At the predesignated time of 0300, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, the droids, and their two Ewok guides—Wicket and a scout named Paploo—met up with Major Derlin and the other eleven SpecForces Rebel commandos. Shortly after dawn, the group arrived at a ridge that overlooked the Imperial shield generator and landing platform. On the landing platform, an Imperial Lambda-class shuttle lifted off, extended its lower wings, and flew skyward, on course for the Death Star.

Leia had changed back into her Rebel uniform and camouflage poncho. Surveying the Imperial outpost, she said, “The main entrance to the control bunker’s on the far side of that landing platform. This isn’t going to be easy.”

“Hey, don’t worry,” Han said. “Chewie and me got into a lot of places more heavily guarded than this.”

Wicket and Paploo chattered to each other, then spoke to C-3PO. Leia turned to the golden droid and asked, “What’s he saying?”

C-3PO translated, “He says there’s a secret entrance on the other side of the ridge.”

Paploo knew a shortcut. The Rebels followed him.

In the Sullust system, the Rebel fleet prepared for their flight to the Death Star. Lando Calrissian was in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. His copilot was the Sullustan Nien Nunb. Behind them, two Rebel soldiers checked and adjusted the Falcon’s navigational and shield controls.

Lando guided the Falcon past the larger battle cruisers. He was followed by a group of single-pilot starfighters that included X-wings, A-wings, B-wings, and Y-wings.

“Admiral, we’re in position,” Lando reported into his comlink. “All fighters accounted for.”

“Proceed with the countdown,” Admiral Ackbar’s voice answered from the comm. “All groups assume attack coordinates.”

Nien Nunb checked his controls and muttered something in his native tongue. He sounded nervous.

“Don’t worry,” Lando said, “my friend’s down there. He’ll have that shield down on time.” As Nien Nunb flipped some switches, Lando continued to himself, “Or this’ll be the shortest offensive of all time.”

From the Mon Cal cruiser, Admiral Ackbar said, “All craft, prepare to jump into hyperspace on my mark.”

“All right,” Lando replied. “Stand by.” At Ackbar’s signal, he pulled a lever and the stars suddenly appeared to streak past the cockpit window as the Falcon roared into hyperspace. The Falcon was quickly followed by the single-pilot starfighters. Then Ackbar’s cruiser and the other larger vessels vanished in the same direction, until the entire Rebel armada was en route to the Endor system at faster-than-light speed.

On Endor, Paploo arrived beside some bushes along a ridge, then turned and whistled to Wicket and the Rebels. Leia, Han, and the others spread through the thick undergrowth along the ridge, looking down from their position to see the control bunker that led into the base of the energy shield generator. Outside the bunker entrance was a clearing where four Imperial scout troopers stood, with their speeder bikes parked nearby.

Chewbacca growled an observation, and Paploo chattered in Ewokese to Han.

Han said, “Back door, huh? Good idea.”

Wicket and Paploo asked C-3PO to explain what the Rebels hoped to accomplish. When C-3PO finished, the two Ewoks had a quick exchange, then Paploo jumped up and scampered into the bushes.

Leia moved close beside Han. Looking at the Imperial scouts, Han observed, “It’s only a few guards. This shouldn’t be too much trouble.”

Remembering Han’s last encounter with a group of scout troopers, Leia said, “Well, it only takes one to sound the alarm.”

Ever confident, Han grinned and said, “Then we’ll do it real quiet-like.”

C-3PO asked Wicket where Paploo had gone. Wicket told him. Startled, C-3PO exclaimed, “Oh! Oh, my. Uh, Princess Leia!”

Leia turned around and clamped her hand over C-3PO’s vocabulator. When he settled down, she removed her hand. C-3PO lowered his voice and said, “I’m afraid our furry companion has gone and done something rather rash.”

Chewbacca barked. Leia, Han, and the others watched in distress as Paploo emerged from the bushes below them. He was only a short distance away from the scout troopers.

“Oh, no,” Leia said.

Han sighed. “There goes our surprise attack.”

Paploo silently pulled his furry body up onto one of the parked speeder bikes, then began flipping switches at random. Suddenly the bike’s engine fired up with a tremendous roar.

“Look!” shouted one of the scout troopers. “Over there! Stop him!” The scouts raced toward Paploo just as his speeder bike launched into the forest at incredible speed. The little Ewok clung tight to the handgrip controls and shrieked.

Three of the Imperial scouts jumped onto the remaining speeder bikes and sped away to pursue the bike thief. All the fourth scout could do was stand at his post and watch them go.

Up on the ridge, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca exchanged delighted looks. Han said, “Not bad for a little furball. There’s only one left.” Turning to C-3PO, he added, “You stay here. We’ll take care of this.”

As Han and Chewbacca moved off toward the bunker, C-3PO stepped over beside Wicket and R2-D2. The golden droid declared, “I have decided that we shall stay here.”

R2-D2 beeped his concern for Paploo, but the little Ewok was actually enjoying his swift ride through the forest. At the moment, Paploo’s only physical contact with the speeder bike was his paws wrapped around the controls; the rest of his body was airborne, suspended over the bike’s saddle. He felt like he was flying.

Maintaining his grip on the controls, Paploo maneuvered his body so he was partially perched on the saddle. The three Imperial scouts came up fast behind him. When one of the scouts had the Ewok in his sights, he fired his bike’s blaster cannon. The laserbolt struck the back of Paploo’s bike. Paploo was unharmed, but his bike went into a dizzying roll.

The Ewok somehow reoriented his spinning bike, then steered into a sharp curve around a tree. Another laserbolt whizzed past him, and he decided it was time to get off.

He sighted a long vine dangling in his path. He released his bike’s controls, grabbed a dangling vine, and swung up high into the trees. A moment later, the three scouts tore under him in pursuit of his still-flying, rider-less bike.

Back at the bunker, Han snuck up behind the remaining Imperial scout. Han tapped him on the shoulder, then turned and ran around the bunker, letting the scout chase him. When the scout came around the bunker’s corner, he was confronted by the waiting and armed Rebel strike team. Demonstrating some wisdom, the scout surrendered immediately.

Han pressed a control switch in the bunker’s doorway and the door slid open. With their weapons drawn, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and four Rebel commandos entered the bunker’s dark interior. The door slid closed behind them.

On the Death Star, in the tower high above the space station’s north pole, Darth Vader and Luke—his wrists still secured by binders—arrived at the Emperor’s throne room. As before, two Royal Guards stood silently on either side of the turbolift door. Exiting the turbolift, Vader and Luke crossed the bridge over the elevator shaft, then ascended the stairway to stand before the Emperor.

“Welcome, young Skywalker,” the Emperor said from his throne. “I have been expecting you.”

Luke had never seen the Emperor before. The Emperor’s hooded visage was disfigured: flesh sagged from his bulging forehead and around his piercing yellow eyes—even his voice sounded ravaged by the evil that flowed through his veins. Luke gazed at him defiantly and thought, He looks like a corpse.

The Emperor smiled, displaying rotten teeth as he glanced at the binders on Luke’s wrists. He said, “You no longer need those,” then made a slight gesture with his finger. The binders fell away and clattered noisily against the floor.

Luke looked down at his hands, then back at the Emperor. He thought, It’s as if he’s inviting me to try and kill him with my bare hands. And he looks so weak. But Luke had learned from Ben and Yoda that looks could be deceiving, so he remained standing where he was, at Vader’s side.

The Emperor glanced at his red acolytes and commanded, “Guards, leave us.” The two red-armored sentries turned and disappeared behind the turbolift. Then the Emperor returned his gaze to Luke and said, “I’m looking forward to completing your training. In time you will call me Master.”

“You’re gravely mistaken,” Luke replied. “You won’t convert me as you did my father.”

“Oh, no, my young Jedi,” said the Emperor, rising from his throne threateningly to step closer to Luke. “You will find that it is you who are mistaken…about a great many things.”

Vader said, “His lightsaber,” and presented Luke’s weapon to the Emperor.

Taking the lightsaber, the Emperor said, “Ah, yes, a Jedi’s weapon. Much like your father’s. By now you must know your father can never be turned from the dark side. So will it be with you.”

“You’re wrong,” Luke said. “Soon I’ll be dead…and you with me.”

The Emperor laughed. “Perhaps you refer to the imminent attack of your Rebel fleet.”

Luke looked up sharply. He knows.

“Yes,” hissed the Emperor, “I assure you we are quite safe from your friends here.” He turned to walk back to his throne.

“Your overconfidence is your weakness,” Luke stated.

The Emperor stopped and glanced back at Luke. With a sneer, he replied, “Your faith in your friends is yours.”

He’s wrong, Luke hoped. He’s so wrong.

Vader said, “It is pointless to resist, my son.”

The Emperor eased back into his throne and faced Luke. “Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design,” he said. “Your friends up there on the Sanctuary Moon are walking into a trap. As is your Rebel fleet!”

Oh, no, Luke thought. No!

The Emperor continued, “It was I who allowed the Alliance to know the location of the shield generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best troops awaits them.”

Luke looked from the Emperor to Vader, then to his lightsaber, which remained in the Emperor’s clutches.

The Emperor leaned forward in his throne. In a tone that reeked of mock sympathy, he said, “Oh…I’m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.”

On Endor, inside the Imperial bunker, Han, Leia, Chewbacca, and the Rebel strike team stormed through a door and entered the main control room. There they found an Imperial officer standing beside three black-uniformed generator controllers; the startled men turned away from their computer consoles to see the armed Rebels.

“All right!” Han shouted at the controllers. “Up! Move! Come on! Quickly! Quickly! Chewie!”

Chewbacca growled and leveled his bowcaster at the controllers. Behind him, an open doorway offered a view of the turbine generator chamber that powered the energy shield that was projected at the Death Star. A blaster-wielding Imperial officer came running in from the generator chamber, but an alert Rebel commando knocked him out.

As the controllers were herded away from their consoles, Leia glanced at a viewscreen that displayed a two-dimensional graphic of the shield-protected Death Star. Checking a chronometer, she said, “Han! Hurry! The fleet will be here any moment.”

Han turned to one of the Rebel commandos and said, “Charges! Come on, come on!” The commando tossed a bag of proton grenades to Han.

Outside the bunker, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Wicket were still watching from the bushes when they saw several stormtroopers and controllers suddenly emerge from the surrounding forest. The Imperial soldiers rushed to the bunker’s doorway and entered.

Realizing that their allies were probably unaware of the incoming Imperial troops, C-3PO cried, “Oh, my! They’ll be captured!”

Wicket chattered urgently in Ewokese, then darted away from the droids and into the forest.

“Wa-ait!” C-3PO wailed. “Wait, come back!” He clapped a hand down on top of R2-D2’s dome and said, “Artoo, stay with me.”

Back inside the main control room, Han was about to plant an explosive charge when an Imperial officer appeared in the doorway that overlooked the turbine generator and said, “Freeze!”

Han spun fast and threw a bag of explosives at the officer. The officer cried out as the bag hit him in the chest and carried him over the railing behind him. Before Han could make another move, an overwhelming number of stormtroopers flooded into the control room.

Han, Leia, and the others had no choice but to relinquish their weapons. Chewbacca howled in anger.

A black-uniformed Imperial commander walked up to Han and said, “You Rebel scum.”

The Millennium Falcon dropped out of hyperspace and blasted into the Endor system. In the Falcon’s cockpit, Lando and Nien Nunb looked through their window to see Endor’s forest moon and the unfinished Death Star, which appeared to grow larger with each passing second of their approach. Lando glanced at his sensor scopes and watched dozens of blips appear as the rest of the Imperial fleet emerged from hyperspace behind him.

Lando’s comm unit designation for the mission was Gold Leader. He said into his comlink, “All wings report in.”

“Red Leader standing by,” Wedge Antilles answered from his X-wing starfighter.

“Gray Leader standing by,” came the reply from a Y-wing.

“Green Leader standing by,” said the commander of the A-wing starfighters.

Wedge said, “Lock S-foils in attack positions.” Wedge’s squadron included S-foil-equipped X-wings and B-wings; in response to his command, the X-wing pilots unlocked their wing-connecting assemblies to spread their double-layered wings, and the B-wings’ cannon-tipped airfoils extended from their primary wings.

All the Rebel ships headed straight for the Death Star. On the Mon Cal cruiser, Admiral Ackbar watched the starfighters massing outside his viewport and said, “May the Force be with us.”

In the Falcon’s cockpit, Nien Nunb tried to get a reading on the Death Star’s energy shield but found nothing on his scopes. He pointed to the control panel and said, “Ah-teh-yairee u-hareh mu-ah-hareh.”

Fortunately, Lando understood his Sullustan copilot and replied, “We’ve got to be able to get some kind of a reading on that shield, up or down.”

Nien Nunb could imagine only one possibilty: The Death Star was using long-range sensor jammers to deceive the Rebel fleet. “Mu-ah-hareh mu-kay, huh?” he asked.

Lando said, “Well, how could they be jamming us if they don’t know…we’re coming.” And then Lando realized the truth: They know. Somehow the Empire had anticipated the Rebel assault.

“Break off the attack!” Lando yelled into his comlink. “The shield is still up.”

“I get no reading,” Wedge answered over the comm. “Are you sure?”

“Pull up!” Lando ordered. “All craft pull up!” The Falcon and the fighters of Red Squad veered off desperately to avoid the invisible energy shield.

Inside Admiral Ackbar’s cruiser, alarms sounded. “Take evasive action!” Ackbar commanded his crew. Turning to a comlink, he said, “Green Group, stick close to holding sector MV-Seven.”

A Mon Calamari controller called out, “Admiral, we have enemy ships in sector forty-seven.”

Ackbar swiveled in his seat to face the controller and said, “It’s a trap.”

Sure enough, the Falcon and the other ships had veered straight for an armada of Imperial Star Destroyers. At a glance, Lando guessed there were about twenty. He recognized the largest vessel—a Super-class Star Destroyer—as the same ship that had nearly captured the Falcon after he’d helped rescue Luke from Cloud City.

Then Lando saw the TIE fighters.

“Fighters coming in,” he said into his comlink. It was an understatement. Hundreds of TIE fighters were streaking away from the Star Destroyers and racing for the Rebel fleet. Most of the Imperial fighters were Interceptors, identifiable by their bent and elongated dagger-shaped solar collector panels. The Interceptors were the latest in Twin Ion Engine design, and were far more lethal than standard TIE fighters. In an instant, dozens of fierce dogfights ensued around the giant Mon Cal cruisers.

Lando adjusted the Falcon’s targeting computer so he could fire the turbolaser cannons from the cockpit. The number of speeding TIE fighters and all the crisscrossing streaks of laserfire were so overwhelming that it was almost impossible to see the stars beyond the battle zone. Nien Nunb steered after a pair of TIE fighters and Lando fired the Falcon’s cannons.

“There’s too many of them!” a Rebel pilot shouted from his starfighter’s cockpit. A moment later, the pilot’s ship was struck by enemy fire and was gone.

Flying through the battle, Lando ordered, “Accelerate to attack speed! Draw their fire away from the cruisers.”

“Copy, Gold Leader,” Wedge answered, and instructed his X-wing squad to follow his lead. The starfighters angled off from the larger Rebel ships.

High atop the Death Star, the space battle was visible through the tall circular window behind the Emperor’s throne. From his seat, the Emperor faced Luke and said, “Come, boy. See for yourself.”

Luke moved toward the window. In the distance, Rebel and Imperial starfighters appeared as swirling pinpoints of light. Laserfire streaked between the fighters. There were many explosions.

The Emperor said, “From here you will witness the final destruction of the Alliance and the end of your insignificant Rebellion.”

Luke’s lightsaber rested on the right arm of the Emperor’s throne. The Emperor extended his bony fingers to the lightsaber and said, “You want this, don’t you? The hate is swelling in you now.”

He’s right, Luke thought. I hate him for everything he is, and everything he’s done.

“Take your Jedi weapon,” the Emperor continued. “Use it. I am unarmed. Strike me down with it. Give in to your anger.”

Luke turned away from the Emperor. I won’t give in. I won’t.

The Emperor continued, “With each passing moment you make yourself more my servant.”

“No!” Luke shouted as he spun to glare at the evil wretch.

“It is unavoidable,” the Emperor leered. “It is your destiny. You, like your father, are now mine!”