The Battle of Endor

[Moff]

Space beyond the transparisteel window was a grim, nearly-featureless black. Glare from the nearby moon snuffed out the light of many of the sparsely-sewn stars this deep into the Outer Rim. Eyes of ice blue stared into the frigid dark, the face expressionless, the mind forcibly kept blank. The man standing before the viewport dared not relax his guard, dared not surrender to emotion. Too much was at stake.

But the Emperor's mocking words still echoed through Luke Skywalker's mind. The Alliance's master stroke, its chance to restore the Republic and the freedom and liberty it stood for, had been Palpatine's plan all along. A grand, elaborate trap set by a master deceiver. A trap that would spell the end of Luke's friends, comrades, and all that they had fought for. Suffered for. Bled for. Died for.

Icy tendrils of fear, rage, and hate scraped against the walls he'd erected around his mind and heart. He could feel Palpatine's casual, almost apathetic attempts to piece the veil, to sample the seething turmoil that roiled within Skywalker. He could feel the vicious amusement, like a child burning an insect under focused sunlight, streaming off of the Emperor. It was just another cruel game, to him, with the rules crafted to ensure Palpatine won no matter what transpired.

Amid the endless dark, a glimmer of reflected sun caught Luke's eye. Streaks of light flashed into being, collapsing to points that blended with the spare starscape. They're here.

Moments passed, the glints growing brighter and larger. Another few seconds, Luke knew, and the fleet would blunder into the impenetrable shield. And the shield would incinerate a full-sized Mon Calamari cruiser as easily as a snubfighter. He wanted to scream to them, warn them off. Of course, that would do nothing but waste breath and amuse the Emperor.

Luke felt the hate boil within him. And yet the specks grew closer, blossoming from formless flecks of diamond dust to recognizable spacecraft.



“How could they be jamming us if they don't know we...” General Lando Calrissian trailed off as ice formed in his gut and shot up his spine. He turned away from his Sullustan copilot to the partially-constructed battle station that filled the cockpit viewport. His mouth went dry, his thoughts raced as he heard himself mutter despondently, “...we're coming.”

Precious seconds passed as the Millennium Falcon, her fighter wing, and the vast bulk of all extant Alliance naval forces in the Galaxy barreled toward the station. Then Lando snapped out of his near-catatonia and punched the intercom. “The shield is still up!”

Red Group's lead, Wedge Antilles piped up, “I get no reading, are you sure?”

“Pull up! All craft, pull up!” Lando called, already yanking the bulky freighter into a steep banking turn.



Captain Verrack, staff tactical officer to Admiral Gial Ackbar on the Mon Calamari cruiser Home One, watched as the Death Star loomed closer to his ship, dwarfing the massive command ship. Meanwhile, on the command deck, Ackbar barked, “Take evasive action!”

The massive battlecruiser veered to starboard fast enough that Verrack's stomach clenched despite the acceleration compensators. Ackbar continued, “Green Group! Stick close to holding sector MV7!”

Verrack's console beeped. Transponder signals began to fill the area around the planet... none friendly. An instant later, a gravity well appeared in the hyperlane behind the Rebel fleet. And another... and another. The tactical display was soon ringed with artificial gravity wells, while the Imperial signals moved to a holding point that would cut off any attempt to hide behind the planet? But why?

“Admiral, we have enemy ships in Sector Forty-seven!” Verrack reported.

Even as the words left his mouth, the captain tried to piece together the flood of information. He heard the admiral shout, but was too engrossed in his work to pay any heed. There had to be a way to salvage the battle. There just had to be.



Luke's heart sank as the ominous forms of Imperial starships crawled across the darkness, pinning the Rebel fleet against the battlestation. He could make out the Executor with painful clarity. There were other large ships, as well, though the young Rebel couldn't readily identify them. And swarming about were the ubiquitous Imperial-class Star Destroyers.

“Come, boy. See for yourself.” Palpatine's tone was firm and matter-of-fact, like a teacher putting on a demonstration for a reluctant pupil.

Skywalker made his way closer to the window, tracking the Imperials' progress. He watched the dazzling flashes of light that glittered between the two fleets and among the Rebel cruisers. Luke had been in too many battles to mistake the telltales of exploding starfighters. The Rebel fleet had been spared a quick and ignominious death against the shields of the station for a slow, brutal grinding down by the guns of Imperial task force. And Luke would be forced to watch every second of the massacre.

“From here, you will witness the final destruction of the Alliance and the end of your insignificant rebellion,” Palpatine gloated. Luke wondered if his control had slipped and the Emperor had read his mind, or if the monologue just happened to mesh perfectly with the dark turn his thoughts had taken. He turned toward the wizened husk, staring, for a moment, into the yellow eyes that seemed to bore through him.

But his gaze was pulled downward, to the gleaming weapon at the Emperor's side. Fleeting urges became ideas in Luke's mind... and in his heart. Could he save his friends if he...?

Palpatine's voice was husky, seductive. “You want this, don't you?” He patted the weapon, caressed it. “The hate is swelling in you now. Take your Jedi weapon. Use it; I am unarmed. Strike me down with it.

“Give in to your anger.

“With each passing moment you make yourself more my servant,” the husk snarled.

Luke turned away, trying to quell his anger and hatred. He became aware of his labored breathing as he tried to calm himself. When he could trust himself sufficiently to face the Emperor again, he turned back. “No.”

Palpatine was unfazed. “It is unavoidable. You, like your father, are now mine.”

Another column of ice chased Luke's spine.



“Artoo, are you sure this was a good idea?”

Before the astromech could reply, See-Threepio found himself staring down the barrel of a BlasTech E-11 rifle. “Freeze,” snapped the stormtrooper bearing the weapon. “Don't move.”

“We surrender!” The golden protocol shouted as if by reflex.

It was over. It was all over. Captain Solo, Mistress Leia, Chewbacca, and the rest of the commando team were disarmed and surrounded by Imperial troops. The shield was still up, and if his internal chronometer was accurate (which, of course, it was), the Alliance fleet had surely arrived. Perhaps they could get away, but that would abandon the strike team to their fate.

Threepio spent a few million processing cycles pondering how they might be dispatched. He and Artoo would surely have their memory banks downloaded and dissected if they were shut down before they could flash their cores. Then they'd most surely be smashed to bits, ground to dust, and used to build some dreadful new component in the Imperial war machine.

He reviewed his last twenty-three years of service, with the late Royal House of Alderaan, his adventures with Artoo, the difficult early years of the Alliance, the battle over a desert world that Threepio was still convinced he'd never heard of before but his innermost circuits insisted was familiar... meeting Master Luke and the grand adventures that followed from there, the bitter cold and terror on Hoth and in the dreadful asteroid belt, his temporary destruction at the hands of that absolutely horrid Stormtrooper on Bespin and his friends' frantic escape, the nasty business with Prince Xizor, and then Master Luke's seemingly callous “gift” of the droids (Threepio understood it was part of a greater plan now, but why couldn't Master Luke have been honest with him beforehand?) to that vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. All of the suffering, all of the damage to his mechanisms and circuits, all of the comrades organic and synthetic lost to the war... all of it for nothing. And their noble struggle against tyranny and oppression would end on this green planet that Threepio just knew had to be home to robot-eating beasts.

The droid reverted his processing power back to his real time sensory inputs. The Stormtroopers loomed, gleaming rifles at the ready. An ugly thought, counter to all of See-Threepio's moral and ethical subroutines, floated up through the binary mists. If he could overload his power cells while disconnecting his memory core's internal safeguards, not only could he ensure that the Empire could never use his memories and knowledge against the remains of the Alliance, but perhaps the subsequent explosion might dispatch the Imperial soldiers in the immediate vicinity. And, in the resulting confusion, perhaps their trapped comrades could escape?

The sharp sound of a charging lever being jacked entered Threepio's auditory sensors. Mere seconds after his surrender, the end would come. He'd have no time to rig his mechanisms (and part of his programming sternly chided him for thinking up such a dreadful scheme). But he could erase the bulk of his memory files. It would just take a moment to access the root direc—

A shrill cry split the air, and a heaving mass of muscle and fur pounced on the Stormtroopers from behind. Obsidian knives flashed in fuzzy paws, slicing through polymer body glove and flesh below. Without having to verbally direct Artoo, Threepio led the pair out of the fray and to the cover of a nearby tree.

He watched momentarily as a struggling, downed Stormtrooper from the group that was about to destroy him was rolled onto his back and an Ewok pounced on his chest. The stone knife in the native's hand rose high, and the protocol droid averted his gaze. A moment later, he wished he'd shut off his audio receptors as well as the felled trooper's gurgled death cries assaulted them in all of its horrid high-definition digital quality.



What the hell? First Lieutenant Ferus Arnet was standing on the commander's perch in the cockpit of Tempest Scout 1. He squinted off to the where a detachment of Stormtroopers had gone to apprehend more Rebels, droids or something. Then there had been some kind of inhuman wailing, and something jumped out of the trees. After a moment, he recognized the squat forms of the planet's abos. Intel reports said they were no threat and would be scared off by the seemingly magical gear of the garrison.

Well, they're not karking scared now. Of all times for the damned abos to find their spines. He glanced down at the Rebel prisoners, still securely cordoned by Imperial troops. Most were clad in green camouflage smocks and ponchos, but a few had more distinctive attire. He knew they were the ringleaders: the smuggler Solo and his familiar, the walking carpet. He was looking forward to their execution; he'd known some of the scouts the Rebel scum had killed in their early forays on the planet. Arnet knew it was all part of the Emperor's plan to draw the terrorists in and wipe them all out, but that didn't mean he had to like it when these neo-Separatists murdered loyalists.

Of course, he wouldn't have minded delaying the execution of the petite, brown-haired woman in the midst of the troops. Not until he and every man in his platoon had the chance to entertain her, at least. What a beauty. Too bad she lacks the brains to match.

Perhaps Lieutenant Renz could be bargained with... no doubt in exchange for being at the head of the line. Yes, perhaps that would work.

An ugly leer twisted Arnet's lips as he stared at Organa, imagining and anticipating his chance with the prisoner. After all, Alderaanian princesses were something of a rare commodity after Tarkin's escapades.

Just as he began to slip into reverie about how he'd teach the Rebel bitch a few lessons in humility, another sound echoed from the forest. His minded clouded by the irritation of interrupted fantasy, it took Arnet a moment to place the source: native horns. But music? No, that made no sense—

A signal! The lieutenant started to raise his hand to his helmet comlink. With every centimeter his hand moved, the more abos, arrows, and rocks seemed to fly from the forest and into the security cordon. Screams filtered up from the ground and over his earpiece as troopers, scouts, and officers alike crumpled to the forest floor.

Then the Rebels made their move. Solo grappled a trooper, dashing him to the ground. Arnet nudged the gunner with his foot. He would not let the Rebels get away; he'd burn them to the ground himself.

The Wookiee hurled two more Stormtroopers into each other. And then Arnet's eyes fell on his future prize. The Alderaanian slut wrestled with one officer, seemingly pulling something away from him. She knocked him down, then planted her boot firmly on his face. The flash of metal in her hand revealed what she'd captured: a pistol!

“Get the guns on them!” The lieutenant began to shout as he watched Leia Organa's gun arm come up. His gaze locked with hers. He saw death in her brown eyes. The pistol's muzzle rose smoothly, with the grace of a trained gunslinger. Determination and hate formed a steel mask on the woman's face, in that instant, more terrible than Lord Vader's own gruesome facade. The muzzle flashed.

A fraction of a second later, Arnet cried out as he felt his chest explode in white-hot agony. The hard rim of the walker hatch slammed into his back, and the lieutenant made a soft gurgle as the impact jostled what remained of his chest cavity and throat. Darkness closed in as he stared up at the forest sky, seeing not the tree limbs or soft white clouds, but the bared teeth and blazing eyes of the snarling princess rampant.

Inside of Tempest Scout 1, the gunner only heard his commander yell, “Get—” before crying out. He dragged Arnet's body back in, but the lieutenant's wide, fixed stare and the smoldering hole through both sides of his combat overalls made it readily apparent that there would be no clarification. And as the fighting on the ground further intermingled loyalist, traitor, and abo forces, he didn't dare open up without orders from higher authority.



Moff Tiaan Jerjerrod scowled at the com grille. “What do you mean, 'The natives are revolting'?”

There was a burst of static before a tinny voice uneasily replied. “We had captured the Rebels as per the Emperor's orders. There was minor resistance; Colonel Dyer was wounded and is missing. But once we had them outside the bunker...” Major Hewex's voice paused. “A detachment of troopers were sent to detain a couple of droids--”

“'Droids'?” Jerjerrod repeated in disbelief. The Rebels had brought droids? Images of old Confederate destroyer droids spraying fire into the Imperial troops and officers guarding the terrorist captives danced in his brain. Obviously, they'd have been no match against Tempest Force's vehicles; the walkers could dispatch them with almost contemptuous ease. But the casualties if the scout walkers were facing the wrong way...

“According to reports before the attack, an astromech and a protocol droid. When we attempted to capture them--”

The moff's nostrils flared at the word attempted. He hissed, “You failed to capture an interpreter droid?”

“Our troops were attacked by natives. They were highly organized and in numbers, sir. Moments after they ambushed the capture squad, they began attacking remainder of the detachment. Casualties are moderate... and the Rebels broke free.”

Jerjerrod slammed his gloved fist down on the duraplast control panel. The Emperor's Finest, indeed! Obviously, the best troops in the Empire—Vader's own 501st Legion—had been rotated off the line after their glorious victory at Hoth. Officially, they were on extended leave until the unit could be fully reconstituted, though rumors abounded that they had been sent to the Deep Core strongholds, or assigned to the mysterious Grand Admiral Thrawn. The moff didn't know; his purview was the partially-built battlestation that the Rebel slime had foolishly thought they could besiege. His control room was deep within the station, and with very few of the external cameras installed, he had no visual guide to the battle over the Sanctuary Moon. But his tactical display in the holotank more than sufficed, showing the brilliant green cloud of the Imperial task force, the shimmering emerald globe of the Death Star, and the angry red fireflies of the enemy forces trapped between them. But most heartening was the golden cone projecting from the sphere's northern surface into the Rebel swarm. It was almost enough to make him forget the blundering of Tempest Force.

“I see,” he replied with a neutrality of tone that shocked him. “Have you begun a counterattack?”

“Yes, sir. Armored units report excellent penetration of enemy lines; they're routing the abos. However, the infantry units are reporting heavy fighting and serious casualties. We're losing squads at a time to ambushes.”

Any positive feelings stemming from watching the hated Rebellion crushed in the Emperor's vise fled. How could a pack of wild savages, barely a meter tall and using stone tools and weapons, possibly cause this much trouble for the Empire's Stormtroopers, armed and armored with the best equipment and given the best training in the Galaxy at Carida? Entire squads—nine men apiece—being destroyed by creatures less threatening than his niece's Nazzar dolls?

Preposterous. Unthinkable! Ludicrous!

“Furthermore, the Rebels have gathered outside of the bunker,” Hewex continued, unaware of Jerjerrod's mounting rage. And it was then that the credit chit dropped for the moff.

“You've let them congregate outside of the bunker?! Recall your forces!”

“We have Stormtroopers holding them at bay, as well as the internal security contingent. We have also changed the code to the blast doors. Any attempts to slice them will fail,” Hewex responded firmly.



Had C-3PO a jaw instead of a vocoder, it would have dropped at the insanity Artoo was spouting. “Going? What do you mean, you're going?”

The astromech replied with a flurry of beeps and whistles. Threepio was not satisfied. “Going where, Artoo?” But the smaller droid simply rolled off across the forest floor, toward the bunker.

Why would he ever want to go there? That was where the fighting was! They had just barely survived their last brush with the Stormtroopers, and though Artoo seemed blissfully unaware it, Threepio was quite certain their reflective plating would most assuredly draw fire from the comrades of their would-be captors.

“No, wait! Artoo!” Threepio shouted. Artoo paid him no heed, dashing into the fray. Grudgingly, the protcol droid began to chase after his diminutive companion, hoping to reason with him before they were both blasted to molten slag. “This is no time for heroics! Come back!”



Commander Daegon Merrejk strode confidently toward the front of the Executor's bridge. He overheard murmured reports from the fighter controller as he solemnly conferred with General Meekus, the officer in overall command of the task force's fighter detachments.

“Still no progress on their medical frigate?” Meekus was saying.

“No, sir. Flight Gamma 9.2 was just destroyed; they reported the freighter engaged them just before contact was lost.”

Merrejk suppressed a snort of contempt. Fighters had their uses, of course; he wasn't that short-sighted. Reconnaissance and screening capital ships against bombers were ideal uses; the former could certainly be done by light cruisers and frigates, but there were just never enough of them; and the Imperial Navy's one attempt to remedy the problem of enemy ships bringing torpedoes to bear had been the dismally ineffective Lancer frigate. While its twenty quadlasers could put out a stunning fusillade, they were overmanned, too slow to keep pace with even a Victory I, and utterly helpless against any other capital ships. TIE Fighters were faster, more maneuverable, and much less expensive than the Rebel snubfighters. Their one tactical weakness was their fragility, which was handily offset by their low cost and swarming numbers.

But dashing the fighters and the new interceptors against the capital ships of the Rebel fleet? Ridiculous. That's what the TIE Bombers were for. And the Avengers, and even the Defenders. Even the Rebels had the sense to arm their attack fighters with heavy ordnance, though Merrejk would never openly admit that grudging concession... least of all within earshot of the man he passed on his way to Admiral Piett. Sergeant Vandolay, the ISB snitch in the bridge crew, glanced briefly at Merrejk from the crew pit as the senior officer passed.

Only the fools at Security would allow some mere enlisted man to look on an officer with anything other than awe, fumed the commander. Not that he held anything against the man's ideology; Merrejk himself had fond memories of his days in the SubAdult Group, another branch of ISB's parent organization, COMPNOR. He understood the need for Security's agents; he just wished their zeal was more appropriately focused. For example, why wasn't someone like Vandolay posted to the traitor Zaarin's forces? That would've nipped the problem in the bud quickly but instead, the idiot was actively searching for traitors and fifth columnists on Lord Vader's personal flagship!

But at any rate, only the laser-armed fighters and interceptors had been launched with orders to take down the Rebel fighters, scout the enemy formation, and fire on targets of opportunity. The first two made sense, but the last one only worked if there were targets of opportunity. Capital ships with full shields did not qualify for anyone with a functional mind and a respect for the power of modern naval vessels.

The commander stopped at the end of the command walkway. Before him stood Admiral Piett and Captain Gherant, task force commander and flag captain, respectively. Piett wore his captain's insignia; despite being in command of the fleet, he was technically outranked by the presence of Grand Admiral Teshik on the Star Destroyer Eleemosynary, and Grand Admirals Declann, Takel, and Makati on the Death Star itself. So, protocol demanded he wear the insignia of his permanent rank; indeed, there were very few officers who held permanent commissions in the flag grades. Merrejk supposed he might be rather rankled in Piett's place, but since the man only received his rank at the whim of Lord Vader—and the execution of his predecessor—it really couldn't be said he'd earned it on his own merits.

“We're in attack position now, sir,” the commander reported.

“Hold here,” Piett responded.

Gherant turned toward the defrocked admiral. “We're not going to attack?”

“I have my orders from the Emperor himself,” Piett replied cryptically. “He has something special planned for them; we only need to keep them from escaping.”



Brilliant flashes speckled the blackness between the stars. Luke felt the men and women that had—for a brief instant of searing agony—been at the centers of those flashes fall away. The rate was slow, but the Rebel fleet was being ground down under the heel of the Imperial fleet. Unless the shield came down, the Rebellion would die before his very eyes.

And yet, he sensed something darker still on the horizon. But how could the situation get worse?

“As you can see, my young apprentice,” the Emperor rasped with glee, “your friends have failed.”

The darkness suddenly surged around Luke, bubbling about around him and smothering him. A sick smile split the Emperor's lips, baring his decayed teeth. “Now witness the firepower of this fully-armed and operational battlestation!”

The wizened husk turned toward the controls on his chair's arm. He depressed a button with a bone-like click. “Fire at will, Commander!”

Ten seconds were all it took from the Emperor withdrawing a bony finger from the com switch to a radiant bolt of death carving into the Rebel fleet. Luke shut himself away from his senses, but it wasn't enough to shield the terror and sudden silence of nearly seven thousand souls.



“Confirm origin!” Ackbar snapped.

Verrack's shaking hands touched his controls, checking once more the readings that he'd triple-checked from the initial power spike. There could be no doubt.

The Death Star was fully operational and the spray of embers that had once been several million tonnes of the cruiser Liberty belied their intelligence that the station only had defensive mechanisms. “Origin confirmed, Admiral,” Verrack husked. “It could have only come from the Death Star.”

It all made sense now. The Imperial fleet outmassed and outgunned the Rebels by a margin even the most timid Imperial admiral would be comfortable with. But the heavies hadn't engaged, only sending waves of fighters on mostly ineffective sorties. The interdiction fields, as well, were now explained. The fleet and the gravity wells were the anvil against which the Death Star's hammer would crush the Rebellion.

They were trapped at sublight and prevented from escaping to hyperspace. If the fleet attempted to push through the Interdictor ring, the Imperial fleet could overhaul them and tear them apart even without the Death Star picking off ships. Even if they attempted to move out of the line-of-sight of the laser by maneuvering on a perpendicular course to their current formation, the Imperial fleet could still pin them and cut them down. And if they split up, it was possible some might get beyond the interdiction field—statistically, anyway—but thousands upon thousands would die, as would any chance of the Rebellion continuing in earnest.

“Home One, this is Gold Leader.” General Calrissian's voice crackled on the flag channel.

“We saw it,” Ackbar remarked bluntly, not bothering with the pleasantries of protocol. “All craft prepare to retreat.”

Verrack quickly began running the numbers on how to split up the fleet to allow for the most survivors.

“We won't get another chance at this, Admiral.”

“We have no choice, General Calrissian,” the Mon Calamari stated emphatically. “Our cruisers can't repel firepower of that magnitude!”

Calrissian snapped back, “Han will have that shield down; we've gotta give him more time!”

For a moment, Verrack admired the human capacity for optimism. Then he returned to his grim calculus, pausing only to grimace a moment later when the Death Star fired again, wiping away the Freedom, a sister ship to Home One herself... and a sorely-needed source of firepower that was now being scattered to the fringes of the solar system by the stellar winds.

There was more back and forth between Ackbar and Calrissian, rising in volume and pique. The unfortunate captain found it increasingly difficult to focus on his task. Nevertheless, he was still making progress: each simulation was giving slightly higher percentages of escapes. He quickly plotted out another series of courses with another series of formations to protect the ones that didn't make it out in the last simulation. Perhaps the Alliance would survive—

“Repeat last transmission, General!”

“Closer! Move in closer!”

Verrack looked up to see Ackbar gape for a moment, then stab his comm in frustration. “Did you say 'closer'?”

“Yes, I said closer! Move as close as you can, and engage those Star Destroyers at point-blank range!”

Verrack felt his own mouth open in shock at Calrissian's mad plan. The bulk of the Alliance's heavy forces were made up of MC80 Star Cruisers, outfitted similarly to the Liberty. Some had different hull designs, due to each Mon Calamari ship being the product of artisans and craftsmen, but while true standardization was impossible on the Alliance's resources, Ackbar had made sure to tactically standardize the ships in his battle line so they could operate as a unified force.

Even then, there were enough Imperial-class Star Destroyers to outgun every heavy capital ship the Rebels had with them. And the Imperial fleet also included an Executor, two battlecruisers, and three Tector-class ships.

“At that close range, we won't last long against the Star Destroyers,” argued Ackbar.

“We'll last longer than we will against that Death Star! And we might just take a few of them with us!”

Ackbar closed his eyes for a moment in what appeared to be contemplation. When they opened, he keyed his command channel. “All ships; come about and accelerate to attack speed. Engage those Star Destroyers at point-blank range.”

Verrack gaped. This was madness! “Admiral, we cannot engage the enemy fleet directly! They're too powerful!”

The admiral regarded his tactical officer gravely. “You are correct, Captain. We have no chance to defeat them, even if the Death Star were to fire into its own ships. But we can buy time for the ground team to bring down the shield. We only need to hold out until then.”

“And if the ground team fails?” Verrack regretted uttering the thought the moment it had left his mouth.

But Ackbar's gaze never wavered. “Then we've lost anyway. Our objective is that station: all else, including survival, is secondary. Everything we are doing up here is a delaying action.”

The captain winced... because Ackbar was absolutely correct. With the firepower that the fleet had, the Death Star's shield was impenetrable. And why did they come here, why did so many already die... just to run away? While the odds of defeating the Imperial fleet conventionally were as unpleasantly close to zero as a cruel and uncaring universe ruled by mathematical probability would allow, the odds of bringing down this second Death Star if it were completed were still less. The Alliance's guerilla war would be impossible; there would be no safe harbor from the Imperial storm. They would be hunted down, and picked off, while sheer self-preservation pushed numerous worlds into at least grudging support of the regime. The Alliance could not win conventionally, strength to strength, whether galactically or even in this battle. Each Imperial Star Destroyer could easily take down two MC80 cruisers before succumbing. The Super Star Destroyer at the center of the Imperial formation had as many defensive guns as there were fighters in the Alliance fleet; it could casually swat them from the sky until there was no way to attack the Death Star's reactor.

The only choice was to draw fire, from both the TIEs and Star Destroyers, away from the Alliance snubs. And, loathe though he was to agree with the human, Calrissian did have a point that intermingling with the Imperials might give pause to the Death Star's gunnery crew. At least they're not droids or even that wouldn't work. Verrack's gaze lifted once more to meet Ackbar's eyes. The words were bitter ash as he nodded and conceded, “I understand, sir.”

Crushed and hollow, the tactical officer returned to his plot and began entering entirely new calculations. Yet, in the smoking wreckage where hope had been, the embers rekindled into a deadly new purpose. He began sizing up the nearest Star Destroyer to the Home One and her closest escorts.



The short-lived flashes of starfire beyond the viewport intensified as Luke watched the ships of the Alliance fleet move closer to their foe. Flickers in the Force, brief spikes of pain and terror followed by terrible silence as combatants perished in the eternal night.

“Your fleet is lost,” came the mockingly calm voice from behind. “And your friends on the Endor moon,” Palpatine continued, finally drawing a glance from Luke, “will not survive.”

Skywalker immediately turned away, back to the viewport. He could sense the desperation... pain... No. He locked away his feelings, buried them deep even as his heart ached for the wanton suffering and slaughter he felt from the planet below and the fleet above. He hid them away from the icy darkness that surrounded him; a black, freezing ocean that sapped his strength and his will with every passing second.

He had indeed underestimated the Emperor and the Dark Side.

“There is no escape, my young apprentice,” the wizened husk stated bluntly, matter-of-factly. Luke turned back toward him with that final epithet. He looked to his father, ebony armor gleaming in the cold light. Vader said nothing, only lowering his helmet slightly to look back at Luke.

“The Alliance will die,” the Emperor continued, as if he were discussing a weather forecast, “as will your friends.”

Anger burned inside Luke again. He became aware that he was breathing harder, faster, each push from the Emperor's word's fanning the flames within. He tried to clamp down on the flames, but instead found his gaze drawn to the cylinder at Palpatine's side.

“Good,” the ancient creature purred, his eyes shut in rapturous glee. “I can feel your anger.”

The young Jedi chastised himself, averted his gaze. But Palpatine refused to let up. “I am defenseless,” he hissed in an almost conspiratorial whisper. “Take your weapon.

“Strike me down with all of your hatred,” the whisper had become a snarl, “and your journey toward the Dark Side will be complete!”

Luke mulled it over before forcing himself to turn away. I will not give in... I will notgive in!

But as his eyes fell upon the burning skies over Endor, he began to falter. Everything had indeed gone as the Emperor foresaw. There was no escape for the Alliance fleet, and if his friends hadn't accomplished their mission by now, every second that passed made it increasingly likely they wouldn't. And was not the goal of this mission not just the elimination of another Death Star, but the elimination of the man who sat not two meters from Luke? This war, the deaths of his friends... all of it could be ended in a second!

Within, a warning voice cried out. But it would be so easy... and everything would be better! To end so vile and evil a being, was that not what he had been trained to do? Was that not what Ben and Yoda wanted?

Beware anger and hated. The dark path...

...But what light is there if the Alliance dies?

In an instant, it was decided. Luke pivoted. Vader's hand went to his belt. The lightsaber crafted in Ben Kenobi's hut spun end over end into a black-gloved hand. Blades of emerald and crimson flame flared into being, then crashed together as Palpatine laughed.

Luke stared at the glowing blade that blocked his own, then back up the arm that held it, to the grotesque mask of the man who would dare stop him in his righteous quest. But Vader had always been there to thwart him, hadn't he? It was Vader's minions that killed the only family he'd ever known over a pair of droids, Vader himself who murdered first Luke's mentor on the first Death Star and then his best friend over it. Vader who tortured Leia, who tortured Han and then froze him in carbonite to be shipped off to Jabba the Hutt as a trophy.

It was Vader who took his hand. Vader who shattered his world, twisted the man Luke had always wanted to know into the avatar of absolute evil.

And now Vader had delivered him before the Emperor, where Luke could finally put an end to the evil that plagued the universe... only to stop him? Was it some kind of sick joke? A mind game the Sith Lord thought he was playing?

Rage at the loss and pain the black-clad monster before him had perpetrated, not just on Luke himself, but on every person in the Galaxy that had been wronged by the Dark Lord, refocused Luke's anger. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl, and he swung his blade away from Vader's, clearing it for action.

Vader pulled his blade to a defensive posture, side-stepping away from his master. Luke coiled, dropping his blade low and to the left before unwinding and turning his blade almost vertically as he came up through. The Dark Lord caught the attack on the tip of his crimson sword, then swept down to his left. Luke dropped his blade down into a horizontal swing to block. He used the momentum of the impact to carry his blade through in a clockwise sweep, parrying a vertical cut.

The two swordsmen recoiled, with Vader first to recover. He made a high slashing attack to his right, forcing Skywalker to catch it in an awkward high-left block that made him dangerously unbalanced. Vader feinted before going for a low clockwise slash, but Luke saw through it and brought his blade down and around to counter, regaining his balance. Following through his parry, Skywalker went high and made a sharp, vertical chop. Both men locked blades for a moment, filling the air with the squeal of straining energy blades trying to override each other.

Vader disengaged, wheeling his blade back and around to slash at the young Jedi. Luke was forced to pull back his own blade and angle it across the path of his father's weapon. Disengaging again, Luke feinted left before cutting right, then dropping low to meet Vader's blade in a low slashing attack. Both men recovered quickly, with Luke gaining a momentary advantage and going for another overhead chop. As Vader parried, Luke dropped his left hand from the hilt of his lightsaber, pulled away, and planted a vicious kick in the Dark Lord's gut.

Vader snarled in surprise as he was knocked off his feet and tumbled down the longer set of stairs leading up to the throne. Before he landed with a grunt, Palpatine's gloating laughter echoed through the throne room. “Good. Use your aggressive feelings, boy! Let the hate flow through you!”

Luke looked down the stairs as Vader gathered himself. He still held the weapon in his right hand—the one Vader took when they last met—and his gloved thumb found the activation stud. The shaft of verdant brilliance vanished, leaving only the hum of Vader's weapon to fill the air. Luke realized he would not win this battle by his skill with a lightsaber. This was a battle for his very soul... and he'd come dangerously close to losing already.

“Obi-Wan has taught you well,” the Dark Lord noted, swinging his blade to the side.

“I will not fight you, Father.”

Vader strode up the stairs, confidently. Luke backed away, wary, watching. The Sith stopped at the landing, turned toward Luke. “You are unwise to lower your defenses.”

Before Vader's muscles—organic and artifical—had begun to wind up for the assault, Luke's blade had reignited. And before Vader had begun to unwind his attack, Luke's blade had taken up position to block. The energy blades crashed together once, then twice, then a third time before Luke cut low and locked Vader's blade. The Dark Lord advanced on the young Jedi, pushing the tip of his sword closer and closer. His sheer force pushed Luke up the final stairs to the throne. Sensing advantage with his higher position, Luke swung back, breaking the lock. Vader attacked from low right, swinging upward and to the left. The impact knocked Skywalker's blade back; he barely recovered in time to block another slash from the opposite direction.

Vader continued to cut back and forth horizontally, with brutal hammer blows that jarred Luke's blade and balance until Luke braced himself at the top of the landing and once more locked his foe's lightsaber. Both sword and swordsman strained against each other for a moment until Luke slid his blade back to the tip of Vader's sword. With this newfound leverage, he bound over the Dark Lord, then dove away from a retaliatory chop.

Not giving the Sith a moment to recover, Luke jumped into the center of a ring of control consoles. Vader turned to him, having now missed two attacks against the young Jedi. Skywalker extinguished his blade once more and backflipped onto a catwalk. With a moment of calm, he noted that Vader's respirator was pumping much faster than usual... and something else. What was...

“Your thoughts betray you, Father. I feel the good in you, the conflict,” Luke challenged.

“There is no conflict,” Vader insisted with a deep rumble.

“You couldn't bring yourself to kill me before,” Skywalker countered. “and I don't believe you'll destroy me now.”

“You underestimate the power of the Dark Side. If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny!” The Sith hurled his crimson blade skyward at Luke. The young Jedi pitched to the side, narrowly avoiding being vertically bisected. The catwalk was less fortunate, as the lightsaber sizzled through its floor grate and vertical supports. Luke bounded off the falling section, using it as a springboard to carry him away from Vader.

The Sith Lord recovered his weapon as Palpatine cackled, “Good... good!”



“Stay on target, Blue Squadron,” Colonel Merrick Simms called. “Unfortunately, we can't rely on that communications ship to blow itself up.”

“Awful lot of fire coming from the portside. No fighters yet, though,” called Blue Three. Simms' eyes slid across the glaring white hull of the enormous Allegiance-class Star Destroyer. The battlecruiser was acting as the main communications ship for the Imperial fleet and had the entire Alliance fleet's sensors blind. If not for General Calrissian's intuition, was a certainty that most of the Rebel fighter force would have barreled straight into the shield before the back ranks could've done anything about it. The knowledge that Blue Squadron's B-Wings had been in the front ranks send an unpleasant prickle up Simms' spine.

But he quickly buried that unpleasant thought, turning his mind to the remarks of his pilot.“That eager for a dogfight, Rookie One?” He managed to put a smirk into his voice, even if it stubbornly refused to appear on his face.

“Why does everyone keep calling me that?” complained the tinny voice.

“Well, I kinda like it,” answered Blue Two, Commander Ru Murleen. Her relationship with her squadronmate was an open secret. Then again, after what they did taking down that Phantom TIE Fighter project, the Alliance brass was willing to look the other way instead of breaking up a winning team. “Adds more mystery than calling you—”

An alarm went off in the cockpit. Simms glanced at his radar. “Blast! You wanted company, Blue Three, you got it! Squints, ten—no, make that twelve from five o'clock. Gold Leader, can you cover us?”

“Be there in a second, Blue Leader.”

“I don't think we've got it, Gold Leader. Two, Three, pull back and provide cover. Falcariae is almost in position; I need to get set up for my run.”

“Copy, Lead.”

“Roger, Blue Lead.”



Vader held his blade out before him as he searched the dark, unlit corners of the incomplete throne room. “You cannot hide forever, Luke.”

“I will not fight you.”

The Sith turned toward the sound. I have you now. “Give yourself to the Dark Side,” he taunted. “It is the only way you can save your friends.”

He reached out with his feelings. He did not have a physical location on Luke, but he could sense the turmoil. The mention of his doomed compatriots had stirred the young Jedi. Perhaps he felt safe in the shadows... but nowhere was safe from the Dark Side of the Force. Vader pressed harder against Luke's defenses. “Yes. Your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong.”

He felt a mad scramble, to bury feelings deeper, to hide and conceal the pathetic connections that made him weak, made him vulnerable. And in the scramble, the gleam of something truly prized was overlooked... by Luke. “Especially for,” Vader began... then paused. Impossible! “Sister!”

Vader's own confusion clouded his senses for but a moment. He honed in on the icy knot of fear building in Luke. “So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her too.”

Despair and self-loathing screamed out of the void, now so strong that Vader could localize his son's physical form while tormenting him emotionally. “Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the dark side,” the Dark Lord paused, savoring his ultimate victory over Kenobi, “then perhaps she will.”

Despair and pain changed to righteous fury with such explosive suddenness that Vader was momentarily overwhelmed. He didn't hear the snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber, and only barely registered the defiant scream of “Never!”

He began to turn toward the sound when a lance of emerald death drove toward his face. His swordarm snapped his blade upright, barely clearing Skywalker's thrust before it plunged through the gargoyle mask. Vader pinned the blade under his own for a moment, but Luke pressed back, swinging both blades in a broad arc to the Sith Lord's right.

His blade free, Skywalker cocked back to his own right, then exploded forward with a snarl. Sparks flew from where his blade slashed the low ceiling, his blade's song changing from a crackling hiss to a thunderclap when it finally met the Dark Lord's weapon once more. He battered Vader's weapon, his lightsaber carving into pillars, ceiling, floor with each recoil. He struck another hammer blow, holding the shimmering green shaft before him. Vader counterattacked, striking upward at the outstretched blade.

Luke barely noticed through the dark haze of his rage. Vader could not be allowed to live with the knowledge of Leia's origins. He could not live for his crimes. And Luke would be the one to correct the Force's mistake in letting this dark beast continue as long as he had. He hurled the weightless beam about with such force that each stroke grew a grunt of exertion, but he did not feel the weariness that his mortal frame should. His hate drove his blade closer to his father's form, his righteous fury let him block the parries and feints.

Vader was driven back, pinned against a catwalk railing. Luke's foot lashed out, striking the back of Sith's mechanical knee joint with a Force-fueled blow. The sable apparition buckled, awkwardly brought his lightsaber across to block a vicious attack. Skywalker chopped again, knocking the blade away. Again, and further away.

The Force shuddered.

Vader let himself fall back, Skywalker's sword struck the railing in a shower of molten metal. He thrust his crimson blade upward; Luke's jade beam cut across to parry... a fraction of a second too late.

Skywalker cried out as his flesh was seared, stumbled back. He clutched the wound, his natural hand white-knuckled just under his ribcage. Vader began to rise. A boot struck the side of his helmet, echoing in his supplemented hearing. His aided vision stuttered a moment. He reached out with the Force, relying on the Dark Side to guide him.

He found himself staring into a blazing black sun.

Skywalker stood, his bloodied hand over his synthetic replacement on the hilt of his weapon, the blade high over his head. Blood welled-up from the still-smoking cut in his side. The emerald shaft swung downward, intent on splitting the Dark Lord from crown to loins.

Vader pulled himself away from the dazzling storm of roiling darkness, obeyed his instincts. A fraction of a second too late.

Both father and son howled; Vader, in agony as the blade cleaved his right shoulder away. Luke, in rage as his killing blow merely maimed. He thrust the blade to Vader's throat; the Dark Lord weakly raised his remaining hand in submission. His respirator wheezed, overworked with the sudden shock to the system it regulated.

“Good!” The laughing voice came from behind. “Your hate has made you powerful,” hissed Palpatine. “Now, fulfill your destiny... and take your father's place at my side!”

Luke looked down at the maimed figure before him. The severed arm still clutched an ignited lightsaber. Smoldering flesh glowed softly at the end of the stump, and where Vader's armor had been cut away. He looked down at his right hand. The replacement. The one Vader took on Bespin. He flexed it.

Outwardly, it moved the way a normal hand would. The nerve impulses felt the same, due to rigorous training. But the servos buzzed and the internal mechanisms creaked with the movement.

Luke looked back to the severed arm. Take his place...



Colonel Simms flipped on his targeting computer. “I'm starting my run.”

The Imperial communications ship spat verdant energy into the MC80 cruiser off its flank. The Mon Cal heavy, Falcariae, spanned the hundred-kilometer gap between the two giants with vicious fusillades of crimson turbolaser and ion blasts. The Rebel ship had its full forward firepower to call upon, while the Imperial battlecruiser sat above its foe, the bow swinging to port and down to clear more firing arcs.

But it was still an all-up battlecruiser. The guns it could bring to bear did not match the caliber of Falcariae's main battery, but the medium guns were plentiful and rapid-firing. Starbursts prickled along hulls of both ships, casting sharp-edged flashes of light. And flying into the hailstorm of particle beams, Blue Squadron made its approach.

Blue Leader's scanners were in active mode, lashing the battlecruiser with radar and lidar. Firing solutions were plotted, refined, adjusted, and re-refined every millisecond. Twenty seconds until contact: plenty of time to lock up the target. The twin MG9 torpedo launchers in the B-Wing cycled their first warheads. The targeting display showed glowing yellow bars, closing in from the left and right on where Falcariae was focusing her fire.

Fifteen seconds to contact. The targeting solution was tighter... but not a good enough lock yet. An indicator flashed on the console; Simms didn't see it. But his wingmen saw the same warning light go off in their cockpits. “The TIEs are in range,” Ru Murleen called, her voice tight with restraint. Being caught between a well-armed target and its fighter escort was not how B-Wings were meant to fight.

“Hold them for a few seconds; Gold Leader will be here,” Simms noted flatly. Less than ten seconds out, passing through the forty-kilometer mark. Emerald tracers now raced from behind as well as ahead.

Then the targeting computer made its steady tone, and the display flashed as the ranging bars overlapped. “I have a lock!”

His finger squeezed the triggers for both launchers and his cannons. The bomber bucked and spat its torpedoes into the battlecruiser at over nine kilometers per second while the heavy laser cannon and three ion cannons pumped their vermillion fury past the racing projectiles. Point defense guns opened up, but with only four seconds between launch and contact, the odds of intercepting the torpedoes were not in the Empire's favor. Two thermonuclear fireballs erupted in the heart of Falcariae's bombardment zone. Then another pair, fired at point-blank range an instant before Simms threw his B-Wing into a steep dive.

Blue Leader groaned as his maneuver strained the acceleration compensators and he was yanked out of his seat with eight-hundred kilograms equivalent of force. As he eased back on the stick and the red mist cleared from his vision, he rasped, “Take your shots, Blue Two and Three! I'll come back and cover!”

“'Preciate it, Boss!” Blue Three answered, sounding more ragged than his commander. The distant mote of Rookie One's B-Wing--I really do need to stop calling him in that, Simms thought distantly—rolled and juked furiously to dodge the fire coming at him from ahead and behind.

“Torpedoes away!” The cry was almost simultaneous from Blues Two and Three. Simms glanced back over his shoulder to see the explosion. Flame boiled out of a new hole in the battlecruiser's ventral plating. “It's a hit!”

The momentary elation over drawing blood gave way. “Sitrep!”

“Blue Two, shields at half. But I'm okay.”

“Blue Three, minor damage to my intercooler, shields coming back.”

“Spast! Break off, Three! I didn't think they hit you that bad.”

“Hey, it was my job to draw the fire, right? Besides—”

“Cut the chatter,” Simms growled, and immediately winced. “Three, are you okay for a second pass?”

Rookie One responded almost immediately. “Yes, sir.”

Simms grimaced, and was glad for the audio-only comms. He spared a glance at his shield charge. “Looks like they only grazed me a couple times; I'll fly rear. You two, deflectors to double-front, dump everything into your shields. Three, you and I will cut under after this pass. Ru, you go up top and drop in on them. You should have just enough time to charge for a couple of shots, so make them count.”



A stormfront began to blow through the throne room, even as the air was perfectly still. Luke felt cold swirling past, centered on the cloaked figure before him. Do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor...

Or suffer your father's fate, you will.

Luke turned. His nostrils flared as the movement sent a spike of pain from his wound rippling through him. He angled the lightsaber defensively across his chest. He banished the pain from his face, from his mind, and stared at the Emperor.

“Never.”

The crashing of Palpatine's malevolent glee was tangible. Flames simmered behind his sulfurous irises. Luke was unfazed. “I'll never turn to the Dark Side.

“You've failed, Your Highness,” Skywalker declared, defying the dark, icy storm swirling around him. “I am a Jedi. Like my father, before me.”

Thunder rumbled in the Force as Jedi and Dark Lord stared each other down. Finally, Palpatine spoke. His tone was flat, final. Deadly. “So be it...

“Jedi.”

[Moff]

“Fighters coming in from behind!”

Colonel Simms glanced over his shoulder. “I see 'em, Blue Two. Continue your run.”

This was their third run on the battlecruiser, and their last set of torpedoes. Falcariae was burning in space, but her remaining guns were tearing new holes in the shield of the communications ship. The wreckage of another Rebel cruiser that had attacked from above forced their flight to jink violently, and that brought the pursuing TIEs closer.

Murleen had done well on the last run. As Blue Leader and Blue Three shot under the Star Destroyer, the Interceptors had pursued. Simms' shields took a few hits blocking for Blue Three... and then four of the ten fighters simply disappeared into balls of flame as Blue Two descended on their formation. Ru always has been a good shot.

Another TIE had gotten too ambitious and overshot; Rookie One shot down the squint with his autoblasters. But that still left five, closing in at the better part of a kilometer per second. A dark thought in the back corner of Simms' mind pointed out that, even if they disabled the battlecruiser and killed the jamming signal, those Interceptors would have them sooner or later. He squelched that voice; three B-Wings—and even a pair of cruisers—was a fair trade for the Star Destroyer.

Then again, he considered his squadronmates individually worth more than every murderous buckethead on that gleaming white leviathan looming in the viewport. But that couldn't be helped; he knew the pilot quarters throughout the fleet were going to be a lot emptier before the day was over.

If we win...

Simms gripped his control column tightly and banished the thoughts from his mind. The mission first. He re-keyed his targeting computer and flicked a glance at the rear sensor display. Three squints in the middle, gunning for him. The other two were fanned out to either side, hoping to work around.

“Stay on target, Blues. Our friends are getting creative. Remember, our target is the reactor. Two, you'll make the hole; Three, you and me plug it.”

Simms could hear Murleen's shark grin over the comms. “Yes, sir.”

The three bombers formed up and began their final approach. Green javelins streaked from the remaining batteries of the communications ship. The white doonium hull was scarred from repeated penetrating turbolaser hits, and blackened from salvos that didn't make it through. Fires burned as wrecked control systems continued pouring oxygen into spaced compartments. But Simms wouldn't—couldn't—muster any horror or sympathy for the carnage. Behind them now, the drifting hulk of the Falcariae, still desperately clawing at the Imperial vessel with crimson fury, shook under a savage blow. Fresh boils of flame welled from the new wounds. The captain's frantic message of reactor failure crackled over the comm. The sleek, organic form was tattered and torn, more twisted and flash-frozen molten metal than Mon Calamari artisanal craftsmanship.

But the Rebel turbolaser and ion blasts still poured in. Simms offered his silent thanks to nearly seven thousand fellow freedom fighters who were sacrificing themselves to give his three ships the opening they needed.

“Target locked.” Murleen's voice hadn't lost any of its savagery.

Blue Three was more conservative as he echoed her. Then, with a note of concern, he added, “Detecting lock-on.”

Simms moved his fighter to the left, watching the warning lights on his panel flash on. Seconds later, emerald blasts now came from behind as well as ahead. He slid right, cutting them off from Blue Three, then back to the left to block any shots at Blue Two.

The B-Wing rocked as a few blaster bolts obliquely struck the shields of the slender attack ship. Then a few more. Simms spied one of the flanking TIEs making its move and suppressed the urge to violently jink out of the incoming fire. Going for Rookie One...

He lined up his reticule. The TIE fired, the shots went wide. Does that stupid buckethead actually think he'll get us to break formation with potshots? The reticule flashed, and Simms pulled the trigger. The twelve-centimeter RG-9 heavy laser cannon opened up. The first shot sailed past the TIE Interceptor's port wing. The second slid between the wing and the cockpit ball, flashing over the connecting strut. The third struck the starboard strut squarely.

The starboard wing of the TIE sheared away; coolant and tibanna streamed from the severed strut. Then the high-voltage power connectors, sundered and sparking, ignited the cocktail of venting gas. The TIE tumbled for a moment, wreathed in azure fire as electrical discharges rippled across the hull. Then it was no more, replaced by a silently expanding ball of flame.

“Torpedoes away!”

The second flanker raced after Murleen even as her last volley of torpedoes fired off. “Watch yourself, Blue Two!”

Simms triggered his autoblasters. They were much weaker than his RG-9, only being about four centimeters in diameter. They were more for sighting fire and strafing soft ground targets. But what they lacked in power, they made up for with sheer rate of fire. The TIE took a dozen hits, with holes drilled into its radiator panels and some minor scoring on the hull. But the buckethead at the controls was as intent on killing B-Wings as Blue Squadron was on killing Imp comms ships.

As Murleen triumphantly declared a solid hit and breach in the reactor armor, and Blue Three fired off his torpedoes, Colonel Simms fired again. The TIE rolled sideways, suffering only glancing hits. Green fire erupted from his guns.

He was no longer behind Blue Two. The salvo struck the rear shields of Blue Three and shattered them. Simms fired his own burst. As smoke began to trail from Rookie One's engines, a few lucky blaster rounds hit the portside engine of the TIE Interceptor. It snapped into a flat spin to the left, and slammed into the shields of the battlecruiser.

“Blue Three, status!”

“Lost my Number Four thruster, intercooler is wrecked. Have to reduce thrust or I'll fry.”

“Eject!”

“This close to the—” Murleen started to object.

“Negative, Lead. Ejection system is down for the moment. Rerouting but I'll need a minute. Besides, my torps just hit. I don't want to be in the neighborhood.”

Simms couldn't help a half-smirk at the kid's confidence. And marksmanship. “Right. My turn; let's blow this thing and get back to the fleet. Blue Two, get him out of here. I think I have our friend's undivided attention for now.”

“With all due respect, you can't hold three squints, sir.”

Simms looked into his targeting computer. “That's an order. I'll be right behind you.”

“Yes, sir. Murleen finally answered, her voice thick with reluctance.

Simms watched the two B-Wings break left. He glanced at his rear sensor; the TIEs were still behind him. He angled his deflectors to protect him against the very panicked battlecruiser ahead and the angry TIEs behind, and then focused on his targeting computer.

The bars were closing fast. He made some small adjustments to the computer's settings. Closer... closer...

There was a short burst of static in his ear as the numbers kept falling. “Almost there...”

The B-Wing rang like a bell as a defensive turbolaser blast grazed it. Simms jerked the fighter back on course and spared an instant to check his shields. The forward screens had held, but they wouldn't do so again. He pressed his hand against the firewalled throttle, vainly hoping to coax an extra meter per second from the engines.

Then, the numbers reached zero. The display flashed, the computer chimed, and Colonel Merrick Simms emptied his MG9 launchers' magazines at the hole created by his wingmen. He waited only long enough to ensure the track was straight and true, then pulled into a sharp climb to starboard. He rotated the fighter around its axis of motion.

Falcariae was a debris field now. He could see some escape pods escaping the shattered chunks of alloy, but not enough. Almost as unsettling, he couldn't see the three Interceptors that were chasing him. He cycled through his radar contacts. There!

But why are they over... there...? “Blue Squadron, report.”

“I say again,” he repeated after a quarter minute without any answer. “Blue Squadron, report in. Two, where are you? Blue Three, status?”

His mouth went dry as the silence continued. He looked at his scopes, looking for a signal.

Nothing stood out against the background chaos of the battle. No transponder signals. No ejection pod beacons.

The explosion of the Imperial battlecruiser behind him would have gone unnoticed, save for the sleet of hard radiation that scrambled his scans for a moment. Simms leveled off his path, his eyes desperately searching the dark sky.

He saw the Interceptors that his radar couldn't, lit by the explosion behind him. Saw the flashes of green plasma.

Colonel Merrick Simms squeezed the triggers for his blasters and heavy laser. A furious exchange of emerald and ruby light blazed in their corner of the battle.

Smoldering wreckage spat from four incandescent balls of gas to join the carnage over Endor.



Lando's mouth tightened as Blue Leader's signals dropped off the scopes, and he muttered a soft, if vitriolic, curse. But, it looked like Simms and his pilots did their job.

Not exactly a great deal, though, he mused, watching the burning halves of a shattered Allegiance-class Star Destroyer bump into the twisted fragments of a pair of MC80 cruisers. He banked through a debris cloud, searching for signs of life... either comrades to rescue, or Imperials to capture. Scanners would be no good on generic lifepod beacons; the jamming signal would mask anything that weak and broad. Rebel IFFs were tight-beamed, and even then barely powerful enough to be any good up to medium range.

Maybe we shouldn't worry too much about capturing any Imps. Lando's hands clenched on the controls as his mind wandered over the Empire's atrocities... of just the last year. Going back further sent his breath rushing in through flared nostrils. It'd be easy. A burst from a quadgun, or even the old Ground Buzzer would crack a pod open nicely.

But then, how would we be better? Lando could think of a dozen reasons, actually... but didn't much care for how far the gap between his enemies and himself would close. “Keep up visual scanning, Nien. Somebody has to have made it out.”

Nunb began looking around, supplement Calrissian's scans of the black sky. Each second made Lando's heart drop another millimeter... then it nearly leaped out of his throat when the Sullustan began shouting frantically. “What? What?! Calm down! What—what do you mean...?”

The mouse-eyed alien was gesturing at the scanners. Lando stared at the display. “I don't get...”

His eyes widened.



Admiral Ackbar turned in his command chair toward Captain Verrack. “Confirm!”

Verrack's long fingers danced across the tactical panel. The greenish splotches across his pink-orange skin darkened with excitement. “Report confirmed, Admiral! The jamming is down, we have full readings! And...”

The words caught in his throat, but joy and hope gleamed in his large eyes. The admiral stabbed the fleet comm button on his chair and whirled back to face the battle. “The shield is down! Commence attack on the Death Star's main reactor!”

Verrack didn't know when the ground team had managed to bring down the deflector shield... or if it would have ever been detected without Blue Squadron's brave sacrifice. But now...

Now they had a chance.



Flight Captain Simeon's report crackled over Lieutenant Hebsly's helmet comm. “Scythe One, Scythe Two, several Rebel fighters are breaking off toward to the Death Star.”

Major Mianda's terse reply came almost before Simeon finished. “Scythe One to Scythe Squadron: pursue and destroy. Those fighters do not reach His Imperial Majesty.”

A chorus of affirmative replies filled the squadron link. Hebsly dumped power from his guns into his engines. Scythe's TIEs had been refitted with L-s7.2 guns, with a better cooling system than the old L-s1s. It cost a little energy per bolt, but he could hold a solid 480 rounds per minute per gun of continuous fire, instead of needing to pulse his fire and average only three-quarters of that. They also had their maneuvering jets upgraded from 401s to 702s, and Hebsly could feel the change. It allowed him to drop in on an A-Wing with ease earlier and, with his improved cannons, blast the quicker fighter to bits before it got out of range.

Even so, the Rebels had been fighting viciously. At least count, nearly a thousand fighters had been destroyed, and now the terrorist scum were taking their cruisers in for death rides against Imperial warships! The news that Pride of Tarlandia had gone down was still sinking in. Sixty thousand crew, Stormtroopers, and pilots... gone. And apparently, in exchange for some fighters and a pair of fishhead-built monstrosities.

Well, we pinned them in a trap. Backed them into a corner. I suppose it was stupid of us to hope they'd just give up and die. They're animals... so that's how they'll fight when trapped, and how we'll dispose of them.

Heblsy eased his yoke to the left to stay in formation. The last indicators on his laser capacitors were just going out, but that was fine. He'd have enough of a velocity advantage to close the gap and get his guns recharged.

And then he'd even the score for his fallen comrades.



The air in the throne room was still. A light pulsed on the Emperor's throne, an incoming message. The soft hum of ventilators, the labored hiss of an overworked respirator pump, and the occasional sound of a discharging superlaser were all that impinged on the silence in the world of flesh and metal.

Gale winds, ragged with ice and roaring thunder, swirled through the Force. A flame burned, small but searingly bright against the shadow. The winds plucked at it, the ice clawed at it. The storm reached a pale, skeletal hand toward the flame, fingers almost in a grasping configuration. “If you will not be turned...”

The flame steeled itself. Tales of icy talons of iron, wrapped around the throat of a victim and squeezing the life from its quarry... they started with the sign the storm made. A twisted laugh echoed from the storm in the Force, even as the natural voice spoke. The storm's hands both reached toward the flame, fingers pointed like knives. The storm hissed, “You will be destroyed!”

Lightning accompanied the thunderclap.

Luke reeled from the assault. He fell against the railing, stunned. The agony was cloying; the impact of the raw hated and rage, formed into thunderbolts... he focused on his training, pushed back against the attack and its wounds.

The storm watched the flame's pathetic attempts to bolster itself, to shelter against the terrible wind. “Young fool,” the storm's words echoed through the frail husk. “Only now, at the end, do you understand.”

Now Luke saw the gathering storm cloud. He saw the rippling currents making the black clouds glow with terrible heat. He held his weapon out, thrusting the scintillating blade against the dark. The lightning came.

Violet tendrils of raw darkness leaped from the Emperor's fingers... and wrapped around the emerald beam. The lightning flashed again, more violently. It crackled about the blade, snarling and snapping... seeking its target.

The storm drew itself closer, drawing on its rage. The flame dared defy it? Defy its almighty power and will? Oh, what a casual thing it would be to merely extinguish the ember... but no. That would not slake the fury this mere spark had evoked. The flame would be quenched slowly, agonizingly. It would be made to wither to its last, choking ember before the darkness and cold would permit it the luxury of finally being snuffed out.

Again, the raw fury of the Dark Side lashed out. A tendril managed to leap from the blade and drive itself into Skywalker's sword arm. He recoiled, but the lightning dissipated. Palpatine gloated, “Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side!”

Vader rose to his feet behind Skywalker. He watched as another storm of energy lashed at Luke, driving the young Jedi back. And another. And another. The effort of resisting, even with his lightsaber drawn, was taking its toll.

Another blast of energy drove Luke into a braced stance, and another growl from the Emperor. “You will pay the price for your lack of vision!”

The next assault drove Luke to his knee. Yoda's words came to him again. Do not underestimate the powers of the Emperor.

The storm hurled itself against the dimming flame.



“Gold Leader, I've got twelve marks bearing one-eight-zero-mark-zero-one-five.”

Lando looked at his scanners. “Right, Wedge. I see them. Go on ahead, I'll see if we can change their minds. Green Leader, stand by in case we need a hand.”

“Copy that, Gold Leader,” Arvel Crynyd replied crisply.

“You sure, Gold Leader?” was Antilles' less encouraging response.

“We'll be fine. We finally have our shot; go on ahead. I'll be right behind you,” Calrissian answered firmly. He flipped a switch for the internal com. “Guns, we'll have company pretty soon. You two ready?”

“Dorsal position, ready.” Lando recognized Lieutenant Blount's voice.

“Ventral gun, ready,” answered the gruff tones of Airen Cracken.

Lando eased the throttle back to make the Falcon a more enticing target. “Here goes nothing.”



Mianda's tone was tight and controlled. “The freighter is falling out of formation.”

Hebsly felt his eyes sparkle with anticipation. That blasted scrapheap had become a plague. The rumor was it fought against the first Death Star and fired on Lord Vader's own fighter. Or that it had dodged Lord Vader despite chasing it down with an entire wing of fighters and systems force worth of Star Destroyers. Obviously, those tales would never be confirmed by official sources, and even idle interest would result in not-very-friendly visit with the local ISB minder.

No matter; within moments, it would be in his sights. And he'd put an end to the silly rumors of some antiquated, patched-together freighter being the bogeyman of the Imperial Navy.

“Keep tight, maintain formation. On my mark, lead element will attack from above, second element will attack from below,” Mianda said.

Hebsly bared his teeth under his helmet and began refining his target parameters. As Scythe Three, he'd be leading the attack from below.



“Here they come!” Lando called into the comm as he slewed hard to port. The chatter of the quads echoed through the ship, as the vibrations of a hail of laser fire crashing against the shields. Two TIEs shot by overhead.

But Calrissian knew where the next attack was coming from, and he banked hard to the right. Two more eyeballs sent half their shots streaking through empty space where the Falcon had been. They twisted violently, their guns never stopping, and raked the belly of the juking freighter before flying past.

“C'mon baby,” Lando whispered as the barrage rocked the ship. “I said not a scratch. You don't wanna make me look bad, do you?”

Nunb made a questioning burble. “Never mind, Nien. Just angle those deflectors for their second pass. And squeeze some more power into them.”



“Second flight, make your run. Attack from below first. Third flight, come in after them, same attack pattern. We will strike from above. Keep them off balance.”

Hebsly pulled his fighter around in a sweeping arc to join his commanding officer. The trailing flights confirmed their orders, and the pilot cursed silently. Falling for a basic evasive maneuver like that cost him half of his guns' stored charge. How could a mere freighter move like that?



The Millennium Falcon shuddered again, and for a moment, Lando's heart leaped into his throat as spray of flame raced over and past the cockpit viewport. “Got one! Scratch another eyeball!”

Blount's exuberant shout meant there was only a single TIE that made it through this attack, with Cracken's marksmanship accounting for the other pair that cut low. That still left one more flight, and after they passed, the lead unit would have no doubt begun their second pass. Still, the Falcon was taking a pummeling. Even with the beefed-up shields, she was still a freighter. The fastest one in the Galaxy, and she packed a punch, Lando had to add with pride... but she wasn't a Star Destroyer. And the shields were starting develop weak points.

Lando keyed the comm once more.



The Death Star loomed inexorably closer, and Hebsly's quarry was a small glint against its bulk. His blood ran hot, and his teeth ground as he thought of the five members of his squadron shot down as that damnable freighter delayed Scythe Squadron. Major Mianda was almost in position to start his run, and the two survivors of the last pass joined Scythe 5 to form a new flight.

But there couldn't be much left to its defenses. No matter how many illegal modifications could have been crammed into its hull by smugglers and terrorists, it wasn't invincible.

Hebsly resisted the urge to press his throttle control; it was already at full. He twisted the adjustment dials for his targeting computer and watched the firing solution start to hone in. Almost there...



Luke fell to his other knee and groaned with exertion as the Emperor's lightning assault nearly drove his lightsaber through his body. He pushed his sword away to weather the next strike, tried to rise to his feet. But the dark wizard was too powerful. Dark energy hissed and snarled, snapping at the young Jedi and driving him to his knees once more.

Skywalker looked at the masked figure as his blade inched closed to his body. “Father... please!”

The Dark Lord stared at his son. Slowly, the gargoyle face turned toward the Emperor. Then back to the besieged Jedi. Back toward his master.

Amid the hurricane of darkness, a new wind roared. It plucked the burning crimson blade from the deathgrip of a dead hand. The wind carried the tumbling blade toward the Sith Lord, and his remaining hand snagged the silver and black hilt from the air.

Dark clouds of smoke wrapped around the storm, permeated the wind, and coiled about the dimming light. Palpatine looked from his victim to his apprentice. He clawed at the smoke that concealed his vision. It billowed back and blinded him. What is he doing?



Lando kicked the Falcon into a violent left juke as another TIE Fighter overshot and blossomed into an expanding fireball. Ahead, the Death Star was less of a great, unfinished sphere hovering in the void and more of an endless, knobby wall of metal. Verdant tracers raced up from the surface, adding entirely far too much “fun” for Calrissian's tastes.

A blast went low, but exploded close enough to rattle the freighter. Blazing red beacons flashed on the control panel: ventral shields gone. And the dorsal attack had just gone by. Lando gripped the yoke and began to twist into a hard clockwise roll.



Flight Lieutenant Hebsly threw his fighter into a corkscrew to match, and hit his triggers. Green flame stitched the bottom of the cursed vessel, and he broke sharply to the left to dodge return fire. To his dismay, his shots landed just short and just long of the ventral turret that had already claimed too many Imperial fighters.

But he was out of the line of fire, for the moment... which was why his missile lock-on alert came as a decidedly unwelcome surprise.



Lando whooped as Jake Farrell and Arvel Crynyd rocketed past. The TIEs scattered and bolted out of range: they had A-Wing problems now. He keyed the intercom while Nunb started reangling the deflectors to protect against the Death Star's guns instead of the TIEs. “Everyone okay back there?”

“Ventral gun good. Got a little interesting for a minute.”

“Dorsal clear. Thought I heard something below, though.”

“General?”

Lando craned his neck. A Rebel trooper—Colliton, was it?—had soot streaked on his face... and blood? “We had a small explosion aft, General,” the trooper's voice was forced into neutrality. “One casualty.”

“Who? How bad?”

“It's... it's Azzameen, General.” Colliton's voice tightened. “They got Ace. He's dead.”

Lando turned back to the viewport. Something dark flickered in his brown eyes. “Do what you can, Sergeant. I'll contact his family, and make whatever arrangements necessary ... as soon as that thing is gone.”

“Yes, sir.”

He flicked a glance to his copilot as the sergeant returned to the hold, then opened the throttle. No more, damn it.



Commander Daegon Merrejk tried not to blanch at the catastrophe on his tactical plot. He knew he'd failed as badly as the ground garrison. Nevertheless, he regained what control he could, and marched to Piett and Gherant at the fore of the bridge. Both men were transfixed on the display beyond the viewport: Star Destroyers grappling at spitting distance with Rebel vessels. Gherant grimaced as one of the Empire's mile-long battleships took a bad hit and something flashed in her midsection. Given he could probably, if barely, hide the entire width of the stricken ship behind his small finger at arm's length, Merrejk estimated it had to be just over a hundred, maybe a hundred and twenty, kilometers distant.

Plenty close enough to see the abhorrent carnage as the middle of the ship vaporized, nearly cleaving the Star Destroyer in twain. The engines flared, guttered, and then died. The Mon Calamari beast that murdered the proud warship wallowed nearby, as though admiring its bestial work. Then the winged form banked, turning its guns on another target.

It took several moments, but when the first salvos struck the Executor's forward shields, Merrejk realized his ship was the new target. But it's insane! This vessel could obliterate that cruiser, and a dozen like it, in a single stroke!

Piett glanced over his shoulder, and frowned. “What is it, Commander?”

“Our scopes indicate the deflector shield is down. We've also detected a large debris column and residual energy traces at the shield generator complex, sir,” Merrejk reported, surprising himself with how even his tone was given the news.

Piett's reaction, however, was less balanced. The commander kept his face neutral as the admiral's paled and his eyes swelled to saucers. “The shield... what, what are these energy traces?”

“They're consistent with a large-scale explosion, initiated by proton munitions.”

Or, the damned Rebel scum blew up the supposedly impenetrable bunker, you imbecile! And we're sitting up here while some untold number of Rebel operatives is tearing across the surface! But Merrejk's rage and desperation didn't show on his face. Though, an odd part of his brain did make him regret that he'd never matched his sabacc face against the admiral... preferably with a very sizeable number of credits in the pot. Perhaps he could've retired young and avoided this unpleasantness.



Vader's blade hummed ominously. The Force roiled and crashed, heaving against something. The storm twisted against itself, and for the first time, the Emperor realized he was no longer the storm, but instead stood in its path. All three men, even as they warily watched each other with their physical senses, tried to pierce the thickening clouds.

The storm spat back at them.

Luke felt Palpatine's gaze fall back upon him. The Emperor screamed and the terrible lightning leaped forth again. “What have you done, child?!”

The Jedi flicked his blade back into the lightning, felt the unholy energy of concentrated hate and rage—and now abject terror from a soul that had become accustomed to inflicting it—snap and snarl, slowly working loose of whatever arcane constraints his mystical weapon was trying to impose.

Vader moved, and his crimson saber split the air. It scythed through the shrieking tempest of Dark Side energies, wrapped them around itself. The respite was brief for the target; Luke had barely enough time to slash at the at flying weapon.

Was the Dark Lord attempting to continue the battle? Or to strike him down? Was he interfering... and creating an opening?

Luke rolled left as the Emperor howled in rage. He could not withstand the powers of both men. Perhaps he could subdue his father, but kill him? After coming so close to the Dark Side? And the Emperor... after the defiance, no. And Luke wouldn't be able to get near him; those few meters, even if the old wizard's senses were dulled even worse than Luke's own... they might as well be parsecs.

The Jedi bolted for the lift. Alone, he could not hope to challenge them. His light could not turn back the dark. But perhaps it could kindle enough...

The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He wheeled, blade in a high horizontal guard. The Emperor's fury hissed and seethed around the verdant bar of plasma. “There is no escape from the Force, Jedi!”

He struck again; the lightsaber was blasted from Luke's grip. The Jedi backpedaled, and reached out to the control panel with his mind. He twisted around. The walkway was only a handful of meters long. A step; the heel of his boot thumped against the durasteel plating on the floor. A tangible iciness swept past.

Another step. Almost.

Ice turned to electric fire. Luke screamed as the bolts tore through him, and he toppled. Instinct, the Force, or luck—he couldn't say which—caused him to roll, and finally halt, writhing in agony, with his back against the lift door.

The young Jedi walled off a part of his mind, and focused. His body howled, his muscles spasmed, but he focused. The Emperor drew closer, hurling lightning bolt after lightning bolt as he screamed imprecations. Vader reached toward his fallen weapon, pulling it to his remaining hand. The crimson blade flared back into being. The sable gargoyle moved behind his master.

Luke barely heard the sound of the lift car arriving. But he did hear it, and he struck. He opened the floodgates on his mind, and pushed back. The bolts curled back, if for a moment, and then a hurricane struck the dark wizard and his armored beast. He rolled himself into the opening door as Palpatine slammed into Vader, nearly skewering his frail physical form upon the Dark Lord's weapon. With that moment of distraction, Luke reached out with the Force again, immersing himself in the frigid, smoky murk that had permeated the reality beyond the physical even as his eyes scanned through climate-controlled, crystal clear air (with a touch of singed flesh and clothing).

Vader coarsely threw the Emperor off, and began striding toward the open lift. Luke found his prize, and reached. The silver-and-gold hilt spun past the enraged swipes of the Dark Lord and found purchase in Skywalker's outstretched hand.

The door slid shut and the car began its descent. A hushed warning, heard but not audible, whispered softly to the Jedi, and he stepped back. An instant later, a crimson plasma beam burst through the door at forehead level and before dragging up through the ceiling.

Luke finally collapsed against the rear wall, feeling his injuries and exhaustion. He'd let himself rest for as many stolen moments as he could manage; he still had to escape.

He was the last of the Jedi. And both the Emperor and Vader lived. For now. We may still all go together.

The grim relief he felt drew a harsh chuckle. After all, had he not boastfully declared that Palpatine would die with him?

No, Luke, a familiar voice whispered. The grandfatherly tone was chiding, but warm. “Ben?”

It is not your time, Luke. You are not the last of old, but the first of the new.



“Fool!”

Darth Vader turned back to his master. He regarded the hooded crone, and pulled his weapon from the molten hole in the lift tube. “You should be careful with your words, Master.”

Palpatine seethed, but Vader continued. “I feel it. You're blind. Your foresight has left you, and the Dark Side laughs in your face.” He paused, making a show of looking the old man up and down. “Perhaps you are no longer of use to me.”

The Emperor bared his blackened teeth. “You dare? I could end your miserable existence with a thought. Or with a gesture, I could make you beg me to end it.”

“You hoped to replace me with the boy.”

“Oh come,” the dark wizard's tone was dismissive. “Surely you've noticed I dispose of my apprentices when they're well past their prime. Or, when they scheme against me.”

Vader's respirator wheezed. “And yet,” he growled dangerously, and angled his lightsaber across his chest. “This one lives.”

[Moff]

In the interests of time, I'm going to summarize. I'll keep writing in the background, and eventually have a full narrative written, but this is taking too long and it's unfair to you guys.

The Death Star was penetrated by the Rebel fighters, and Luke Skywalker had escaped the Emperor's clutches. The two Sith Lords, now forced together by an Empire neither could control without the other, fled the station shortly before its destruction by Wedge Antilles and Lando Calrissian.

The Death Star took with it Grand Admiral Nial Declann, Moff Tiaan Jerjerrod, several Star Destroyers, and numerous TIE Fighters attached to the sector fleet engaging the Rebels. Several Alliance ships too close to the blast were lost as well. Palpatine and Vader boarded the Executor, which sustained moderate damage allowing them aboard. Enraged at the loss of his new apprentice, his weapon, and terrified by the loss of his foresight, Palpatine ordered the area around the shield bunker bombarded to destroy any enemy troops and punish any surviving Imperials for their failure.

The Alliance made a brave effort to disrupt the Emperor's blind vengeance, but their losses were high. In the end, the ground team was pulled out--under protest--and the Rebel fleet made a fighting withdrawal from the Endor system. Using the Force, Palpatine first pinpointed major concentrations of Force power on the moon. Mount Sorrow, the Lightning Forest, Bright Tree Village, and other population centers and nexuses of Force energies were ground under the Imperial fleet's turbolasers.

But even as the native species were decimated and the survivors enslaved, word of the Emperor's blunder spread. The Alliance eagerly broadcasts the destruction of the Death Star. Some believe such a feat could not happen with the Emperor's survival; and rumors spread rapidly. These rumors reach Imperial blockade fleets en route to Chandrila and Mon Calamari, launched with intent to isolate and secure these hotbeds of rebellion until the Death Star can finish them for good; instead, the Death Star will never come and debates break out as to whether the Emperor is alive, and if his orders are valid. With the Executor damaged, it takes time for Palpatine to return to Coruscant and issue an address... time in which thousands of commanders entertain treasonous thoughts. When the Emperor's address echoes across the Holonet, those that have already declared themselves either the new Imperial authority or simply have gone rogue know they are dead men if they are ever taken by loyal Imperial forces. They have nothing to lose, and a galaxy to gain.

The Rebel Alliance, though badly mauled, lives on and rapidly gains support, becoming the Alliance of Free Planets. Entire worlds cast off their Imperial shackles, while others that were quietly supportive now openly embrace the freedom fighters. Major battles break out between the Empire's dwindling forces, the spreading warlords, and the Alliance. The Battle of Zeltros pitted the Alliance against the warlords, while the Battle of Mindor saw Alliance forces under General Luke Skywalker battling Imperial loyalists under the infamous Cronal. The entire system was annihilated by the close of the battle, and Skywalker resigned his commission after presiding over such a colossal loss of life on both sides (Alliance casualties were heavy; Imperial losses were total, including Cronal). A few months later, the mercenary Kyle Katarn stopped a plot by Inquisitor Jerec to seize the legendary Valley of the Jedi. Whether Jerec was acting on behalf of Palpatine, or sought to usurp him, is a hotly debated matter.

The battles between warlords were sharp and bloody; more warlord satraps were destroyed by their direct rivals than by action from either the Alliance or the Empire. Eventually, with the urging of Grand Moff Ardus Kaine and Grand Admiral Rufaan Tigellinus, disparate groups began to ally into a larger entity... one that could challenge the Empire, and the Rebel Alliance. There were hardliners and holdouts from even this peculiar revolution; one warlord opted to instead attempt to seize Muunilinst. The resulting carnage threw the entire galactic economy into disarray, the effects of which are still felt five years later.

The united warlord forces made their move two years ago, in an all-out assault on Coruscant. The Empire was saved by a carefully-planned surprise flanking maneuver, the actions of courageous officers--many of whom were recognized posthumously--and internal divisions already forming within the warlord forces. Nevertheless, the battle still cost the Empire dearly. It is estimated that the Imperial military is at approximately ten percent of its peak strength in conventional forces, at best. The Alliance, once a tiny fraction of the Empire's strength, has grown until it sits on even terms.

Luke Skywalker has left the Alliance military to contemplate the ways of the Jedi. The Emperor seeks his destruction... or conversion.

Darth Vader, however, feels the boy is too dangerous. He sensed the flame of Anakin Skywalker brighten within before he hurled his blade at the boy. Perhaps, even, that was why he did so. But the Dark Lord believes he has a far more viable candidate, one who would certainly cast down his master and bring the galaxy under his rule...

And the rest of the galaxy waits, and watches, and does what it must. The soldiers ready for battle, the captains keep watch on their ships. The admirals and generals draw their plans as the politicians see each fresh crisis as an opportunity to advance their goals.

And the Force still churns and howls, neither clear with light nor shadowed in darkness... but murky and impenetrable.