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Their seats tilted back as the Falcon angled up into the air, its sublight thrusters roaring behind it. The Imperial TIE fighter broke through the sky overhead like a yowling battering ram.

Han Solo looked grim as he gripped the controls. His jaw was set, his shoulders rigid, At the moment he had no way of knowing whether his children were safe, or if this Imperial enemy had killed them both, just as the pilot had tried to blast Lowbacca and Tenel Ka.

Tenel Ka wished she could give him some reassurance, but she knew nothing herself. Still panting with exhaustion from her long run through the jungle, she adjusted the restraints across the reptilian armor on her chest. At her side Em Teedee's thin, warbly voice spoke up. "I beg your pardon, Mistress Tenel Ka, but I can't see a thing! Your crash webbing has blocked my optical sensors."

When Tenel Ka freed the flat, silvery device from its restraints, Em Teedee let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. "Ah, yes, much better.

Now I can see perfectly. Oh, dear!" he said in alarm. "I didn't want you to rescue me from that dreadful jungle just so we could all be blown up chasing that TIE fighter."

Lowbacca grunted and looked over at the small translating droid with obvious surprise and relief.

"This is yours, Lowbacca," Tenel Ka said. "I found it in the jungle." She handed Em Teedee to the young Wookiee, who accepted the little droid gratefully, bleating his thanks.

Han Solo spun the Falcon around in a tight arc, its engines rumbling behind them as they pursued the TIE fighter. "He's coming in on an attack run," Han said. "But he's not firing his weapons for some reason."

Through the cockpit windows, Tenel Ka watched as the TIE fighter she had helped to repair zoomed low over the Great Temple, seemingly bent on destruction-but its laser cannons did not fire.

"I'm going to get his attention, Chewie," Han said. "You open a comm channel. That guy did something to my kids-and I want to find out where they are."

Chewbacca growled and reached with his long hairy arm to toggle a few switches on the Millennium Falcon's control panel.

Han fired two warning shots. Bolts of brilliant light streaked past the squarish planar wings of the Imperial craft-bracketing it, but doing no damage.

"Attention, TIE pilot," Han said. "You're going nowhere if I don't find out where..." He paused."... the two young Jedi Knights are. You're in the middle of my targeting cross, so your choices are simple: surrender, or we blow you out of the sky."

A gruff voice came back over the comm systems. "Surrender is betrayal,"

the pilot said, then broke the connection.

The TIE fighter zoomed upward on an impossibly steep trajectory, climbing into the air above the dense green treetops. Then the Imperial ship wheeled about in an evasive maneuver.

"All right," Han said, his anger evident. "This old ship has taken on plenty of TIE fighters in its day. We can take on one more. Punch it, Chewie."

The Falcon lunged forward in another burst of speed as Chewbacca worked the controls.

Em Teedee wailed, "Oh, no! I can't watch. Somebody cover my optical sensors."

Han spared a second to glance back at the droid, and found Lowbacca cradling Em Teedee in his lap. "Just like having See-Threepio with us again. I think we may have to adjust that programming."

"Oh, dear," Em Teedee said.

In the back Lowbacca grumbled a suggestion, which his uncle seconded loudly.

"Good idea," Han said. "Let's try the tractor beam first. Maybe-just maybe-we can bring that ship to the ground without de stroying it. That way we can get some information. If we say 'Please,' he might be a little more cooperative."

Chewbacca worked the Falcon's tractor beam generator, casting out the invisible beam like a force-field net to grab the Imperial ship.

The TIE fighter lurched and jerked to one side as the tractor beam snagged a partial hold-but the pilot alternated bursts from his twin ion engines and tore free, spinning upward in a tight corkscrew that made Han whistle with reluctant admiration.

"This guy's good," he said.