The Rebel command center, its walls and ceiling still shaking and cracking under the
force of the battle on the surface, was attempting to operate amid the destruction.
Pipes, torn apart by the blasting, belched sprays of scalding stem.  The white floor
were littered with broken pieces of machinery and chunks of ice were scattered
everywhere.  Except for the distant rumbling of laser fire, the command center was
forebodingly quiet.
    There were still Rebel personnel on duty, including Princess Leia, who watched
the images on the few still-functioning console screens.  She wanted to be certain
that the last of the transport ships had slipped past the Imperial armada and were
approaching their rendezvous point in space.
    Han Solo rushed into the command center, dodging great sections of the ice
ceiling that came plunging down at him.  One great chunk was followed by an
avalanche of ice that poured onto the floor near the entrance to the chamber.
Undaunted, Han hurried to the control board where Leia stood beside See-Threepio.
    "I heard the command center was hit." Han appeared concerned.  "Are you all
right?"
    The princess nodded.  She was surprised to see him there where the danger was
severest.
    "Come on," he urged before she could reply.  "You've got to get to your ship."
    Leia looked exhausted.  She had been standing at the console viewscreens for
hours and had participated in dispatching Rebel personnel to their posts.  Taking her
hand, Han led her from the chamber, with the protocol droid clacking after them.
    As they left, Leia gave one final order to the controller.  "Give the evacuation
code signal…and get to the transport."
    Then, as Leia, Han, and Threepio made their hasty exit from the command center,
a voice blared from the public address speakers, echoing in the nearby deserted ice
corridors.  "Disengage, disengage!  Begin retreat action!"
    "Come, on," Han urged, grimacing.  "If you don't get there fast, your ship
won't be able to take off."
    The walls quaked even more violently than before.  Ice chunks continued to fall
throughout the underground base as the three hurried toward the transport ships.
They had nearly reached the hangar where Leia's transport ship was waiting, ready for
departure.  But as they neared the corner they found the entrance to the hangar
completely blocked by ice and snow.
    Han knew they would have to find some other route to Leia's escape ship—and
quickly.  He began to lead them back down the corridor, careful to avoid falling ice,
and snapped on his comlink as they hurried toward the ship.  "Transport C One
Seven!" he yelled into the small microphone.  "We're coming!  Hold on!"
    They were close enough to the hangar to hear Leia's escape vessel preparing for
lift-off from the Rebel ice base.  If he could lead them safely just a few meters more,
the princess would be safe and—
    The chamber suddenly quaked with a terrible noise that thundered through the
underground base.  In an instant the entire ceiling had crashed down in front of them,
creating a solid barrier of ice between them and the hangar docks.  They stared in
shock at the dense white mass.
    "We're cut off," Han yelled into his comlink, knowing that if the transport were
to make good its escape there could be no time wasted in melting down or blasting
through the barricade.  "You'll have to take off without Princess Organa."  He
turned to her.  "If we're lucky we can still make it to the Falcon."
    The princess and See-Threepio followed as Han dashed toward another chamber,
hoping that the Millennium Falcon and his Wookiee copilot had not already been
buried under an avalanche of ice.

    Looking out across the white battlefield, the Rebel officer watched the remaining
snowspeeders whisking through the air and the last of the Imperial vehicles as they
passed the wreckage of the exploded walker.  He flipped on his comlink and heard
the order to retreat:  "Disengage, disengage.  Begin retreat action."  As he signaled
his men to move back inside the ice cavern, he noticed that the lead walker was still
treading heavily in the direction of the power generators.
    In the cockpit of that assault machine, General Veers stepped close to the port.
From this position he could clearly see the target below.  He studied the crackling
power generators and observed the Rebel troops defending them.
    "Point-three-point-three-point-five…coming within range, sir," reported his
pilot.
    The general turned to his assault officer.  "All troops will debark for ground
assault," Veers said.  "Prepare to target the main generator."
    The lead walker, flanked by two of the hulking machines, lurched forward, its
guns blazing to scatter the retreating Rebel troops.
    As more laser fire came from the oncoming walkers, Rebel bodies and parts of
Rebel bodies were flung through the air.  Many of the soldiers who had managed to
avoid the obliterating laser beams were crushed into unrecognizable pulp beneath the
walkers' stomping feet.  The air was charged with the stink of blood and burning
flesh, and thundering with the explosive noises of battle.
    As they fled, the few surviving Rebel soldiers glimpsed a long snowspeeder as it
retreated in the distance, a black trail of smoke escaping its burning hull.
    Although the smoke rising from his crippled speeder obstructed his view, Hobbie
could still see some of the carnage that raged on the ground.  His wounds from a
walker's laser fire made it torture even to move, let alone operate the controls of his
craft.  But if he could mange to work them just long enough to return to the base, he
might be able to find a medical robot and…
    No, he doubted he would survive even that long.  He was dying—of that he was
now certain—and the men in the trench would soon be dead, too, unless something
were done to save them.

    General Veers, proudly transmitting his report to Imperial headquarters, was
totally unaware of Rogue Four's approach.  "Yes, Lord Vader, I've reached the main
power generators.  The shield will be down in moments.  You may commence your
landing."
    As he ended his transmission, General Veers reached for the electrorangefinder
and looked through the eyepiece to line up the main power generators.  Electronic
crosshairs aligned according to the information from the walker's computer.  Then
suddenly the readouts on the small monitor screens mysteriously vanished.
    Confounded, General Veers moved away from the eyepiece of the
electrorangefinder and turned instinctively toward a cockpit window.  He flinched in
terror at seeing a smoking projectile heading on the direct course toward his walker's
cockpit.
    The other pilots also saw the hurtling speeder, and knew that there was no time
to turn the massive assault machine.  "He's going to—" one of the pilots began.
    At that instant, Hobbie's burning ship crashed through the walker cockpit like a
manned bomb, its fuel igniting into a cascade of flame and debris.  For a second
there were human screams, then fragments, and the entire machine crashed to the
ground.

    Perhaps it was the sound of this nearby blast that jarred Luke Skywalker back to
consciousness.  Dazed, he slowly lifted his head from the snow.  He felt very weak
and was achingly stiff with cold.  The thought crossed his mind that frostbite might
already have damaged his tissues.  He hoped not; he had no desire to spend any more
time in that sticky bacta fluid.
    He tried to stand, but fell back against the snow, hoping he would not be spotted
by any of the walker pilots.  His comlink whistled, and somehow he found the
strength to flick on its receiver.
    "Forward units' withdrawal complete," the broadcast voice reported.
    Withdrawal?  Luke thought a moment.  Then Leia and the others must have
escaped!  Luke suddenly felt that all the fighting and the deaths of loyal Rebel
personnel had not been for nothing.  A warmth rushed through his body, and he
gathered his strength to rise and begin making the long trek back toward a distant
formation of ice.

    Another explosion rocked the Rebel hangar deck, cracking the ceiling and almost
burying the docked Millennium Falcon in a mound of ice.  At any moment the entire
ceiling might cave in.  the only safe place in the hangar seemed to be underneath the
ship itself where Chewbacca was impatiently awaiting the return of his captain.  The
Wookiee had begun to worry.  If Han did not return soon, the Falcon would surely
be buried in a tomb of ice.  But loyalty to his partner kept Chewie from taking off in
the freighter alone.
    As the hangar started to tremble more violently, Chewbacca detected movement
in the adjoining chamber.  Throwing back his head, the shaggy giant filled the
hangar with his loudest roar as he saw Han Solo climb over hills of ice and snow and
enter the chamber, followed closely by Princess Leia and an obviously nervous
See-Threepio.

    Not far from the hangar, Imperial stormtroopers, their faces shielded by white
helmets and white snowscreens, had begun moving down deserted corridors.  With
them strode their leader, the dark-robed figure who surveyed the shambles that had
been the Rebel base at Hoth.  Darth Vader's black image stood out starkly against the
white walls, ceiling, and floor.  As he moved through the white catacombs, he
regally stepped aside to avoid a falling section of ice ceiling.  Then he continued on
his way with such quick strides that his troops had to hurry to keep up.

    A low whine, rising in pitch, began to issue from the saucer-shaped freighter.
Han Solo stood at the controls in the Millennium Falcon's cockpit, at last feeling at
home.  He quickly flipped one switch after another, expecting to see the board flash
its familiar mosaic of light; but only some of the lights were working.
    Chewbacca had also noticed something amiss and barked with concern as Leia
examined a gauge that seemed to be malfunctioning.
    "How's that, Chewie?" asked Han anxiously.
    The Wookiee's bark was distinctly negative.
    "Would it help if I got out and pushed?" snapped Princess Leia, who was
beginning to wonder if it were the Corellian's spit that held the ship together.
    "Don't worry, Your Holiness.  I'll get it started."
    See-Threepio clanked into the hold and, gesturing, tried to get Han's attention.
"Sir," the robot volunteered, "I was wondering if I might—"  But his scanners read
the scowl on the face staring at him.  "It can wait," he concluded.
    Imperial stormtroopers, accompanied by the rapidly moving Darth Vader,
thundered through the ice corridors of the Rebel base.  Their pace quickened as they
rushed in the direction of the low whine coming from the ion engines.  Vader's body
tensed slightly as, entering the hangar, he perceived the familiar saucer-shaped form
of the Millennium Falcon.
    Within the battered freighter ship, Han Solo and Chewbacca were trying
desperately to get the craft moving.
    "This bucket of bolts is never going to get us past that blockade," Princess Leia
complained.
    Han pretended that he didn't hear her.  Instead, he checked the Falcon's
controls and struggled to keep his patience even though his companion had so
obviously lost hers.  He flipped switches on the control console, ignoring the
princess's look of disdain.  Clearly, she doubted that this assemblage of spare parts
and welded hunks of scrap metal would hold together even if they did manage to get
beyond the blockade.
    Han pushed a button on the intercom.  "Chewie…come on!"  Then, winking at
Leia, he said, "This baby's still got a few surprise left in her."
    "I'll be surprised if we start moving."
    Before Han could make a carefully honed retort, the Falcon was jolted by a blast
of Imperial laser fire that flashed outside the cockpit window.  They could all see the
squad of Imperial stormtroopers rushing with drawn weapons into the far end of the
ice hangar.  Han knew that the Falcon's dented hull might resist the force of those
hand weapons, but would be destroyed by the more powerful bazooka-shaped weapon
that two of the Imperial troopers were hurriedly setting up.
    "Chewie!" Han yelled as he quickly strapped himself into his pilot's chair.
Meanwhile, a somewhat subdued young woman seated herself in the navigator's
chair.
    Outside the Millennium Falcon, stormtroopers worked with military efficiency to
set up their enormous gun.  Behind them the hangar doors began to open.  One of
the Falcon's powerful laser weapons appeared from the hull and swung about, aiming
directly at the stormtroopers.
    Han moved urgently to block the Imperial soldier's efforts.  Without hesitation
he released a deadly blast from the powerful laser weapon he had aimed at the
stormtroopers.  The explosion scattered their armored bodies all over the hangar.
    Chewbacca dashed into the cockpit.
    "We'll just have to switch over," Han announced, "and hope for the best."
    The Wookiee hurled his hairy bulk into the copilot's seat as yet another laser
blast erupted outside the window next to him.  He yelled indignantly, then yanked
back on the controls to bring the welcome roar of engine fire from deep inside the
Falcon.
    The Corellian grinned at the princess, a gleeful I-told-you-so gleam in his eyes.
    "Someday," she said with mild disgust, "you're going to be wrong, and I just
hope I'm there to see it."
    Han just smiled, then turned to his copilot.  "Punch it!" he shouted.
    The huge freighter's engines roared.  And everything behind the craft instantly
melted in the fiery exhaust billowing from its tailpiece Chewbacca furiously worked
the controls, watching out of the corner of his eyes the ice walls rushing past as the
freighter blasted away.
    At the last moment, just before takeoff.  Han caught a glimpse of additional
stormtroopers running into the hangar.  In their wake strode a foreboding giant clad
entirely in black.  Then there was only the blur and the beckoning of billions of stars.
    As the Millennium Falcon soared from the hangar, its flight was detected by
Commander Luke Skywalker, who turned to smile at Wedge and his gunner.  "At
least Han got away."  The three then trudged along to their waiting X-wing fighter
ships.  When they finally reached them, they shook hands and moved off toward
their separate vehicles.
    "Good luck, Luke," Wedge said as they parted.  "See you at the rendezvous."
    Luke waved and began to walk toward his X-wing.  Standing there amid the
mountains of ice and snow, he was overcome by a surge of loneliness.  He felt
desperately alone now that even Han was gone.  Worse than that, Princess Leia was
also somewhere else; she might just as well be an entire universe away…
    Then out of nowhere a familiar whistle greeted Luke.
    "Artoo!" he exclaimed.  "Is that you?"
    Sitting snugly in the socket that had been installed for these helpful R2 units was
the little barrel-shaped droid, his head peeking from the top of the ship.  Artoo had
scanned the approaching figure and had whistled with relief when his computers
informed him it was Luke.  The young commander was equally relieved to
reencounter the robot that had accompanied him on so many of his previous
adventures.
    As he climbed into the cockpit and seated himself behind the controls, Luke
could hear the sound of Wedge's fighter roaring into the sky toward the Rebel
rendezvous point.  "Activate the power and stop worrying.  We'll soon be
airborne," Luke said in response to Artoo's nervous beeping.
    His was the last Rebel ship to abandon what had, for a very brief time, been a
secret outpost in the revolution against the tyranny of the Empire.

    Darth Vader, a raven specter, quickly strode through the ruins of the Rebel ice
fortress, forcing his accompanying men into a brisk jog to keep up.  As they moved
through the corridors, Admiral Piett rushed up to overtake his master.
    "Seventeen ships destroyed," he reported to the Dark Lord.  "We don't know
how many got away."
    Without turning his head, Vader snarled through his mask, "The Millennium
Falcon?"
    Piett paused a moment before replying.  He would have preferred to avoid that
issue.  "Our tracking scanners are on it now," he responded a bit fearfully.
    Vader turned to face the admiral, his towering figure looming over the frightened
officer.  Piett felt a chill course through his veins, and when the Dark Lord spoke
again his voice conveyed an image of the dreadful fate that would be inflicted if his
commands were not executed.
    "I want that ship," he hissed.

    The ice planet was rapidly shrinking to a point of dim light as the Millennium
Falcon sped into space.  Soon that planet seemed nothing more than one of the
billions of light specks scattered throughout the black void.
    But the Falcon was not alone in its escape into deep space.  Rather, it was
followed by an Imperial fleet that included the Avenger Star Destroyer and a
half-dozen TIE fighter.  The fighters moved ahead of the huge, slower-moving
Destroyer, and closed in on the fleeing Millennium Falcon.
    Chewbacca howled over the roar of the Falcon's engines.  The ship was
beginning to lurch with the buffeting flak blasted at it by the fighters.
    "I know, I know, I see them," Han shouted.  It was taking everything he had to
maintain control of the ship.
    "See what?" Leia asked.
    Han pointed out the window at two very bright objects.
    "Two more Star Destroyers, and they're heading right at us."
    "I'm glad you said there was going to be no problem," she commented with
more than a touch of sarcasm, "or I'd be worried."
    The ship rocked under the steady fire from the TIE fighters making it difficult for
Threepio to maintain his balance as he returned to the cockpit.  His metal skin
bumped and banged against the walls as he approached Han.  "Sir," he began
tentatively, "I was wondering…"
    Han Solo shot him a threatening glance.  "Either shut up or shut down." Han
warned the robot, who immediately did the former.
    Still struggling with the controls to keep the Millennium Falcon on course, the
pilot turned to Wookiee.  "Chewie, how's the deflector shield holding up?"
    The cockpit adjusted an overhead switch and barked a reply that Solo interpreted
as positive.
    "Good," said Han.  "At sublight, they may be faster, but we can still
out-maneuver them.  Hold on!"  Suddenly the Corellian shifted his ship's course.
    The two Imperial Star Destroyers had com almost within firing range of the
Falcon as they loomed ahead; the pursuing TIE fighters and the Avenger were also
dangerously close.  Han felt he had no choice but to take the Falcon into a
ninety-degree dive.
    Leia and Chewbacca felt their stomachs leap into their throats as the Falcon
executed its steep dive.  Poor Threepio quickly had to alter his inner mechanism if he
wanted to remain on his metallic fee.
    Han realized that his crew might think he was some kind of lunatic star jockey,
pushing his ship on this madman's course.  But he had a strategy in mind.  With the
Falcon no longer between them, the two Star Destroyers were now on a direct
collision course with the Avenger.  All he had to do was sit back and watch.
    Alarms blared through the interiors of all three Star Destroyers.  These
ponderously massive ships could not respond quickly enough to such emergencies.
Sluggishly one of the Destroyers began to move to the left in its effort to avoid
collision with the Avenger.  Unfortunately, as it veered, it brushed its companion ship,
violently shaking up both spaceborne fortresses.  The damaged Destroyers began to
drift through space, while the Avenger continued in pursuit of the Millennium Falcon
and its obviously insane pilot.
    Two down, Han thought.  But there was still a quartet of TIE fighters tailing the
Falcon, blasting at its stern with full laser fire, but Han thought he could outstrip them.
The ship was buffeted violently by the fighters' laser blasts, forcing Leia to hold on in
a desperate attempt to keep her seat.
    "That slowed them down a bit!" Han exulted.  "Chewie, stand by to make the
jump to light-speed."  There was not a moment to waste—the laser attack was
intense now, and the TIE fighters were almost on top of them.
    "They're very close," Leia warned, finally able to speak.
    Han looked at her with a wicked glint in his eyes.  "Oh, yeah?  Watch this."
    He threw the hyperspace throttle forward, desperate to escape, but also eager to
impress the princess with both his own cleverness and his ship's fantastic power.
Nothing happened!  The stars that should by then have been mere blurs of light were
still.  Something was definitely wrong.
    "Watch what?" Leia asked impatiently.
    Instead of responding, Han worked the light-speed controls a second time.
Again, nothing.  "I think we're in trouble," he muttered.  His throat tightened.  He
knew "trouble" was a gross understatement.
    "If I may say so, sir," Threepio volunteered, "I noticed earlier that the entire
main para-light system seemed to have been damaged."
    Chewbacca threw back his head and let out a loud and miserable wail.
    "We're in trouble!" Han repeated.
    All around them, the laser attack had increased violently.  The Millennium
Falcon could only continue at its maximum sublight velocity as it moved deeper into
space, closely followed by a swarm of TIE fighters and one gigantic Imperial Star
Destroyer.