You just have to focus your energy, let the Force flow through you to ease your pain. Just close your eyes and take in everything with your other senses,” Luke coached. Mara closed her eyes and for a few minutes she seemed to be asleep. “You’re doing great.”

“I feel great,” she responded and stood up with new energy. She brushed the dust off of her body and out of her hair as they continued their trek to Mos Eisley. “Thanks.”

“You did the hard part, not me. All I did was tell you how to use your potential,” Luke blushed a little at her praise. He still didn’t think that he was that good of a teacher. Not nearly as good as Ben or Yoda had been.

“You really think that I have potential? I know that I can do some stuff, but I can never be as good as you are.”

“That’s what I thought when I met Ben. But soon I realized that once I opened my eyes, everything became clearer. When you know the basics then the rest of it will come to you. So, as long as you keep your mind open you will learn more and more. It’s all up to you.” They climbed over a boulder and Mara digested this information. She couldn’t ever imagine herself as good with the Force as Luke. She could never be a Jedi like he was. But then she had thought back to that fight in the bar. Everyone had believed that she was a Jedi because she had used her lightsaber to stop the argument.

“How much farther do I have to go?” Mara asked him.

“That’s all up to you. The only limits placed upon your ability are the ones that you set. If you choose not to learn something than you won’t.”

“Right. But not everyone can be a Jedi.”

“Not everyone can use the Force the way that Jedis do. But we are all still part of it.” He suddenly stopped and looked her in the eye. “I know you have the ability Mara Jade. You can do it if you try. You only have to stop being so unsure of yourself. That’s what’s holding you back. You have to realize that you can do it, you have to do it.”

“What? Why do I have to do it? There are others out there. You, Leia’s twins, and for all we know there could be millions of others who just don’t know it yet!” Her anger was rising, she didn’t want this heavy burden that Luke was trying to put on her. The galaxy would not live or die because of her. She was only one person, she couldn’t do everything.

“You have to do it because without you the smugglers are doomed. We’re both going to need everything we’ve got if we want to succeed. If you want to save them then you have to do it.” Luke walked away in silence, quietly fuming. He knew that she did have many of the same talents that he had had when he started learning about the Force. But to pull this rescue off she would have to learn more. She would need everything she had, and more. So much more than he could teach her.

Mara stood still, watching him go. Didn’t he understand that she didn’t want to be one fo the great Jedi? She didn’t want all of the power that Jedis had. After being around the Emperor for so long and after fighting Joruus C’boath she knew how that power could so easily be used for evil. But seeing Luke’s dedication, his determination to rebuild the ranks of the good Jedi Knights, made her begin to wonder if he could do it alone. She shook her head, knowing that that task was too much for a single Jedi Knight. Besides, she owed the smugglers something.

She had brought them here, to Tatooine, where they had been captured. She had to help them get free again if she wanted to earn their trust. They would never trust her or Talon Karrde again unless she rescued them. And to rescue them she would need Luke Skywalker’s help. And he would need her help.

She shook her head and ran after him. He turned around and faced her, fire in his eyes. “Are you with me or not? Will you at least let me teach you some more?” He asked. She took a step back and again saw his determination. He was going to Mos Eisley even if she wasn’t going to be of much help.

“Yes...yes, you can teach me. I want to help the smugglers the best way I can. Let’s go,” Mara replied and they began walking again. The twin suns were beginning to rise and they searched wearily for somewhere to rest. They finally found a tiny cave that had more than likely once been a lair for some animal. They both sat down and closed their eyes to sleep.

Wedge threw his helmet to the crew chief and then climbed down the ladder. He looked around and saw that the line of A-Wings had shortened to nine. There were still the six B-Wings and ten X-Wings. Then Wedge saw the Millenium Falcon in the hangar. What were they doing here? He asked himself. He shrugged and walked away to the debriefing room.

As the pilots filed into the room, Wedge saw that Captain Ayhem and the B-Wing pilots were sitting in the front row. He knew that this wasn’t going to be just a simple debriefing. He sat with his fellow Rogue pilots and heard them talking to each other about the last mission. The doors finally hissed shut Ayhem stood and the lights dimmed. A holographic map of Tatooine appeared.

“The Star Destroyer in orbit around Tatooine has so far held its station. We have to take advantage of this situation. We are going to launch a counterattack using our B-Wing fighters. To do this we have to draw off the TIE fighters guarding the Star Destroyer.

Rogue and Blue Squadrons are going to launch in two hours. They will head to these coordinates,” Ayhem pointed to an empty section of space between the frigate and the Star Destroyer. “This should lure the Imperial fighters after these fighters. Once the TIEs are engaged with the fighter squadrons, the B-Wings will launch and run their attack on the Star Destroyer. Once the B-Wings have completed their runs, any of the fighters that can break off and have torpedoes or missiles left can make individual runs at the Star Destroyer. It is our hope that this attack will weaken the Star Destroyer’s shields enough so that an attack made by this vessel can be productive.” The holographic map disappeared and the lights came up. It was then that the doors opened and an officer stood in the doorway.

“Sir! Enemy fighters have been detected launching from the Star Destroyer. They’re heading our way!” The officer said. The pilots jumped to their feet.

“Scramble! We’ve got to get those fighters before they get to the ship!” Ayhem commanded. The pilots rushed out of the room. The officer joined Ayhem in the front of the room.

“What do we do now?” She asked.

“We hope that our fighters can hold out and that we can somehow mount an offense. Ready all defensive batteries and make sure shield power is at maximum.”

“Aye sir.” The officer left and Ayhem trailed after. He had a feeling that it would be a long while before they even thought of going on the offensive.

Leia heard the alarms and brushed past Han, who was carrying a box of supplies into their quarters. Peeking into the corridor, she saw everyone rushing around. Seeing the confusion, she knew that this was her chance.

“Han, let’s go!” She shouted. He nodded and stumbled after her with the bulky box. Finally he gave up on the box and dropped it in the corridor as he pursued his wife. He caught up to her at the hangar and he ran into the cockpit of the Falcon and found that Chewie had already warmed up the engines. Leia sat in one of the rear seats with the droids worriedly sitting in the lounge. Han began to taxi the freighter and narrowly avoided hitting an A-Wing that taxied in front of him.

Amid the scrambling fighters, the Falcon streaked out of the hangar bay. The TIE fighters were already closing on the frigates. “Leia, get in the lower turret!” Han shouted as he ran for the quad guns. Chewie took control of the freighter as a pair of TIE Fighters banked towards the Falcon. Leia strapped into the lower turret and looked around for any Imperials. One fighter angled for a shot at the freighter’s vulnerable belly. Leia spun the gun around and fired. Most of the shots missed, but one barely hit the top of the TIE’s cockpit. The cockpit ripped open and the pilot was sucked into space, his fighter spinning out of control.

Han nailed another TIE Fighter and he looked around for more. But everything was quiet now. Apparently the TIEs had better things to worry about. Han climbed down from the quads and strode up to the cockpit. Chewie growled something and he could see what his partner was talking about. The TIEs were only going at the New Republic fighters, not at the frigate. As Han looked over the instruments he saw Leia out of the corner of his eyes. Her jaw slackened and she was getting pale. Looking out of the cockpit he could see why; the Star Destroyer was moving!

Han tried to contact the Ranger, but all of the frequencies were being jammed. He wished that there was something he could do, but there wasn’t. Even with the Falcon’s speed, it couldn’t get back to the frigate in time to get a warning before the Star Destroyer closed within firing range. The only thing he could do was try and give them something else to shoot at.

“Everyone strap in!” Han called over the intercom. Artoo whistled and Threepio moaned in despair. He put the throttles at maximum and aimed the Falcon at the Star Destroyer’s bridge. He armed all of the ship’s missiles and then fired one at the Star Destroyer.

Isel saw the freighter closing and grinned. If the fool thought he could get anywhere near the Star Destroyer, then he was mistaken. “Gunners, target that incoming ship and fire!” Isel barked. Seconds later the turbolasers opened up.

Han fired the rest of the missiles and then began to pull up as he saw the massive turbolaser volley aimed at the freighter. The shields were pounded by green energy and the ship was rattled violently. Leia was thrown around in her seat and then the straps on her seat gave way and sent her crashing to the floor. The Falcon was rocked again and she hit her head against a console. Han ignored her groaning as he fought for control and, working with Chewie, he was able to get it going level. Then he unstrapped and rushed to Leia’s side.

Her head was bloodied and she was unconscious. He scooped her up and took her back to the bunks. He set her down and looked for the medical kit. He located it and began to wrap her head in bandages. Then he pulled a blanket over her body to keep her warm and stepped into the lounge. “Artoo, see what you can do about repairs,” his voice sounded tired and Artoo scurried off to plug into the computer. “Threepio, keep an eye on Leia.” Threepio nodded, looking as concerned as a droid could possibly get.

Han walked back into the cockpit and could see that the ship had taken a lot of damage. The shields were badly depleted and the engines were only working at half power. But the weapons were still working and Han tried to tell himself that he had done the right thing. The problem was that he wasn’t believing that.

Wedge groaned to himself as he saw the last B-Wing explode. This time the New Republic forces were being slaughtered wholesale. Two more Rogue ships had fallen and another had had to go back because it was too damaged to continue the fight. They were being worn down and Wedge knew that when it came to attrition the New Republic would lose eventually unless they turned things around.

He blasted another TIE Fighter and lined up an Interceptor. So far none of the TIEs had made a run on the frigate, although they probably could have slipped through. Wedge didn’t have time to think of the significance of that though. Three TIEs were quickly on his tail and blasting away at him. He grimaced and rolled tightly to his left and then swung around to face the Imperial starfighters. He fired his guns and was able to get two of the fighters. There was no time to celebrate. More fighters were coming in. He pushed up his visor and wiped away the sweat with the back of his glove, noticing that the Imperials were fighting much more agressively this time.

He pulled his visor back down and then got back into the fight, blowing a TIE Fighter off of Rogue Two’s back. An A-Wing flashed by him and a few seconds later erupted in a ball of flame. It was then that Wedge was near blinded by a dazzling display of light. He looked around him and saw that the frigate was under attack.

“Damage report?” Ayhem demanded as the ship was rocked by turbolaser blasts.

“Shields are going down!” Someone shouted, although Ayhem couldn’t see who it was through the smoke on the bridge.

“Fire everything we’ve got and reverse at full speed!” Ayhem shouted. The remaining turbolasers on the Ranger fired. The Star Destroyer’s shields weakened a little.

“Fire!” Isel commanded coolly on the bridge of the Ravage. Almost instantly the turbolasers opened up again with a massive volume of green fire aimed at the frigate. The smoke cleared on the frigate’s bridge and Ayhem could see the Star Destroyer coming closer and firing. He rose to his feet and could only stare out the window as the shots hit. The shields collapsed and the bridge was assaulted by green light as a turbolaser blast ripped through the bridge. Ayhem was incinerated where he stood. The frigate yawed out of control, the engines still moving the ship backwards.

Emergency systems came on line and the ruptured areas of the ship were sealed. But the damage had been done and the ship was dead in the water. Bysal handed Isel a data pad and he looked at it with satisfaction. The Rebels were finished. It wouldn’t take long to destroy them.

“Gunners! Target the Rebel ship and fire!” Isel looked out the bridge glass to witness the final destruction. But nothing happened. “What happened?”

“Sir, our turbolaser batteries have been severely drained by these attacks. We have to recharge the batteries before we can attack,” Bysal reported after checking with the gunners.

“Very well, pull back out of range of the frigate’s weapons until the batteries are recharged.” Isel sat down in his command chair and sighed. The damages the ship had suffered in its previous battles with the Rebels had made it so that power recharged very slowly. It would take hours for the turbolaser batteries to recharge.

The frigate finally stopped moving and there was an eerie standoff between the massive Star Destroyer and the much smaller frigate. The frigate’s crew heaved a collective sigh of relief and then repair crews hurried to survey and repair the damage to the ship. But there was no hope to repair the damage of the lost crewmembers. The valiant crew of the Ranger carried on their duties in silence, not wanting to discuss the missing or dead.

A repair crew arrived on the bridge a short time later. They found that most of the bridge crew was gone and that most of the equipment was fried. The holes in the bridge had been sealed and the repair crew slowly walked through the bridge to see what was in working condition. Then they set to work on getting backup systems working. It was slow work but the bridge was soon restored to the nervous center of the ship. But one thing was still missing, there was no captain for the ship.

Wedge pulled away from the TIE Fighter’s debris, seeing that the tide had turned. The battle had been going on for over an hour and now the more skillful New Republic pilots were gaining the upper hand. Wedge was hearing more war whoops over the com channels than death screams. He saw an X-Wing flash by and saluted the fellow Rogue Squadron pilot. He smiled and saw that the TIEs were retreating in droves. But some were sticking around. Then Wedge heard his astromech droid squeal and something banged against the shields.

Wedge banked away and briefly saw that the TIE Advanced was back. He felt exhausted and didn’t want to get into another protracted dogfight with the Advanced. He yanked back on the stick and then looked for the enemy starfighter. He saw it on the tail of an A-Wing and targeted it with a torpedo. He waited for the tone and mashed the trigger. The torpedo fired and the Advanced broke off its attack. Wedge was instantly on its tail and began blasting it with all four cannons. The TIE Advanced banked away and Wedge followed. They maneuvered around space for quite some time, neither fighter gaining the advantage. And then the TIE pilot, perhaps he was tired or just getting sloppy, dropped into a slow dive and Wedge mashed down the firing button.

The Advanced pilot realized his mistake and quickly banked away, but his shields went down. The TIE Advanced did a quick loop and Wedge’s shields buckled and finally collapsed. Wedge checked and saw that he was starting to get low on fuel. He knew that he needed to get rid of the Advanced quickly or else he would be stranded. The Advanced was coming around behind him and Wedge dropped his speed. The faster TIE sped by and Wedge launched his last torpedo. The torpedo smashed into the TIE Advanced and it exploded into small fragments. Smiling tiredly, Wedge headed back to the frigate.

He arrived to find a cluster of officers waiting for him. He removed his helmet and ran a gloved hand through sweat-soaked hair. He was exhausted and wanted only to go to his quarters and sleep. The officers clustered around the ladder and he wondered what was going on. He leaned his head back in the headrest and looked around the hangar. There weren’t nearly as many starfighters now. The B-Wings were gone and Wedge knew that none of them were coming back. There were only four A-Wings left and six of Wedge’s Rogue Squadron remained. Not even a squadron of fighters to put up against a Star Destroyer. He slowly climbed down the ladder and then looked at the gathered officers. He didn’t remember seeing any of them except for one. She was a blond woman that was a bridge officer. Her face was cut and covered with soot. She had been in her quarters during the attack and was now the highest ranking officer on the ship at Lieutenant. Looking around, Wedge saw that none of the people around him were looking very happy.

“What’s going on?” Wedge demanded.

“I’m sorry sir, but we’ve got a serious problem here,” the lieutenant, Nan Mews, said. “As of now, you are the senior officer on this ship. Congratulations, Captain, you are now in command of the New Republic frigate Ranger.” Wedge felt his jaw drop, him in command of an entire ship? But, remembering the challenge they, he wasn’t sure that he wanted this command.

8

2007-06-13T06:10:00.001-07:00

The cave was dry and warm in the desert afternoon. Luke slowly awoke and looked around him. Mara was still asleep and the only sounds outside were those of wamprats and other desert scavengers that were searching for a meal. Luke’s own stomach told him that he should probably scavenge something for himself. He rummaged through the few supplies they possessed and found a ration bar. As he chewed on it, he thought about their situation.

The Imperials had not come past the area again, to his knowledge, and nothing else had stumbled upon their location. He thought about what he knew about the desert world. The area they were in now was a mountainous area that stretched for many miles. There were also flat deserts on either side of the mountains with scattered settlements and farms throughout the planet. But Luke knew that if they were anything like his Uncle Owen’s farm they wouldn’t have any equipment to get off of the planet or to call for help. So there was really nothing he could do except hope that some help arrived.

Luke sighed and reached out with the Force to scan the area. That was when he the ground shook slightly and Luke could sense that something was wrong. People were dying, everywhere were screams and blaster fire. It took Luke a few seconds to realize that Mos Eisley was under attack. He could feel the ground shake and huge metal feet crushing buildings and people. AT-ATs! There was no way that the civilians could stop the walkers. The half dozen Imperial machines crushed the city and then left the city with a path of corpses and rubble in their wake. The people were trying to hide and tend to the wounded, there was no time for mourning, and Luke could feel their pain.

What seemed like hours later, which was actually only minutes later, a much smaller rumbling rocked the city as a dozen AT-STs moved quickly through the city to hunt down the survivors. Like birds of prey they indiscriminately fired right and left as they sped through the remains of the port, tracking down and blasting any escaping citizens they could find. Speeder bikes followed and soldiers checked each body to make sure that it was dead. Luke’s eyes opened and he stood. As he did he realized that Mara was awake.

“Did you feel it?” Luke asked her.

“Yes...I did. All of those people! We’ve got to help them!” Mara’s hand went for her blaster and then she looked at him sadly. “But we wouldn’t get there in time, would we?”

“I doubt it. Even if we did there’s no guarantee that we wouldn’t end up just like them.” Luke sat back down and looked at the speeder bike. One bike against hundreds of Imperials. Luke remembered the walkers from Hoth and knew that there was no way that both of them could take them all out, or the dozens of smaller ones. If only they had some reinforcements.

Luke’s thoughts were interupted when something in the back of his head screamed that danger was nearby. Luke stood and walked to the edge of the cave and peered out for a look. The speeder bike patrol that had been hunting for them was closing in. Luke pulled himself back into the cave and looked over at Mara and the speeder bike.

“We’ve got to hide the bike,” he told her as the patrol approached. Mara nodded and they scrambled to pull the bike farther into the cave. Luke grunted as he tried to push the heavy bike while Mara tugged on the handlebars. They finally managed to get it back far enough so that it would be out of sight. Mara hurried and made sure that their light was off and then, panting and puffing, they sat down to rest. The whine from the speeder bikes approached and they waited in silence for a while. Finally the bikes were out of sight and they both heaved sighs of relief.

“We did it,” Luke said gravely, he could feel Mara’s mind relax as well as his own.

“We’ve got to find some way out of here. If I can get back to my ship I can take out some of those walkers,” Mara said, choking back her raw hatred for the Imperials. “We can’t stay here much longer though, we can’t just leave anyone left there to die.”

“I agree, but there’s not much we can do. Even if we could sneak back into Mos Eisley there’s no guarantee that we could get into the hangars and get back our ships. We’ve got to be patient and find a way to save the city and to keep ourselves alive,” Luke tried to look calm, but the words made him sick. He didn’t want to wait any more than she did. But if they rushed in now, then they would probably only wind up making things worse for the smugglers trapped there. Luke leaned against the wall of the cave, trying to relax and think of a way out of this problem. He stared up at the dark ceiling, wishing that they could turn the light back on so the cave wouldn’t seem so dark and foreboding. It was then that he felt that something was very wrong. Imperials were closing in on them!

“Get the bike!” Luke shouted. He ran to where they had driven the bike and started it up. Mara jumped on and Luke began to back it out of the cave. Just then a bolt sizzled past them and into the cave wall. Luke wished that the bike could move faster, knowing the the speeder bike patrol was closing in on them.

“They must have seen us and doubled back!” Mara shouted to him over the roar of the bike’s engine. They were finally into the air beyond the cave and Luke quickly spun the speeder bike around in a turn. He put the throttles to full and the bike sped across the desert with the full patrol on its heels. Mara managed to pull out her blaster and take a few poorly-aimed shots at the patrol. Luke banked sharply to the left, Mara’s fingernails digging into his back as he did. They were speeding through a maze of twisting canyons. Luke narrowly maneuvered the bike around a large rock and a blaster shot at the same time. But the patrol was still onto them, dogging their every turn.

Mara turned and looked behind her, seeing that the Imperial bikes were catching up. “Why are we slowing down?” She asked.

“I’m not sure, but I think something just broke down. The engine isn’t giving us as much power as it used to. We’re going to have to get some of them off of our tail!” Luke called back to her. Mara nodded grimly, determined to make her next shots count. She aimed over her shoulder at the lead bike and then squeezed the trigger. The shot went high and hit the driver of the bike in the face. The rider fell off and the bike plunged into the ground. “Hang on!” Luke put the bike in a climb, wishing that he had his X-wing, or even the A-wing he had flown, here. Mara held on, feeling her stomach rise and then fall as they completed the climb. They were now over open desert, with no where to hide.

“What do we do now?” Mara asked.

“Can you fly this thing?”

“I can handle it!”

“I’ll drop down low and jump to the ground, you take control of the bike and keep them busy. I’ll see if I can get rid of some of them!” Mara was going to protest, but a second later the bike dropped to only a few feet above the ground and then Luke dropped off of the bike. Mara grabbed the controls and pulled up. The enemy bikes continued after her as Luke hit the sand and grabbed for his lightsaber. He ignited it and heard its familiar snap-hiss as the green-white blade glowed brightly. He looked around him and then threw the lightsaber into the air just as two bikes came overhead. The blade spun through the air and slashed both bikes in the middle, causing them to crash into the ground. Mara took advantage of the situation and banked her bike to the left. She was not going straight at the Imperial patrol and quickly she jabbed the firing button for the bike’s guns.

Another of the speeder bikes went down in the barrage, with a second one being damaged. The damaged bike lost altitude and was quickly dispatched by Luke’s lightsaber. The enemy troops were beginning to understand their plight and the remaining bikes split up. Two headed towards Luke and the other tow sped towards Mara. Luke saw the bikes speeding at him and looked for somewhere to take cover. Finding nothing he held his lightsaber in front of him defensively. Both bikes opened fire at once and Luke let the Force guide his hand as he blocked the shots. Then he leapt into the air and landed on the protruding front of the bike. For a second the bike’s pilot was dazed, but Luke knew that he would soon reach for his pistol. Not giving him the opportunity, Luke brought his blade down on the pilot’s chest, ripping open his armor and sending him falling to his doom.

The second bike was coming around to attack Luke and Luke hurriedly grabbed the controls of the bike. He plotted in a course and then leapt back to the ground. Only a few seconds later a fireball blossomed in the air as the two bikes collided. Luke wiped the sweat from his face and took a few moments to breathe, and to see how Mara was doing.

Mara gripped the handlebars as she rolled the bike to the right, narrowly missing a high sand dune. The two bikes following her pulled up high and moved to sandwhich her. Mara saw the trap and waited until the bikes had closed before she aimed her blaster at the one bike and fired. The oncoming speeder bike tried to dodge, and in doing so plowed into the ground. The remaining bike started firing at her and Mara nimbly moved the bike to avoid the blasts, but finally one shot hit the rear of the speeder bike, sending Mara flying through the air. The bike smashed into the ground and Mara hit the ground hard. Being only a few feet from the ground, she only had the wind knocked out of her. Seconds later she shook her head to clear it and then reached for her blaster, not finding it she managed to grab her lightsaber as the speeder bike came closer. Mara stood defiantly, not sure if she could deflect shots like Luke. As the pilot of the bike smiled and pushed the firing button, a green light sped through the air and arced towards the pilot. It came down and neatly cut him into two pieces. The shots from the bike went wild and it flew over Mara before slamming into the sand dunes. Mara closed down the lightsaber and sighed with relief. The green lightsaber shut down and flew back into Luke’s hand.

“Thanks for the save,” she called to him.

“Anytime! We’ll have to walk now!” Luke came closer and then examined Mara and himself for injuries. Mara looked a little sad, and angry.

“I’m sorry about losing the bike.”

“It’s all right. If we get in the hills then we can walk.”

“Walk where?”

“Back to Mos Eisley.”

“Skywalker, are you crazy? In case you haven’t noticed there’s just the two of us, and we’ve only got our lightsabers! An entire division is waiting for us in Mos Eisley! You yourself said there wasn’t anything we could do!” Mara’s voice echoed across the desert plains, her face turning red as she let out her pent-up anger.

“I know I said that, but we can’t just run away from the problem. We’ve got to face it head-on. Besides, we might be able to sneak into the city and free our ships, or the smugglers. Let’s go.” Luke turned towards the rising hills that they had just flown through on the speeder bike.

“This is one of those crazy Jedi things, isn’t it?” Mara grumbled as she followed after him.

“We’ll have to move at night, we don’t want any other patrols to see us.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“Well, it’s not going to be. We’re going to have to watch out for nocturnal predators, Sandpeople, and even Jawas.”

“Sounds like fun. Just like old times again.” They walked in silence, a long walk that finally took them to the base of the hills. Mara looked at the sheer faces of the hills, although they looked more to her like cliffs, and wished for the speeder bike. Luke examined the faces of the hills and soon began to scurry up them. Mara followed after him, barely finding the handholds that he was using. After many long minutes of climbing, Mara was covered in sweat. Luke didn’t look tired and she wished she knew how he kept cool in the dry heat of the desert planet.

Blous listened to the transmission again and then examined the holographic map in the AT-AT’s cockpit. He turned to the communications officer and pointed at a red dot on the map. “So, is this where we lost contact with the patrol?”

“Yes sir. The patrol failed to report in on schedule and we have lost contact with the homing devices on the lead bike.”

“This has to be those two who got away from us on the speeder bike. Pull every vehicle and man that we can and send them to that location. I want those two captured alive,” Blous commanded the younger man. He wanted the pleasure of killing both of the scum that had somehow managed to escape his men. The communications officer hurried away and Blous looked at the map again. He couldn’t wait for the moment when they were captured.

It took some time, but a force of five AT-STs, one AT-AT, and two speeder bike patrols was gathered. They all were hot on the trail of Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade. Blous watched them go and then ordered that the AT-AT be lowered so that he could disembark. A few minutes later Blous was on the ground with a stormtrooper escort. He stomped off to the hangar where the smugglers were being held. Behind the hangar was a small office that had once belonged to a foreman or freight company. It was now in use as a small command post for the stormtroopers spread out around the ruins of the city. The stormtrooper commander saluted as Blous entered.

“Any reports of activity in the city?” Blous inquired.

“No sir. All sectors are quiet.”

“Good.” Blous took a seat at the desk in the room. “Colonel, I want your men to begin to bring me the smugglers, one at a time, for interrogation. Also send a report to Captain Isel telling him that the city is secured and we are now gleaning any information from the prisoners. Be sure to tell him that we’ll send the prisoners to him on schedule for a formal interrogation.” Blous watched the commander go and waited for his bodyguards to fetch him his first victim.

Vnus had finished checking the cockpit wiring. Things didn’t look good. Most of the weapons circuits were fried. Jibuv had finished looking over the ships’ schematics. Starm, meanwhile, had located as many tools as he could and was now waiting by the hatch with his blaster at ready and his comlink on an open channel in case any Imperials showed up.

“Is there anything that we can do?” Jibuv asked.

“We might be able to hotwire the weapons to one of the other systems. What other systems can you see there?”

“It looks like we could tie it into anything we want. I think we’d be better off by tying it into the emergency back-up systems. That way we won’t drain power out of any important systems.”

“Except if we lose primary systems than we’re dead.”

“If we lose our primary systems we’ll be dead anyway. Unless you want to hotwire it to life support.” Vnus nodded wearily, knowing that they all needed some sleep. Things were getting very tense and on a small ship like the Phoenix, Vnus knew that it was better if everyone got along.

“Let’s tie every nonessential system into the backups. We’ll need as much power to the turbolasers as possible.” It was Jibuv’s turn to nod and he knelt down to open some access panels to help Vnus. Vnus looked at the mess of circuits and found the ones that he remembered belonged to the weapons systems. He had begun the slow process of hotwiring the entire ship when Starm shouted something over the comlink. Vnus rushed back to the hatch and found that it was open and that Starm was looking upwards. Vnus looked into the sky and then saw the faint streaks crisscrossing the blue exapnse of the horizion.

“Something big’s happening up there,” Vnus muttered.

“We’d better hurry up here,” Starm said with awe.

The frigate came in close to the Star Destroyer. Wedge Antilles was already closing the canopy on his X-wing and getting ready to launch. The rest of Rogue Squadron was behind him, ready for trouble. Trouble came only seconds later when the ship shuddered as turbolasers pounded the shields.

“Rogue and Blue Squadron pilots to your ships! Launch immediately! Repeat, all Rogue and Blue Squadron ships are cleared for launch!” The announcement rang across the hangar and less than a minute later Wedge was out into space. He could already see a mass of TIE Fighters and TIE Bombers heading for the frigate. Wedge booted the throttle to full power and saw that Rogue Squadron was behind him.

Blue Squadron, made up of A-Wings, began pouring forth from the frigate. Wedge wished that they had more fighters with them, but there was no time for worrying about that. Both squadrons formed up and cleared the frigate. They were instantly jumped by TIE Fighters. Wedge banked his fighter to the left and was able to quickly take out a Fighter. The A-Wings split up and went after the Bombers that were trying to launch torpedoes at the frigate. That left all eleven X-Wings to tangle with all of the TIE Fighters and Interceptors the Star Destroyer could throw at them.

Two Interceptors latched on to Wedge’s tail, sticking with him through several tight banks and rolls. Finally another X-Wing dropped in behind the TIEs and Wedge put the starfighter in the tightest roll he could. The X-Wing behind the Interceptors fired and sawed one of the wings off of one of the Interceptors. The TIEs collided and vaporized. “Thanks Rogue Two,” Wedge called out over the radio.

“No problem,” Rogue Two said and Wedge was quick to get back into the fight. He lined up a TIE Bomber trying to make a run on the frigate. He pulled the gun trigger and the TIE Bomber exploded as it was hit by four red laser beams.

Wedge could see that the frigate was pulling back to a safer distance from the Star Destroyer. His radio came to life and said, “All ships, you are ordered to stop any further attacks on the Ranger until it has reached its fall-back posistion.” Wedge didn’t recognize who was giving the order, but at this point it didn’t matter.

“You heard ‘em Rogue Squadron! Everyone form up on me,” Wedge commanded. It took a while for the X-Wings to get sorted out, but finally they were all together again. Wedge looked around and saw that a group of Assault Gunboats was closing in. Without hesitation he targeted the lead Gunboat with a torpedo and fired. Just as Wedge had hoped it would, the torpedo forced the Gunboats to stop their attack momentarily. That was just long enough for the X-Wings to pounce on Imperial craft. The New Republic starfighters doubleteamed each Gunboat and soon were looking for more targets.

On the bridge of the New Republic frigate, Captain Jez Ayhem looked worriedly at the status monitors. Already the frigate’s shields had taken a beating from the Star Destroyer’s turbolaser batteries and repeated torpedo attacks by Bombers that managed to get through the fighter screen or the frigate’s own guns.

Now the Ranger had settled into a new posistion safely away from the Star Destroyer. Ayhem could see that they were already getting some shield power back. All they had to do now was figure out how they could stop that Star Destroyer.

“Sir! Another ship is coming out of hyperspace. I believe it is Princess Leia Organa Solo’s transport,” a crewman shouted to Ayhem.

“Tell them to get into the hangar immediately,” Ayhem ordered. The Falcon kept on going, seemingly oblivious to the hail. Han and Chewie looked at each other and then back at Leia. Han could tell by the sensors that they would not have an easy time of getting down to the planet’s surface. Especially not without an escort.

“It’s your call, Leia,” Han said gently. Leia looked out the cockpit and saw the laser flashes. She didn’t want to stop now, not while she was so close to Luke.

“Keep going. If they give us any more trouble than put me on the line,” she responded. Han put the throttles to maximum and kept the freighter on its previous course.

“Sir, they’re not responding to our hail!” The crewman shouted. Ayhem strode over to the man’s station and opened the com channel again.

“New Republic freighter, you are ordered to dock in the hangar, now. If you don’t comply then we will fire upon you,” Ayhem said angrily.

“Ranger, this is Leia Organa Solo. My mission is of extreme importance. I am ordering you not to interfere with my mission.”

“I’m sorry, but there is some heavy fighting going on and I can’t provide an escort to insure your safety. Dock in the hangar or we will be forced to fire upon your vessel.” Ayhem clenched his fists and signaled the gunners to keep the freighter in their sights.

Leia angrily turned off the comchannel and Han crossed his fingers, hoping that the frigate’s captain was bluffing about firing on the ship. Chewie roared uncertainly as the freighter plowed on. Suddenly a bright red shot whizzed past the cockpit. Han looked helplessly back at Leia, wishing he didn’t have to say the words.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he turned the Falcon onto a course towards the frigate. Ayhem looked at his gunners.

“Good job,” he complimented and then walked off the bridge and to the docking bay. When he got there the battered freighter was just landing in the hangar. The freighter parked near the line of B-Wings and emergency shuttles. It wasn’t long before the main hatch opened and a very unhappy Leia Organa Solo stepped out.

“Captain, you had no right to interfere with my mission. I expect a thorough answer when we go somewhere to discuss this more privately,” Leia’s tone was pure acid, but Ayhem didn’t even flinch.

“We’ll discuss this in my office. Your crew may escort us,” Ayhem turned on his heel and marched towards the exit. Han’s cheeks turned red with anger and Chewie looked ready to rip the man’s arms off at the mention of `your crew’. Even the droids took offense at it, Threepio huffing and moaning about how unfairly he was treated and Artoo making the most ferocious noises he could. Equally angry, Leia followed the captain with the others in tow.

They were soon in the captain’s small office, which was many times smaller than Leia’s on Coruscant. The captain sat down and then looked impassively at Leia from across the desk. Han and the others stood nearby, ready for trouble.

“Princess, with all due respect we are in a war zone here. As commander of this ship and this operation, I had to order you not to go down to the planet until we could find an escort. I don’t want your ship to get chewed up by those TIEs,” Ayhem explained.

“Hey, my ship’s gotten out of worse scrapes!” Han called from his posistion against the wall. Only Chewie’s grip on his shoulder kept him from decking the frigate captain. Ayhem kept his composure, not even flinching at Han’s outburst.

“When I can assure your safety then I’ll let you go. Until then you must remain here. I’ll arrange quarters for you all.”

“That would be most gracious Captain,” Leia remarked with just a hint of malice. She turned on her heel and left the office. Han glowered at the captain for a minute and followed after his wife. Ayhem sighed and then left for the bridge to make the arrangements.

The TIE Interceptor exploded and Wedge gave a shout of satisfaction. His R2 unit beeped out a cheer and he smiled to himself. The Imperials were backing off now, retreating to the Star Destroyer. And not a moment too soon. The X-Wing was running out of fuel and was getting low on laser power. Wedge’s R2 was doing everything he could to make more power available, but it wasn’t working quickly enough.

Rogue Squadron formed up again, this time to head for home. The A-Wings were already landing in the frigate’s hangar bay, not having the advantages of an astromech droid like the X-Wings. As they neared the frigate, Rogue Six exploded in a fireball. Six had been at the tail of the formation, having taken some damage, and was easy prey for Imperial fighters. Wedge looked behind him and saw a dark gray shape rapidly bearing down on the X-Wings.

“Take evasives!” Wedge called. The X-Wings banked left and right out of the formation. Wedge himself looped his X-Wing up, hoping to catch the enemy fighter from behind. No such luck. The TIE mimicked his maneuver and was now on his tail. A glance over his shoulder told him that the TIE was one of the dreaded TIE Advanced fighters. Only a few had been distributed throughout the Imperial Fleet. Wedge remembered Darth Vader’s prototype Advanced, a little different in configuration then the one trying to blow him to bits. Wedge spun the X-Wing in a left bank, piling on the speed as he climbed up. The Advanced followed him every step of the way.

Cursing to himself, Wedge looked around for some help. The rest of Rogue Squadron was out of the fight, their evasives having put them too far away to do any good. Which meant that it was just him and the Advanced pilot. Several shots struck his shields and Wedge knew that he had to do something fast. He ordered his R2 droid to put his shields at maximum and then did as tight a turn as was possible in the X-Wing.

For only a few seconds the Advanced was in Wedge’s sights, but that was long enough. He squeezed the trigger and four bolts hit the Advanced’s shields. The Advanced fired back and his shots hit harmlessly against Wedge’s shields. Then both fighters flew past each other and Wedge saw that the Advanced was heading for home. Out of fuel, power, or maybe too shaken by Wedge’s near-kill the TIE pilot decided to go back to the Star Destroyer. Why he did it, Wedge would never know. Nevertheless, he was more than grateful to end the dogfight. Again Rogue Squadron formed up and landed in the hangar.

Isel paced the bridge, looking at the readouts from the battle. They had lost an inexcusable number of TIE Fighters, Interceptors, and Bombers. And the Advanced had taken a hit as well. Add to that the fact that the frigate was still in one piece and all of the Assault Gunboats were destroyed, and it made the battle a loss for the Ravage. Bysal stood a few feet away, knowing full well that Isel had not been pleased with the battle’s outcome.

“Have all starfighters fueled and readied. Are there any still alive that need rescued?” Isel asked coldly.

“No sir. All of the pilots are being debriefed at this time. What are your orders?” Bysal knew what Isel was thinking, he wanted the Rebels destroyed as quickly as possible.

“Mount a diversionary attack to draw the frigate’s fighters while we move into range to blast the frigate into dust.” Pounding his palm for emphasis, Isel sat in his command chair. “Also, tell General Blous that we will not be picking up the smugglers on our original timetable.” Bysal nodded and walked away. Isel looked blankly at the crew pits and then stood. He walked to the navigation pit and then the weapons pit to ready his plan.

7

2007-06-13T06:09:00.000-07:00

Luke Skywalker tightened the straps in his seat. He sat bolt upright as the starlines faded. He looked to gaze upon his home planet, but instead saw the hulk of a Star Destroyer. Two TIE Interceptors had already seen him and were already heading for him. Luke grabbed the stick and threw the A-Wing into a hard bank to avoid laser bolts. The TIE Interceptors roared after him and Luke could see transports heading for the planet.

Invasion! Luke thought and then armed his concussion missiles. He sighted the first transport and fired as he passed underneath the Star Destroyer with the two TIEs on his tail. Isel looked around him as alarms sounded.

“Sir! Rebel fighter passing underneath us! TIE units are dealing with it, but one AT-AT transport has been destroyed,” Bysal reported crisply. Isel slammed his fist on a console. Rebels always had to try and foul things up!

“Vector in all TIE units on the intruder. I want him pulverized at all costs,” Isel said with as much restraint as he could manage. He continued to stare out the window and hoped that most of the transports could make it.

Blous felt the transport jolt and hoped that they would reach ground soon. This is what he hated most, being so vulnerable in the transport. He was thrown in his seat on the AT-AT and cursed the fools on the bridge of the Star Destroyer and the incompetent pilot of the transport. He replaced his helmet and lowered his goggles over his eyes and hoped that the ride would end soon.

Luke twisted the A-Wing back under the Star Destroyer and then snap-shot a transport with a blast of lasers. The transport spun briefly but then continued its plunge to the ground. Luke knew that he couldn’t stop the landing, but if he hurried then he could get the smugglers safely away. He turned on his radio and quickly dodged a laser bolt.

“New Republic Command, this is Luke Skywalker! An Imperial Star Destroyer is attacking Tatooine! Send help!” Luke plunged the A-Wing towards the atmosphere and fired his last missiles into a transport. The two TIE Interceptors were still on his tail, but Luke managed to avoid their shots. Three TIE Fighters swooped in on the New Republic fighter and Luke aimed at them and squeezed the trigger. One of the TIE Fighters exploded and its debris slammed into a wing of another which spun it out of control and it fell into the atmosphere and hit the ground.

One of the TIE Interceptors fired and two laser shots hit Luke’s shields. Luke knew that it was time to go and put the A-Wing in a dive. The fighter sped through the desert world’s atmosphere and Luke took a second to get his bearings before he turned for an area he had flown through as a kid.

Beggar’s Canyon loomed large before Luke as he dove into it and looked behind him and saw that the TIE Interceptors were still following him. Luke smiled as he put the throttles to full and zoomed around the first bend. The speedy interceptors were barely able to keep up, one scraped the canyon wall but kept flying. Luke twisted and turned through the canyon and then smiled as the end was in sight. Luke had the advantage of knowing the canyon, the TIE pilots did not.

At the last minute Luke pulled the stick up as hard as he could and the A-Wing shot out of the canyon. One of the Imperial pilots was too busy watching Luke to pull up and smashed into the canyon wall, drilling a hole in the wall. Luke grinned and then did a loop and headed back into a canyon. The remaining TIE Interceptor followed Luke back through the canyon and Luke knew that the same trick wouldn’t work with this more experienced pilot.

Instead Luke took the TIE on a merry chase through the canyon. He kept jinking hard left and right, all the while draining power from his shields to his engines. He feinted pulling up and the overzealous pilot pulled up, sure that Luke would pull up and try and shoot him down. Luke casually pulled up and was pointed right at the interceptor. He squeezed the trigger and fired four shots. All four hit and the interceptor was torn apart, debris smashing onto the desert ground.

Luke climbed out of the canyon and headed towards the city of Mos Eisley. He thought of Mara and wondered where she would be in the city. He passed over ridges and cliffs and then saw the sprawl that was Mos Eisley. He flew over the city and saw that the transports were coming in. He headed for the hangars and parked the A-Wing in the hangar marked ‘94’ in fading paint. Luke didn’t miss the irony, this was the same hangar the Falcon had been in when Luke had left Tatooine for that fateful mission to Alderaan. Luke quickly turned off the engines and unstrapped. He took off his helmet and quickly climbed out of the starfighter.

Luke closed the canopy and raced through the streets of the city, still in his flightsuit. He ran into a bar and heard a ruckus in a back room. He dashed through the bar, hoping that he could find Mara before it was too late. He burst into the back room and saw that a huge brawl had broken out. But then, sitting on a platform, was Mara Jade all cool and collected. Luke almost laughed, she looked bored with the fighting. For a moment he stared at her, at her long red-gold hair and the sleek body in the green jumpsuit. She was talking to a man sitting next to her and all of a sudden Luke felt as if he had intruded on something.

A body hit the ground in front of Luke but then the smuggler was grabbed and propelled back into the brawl. Luke snatched his lightsaber and lit it. He lifted it over his head. “Mara!” He called over the noise. Mara looked away from Aves and stood, nearly breathless. Standing in the doorway stood Luke Skywalker with his green lightsaber raised over his head and a terrified look in his eyes.

A computer operator at the Imperial Palace had noticed the strange file appear three days ago, but he hadn’t been able to get it to decode. No one in the palace had been able to do it, and everyone wondered what kind of Imperial trick this was. Now another file had appeared, but this one opened right away.

The operator saw that the file contained a complex code for something. Taking a risk the operator copied down the code and loaded the other mysterious file. To his surprise the file opened and the operator read the message. He called his superior over and his superior grabbed a comlink.

“Princess Leia? There’s a message for you here from a Mara Jade,” the superior said and the comlink went dead instantly. Leia hurried to the room and rushed into the computer center. She read the message and tried to control her anger. How could Mara do this? How could she go behind her back like this? But Luke had been right after all.

It was about then that Luke’s hasty message was received in the War Room. Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma were called and were soon on the scene. Leia was just leaving the computer room when Mon Mothma was going to the War Room. “There’s been some trouble...on Tatooine,” the head of the New Republic said as she herded Leia towards the War Room. Leia reached out with her senses to feel out for Luke. She looked a hologram of Tatooine. Admiral Ackbar stared at it blankly, hiding his dread.

“We’ve got a grave problem. That Star Destroyer attacking Tatooine is too far from most of our units. None will be able to get to Tatooine in enough time to stop the attack. Except for one ship. Here,” Ackbar put another hologram into the air showing a single modified frigate hovering over Coruscant. “If we hurry we can get the frigate there in a day. I should have seen this coming. I’m sorry Leia.”

“Don’t be Admiral. We’re all doing the best we can. But we’ve got another problem. A smuggler meeting is being held on Tatooine. I’m not sure they can hold out for a day,” Leia said, trying to hide her saddness.

“I’ve already ordered Rogue Squadron to the frigate and they’ll be ready as soon as we give them the go order. I can have a shuttle put you on the frigate if you wish.” Ackbar swiveled his large eyes in dismay.

“If you want to, you can go Leia,” Mon Mothma offered.

“I...I don’t want to hold that frigate up,” Leia was on the verge of tears as she thought of Luke trapped on a planet swarming with Imperials.

“Then we’ll take the Falcon!” Han called from the doorway. Chewie roared his agreement and they pushed their way into the War Room. “We’ve got to try and help them.” Leia nodded and wrapped her arms around Han.

“Frigate Ranger, you are cleared to launch,” Ackbar’s gravelly voice called out on a comlink. The frigate disappeared into hyperspace and Han led Leia out of the room with Chewie in tow. They strode quickly to their quarters to gather some supplies and inform Winter of their plans.

“All right Princess. I will care for the children while you’re away. Good luck on finding your brother,” Winter smiled and said as Leia and Han left with the droids and Chewbacca. Leia smiled back at her.

“You always take good care of them. Thank-you again, Winter. For everything.” Leia left the room and hurried to the Falcon. The freighter was in the hangar, waiting to once again leap into space. Han and Chewie started the engines and controls. Leia secured Artoo in the lounge and she and Threepio strapped in to the rear seats of the cockpit. Han started moving the ship and then looked back at Leia as he put it in a climb and then into space. Chewie’s paw was on the hyperdrive levers and Han looked over to him. Chewie growled and then pulled back the levers and the spacefield faded into lines.

The brawl continued but Luke turned off his lightsaber and dove into the crowd. A few blows landed near him and Luke ducked under them and made his way through the fight and up to the platform. “What are you doing here?” Mara asked over the noise.

“The Imperials are coming, I came to rescue you. We’ve got to hurry out of here!” Luke shouted. It was then that a sound was heard over the noise. Speeder bikes were approaching! Seconds later Imperials appeared in the doorway. Luke grabbed his lightsaber and the smugglers began to grab their blasters. The first wave of stormtroopers were cut down in a fulliside of blaster shots. Then the smugglers took cover and Luke raced to the door and into the bar. More Imperials were coming and Luke ignited his lightsaber. The Jedi weapon flashed green and Luke blocked three incoming shots and another hit the wall. Luke charged ahead and swung the lightsaber at the stormtroopers. The troopers screamed and Luke stepped over them. The bartender was slumped over the bar with a blaster in his hand. He looked back and saw Mara in the doorway.

“Hurry!” Luke shouted to her.

“I can’t leave them here!” She called back. “Everyone to your ships! You’ve got to get out of here!” Mara then rushed over to Luke.

“I don’t see the rest of the Imperials, they probably surrounded the area,” Luke looked around and then saw one of the huge AT-AT walkers on the perimeter of the city.

Chaos! Absolute chaos, Blous thought to himself. His walker was on the edge of the city. Nothing had been going right. The AT-ST transports had been wounded or destroyed by that blasted A-Wing, two of his speeder units weren’t reporting in and one of the AT-AT transports had been destroyed. Blous looked over at the driver of the AT-AT.

“Head for the hangars. I want to deploy guards around the hangar. Units Three and Four take up posistions outside of the city. Speeder groups Alpha and Gamma you’re needed at sector five. Be cautious, we’ve already lost two groups there,” Blous ordered through his headseat. The driver moved the lumbering vehicle towards the hangars and Blous looked at the data pad in his hand.

The two speeder groups and the two other units moved to take up their posistions. Blous sighed as the AT-AT reached its position. Blous could see the other two AT-ATs, Units Three and Four, at the edge of the city. Blous tried to relax and hoped that the two speeder groups could end the trouble at that bar. Blous wondered where that A-Wing had gone. As long as it was around there could be more trouble.

Luke took the brief break in the action to take off his flight suit, the bright orange suit would make him too conspicuous. His black outfit underneath helped to hide him in the shadows of the bar. He looked around again and thought about how he could sneak past those walkers.

“See anyhting?” Mara asked from behind him.

“Three walkers are taking positions around the city. We’ll have to try and get to the hangars,” Luke said quietly. “If I can get my A-Wing then I can distract those troops so that the rest of you can get to your ships.”

“Let’s go,” Mara nudged Luke forward and he eased into the street, followed by Mara and the other smugglers. As Luke neared the hangar he saw that Imperial troops had taken up station around the hangars.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” Luke mumbled to himself as he moved forward. He reached out with his Jedi senses and tried to find out how many guards there were. He could feel at least twenty out there. Too many to use his mind control skills on. They would have to do it the hard way.

That was when the two speeder patrols showed up at the bar. Finding no one they spread up and looked around. Vnus grabbed his blaster and fired at one of the speeder bikes. “Fool!” Mazzic hissed. They had fought against each other in the brawl and both bore the black eyes and bruises to prove it. The shot missed but drew the enemy patrols and the hangar guards.

In an instant blaster bolts were blazing around Luke and the others. Luke ignited his lightsaber to block some of the bolts. The Imperials on speeder bikes rode towards Luke and he separated from the others to take on the vehicles. Mara lit up her saber and followed Luke. Luke swung at one bike and the blade slashed the front of the bike off. The trooper riding the bike fell off and the bike slammed into the ground. There were still ten more of the bikes, they buzzed around Luke like a swarm of angry bees. He deflected their shots but knew that he couldn’t hold out much longer. That was when another bike exploded and Luke saw the blue blade held by Mara slice towards another one of the bikes.

Luke knew that she couldn’t hold out forever either as he blocked another shot. He saw a bike coming close and then leaped into the air. He came down on the back of the bike and cut the trooper on the bike. The stormtrooper fell to the ground dead and Luke made sure that the bike’s guns were charged. He turned towards where Mara was and then stuck out his hand. She reached out and he swung her up onto the bike.

“What now?” Mara asked over the noise.

“We’ve got one chance! If we can get out of the city and into the higher elevations then we can try and hold out until help arrives,” Luke sped away from the city.

“What about the smugglers!”

“They’ll have to try and find a way out!” Luke looked back at her and saw her pained expression. “I don’t want to leave them either, but if we try and go back then those speeder bikes will eat us alive!” Luke turned away and put his lightsaber on his belt. Mara had shut her saber down and was holding on to him with both arms. The remaining Imperial bikes were in pursuit and Luke looked forward to see an AT-AT ahead of him. He jinked the bike just as the AT-AT fired. He remembered fighting the huge machines on Hoth and knew that their guns couldn’t shoot straight down. He pushed the bike to its maximum speed and shot the tiny bike between the AT-AT’s legs. The AT-AT ceased fire and Luke saw that they were racing under the mighty walker. They finally made it past the walker and ahead lay the flat deserts of Tatooine.

The speeder bikes were still behind them and Luke knew that he had to lose them. He climbed and felt Mara’s fingers press harder against him. The wind whipped at him as Luke pulled hard to the right. He glanced down and wished for the safety of a cockpit. A blaster shot just missed the bike and Luke saw the brown ridges ahead. He streaked over the crest of one of the ridges. Then the ridge faded and Luke dropped the bike down into a valley. He cut the throttle to nothing and the speeder bikes passed overhead. Luke looked around and saw a cave in one of the ridges. He steered the speeder bike towards it and then parked the bike inside. Mara jumped off and Luke looked around the dark cave. He lit up his lightsaber and searched the speeder bike. He found some survival gear in a compartment.

Luke spread out the gear and took stock of it. There was a small light, some purification tablets, and some food rations. Not very much, Luke thought to himself. He pushed the speeder bike farther into the cave and looked around. The cave was small but long enough to hide him and Mara. Luke sat down next to the bike to think about what his next move would be. He knew that he couldn’t try and get back to Mos Eisley yet, the Imperials would seal the city off. He hoped that the smugglers trapped in the city could avoid the Imperials long enough for New Republic help to arrive.

Vnus gripped his blaster and fired from around the corner. The stormtrooper hit the ground and the Imperial behind him fired his rifle. Vnus backed around the corner of the already damaged wall. Two other smugglers were with him. They were trying to get into the hangar to get to their ships and to get off of Tatooine. Mazzic had led most of the smugglers away from the hangar and back to the bar. Vnus was not one to wait around though. He took a deep breath and leaned back around the corner and fired off several shots.

Two of the smugglers behind Vnus came out from around the corner and fired their shots. One of the stormtroopers fired and caught a smuggler full in the chest. Vnus grimaced and the smugglers scurried back into the shadows.

“What now?” A smuggler panted. Vnus looked around, wishing that he knew.

“We need the others,” another moaned.

“No, we can do it, if we have a distraction,” Vnus looked over at some of the buildings. You two see if you can get over to those buildings and draw their fire. I’ll get to a ship and blast those Imperials to dust.” In the dark shadows he smiled but then thought of the massive AT-ATs patrolling the city. Not even the more heavily armed ships could destroy one of the AT-ATs. But they had to try and get out of here, or else they would be hunted down and captured by the Empire. And Vnus knew what they did to captured smugglers. The other two nodded and scurried across the dusty street. Stormtroopers hurriedly fired their weapons, but the smugglers were able to avoid the blaster shots and get behind cover.

Vnus waited, breathing deeply and trying to keep the sweat out of his eyes. Blaster fire erupted from the buildings the smugglers were using for cover and Vnus grinned with satisfaction as the stormtroopers charged at the smugglers. Vnus quickly snuck around the corner and into the hangar. The hangar was dark and cavernous and Vnus looked around for his ship, a modified frieghter that he had been able to scrunge together parts for.

He found the ungainly craft towards the back of the hangar and clambered up to the hatch and climbed in. He rushed to the cockpit and began starting the ship up. The engines wound up and Imperial troops came running. Vnus had keyed up the weapons systems as the stormtroopers aimed to fire at the ship.

“Not so easy, boys,” Vnus said as he aimed a laser turrets at the enemy soldiers. He pulled the trigger and waited for the red beam to annhialate the oncoming stormtroopers. Nothing happened. He pounded the console in front of him and then hit full throttle. The repulsorlifts lifted the ship and then it leapt from the hangar, several harmless shots glancing off of its hull. The ship hovered over the street and the two smugglers jumped onto the hull and climbed in through a hatch. The AT-AT near the hangar saw the freighter in the street and began firing. Shots pounded the shields and Vnus hurriedly dumped all of the power from his weapons into the shields. The other two smugglers climbed into seats in the cockpit and Vnus knew that he was in trouble if he didn’t get out of the area soon.

He pointed the freighter’s nose upwards and hit full throttle. The ship quickly rose and the bulky walker was unable to keep up with the freighter’s maneuvers. Vnus hooted and vanished into the desert horizion. A rumble rocked the cave that Luke and Mara were sitting in. Luke looked up and hoped that the Empire had not found them yet. The rumble passed and he tried to relax.

Still trapped in the city, Aves and Mazzic were trying to think of a way out. But there seemed to be no hope and it was only a matter of time before the Imperials arrived. Mara and Luke were still missing and Vnus and his followers couldn’t be reached either. Most of the smugglers were armed, but not well enough to take on a whole company of stormtroopers. Aves sighed, there would be no smuggler alliance now. They would all be rounded up and tortured until they were killed. That much Aves knew. Whether or not Mara and Luke Skywalker could avoid capture was another matter.

He sighed and sat down in one of the remaining chairs. Some of the smugglers were keeping a lookout, others were drinking the last of the licquor in the bar, and still others were having nervous conversations, sure that it would be their last time to talk in freedom. He looked at the map on the wobbly table and could see no back entrance to the hangars. And the front entrance was guarded by several stormtroopers and the ever-present AT-AT walkers.

Aves was about to lean back in his chair and try and get some sleep when the room began to shake. He ducked under the table and raised his blaster, but this action was futile. Five AT-ST walkers, eighty heavily armed soldiers, and ten speeder bikes were waiting outside. Aves’ hand shook so badly that he dropped his pistol. After years of smuggling and narrow escapes it was finally over. The other smugglers were similarly surprised and their blasters fell to the floor and the enemy troops rushed in and disarmed them. As Aves was yanked to his feet, he could only hope that Mara and Luke could rescue them.

Isel was pacing the bridge when Bysal walked up to him with a broad grin on his face. Isel knew that that could only mean good news. He could use good news, with the landing having turned into a debacle and the smugglers eluding him, good news was in very short supply on the bridge of the Star Destroyer. Add to that the fact that the engineers working on repairing the weak spots in the ship’s armor were set back during the attack and things were looking pretty grim.

“Sir! We’ve captured the smugglers! General Blous is detaining them on the planet until we can assure him that the Rebel threat is over,” Bysal reported excitedly.

“Tell him that I will sent a transport and a heavy TIE escort to retrieve the prisoners at 0500 hours. And tell the good general that he may now level the city and take no prisoners of the remaining civilian population. I want him to keep the hangar and all the ships inside intact so that we may impound them once the operation is over. Keep me appraised and I want a report from engineering every hour until this campaign is over,” Isel looked away from Bysal and the younger man knew that the conversation was over. Then he scurried off to carry out his orders.

Isel slumped down in his command chair and looked out over the bridge. He smiled at the thought of the captured smugglers sitting in shackles with stormtroopers standing guard. The thought of Mos Eisley in flames reminded of his own homeworld being destroyed by his hand. More traitors would be crushed and the Empire that had been lost would soon be captured again. If he could get the smugglers aboard his ship and then get to the Core Systems to unite the remnants of the Imperial fleet.

His scheme could work. Once the New Republic worlds heard about how a lone Imperial force had captured the entire smuggler alliance their political system would crumble as worlds, distrusting the Rebel’s ability to protect them, scrambled to defend their own worlds. Then a united fleet could crush Coruscant and scatter the Rebels. But first the smugglers needed to get on his ship and he needed to get into hyperspace. He looked out into space and hoped that this whole operation would be over soon. The glory of the once-proud Empire couldn’t be restored soon enough.

Leia leaned back in the chair behind the pilot’s seat, refusing to rest in the lounge with the droids or in the sleeping quarters with Han, anxious to get to Tatooine to help her brother. Han and Chewie had been taking shifts in the cockpit and right now Chewie was at the controls. In the past day and a half in hyperspace, Leia had caught two very brief naps. Each time she closed her eyes another horrible fate for Luke would appear in her mind. She felt horrible for allowing him to go off alone to the planet to warn Mara of whatever he had sensed.

Leia looked at the data pad in her hand, looking over the readouts of the meager forces the New Republic was sending into the fight. One frigate with three fighter squadrons and a single modified Correllian freighter. The frigate carried a squad of soldiers that could be used to rescue anyone on the ground, but no more ground forces could be gathered on such short notice. But they would have to hold out until General Bel Iblis’ forces could get organized and arrive on the scene.

Ever since she had joined the Rebellion she had always been fighting overwhelming odds. On Yavin they had fought the Death Star with only a few fighters, on Hoth they had had to dodge an entire armada, and on Endor they had had to take on nearly the entire Imperial fleet. She hadn’t expected it to be easy, but couldn’t they ever get a break? Her own brother was at stake and they had to take on a Star Destroyer with only a frigate and a small force of X-Wings, A-Wings, and B-Wings. A lack of sleep combined with the stress and these distubing thoughts caused unwanted tears to form and run down her cheeks. Chewie heard her and casually walked back to where Han was sleeping. He moaned to his partner as quietly as he could and then shook Han awake.

“What is it?” Han asked and Chewie groaned and then shrugged his broad, furry shoulders. “I’ll take over, you get some sleep.” Han hurried up to the cockpit and found Leia stifling her tears.

“Hi,” she said, trying to hide her saddness. Han wasn’t that easily fooled though. He sat in the pilot’s seat and briefly scanned the instruments, once he had made sure that they were safe he swiveled the seat and faced her.

“You can’t fool me. Come on tell me what’s wrong,” he said soothingly and she finally spoke after a minute of heartbreaking indescion.

“It’s just that I’m not sure that we can save him...Luke I mean. I’m just getting really tired of having to fight against such large odds,” she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. He reached out for her and pulled her close, knowing that she was going through a very difficult time with her brother in danger, the twins left alone with Winter, and with her job of trying to keep the New Republic together. Until this was over he would have to try and keep her from giving up. They finally let go of each other and for an awkward moment only looked at each other.

“Don’t tell me the odds, remember? We’ve done it before, we can do it again.”

“But what if we don’t? What if even if we do stop the Star Destroyer in orbit they still kill Luke? I...I don’t think I could live with that, especially since I let him go!” She began to cry again, thinking of all of the horrible things that could happen to him on Tatooine. Han could only hold her again and wait for the moment to pass. Just then a voice was heard from the cockpit entrance.

“Oh dear! Is something wrong with Mistress Leia?” Threepio asked with obvious concern. Han shot him a fierce look, but the droid didn’t comprehend its meaning.

“It’s nothing Goldenrod. We need a moment alone if you please,” Han’s voice was laced with enough saracasm that Threepio realized he was being scolded. He turned and scuffled away. When he looked back down at Leia she was smiling.

“Thank-you,” she said and then everything was all right again. He nodded but was unwilling to let go. Finally he did and scanned the controls again. They were still on course and on schedule. Only twelve hours until they reached Tatooine.

The battered freighter set down on a remote area that was far from Mos Eisley. Vnus sighed with relief and his two passengers did also. He shut down the engines and then the rest of the ship’s systems. He unstrapped and walked back to the hatch and then jumped to the dusty ground. Instantly sand was whipped at his face and he shut his eyes to keep grains of dust from getting in them. A sandstorm was brewing and fierce winds howled through the desert and obscured everything around Vnus. He fumbled to find his ship and then was able to pull himself up to the hatch and crawl back in. He closed the hatch and sat there on the deck for a few minutes to brush himself off and to take some deep breaths.

Until the storm let up he and the other two smugglers would be trapped in the ship. He finally got up and saw the two smugglers waiting for him. He looked each man over to inventory his resources. The taller of the two was named Starm. He was from the planet Ingra, though he did not know that his world had been devestated through Isel’s treachery, but he was different from the rest of his fellow Ingranians because his parents had broken through the prejudice. Because of that he had the purple eyes native to the west continent and the black hair native to the east continent. He had been kicked off of Ingra because his differences could have caused a “social upheaval” and had turned to smuggling to make a living.

The other humanoid was a former Imperial cargo shuttle pilot from Coruscant named Bilhok Jibuv who had narrowly survived a Rebel attack on the space station he had been on. After waiting two weeks for an Imperial rescue force Jibuv had decided to escape from the dead station on his own. After a week of tinkering he had been able to get a Lambda-class shuttle working again. Instead of going back to the Empire that had left him stranded, he had chosen instead to find someone who would take him on as a pilot. He had run into a small smuggling group who had trusted him enough to let him fly for them. He had proven his loyalty to the smugglers when his shuttle, which had been reapaired, modified, and had had all markings stripped from it, had destroyed two TIE Fighters trying to stop one of the group’s freighters.

Vnus smiled at them, with a little luck and a few spare parts, they could get the freighter’s weapons systems working again so that they could return to Mos Eisley and rescue the rest of the smugglers. “After the storm we can begin to work on this thing,” Vnus told the Jibuv and Starm.

“What are we going to do to this...this crate,” Starm searched for a word that could reflect his feelings of the ship and not offend Vnus at the same time.

“We’ve got to get the weapons working again if we want to get out of here!” Vnus reminded the others. Jibuv nodded and Vnus led them to what he used as his dining/rec area. They sat around a small table and pulled their unmatching chairs closer. “We’ve got to take stock of what we’ve got here so that we can see what we can do about fixing the weapons systems.”

“What kind of ship is this?” Jibuv asked with curiosity. “I installed the weapons on the shuttle by myself, but I’m not familiar with this class of ship.”

“It’s...it’s kind of like my own design. I built this whole thing from different parts I found,” Vnus answered. There was more to it then that, of course. Vnus had grown up on a world hard hit by the Empire’s war against first the Old Republic and then the Rebellion. There had been many space battle in the planet’s orbit and for that reason crashed hulks of ships were scattered over the entire surface of the world. After watching some of the spectacular battles in orbit, Vnus had wanted to travel amongst the stars, but he didn’t have the money to buy his own ship or for passage off of the planet.

He had been hiking through a desert when he found it. The outside was black and battered, but on closer inspection Vnus realized that the freighter lying amongst the sand could be rebuilt. The ship was an old Rebel transport that had been trapped by Imperial forces in orbit and brought down. The crew had escaped and the ship, running on autopilot, crash landed in the desert. The ship’s hull had been scorched and most of it was nothing more than blackened scrap. Neither the Imperials or the Rebels had searched for the vessel, both thinking that it had burnt up in the atmosphere, and the crew was never seen again by either side.

The ship’s hold had ruptured and the supplies it had once contained were destroyed. However, the cockpit of the ship was a different story. The autopilot had still been on and one of the repulsorlifts was still operational. Vnus had decided that the ship was what he needed to make his dream come true so he had used the single repulsorlift to move the ship into a deserted cave in the desert. Vnus ran through the ship’s systems and checked to see what still worked. Then he had deactivated it and made a list of the componets he would need to get the ship working again.

Over the next few months Vnus had searched the desert whenever he could, scavenging parts off of other ships. He hauled the parts to the cave and soon began mating the parts to the ship. After another few months the ship was completed. When he had finally looked at it, Vnus had grimaced and began to wonder if the thing would even be able to fly.

The three Corvette engines mounted on the rear of the ship formed a rough triangle, in the middle of which stuck out a single small blaster cannon from a speeder bike. The plating from various ships gave the freighter a strange shape, a cigar-like frame with a bulky patchwork of armor plates covering it. Vnus had gone into the cockpit and started up the ship. Slowly the ship’s systems came on until everything was ready. Crossing his fingers, he had keyed up the engine start sequence. To his relief all three engines came on line and then he activated the three repulsorlifts on the bottom of the ship. The ship moved forward ever so slightly as it rose into the air. Then Vnus put the throttle to full and the repulsolifts gave way to the rebuilt engines. For the rest of the day Vnus had flown the ship through the desert, finally be as bold as to navigate it through a long canyon. The ship worked beautifully and Vnus landed it back in the cave. He used a camouflage net to cover it up and spent the night in the cave.

During the night he had stared at the ship and tried to come up with a name for it. It had to be something that matched both his and the ship’s personalities. Finally it came to him and the next day he painted the name on the front of the ship, the Phoenix. After the paint dried Vnus took the ship to the nearest city with a spaceport and filed a flight plan. After going home and packing his things into the ship, and saying a brief farewell to his family, he flew the ship through the atmosphere. To his amazement and delight the Phoenix’s hull held together and he was finally amongst the stars, but then he remembered that other than the tail gun and two small front-mounted ion cannons, scavenged from a crashed Y-wing, his ship had no weapons.

Vnus had worked for a few weeks in small-time smuggling, making enough money to finish arming his vessel. He took his ship to smuggler specializing in weapontry and was able to buy two proton torpedo/concussion missile launchers, three heavy and two light laser cannons, and two deadly turbolasers. He had installed the weapons on the ship and now the already weird-looking freighter had cannons protruding from it and four flattened tubes recessed against the belly of the ship. But although it was ugly, and many of his smuggler buddies had joked with him about how ugly it actually was, it was his ship and it had made his dreams come true.

Vnus took another look at Starm and Jibuv and a look of determination came across his face. He had to get his ship working again, or else he would be stranded on the planet. “I’ve got about five days worth of survival rations loaded in here. I also have some tools and a few spare parts, but last time I checked I was running low, so we might not have all that we need to get the weapons fully on line. But we have to get enough weapons working that we can rescue everyone and break past that Star Destroyer in orbit. Have either of you two got any parts on you? Wire or anything?” Vnus sighed as both men shook their heads negatively.

“We’d better go and check out the cockpit systems and make sure that it isn’t some faulty wiring,” Jibuv broke the silence and then got out of his chair. Vnus nodded and went over to a cabinet to retrieve his tools. Starm took a coil of wire from him and they went to the cockpit to work.

Blous smiled to himself as the orders came in. They would level the pathetic desert city and then he could return to the Ravage with his men and the smugglers. It would be an operation successful enough to not only topple a government but put his name in the history books. That was when another report came in.

“Sir! None of our patrols have located the two escaped smugglers yet! They are not in the local vecinity and we believe that they may have met up with that ship that was able to disappear,” a lieutenant reported. Blous wanted to crush the quarter-sized holographic picture of the man, but he held back.

“Keep looking you incompetent fool! I’ll have the Ravage scan the area and some TIEs help you look, but you will find them Lieutenant!” Blous ended the transmission and then looked at the crew of the AT-AT. “Ready heavy cannons and target the nearest civilian establishments. Then feed me the coordinates.” Blous took command of the walker’s weapons systems and waited for the coordinates. Once he had them he gripped the trigger and smiled once again. Then he pulled the trigger and both heavy cannons fired, eradicating the bar where the smugglers had been hiding.

“Sir, the rest of the walkers are requesting firing orders,” a crew officer announced.

“Tell them to fire upon all buildings except for the hangars and building where we are detaining the smugglers. They may fire when ready,” Blous once again pulled the trigger and the cannons slung underneath the walker’s head fired two bolts. What remained of the civilian populance was taking to the streets as the city was unmercilessly annhialated. The smaller AT-ST walkers pulled back and allowed their bigger brothers to oversee the destruction of Mos Eisley. Fire spread through the city but was not quick enough to beat the Imperial’s weapons in taking out structure after structure. Blous grabbed the scope and looked around. The city was a mere memory now and nothing remained except for the large holding area for the smugglers and the hangars.

“Order all walkers to move in. I want to make sure that no one escapes,” Blous looked out as the AT-AT stomped forward. The six AT-ATs moved through the city, crushing rubble and people alike. When it was over there was nothing left and only the screams of the wounded civilians could be heard. “Have all speeder bike patrols sweep the city and eliminate those civilians that remain.”

“Sir?” The crewman asked for confirmation of the brutal order.

“Our orders are not to let any of the noncombatants survive. Carry them lieutenant.” That was all the crewman needed and he was soon calling each patrol to inform them of their new orders. Blous put the scope away and relaxed in his seat. The AT-AT once again took up station near the hangars, Blous confident that their mission would be successful.

“Sir! General Blous reports that Mos Eisley has been completely destroyed. The hangars are still intact and all captured smugglers are accounted for,” Bysal reported to his commander, who was on his way back to his quarters to get some sleep.

“Very good Lieutenant. I want transports with a heavy fighter escort to be dispatched by the end of the hour. Load the transports with extra pilots to ferry down to the impounded ships. We’ll load the ships into the hangar bay and depart shortly. Notify me when we are ready for hyperspace,” Isel walked faster and left Bysal behind. Bysal turned and headed back to the bridge to begin carrying out the orders.

So far everything had worked out beautifully. Isel estimated that it would take about ten hours to get everything loaded back onto the Star Destroyer. As long as the Rebels stayed away that long then Isel would easily be able to escape. He entered his quarters and the lights came on. His quarters were spartan, to say the least, with no reminders of his homeworld or his childhood. He climbed into bed and concentrated on sleeping, but whenever he closed his eyes the nightmare began again.

He could see thousands of faces, smiling and happy, amongst the green countryside of Ingra. And then a ship appeared, his ship, and began blasting the faces one by one. The happy faces began to scream and blood was everywhere. And then Isel saw the faces of his own parents. Green turbolaser bolts lanced down and the faces of his parents were destroyed. Then Isel awoke, sweat dripping down his face.

He hadn’t ever thought of himself as possessing a conscience, but the recurring nightmare told him that something was wrong. He shook his head and lay on the bed, staring at the barren metal ceiling. It was too late now though. The population of Ingra had been wiped out, almost. And from what the computers had told him those people living on the islands would be subjected to years of natural disaster from the afteraffects of the turbolaser barrages. The air, land, and water were poisoned and the planet was dying very slowly. For that, Isel couldn’t help feeling a little guilty, because it had been his home. He finally closed his eyes again and was determined to fight off the nightmare.

Meanwhile, Bysal was sitting in the captain’s chair, savoring the moment. All of the orders had been given and there was nothing left to do but wait for them to be carried out. Scores of TIE Fighters, Interceptors, and Bombers poured out of the hangars as the transports were prepared for launch. In less than two hours the transports and their escorts would be fully ready to go.

6

2007-06-13T06:08:00.001-07:00

Aster woke up to see two soldiers pointing blasters at him. “Get up!” One soldier yelled and Aster sleepily complied. Cuffs were slapped on his wrists and he was led up to the bridge of the Star Destroyer. Isel swiveled in his chair to face Aster.

“We require further information on the meeting, smuggler. How many criminals will be there?” Isel demanded impatiently.

“I...I don’t know for sure, but there should be more than twenty of them from all over,” Aster stammered.

“I want you to make a list of names. If you don’t then you will die,” Isel turned away and the soldiers dragged Aster away. Bysal, returning after four hours of rest, rushed to his leader’s side.

“Sir, why do we need the smuggler? He’s useless to us now that we know the location,” Bysal said.

“But we still need to know who will be there so that none can escape. I don’t want anyone to slip through our fingers. In the meantime, any word from the container?”

Bysal looked on the data pad that he had just received. “No sir, they checked in three hours ago with nothing new. They should be arriving soon.”

“Very good. They will come soon, they just don’t want to make it look obvious. Now, how are our fighter squadrons?”

“They are ready for battle. All squadrons are reporting that they are fully operational, a total of four squadrons. Fifty turbolaser and all ion cannons ready for action.”

“Good, the ship is ready for combat then. Have a course set for Tatooine and put us at the far side of the planet.” Bysal nodded and carried out the command. Isel could see the planet ahead in the viewscreen. He knew that the smugglers wouldn’t come in on the far side, they would insist on playing out thier charade that they were legitamate traders and stick to the standard trade routes. He picked up the data pad that Bysal had left there. Everything was ready to go, except that the smugglers needed to show up.

Mara stood in the dusty back room behind a Mos Eisley bar. She and Aves were getting things ready for the meeting. The back room had once housed sabacc games, but the bar’s current owner had closed it when business had dried up during Grand Admiral Thrawn’s battle against the New Republic. Most of the chairs were in need of repair and the entire room would need cleaned up so that it would be presentable. Mara sneezed as she took off the cover of one of the tables and was assaulted by a whirlwind of dust.

“What a dump. Why of all of the planets in the galaxy did Karrde have to pick this dump,” Mara moaned.

“Because no Imperials bother to come out here anymore. Neither does the New Republic,” Aves replied as he set up the sound system.

“That still doesn’t help with the dust in here.” She polished the table and threw the cover aside. She wiped the sweat from her face and then decided to go to the bar to rest for a few minutes. As she stepped into the bar, she heard the sound of fighting. Two aliens were fighting and she could see sabacc cards and drinks spilt on the floor. The bartender was watching with amusement. Mara stood at the sidelines and watched the brawl like the rest of the patrons. But then one of the aliens pulled a blaster.

Mara had her lightsaber from her belt in an instant and then ignited it with the familiar snap-hiss sound. She swung downward and blocked a blaster shot fired by one alien. Both combatants looked at her, stunned. For a moment all that could be heard was the hum of the lightsaber’s blue blade.

“Stop it now,” Mara growled. Slowly the two aliens nodded. The one with the blaster put it down. “Pay the barkeeper for the damage.” The aliens took out whatever money they had and threw it on the bar.

“You...you are Jedi?” One alien asked in broken Basic.

“No, I am not. You two get out of here,” Mara said and then turned off the lightsaber as the aliens ran from the bar. “What are you all looking at!” Mara ordered a drink and stomped back to the back room. Aves stood in the doorway.

“Nice performance,” he grinned.

“Well, I couldn’t let them shoot the place up. I wouldn’t want our guests to find the place all shot out,” Mara said as she brushed passed him and sat down in one of the chairs. She gulped down her drink and tried to relax.

“I meant it. Not many smugglers would stand up like that. Then again most smugglers don’t have a lightsaber either.” Aves went back to work and Mara sighed. She set aside her drink, hooked the lightsaber back on her belt, and then continued to clean up.

The first ships began to arrive that night. They came in one at a time at random intervals. One hapless smuggler, flying in an ancient freighter, had miscalculated his jump and ended up on the far side of Tatooine, only to find a Star Destroyer in his path.

Isel bolted out of his chair as alarms sounded. He quickly walked along the crew pits. Bysal rushed over to him with a status report. “Sir a freighter has come out of hyperspace near us. It hasn’t sent any messages to the planet yet.”

“What are you waiting for? Destroy that ship!” Isel rapidly became impatient with his crew. Why couldn’t they use their own initiative for once? At his order the turbolasers pounded the old freighter into dust.

“The ship is destroyed, no escape pods were launched. No messages detected,” Bysal reported quickly as Isel continued to pace the crew pits. Isel slowly moved back to his chair and the alarms died down. Fortuneately for the Star Destroyer, the shots hadn’t drained too much power from the turbolaser batteries.

“Everyone, now hear this! Any more targets that could compromise us are to be destroyed immediately!” Isel ordered and then walked off the bridge.

Luke rushed to the hangar to check on his X-Wing. He had been in his quarters figuring out what he should do about his vision when he had felt a great disturbance in the Force. It had been like nothing he had ever felt before. He knew that it could only mean one thing: Mara was in terrible danger. He entered the hangar, Artoo struggling to keep up and furiously making noises to get Luke to stop.

Luke opened the door to the hangar and saw that the X-Wing was still not operational. He checked its systems and found out that the engines and electronics were off-line. He groaned and then ran to the main hangar. As he was running through a corridor he ran into Leia.

“Luke, I’ve been looking all over for you!” She said. “Did you feel it? It was the strangest feeling I’ve ever had.”

“You felt it? Then you know that I’ve got to go and find her. She’s on Tatooine. I need a ship, mine is still damaged,” Luke spoke calmly but hurriedly.

“I’ll arrange it. Hurry Luke!” He ran off and Leia pulled out her comlink. “I need you to have a fighter warmed up and ready for Luke Skywalker.”

“Yes, Princess,” an officer replied. “We’ll have an A-Wing warmed up and ready for him.” Leia was glad that the officer hadn’t questioned her authority.

Luke ran into a ready room and began putting on flight gear. Then he hurried to the hangar and an officer intercepted him. “Which one is mine?” Luke asked over the roar of engines warming up.

“Can you fly an A-Wing sir?” The officer asked.

“Yes.”

“Over here then. She’s all ready to go.”

“Thanks,” Luke said and as he climbed the boarding ladder he saw Artoo trundling towards him. “It’s all right Artoo, I can take care of myself.” Artoo moaned electronically and Leia came up to the ladder.

“Good luck Luke. Be sure to call as soon as possible,” Leia hugged him and climbed down. As she backed away Luke flashed her a thumbs-up and then lowered the canopy. The A-Wing rose vertically and then Luke put the throttle to take-off speed. He turned the A-Wing so that the nose was pointed out of the hangar and then rocketed into the sky. The speedy A-Wing climbed into the atmosphere. The planetary shield was down and Luke’s flight plan had already been filed.

As soon as he was into space he reached for the hyperdrive levers. He saw the damaged Diplomat undergoing repairs, with Rogue Squadron beginning to ferry down to the surface. The X-Wings saw the A-Wing and waggled their wings at him as they dove into the atmosphere. Luke smiled and pulled the levers. The A-Wing jumped into hyperspace. Luke leaned back into his seat and hoped that he was doing the right thing.

Leia and Artoo entered the empty, dark quarters and she quietly went into the bedroom she and Han shared. To her surprise the lights went on as she entered. “Trying to sneak back in? What was it, business or pleasure?” Han asked with a rougish grin.

“Neither really. Luke’s going to Tatooine,” Leia said as she undressed.

“Why’s he going there?” Han yawned and leaned back in the bed.

“He’s looking for Mara Jade. He thinks that she’s in trouble.”

“If I know Mara, it’s him who’s in trouble.” Leia nodded and turned the lights off.

Artoo rolled dejectedly into a corner of the living room. Threepio was in the twins’s bedroom and Artoo knew better than to disturb him. He shut down for the night and calm settled over the apartment.

Mara stood in the back room of the bar and noticed that nearly all of the smugglers had arrived. She knew most of the smugglers, but some were beginners who she had not met yet. She noticed that two smugglers hadn’t arrived who had already sent messages to the effect that they were going to come. She knew that if Aster or T’bela didn’t show the meeting wouldn’t be hurt too badly. They weren’t important.

Mara was standing on an elevated platform in the back of the room. She faced the smugglers and cleared her throat. Everyone’s attention turned to her. “Welcome everyone. We will soon begin. Our primary goal here is to come up with an agreement between all of the smugglers and the government of the New Republic. This agreement is to renew the agreement reached a couple of months ago during the war with Grand Admiral Thrawn.

“The New Republic would like to reach a permanant settlement on the issue of smugglers supplying information in return for payment. As the liason to the government of the New Republic I am here to negotiate the settlement. Also, Aves will be representing Talon Karrde who is mediating. Any questions?” Mara looked around the room. Most of the smugglers, who were all businessmen, understood what she was telling them. Mara sat down at a table on the platform, waiting for someone to speak.

“If the Imperials have broken up, why does the New Republic need information from us? We aren’t spies, we got businesses to run here! I’m not going to go running around the galaxy to snoop around for the New Republic!” A humanoid smuggler, Hak Vnus, bellowed. There were a few mumbled agreements, but many smugglers held their tongues.

“Whatever happened to our freedom! That’s what we lose if we work for them!” Another smuggler hissed.

“Wait a minute! We worked for them during the recent battles, and nothing bad happened! If Talon Karrde wants us to help the New Republic then I say let’s do it!” Replied Mazzic, who had supported Karrde during the recent battles. Several cheers went up at this. Mara looked around. She knew that some of the smugglers were undecided, but most wanted to follow the plan.

“Wait a minute! If Karrde wants us to join so badly, then how come he didn’t show up himself? I think he’s playing all of you for fools!” The tide seemed to turn at that and Mara watched the scene with interest.

“Karrde had an important meeting to attend,” Aves stammered over the roar of the crowd.

“So he’s too good to show up here! He’s cashing in on some runs while we all sit here like suckers listening to this garbage!” The crowd was turning ugly, but those few who still supported Karrde stood and taunted the others. Then fights broke out. Mara reached for the lightsaber on her belt but Aves grabbed her arm.

“It won’t do any good. Connections with Luke Skywalker will only make you seem like you’ve been bought out by the New Republic,” Aves said as calmly as he could. Mara nodded her understanding and watched tables be overturned and tables smashed into splinters. She sighed, all of her work was being destroyed.

Over the sounds of fighting, no one could hear the sounds of transports full of troops being launched. Even if they had been absolutely quiet they still couldn’t have heard it. The Star Destroyer Ravage was now in orbit directly over Mos Eisley. Scores of TIE Fighters launched from their bays to protect the transports and the Star Destroyer.

Isel watched the operation from the bridge. He knew that it was a very fragile operation at this point and one Rebel ship could really throw things off. Isel smiled as he saw the first transports, carrying stormtroopers and speeder bikes, enter the atmposphere and then disappear. They were on there way to Mos Eisley and he was on his way to bringing back the glory of the Empire.

5

2007-06-13T06:07:00.003-07:00

The Imperial staff members gathered in the War Room of the Star Destroyer. Isel stood at the head of the room, in front of a large display board. A green circle labeled ‘Alpha 2’ was on the board. In the room were the heads of all of the ship’s departments, General Blous who led the soldiers aboard the Star Destroyer, and Bysal sat in the chairs facing Isel.

“Gentlemen, we have three days until we launch our major operation against Tatooine. We have exactly one day to prepare for this attack. I know it’s been a long time since we have launced a ground assault and for that reason I have arranged for a practice attack.

The planet is a tiny moon dubbed Alpha 2. The terrain is similar to Tatooine and our engineers are already assembling the mock-up of the target area, the city of Mos Eisley. General Blous, your main target will be securing the hargar bays and this back room behind a local bar. Commander Sigun, be sure to have your TIE Bomber and Assault Gunboat squadrons ready for launch to support General Blous if he requires it. You will also have to deploy a fighter screen aorund the ship in case any of the smugglers are foolish enough to attack us. The attack will commence at 1500 hours. Dismissed,” Isel ordered. No one had any questions or comments, they knew their duty. Bysal followed his commander down the corridors and back to the bridge.

“Sir, are you sir that the smuggler is reliable?” Bysal asked.

“We’ll find out, but I suspect that he is. He knows that is life is at stake. These kind of scum value their lives more than their ethics. He is telling the truth,” Isel stopped and looked at Bysal. His violet eyes piercing Bysal’s and forcing him to become silent.

“Yessir. Sir, the engineers have reported that they are ready,” Bysal held the communique that a communications officers handed him.

“Good, now we will see if Blous is as good as he boasts. Be sure to keep in contact with the container ship. I want to know the second that the smugglers arrive. I’ll be on the bridge monitoring the attack,” Isel walked briskly away from his aide and up the corridors to the bridge. Bysal was left holding the paper. He shrugged and walked off to the hangar bay to watch the launching of the AT-AT transports and the TIE Fighters.

So far, everything was going smoothly. Blous rode in the lead of the six AT-ATs marching on the dusty ground. AT-ST scout walkers scurried ahead of the giant walkers. This was the first action Blous had seen in over five years. He had never really gotten the chance to crush the Rebels on the ground, but now would be his chance. He looked out the front screen and could see the target ahead. On cue his walkers spread out and the scout walkers covered the major exits of the false city.

The AT-ATs strode giant steps across the ground until they were where the AT-STs were. Blous put his microphone to his mouth and said, “All troops, deploy now.” Armored soldiers deployed from the machines and soon were running into the city, with the AT-STs following them for back-up. Blous’ AT-AT let out its own payload of troops and Blous looked down at the hangar mock-up. This was the key to the whole operation, impounding the smuggler’s ships before they could blast off and get into orbit where they would have to be trapped by the Star Destroyer. The hope was that they could capture the smugglers in one easy stroke, so that none could slip through their grasp.

“General, all areas secure. What are your orders?” The communications officer on the AT-AT reported.

“Tell everyone to stand down and wait for the TIE Bombers to arrive. Then we’ll be packing up and going home,” Blous said. Blous sat back in his seat and waited for the roar of the starfighter’s engines. The bombers streaked overhead and dropped their payloads onto the Mos Eisley mock-up. The buildings exploded and the troopers rushed back to their AT-ATs. The AT-STs rushed out of the city and Blous saw the TIE Bombers roar back into the atmosphere. Their were only a few buildings left standing and Blous’ gunner sighted them and opened fire. The city was leveled and Blous led his men back to their transports.

Mara sat at the computer console with Ghent on Myrkr. He was finishing coding a message. “Will this work?” She asked.

“It should. They won’t be able to decode it for at least three days, when I send them the instructions. What do you need this for, anyway?” Ghent asked as he finished sending the message.

“Just for insurance. Thanks Ghent. Well, time to go.” Mara shook Ghent’s hand and then walked out to her ship. She climbed into the blastboat and strapped in. She started the ship’s systems and blasted off into space.

The message that Ghent had made would alert Coruscant to the smuggler’s meeting well after it started. Just in case they got into trouble. You never knew where an Imperial would show up, and if they got wind of the meeting, then it would be a very short meeting indeed. Besides, as the liason to the New Republic she knew that she had to at least inform them of the meeting.

She set a course for Tatooine. She had to be there early to help Aves set up for the meeting. She pulled back the levers and the Skipray jumped into hyperspace. As the stars blurred into lines, she undid her straps and tried to relax. She let go of the control stick and her fingers briefly touched the lightsaber that she wore on her belt. The lightsaber helped to gain the respect of many alien races, which helped in negotiations. She closed her eyes and knew that sleep would be something that she wouldn’t be getting much of when she reached Tatooine. Not because she would be busy, but because Tatooine was the place where she had failed the Emperor. She had allowed Luke Skywalker and his friends escape, which ultimately led to his death.

She hadn’t had nightmares in over a month, but going back to the source of her failure might bring them back. She just hoped that she could handle them. Her mind began to drift and she faded into a deep sleep, the first real sleep she had had in a month.

Luke pounded the panel in frustration. After working on the X-Wing for over an hour he had done nothing but cut his fingers. Artoo was in the rear socket, but the ion blasts had fried all of the electronics in it and he couldn’t get any of the X-Wing’s systems running. It was a job for a real fighter mechanic, which Luke knew he wasn’t. He threw down the wrench in his hand and tried to calm down.

He stood up and packed up the tools. Threepio shuffled out of the corner he had been standing in and motioned to Artoo. “Artoo, come down! There’s nothing you can do there!” Artoo beeped a comment and then Luke helped him out of the socket. Threepio was right. There was nothing that any of them could do, and Luke had a feeling that he was going to need the fighter soon.

He couldn’t bring himself to ask the chief mechanic to bump the X-Wing up on the priority list. He didn’t want any special treatment. The mechanics were busy fixing other more important ships, ships the New Republic needed to battle the Imperials. He sighed as he walked back to his quarters. Then he stopped in his tracks.

“You two go back to my quarters. I’ll be back in a little while,” Luke waved them away and Artoo made worried noises. “It’s all right, Artoo. I’m not going to get into any trouble.” Still not satisfied, Artoo rolled away. Threepio glanced back at Luke and then followed the astromech.

Luke walked briskly up the stairs, the sound of his footsteps echoing down the corridors. He threw open a door and was hit by wind as he emerged on the roof of the palace. Luke walked to the edge of the roof and looked down at the city. He needed time to think by himself, to sort out his feelings. And to figure out what was the source of that nagging feeling in the back of his head. He closed his eyes and the cool wind rustled through his hair and nipped at his face.

He thought of those horrifying minutes at Cloud City, hanging from a vane as winds threatened to tear him from his perch. Then he thought of his missing hand that had been used to make that dreaded clone on Wayland. The clone’s lightsaber that he had given to Mara, on this same roof. He knew that whatever was going to happen would involve her, somehow. He had to find her! Maybe she was in trouble and the dream had been a distress signal. He gribbed the railing until his knuckles were white. He opened his eyes and then saw that it was nearly dawn. He had been standing on the roof for over two hours, in a trance.

The door to the roof opened and Leia stepped onto the Palace’s roof. “Threepio said that you had been gone for a while. Something’s bothering you, what is it?” Leia asked with concern.

“I’m sorry that you had to interupt your private time to come up here. I just...I just had a lot on my mind,” Luke said without looking at her. She walked closer and stood next to him. She touched him lightly on the shoulder and felt his muscles tense.

“Come on, you can tell me. I’m your sister.”

“I’m not sure that I can. It...it was a dream I had. About Mara Jade. I can almost sense that she’s in trouble somewhere. Leia, I’ve got to find her.” Luke turned and faced his sister. She looked in his eyes and she knew that she couldn’t stop him, this was important to him.

“I’ll ask around and see if I can find her. She is an elusive figure lately though.”

“Thanks Leia.” He hugged her and they went downstairs together.

The Skipray came out of hyperspace near the planet of Tatooine. The brown world, with its twin suns, awaited her and Mara tightened her straps and dove into the atmosphere. She hadn’t bothered to check her sensors, which had shown a container at the edge of its range.

The Star Destroyer cruised through space. There were no nearby planets and Isel relaxed in his chair. All of the starfighter squadrons were in their hangars and the pilots were resting. It was the calm before the storm. There was only a skeleton crew on the bridge.

That was when a communications officer walked over to Isel. “Sir, we have a message coming in from the container ship,” the comm officer reported.

“Very well, put them through,” Isel stood and followed the officer to the communications pit. The captain of the container was on the screen. “Report.”

“Sir, a Skipray blastboat has just landed at Mos Eisley. I ran a scan of it and the markings check out as belonging to one Mara Jade. It was also registered with the New Republic sir,” the captain said.

“Ah...captain I believe that the first smuggler has arrived. Alert me when more show up. Most should be in cargo ships with false cargoes.” Isel ended the conversation and returned to his chair. Mara Jade, the traitorous woman had been known to work with Talon Karrde. Isel hated traitors, people who betrayed the Empire. He would love to capture her and torture her. He flexed his fingers and looked out the window in anticipation.

He had met Jade once, when she had been the Emperor’s Hand. His command, a frigate at the time, had been testing the new TIE Advanced fighters. It wasn’t a long meeting, but just long enough for him to remember her. She had been a symbol of the Emperor’s power, but now she was working for the New Republic. She was a traitor, one of the many that needed to be dealt with.

Bysal arrived on the bridge and handed Isel a status report of all of the ship’s offensive weapons and TIE fighters. Everything was reporting ready. “Sir, we have a small problem. The chief engineer reports that some of the patched up areas of the hull might give way under high stress. He advises against an extended period of combat,” Bysal stifled a yawn and then waited for Isel to give him an order.

“Don’t worry, this operation won’t take long. Tell the engineer to see what he can do to shore up those points,” Isel commanded. “Then you may end your duty shift, Lieutenant.” Bysal nodded and left.

“I’m sorry Princess, but I can’t get a fix on her,” the communications man in the War Room apologized.

“Thank-you Ensign,” Leia turned off her comm. She turned and looked at Luke. “They can’t find her anywhere.”

“How many desert worlds are there in the galaxy?” Luke asked. Leia punched the inquiry into a data pad.

“There are three that are all desert and over thirty with desert areas. It’s a pretty long list. Too many to search. Unless we can narrow it down a little, then there’s nothing that we can do.” Leia looked at him sadly and Luke nodded numbly. Han came in from the twins’ room.

“They went back to sleep. Hi kid. What are you doing here?” Han asked as he finished taking care of the twins’ soiled garments.

“We’re looking for Mara Jade. I can feel that she’s in trouble,” Luke mumbled.

“I see, well...the most obvious places to look would be places where smugglers hang out. I can help you guys look.” Luke wondered how he had missed that. A desert that was home to smugglers.

“Let’s finish this later, you guys could probably use some sleep.” Luke stalked out of the room and went back to his quarters. He still had a lot to think about, to sort out his feelings. Luke sat down and closed his eyes to meditate.

After what seemed like hours, a vision came to Luke. It was of his home planet, Tatooine. He saw Beggar’s Canyon, Ben Kenobi’s old home, and then the port city of Mos Eisley. But Luke could see that something was wrong with the city. And then he could see it, AT-ATs were stomping through the city and screams wailed throughout the city. And that was when he once again saw Mara be vaporized by laser beams. With a start, Luke emerged from his trance and looked around. He knew now what the dream had been telling him. She was in danger, or was she?

Once Luke had jumped to conclusions and ended up causing more harm then good and losing his right hand. It could be the same thing now. She might be able to handle it, but then there was the possibility that she could be in serious danger. He would have to find out, somehow.

4

2007-06-13T06:07:00.001-07:00

The planet of Ingra had a very special meaning for Isel. It was his home planet, where he had been raised until he joined the fleet. Ever since its occupation, Ingra had been firmly in Imperial control. But now the world covered with thick forests had allied itself with the hated New Republic. And for that Isel would destroy them.

Isel had been raised in a small farm in the eastern continent of the planet, outside of the planet’s capital. His family had grown a native type of vegetable for generations, but Isel’s heart had been set on traveling the stars and not in working the tired old land. He had had a fierce fight with his father the night he had left for the Academy, and Isel still bore a grudge against his father. He would be more than glad to blow the planet to pieces for that.

Isel’s watery purple eyes shone as all of the Star Destroyer’s weapons were brought to bear on the traitorous planet. He could feel sweat forming from the excitement and briefly took off his hat to dry the sweat on his brow and in his silver hair. Bysal looked at his commander. Bysal was also from Ingra, but from the eastern continent. Each continent of Ingra had humanoids that varied in eye and hair color. Those from the western continent had steel gray eyes and black hair, it was a uniform trait throughout the continent as though they had all been cloned. Because of their different traits, a kind of prejudice kept the western and eastern continents from fully cooperating. Yet Bysal felt no kind of prejudice against his commander, in Bysal’s mind he no longer had any alliegence to Ingra only to the deceased Emperor and the Imperial Navy.

Bysal knew that he had nothing left on Ingra. His parents were dead, his wife and child had moved across the galaxy to Correllia. But he hated to think about the vast landscapes of tall pines burning. But the traitors had to pay for their crimes. Bysal looked out a window and down at the green-blue planet.

Isel savored the moment and then stood. He walked across the bridge, checking each crew pit for readiness. Finally he reached the gunner’s pit. To everyone’s surprise Isel climbed into the pit and stood next to the young conscript. Isel moved the ensign aside and personally aimed the turbolaser batteries.

“You may now fire,” Isel said as he climbed out of the pit and stood with his hands folded behind his back and looking out a window. All of the turbolaser batteries opened fire and began pelting the planet with deadly green bolts. The planet had no shield and each burst rocked the planet with more force than a large earthquake. Isel’s home went in the first barrage. His elderly parents were incinerated before they knew what was happening.

It was Doomsday for the people of Ingra. There was no escape. The trees were vaporized and the cities were annihalated. Those that could flee underground were trapped by huge rocks and by lava rivers opened by the attack. Both continents of the planet were devastated. It would take years, if ever for the planet to be able to support life again. The Star Destroyer’s turbolasers were drained of energy and Isel looked at the now-blackened world. He knew that that was a demonstration of what one Star Destroyer could do against helpless, defenseless planets.

Bysal looked upon his world and saw where once green vegetation had shown, there were only brown and black areas highlighted by dense white clouds. The planet looked dead, but Bysal could see that the ice caps had not been hit, nor had the scattered islands in the seas between the continents been destroyed by the attack. There were still a few people on the planet and with them was the hope that Ingra could thrive once more.

A special meeting of the New Republic’s Council had been called. A freighter arriving at Ingra had lived only long enough to report that the planet was destroyed and that there was a Star Destroyer in orbit. General Bel Iblis watched the meeting from the bridge of the Calamari cruiser Freedom. Bel Iblis couldn’t figure out how the attacks were related. It wasn’t like the Imperials to just cause random carnage. They usually had a specific target for a specific purpose. But these attacks made little sense, unless they were just trying to intimidate the New Republic. And that was why the meeting had been called. Something had to be done, but the New Republic had so few resources after fending off Grand Admiral Thrawn’s forces. Capital ships like the Freedom were in short supply.

Mon Mothma called the meeting to order and then the Council was brought up to date on the attacks by Admiral Ackbar. “Several freighters were attacked by a Star Destroyer, then our space station near the Outer Rims was destroyed, a relief convoy to Argoon was slaughtered, and the peaceful world of Ingra was decimated by a Star Destroyer. Though we have no proof, we believe that the Star Destroyer is the same in all attacks. We have no information on the name of the ship or its captain. Though these attacks appear random, I believe that they are part of a complex campaign to intimidate and disrupt our government,” Ackbar’s gravelly Calamarian voice said.

“Admiral, if that’s true then what can we do?” Leia asked from her chair.

“We must try to assertain what the Star Destroyer’s next move will be. There are numerous planets that could be reached in only a couple of days at light speed. At this point, I’ve sent most of our fleet to look for this ship. We do have some ships here that are ready to respond in a moment’s notice.” Bel Iblis watched the proceedings and wished that he could help in some way, but Mon Mothma had assigned building the station top priority. The general looked out the window at the station taking shape. An old Imperial station had been packed into containers and shipped to the area. Although the work was going well, it would take weeks for the station to be erected.

The Council praised Ackbar for his quick thinking and a vote assured Leia that the New Republic would not be intimidated by this rogue Imperial ship. Luke and Han waited outside and then walked Leia up towards her quarters.

“Pretty much everything is the same as it was. We’re still looking for the ship but we don’t have a clue as to what it’s up to. If we just knew where that ship was heading then we could get a trap ready,” Leia groaned.

“Are there any big gatherings or meetings in that area? Anything worth hitting?” Han asked. Luke thought to himself but knew that there was nothing that he could think of. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen soon.

“Not that I can think of,” Leia said. Luke separated from them and went to his quarters. He went and laid down on his bed, putting himself into a deep Jedi sleep.

During the sleep, Luke had a vision. He was standing in a desert. It seemed vaguely familiar, but Luke couldn’t quite place it. Then he felt the ground shake and an Imperial AT-AT Walker appeared. Someone was running towards him. As the person came closer Luke could tell that it was a woman. She dodged laser blasts and ran towards Luke. She was soon right in front of Luke and then he knew who the woman was. She was Mara Jade. Mara pulled her lightsaber from her belt and the blue blade glowed in the desert air. As she was incinerated by blaster fire, Luke saw her eyes looking at her.

It was then that Luke woke up and stretched out with his senses. He didn’t feel any disturbances in the Force, but then again Luke didn’t even know where Mara was. But wherever she was, Luke knew that she was in for trouble. Luke was ready to go to sleep again when Artoo beeped with concern from a corner, noticing that his master was uneasy.

“It was just a bad dream, I’m all right,” Luke said to the droid. Artoo didn’t sound convinced, but neither was Luke. But there was no reason to worry anyone until Luke could figure out what the strange dream had been telling him.

Luke climbed out of bed and put on his robe. He walked over to the window and looked at the lights of Imperial City. Traffic was still bustling, even though it was the middle of the night. Luke thought about the last time he had seen Mara. He had given her his old lightsaber on the roof of the palace. He wondered why, after over a month of her absence, he would start having dreams about her. This was one of the times that Luke wished that Ben Kenobi was still alive, or at least able to talk to Luke. He needed someone to talk to about this strange dream and the even stranger implications. But there was no one. Luke couldn’t barge in on Leia and Han to discuss his own petty problems. Neither could he talk to Chewie or the droids about something this deep. And Wedge, Lando, and his other friends were scattered throughout the galaxy.

That left Luke alone to contemplate the dream. Was he dreaming about her because deep inside he really loved her? Or was the dream a warning that she was in danger? Luke had no idea what it meant. He turned his back to the window and then put on some clothes. He left his quarters and hurried to the maintenance area to work on his battered fighter.

Wedge was finally enjoying a few hours of sleep when his comm beeped. Wedge thrashed around in the darkness until he found the object. “Antilles here. What’s going on?”

“Sir, we’ve got a problem. The recon patrol ran into some trouble, looks like pirates,” Janson replied.

“Who’s flying recon?”

“Two Y-Wings, I don’t know the pilots’ names. The captain wants us to launch as soon as we can.”

“I’ll be down in a minute. Have everyone in their fighters and warmed up by the time I get there,” Wedge said and then began running through the Diplomat’s corridors. Even though the pirates were away from the ship, the repair work was very delicate and even a few hits could damage something vital. Wedge ran into the ready room and threw on his gear. When he finally got to his fighter, he saw that the rest of the squadron was ready. The eleven X-Wings were powered up and ready to go, and Wedge was grateful that his R2 unit had already warmed up the ship’s engines.

The hangar bay opened and Wedge led his ships out into space. He put his throttle up to full and sped towards the pirate ships. The pirates were flying old Y-Wings and Headhunters, which were no match for his X-Wing. There were ten of the rogue vessels attacking the New Republic recon patrol. Both Y-Wings had taken several hits and were desperately trying to flee the battle. Wedge targeted one of the pirate ships with his torpedoes and fired when he got a lock.

Although there was a good chance that the torpedo wouldn’t hit anything, the torpedo would at least distract the enemy enough so that the Y-Wings would have a better chance to clear the area. Wedge turned his guns on and dove onto one of the pirate Y-Wings. He squeezed his trigger and sent laser bolts into the Y-Wing. The ship’s shields absorbed most of the hits, but Janson came in behind Wedge and sawed off one of the ship’s engines and sent it spinning into empty space. Even before that ship was dispatched Wedge was already on the tail of another.

Two Z95s were on his tail and Wedge had to quickly pull up and jink around to avoid them and their guns. He fired at one enemy craft and saw it explode. Then Wedge saw that one of the newer pilots, a youngster named Abery, was being jumped by two pirate starfighters. Wedge turned up his throttle and began firing at the attackers. Wedge flew past the ships and one broke off to follow him, leaving young Abery with much better odds. Wedge quickly banked to the left and was soon on the tail of the slower, less maneuverable fighter. He began shooting at the wallowing Y-Wing and cheered when it exploded. Abery formed up on Wedge’s wing and Wedge could see that the attackers were fleeing.

“Rogue Squadron, this is Recon Patrol. Thanks a bunch for saving our tails. Commands tells us to relay the message that the hyperdrive is repaired and you are to report back as soon as you are able,” the lead Y-Wing pilot said.

“Thanks Recon. We’re on our way,” Wedge answered and headed for the cruiser. Once the last X-Wing was in the bay and the hangar door closed, the space around Deysdon IV faded into starlines and the cruiser headed back towards Coruscant.

The container came out of hyperspace near the desert world of Tatooine. It’s hold opened and a probe droid was launched. The crew of the ship placed itself away from the planet so that the small ship was nearly unnoticeable and undetectable by any scanners on the planet, yet the container could still receive data from the droid. The droid landed in a sand dune near Mos Eisley. After digging itself out of the sand and moving around for a few seconds, the droid began to take its scanner readings.

The droid was nearly finished with its scanning when it heard a squeal come from behind it. Strange little creatures, Jawas, ran at the droid. The Jawa’s Sandcrawler was a half mile away, and the Jawas pulled out their equipment to disable the droid. Though the droid was useless to the populance of Tatooine, its basic componets could be used to repair other salvaged droids that could be sold. The droid sensed that the creatures were a threat and began firing at the Jawas.

One of the scavengers fell and the others backed off, not used to their prey fighting back. The droid moved away from the Jawas and continued to take its readings. Finally the droid finished sending the requested data to the container. It was about that time that tow of the Jawas fired their paralyzing guns at the droid. When the beams hit the droid exploded and the Jawas groaned in defeat, the probe was useless now.

The container relayed the information they had collected to the Star Destroyer Ravage. Bysal was given the message and he hurried to relay it to his commander. The ship was cruising at a leisurely speed towards Tatooine. Bysal rang the bell for Isel’s quarters and the door opened. Isel had just finished putting on his uniform and took the message. The news from the probe was very good. Mos Eisley wasn’t showing any heavy shipping traffic and best of all, the city was undefended.

3

2007-06-13T06:06:00.001-07:00

The frigate leading the medical convoy came out of hyperspace only to detect small objects coming towards them. As the other ships of the relief convoy arrived near the planet of Argoon, they were surprised to see TIE Bombers coming at them, followed by Assault Gunboats.

X-Wings and A-Wings from the frigate began to launch. TIE Interceptors immediately pounced on them as the Star Destroyer Ravage arrived at the scene of the battle. The Star Destroyer began firing on the frigate, as the transports in the convoy were hit by waves of heavy space bombs.

Isel watched the battle, knowing that his TIE pilots were getting great experience. His prisoner was still in the early stages of interrogation, and wasn’t revealing anything important. Bysal approached and Isel motioned for him to release the last ship in the Star Destroyer’s hangar. A single rare TIE Advanced launched from the Star Destroyer and streaked towards the weakening frigate. The starfighter had an open path to the ship. It launched two bombs and then pulled up and caught an X-Wing with a deadly burst of fire.

Another wave of TIE Bombers and gunboats headed for the transports, most of which were already in their death throes. The valiant New Republic starfighter pilots were able to destroy a few of the bombers, but the large numbers of TIE fighters kept them too busy. The TIE Advanced tore through the ranks of the New Republic ships as the Star Destroyer fired one last salvo at the frigate and tore it to pieces.

Admidst the chaos, a single shuttle was warming up on one of the dying transports. The pilot quickly computed the hyperspace jump as the shuttle was launched. The shuttle swerved to the left to avoid an oncoming TIE Bomber and then it went into hyperspace. As the shuttle entered hyperspace, the last transport was destroyed. The five remaining New Republic fighters were destroyed and the Imperial craft went back to their mothership. The attack had been swift and brutal, and Isel knew that he had now sent a clear message to the Rebels.

Leia rushed into the Command Center in the Imperial Palace. She immediately found Mon Mothma standing at one of the computer consoles. “Hello, Leia. I’m sorry that you had to leave on such short notice, but there is a new threat to the New Republic,” Mon Mothma proclaimed softly.

“What’s wrong?” Leia asked.

“The station being constructed near the Outer Rims was destroyed...by a Star Destroyer.”

“But I thought that the Imperials had fled to the Core Worlds to regroup.”

“Obviously this Star Destroyer has gone elsewhere. As long as this threat remains it will greatly disrupt our attempts to assure perspective allies that the New Republic can protect them. I need your help to reassure them. I have already ordered General Bel Iblis to lead a task force to the area of the attack. We are going to rebuild the station. Admiral Ackbar is also hunting for the rogue Star Destroyer now, but there is still much work to be done. Many ambassadors are coming here to get my reassurance that we can handle the Imperial threat. I’ll need you to help me handle them. I know that I’ve asked so much of you already, but until we get this fledgling republic on its feet I will need all of your help.”

“I understand, Mon Mothma,” Leia said humbly and silently fumed that she would lose more time that could be spent with Han and the twins. But she knew that until the Imperials were vanquished she would have to give her all to help secure the New Republic’s relationship with its allies. It was then that Leia heard a shout at the door and turned to see a haggered man in a flight suit pushing his way through the guards.

“I have a important message for Mon Mothma!” The pilot shouted. Guards with blasters looked at their leader. Mon Mothma waved them away.

“Let him speak,” she commanded.

“I was with the medical fleet going to Argoon. When we came out of hyperspace there were Imperials waiting for us. A Star Destroyer and its starfighters overwhelmed our defenses and disabled the communitcation systems on all of our ships. I was able to sneak a shuttle out to tell you the fate of the relief convoy. Why would anyone attack a relief column?” The pilot shouted. As his question echoed across the room he was roughly pushed out of the room. Leia looked at Mon Mothma in shock.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Leia mumbled to herself.

Luke and Threepio watched the final blue panels on Artoo with fascination. Then it was time to see if the hours of work and worry had finally gotten the astromech to work again. Luke crossed his fingers and Threepio mumbled an alien prayer. The mechanics working on the droid plugged a cord into the droid and then into a generator. The power switch was turned on and power began to flow into Artoo. Luke could see the droid light up as his systems began running again. The light died down when the power was cut off and then Artoo began to move. He beeped and chirped and moved towards Luke and Threepio as fast as his tiny wheels could move him.

Luke was glad that the droid was all right, but then he snuck a look out a window and saw his X-Wing sitting, silent and still crippled by the ion blasts. Though he wasn’t anxious to get back in space, the X-Wing had served him for many years and it was almost a part of him. Almost as much a part of him as his friends. Luke and Threepio led Artoo out of the maintainence room and back towards Han and Leia’s quarters. On the way there, Luke could sense that something was wrong.

And indeed something was wrong. Chewie roared and looked at the broken vase on the floor. He had poked his head in the doorway of the living room and seeing the vase, he eased himself back into the twin’s room.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t take this anymore! The twins are growing up without you! Winter’s more of a mother to them than you have been!” Han released frustration that had been mounting for months.

“I’m sorry, but my job is important! Someone’s got to help keep this government together and the Imperials aren’t making my job any easier!” Leia resisted the urge to cry, she wished that she could pass her job onto someone else, but no one else could handle it. She felt guilty every minute she was away from Han and the twins, but it wouldn’t last much longer, it couldn’t.

Han could tell that yelling wasn’t going to help, and breaking the vase had gotten rid of some of the frustration he had been feeling, almost never being able to see his wife. “I know, I’m sorry,” he said gently and held Leia’s head to his chest.

“No, you have every right to be angry. It’s not easy, but we’ve got to make it work. I don’t want to lose you or the twins to my work,” she moaned.

“You won’t, I promise. I’ll clean up this mess and we can make the most of our time.” Han let Leia go and went to clean up the vase. Luke could feel the tensions ease and then opened the door. The droids shuffled in after him, and Leia looked in surprise at her brother.

“They got Artoo working again. That’s great,” she said with all of the enthusiasm she could muster.

“I just thought that I’d come up to show you and see the twins,” Luke looked at Han, who looked up with a nasty look on his face. “Or we could come back later. I’ll see you later.” Luke hurried the droids out of the door and knew that he had unknowingly intruded on something private.

“Why did we leave in such a hurry, Master Luke? That seemed rather rude to me,” Threepio grumbled, being a protocol droid he hated to see rudeness.

“I’ll tell you some other time. Artoo, how about we go and see what we can do with my X-Wing?” Artoo beeped an affirmative and they headed towards maintenance.

“Wait for me!” Threepio called and hurried to catch up. “I’m not letting you out of my sight again R2D2. Everytime I’m not with you, you get into some kind of mischief.”

“You said that you had valuable information. So far we have found nothing but trivial facts,” Isel growled at Aster.

“Unhook these blasted machines and I’ll tell you!” Aster shouted through his pain as the interrogation droid worked him over. Isel signaled that the droid be removed and then let Aster rest for a few moments. He was tired of trifling with the foolish smuggler. If he didn’t yield any important information soon, then he would soon know the wrath of the Imperial Navy.

“What is it?”

“I know of a meeting...a really big meeting. All of the galaxies biggest smugglers, even Talon Karrde are going to be there!”

“Where is it? Tell me or you will die.”

“It’s on...Tatooine! Five days from now the biggest smuggler meeting ever will take place in Mos Eisley,” Aster said quickly.

“You had better be right, smuggler. I want him detained until we reach Tatooine. But first we have one last stop to make,” Isel commanded and left the detention cell. Isel knew that this next target would be very satisfying to destroy.