Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope Read online

  Above her towered the threatening bulk of Darth Vader, red eyes glaring behind the hideous breath mask. A muscle twitched in one smooth cheek, but other than that the girl didn’t react. Nor was there the slightest shake in her voice.

  “Darth Vader... I should have known. Only you would be so bold—and so stupid. Well, the Imperial Senate will not sit still for this. When they hear that you have attacked a diplomatic miss—”

  “Senator Leia Organa,” Vader rumbled softly, though strongly enough to override her protests. His pleasure at finding her was evident in the way he savored every syllable.

  “Don’t play games with me, Your Highness,” he continued ominously. “You aren’t on any mercy mission this time. You passed directly through a restricted system, ignoring numerous warnings and completely disregarding orders to turn about—until it no longer mattered.”

  The huge metal skull dipped close. “I know that several transmissions were beamed to this vessel by spies within that system. When we traced those transmissions back to the individuals with whom they originated, they had the poor grace to kill themselves before they could be questioned. I want to know what happened to the data they sent you.”

  Neither Vader’s words nor his inimical presence appeared to have any effect on the girl. “I don’t know what you’re blathering about,” she snapped, looking away from him. “I’m a member of the Senate on a diplomatic mission to—”

  “To your part of the rebel alliance,” Vader declared, cutting her off accusingly. “You’re also a traitor.” His gaze went to a nearby officer. “Take her away.”

  She succeeded in reaching him with her spit, which hissed against still-hot battle armor. He wiped the offensive matter away silently, watching her with interest as she was marched through the accessway into the cruiser.

  A tall, slim soldier wearing the sign of an Imperial Commander attracted Vader’s attention as he came up next to him. “Holding her is dangerous,” he ventured, likewise looking after her as she was escorted toward the cruiser. “If word of this does get out, there will be much unrest in the Senate. It will generate sympathy for the rebels.” The Commander looked up at the unreadable metal face, then added in an off-handed manner, “She should be destroyed immediately.”

  “No. My first duty is to locate that hidden fortress of theirs,” Vader replied easily. “All the rebel spies have been eliminated—by our hand or by their own. Therefore she is now my only key to discovering its location. I intend to make full use of her. If necessary, I will use her up—but I will learn the location of the rebel base.”

  The Commander pursed his lips, shook his head slightly, perhaps a bit sympathetically, as he considered the woman. “She’ll die before she gives you any information.”

  Vader’s reply was chilling in its indifference. “Leave that to me.” He considered a moment, then went on. “Send out a wide-band distress signal. Indicate that the Senator’s ship encountered an unexpected meteorite cluster it could not avoid. Readings indicate that the shift shields were overridden and the ship was hulled to the point of vacating ninety-five percent of its atmosphere. Inform her father and the Senate that all aboard were killed.”

  A cluster of tired-looking troops marched purposefully up to their Commander and the Dark Lord. Vader eyed them expectantly.

  “The data tapes in question are not aboard the ship. There is no valuable information in the ship’s storage banks and no evidence of bank erasure,” the officer in charge recited mechanically. “Nor were any transmissions directed outward from the ship from the time we made contact. A malfunctioning lifeboat pod was ejected during the fighting, but it was confirmed at the time that no life forms were on board.”

  Vader appeared thoughtful. “It could have been a malfunctioning pod,” he mused, “that might also have contained the tapes. Tapes are not life forms. In all probability any native finding them would be ignorant of their importance and would likely clear them for his own use. Still...

  “Send down a detachment to retrieve them, or to make certain they are not in the pod,” he finally ordered the Commander and attentive officer. “Be as subtle as possible; there is no need to attract attention, even on this miserable outpost world.”

  As the officer and troops departed, Vader turned his gaze back to the Commander. “Vaporize this fighter—we don’t want to leave anything. As for the pod, I cannot take the chance it was a simple malfunction. The data it might contain could prove too damaging. See to this personally, Commander. If those data tapes exist, they must be retrieved or destroyed at all costs.” Then he added with satisfaction, “With that accomplished and the Senator in our hands, we will see the end of this absurd rebellion.”

  “It shall be as you direct, Lord Vader,” the Commander acknowledged. Both men entered the accessway to the cruiser.

  “What a forsaken place this is!”

  Threepio turned cautiously to look back at where the pod lay half buried in sand. His internal gyros were still unsteady from the rough landing. Landing! Mere application of the term unduly flattered his dull associate.

  On the other hand, he supposed he ought to be grateful they had come down in one piece. Although, he mused as he studied the barren landscape, he still wasn’t sure they were better off here than they would have been had they remained on the captured cruiser. High sandstone mesas dominated the skyline to one side. Every other direction showed only endless series of marching dunes like long yellow teeth stretching for kilometer on kilometer into the distance. Sand ocean blended into sky-glare until it was impossible to distinguish where one ended and the other began.

  A faint cloud of minute dust particles rose in their wake as the two robots marched away from the pod. That vehicle, its intended function fully discharged, was now quite useless. Neither robot had been designed for pedal locomotion on this kind of terrain, so they had to fight their way across the unstable surface.

  “We seem to have been made to suffer,” Threepio moaned in self-pity. “It’s a rotten existence.” Something squeaked in his right leg and he winced. “I’ve got to rest before I fall apart. My internals still haven’t recovered from that headlong crash you called a landing.”

  He paused, but Artoo Detoo did not. The little automaton had performed a sharp turn and was now ambling slowly but steadily in the direction of the nearest outjut of mesa.

  “Hey,” Threepio yelled. Artoo ignored the call and continued striding. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  Now Artoo paused, emitting a stream of electronic explanation as Threepio exhaustedly walked over to join him.

  “Well, I’m not going that way,” Threepio declared when Artoo had concluded his explanation. “It’s too rocky.” He gestured in the direction they had been walking, at an angle away from the cliffs. “This way is much easier.” A metal hand waved disparagingly at the high mesas. “What makes you think there are any settlements that way, anyhow?”

  A long whistle issued from the depths of Artoo.

  “Don’t get technical with me,” Threepio warned. “I’ve had just about enough of your decisions.”

  Artoo beeped once.

  “All right, go your way,” Threepio announced grandly. “You’ll be sandlogged within a day, you nearsighted scrap pile.” He gave the Artoo unit a contemptuous shove, sending the smaller robot tumbling down a slight dune. As it struggled at the bottom to regain its feet, Threepio started off toward the blurred, glaring horizon, glancing back over his shoulder. “Don’t let me catch you following me, begging for help,” he warned, “because you won’t get it.”

  Below the crest of the dune, the Artoo unit righted itself. It paused briefly to clean its single electronic eye with an auxiliary arm. Then it produced an electronic squeal which was almost, though not quite, a human expression of rage. Humming quietly to itself then, it turned and trudged off toward the sandstone ridges as if nothing had happened.

  Several hours later a straining Threepio, his internal thermostat overloaded and edging dan
gerously toward overheat shutdown, struggled up the top of what he hoped was the last towering dune. Nearby, pillars and buttresses of bleached calcium, the bones of some enormous beast, formed an unpromising landmark. Reaching the crest of the dune, Threepio peered anxiously ahead. Instead of the hoped-for greenery of human civilization he saw only several dozen more dunes, identical in form and promise to the one he now stood upon. The farthest rose even higher than the one he presently surmounted.

  Threepio turned and looked back toward the now far-off rocky plateau, which was beginning to grow indistinct with distance and heat distortion. “You malfunctioning little twerp,” he muttered, unable even now to admit to himself that perhaps, just possibly, the Artoo unit might have been right. “This is all your fault. You tricked me into going this way, but you’ll do no better.”

  Nor would he if he didn’t continue on. So he took a step forward and heard something grind dully within a leg joint. Sitting down in an electronic funk, he began picking sand from his encrusted joints.

  He could continue on his present course, he told himself. Or he could confess to an error in judgment and try to catch up again with Artoo Detoo. Neither prospect held much appeal for him.

  But there was a third choice. He could sit here, shining in the sunlight, until his joints locked, his internals overheated, and the ultraviolet burned out his photoreceptors. He would become another monument to the destructive power of the binary, like the colossal organism whose picked corpse he had just encountered.

  Already his receptors were beginning to go, he reflected. It seemed he saw something moving in the distance. Heat distortion, probably. No-no—it was definitely light on metal, and it was moving toward him. His hopes soared. Ignoring the warnings from his damaged leg, he rose and began waving frantically.

  It was, he saw now, definitely a vehicle, though of a type unfamiliar to him. But a vehicle it was, and that implied intelligence and technology.

  He neglected in his excitement to consider the possibility that it might not be of human origin.

  “So I cut off my power, shut down the afterburners, and dropped in low on Deak’s tail,” Luke finished, waving his arms wildly. He and Biggs were walking in the shade outside the power station. Sounds of metal being worked came from somewhere within, where Fixer had finally joined his robot assistant in performing repairs.

  “I was so close to him,” Luke continued excitedly, “I thought I was going to fry my instrumentation. As it was, I busted up the skyhopper pretty bad.” That recollection inspired a frown.

  “Uncle Owen was pretty upset. He grounded me for the rest of the season.” Luke’s depression was brief. Memory of his feat overrode its immorality.

  “You should have been there, Biggs!”

  “You ought to take it a little easier,” his friend cautioned. “You may be the hottest bush pilot this side of Mos Eisley, Luke, but those little skyhoppers can be dangerous. They move awfully fast for tropospheric craft—faster than they need to. Keep playing engine jockey with one and someday, whammo!” He slammed one fist violently into his open palm. “You’re going to be nothing more than a dark spot on the damp side of a canyon wall.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Luke retorted. “Now that you’ve been on a few big, automatic starships you’re beginning to sound like my uncle. You’ve gotten soft in the cities.” He swung spiritedly at Biggs, who blocked the movement easily, making a halfhearted gesture of counterattack.

  Biggs’s easygoing smugness dissolved into something warmer. “I’ve missed you, kid.”

  Luke looked away, embarrassed. “Things haven’t exactly been the same since you left, either, Biggs. It’s been so—” Luke hunted for the right word and finally finished helplessly, “so quiet.” His gaze traveled across the sandy, deserted streets of Anchorhead. “It’s always been quiet, really.”

  Biggs grew silent, thinking. He glanced around. They were alone out here. Everyone else was back inside the comparative coolness of the power station. As he leaned close Luke sensed an unaccustomed solemness in his friend’s tone.

  “Luke, I didn’t come back just to say goodbye, or to crow over everyone because I got through the Academy.” Again he seemed to hesitate, unsure of himself. Then he blurted out rapidly, not giving himself a chance to back down, “But I want somebody to know. I can’t tell my parents.”

  Gaping at Biggs, Luke could only gulp, “Know what? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the talking that’s been going on at the Academy—and other places, Luke. Strong talking. I made some new friends, outsystem friends. We agreed about the way certain things are developing, and—” his voice dropped conspiratorially— “when we reach one of the peripheral systems, we’re going to jump ship and join the Alliance.”

  Luke stared back at his friend, tried to picture Biggs—fun-loving, happy-go-lucky, live-for-today Biggs—as a patriot afire with rebellious fervor.

  “You’re going to join the rebellion?” he started. “You’ve got to be kidding. How?”

  “Damp down, will you?” the bigger man cautioned, glancing furtively back toward the power station. “You’ve got a mouth like a crater.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luke whispered rapidly. “I’m quiet—listen how quiet I am. You can barely hear me—”

  Biggs cut him off and continued. “A friend of mine from the Academy has a friend on Bestine who might enable us to make contact with an armed rebel unit.”

  “A friend of a—You’re crazy,” Luke announced with conviction, certain his friend had gone mad. “You could wander around forever trying to find a real rebel outpost. Most of them are only myths. This twice removed friend could be an imperial agent. You’d end up on Kessel, or worse. If rebel outposts were so easy to find, the Empire would have wiped them out years ago.”

  “I know it’s a long shot,” Biggs admitted reluctantly. “If I don’t contact them, then”—a peculiar light came into Biggs’s eyes, a conglomeration of newfound maturity and... something else— “I’ll do what I can, on my own.”

  He stared intensely at his friend. “Luke, I’m not going to wait for the Empire to conscript me into its service. In spite of what you hear over the official information channels, the rebellion is growing, spreading. And I want to be on the right side—the side I believe in.” His voice altered unpleasantly, and Luke wondered what he saw in his mind’s eye.

  “You should have heard some of the stories I’ve heard, Luke, learned of some of the outrages I’ve learned about. The Empire may have been great and beautiful once, but the people in charge now—” He shook his head sharply. “It’s rotten, Luke, rotten.”

  “And I can’t do a damn thing,” Luke muttered morosely. “I’m stuck here.” He kicked futilely at the ever-present sand of Anchorhead.

  “I thought you were going to enter the Academy soon,” Biggs observed. “If that’s so, then you’ll have your chance to get off this sandpile.”

  Luke snorted derisively. “Not likely. I had to withdraw my application.” He looked away, unable to meet his friend’s disbelieving stare. “I had to. There’s been a lot of unrest among the sandpeople since you left, Biggs. They’ve even raided the outskirts of Anchorhead.”

  Biggs shook his head, disregarding the excuse. “Your uncle could hold off a whole colony of raiders with one blaster.”

  “From the house, sure,” Luke agreed, “but Uncle Owen’s finally got enough vaporators installed and running to make the farm pay off big. But he can’t guard all that land by himself, and he says he needs me for one more season. I can’t run out on him now.”

  Biggs sighed sadly. “I feel for you, Luke. Someday you’re going to have to learn to separate what seems to be important from what really is important.” He gestured around them.

  “What good is all your uncle’s work if it’s taken over by the Empire? I’ve heard that they’re starting to imperialize commerce in all the outlying systems. It won’t be long before your uncle and everyone else on Tatooine are ju
st tenants slaving for the greater glory of the Empire.”

  “That couldn’t happen here,” Luke objected with a confidence he didn’t quite feel. “You’ve said it yourself—the Empire won’t bother with this rock.”

  “Things change, Luke. Only the threat of rebellion keeps many in power from doing certain unmentionable things. If that threat is completely removed—well, there are two things men have never been able to satisfy: their curiosity and their greed. There isn’t much the high Imperial bureaucrats are curious about.”

  Both men stood silent. A sandwhirl traversed the street in silent majesty, collapsing against a wall to send newborn baby zephyrs in all directions.

  “I wish I was going with you,” Luke finally murmured. He glanced up. “Will you be around long?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, I’m leaving in the morning to rendezvous with the Ecliptic.”

  “Then I guess... I won’t be seeing you again.”

  “Maybe someday,” Biggs declared. He brightened, grinning that disarming grin. “I’ll keep a look out for you, hotshot. Try not to run into any canyon walls in the meantime.”

  “I’ll be at the Academy the season after,” Luke insisted, more to encourage himself than Biggs. “After that, who knows where I’ll end up?” He sounded determined. “I won’t be drafted into the starfleet, that’s for sure. Take care of yourself. You’ll... always be the best friend I’ve got.” There was no need for a handshake. These two had long since passed beyond that.

  “So long, then, Luke,” Biggs said simply. He turned and re-entered the power station.

  Luke watched him disappear through the door, his own thoughts as chaotic and frenetic as one of Tatooine’s spontaneous dust storms.

  There were any number of extraordinary features unique to Tatooine’s surface. Outstanding among them were the mysterious mists which rose regularly from the ground at the points where desert sands washed up against unyielding cliffs and mesas.