Rising from the game table, the Wookie followed his partner toward the cockpit.

Luke watched them depart, but his mind wasn't on their imminent arrival at Alderaan.

It was burning with something else, something that seemed to grow and mature at the

back of his brain as he dwelt on it.

"You know," he murmured, "I did feel something. I could almost 'see' the

outlines of the remote." He gestured at the hovering device behind him.

Kenobi's voice when he replied was solemn. "Luke, you've taken the first step

into a larger universe."

Dozens of humming, buzzing instruments lent the freighter's cockpit the air of a

busy hive. Solo and Chewbacca had their attention locked on the most vital of those

instruments.

"Steady...stand by, Chewie." Solo adjusted several manual compensators.

"Ready to go sublight...ready...cut us in, Chewie."

The Wookie turned something on the console before him. At the same time

Solo pulled back on a comparatively large lever. Abruptly the long streaks of

Doppler-distorted starlight slowed to hyphen shapes, then finally to familiar bolts of

fire. A gauge on the console registered zero.

Gigantic chunks of glowing stone appeared out of the nothingness, barely

shunted aside by the ship's deflectors. The strain caused the Millennium Falcon to

begin shuddering violently.

"What the--?" a thoroughly startled Solo muttered. Next to him, Chewbacca

offered no comment of his own as he flipped off several controls and activated others.

Only the fact that the cautious Solo always emerged from supralight travel with his

deflectors up-just in case any of many unfriendly folks might be waiting for him-

had saved the freighter from instant destruction.

Luke fought to keep his balance as he made his way into the cockpit. "What's

going on?"

"We're back in normal space," Solo informed him, "but we've come out in the

middle of the worst asteroid storm I've ever seen. It's not on any of our charts."

He peered hard at several indicators. "According to the galactic atlas, our position is

correct. Only one thing is missing: Alderaan."

"Missing? But-that's crazy!"

"I won't argue with you," the Corellian replied grimly, "but look for yourself."

He gestured out the port. "I've triple-checked the coordinates, and there's nothing

wrong with the nav'puter. We ought to be standing out one planetary diameter from

the surface. The planet's glow should be filling the cockpit, but-there's nothing out

there. Nothing but debris." He paused. "Judging from the level of wild energy

outside and the amount of solid waste, I'd guess that Alderaan's been blown away.

Totally."

"Destroyed," Luke whispered, overwhelmed at the specter raised by such an

unimaginable disaster. "But-how?"

"The Empire," a voice declared firmly. Ben Kenobi had come in behind Luke,

and his attention was held by the emptiness ahead as well as the import behind it.

"No." Solo was shaking his head slowly. In his own way even he was stunned

by the enormity of what the old man was suggesting. That a human agency had been

responsible for the annihilation of an entire population, of a planet itself...

"No...the entire Imperial fleet couldn't have done this. It would take a

thousand ships massing a lot more firepower than has ever existed."

"I wonder if we should get out of here," Luke was murmuring, trying to see

around the rims of the port. "If by some chance it was the Empire..."

"I don't know what's happened here," an angry Solo cursed, "but I'll tell you one

thing. The Empire isn't-"

Muffled alarms began humming loudly as a synchronous light flashed on the

control console. Solo bent to the appropriate instrumentation.

"Another ship," he announced. "Can't judge the type yet."
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