The wings split like dragonfly gossamers, poised for increased maneuvering and power.

'All wings report in,' said Lando.

'Red Leader standing by,' Wedge replied.

'Green Leader standing by.'

'Blue Leader standing by.'

'Gray Leader-This last transmission was interrupted by a display of pyrotechnics that completely disintegrated Gray Wing.

'Here they come,' Wedge commented.

'Accelerate to attack speed,' Lando ordered. 'Draw fire away from our cruisers as long as possible.'

'Copy, Gold Leader,' Wedge responded. 'We're moving to point three across the axis-'Two of them coming in at twenty degrees-' someone advised.

'I see them,' noted Wedge. 'Cut left, I'll take the leader.'

'Watch yourself, Wedge, three from above.'

'Yeah, I-'

'I'm on it, Red Leader.'

'There's too many of them-'

'You're taking a lot of fire, back off-'Red Four, watch out!'

'I'm hit!'

The X-wing spun, sparking, across the starfield, out of power, into the void.

'You've picked one up, watch it!' Red Six yelled at Wedge.

'My scope's negative, where is he?'

'Red Six, a squadron of fighters has broken through-'They're heading for the Medical Frigate! After them!'

'Go ahead,' Lando agreed. 'I'm going in. There're four marks at point three five. Cover me!'

'Right behind you, Gold Leader. Red Two, Red Three, pull in-'Hang on, back there.'

'Close up formations, Blue Group.'

'Good shooting, Red Two.'

'Not bad,' said Lando. 'I'll take out the other three ...'

Calrissian steered the Falcon into the complete flip, as his crew fired at the Imperial fighters from the belly guns. Two were direct hits, the third a glancing blow that caused the TIE fighter to tumble into another of its own squads. The heavens were absolutely thick with them, but the Falcon was faster by half than anything else that flew.

Within a matter of minutes, the battlefield was a diffuse red glow, spotted with puffs of smoke, blazing fireb.a.l.l.s, whirling spark showers, spinning debris, rumbling implosions, shafts of light, tumbling machinery, s.p.a.ce-frozen corpses, wells of blackness, electron storms.

It was a grim and dazzling spectacle. And only beginning.

Nien Nunb made a guttural aside to Lando.

'You're right,' the pilot frowned. 'Only their fighters are attacking. What are those Star Destroyers waiting for?' Looked like the Emperor was trying to get the Rebels to buy some real estate he wasn't intending to sell.

'Dzhng zhng,' the copilot warned, as another squadron of TIE fighters swooped down from above.

'I see 'em. We're sure in the middle of it, now.' He took a second to glance at Endor, floating peacefully off to his right. 'Come on, Han old buddy, don't let me down.'

Han pressed the b.u.t.ton on his wrist-unit and covered his head: the reinforced door to the main control room blew into melted pieces. The Rebel squad stormed through the gaping portal.

The stormtroopers inside seemed taken completely by surprise. A few were injured by the exploding door; the rest gawked in dismay as the Rebels rushed them with guns drawn. Han took the lead, Leia right behind; Chewie covered the rear.

They herded all the personnel into one corner of the bunker. Three commandos guarded them there, three more covered the exits. The rest began placing the explosive charges.

Leia studied one of the screens on the control panel. 'Hurry, Han, look! The fleet's being attacked!'

Solo looked over at the screen. 'Blast it! With the shield still up, they're backed against the wall.'

'That is correct,' came a voice from the rear of the room. 'Just as you are.'

Han and Leia spun around to find dozens of Imperial guns trained on them; an entire legion had been hiding in the wall compartments of the bunker. Now, in a single moment, the Rebels were surrounded - nowhere to run, far too many stormtroopers to fight. Completely surrounded.

More Imperial troops charged through the door, roughly disarming the stunned commandos.

Han, Chewie, and Leia exchanged helpless, hopeless looks. They'd been the Rebellion's last chance.

They'd failed.

Some distance from the main area of battle, coasting safely in the center of the blanket of ships that const.i.tuted the Imperial fleet, was the flagship Super Star Destroyer. On the bridge, Admiral Piett watched the war through the enormous observation window -curious, as if viewing an elaborate demonstration, or an entertainment.

Two fleet captains stood behind him, respectfully silent; also learning the elegant designs of their Emperor.

'Have the fleet hold here,' Admiral Piett ordered.

The first captain hurried to carry out the order. The second stepped up to the window, beside the admiral. 'We aren't going to attack?'

Piett smirked. 'I have my orders from the Emperor himself. He has something special planned for this Rebel sc.u.m.' He accented the specialness with a long pause, for the inquisitive captain to savor. 'We are only to keep them from escaping.'

The Emperor, Lord Vader, and Luke watched the aerial battle rage from the safety of the throne room in the Death Star.

It was a scene of pandemonium. Silent, crystalline explosions surrounded by green, violet, or magenta auras. Wildly vicious dogfights. Gracefully floating crags of melted steel; icicle sprays that might have been blood.

Luke watched in horror, as another Rebel ship toppled against the unseeable deflector shield, exploding in a fiery concussion.

Vader watched Luke. His boy was powerful, stronger than he'd imagined. And still pliable. Not lost yet - either to the sickening, weakly side of the Force, that had to beg for everything it received; or to the Emperor, who feared Luke with reason.

There was yet time to take Luke for his own - to retake him. To join with him in dark majesty. To rule the galaxy together. It would only take patience and a little wizardry to show Luke the exquisite satisfactions of the dark way and to pry him from the Emperor's terrified clutch.

Vader knew Luke had seen it, too - the Emperor's fear. He was a clever boy, young Luke, Vader smiled grimly to himself. He was his father's son.

The Emperor interrupted Vader's contemplation with a cackled remark to Luke. 'As you can see, my young apprentice, the deflector shield is still in place. Your friends have failed! And now ...' he raised his spindly hand above his head to mark this moment: 'Witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle station.' He walked over to the comlink and spoke in a gravelly whisper, as if to a lover. 'Fire at will, Commander.'

In shock, and in foreknowledge, Luke looked out across the surface of the Death Star, to the s.p.a.ce battle beyond and to the bulk of the Rebel fleet beyond that.

Down in the bowels of the Death Star, Commander Jerjerrod gave an order. It was with mixed feelings that he issued the command, because it meant the final destruction of the Rebel insurrectionists - which meant an end to the state of war, which Jerjerrod cherished above all things. But second to ongoing war itself Jerjerrod loved total annihilation; so while tempered with regret, this order was not entirely without thrill.

At Jerjerrod's instruction, a controller pulled a switch, which ignited a blinking panel. Two hooded Imperial soldiers pushed a series of b.u.t.tons. A thick beam of light slowly pulsed from a long, heavily blockaded shaft. On the outer surface of the completed half of the Death Star, a giant laser dish began to glow.

Luke watched in impotent horror, as the unbelievably huge laser beam radiated out from the muzzle of the Death Star. It touched -for only an instant - one of the Rebel Star Cruisers that was surging in the midst of the heaviest fighting. And in the next instant, the Star Cruiser was vaporized. Blown to dust. Returned to its most elemental particles, in a single burst of light.

In the numbing grip of despair, with the hollowest of voids devouring his heart, Luke's eyes, alone, glinted - for he saw, again, his lightsaber, lying unattended on the throne. And in this bleak and livid moment, the dark side was much with him.

= VIII =.

ADMIRAL Ackbar stood on the bridge in stunned disbelief, looking out the observation window at the place where, a moment before, the Rebel Star Cruiser Liberty had just been engaged in a furious long-range battle. Now, there was nothing. Only empty s.p.a.ce, powdered with a fine dust that sparkled in the light of more distant explosions. Ackbar stared in silence.

Around him, confusion was rampant. Fl.u.s.tered controllers were still trying to contact the Liberty, while fleet captains ran from screen to port, shouting, directing, misdirecting.

An aide handed Ackbar the comlink. General Calrissian's voice was coming through.

'Home-one, this is Gold Leader. That blast came from the Death Star! Repeat, the Death Star is operational!'

'We saw it,' Ackbar answered wearily. 'All craft prepare to retreat.'

'I'm not going to give up and run!' Lando shouted back. He'd come a long way to be in this game.

'We have no choice, General Calrissian. Our cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude!'

'You won't get a second chance at this, Admiral. Han will have that shield down - we've got to give him more time. Head for those Star Destroyers.'

Ackbar looked around him. A huge charge of flak rumbled the ship, painting a brief, waxen light over the window. Calrissian was right: there would be no second chance. It was now, or it was the end.

He turned to his First Star captain. 'Move the fleet forward.'

'Yes, sir.' The man paused. 'Sir, we don't stand much of a chance against those Star Destroyers. They out-gun us, and they're more heavily armored.'

'I know,' Ackbar said softly.

The captain left. An aide approached.

'Forward ships have made contact with the Imperial fleet, sir.'

'Concentrate your fire on their power generators. If we can knock out their shields, our fighters might stand a chance against them.'

The ship was rocked by another explosion - a laserbolt hit to one of the aft gyrostabilizers.

'Intensify auxiliary shields!' someone yelled.

The pitch of the battle augmented another notch.

Beyond the window of the throne room, the Rebel fleet was being decimated in the soundless vacuum of s.p.a.ce, while inside, the only sound was the Emperor's thready cackle. Luke continued his spiral into desperation as the Death Star laser beam incinerated ship after ship.

The Emperor hissed. 'Your fleet is lost - and your friends on the Endor Moon will not survive...' He pushed a comlink b.u.t.ton on the arm of his throne and spoke into it with relish. 'Commander Jerjerrod, should the Rebels manage to blow up the shield generator, you will turn this battle station onto the Endor Moon and destroy it.'

'Yes, Your Highness,' came the voice over the receiver, 'but we have several battalions stationed on-'

'You will destroy it!' the Emperor's whisper was more final than any scream.

'Yes, Your Highness.'

Palpatine turned back to Luke - the former, shaking with glee; the latter, with outrage.

'There is no escape, my young pupil. The Alliance will die - as will your friends.'

Luke's face was contorted, reflecting his spirit. Vader watched him carefully, as did the Emperor. The lightsaber began to shake on its resting place. The young Jedi's hand was trembling, his lips pulled back in grimace, his teeth grinding.

The Emperor smiled. 'Good. I can feel your anger. I am defenseless - take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred, and your journey toward the dark side will be complete.' He laughed, and laughed.

Luke was able to resist no longer. The lightsaber rattled violently on the throne a moment, then flew into his hand, impelled by the Force. He ignited it a moment later and swung it with his full weight downward toward the Emperor's skull.

In that instant, Vader's blade flashed into view, parrying Luke's attack an inch above the Emperor's head. Sparks flew like forging steel, bathing Palpatine's grinning face in a h.e.l.lish glare.

Luke jumped back, and turned, lightsaber upraised, to face his father. Vader extended his own blade, poised to do battle.

The Emperor sighed with pleasure and sat in his throne, facing the combatants - the sole audience to this dire, aggrieved contest.

Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and the rest of the strike team were escorted out of the bunker by their captors. The sight that greeted them was substantially different from the way the gra.s.sy area had appeared when they'd entered. The clearing was now filled with Imperial troops.

Hundreds of them, in white or black armor - some standing at ease, some viewing the scene from atop their two-legged walkers, some leaning on their speeder bikes. If the situation had appeared hopeless inside the bunker, it looked even worse now.

Han and Leia turned to each other full of feeling. All they'd struggled for, all they'd dreamed of-gone, now. Even so, they'd had each other for a short while at least. They'd come together from opposite ends of a wasteland of emotional isolation: Han had never known love, so enamored of himself was he: Leia had never known love, so wrapped up in social upheaval was she, so intent on embracing all of humanity. And somewhere between his gla.s.sy infatuation for the one, and her glowing fervor for the all, they'd found a shady place where two could huddle, grow, even feel nourished.

But that, too, was cut short, now. The end seemed near. So much was there to say, they couldn't find a single word. Instead, they only joined hands, speaking through their fingers in these final minutes of companionship.

That's when Threepio and Artoo jauntily entered the clearing, beeping and jabbering excitedly to each other. They stopped cold in their tracks when they saw what the clearing had become ... and found all eyes suddenly focused on them.

'Oh, dear,' Threepio whimpered. In a second, he and Artoo had turned around and run right back into the woods from which they'd just come. Six stormtroopers charged in after them.