Chapter Ten: Daring Escape

"What?" cried Jennara. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor remorsefully. "I am so, so sorry. I've made a very big mistake."

"What?" asked Obi-Wan.

"The Tardis was destroyed when we landed," said the Doctor. "We don't have a way of getting out of here. We're stuck on a planet filled with stormtroopers. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, though, right?" asked Jennara. "This is just a logistical boo-boo."

"No, I'm afraid that this is most certainly a tactical error," answered the Doctor. "I've got to think of a plan to get us out of here."

"You should probably think fast," said Obi-Wan. "We've got stormtroopers all around."

The Doctor could sense them, too. Stormtroopers all over the place. Any moment now, they would find the Jedi, and the Jedi themselves would be almost powerless to stop them if they grew too large in number.

"Leia," said Luke weakly. He was starting to lose consciousness. The Doctor quickly helped Jennara and Obi-Wan lay him down on the ground, and Luke called out again.

"Leia!" he shouted as loud as he could, which, to be honest, wasn't very loud. "Hear me!"

The Doctor was surprised that Luke would think to call out to Leia, and he was even more surprised to see that she had answered the call. This was certainly a testament to her Force-Sensitivity. Even without any training at all, she could hear Luke calling her for help.

A few seconds after Luke called out to her, Leia Organa appeared with Chewbacca, a very broken C-3PO attached to Chewbacca's back, and a dark-skinned man in a blue shirt and black trousers. The Doctor noticed that Han was not with Leia, Chewbacca, and the man.

"Luke!" cried Leia. She rushed over to Luke, examining him fairly quickly and picking him up, hoisting him over her shoulder. She handed her blaster to the dark-skinned man, and he took the lead.

"Come on. We've got to save Han," he said in a smooth baritone. The Doctor could tell that he was either a very good businessman, a former con man, or possibly both. Still, Leia clearly trusted him, so the Doctor would, too.

"Han?" asked the Doctor, genuinely concerned about him. "What's wrong with Han?"

"I'll explain on the way, but we need to get to the east platform," said the man as he led the group to the intended destination.

As the group ran over, C-3PO decided it was time to talk again.

"Oh, Doctor, Master Kenobi, and Miss Oswin, oh my," he said rapidly. "It's so good to see you again! It really has been quite an adventure we've had indeed!"

"Somebody shut him up back there," called Leia.

"Well, really!" cried 3PO, obviously offended. "Well, we must save Han."

"Yeah, we got that," said Jennara. "From who?"

"That nasty bounty bounty hunter Boba Fett," said 3PO matter-of-factly.

The Doctor's hearts skipped a beat. That's what he had sensed Boba Fett with. Han was in his clutches. They had to save him. It was the Doctor's own fault that he didn't have the foresight to figure out that Fett had Han. If they couldn't rescue him, the Doctor wouldn't forgive himself until they found him again.

The dark-skinned man led them out onto a balcony, where the Doctor spied R2-D2 rolling around, looking for Luke, most likely. No wonder they hadn't seen R2 with Luke. The little astromech must have gotten lost or left behind as Luke was going to fight Vader.

R2 beeped and whistled at the group, announcing his joining the party. He beeped a bit more concernedly when he caught sight of Luke's amputated wrist.

"R2! R2!" cried 3PO. "Where have you been?"

R2 beeped, letting him know that he had simply gotten left behind.

"R2, we need to hurry," said the Doctor frantically. "We need to save Han from Boba Fett."

R2 whistled low, asking the Doctor if he had a relation to Jango.

"Yes," said the Doctor, his memories flashing back to Geonosis twenty-five years ago when he decapitated Jango Fett. Boba had never quite forgiven him for that.

The dark-skinned man came across a door and starting punching in a code.

"He's through here," he said. "Get ready. We might be going in hot," he added as he brandished his blaster.

The Doctor, Jennara, and Obi-Wan all activated their lightsabers, and Chewbacca got his bowcaster ready as the door opened to reveal Boba Fett standing just in front of the main door to his ship, Slave I. There was a man in blue uniform loading a long rectangular object into the bounty hunter's ship. As soon as Fett turned his head to spy the Jedi, along with Leia, Chewbacca, and the dark-skinned man, he turned his blaster rifle on them and started firing.

The Doctor, Jennara, and Obi-Wan headed off the defense while Chewbacca and the dark-skinned man shot at Boba Fett from behind them.

"This is just like Byss all over again," called Jennara to the Doctor over the sound of blasterfire.

"You and I seem to remember Byss very differently," said the Doctor as he recalled one of the times they had encountered Boba Fett. If he remembered correctly, they had been surrounded by thugs, along with Boba Fett, and had narrowly escaped with their lives. How this was similar to Byss, the Doctor might never know.

The man in the blue uniform exited the ship, and Boba threw him off the loading ramp and ran into Slave I.

"After him!" shouted Leia, still carrying Luke on her shoulders. "He's got Han on board that ship!"

But it was already too late. Slave I took off, leaving Bespin behind for good and taking Han Solo with him. The Doctor, who was cursing himself for his failure, felt a wave of sadness permeate from Leia. This time, she didn't hide as she had done on Hoth. She genuinely felt sadness for Han, and the Doctor suspected that she had acknowledged that she felt a little bit more than that for the old scoundrel.

"HAAAAAN!" cried Chewbacca as the ship flew away.

And as they stared somberly into the sky after their old friend, Captain Solo, C-3PO piped up with a warning.

"Look out!" he shouted. "They're behind us!"

The Doctor turned around and immediately saw a group of stormtroopers try to flank them. The Gallifreyan deflected their bolts and redirected them back at the stormtroopers while the others made their escape.

"Come on!" called the dark-skinned man. "This way!"

He led them away from the stormtroopers, the Doctor right behind, and they soon arrived at an elevator which took them to a higher level of Cloud City.

After they got off the elevator, the dark-skinned man ran to a security console adjacent to a door, beyond which lay the Millenium Falcon, as C-3PO had pointed out. The man began typing in a keycode, but the system rejected the code.

"What?" he asked in disbelief. He tried again, then added, "Unbelievable! The security code must have been changed!"

"R2," said Jennara. "Do you think you can override the system?"

R2 bleeped sadly, indicating that he couldn't do it. There was no computer terminal here, only a power socket, and that would overload his systems and fry him.

"Alright," said the dark-skinned man. "We'll have to go around another way. Leia, you okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "I've got him." Leia was still holding the now-unconscious Luke on her back.

"I'm going to get everyone out of here," said the man as he moved to a microphone and keyed in a frequency.

"Attention, citizens of Cloud City," said the man. "This is Lando Calrissian."

The Doctor stopped for a moment and looked at the man. He was Lando?! Why hadn't the Doctor sensed it before? He supposed he was too distracted by Luke and his injury to notice, but still.

"Attention," continued Lando. "The Empire has taken over the city. I advise everyone to leave the city as soon as they can before more Imperial troops arrive."

Lando put the microphone back and motioned for the group to follow him.

"This way," he said, leading them out into a hallway.

The Doctor saw that it was utter pandemonium. People were screaming and rushing to get out of Cloud City and off Bespin as soon as they possibly could. The Doctor bumped into several people while following Lando, and he grabbed Jennara's hand to make sure that she didn't slip away. Instantly, he felt both of his hearts warm, and he knew that he was safe in Jennara's hands. He knew that she was safe in his as well, but he was more than just safe in hers. He was at peace. To grip her hand, even in a panicked situation such as this, brought a sense of peace to the Doctor's mind that he had not felt in a good while.

After clambering through the huge crowd of panicked citizens, Lando led the group to another door, this one with a computer terminal that R2 could plug into. The Doctor knew that the Millenium Falcon lay on the other

"Go ahead and plug in, little buddy," ordered Lando.

"We've got your back, R2," called the Doctor as he, Obi-Wan, and Jennara brandished the lightsabers at a group of stormtroopers who had come across them while they were running toward the door that led to freedom.

As soon as R2 plugged in, he reported something that the Doctor couldn't hear over the blasterfire. He said something about the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive.

"R2, we don't care about the Millenium Falcon's hyperdrive!" shouted C-3PO. "Lando's technicians fixed it!"

R2 bleeped at 3PO, and the Doctor was pretty sure he heard a swear somewhere.

As the group all tried their hardest to defend themselves from the stormtroopers guerilla tactics, 3PO was still arguing with R2 about the hyperdrive and the door.

"For the last time, Lando's people fixed it!" shouted the dismembered protocol droid. "Just open the door, you stupid lump!"

R2 whistled at 3PO, telling him to calm down and that he was almost through.

"Great work, R2!" called Obi-Wan as the door opened, revealing the Millenium Falcon on the other side.

"I never doubted you for a second," cried 3PO, acting as if his argument with his counterpart mere moments before had not even happened. The Doctor smirked at the golden protocol droid as the Jedi, Leia, even still carrying Luke on her back, Lando, Chewbacca, and the droids made their way across the landing platform, all the while getting shot at by the stormtroopers, who were gaining on them fast, clearly not wanting them to get away.

"Leia!" called Obi-Wan. "Get Luke onboard!"

"On it, General Kenobi," said Leia as she sprinted up the Falcon's boarding ramp.

"Chewie and I are going to start up the Falcon!" called Lando.

"Right, we'll join you in a moment," said the Doctor. "We're a bit busy being shot at."

Lando and Chewbacca ran right after Leia and Luke, leaving the Doctor, Obi-Wan, and Jennara to defend themselves against the stormtroopers.

"You know, this might not be the most opportune moment to say this," said the Doctor, "but I get the strangest feeling that we've done this before."

"That's because we have done this before," said Jennara playfully. "Our ship ended up getting blown up."

"Right, yeah," said the Doctor sadly, already missing his old Tardis. "Should we get onboard now before the Falcon blows up, too?"

"Yeah, I think so," said Jennara.

With that, the Jedi Knight, Master, and Grand Master all clambered aboard the Millenium Falcon. R2 was repairing 3PO in the main hold as Lando, Chewbacca, and Leia took control of the ship. It lifted off, and the Doctor felt small vibrations as E-11 blaster bolts impacted with the hull of the Millenium Falcon.

"Where's Luke?" asked the Doctor concernedly. He wanted to know that the boy was okay.

"In the medical room," said Leia. "I think he'll be alright, as long as he gets medical attention fast."

"Agreed," said the Doctor. "I'll see to him. I am a Doctor, after all. Might as well examine a patient once every few decades or so."

The Doctor could hear TIE fighter blasts on his way to the Falcon's medical room. Occasionally, the ship would shake, and the Doctor would wonder just how many repairs Han had been able to make before his capture.

As he entered the medical and sat beside Luke, the Doctor could feel the tension in the room rising. Luke wanted an explanation.

Instead of focusing on the explanation, the Doctor placed his hands on Luke's amputated wrist, letting Gallifreyan healing energy flow from his hand into Luke's wrist.

"This won't grow back a new hand for you," said the Doctor. "You'd have to be a Gallifreyan less than fifteen hours after a regeneration to do that. What this will do is stop the pain."

Luke didn't answer, but his mind, the Doctor found out as he probed it for a second, contained only one question.

Why didn't you tell me?

The Doctor didn't answer him. His mind wandered to the hyperdrive for some reason. He had remembered R2 saying something about it. He had expected to hear a hum, but there was nothing. It had been deactivated, but by whom? He delved further and sensed the hand of the Empire. Of course. They would take a lot of measures to make sure the ship didn't leave. This appeared to be one of them.

The Doctor could see out the window that the Millenium Falcon had come across a massive, black Star Destroyer. He could sense Vader aboard that massive ship, and he could also sense that Vader wanted to talk to his son.

Luke, the Doctor heard the voice of Darth Vader echo through the medical room. He felt a twinge of fear and a bit of regret from Jennara and Obi-Wan, respectively, as well as a sort of hope from Luke. All four Jedi could hear Vader's voice in their heads, even if the message was only intended for Luke.

"Father," said Luke, propping his head up from his bed on which he was lying, eager to hear some answers.

Son, come with me, urged Vader.

Luke sunk his head back onto the bed in defeat. Clearly, this was not the response he was looking for.

Luke, Vader urged his son further. It is your destiny.

But Luke was ignoring Vader. He turned his head to the Doctor.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, and it broke the Doctor's hearts. "Why?"

"I can't tell you this now, Luke, but I promise that I will explain everything to you in time," said the Doctor in response. Luke's expression didn't change, but he slowly nodded his head, approving of the Doctor's plan.

The Doctor himself moved to the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon and stood behind Jennara and Obi-Wan, who were both seated behind Lando and Leia. Jennara looked up at him and smiled sadly. She understood his sadness. She did not want to lie to Luke, either, but she had been forced to. It hurt her just as much as it hurt the Doctor, Luke, and, most likely, Obi-Wan.

As the Doctor was reminiscing, he suddenly felt a jolt, as though the Millenium Falcon were gaining speed very rapidly. It was the acceleration of a ship about to go into hyperspace. Apparently, the crew had figured out that the hyperdrive was deactivated and did just the thing that would get them away from Vader and his massive Star Destroyer.

Leia and Lando breathed a sigh of relief, while the Doctor, Obi-Wan, and Jennara carried on a mental conversation.

He knows the truth now, thought Obi-Wan sadly.

We should explain the reasoning for our lying to him, though, thought Jennara. He deserves that much.

And what if he doesn't like our explanation? asked Obi-Wan.

He'll have to, thought the Doctor. I've already told him that I would explain everything to him, but he just needs to be patient with us.

This has certainly been a test of that, thought Jennara a bit cheekily.

I agree, thought Obi-Wan.

Let's not fret about the explanation right now, though, thought the Doctor. We've got big things to plan.

And what the Doctor had said to them was true. The Jedi couldn't worry about explaining their own lies to Luke. Although it was important that they do so as soon as possible, the Rebels with whom the Jedi were affiliated certainly had something big to plan, namely how they would find and rescue Captain Han Solo.

Aaaaaaaaaand scene! That's all, folks! Minus the epilogue, this is the end of Star Wars (Starring the Doctor) Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back! On to Return of the Jedi! Woohoo! The main saga is nearing its completion at long last!

So, yeah, I'll post the epilogue sometime tomorrow. It'll be there. Don't you worry.

So, what did you think of this version of Empire? Leave your thoughts in a review! They are always appreciated!

In Doctor Who news, I just heard yesterday that Osgood (scarf girl) is making a return in Series 9. That's all well and dandy and good and such, because I like Osgood. I genuinely think she's a good character. There's just one problem I have with having her in Series 9. What was it? Hmm...oh, that's right. SHE WAS DISINTEGRATED AT THE END OF SERIES 8! I can't wait to see how Moffat writes himself out of this one! Then again, he brought back the Master, so maybe he can find a logical way.

Tomorrow: The Jedi formulate a plan for the rescue of Captain Solo.

And that about does it for this author's note. Until the epilogue, my friends!