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By Root 654 0

The Falcon was going down. Both Han and Chewbacca fought to keep a steady downward course that would not burn them up in the insubstantial atmosphere.

Kessel’s main defensive fleet swept into orbit and prepared for an orderly descent. One sleek, insectile ship, which Han recognized as a black-market-built Hornet Interceptor, peeled off, streaking downward in the Falcon’s backdraft.

Chewbacca saw it first. The ship, aerodynamically perfect, slid through the atmosphere like a vibroblade, ignoring the heat generated on its hull. The ship fired surgical strikes of turbolasers at the Falcon’s maneuvering jets, disabling them further.

“We’re already crashing!” Han bellowed. “What more do they want?” But he knew: they wanted the Falcon to be destroyed on impact, all occupants erased. Han suspected he didn’t need any help from the Hornet Interceptor.

As they plunged downward, the Falcon approached one of the giant atmosphere factories, a huge smokestack mounted on the surface of Kessel, where immense engines catalyzed the rock and cooked out gases into a cyclone of breathable air.

The Hornet Interceptor fired again. The Falcon lurched from a near miss. Chewbacca’s face was grim. His fangs showed as he concentrated on keeping them alive.

“Chewie, pull as close to the plume as you can. I’ve got an idea.” Chewbacca yowled, but Han cut him off. “Just do it, buddy!”

When the Hornet tried to outflank them, Han swept the ship aside as the towering plume of atmosphere boiled into the sky. The Hornet Interceptor tried to second-guess his move, but Han lurched sideways again, driving the Hornet into the roaring upward flow of wind.

An aileron strut in the delicate insectile wing snapped off, and the Hornet spun into the cyclone. Other parts of its hull broke apart as the ship tried to escape but lurched deeper into the danger zone. Han gave a cry of triumph as the ship exploded into flames that were pulled to tatters by the atmosphere factory’s vortex.

Then the surface of Kessel rushed up at them like a gigantic hammer.

Han fought with the controls. “At least we’ll have a soft landing with the new repulsorlifts we installed,” he said.

He grabbed at the panel, priming the controls. Chewbacca barked at him to hurry. Han activated the repulsorlifts as he simultaneously heaved a sigh of relief.

Nothing.

“What?” He slammed his fingers on the switch again and again, but the repulsorlifts refused to operate. “I just had those fixed!”

Han yelled above the noise of screaming wind as he fought to bring the Falcon under some semblance of control. “Okay, Chewie, I am definitely open for suggestions!”

But Chewbacca had no time to answer before the ship crashed into the rugged surface of Kessel.

2

The towers of Imperial City rose to the sky, high above the shadowed surface of the planet Coruscant. The cornerstones of the towers had been in place for more than a thousand generations, dating back to the formative days of the Old Republic. Over the millennia higher and higher structures had been built on top of the ruined foundations.

Luke Skywalker stepped onto a shuttle-landing platform that jutted out from the scarred, monolithic face of the former Imperial Palace. Gusts of wind whipped around him, and he pulled back the hood of his Jedi robe.

He looked into the sky, pondering the thin layer of atmosphere that protected Coruscant from space beyond. Wrecked ships still rode in haphazard orbits, debris from the vicious battles when the Alliance had recently recaptured the planet from Imperial control during civil war in the remnants of the Empire.

Higher than the tops of the towers, kitelike hawk-bats rode thermal currents rising from the canyons of the city. As he watched, one hawk-bat swooped down, down, into the dark crevasses between ancient buildings, finally emerging a moment later with something cylindrical and dripping—a granite slug, perhaps—in its claws.

Luke bided his time, using a Jedi meditation technique to quell the anxiety inside him. As a younger man he had been fidgety and impatient, filled with uncertainty.