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She glanced from Wedge’s square-jawed face to Ackbar’s glassy, unreadable Calamarian eyes. “I want all of our teams on yellow alert from this moment on. Make sure everyone is ready for immediate deployment to battle, wherever the Imperials may strike.” She turned toward Wedge. “But, we mustn’t tip our hand. The only advantage we have is that they don’t know we know what they’re up to. They probably realize we suspect something because we’re here snooping around … but they won’t think we’ve found anything. You will continue your maneuvers, as before.

“Right now Han, Chewie, and I will take the Falcon and go rescue Luke. We can’t let the Hutts think anything has changed. Wait for your report from General Madine’s mission and act accordingly if I haven’t returned—I trust you all.”

Leia stood with a determined look on her face. “Now I have to go save my brother.” Han took her hand as they ran to the Falcon.

Leia sat strapped into her seat, still concentrating, following Luke’s gradually fading request for assistance. Her Force abilities had been sharpened through Luke’s training, and though she couldn’t give Han any direct coordinates for his navicomputer, she could take him in the right general direction; as they approached closer, she narrowed down Luke’s location.

The battered space yacht looked like a derelict careening in a random path along the fringes of the asteroid belt. Artoo-Detoo squealed as he detected the ship on the sensors, and Chewbacca triangulated on its position as he steered the Falcon to the rescue.

With the Falcon’s tractor beam, they took the ruined yacht in tow and brought their airlocks together, sealing them so that Han, Leia, and Chewie could open the outer hatch and enter the darkened wreck. Leia had noted disturbing marks on the outer hull, not simply dents and scars from meteor impacts—but long scratches that looked as if they had been made with impossibly sharp claws.

She couldn’t understand what he had been doing out in the Hoth system. When he and Callista departed from Coruscant, Luke had intended to go with her to the exclusive and romantic cometary resort of the Mulako Primordial Water Quarry—but something must have changed.

Panting, Han dropped down into the empty hold of Luke’s ship with a thud, and called up for breathmasks. “Almost no air left in here,” he gasped, “and it’s freezing cold. Reminds me of Kessel.”

Chewbacca tossed a clatter of glowlights and breathmasks down before lowering his hairy body into the dim chamber. Han and Leia placed the masks over their faces, and each took a light, which they shone into the dim chambers. Chewbacca shivered and rubbed his fur-covered arms.

“They’re completely out of power,” Leia said. “Life-support systems are practically dead.”

“Doesn’t seem to be any engine control, either,” Han said.

Leia shook her head. “I can sense Luke, though. It’s just a whisper now, but he’s here.”

They found the two motionless bodies in the back chamber, the small sleeping area: Luke lay on the floor like a statue, and Callista clung to him in a tattered and failing life-support suit. Luke looked frozen solid. A rime of frost covered his eyebrows, his eyelashes, and his upper lip. His skin appeared colorless and flat, like wax.

Callista gave a rattling groan, shifting in her slick suit. Powdery frost crumbled from the joints in her arms.

“Her suit’s almost gone. Let’s get them into the Falcon,” Han said. “Chewie. carry Luke. Leia and I will get Callista.”

They carried the sagging Jedi back into the warmth and the air of the Falcon, then disconnected from the ruined space yacht, letting the hulk drift into the asteroid field like discarded rubbish, where it would soon become crushed in the relentless chaos of the meteor storm.

Callista revived first. With a change into warm clothing and generous cups of stim tea, she recovered enough to insist on helping tend Luke Skywalker as they nursed him back to health. In his deep trance he had depleted his reserves, keeping himself at the ghost edge of death when the life support had ceased