Star Wars_ Episode V_ The Empire Strikes Back - Donald F. Glut [29]
'Come in, Admiral.'
Admiral Piett felt great awe as he stepped into the dimly lit room and approached the Dark Lord of the Sith. His master stood silhouetted so that Piett could just barely make out the lines of a set of mechanical appendages as they retracted a respirator tube from Vader's head. He shuddered when he realized that he might be the first ever to have seen his master unmasked.
The sight was horrifying. Vader, his back turned to Piett, was entirely clothed in black; but above his studded black neck band gleamed his naked head. Though the admiral tried to avert his eyes, morbid fascination forced him to look at that hairless, skull-like head. It was covered with a maze of thick scar tissue that twisted around against Vader's corpse-pale skin. The thought crossed Piett's mind that there might be a heavy price for viewing what no one else had seen. Just then, the robot hands grasped the black helmet and gently lowered it over the Dark Lord's head.
His helmet back in place, Darth Vader turned to hear his admiral's report.
'Our pursuit ships have sighted the Millennium Falcon, my lord. It has entered an asteroid field.'
'Asteroids don't concern me, Admiral,' Vader said as he slowly clenched his fist. 'I want that ship, not excuses. How long until you will have Skywalker and the others in the Millennium Falcon?'
'Soon, Lord Vader,' the admiral answered, trembling in fear.
'Yes, Admiral...' Darth Vader said slowly,'... soon.'
Two gigantic asteroids hurtled toward the Millennium Falcon. Its pilot quickly made a daring banking maneuver that brought it skirring out of the path of those two asteroids, nearly to collide with a third.
As the Falcon darted in and out of the asteroid field, it was followed closely by three Imperial TIE fighters that veered through the rocks in hot pursuit. Suddenly one of the three was fatally scraped by a shapeless chunk of rock and spun off in another direction, hopelessly out of control. The other two TIE fighters continued their chase, accompanied by the Star Destroyer Avenger, which was blasting speeding asteroids in its path.
Han Solo glimpsed the pursuing ships through the windows of his cockpit as he spun his craft around, speeding under yet another oncoming asteroid, then bringing the freighter back to its right-side-up position. But the Millennium Falcon was not yet out of danger. Asteroids were still streaking past the freighter. A small one bounced off the ship with a loud, reverberating clang, terrifying Chewbacca and causing See Threepio to cover his eye lenses with a bronzed hand.
Han glanced at Leia and saw that she was sitting stone-faced as she stared at the swarm of asteroids. It looked to him as if she wished she were thousands of miles away.
'Well,' he remarked, 'you said you wanted to be around when I was wrong.'
She didn't look at him. 'I take it back.'
'That Star Destroyer is slowing down,' Han announced, checking his computer readings.
'Good,' she replied shortly.
The view outside the cockpit was still thick with racing asteroids. 'We're going to get pulverized if we stay out here much longer,' he observed.
'I'm against that,' Leia remarked dryly.
'We've got to get out of this shower.'
'That makes sense.'
'I'm going to get in closer to one of the big ones,' Han added.
That did not make sense.
'Closer!' Threepio exclaimed, throwing up his metal arms. His artificial brain could scarcely register what his auditory sensors had just perceived.
'Closer!' Leia repeated in disbelief.
Chewbacca stared at his pilot in amazement and barked.
None of the three could understand why their captain, who had risked his life to save them all, would now try to get them killed! Making a few simple adjustments on the cockpit controls, Han swerved the