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'Look!' Lando exclaimed, indicating a figure plunging in the distance. 'Someone's falling ...'

Leia managed to remain calm; she knew that panic now would doom them all. 'Get under him, Chewie,' she told the pilot. 'It's Luke.'

Chewbacca immediately responded and carefully eased the Millennium Falcon on a descent trajectory.

'Lando,' Leia called, turning to him, 'open the top hatch.'

As he rushed out of the cockpit, Lando thought it a strategy worthy of Solo himself.

Chewbacca and Leia could see Luke's plunging body more clearly, and the Wookiee guided the ship toward him. As Chewie retarded the ship's speed drastically, the plummeting form skimmed the windscreen and then landed with a thud against the outer hull.

Lando opened the upper hatch. In the distance he glimpsed the three TIE fighters approaching the Falcon, their laser guns brightening the twilight sky with streaks of hot destruction. Lando stretched his body out of the hatch and reached to grasp the battered warrior and pull him inside the ship. Just then the Falcon lurched as a bolt exploded near it, and almost threw Luke's body overboard. But Lando caught his hand and held on tightly.

The Millennium Falcon veered away from Cloud City and soared through the thick billowing cloud cover. Swerving to avoid the blinding flak from the TIE fighters, Princess Leia and the Wookiee pilot struggled to keep their ship skyborne. But explosions burst all around the cockpit, the din competing with Chewbacca's howl as he frantically worked the controls.

Leia switched on the intercom. 'Lando, is he all right?' she shouted over the noise in the cockpit. 'Lando, do you hear me?'

From the rear of the cockpit, she heard a voice that wasn't Lando's. 'He'll survive,' Luke replied faintly.

Leia and Chewbacca turned to see Luke, battered and bloodied and wrapped in a blanket, being helped into the cockpit by Lando. The princess jumped up from her chair and hugged him ecstatically. Chewbacca, still trying to guide the ship out of the TIE fighters' range of fire, threw back his head and barked in jubilation.

Behind the Millennium Falcon, the planet of clouds was receding farther in the distance. But the TIE fighters kept up their close pursuit, firing their laser weapons and rocking the pirate craft with each on-target hit.

Working diligently in the Falcon's hold, Artoo Detoo struggled against the constant lunging and tossing to reassemble his golden friend. Meticulously trying to undo the mistakes of the well-intentioned Wookiee, the little droid beeped as he performed the intricate task.

'Very good,' the protocol droid praised. His head was on properly and his second arm was nearly completely reattached. 'Good as new.'

Artoo beeped apprehensively.

'No, Artoo, don't worry. I'm sure we'll make it this time.'

But in the cockpit, Lando was not so optimistic. He saw the warning lights on the control panel begin to flash; suddenly alarms all over the ship went on. 'The deflector shields are going,' he reported to Leia and Chewbacca.

Leia looked over Lando's shoulder and noticed another blip, ominously large, that had appeared on the radarscope. 'There's another ship,' she said, 'much bigger, trying to cut us off.'

Luke quietly gazed out the cockpit window toward the starry void. Almost to himself, he said, 'It's Vader.'

Admiral Piett approached Vader, who stood on the bridge of this, the greatest of all Imperial Star Destroyers, and stared out the windows.

'They'll be in range of the tractor beam in moments,' the admiral reported confidently.

'And their hyperdrive has been deactivated?' Vader asked.

'Right after they were captured, sir.'

'Good,' the giant black-robed figure said. 'Prepare for the boarding and set your weapons for stun.'

The Millennium Falcon so far had managed to evade its TIE fighter pursuers. But could it escape attack from the ominous Star Destroyer that pressed toward it, ever closer?

'We don't have any room for mistakes,' Leia said tensely, watching the large blip on the monitors.

'If my men said