He'd never been out of control like this, he didn't like it, he couldn't stop it. He realized he was still shaking her, and stopped.

'I can't, Han ...' Her lip began to tremble again.

'You can't! You can't tell me? I thought we were closer than that, but I guess I was wrong. Maybe you'd rather tell Luke. Sometimes I- 'Oh, Han!' she cried, and burst into tears once more. She buried herself in his embrace.

His anger turned slowly to confusion and dismay, as he found himself wrapping his arms around her, caressing her shoulders, comforting her. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered into her hair. 'I'm sorry.' He didn't understand, not an iota - didn't understand her, or himself, or his topsy-turvy feelings, or women, or the universe. All he knew was that he'd just been furious, and now he was affectionate, protective, tender. Made no sense.

'Please ... just hold me,' she whispered. She didn't want to talk. She just wanted to be held.

He just held her.

Morning mist rose off dewy vegetation as the sun broke the horizon over Endor. The lush foliage of the forest's edge had a moist, green odor; in that dawning moment the world was silent, as if holding its breath.

In violent contrast, the Imperial landing platform squatted over the ground. Harsh, metallic, octagonal, it seemed to cut like an insult into the verdant beauty of the place. The bushes at its perimeter were singed black from repeated shuttle landings; the flora beyond that was wilting - dying from refuse disposal, trampling feet, chemical exhaust fumes. Like a blight was this outpost.

Uniformed troops walked continuously on the platform and in the area - loading, unloading, surveilling, guarding. Imperial Walkers were parked off to one side - square, armored, two-legged war machines, big enough for a squad of soldiers to stand inside, firing laser cannon in all directions. An Imperial shuttle took off for the Death Star, with a roar that made the trees cringe. Another walker emerged from the timber on the far side of the platform, returning from a patrol mission. Step by lumbering step, it approached the loading dock.

Darth Vader stood at the rail of the lower deck, staring mutely into the depths of the lovely forest. Soon. It was coming soon; he could feel it. Like a drum getting louder, his destiny approached. Dread was all around, but fear like this excited him, so he let it bubble quietly within. Dread was a tonic, it heightened his senses, honed a raw edge to his pa.s.sions. Closer, it came.

Victory, too, he sensed. Mastery. But laced with something else ... what was it? He couldn't see it, quite. Always in motion, the future; difficult to see. Its apparitions tantalized him, swirling specters, always changing. Smoky was his future, thunderous with conquest and destruction.

Very close, now. Almost here.

He purred, in the pit of his throat, like a wild cat smelling game on the air.

Almost here.

The Imperial Walker docked at the opposite end of the deck, and opened its doors. A phalanx of stormtroopers marched out in tight circular formation. They lock-stepped toward Vader.

He turned around to face the oncoming troopers, his breathing even, his black robes hanging still in the windless morning. The stormtroopers stopped when they reached him, and at a word from their captain, parted to reveal a bound prisoner in their midst. It was Luke Skywalker.

The young Jedi gazed at Vader with complete calm, with many layers of vision.

The stormtrooper captain spoke to Lord Vader. 'This is the Rebel that surrendered to us. Although he denies it, I believe there may be more of them, and I request permission to conduct a wider search of the area.' He extended his hand to the Dark Lord; in it, he held Luke's lightsaber. 'He was armed only with this.'

Vader looked at the lightsaber a moment, then slowly took it from the captain's hand. 'Leave us. Conduct your search, and bring his companions to me.'

The officer and his troops withdrew back to the walker.

Luke and Vader were left standing alone facing each other, in the emerald tranquillity of the ageless forest. The mist was beginning to burn off. Long day ahead.

= VII =.

'SO,' the Dark Lord rumbled. 'You have come to me.'

'And you to me.'

'The Emperor is expecting you. He believes you will turn to the dark side.'

'I know ... Father.' It was a momentous act for Luke - to address his father, as his father. But he'd done it, now, and kept himself under control, and the moment was past. It was done. He felt stronger for it. He felt potent.

'So, you have finally accepted the truth,' Vader gloated.

'I have accepted the truth that you were once Anakin Skywalker, my father.'

'That name no longer has meaning for me.' It was a name from long ago. A different life, a different universe. Could he truly once have been that man?

'It is the name of your true self,' Luke's gaze bore steadily down on the cloaked figure. 'You have only forgotten. I know there is good in you. The Emperor hasn't driven it fully away.' He molded with his voice, tried to form the potential reality with the strength of his belief. 'That's why you could not destroy me. That's why you won't take me to your Emperor now.'

Vader seemed almost to smile through his mask at his son's use of Jedi voice-manipulation. He looked down at the lightsaber the captain had given him - Luke's lightsaber. So the boy was truly a Jedi now. A man grown. He held the lightsaber up. 'You have constructed another.'

'This one is mine,' Luke said quietly. 'I no longer use yours.'

Vader ignited the blade, examined its humming, brilliant light, like an admiring craftsman. 'Your skills are complete. Indeed, you are as powerful as the Emperor has foreseen.'

They stood there for a moment, the lightsaber between them. Sparks dove in and out of the cutting edge: photons pushed to the brink by the energy pulsing between these two warriors.

'Come with me, Father.'

Vader shook his head. 'Ben once thought as you do-'Don't blame Ben for your fall-' Luke took a step closer, then stopped.

Vader did not move. 'You don't know the power of the dark side. I must obey my master.'

'I will not turn - you will be forced to destroy me.'

'If that is your destiny.' This was not his wish, but the boy was strong - if it came, at last, to blows, yes, he would destroy Luke. He could no longer afford to hold back, as he once had.

'Search your feelings, Father. You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate.'

But Vader hated no one; he only l.u.s.ted too blindly. 'Someone has filled your mind with foolish ideas, young one. The Emperor will show you the true nature of the Force. He is your master, now.'

Vader signaled to a squad of distant stormtroopers as he extinguished Luke's lightsaber. The guards approached. Luke and the Dark Lord faced one another for a long, searching moment. Vader spoke just before the guards arrived.

'It is too late for me, Son.'

'Then my father is truly dead,' answered Luke. So what was to stop him from killing the Evil One who stood before him now? he wondered.

Nothing, perhaps.

The vast Rebel fleet hung poised in s.p.a.ce, ready to strike. It was hundreds of light-years from the Death Star - but in hypers.p.a.ce, all time was a moment, and the deadliness of an attack was measured not in distance but in precision.

Ships changed in formation from corner to side, creating a faceted diamond shape to the armada - as if, like a cobra, the fleet was spreading its hood.

The calculations required to launch such a meticulously coordinated offensive at lightspeed made it necessary to fix on a stationary point - that is, stationary relative to the point of reentry from hypers.p.a.ce. The point chosen by the Rebel command was a small, blue planet of the Sull.u.s.t system. The armada was positioned around it, now, this unblinking cerulean world. It looked like the eye of the serpent.

The Millennium Falcon finished its rounds of the fleet's perimeter, checking final positions, then pulled into place beneath the flagship. The time had come.

Lando was at the controls of the Falcon. Beside him, his copilot, Nien Nunb - a jowled, mouse-eyed creature from Sull.u.s.t - flipped switches, monitored readouts, and made final preparations for the jump to hypers.p.a.ce.

Lando set his comlink to war channel. Last hand of the night, his deal, a table full of high rollers - his favorite kind of game. With dry mouth, he made his summary report to Ackbar on the command ship. 'Admiral, we're in position. All fighters are accounted for.'

Ackbar's voice crackled back over the headset. 'Proceed with the countdown. All groups a.s.sume attack coordinates.'

Lando turned to his copilot with a quick smile. 'Don't worry, my friends are down there, they'll have that shield down on time ..." He turned back to his instruments, saying under his breath: 'Or this will be the shortest offensive of all time.'

'Gzhung ZhG.o.dio,' the copilot commented.

'All right,' Lando grunted. 'Stand by, then.' He patted the control panel for good luck, even though his deepest belief was that a good gambler made his own luck. Still, that's what Han's job was this time, and Han had almost never let Lando down. Just once - and that was a long time ago, in a star system far, far away.

This time was different. This time they were going to redefine luck, and call it Lando. He smiled, and patted the panel one more time ... just right.

Up on the bridge of the Star Cruiser command ship, Ackbar paused, looked around at his generals: all was ready.

'Are all groups in their attack coordinates?' he asked. He knew they were.

'Affirmative, Admiral.'

Ackbar gazed out his view-window meditatively at the starfield, for perhaps the last reflective moment he would ever have. He spoke finally into the comlink war channel. 'All craft will begin the jump to hypers.p.a.ce on my mark. May the Force be with us.'

He reached forward to the signal b.u.t.ton.

In the Falcon, Lando stared at the identical galactic ocean, with the same sense of grand moment; but also with foreboding. They were doing what a guerrilla force must never do: engage the enemy like a traditional army. The Imperial army, fighting the Rebellion's guerrilla war, was always losing - unless it won. The Rebels, by contrast, were always winning - unless they lost. And now, here was the most dangerous situation - the Alliance drawn into the open, to fight on the Empire's terms: if the Rebels lost this battle, they lost the war.

Suddenly the signal light flashed on the control panel: Ackbar's mark. The attack was commenced.

Lando pulled back the conversion switch and opened up the throttle. Outside the c.o.c.kpit, the stars began streaking by. The streaks grew brighter, and longer, as the ships of the fleet roared, in large segments, at lightspeed, keeping pace first with the very photons of the radiant stars in the vicinity, and then soaring through the warp into hypers.p.a.ce itself - and disappearing in the flash of a muon.

The blue crystal planet hovered in s.p.a.ce alone, once again; staring; unseeing, into the void.

The strike squad crouched behind a woodsy ridge overlooking the Imperial outpost. Leia viewed the area through a small electronic scanner.

Two shuttles were being off-loaded on. the landing platform docking ramp. Several walkers were parked nearby. Troops stood around, helped with construction, took watch, carried supplies. The ma.s.sive shield generator hummed off to the side.

Flattened down in the bushes on the ridge with the strike force were several Ewoks, including Wicket, Paploo, Teebo, and Warwick. The rest stayed lower, behind the knoll, out of sight.

Leia put down the scanner and scuttled back to the others. 'The entrance is on the far side of that landing platform. This isn't going to be easy.'

'Ahrck grah rahr hrowrowhr,' Chewbacca agreed.

'Oh, come on, Chewie,' Han gave the Wookiee a pained look. 'We've gotten into more heavily guarded places than that-'Frowh rahgh rahrahraff vrawgh gr,' Chewie countered with a dismissing gesture.

Han thought for a second. 'Well, the spice vaults of Gargon, for one.'

'Krahghrowf,' Chewbacca shook his head.

'Of course I'm right - now if I could just remember how I did it...' Han scratched his head, poking his memory.

Suddenly Paploo began chattering away, pointing, squealing. He garbled something to Wicket.

'What's he saying, Threepio?' Leia asked.

The golden droid exchanged a few terse sentences with Paploo; then Wicket turned to Leia with a hopeful grin.

Threepio, too, now looked at the Princess. 'Apparently Wicket knows about a back entrance to this installation.'

Han perked up at that. 'A back door? That's it! That's how we did it!'

Four Imperial scouts kept watch over the entrance to the bunker that half-emerged from the earth far to the rear of the main section of the shield generator complex. Their rocket bikes were parked nearby.

In the undergrowth beyond, the Rebel strike squad lay in wait.

'Grrr, rowf rrrhl brhnnnh,' Chewbacca observed slowly.

'You're right, Chewie,' Solo agreed, 'with just those guards this should be easier than breaking a Bantha.'

'It only takes one to sound the alarm,' Leia cautioned.

Han grinned, a bit overselfconfidently. 'Then we'll have to do this real quietlike. If Luke can just keep Vader off our backs, like you said he said he would, this oughta be no sweat. Just gotta hit those guards fast and quiet..."

Threepio whispered to Teebo and Paploo, explaining the problem and the objective. The Ewoks babbled giddily a moment, then Paploo jumped up and raced through the underbrush.

Leia checked the instrument on her wrist. 'We're running out of time. The fleet's in hypers.p.a.ce by now.'

Threepio muttered a question to Teebo and received a short reply. 'Oh, dear,' Threepio replied, starting to rise, to look into the clearing beside the bunker.

'Stay down!' rasped Solo.

'What is it, Threepio?' Leia demanded.

'I'm afraid our furry companion has gone and done something rash.' The droid hoped he wasn't to be blamed for this.

'What are you talking about?' Leia's voice cut with an edge of fear.

'Oh, no. Look.'

Paploo had scampered down through the bushes to where the scouts' bikes were parked. Now, with the sickening horror of inevitability, the Rebel leaders watched the little ball of fur swing his pudgy body up onto one of the bikes, and begin flipping switches at random. Before anyone could do anything, the bike's engines ignited with a rumbling roar. The four scouts looked over in surprise. Paploo grinned madly, and continued flipping switches.

Leia held her forehead. 'Oh, no, no, no.'

Chewie barked. Han nodded. 'So much for our surprise attack.'

The Imperial scouts raced toward Paploo just as the forward drive engaged, zooming the little teddy bear into the forest. He had all he could do just to hang on to the handlebar with his stubby paws. Three of the guards jumped on their own bikes, and sped off in pursuit of the hotrod Ewok. The fourth scout stayed at his post, near the door of the bunker.