Star Wars Journal - The Fight for Justice by Luke Skywalker by John Peel Read Free Book Online Page A

truth was a lot worse than that. I could see that we were close to Alderaan’s star, and this was where Alderaan should have been…
    But it wasn’t.
    It took us a while to realize what we were seeing, and longer to accept the truth: the rubble and rocks were all that was left of Alderaan.
    That was the disturbance in the Force that Ben had felt, the voices all crying out at once: the cry of all the people on Alderaan just before they died.
    Now we were in serious trouble. I mean, we were stunned by the planet’s destruction and the deaths of all those people. It didn’t seem real somehow. I’d never been to Alderaan, but I’ve heard it was lovely and peaceful. And now it was dust and rocks, everyone on the planet gone.
    What were we going to do now? The message from Princess Leia had told us to take the droids to her father, and that he’d know what to do with them. Now her father was dead. Han still needed to be paid, and we couldn’t cover the charge. All of these thoughts were whirling about in my head as we came under the attack of a TIE fighter.
    This was the first time I’d ever seen a TIE in action. It’s sort of dumpy, with stubby wings, but it sure can move. This one fired off a single burst at us, and then ran for it. Han started to chase him, then realized something important. TIE fighters can’t go to lightspeed, so they always have Imperial cruisers nearby. But there weren’t any around. So where was this one from?
    The answer was literally right in front of us. We all thought it was a small moon at first. As we got closer, though, we realized it wasn’t a small anything—it was a huge round space station.
    And it had an unbreakable tractor beam that grabbed hold of the Falcon and dragged her in.
    We were in serious, serious trouble. The question in our minds was whether this had destroyed Alderaan. And it now had a hold of us. Did they know we were heading here? Had they destroyed the planet to stop us from reaching it? Or had we just accidentally stumbled onto something that had nothing to do with us?
    Ben and Han came up with a plan. Because of Han’s smuggling, the Falcon is equipped with hidden compartments to hide illegal cargo in case he’s boarded and searched. Instead of cargo, though, he planned to hide all of us. He rigged the records to make it look like we’d all abandoned ship at Tatooine and left the Falcon to make the jump to hyperspace herself. With any luck, the troopers would believe this story and go back to hunting for us on Tatooine.
    Well, the first part of our plan worked without a hitch. We hid while the Imperials pulled the Falcon into the docking bay. Troopers came aboard and searched. They found the doctored log, and no sign of any of us in the sealed and lined compartments. They fell for the story and all filed out.
    I was glad to get out of the hiding place. Being in a confined space with a Wookiee can result in serious bruising. They don’t like being cramped. We were free for now, but it wouldn’t last. We needed an escape plan, and Ben came up with one.
    There had to be a tractor beam holding us in place. He’d deactivate it, and then the Falcon could take off. That is, if we weren’t chased by TIE fighters or whatever else this huge station had on board. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all we had, so even Han agreed to it.
    He wasn’t happy about it, though.
    The troopers had left, but they were bound to be back. So when two of them returned, Han and Chewie took them by surprise—and stunned them both. I winced at the noise they made, but nobody else seemed to notice.
    Ben had Han and me dress up in the trooper’s armor and stand guard. That way, it looked like we were real guards on duty. The only problem was that I’m under the height requirements for an Imperial trooper. The uniform was kind of loose on me. Still, if I was seen at a distance I looked passable. I hoped!
    We all snuck into a small command office near the Falcon . The gantry