CHEWBACCA IS STEERING the Falcon, Lando is monitoring readouts, and Leia is in the copilot’s chair. She is staring straight ahead, but she is not seeing. Nor hearing. She is feeling. Feeling your voice.

Leia…you think.

“Luke…” she whispers.

Suddenly, Leia spins to Lando. “We have to go back!”

“Back?” he exclaims.

“Araraagh?!” agrees Chewie.

“Luke needs us. I can…I can sense it.”

“Princess,” Lando begins, “Vader is back there, and—”

“Luke needs us!”

“But—”

A deep growl emanates from Chewbacca. Both Leia and Lando look at him. He has already begun to turn the ship around.

“Leia…” you call. “Leia…”

The pink and orange sky is going black. Not because night is falling. Because you can’t see. Your hand is too wet to hold on. Your legs have given up.

And then, there it is, zooming through the atmosphere. The Falcon.

You almost let go right then, with relief, with exhaustion.

But you wait.

The ship is under you. The top hatch opens. The dashing man from the mining colony is there, with Chewie. And Leia.

You let go.

On the bridge of the Star Destroyer orbiting the planet of Bespin, Darth Vader watches the monitoring screen. A small, disklike spaceship emerges from the planet’s pastel-colored ozone and enters space.

“The Falcon is in range, Lord Vader,” Admiral Piett announces.

“And you’ve disabled the hyperdrive?”

“Yes, my lord. As you instructed.”

“Good.”

“Okay!” Lando shouts, as Bespin fades behind them. “Now let’s get out of here!”

He has deposited you on a bed in the medical bay. You are, for the time being, useless.

Chewbacca is flipping switches all over the cockpit. Leia is staring through the windscreen at the lurking Star Destroyer.

“Ready, Chewie?”

Chewbacca roars.

“Okay…” Lando says. “Punch it!”

Chewbacca pulls down on the hyperdrive lever and—nothing.

Leia throws up her hands. “This ship!”

“They fixed it!” Lando cries. “They told me they fixed it! It’s not my fault!”

On the Imperial Star Destroyer, Vader turns to the admiral. “Prepare your troops to board. Set your weapons to stun.”

“Very good, my lord.”

Chewbacca and Lando run through the ship, checking valves and adjusting meters.

“What is it? What’s gone wrong?” Lando shouts. Chewbacca howls in frustration.

In the medical bay, your eyes are closed, your body limp. The pain in your right arm is a dull, steady throb. You are barely conscious.

And then you hear a voice. Deep and resonant and almost…almost pleading.

“Luke.”

Your eyes open. Your skin tingles.

“Father,” you say.

“Son, come with me.”

You are fighting back tears.

“Son…”

The word you’ve always longed to hear. At last. At last.

“Son…” Vader whispers. And you can tell—he means it.

In another part of the ship, R2-D2 is welding C-3PO’s legs back on to his torso. “Beep beep beep beep boop beep.”

C-3PO is not pleased. “Well, I know I’ve looked better! What do you expect?”

“Beep beep beep boop boop beep.”

“What do you mean you know why we’re not going to hyperspace?”

“Beep boop boop beep.” R2 finishes connecting the right leg and starts on the left.

“The computer on Bespin told you? You know you can’t trust strange computers! And who knows what kind of diseases you have now! You should be wearing gloves while you’re working on me!”

Chewbacca runs by, howling, banging a wrench against random control boards.

Suddenly, R2 leaves C-3PO lying on the floor, partially reassembled, and rolls over to a nearby port. He inserts his communicator.

“What are you doing?” C-3PO cries. “Come back here and put my other leg on this instant! What do you know about fixing hyperdrives? I’m lying here in pieces, and you’re having delusions of grandeur!”

In the cockpit, Lando and Leia watch helplessly as they are pulled into the belly of the enormous Star Destroyer. Chewbacca roars and bangs on some more panels.

And then, the stars start to stretch, as if they’re being pulled apart from each end. Lando’s and Leia’s eyes go wide. Chewbacca howls.

Suddenly, they are all flying across the cockpit.

R2-D2 slides wildly back over the floor.

And C-3PO is shouting, “You did it! Oh, Artoo! You did it! You did it!”

In the Star Destroyer, Darth Vader sees the Millennium Falcon suddenly disappear into infinity.

He turns away from the monitor.

Admiral Piett loosens his collar and begins, unconsciously, to massage his throat.

But the Dark Lord takes one final glance at empty space and then—he turns away, his head bowed. Not in anger.

In sadness.