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Han lifted himself up. He shook his head and blinked hard, hoping he was seeing double. Maybe triple.

But the vision was real. A line of stormtroopers emerged from the dark basement and opened fire.

"Han!" Luke shouted into the comlink, starting to panic. "Leia! Han! What's going on?" But the comlink broadcast nothing but shouting and explosions. Luke was certain that amid the chaos, he heard Leia scream.

"Chewie! Come on—we're going in!" Luke cried, already springing into motion. He'd been monitoring the mission from a hidden spot by the freight entrance while Chewbacca waited nearby with the landspeeder, ready to take off at a moment's notice. The Wookiee didn't hesitate.

He threw himself against the door, which gave way like it was made of flimsiplast.

Luke and Chewbacca barreled down the hallway. Luke led the way, the building's twisting corridors engraved in his mind. Not that it was difficult to find their way to the basement; all they had to do was follow the noise. Laserfire pings, shouts, grunts, explosions, and, again, something that sounded terrifyingly like Leia's scream.

They rounded the corner. Stormtrooper bodies littered the corridor. Han and Leia were battling their way through a storm of plastoid armor and laserfire. Smoke billowed through the hallway, giving their faces a gray, sickly pallor. Han aimed his weapon at one of the stormtroopers, but nothing happened. Luke realized he was out of ammo.

"Han, heads up!" he shouted, and without thinking, tossed his blaster over to his friend. Han jumped up and snatched it out of the air, then began firing again before his feet touched the ground.

Chewbacca's bowcaster was of little use in such a cramped space, but the Wookiee didn't hesitate to charge into the fight. He grabbed the stormtrooper closest to Leia and twisted his blaster into a knot with one hand as he slammed the trooper against the wall with the other.

Luke took it all in, even as he tried desperately to disarm the stormtroopers with his lightsaber. Loose grip, firm shoulders, don't lean too hard to the right, he thought, trying to remember all the advice Div had given him. He bent his knees slightly and tried to remember the first form—but was he supposed to parry before thrust, or thrust before parry? A blast of laserfire whizzing past his ear knocked him out of his confusion. Stop trying to be a Jedi warrior, he told himself. Just stay alive. Forgetting about form and technique and strategy, he hacked blindly with the lightsaber, letting the glowing blade guide his hands. The stormtrooper dropped to the ground.

Yes! Luke thought. Then he saw Han standing behind the fallen trooper, a smoking blaster in his hands. "Thanks for the loaner," he said, hoisting it at Luke like he was toasting a glass of lum. "Consider us even."

It was the last of the stormtroopers. But surely more would be on the way. While Leia and Chewbacca covered the corridor, Luke and Han raced down into the records room.

They tore through the files, searching for the garrison blueprints. Finally, Han shouted in triumph. "Got it!" he said, brandishing a data chip. "Let's go."

They ran up the steps. Once at the top, Luke tossed a fragmentation grenade into the records room and slammed the door behind it. A moment later, they heard a muffled explosion. The Imperials would know they'd been here—but they would never know what the Rebels were trying to steal.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway. Their time was up. Luke led the way out of the building, but when they broke through to open air, they stopped cold.

Their landspeeder was gone.

"This way!" Luke shouted, catching sight of a few Imperial scout speeder bikes parked nearby. They raced toward them.

"Stop right there, you Rebel scum!" a stormtrooper shouted.

Laserfire shot past them. Running flat out toward the bikes, Luke twisted around and fired over his shoulder. The stormtrooper dived for cover. A second one had joined him, a blaster rifle in each hand.

Chewbacca reached the speeder bikes first and looked at them dubiously. They were narrow repulsorlift