Just then, a large piece of the weather vane broke off and went hurtling off into the clouds far below. Luke tightened his grip on what remained of the vane, and strained to hold on in the blast of air rushing at him from the pipe above.

'It looks like three fighters,' Lando said to Chewbacca as they watched the computer-screen configurations. 'We can outdistance them easily,' he added, knowing the capabilities of the freighter as well as Han Solo did.

Looking at Leia, he mourned the pa.s.sing of his administratorship. 'I knew that setup was too good to last,' he moaned. 'I'm going to miss it.'

But Leia seemed to be in a daze. She didn't acknowledge Lando's comments, but stared straight ahead of her as if transfixed. Then, out of her dreamlike trance, she spoke. 'Luke,' she said, as if responding to something she heard.

'What?' Lando asked.

'We've got to go back,' she said urgently. 'Chewie, head for the bottom of the city.'

Lando looked at her in astonishment. 'Wait a minute. We're not going back there!'

The Wookiee barked, for once in agreement with Lando.

'No argument,' Leia said firmly, a.s.suming the dignity of one accustomed to having her orders obeyed. 'Just do it. That's a command!'

'What about those fighters?' Lando argued as he pointed to the three TIE fighters closing in on them. He looked to Chewbacca for support.

But, growling menacingly, Chewbacca conveyed that he knew who was in command now.

'Okay, okay,' Lando quietly acquiesced.

With all the grace and speed for which the Millennium Falcon was famed, the ship banked through the clouds and turned back toward the city. And, as the freighter continued on what could become a suicide run, the three pursuing TIE fighters matched its turn.

Luke Skywalker was unaware of the Millennium Falcon's approach. Barely conscious, he somehow maintained his hold on the creaking and swaying weather vane. The device bent under the weight of his body, then completely broke off from its foundation, and sent Luke tumbling helplessly through the sky. And this time, he knew, there would be nothing for him to cling to as he fell.

'Look!' Lando exclaimed, indicating a figure plunging in the distance. 'Someone's falling ...'

Leia managed to remain calm; she knew that panic now would doom them all. 'Get under him, Chewie,' she told the pilot. 'It's Luke.'

Chewbacca immediately responded and carefully eased the Millennium Falcon on a descent trajectory.

'Lando,' Leia called, turning to him, 'open the top hatch.'

As he rushed out of the c.o.c.kpit, Lando thought it a strategy worthy of Solo himself.

Chewbacca and Leia could see Luke's plunging body more clearly, and the Wookiee guided the ship toward him. As Chewie r.e.t.a.r.ded the ship's speed drastically, the plummeting form skimmed the windscreen and then landed with a thud against the outer hull.

Lando opened the upper hatch. In the distance he glimpsed the three TIE fighters approaching the Falcon, their laser guns brightening the twilight sky with streaks of hot destruction. Lando stretched his body out of the hatch and reached to grasp the battered warrior and pull him inside the ship. Just then the Falcon lurched as a bolt exploded near it, and almost threw Luke's body overboard. But Lando caught his hand and held on tightly.

The Millennium Falcon veered away from Cloud City and soared through the thick billowing cloud cover. Swerving to avoid the blinding flak from the TIE fighters, Princess Leia and the Wookiee pilot struggled to keep their ship skyborne. But explosions burst all around the c.o.c.kpit, the din competing with Chewbacca's howl as he frantically worked the controls.

Leia switched on the intercom. 'Lando, is he all right?' she shouted over the noise in the c.o.c.kpit. 'Lando, do you hear me?'

From the rear of the c.o.c.kpit, she heard a voice that wasn't Lando's. 'He'll survive,' Luke replied faintly.

Leia and Chewbacca turned to see Luke, battered and bloodied and wrapped in a blanket, being helped into the c.o.c.kpit by Lando. The princess jumped up from her chair and hugged him ecstatically. Chewbacca, still trying to guide the ship out of the TIE fighters' range of fire, threw back his head and barked in jubilation.

Behind the Millennium Falcon, the planet of clouds was receding farther in the distance. But the TIE fighters kept up their close pursuit, firing their laser weapons and rocking the pirate craft with each on-target hit.

Working diligently in the Falcon's hold, Artoo Detoo struggled against the constant lunging and tossing to rea.s.semble his golden friend. Meticulously trying to undo the mistakes of the well-intentioned Wookiee, the little droid beeped as he performed the intricate task.

'Very good,' the protocol droid praised. His head was on properly and his second arm was nearly completely reattached. 'Good as new.'

Artoo beeped apprehensively.

'No, Artoo, don't worry. I'm sure we'll make it this time.'

But in the c.o.c.kpit, Lando was not so optimistic. He saw the warning lights on the control panel begin to flash; suddenly alarms all over the ship went on. 'The deflector shields are going,' he reported to Leia and Chewbacca.

Leia looked over Lando's shoulder and noticed another blip, ominously large, that had appeared on the radarscope. 'There's another ship,' she said, 'much bigger, trying to cut us off.'

Luke quietly gazed out the c.o.c.kpit window toward the starry void. Almost to himself, he said, 'It's Vader.'

Admiral Piett approached Vader, who stood on the bridge of this, the greatest of all Imperial Star Destroyers, and stared out the windows.

'They'll be in range of the tractor beam in moments,' the admiral reported confidently.

'And their hyperdrive has been deactivated?' Vader asked.

'Right after they were captured, sir.'

'Good,' the giant black-robed figure said. 'Prepare for the boarding and set your weapons for stun.'

The Millennium Falcon so far had managed to evade its TIE fighter pursuers. But could it escape attack from the ominous Star Destroyer that pressed toward it, ever closer?

'We don't have any room for mistakes,' Leia said tensely, watching the large blip on the monitors.

'If my men said they fixed this baby, they fixed it,' Lando a.s.sured her. 'We've got nothing to worry about.'

'Sounds familiar,' Leia mused to herself.

The ship was rocked again by the concussion of another laser explosion, but at that moment a green light began flashing on the control panel.

'The coordinates are set, Chewie,' Leia said. 'It's now or never.'

The Wookiee barked in agreement. He was ready for the hyperdrive escape.

'Punch it!' Lando yelled.

Chewbacca shrugged as if to say it was worth a try. He pulled back on the light-speed throttle, suddenly altering the sound of the ion engines. All on board were praying in human and droid fashion that the system would work; they had no other hope of escape. But abruptly the sound choked and died and Chewbacca roared a howl of desperate frustration.

Again the hyperdrive system had failed them.

And still the Millennium Falcon lurched with the TIE fighters' fire.

From his Imperial Star Destroyer, Darth Vader watched in fascination as the TIE fighters relentlessly fired at the Millennium Falcon. Vader's ship was closing in on the fleeing Falcon - it would not be long before the Dark Lord had Skywalker completely in his power.

And Luke sensed it, too. Quietly he gazed out, knowing that Vader was near, that his victory over the weakened Jedi would soon be complete. His body was battered, was exhausted; his spirit was prepared to succ.u.mb to his fate. There was no reason to fight any more - there was nothing left to believe in.

'Ben,' he whispered in utter despair, 'why didn't you tell me?' Lando tried to adjust some controls, and Chewbacca leaped from his chair to race to the hold. Leia took Chewbacca's seat and helped Lando as they flew the Falcon through the exploding flak.

As the Wookiee ran into the hold, he pa.s.sed Artoo, who was still working on Threepio. The R2 unit began to beep in great consternation as he scanned the Wookiee frantically trying to fix the hyperdrive system.

'I said we're doomed!' the panicked Threepio told Artoo. 'The light-speed engines are malfunctioning again.'

Artoo beeped as he connected a leg.

'How could you know what's wrong?' the golden droid scoffed. 'Ouch! Mind my foot! And stop chattering on so.'

Lando's voice sounded in the hold through the intercom. 'Chewie, check the secondary deviation controls.'

Chewbacca dropped into the hold's pit. He fought to loosen a section of the paneling with an enormous wrench. But it failed to budge. Roaring in frustration, he gripped the tool like a club and bashed the panel with all his strength.

Suddenly the c.o.c.kpit control panel sprayed Lando and the princess with a shower of sparks. They jumped back in their seats in surprise, but Luke didn't seem to notice anything happening around him. His head hung in discouragement and deep pain.

'I won't be able to resist him,' he muttered softly.

Again Lando banked the Millennium Falcon, trying to shed the pursuers. But the distance between freighter and TIE fighters was narrowing by the moment.

In the Millennium Falcon's hold, Artoo raced to a control panel, leaving an outraged Threepio to stand sputtering in place on his one attached leg. Artoo worked swiftly, relying only on mechanical instinct to reprogram the circuit board. Lights flashed brightly with each of Artoo's adjustments, when suddenly, from deep within the Falcon's hyperspeed engines, a new and powerful hum resonated throughout the ship.

The freighter tilted suddenly, sending the whistling R2 droid rolling across the floor into the pit to land on the startled Chewbacca.

Lando, who had been standing near the control panel, tumbled back against the c.o.c.kpit wall. But as he fell back, he saw the stars outside become blinding, infinite streaks of light.

'We did it!' Lando yelled triumphantly.

The Millennium Falcon had shot victoriously into hyperdrive.

Darth Vader stood silently. He gazed at the black void where, a moment before, the Millennium Falcon had been. His deep, black silence brought terror to the two men standing near him. Admiral Piett and his captain waited, chills of fear coursing through their bodies, and wondered how soon they would feel the invisible, viselike talons around their throats.

But the Dark Lord did not move. He stood, silently contemplative, with his hands behind his back. Then he turned and slowly walked off the bridge, his ebony cloak billowing behind him.

= XIV =.

THE Millennium Falcon was at last safely docked on a huge Rebel cruiser. Gleaming in the distance was a glorious red glow that radiated from a large red star - a glow that shed its crimson light on the battered hull of the small freighter craft.

Luke Skywalker rested in the medical center of the Rebel Star Cruiser, where he was attended by the surgeon droid called Too-Onebee. The youth sat quietly, thoughtfully, while Too-Onebee gently began to look at his wounded hand.

Gazing up, Luke saw Leia, followed by See Threepio and Artoo Detoo, entering the medical center to check his progress, and, perhaps, bring him a little cheer. But Luke knew that the best therapy he had received yet aboard this cruiser was in the radiant image before him.

Princess Leia was smiling. Her eyes were wide and sparkling with a wondrous glow. She looked just as she had that first time he saw her - a lifetime ago, it seemed - when Artoo Detoo first projected her holographic image. And, in her floor-length, high-necked gown of purest white, she looked angelic.

Raising his hand, Luke offered it to the expert service of Too-Onebee. The surgeon droid examined the bionic hand that was skillfully fused to Luke's arm. Then the robot wrapped a soft metalized strip about the hand and attached a small electronic unit to the strip, tightening it slightly. Luke made a fist with his new hand and felt the healing pulsations imparted by Too-Onebee's apparatus. Then he let his hand and arm relax.

Leia and the two droids moved closer to Luke as a voice came over an intercom loudspeaker. It was Lando: 'Luke ...' the voice blared, 'we're ready for takeoff.'

Lando Calrissian sat in the Millennium Falcon's pilot's chair. He had missed his old freighter, but now that he was once again its captain, he felt quite uncomfortable. In his copilot's chair, the great Wookiee Chewbacca noticed his new captain's discomfort while he began to throw the switches to ready the ship for takeoff.

Luke's voice came over Lando's comlink speaker: 'I'll meet you on Tatooine.'

Again Lando spoke into his comlink microphone, but this time he spoke to Leia: 'Don't worry, Leia,' he said with emotion, 'we'll find Han.'

And leaning over, Chewbacca barked his farewell into the microphone - a bark that may have transcended the limits of time and s.p.a.ce to be heard by Han Solo, wherever the bounty hunter had taken him.

It was Luke who spoke the final farewell, though he refused to say good-bye. 'Take care, my friends,' he said with a new maturity in his voice. 'May the Force be with you.'

Leia stood alone at the great circular window of the Rebel Star Cruiser, her slim white-draped form dwarfed by the vast canopy of stars and the drifting ships of the fleet. She watched the majestic scarlet star that burned in the infinite black sea.

Luke, with Threepio and Artoo tagging along, moved to stand next to her. He understood what she was feeling for he knew how terrible such a loss could be.

Standing together, the group faced the inviting heavens and saw the Millennium Falcon moving into view, then veering off in another direction to soar with great dignity through the Rebel fleet. Soon the Millennium Falcon had left the fleet in its wake.

They needed no words in this moment. Luke knew that Leia's mind and heart were with Han, no matter where he was or what his fate might be. As to his own destiny, he was now more uncertain about himself than he had ever been - even before this simple farm boy on a distant world first learned of the intangible something called the Force. He only knew he had to return to Yoda and finish his training before he set off to rescue Han.

Slowly he put his arm around Leia and together with Threepio and Artoo, they faced the heavens bravely, each of them gazing at the same crimson star.