Chapter 12: Rendezvous
The troopers watching the fight turned to see Luke angrily opening fire at them. They returned fire, but missed wildly. Vader investigated the remains of Obi-Wan. He seemed to have disappeared entirely, leaving only his clothes and lightsaber and he put his foot onto Ben's robes, as a means to spit on his memory.
Anakin clenched his fist while holding back his tears. It may not be the Jedi way, but once he found this Vader before Obi-Wan does, he'll end it there once and for all. The rest also felt a pang of anger at seeing the Dark Lord eliminate one of the last remaining Jedi in existence.
"What happened to his body?", Caleb questioned curiously.
"It has something to do with becoming one with the Force. But I'm not sure how he does it.", Ki-Adi said, also curious.
Meanwhile on the Senate building, a certain Chancellor felt sudden joy while drinking his tea. "I wonder what instilled sudden joy all of a sudden?", he gleefully said out loud as he looked at the ceiling. "I might be anticipating my impending victory too much."
"Luke, come on!" Leia yelled, taking cover from the firefight.
"Blast the door, kid!" Han yelled, seeing Vader turning their way.
Luke did as requested and blasted the doors' control panel, closing and locking it in Vader's face. He took down a few more troopers before he heard a voice in his head. It was Ben.
"Run, Luke, run!" he said. He complied, boarding the Falcon as it started taking off and the ramp was raised up.
"Did he just-?", Luminara began, she was sure she had heard his voice. As did the rest of the audience.
"One with the force, Master Kenobi has.", Yoda confirmed.
"I hope the Old Man got that tractor beam out of commission," Han said as he entered the cockpit, Blake already working the controls, "Otherwise, this is gonna be one helluva short trip. Hit it!" The Falcon backed out of the hangar and flew into the void.
Chewie growled, as they put as much distance between them and the Death Star as possible.
"So far, but we're coming up on their sentry ships." Han frowned. The Falcon was a tough old bird, but he wasn't overly much of a fighter. Unfortunately, there was nothing for it. "Angle the deflector shields while I charge up the guns."
In the lounge, Luke was sitting at the game table, tears falling from his eyes. Leia walked up and put a blanket over her shoulders.
"Can't believe he's gone." he uttered.
"Me too, kid. Me too.", Anakin wholeheartedly agreed with him, wiping the last of his tears.
"But without Master Kenobi, who will train Luke now?", Ahsoka asked in worry.
The others agreed at her question. "Unless there are any Jedi left he would be lucky to ran into, I am not so sure...", Mace said.
Han came out into the lounge. "No time to cry, kid." he said. "We aren't out of the woods yet." He started to climb up a ladder. Luke followed, climbing down into a gun emplacement, while Leia ran to assist Chewie in the cockpit.
The gun was a simple four-barrel blaster turret controlled by the gunner with a headset so the gunners could coordinate.
"They have weapons installed at the ship?", Caleb wondered.
"Every smuggler ship have at least a weapon installed in case if any competitor or government starship would give chase to them.",Rex answered for him.
"All right, kid, stay sharp." Han said.
"Here they come." Leia told them as a quartet of TIE fighters flew past them.
The battle was hectic to say the least. One freighter versus four small ships designed for nothing but combat? It was hardly a contest. The first salvo came from the rear, but the freighter held up to the assault. Luke and Han fired at the smaller ships in the hopes of taking one of the bastards down, but the aiming systems on the guns were so confusing and the fighters were so fast that hitting them was mostly a crap-shoot.
"Four starfighters against a Freighter, unless if they could have an accurate shot, dealing with them is no easy task.", Plo Koon mused.
"The Force is with them, Master Plo. I hold confidence that they would be able to make it through.", Saesee Tiin assurred him.
"We lost lateral controls." Leia said after another hard hit.
"Don't worry, she'll hold together." Han assured her. Some circuits behind her overloaded. "Hear me, baby? Hold together."
Han was the first to make a kill, cheering as he watched the explosion.
"Good shot.", Rex complimented the smuggler.
"I got him! I got him!" Luke yelled up when he scored a kill a few seconds later.
"Of course you did, Luke. I'm your father!", Anakin praised the young man in front of him. The audience however, felt a sudden chill, but they couldn't tell where it come from.
"Great, kid!" Han yelled down, "Don't get cocky!"
"Down to two!" Leia reminded them.
Luke scored the third kill about a minute later. The last fighter came straight at Han. He fired non-stop until, finally, the lasers found the mark and destroyed the fighter in a multi-color explosion. Sliding back in his seat, Han left out a long sigh.
"Yeah!" Luke cheered on their success.
"They did it!" Ahsoka cheered.
On the Death Star, Tarkin stood on the bridge, watching the Falcon escape. Vader came up behind him.
"Are they away?" Tarkin asked, hearing Vader's approach.
"They've just made the jump into hyperspace." he reported.
"And you're sure the homing beacon is secure aboard their ship? This is an awfully big risk to take, Vader. It had better work, for both our sakes."
"It means that they'd have a back-up plan." Kit Fisto grumbled.
"For his many faults, Tarkin was not unintelligent." Obi-Wan said, "All his plans had contingencies, and I fear he has something hidden in his sleeve."
Han and Leia sat in the cockpit of the Falcon as it flew through hyperspace.
"Not a bad bit of rescuing, huh?" Han said with a cocky smirk, "You know, sometimes, I amaze even myself."
The men in the audience coughed at the comment while the females rolled their eyes.
"That doesn't sound too hard." Leia drawled, "They let us go, it's the only way to explain such an easy escape."
"Easy? Ya call that back there easy?"
"They're tracking us."
"Not this ship, sister."
Leia sighed, knowing a lost cause when she saw it. "I'm just glad the information in R2 is still intact."
"So, what is he carrying that's so important?"
"The complete technical readout of that battle station. I only hope that by analyzing the data a weakness can be found. It's not over yet."
"It is for me, sister. Let's get something straight: I ain't in this for your revolution and I ain't in it for you. I expect to be well-paid when this is over. I'm in it for the money."
"Speaking about cold-blooded." Shaak Ti said.
"You're telling me." Luminara frowned at the man, "I thought this man would be better than the first time we saw him."
"He is a smuggler and has a need to pay back Jabba. He has business with him.", Obi-Wan clarified.
"Don't worry. If money is all you care about, then money is what you'll get." Leia left in a huff, running into Luke on the way out. "Your friend is quite the mercenary. I wonder if he actually cares about anything. Or anybody."
"I care!" Luke said, trying to make her feel better. He took a seat next to Han, "So, what do you think of her?"
"Trying not to, kid." Han replied, checking the most recently updated galactic maps to make sure their destination was still there in the first place.
"Good." Luke said before looking down with a little grin.
"Although," Han said, looking at where Leia had left, "She does have a lot of spirit." Luke's eyes widened in worry. "I don't know. What do you think? A princess and a smuggler like me- "
"No./NO!" Luke and Anakin said quickly while Han smiled at this jealousy. The audience present were taken back by the Jedi Knight's sudden change of tone whenever the thought of the Princess and the Smuggler being together was brought up.
However, Obi-Wan and Padmé felt disgusted at Luke's look of jealousy for some reason.
They by-passed the actual planet in favor of a moon on the far side, landing near one of a series of large stone structures jutting up from the canopy.
Willard, the commander of the Rebel forces, rushes up to the group and gives Leia a big hug. Every one is pleased to see her.
"You're safe! We had feared the worst". Commander Willard said as he composed himself, steps back and bows formally.
"When we heard about Alderaan, we were afraid that you were… lost along with your father."
Padmé and the rest of the Jedi lowered their heads, knowing that Senator Bail Organa, one of the chief supporters of the Jedi Order, was among the dead.
"We don't have time for our sorrows, Commander. The battle station has surely tracked us here", Leia told him before she turned to Han. "It's the only explanation for the ease of our escape. You must use the information in this R2 unit to plan the attack. It is our only hope."
Upon closer inspection, the large structures were temples of some kind, and the Rebellion had taken up residence in one. The ground floor was used as a docking bay for individual starships, all of them gunmetal grey with patches of red or yellow paint on them. Artoo was turned over to a group of scientists who analyzed the data within him. Leia and Threepio were taken to the top brass to tell them the situation and what they potentially faced. Luke was led to the military captains and given permission to take part in the impending attack. Han and Chewie went with Leia to get their reward.
"The Rebellion, so this is?", Yoda mused.
"Not as well-equipped like the Republic or the Empire but in terms of weaponry, they have a chance.", Rex calculated the odds.
"The drive to free the galaxy from the Empire is what gives them strenght.", Padmé said in support for the rebels. The others likewise agreed with her.
A few hours later, the Death Star entered orbit over the red planet of Yavin.
"Yes?" Tarkin said into his desktop communicator.
"We are approaching the planet Yavin. The Rebel base is on a moon on the far side. We are preparing to orbit the planet."
"This is it...", Ki-Adi said in anticipation.
"The hope for the galaxy depends on them.", Mace agreed with him.
At the same time, the Rebel strike force was gathered in a briefing room.
"The battle station is heavily shielded and carries a firepower greater than half the Star Fleet." Dodonna said as a technical readout of the Death Star appeared on a screen behind him. "Its defenses are designed around a direct, large-scale assault. A small, one-man fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defense."
"Pardon me, sir," one of the pilots said, Gold Leader, raising his hand, "But what use are snub fighters going to be against that?"
"Well, the Empire doesn't consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat, or they'd have a tighter defense." Dodonna explained. "An analysis of the plans provided by Princess Leia has demonstrated a weakness in the battle station. But the approach will not be easy."
The image on screen zoomed in to an outline of a small corridor and began moving down it. "You're required to maneuver straight down this trench, and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide." This sent murmurs throughout the assembled pilots.
"It's a small thermal exhaust port right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station. Only a precise hit will set up a chain reaction. The target shaft is ray shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes."
"This plan is very risky for a bombing run." Saesee said. "The Battlestation is already a mobile army base equipped with the single most powerful weapon I've ever seen, and they're banking all their hopes on a near-suicidal bombing run?"
"And then there's the problem of getting the torpedo into a vertical target when you're coming at it from a perpendicular angle." Plo Koon agreed.
"Maybe the torpedoes are computer guided?" Caleb guessed.
"Perhaps…"
"That's impossible, even for a computer.", a pilot sitting next to Luke said.
"No, it's not impossible." Luke said, "I used to bulls-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters."
"Any questions?" Dodonna asked. Nobody had any questions. "Then man your ships. And may the Force be with you."
"Wait, how come the Empire allowed a small thermal exhaust port to be exposed?", Ahsoka questioned. Suicidal as it may be, it still had a chance to destroy the entire battle station if it was landed by a lucky shot.
"They should have known at least that it can be exploited at whatever means possible.", Mace stated before he an idea came out of his head. "Unless..."
"Two words, I can think off. Dissent and arrogance.", Yoda stated as the others thought about it for a while and they agreed with him.
Someone must have been against designing the superweapon that had killed billions. And he or she deliberately designed it that way for one day, someone would be able to exploiot this.
And someone was too overconfident that a small weakness was not enough to destroy this battle station. As Jedi, they all knew that arrogance was the downfall of every opponent.