Chapter Four: Dealing With Death

"There she is," the mercenary said as we looked down at his ship, the pride in his voice evident.

I was not nearly so impressed. It was, quite literally, a heap of junk. There were dents everywhere, and it had obviously been patched up more than a couple times, and judging from the all different shades of gray I could see, it had been with whatever was available rather than the correct parts. It took a moment before I realized he wasn't joking.

"You came in that?" I said in disbelief. "You're braver than I thought."

He shot me an insulted look. "Nice. Come on!"

We moved off down the hallway. Luke had consulted with the droids, and they were near the ship. But as soon as we rounded the first corner, we came face-to-face with a squad of stormtroopers.

They seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see them. I should have known better, I suppose, but I had thought that maybe Vader would have only sent troops to the detention area. He did want me to get away, after all. Once again, I had underestimated him and his desire to keep our plan a secret.

The troopers recovered first. "It's them! Blast them!" Or maybe they're under Tarkin's command.

The mercenary was firing before my brain fully caught up with the situation. "Get back to the ship!" he shouted at us as he and the Wookiee took off down the hallway.

"Where are you going?!" Luke yelled at him. "Come back!"

He didn't hear. Or, more likely, he did, and chose to ignore the summons.

"He certainly has courage," I said sarcastically.

"What good will it do us if he gets himself killed?" Luke countered. I was proud of him for that comment. Maybe there was hope for the innocent, child-like young man after all. "Come on!"

We dashed toward th hangar, Luke randomly firing shots behind us in the general direction of the troopers that were following us. We ducked into a doorway and raced down a narrower sub-corridor. At the end there was another door, which we ran through --

-- only to nearly fall off the edge of a retracted bridge.

Panting, Luke muttered, "I think we took a wrong turn."

The troopers were still on our tail; we could hear them clattering down the hallway. I reached over the controls for the door behind us, and shut it, but to my dismay, there was no lock.

I said as much to Luke. His idea of a fix was to fry the controls to a crisp with a blaster bolt.

"That ought to hold it for a while," he said.

I nearly rolled my eyes, but there were more important matters at hand.

"We've got to get across, " I reminded him Since he was now closest to the controls, I added, "Find the control that extends the bridge."

He blinked, looked at the burnt controls, and turned sheepishly to me. "I think I just blasted it."

There were noises at the door. "They're coming through!" I hissed.

Suddenly, there were troops on the other side of the bridge. Luke dispatched them quickly, but the encounter just drove home my point.

Luke gave me his blaster. "Here, hold this." Then he pulled a thin rope from the utility belt he wore as I dealt with the onslaught of troopers from the other side of the abyss (blessing my father for allowing me to take weapons classes despite Alderaan's peace policy all the while) as the door behind us was slowly hitched upward.

"Here they come!" I said, as a reminder to Luke to hurry up.

He tossed the rope, and it wrapped itself around a large pipe on the other side. With no time for anything other than an experimental tug before having to swing across the abyss on it, I kissed him quickly.

"For luck," I told his dumbfounded expression.

And luck was with us. We made it to the other side safely and ran off down yet another small corridor.


We found the mercenary and the Wookiee by the hangar bay. "What kept you?" the mercenary asked irritably by way of greeting.

"We ran into some old friends," I replied.

"Is the ship alright?" Luke wanted to know.

"Seems okay," the mercenary replied, eyes going back to the hunk of scrap metal he called a ship. "If we can get to it. Just hope the old man got the tractor beam out of commission."

Right! General Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi was with them. I'd totally forgotten.

We were nearly to the ship when we found General Kenobi – locked in the midst of a lightsaber duel with Vader.

He glanced at us, and raised his blade slowly, an obviously suicidial move.

I narrowed my eyes at Vader. Don't you dare. Don't. You. Dare.

He dared. And Obi-Wan Kenobi died with one swift blow of Vader's bloody blade.

"No!" Luke screamed. I wanted to scream myself, but there was no time. We hurried onto the ship and took off, leaving the Death Star behind us. Yet when I thought at Vader, We will be talking about this, you bastard, I could have sworn he heard me.


I comforted Luke as we flew away from the Death Star. He needed it – General Kenobi's death had hit him hard – and it kept my away from that insufferable, arrogant nerfherder in the cockpit (whose name, I finally learned, was Han Solo. And his copilot, the Wookiee, was called Chewbacca).

"I just can't believe he's gone," Luke mumbled, staring down at the table.

I knew the feeling. "There wasn't anything you could have done," I told him soothingly.

That was went Han Solo interrupted, by rushing into the hold. "Come on, kid, we're not out of this yet!" he snapped at Luke.

I felt the urge to snap back at him. Luke was grieving ,and in my mind the last thing he needed was the burden of responsibility. But Luke jumped up eagerly, and I assumed that this would be a good coping mechanism for him. Left alone, I went to the cockpit to see what was going on.

Although I couldn't understand Chewbacca, I liked him well enough, and he welcomed me into the cockpit as Luke and Han chattered over the intercom.

Chewbacca spotted the TIEs first, and pointed them out to me with a bark. "Here they come!" I informed Luke and Han.

I was unsure how many fighters Vader had sent after us, and I dared not estimate. I had to learn not to expect special treatment just because of our deal, and counting the enemy ships would just discourage me. Again.

A few shots were fired, and then a screen in from of me flared with light. I glanced at it. "We've lost lateral controls!" I informed my companions, and was rewarded by a muffled curse from Solo.

"Don't worry," he said confidently a moment later. "She'll hold together."

Another bolt hit us, making the ship rock and shorting out a control panel. I frowned.

"You hear me, baby?" Solo's voice came over the intercom, and I nearly snarled at him for the degrading nickname before he added, "Hold together!" and I realized he was talking to the ship. Typical pirate.

I turned my attention back to the battle outside. There seemed to be less TIE fighters now than there had been, but I knew that didn't mean anything. The Empire was notorious for its replaceable staff.

Eventually we were down to two. Luke had apparently forgotten about General Kenobi for the moment, as he was happily shooting at TIE fighters with Solo's encouragement and guidance. I wondered idly what it would take for war to stop being a game to him.

"There are still two more of them out there!" I warned them as soon as I was sure of the number.

We were hit once again, but Solo and Luke made quick work of them. Impulsively, I jumped up and hugged Chewbacca. "We did it!" I exclaimed, echoing Luke's comment as it came through the intercom.

In the background, Threepio began to complain.


Solo strode back into the cockpit, a self-satisfied swagger in his stride that set my teeth on edge. When he took over the controls, Chewbacca left, presumably to check out the damage to the ship.

"Not a bad bit of rescuing, huh?" Solo asked me with a smirk. "You know, sometimes I even amaze myself."

"That doesn't sound too hard," I snapped back. What was it about this man that made me so angry? My next words had a dual purpose; to bring him down off his high horse, and to keep suspicion off Vader, me, and our deal. "Besides, they let us go. It's the only explanation for the ease of our escape."

"Easy?" Solo's tone and look were both disbelieving, and I mentally gave a victory cheer. Princess, one; pirate, zero. "You call that easy?"

"They're tracking us!" I insisted, working to keep the glee out of my voice.

"Not this ship, sister," he said loftily.

I was about to hit him with a scathing reply when a horrible thought occurred to me: What if Vader was tracking us?

I tried to dismiss it. He wouldn't do that.

Would he?

If I find a tracking device anywhere near this ship when we land, I vowed silently, there will be hell to pay.