Part 9 (2/2)

But first, he would make certain that a homing device was placed on the captured freighter. Although he was confident that Obi-Wan wouldn't leave the Death Star, he was actually counting on the possibility that the Princess would.

Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi, wearing a dirty-brown desert robe with a large cloak, had bypa.s.sed numerous stormtroopers and sophisticated security sensors by the time Vader sighted him, entering the dimly illuminated, gray-walled access tunnel that led back to Docking Bay 327. Vader stood in plain sight, holding his red-bladed lightsaber at the ready, blocking Obi-Wan's path to the captured freighter.

He looks so old, Vader thought, but knew better than to a.s.sume that the white-bearded Obi-Wan had weakened with age. As Vader moved slowly toward the hooded interloper, Obi-Wan activated his own blue-bladed lightsaber.

”I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan,” Vader said, edging closer to the elderly Jedi. ”We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete.”

Obi-Wan a.s.sumed an offensive stance.

”When I left you,” Vader continued, ”I was but the learner; now I am the master.”

”Only a master of evil, Darth,” Obi-Wan said.

Although Vader had not expected Obi-Wan to address him by the obsolete name of Anakin Skywalker, it was most unusual for anyone to call him by his Sith Lord t.i.tle alone. Vader thought, He's trying to confuse me!

Obi-Wan moved fast, lunging at Vader with his weapon, but the Dark Lord blocked the attack with ease. There was a loud electric crackle as their lightsabers made contact. Undeterred, Obi-Wan made a swift series of strikes, but each was parried by Vader.

”Your powers are weak, old man,” Vader said.

”You can't win, Darth,” Obi-Wan said, making Vader wonder if perhaps Obi-Wan was taunting him by refusing to address him properly. With incredible self-a.s.surance, Obi-Wan added, ”If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

”You should not have come back,” Vader said.

Their lightsabers clashed again and again, and their duel carried on until they were just outside Docking Bay 327. As they moved toward the door that led directly into the hangar that contained the captured freighter, Vader heard the approaching footsteps of stormtroopers running toward his position. Vader's blade was crossed with his opponent's when Obi-Wan threw a glance into the hangar. Vader kept his eyes riveted on the Jedi. You won't get away from me this time!

Unexpectedly, Obi-Wan raised his lightsaber before him and closed his eyes. His expression was serene.

Vader could hardly believe it. He's surrendering! Without mercy, Vader swung hard with his lightsaber, slicing through Obi-Wan's form. He fully expected to hear the satisfying sound of Obi-Wan's rained body collapsing upon the polished floor, and so was astonished to see only the Jedi's robe and lightsaber at his feet. Obi-Wan's body had completely vanished.

”No!” a voice shouted from the hangar. Suddenly, the hangar was filled with the rapid reports of many blasters firing at the same time.

Vader heard the shout and the blasters but he paid them no attention. Astonished, he stared at Obi-Wan's weapon and empty robe, then prodded the clothes with his boot. Where is he? How could he vanish? What sort of trickery is this?

From the hangar, over the din of the blaster fight, Vader heard Princess Leia call out, ”Come on! Come on! Luke, it's too late!”

Vader had no interest in stopping Princess Leia, nor did he wonder who ”Luke” might be. But he couldn't let them get away too easily. Turning away from Obi-Wan's fallen robe and lightsaber, he headed for the hangar. But before he could reach the doorway, a man's voice in the hangar shouted, ”Blast the door, kid!”

There was a small explosion outside the doorway, and the two blast doors slid out from the walls to seal off the hangar. Moments later, Vader heard the freighter's engines roar to life, carrying the s.h.i.+p out of the hangar and away from the Death Star.

It had been Vader's idea to plant the homing device on the freighter, and to allow the Princess to escape so she would unwittingly lead the Imperials to the secret Rebel base. Vader had been confident that his plan would work. And yet as he picked up Ken.o.bi's light-saber, he realized that he was now less certain of what the future held.

It was determined that the freighter had traveled to Yavin 4, the same moon where Anakin Skywalker had dueled Asajj Ventress during the Clone Wars. First Tatooine, now Yavin 4, Vader thought. Despite his devotion to the power of the dark side of the Force, he had the nagging sense that his past was coming back to haunt him.

Once the Death Star arrived in the Yavin system and was within thirty minutes' range of destroying the moon with the Rebel base, Vader's confidence returned.

”Today will be a day long remembered,” he told Tarkin in the Death Star control room. ”It has seen the end of Ken.o.bi. It will soon see the end of the Rebellion.”

INTERLUDE.

By the time the Imperial tactical officers had determined that the stolen technical readouts revealed a vulnerable area of their battle station, dozens of Rebel starfighters had already begun their a.s.sault on the Death Star. Tarkin and most of his men had regarded the enemy s.h.i.+ps as nothing more than a temporary nuisance, but Darth Vader had felt his confidence s.h.i.+ft again as the battle progressed. Vader had never considered the Death Star as anything more than a deadly, oversized toy, but because the expensive superweapon was necessary for the Emperor's schemes, he had been duty-bound to protect it.

And he had failed.

Now, as the Super Star Destroyer Executor arrived in the Endor system, he thought back on what had happened at Yavin four years ago.

With Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi's lightsaber clipped to his belt like a trophy, he had flown his bent-winged prototype TIE fighter to defend the Death Star. None of the Rebel pilots had been a match for him until he had caught up with a single X-wing fighter in the Death Star's equatorial trench. Despite the fury of the s.p.a.ce battle, Vader had easily sensed that the Force was strong with this one X-wing pilot. Vader had been about to fire at his evasive target when an unexpected blast from above damaged his own s.h.i.+p and sent him spinning out into s.p.a.ce. He had but a millisecond to see that he had been attacked by the same freighter that had led the Death Star to Yavin.

And then the Death Star had exploded. The resulting shock wave had sent his TIE fighter tumbling further and faster from Yavin. It had not taken him long to regain control of his s.h.i.+p, but because the freighter's attack had crippled his hyperdrive and communications systems, it was some time before he reached an Imperial outpost. Vader had used that time to think about the droids that Princess Leia had sent to Tatooine, and the freighter that had transported Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi to the Death Star. Vader had wondered, How long was Obi-Wan on Tatooine. And why?

Had he been in contact with Owen and Bern Lars?

Did Princess Leia know that he was alive, and that the droids would find him there?

And the Rebel pilot who was so strong with the Force ... where had he come from?

The Emperor had not been pleased to learn of the loss of the Death Star, but he had not faulted Vader After all, Vader had nothing to do with the battle station's flawed design. While Palpatine's propaganda architects had launched a campaign to discredit the Rebel Alliance by denying that a moon-sized Imperial battle station ever existed, Vader had conducted his own investigation to identify the Rebel pilot who had destroyed the Death Star, and devised a plan to lure the Rebels to the Stars.h.i.+p Yards ofFondor.

Vader had failed to capture the Rebel spy who took the bait at Fondor, but through the Force, Vader had sensed that the spy was the pilot who had eluded him at the Death Star, and that this individual had indeed been a disciple of Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi.

Eventually, he had learned the pilot's name.

CHAPTER 17.

Luke Skywalker.

According to munic.i.p.al records obtained from the settlement of Anchorhead on Tatooine, that was the name on the registration for a T-16 skyhopper owned by a human male pilot who had lived at the Lars homestead and was approximately nineteen standard years old.

Luke Skywalker.

According to a Kubaz freelance spy in Mos Eisley, that was the name on a s.p.a.ceport Speeders sales record for the landspeeder that had been purchased from a young man who later left on the Millennium Falcon, the Corellian freighter that had also carried Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi to the Death Star.

Luke Skywalker.

According to a captured Rebel whom Darth Vader interrogated on the planet Centares, that was the name of the X-wing pilot who had destroyed the Death Star.

Luke Skywalker.

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