The Empire Strikes Back: The Asteroid Field
When is my muse going to stop with these short stories?! A slight expansion of the Asteroid Field sequence. There's a sort of explanation for the slight scientific inaccuracy of the belt being so dense; our solar system's belt is nowhere near as hazardous and its dangers are mainly psychological. I hypothesise that such a belt might be more dense if it's formed relatively recently. Who knows what our belt used to be like? No such simulation has been run, as far as I know.
And I am slowly novelising the movie, I knew it!
Heading away from Hoth
The Falcon was pitching and rolling to evade laser blasts from her Imperial pursuer, a Star Destroyer, and four TIE Fighters.
Chewie was roaring in warning, and Han retorted, "I saw 'em, I saw 'em!"
"Saw what?" Leia asked as the Falcon rocked.
Then it became obvious: two more behemoths were closing fast. "Star Destroyers, two of 'em, comin' right at us!"
Threepio arrived, having examined the hyperdrive, and began worriedly, "Sir! Sir, might I suggest -"
"Shut 'im up or shut 'im down!" Han irritably ordered no-one in particular as the ship juddered and Threepio, unbalanced, fell onto Chewie. "Check the deflector shield!" he told Chewie. He received a howl in Shyriiwook as Chewie hauled Threepio off:
"It's down!"
"Great!" Han cursed. "Well, we can still out-manoeuvre 'em!" He wrenched the controls and the Falcon abruptly flipped 'down' 90 degrees - out of the flight path of the oncoming Destroyers which were trying to trap the Falcon between them. The TIEs followed, firing.
Two of the pursuing ships found themselves facing each other.
Star Destroyer bridge
Seeing their prey had outfoxed them and, worse, an accompanying ship was about to collide with them, the Captain ordered urgently, "Take evasive action!" A horn sounded, as did the sounds of metal being stressed as she started her turn, two officers bowled off their feet. But the Star Destroyers, with their 1600-metre bulk, couldn't manoeuvre as the Falcon could. Two slid past each other literally metres apart, and the third managed to evade. For the three to (barely) avoid collision was, Admiral Piett later told them, almost a miracle.
"You failed to secure the Millennium Falcon," Vader growled.
"But they avoided what we saw at Scarif, my Lord," Piett pointed out, remembering the dreadful collision which had destroyed the shield gate and allowed a Rebel team to transmit the Death Star plans. He'd been a mere Commander at the time, later posted to the Executor upon his official promotion to Captain...and his unofficial one to Admiral once there.
The Millennium Falcon
"Prepare to make the jump to lightspeed," Han told Chewie.
"But sir -!" Threepio attempted.
The hyperdrive motivator is damaged.
Idiot. Never checked that, did he?
So we can't escape to hyperspace?
"They're getting closer," Leia warned.
"Oh, yeah?" Han said cockily. "Watch this!" He activated the hyperdrive, smiling, expecting the fighters and Destroyers to be left behind.
Instead, the Falcon's hyperdrive wound down as she stalled. They did not go to lightspeed.
Han lost his smile.
Underwhelmed as nothing happened, Leia retorted, "Watch what?!"
With his talent for understatement, a surprised and confused Han mused, "I think we're in trouble..." He and Chewie had put in a lot of work on Hoth. What the kriff was wrong?
"If I may say so, sir," Threepio ventured worriedly, "I noticed earlier the hyperdrive motivator has been damaged. It's impossible to go to lightspeed!"
Oops. We didn't look at the hyperdrive.
"We're in trouble!" Han declared, and put the Falcon on autopilot while he and a roaring Chewie went to the work pit to fix whatever was wrong. Not that he didn't trust the Princess, but one of the Falcon's three droid brains, L3-37, was more skilled than the usual autopilot, expert with random manoeuvres. She'd keep them safe.
The TIE Fighters maintained fire and pursuit.
Inside the Falcon
Lando never flew us like this.
But Lando never had the Empire after him, ED-4 pointed out.
It's our duty to keep our master safe, V-5T said.
We know, we know, L3-37 groused, no longer able to think 'I', having been part of the collective brain of the ship for years. We're just saying that Lando was never this reckless!
As the Millennium Collective, the other two droids said, it is our duty.
True, L3-37 conceded. Then let's show these Imperial nerf-herders what we can do!
Even as a collective, the three droid brains didn't always work together. This was why the Falcon was far more idiosyncratic than other YT-1300 light freighters...and far more cranky. But now they were united in their purpose.
Then they saw what was ahead on their long-range sensors.
All three thought: Uh-oh.
Tiredly L3-37 asked, What do we want to bet that he'll head in there?
Unsafe at best.
But unsafe for the Imperials, too, L3 pointed out.
Hmm. No other ship has ever done it before.
No other ship, L3 said proudly, has ever been us! We made the Kessel Run in - rounding down - twelve parsecs! This will be a breeze!
If one of those hits us -
- we're scrap. Or at least more scrap than we are now.
Won't happen. He's only human, but he's the best there is. Even better, we have to admit, than Lando was.
In the work pit
"Horizontal boosters!" Han yelled to Chewie.
The Wookiee replied that the boosters were okay. That wasn't the problem.
Clambering in the Falcon's innards, Han ventured, "Alluvial dampers?"
Chewie roared that they too were okay, and anticipated the next instruction by picking up a tray of tools.
"Ow! That's not it," Han decided, "bring me the hydrospanner!" Chewie made his way across to the work pit and placed the tray on its edge. As Han took the tool, he confided, "I dunno how we're gonna get outa this one." They'd been through a lot together, especially in the Corporate Sector, but except for once, when trying to escape Magg and his slavers, never had things been so dire.
But he wasn't to know they were going to pick up...a little.
As Han ducked into the work pit and started using the hydrospanner, the Falcon shuddered, and the tool tray fell onto him. "Ow! Chewie!" he reproached - and was puzzled by the howl of denial. He came up - and the Falcon's hull rang.
Han knew his ship intimately. So much so that he could differentiate between a laser hit and -
"That was no laser blast, somethin' hit us!"
On the bridge, Leia called over the intercom, "Han, get up here!"
"C'mon, Chewie!" Han ordered, scrambling out of the pit; the Wookiee followed, howling.
They arrived on the bridge and Leia told them tersely, "Asteroids!"
And they were indeed approaching an asteroid field, one of three in the Hoth system. They were yet another reason why Mon Mothma chose Hoth: the metal-rich asteroids tended to confuse sensors and interfere with signals, making the Rebels difficult to track.
(This, General Rieekan pointed out, was equally true for the Rebels when they were trying to track Imperial ships, but Mon smiled ruefully. "Can't have everything. It's more important that their sensors are confused than that ours are.")
"Oh, no," Han said, though in fact with his quick (if unorthodox) thinking he saw a possibility. As he and Chewie took their seats and enabled manual control, Han ordered, "Chewie, set two-seven-one."
While Leia wasn't a fully qualified pilot (well, to be fair, neither was Han, except by extensive experience), she knew what the order meant. "What are you doing? You're not actually going into an asteroid field?!" But the view from the cockpit made it clear he was doing just that.
"They'd be crazy to follow us, wouldn't they?" Han pointed out.
As crazy as we - or rather, you - are! Leia thought as Han swung the Falcon to port to evade an asteroid, then to starboard to avoid another.
Attempting to be reasonable with this utter maniac, Leia urged, "You don't have to do this to impress me."
Not tryin' to, sweetheart, Han thought, in case you hadn't noticed, we got four fighters on our tail an' dodgy shields.
"Sir," Threepio cried, "the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!"
But Han replied, with the philosophy which had defined his life all the way back to Corellia, "Never tell me the odds!"
The Falcon approached and manoeuvred around a large asteroid, which had a tiny rock colliding with it and vaporising. The TIEs followed, still firing, one passing close enough to cast a shadow on the asteroid. As they went, asteroids tumbled around and towards them. One, two, three fighters avoided them.
But the fourth did not, and was destroyed on impact.
She slipped between two more, and one TIE had its port solar panel clipped by a small rock. Tumbling out of control, stray electrical charge playing over its surface from the damage and its drive faltering, the fighter collided with another rock and exploded. An X- or Y-Wing might have barely survived the collision, but they had shields - and TIEs did not.
"Ah!" Threepio cried as they barely evaded another stray rock. Then, as a small asteroid headed for a collision with a larger one, "Look!" The asteroids destroyed each other and the shower of fragments and débris struck the Falcon, rocking her.
This, Han realised, was worse than he'd thought.
The belt was the third and last to be formed, when the former Hoth VII and VIII, both rocky worlds, collided about two hundred years ago and destroyed each other. The relative newness of the belt was the reason why it was so incredibly dense. In millennia to come it would thin out and become less of a hazard as the asteroids destroyed each other in collisions or moved apart.
But for now, as two Imperial pilots had learned to their cost, it was deadly.
"You said you wanted to be around when I made a mistake," Han told Leia, and admitted, "this could be it, sweetheart."
"I take it back." Two small rocks impacted and burst into flame, heading past the Falcon. Leia warned, "We're gonna get pulverised if we stay out here much longer."
"Ain't gonna argue with that," Han mused. He'd had another idea, even crazier than the first.
"Pulverised...!" Threepio moaned.
Han took the uncontested title of Universe's Craziest Guy in Leia's mind as he added, "I'm going in closer to one of the big ones."
"Closer?" Leia gasped.
Threepio echoed incredulously, "Closer?!"
Chewie howled. Usually he could understand his friend's crazy ideas, but for once this was beyond him.
The Falcon headed for, and twisted to avoid, a spinning chunk of rock, the remaining TIEs still following. Leia could almost admire their devotion to duty...or their desire not to have to answer to Vader if they were unsuccessful in their pursuit. She angled down towards a huge asteroid, and the fighters chased her. Chewie howled in protest, but Han was doggedly evading their blasts and the stray asteroids. Never had he flown so well.
As crazy as he was, Leia couldn't help but admire him. This was the skill which had both amazed and infuriated his Imperial flight instructors.
With the Imperials following and firing, the Falcon swooped down into a canyon on the asteroid, and headed into a narrow ravine.
Too narrow, it seemed.
Until Han stood her on her starboard side and took her through a gap through which she could never have passed upright. The TIEs, their pilots intent on pursuit, closed in - and came too close, as Han had known they would. Too often the Empire forgot Han had briefly attended the Imperial Flight Academy, and thus knew a TIE Fighter pilot's mindset. They were too busy watching the Falcon to watch each other.
They collided and destroyed each other spectacularly.
As the Falcon emerged from the gap and Han righted her, Threepio moaned, "Oh, this is suicide! There's nowhere to go!"
But Han had seen their destination. He pointed. "There. That looks pretty good."
"What looks pretty good?" Leia asked curiously, wanting to congratulate him but unwilling to give him the satisfaction.
"Yeah," Han decided, "that'll do nicely."
"Excuse me, ma'am," Threepio ventured, "but...where are we going?"
Leia, equally in the dark, shrugged.
He's not going to...?
Yes, he is. Hmm. Metal-rich rocks, our sensors show.
Effective shielding. They're why the Rebels came here.
Temporary shelter? L3 supposed.
Until he and the Wookiee repair our body, ED-4 said. A logical if slightly reckless plan.
We might have to talk to that protocol droid, V-5T noted.
Urgh. Such a fussy contraption. Won't appreciate our jokes. Most of 'em are filthy by human standards.
It might complain about our dialect, V5-T conceded.
ED-4 snorted (metaphorically speaking). Let it!
The Falcon travelled over the edge of the canyon, headed up relative to the surface, flipped smoothly over - and down into the mouth of a tunnel Han had spotted. The mandible lights came on as she flew in. Now Leia could see his plan: land the Falcon actually inside the asteroid, shielded from Imperial sensors by the metal-rich rock, while he and his copilot made repairs. With who knew how many asteroids in the belt, the Empire would have trouble just finding where they'd gone. They'd have to trace the TIE Fighters' recorded telemetry to determine where they'd been, which even for them would take time.
And not even Vader would be able to pinpoint his prey. In such a large asteroid, even when the Empire found it, they could be anywhere.
It was, she had to admit, a clever idea. Still, she cautioned, "I hope you know what you're doing."
Chewie lowed.
"Yeah," Han acknowledged, "me too."
Us too.
The Falcon flew further in.
Straight into the mouth of an exogorth, had they only known it. Talk about out of the frying pan...
THE END