The trees of Endor stood a thousand feet tall.  Their trunks, covered with shaggy, rust
bark, rose straight as a pillar, some of them as big around as a house, some thin as a
leg.  Their foliage was spindly, but lush in color, scattering the sunlight in delicate
blue-green patterns over the forest floor.
    Distributed thickly among these ancient giants was the usual array of woodsy
flora—pines of several species, various deciduous forms, variously gnarled and leafy.
The groundcover was primarily fern, but so dense in spots as to resemble a gentle
green sea that rippled softly in the forest breeze.
    This was the entire moon: verdant, primeval, silent.  Light filtered through the
sheltering branches like golden ichor, as if the very air were alive.  It was warm, and
it was cool.  This was Endor.
    The stolen Imperial shuttle sat in a clearing many miles from the Imperial
landing port, camouflaged with a blanket of dead branches, leaves, and mulch.  In
addition the little ship was thoroughly dwarfed by the towering trees.  Its steely hull
might have looked incongruous here, had it not been so totally inconspicuous.
    On the hill adjacent to the clearing, the Rebel contingent was just beginning to
make its way up a steep trail.  Leia, Chewie, Han, and Luke led the way, followed in
single file by the raggedy, helmeted squad of the strike team.  This unit was
composed of elite groundfighters of the Rebel Alliance.  A scruffy bunch in some
ways, they'd each been had-picked for initiative, cunning, and ferocity.  Some were
trained commandos, some paroled criminals—but they all hated the Empire with a
passion that exceeded self-preservation.  And they all knew this was the crucial raid.
If they failed to destroy the shield generator here, the Rebellion was doomed.  No
second chances.
    Consequently, no one had tell them to be alert as they made their way silently up
the forest path.  They were, every on, more alert than they had ever been.
    Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio brought up the rear of brigade.  Artoo's domed
pates swiveled 'round and 'round as he went, blinking his sensor lights at the
infinitely tall trees which surrounded them.
    "Beee-doop!" he commented to Threepio.
    "No, I don't think it's pretty here," his golden companion replied testily.  "With
our luck, it's inhabited solely by droid-eating monsters."
    The trooper just ahead of Threepio turned around and gave them a harsh
"Shush!"
    Threepio turned back to Artoo, and whispered, "Quiet, Artoo."
    They were all a bit nervous.
    Up ahead, Chewie and Leia reached the crest of the hill.  They dropped to the
ground, crawled the last few feet, and peered over the edge.  Chewbacca raised his
feet, and peered over the edge.  Chewbacca raised his great paw, signaling the rest of
the group to stop.  All at once, the forest seemed to become much more silent.
    Luke and Han crawled forward on their bellies, to view what the others were
observing.  Pointing through the ferns, Chewie and Leia cautioned stealth.  Not far
below, in a glen beside a clear pool, two Imperial scouts had set up temporary camp.
They were fixing a meal of rations and were preoccupied warming it over a portable
cooker.  Two speeder bikes were parked nearby.
    "Should we try to go around?" whispered Leia.
    "It'll take time," Luke shook his head.
    Han peeked from behind a rock.  "Yeah, and if they catch sight of us and report,
this whole party's for nothing."
    "Is it just the two of them?" Leia still sounded skeptical.
    "Let's take a look," smiled Luke, with a sigh of tension about to be released; they
all responded with a similar grin.  It was beginning.
    Leia motioned the rest of the squad to remain where they were; then she, Luke,
Han, and Chewbacca quietly edged closer to the scout camp.
    When they were quite near the clearing, but still covered by underbrush, Solo
slid quickly to the lead position.  "Stay here," he rasped, "Chewie and I will take
care of this."  He flashed them his most roguish smile.
    "Quietly," warned Luke, "there might be—"
    But before he could finish, Han jumped up with his furry partner and rushed into
the clearing.
    "—more out there," Luke finished speaking to himself.  He looked over at Leia.
    She shrugged.  "What'd you expect?"  Some things never changed.
    Before Luke could respond, though, they were distracted by a loud commotion in
the glen.  They flattened to the ground and watched.
    Han was engaged in a rousing fist fight with one of the scouts—he hadn't looked
so happy in days.  The other scout jumped on his speeder bike to escape.  But by
the time he'd ignited the engines, Chewie was able to get off a few shots from his
crossbow laser.  The ill-fated scout crashed instantly against an enormous tree; a
brief, muffled explosion followed.
    Leia drew her laser pistol and raced into the battle zone, followed closely by
Luke.  As soon as they were running clear, though, several large laser blasts went off
all around them, tumbling them to the ground.  Leia lost her gun.
    Dazed, they both looked up to see two more Imperial scouts emerge from the far
side of the clearing, heading for their speeder bikes hidden in the peripheral foliage.
The scouts holstered their pistols as they mounted the bikes and fired up the engines.
    Leia staggered to her feet, "Over there, two more of them!"
    "I see 'em," answered Luke, rising.  "Stay here."
    But Leia had ideas of her own.  She ran to the remaining rocket speeder,
charged it up, and took off in pursuit of the fleeing scouts.  As she tore past Luke, he
jumped up behind her on the bike, and off the flew.
    "Quick, center switch," he shouted to her over her shoulder, over the roar of the
rocket engines.  "Jam their comlinks!"
    As Luke and Leia soared out of the clearing after the Imperials, Han and Chewie
were just subduing the last scout.  "Hey, wait!" Solo shouted; but they were gone.
He threw his weapon to the ground in frustration, and the rest of the Rebel commando
squad poured over the rise into the clearing.
    Luke and Leia sped through the dense foliage, a few feet off the ground, Leia at
the controls, Luke grabbing on behind her.  The two escaping Imperial scouts had a
good lead, but at two hundred miles per hour, Leia was the better pilot—the talent ran
in her family.
    She let off a burst from the speeder's laser cannon periodically, but was still too
far behind to be very accurate.  The explosions hit away from the moving targets,
splintering trees and setting the shrubbery afire, as the bikes weaved in and out
between massive, imposing branches.
    "Move closer!" Luke shouted.
    Leia opened the throttle, closed the gap.  The two scouts sensed their pursuer
gaining and recklessly veered this way and that, skimming through a narrow opening
between two trees.  One of the bikes scraped the bark, tipping the scout almost out of
control, slowing him significantly.
    "Get alongside!" Luke yelled into Leia's ear.
    She pulled her speeder so close to the scout's, their steering vanes scraped
hideously against each other.  Luke suddenly leaped from the back of Leia's bike to
the back of the scout's, grabbed the Imperial warrior around the neck, and flipped him
off.  The white-armored trooper smashed into a thick trunk with a bone-shattering
crunch, and settled forever into the sea of ferns.
    Luke scooted forward to the driver's seat of the speeder bike, played with the
controls a few seconds, and lurched forward, following Leia, who'd pulled ahead.
The two of them now tore after the remaining scout.
    Over hill and under stonebridge they flew, narrowly avoiding collision, flaming
dry vines in their afterburn.  The chase swung north and passed a gully where two
more Imperial scouts were resting.  A moment later, they swung into pursuit, now
hot on Luke and Leia's tail, blasting away with laser cannon.  Luke, still behind Leia
took a glancing blow.
    "Keep on that one!" he shouted up at her, indicating the scout in the lead.  "I'll
take the two behind us!"
    Leia shot ahead.  Luke, at the same instant, flared up his retrorocket, slamming
the bike into rapid deceleration.  The two scouts on his tail zipped past him in a blur
on either side, unable to slow their momentum.  Luke immediately roared into high
velocity again, firing with his blasters, suddenly in pursuit of his pursuers.
    His third round hit its mark: one of the scouts, blown out of control, went
spinning against a boulder in a rumble of flame.
    The scout's cohort took a single glance at the flash, and put his bike into
supercharge mode, speeding even faster.  Luke kept pace.
    Far ahead, Leia and the first scout continued their own high-speed slalom
through the barricades of impassive trunks and low-slung branches.  She had to
brake through so many turns, in fact, Leia seemed unable to draw any closer to her
quarry.  Suddenly she shot into the air, at an unbelievably steep incline, and quickly
vanished from sight.
    The scout turned in confusion, uncertain whether to relax or cringe at his
pursuer's sudden disappearance.  Her whereabouts became clear soon enough.  Out
of the tree-tops, Leia dove down on him, cannon blasting from above.  The scout's
bike took the shock wave from a near hit.  Her speed was even greater than she'd
anticipated, and in a moment she was racing alongside him.  But before she knew
what was happening, he reached down and drew a handgun from his holster—and
before she could react, he fired.
    Her bike spun out of control.  She jumped free just in time—the speeder
exploded on a giant tree, as Leia rolled clear into a tangle of matted vines, rotting logs,
shallow water.  The last thing she saw was the orange fireball through a cloud of
smoking greenery; and then blackness.
    The scout looked behind him at the explosion, with a satisfied sneer.  When he
faced forward again, though, the smug look faded, for he was on a collision course
with a fallen tree.  In a moment it was all over but the flaming.
    Meanwhile, Luke was closing fast on the last scout.  As they wove from tree to
tree, Luke eased up behind and then drew even with the Imperial rider.  The fleeing
soldier suddenly swerved, slamming his bike into Luke's—they both tipped
precariously, barely missing a large fallen trunk in their path.  The scout zoomed
under it, Luke over it—and when he came down on the other side, he crashed directly
on top of the scout's vehicle.  Their steering vanes locked.
    The bikes were shaped more or less like one-man sleds, with long thin rods
extending from their snouts, and fluttery ailerons for guidance at the tip of the rods.
With these vanes locked, the bikes flew as one, though either rider could steer.
    The scout banked hard right, to try to smash Luke into an onrushing grove of
saplings on the right.  But at the last second Luke leaned all his weight left, turning
the locked speeders actually horizontal, with Luke on top, the scout on the bottom.
    The biker scout suddenly stopped resisting Luke's leftward leaning and threw his
own weight in the same direction, resulting in the bikes flipping over three hundred
sixty degrees and coming to rest exactly upright once more…but with an enormous
tree looming immediately in front of Luke.
    Without thinking, he leaped from his bike.  A fraction of a second later, the
scout veered steeply left—the steering vanes separated—and Luke's riderless speeder
crashed explosively into the redwood.
    Luke rolled, decelerating, up a moss-covered slope.  The scout swooped high,
circled around, and came looking for him.
    Luke stumbled out of the bushes as the speeder was bearing down on him full
throttle, laser cannon firing.  Luke ignited his lightsaber and stood his ground.  His
weapon deflected every bolt the scout fired at Luke; but the bike kept coming.  In a
few moments, the two would meet; the bike accelerated even more, intent on bodily
slicing the young Jedi in half.  At the last moment, though, Luke stepped
aside—with perfect timing, like a master matador facing a rocket-powered a single
mighty slash of his lightsaber.
    The bike quickly began to shudder; then pitch and roll.  In a second it was out
of control entirely, and in another second it was a rumbling billow of fire on the forest
floor.
    Luke snuffed out his lightsaber and headed back to join the others.

    Vader's shuttle swung around the unfinished portion of the Death Star and settled
fluidly into the main docking bay.  Soundless bearings lowered the Dark Lord's ramp;
soundless were his feet as they glided down the chilly steel.  Chill with purpose were
his strides, and swift.
    The main corridor was filled with courtiers, all awaiting an audience with the
Emperor.  Vader curled his lip at them—fools, all.  Pompous toadys in their velvet
robes and painted faces; perfumed bishops passing notes and passing judgments
among themselves—for who else cared; oily favor-merchants, bent low from the
weight of jewelry still warm from a previous owner's dying flesh; easy, violent men
and women, lusting to be tampered with.
    Vader had no patience for such petty filth.  He passed them without a nod,
though many of them would have paid dearly for felicitous glance from the high Dark
Lord.
    When he reached the elevator to the Emperor's tower, he found the door closed.
Red-robed, heavily armed royal guards flanked the shaft, seemingly unaware of
Vader's presence. Out of the shadow, an officer stepped forward, directly in Lord
Vader's path, preventing his further approach.
    "You may not enter," the officer said evenly.
    Vader did not waste words.  He raised his hand, fingers outstretched, toward the
officer's throat.  Ineffably, the officer began to choke.  His knees started buckling,
his face turned ashen.
    Gasping for air, he spoke again.  "It is the…Emperor's…command."
    Like a spring, Vader released the man from his remote grip.  The officer,
breathing again, sank to the floor, trembling.  He rubbed his neck gently.
    "I will await his convenience," Vader said.  He turned and looked out of the
view window.  Leaf-green Endor glowed there, floating black space, almost as if it
were radiant from some internal source of energy.  He felt its pull like a magnet, like
a vacuum, like a torch in dead night.

    Han and Chewie crouched opposite each other in the forest clearing, being quiet,
being near.  The rest of the strike squad relaxed—as much as was possible—spread
out around them in groups of twos and threes.  They all waited.
    Even Threepio was silent.  He sat beside Artoo, polishing his fingers for lack of
anything better to do.  The others checked their watches, or their weapons, as the
afternoon sunlight ticked away.
    Artoo sat, unmoving except for the little radar screen that stuck out the top of his
blue and silver dome, revolving, scanning the forest.  He exuded the calm patience
of a utilized function, a program being run.
    Suddenly, he beeped.
    Threepio ceased his obsessive polishing and looked apprehensively into the
forest.  "Someone's coming," he translated.
    The rest of the squad faced out; weapons were raised.  A twig cracked beyond
the western perimeter.  No one breathed.
    With a weary stride, Luke stepped out of the foliage, into the clearing.  All
relaxed, lowered their guns.  Luke was tired to care.  He plopped down on the hard
dirt beside Solo and lay back with an exhausted groan.
    "Hard day, huh kid?" Han commented.
    Luke sat up on one elbow, smiling.  It seemed like an awful lot of effort and
noise just to nail a couple of Imperial scouts; and they hadn't even gotten to the really
tough part yet.  But Han could still maintain his light tone.  It was a state of grace,
his particular brand of charm.  Luke hoped it never vanished from the universe.
"Wait'll we get to that generator," he retorted in kind.
    Solo looked around, into the forest Luke had just come from.  "Where's Leia?"
    Luke's face suddenly turned to one of concern.  "She didn't come back?"
    "I thought she was with you," Han's voice marginally rose in pitch and volume.
    "We got split up," Luke explained.  He exchanged a grim look with Solo, then
both of them slowly stood.  "We better look for her."
    "Don't you want to rest a while?" Han suggested.  He could see the fatigue in
Luke's face and wanted to spare him for the coming confrontation, which would
surely take more strength than any of them had.
    "I want to find Leia," he said softly.
    Han nodded, without argument.  He signaled to the Rebel officer who was
second in command of the strike squad.  The officer ran up and saluted.
    "Take the squad ahead," ordered Solo.  "We'll rendezvous at the shield
generator at 0-30."
    The officer saluted again and immediately organized the troops.  Within a
minute they were filing silently into the forest, greatly relieved to be moving at last.
    Luke, Chewbacca, General Solo, and the two droids faced in the opposite
direction.  Artoo led the way, his revolving scanner sensing for all the parameters
that described his mistress; and the others followed him into the woods.

    The first thing Leia was aware of was her left elbow.  It was wet.  It was lying
in a pool of water, getting quite soaked.
    She moved the elbow out of the water with a little splash, revealing something
else: pain—pain in her entire arm when it moved.  For the time being, she decided to
keep it still.
    The next thing to enter her consciousness were sounds.  The splash her elbow
had made, the rustle of leaves, an occasional bird chirp.  Forest sounds.  With a
grunt, she took a short breath and noted the grunting sound.
    Smells began to fill her nostrils next: humid mossy smells, leafy oxygen smells,
the odor of a distant honey, the vapor of rare flowers.
    Taste came with smell—the taste of blood on her tongue.  She opened and
closed her mouth a few times, to localize where the blood was coming from; but she
couldn't.  Instead, the attempt only brought the recognition of new pains—in her
head, in her neck, in her back.  She started to move her arms again, but this entailed
a whole catalogue of new pains; so once again, she rested.
    Next she allowed temperature to waft into her sensorium.  Sun warmed the
fingers of her right hand, while the palm, in shadow, stayed cool.  A breeze drafted
the back of her legs.  Her left hand, pressed against the skin of her belly, was warm.
    She felt…awake.
    Slowly—reticent actually to witness the damage, since seeing things made them
real, and seeing her own broken body was not a reality she wanted to
acknowledge—slowly, she opened her eyes.  Things were blurry here at ground level.
Hazy browns and grays in the foreground, becoming progressively brighter and
greener in the distance.  Slowly, things came into focus.
    Slowly, she saw the Ewok.
    A strange, small, furry creature, he stood three feet from Leia's face and no more
than three feet tall.  He had large, dark, curious, brownish eyes, and stubby little
finger-paws.  Completely covered, head to foot, with soft, brown fur, he looked like
nothing so much as the stuffed baby Wookiee doll Leia remembered playing with as a
child.  In face, when he first saw the creature standing before her, she thought it
merely a dream, a childhood memory rising out of her addled brain.
    But this wasn't a dream.  It was an Ewok.  And his name was Wicket.
    Now was he exclusively cute—for as Leia focused further, she could see a knife
strapped to his waist.  It was all he wore, save for a thing leather mantle only
covering his head.
    They watched each other, unmoving, for a long minute.  The Ewok seemed
puzzled by the princess; uncertain of what she was, or what she intended.  At the
moment, Leia intended to see if she could sit up.
    She sat up, with a groan.
    The sound apparently frightened the little fluffball; he rapidly stumbled
backward, tripped, and fell.  "Eeeeep!" he squeaked.
    Leia scrutinized herself closely, looking for signs of serious damage.  Her
clothes were torn; she had cuts bruises, and scrapes everywhere—but nothing seemed
to be broken or irreparable.  On the other hand, she had no idea where she was.
She groaned again.
    That did it for the Ewok.  He jumped up, grabbed a four-foot-long spear, and
held it defensively in her direction.  Warily, he circled, poking the pointed javelin at
her, clearly more fearful than aggressive.
    "Hey, cut that out," Leia brushed the weapon away with annoyance.  That was
all she needed now—to be skewered by a teddy bear.  More gently, she added:
"I'm not going to hurt you."
    Gingerly, she stood up, testing her legs.  The Ewok backed away with caution.
    "Don't be afraid," Leia tried to put reassurance into her voice.  "I just want to
see what happened to my bike here."  She knew the more she talked in this tone, the
more at ease it would put the little creature.  Moreover, she knew if she was talking,
she was doing okay.
    Her legs were a little unsteady, but she was able to walk slowly over to the
charred remains of the speeder, now lying in a half-melted pile at the base of the
partially blackened tree.
    Her movement was away from the Ewok, who, like a skittish puppy, took this as
a safe sign and followed her to the wreckage.  Leia picked the Imperial scout's laser
pistol off the ground; it was all that was left of him.
    "I think I got off at the right time," she muttered.
    The Ewok appraised the scene with his big, shiny eyes, nodded, shook his head,
and squeaked vociferously for several seconds.
    Leia looked all around her at the dense forest, then sat down, with a sigh, on a
fallen log.  She was at eye-level with the Ewok, now, and they once again regarded
each other, a little concerned.  "Trouble is, I'm sort of stuck here," she confided.
"And I don't even know where here is."
    She put her head in her hands, partly to mull over the situation, partly to rub
some of the soreness from her temples.  Wicket sat down beside her and mimicked
her posture exactly—head in paws, elbows on knees—then let out a little sympathetic
Ewok sigh.
    Leia laughed appreciatively and scratched the small creature's furry head,
between the ears.  He purred like a kitten.
    "You wouldn't happen to have a comlink on you by any chance?"  Big
joke—but she hoped maybe talking about it would give her an idea.  The Ewok
blinked a few times—but he only gave her a mystified look.  Leia smiled.  "No, I
guess not."
    Suddenly Wicket froze; his ears twitched, and he sniffed the air.  He tilted his
head in an attitude of keen attention.
    "What is it?" Leia whispered.  Something was obviously amiss.  Then she
heard it: a quiet snap in the bushes beyond, a tentative rustling.
    All at once the Ewok let out a loud, terrified screech.  Leia drew her pistol,
jumping behind the log; Wicket scurried beside her and squeezed under it.  A long
silence followed.  Tense, uncertain, Leia trained her senses on the near underbrush.
Ready to fight.
    For all her readiness, she hadn't expected the laser bolt to come from where it
did—high, off to the right.  It exploded in front of the log with a shower of light and
pine needles.  She returned the fire quickly—two short blasts—then just as quickly
sensed something behind her.  Slowly she swiveled, to find an Imperial scout
standing over her, his weapon leveled at her head.  He reached out his hand for the
pistol she held.
    "I'll take that," he ordered.
    Without warning, a furry hand came out from under the log and jabbed the scout
in the leg with a knife.  The man howled in pain, began jumping about on one foot.
    Leia dove for his fallen laser pistol.  She rolled, fired and hit the scout squarely
in the chest, flash-burning his heart.
    Quickly the forest was quiet once more, the noise and light swallowed up as if
they had never been.  Leia lay still where she was, panting softly, waiting for another
attack.  None came.
    Wicket poked his fuzzy head up from under the log, and looked around.  "Eeep
rrp scrp ooooh," he mumbled in a tone of awe.
    Leia hopped up, ran all about the area, crouched, turned her head from side to
side.  It seemed safe for the time being.  She motioned to her chubby new friend.
"Come on, we'd better get out of here."
    As they moved into the thick flora, Wicket took the lead.  Leia was unsure at
first, but he shrieked urgently at her and tugged her sleeve.  So she relinquished
control to the odd little beast and followed him.
    She cast her mind adrift for a while, letting her feet carry her nimbly along
among the gargantuan trees.  She was struck, suddenly, not by the smallness of the
Ewok who guided her, but by her own smallness next to these trees.  They were ten
thousand years old, some of them, and tall beyond sight.  They were temples to the
life-force she championed; they reached out to the rest of the universe.  She felt
herself part of their greatness, but also dwarfed by it.
    And lonely.  She felt lonely here, in this forest of giants.  All her life she'd
lived among giants of her own people: her father, the great Senator Organa; her
mother, then Minister of Education; her peers and friends, giants all…
    But these trees.  They were like mighty exclamation points, announcing their
own preeminence.  They were here!  They were older than time!  They would be
here long after Leia was gone, after the Rebellion, after the Empire…
    And then she didn't feel lonely again, but felt a part again, of these magnificent,
poised beings.  A part of them across time, and space, connected by the vibrant, vital
force, of which…
    It was confusing.  A part, and apart.  She couldn't grasp it.  She felt large and
small, brave and timid.  She felt like a tiny, creative spark, dancing about in the fires
of life…dancing behind a furtive, pudgy midget bear, who kept beckoning her deeper
into the woods.
    It was this, then, that the Alliance was fighting to preserve—furry creatures in
mammoth forests helping scared, brave princesses to safety.  Leia wished her parents
were alive, so she could tell them.

    Lord Vader stepped out of the elevator and stood at the entrance to the throne
room.  The light-cables hummed either side of the shaft, casting an eerie glow on the
royal guards who waited there.  He marched resolutely down the walkway, up the
stairs, and paused subserviently behind the throne.  He kneeled, motionless.
    Almost immediately, he heard the Emperor's voice.  "Rise.  Rise and speak,
my friend."
    Vader rose, as the throne swiveled around, and the Emperor faced him.
    They made eye contact from light-years and a soul's breath away.  Across that
abyss, Vader responded.  "My master, a small Rebel force has penetrated the shield
and landed on Endor."
    "Yes, I know."  There was no hint of surprise in his tone; rather, fulfillment.
    Vader noted this, then went on.  "My son is with them."
    The Emperor's brow furrowed less than a millimeter.  His voice remained cool,
unruffled, slightly curious.  "Are you sure?"
    "I felt him, my master."  It was almost a taunt.  He knew the Emperor was
frightened of young Skywalker, afraid of his power.  Only together could Vader and
the Emperor hope to pull the Jedi Knight over to the dark side.  He said it again,
emphasizing his own singularity.  "I felt him."
    "Strange, that I have not," the Emperor murmured, his eyes becoming slits.
They both knew the Force wasn't all-powerful—and no one was infallible with its use.
It had everything to do with awareness, with vision.  Certainly, Vader and his son
were more closely linked than was the Emperor with young Skywalker—but, in
addition, the Emperor was now aware of a crosscurrent he hadn't read before, a
buckle in the Force he couldn't quite understand.  "I wonder if your feelings on this
matter are clear, Lord Vader."
    "They are clear, my master."  He knew his son's presence, it galled him and
fueled him and lured him and howled in a voice of its own.
 "Then you must go to the Sanctuary Moon and wait for him," Emperor Palpatine
said simply.  As long as things were clear, things were clear.
    "He will come to me?" Vader asked skeptically.  This was not what he felt.  He
felt drawn.
    "Of his own free will," the Emperor assured him.  It must be of his own free
will, else all was lost.  A spirit could not be coerced into corruption, it had to be
seduced.  It had to participate activity.  It had to crave.  Luke Skywalker knew
these things, and still he circled the black fire, like a cat.  Destinies could never be
read with absolute certainty—but Skywalker would come, that was clear.  "I have
foreseen it.  His compassion for you will be his undoing."  Compassion had always
been the weak belly of the Jedi, and forever would be.  It was the ultimate
vulnerability.  The Emperor had none.  "The boy will come to you, and you will
then bring him before me."
    Vader bowed low.  "As you wish."
    With casual malice, the Emperor dismissed the Dark Lord.  With grim
anticipation, Vader strode out of the throne room, to board the shuttle for Endor.

    Luke, Chewie, Han, and Threepio picked their way methodically through the
undergrowth behind Artoo, whose antenna continued to revolve.  It was remarkable
the way the little droid was able to blaze a trail over jungle terrain like this, but he did
it without fuss, the miniature cutting tools on his walkers and dome slicing neatly
through anything too dense to push out of the way.
    Artoo suddenly stopped, causing some consternation on the part of his followers.
His radar screen spun faster, he clicked and whirred to himself, then darted forward
with an excited announcement.  "Vrrr dEEp dWP booooo dWEE op!"
    Threepio raced behind him.  "Artoo says the rocket bikes are right up—oh,
dear."
    They broke into the clearing just ahead of the others, but all stopped in a clump
on entering.  The charred debris of three speeder bikes was strewn around the
area—not to mention the remains of some Imperial scouts.
    They spread out to inspect the rubble.  Little of note was evident, except a torn
piece of Leia's jacket.  Han held it soberly, thinking.
    Threepio spoke quietly.  "Artoo's sensor find no other trace of Princess Leia."
    "I hope she's nowhere near here, now," Han said to the trees.  He didn't want to
imagine her loss.  After all that had happened, he simply couldn't believe it would
end this way for her.
    "Looks like she ran into two of them," Luke said, just to say something.  None
of them wanted to draw any conclusions.
    "She seems to have done all right," Han responded somewhat tersely.  He was
addressing Luke, but speaking to himself.
    Only Chewbacca seemed uninterested in the clearing in which they were
standing.  He stood facing the dense foliage beyond, then wrinkled his nose, sniffing.
    "Rahrr!" he shouted, plunging into the thicket.  The others rushed after him.
    Artoo whistled softly, nervously.
    "Picking up what?" Threepio snapped.  "Try to be more specific, would you?"
    The trees became significantly taller as the group pushed on.  Not that it was
possible to see any higher, but the girth of the trunks was increasingly massive.  The
rest of the forest was thinning a bit in the process, making passage easier, but giving
them the distinct sense that they were shrinking.  It was an ominous feeling.
    All at once the undergrowth gave way again, to yet another open space.  At the
center of this clearing, a huge several shanks of raw meat.  The searchers stared, then
cautiously walked to the stake.
    "What's this?" Threepio voiced the collective question.
    Chewbacca's nose was going wild, in some kind of olfactory delirium.  He held
himself back as long as he could, but was finally unable to resist: he reached out for
one of the slabs of meat.
    "No wait!" shouted Luke.  "Don't—"
    But it was too late.  The moment the meat was pulled from the stake, a huge net
sprang up all around the adventurers, instantly hoisting them high above the ground,
in a twisting jumble of arms and legs.
    Artoo whistled wildly—he was programmed to hate being upside-down—as the
Wookiee bayed his regret.
    Han peeled a hairy paw away from his mouth, spitting fur.  "Great, Chewie.
Nice work.  Always thinking with your stomach—"
    "Take it easy," called Luke.  "Let's just figure out how to get out of this thing."
He tried, but was unable, to free his arms; one locked behind him through the net, one
pinned to Threepio's leg.  "Can anyone reach my lightsaber?"
    Artoo was bottommost.  He extended his cutting appendage and began clipping
the loops of the vinery net.
    Solo, meantime, was trying to squeeze his arm past Threepio, trying to stretch to
reach the lightsaber hanging at Luke's waist.  They settled, jerkily, as Artoo cut
through another piece of mesh, leaving Han pressed face to face with the protocol
droid.
    "Out of the way, Goldenrod—unh—get off of—"
    "How do you think I feel?" Threepio charged.  There was no protocol in a
situation like this.
    "I don't really—" Han began, but suddenly Artoo cut through the last link, and
the entire group crashed out of the net, to the ground.  As they gradually regained
their senses, sat up, checked to make certain the others were all safe, one by one they
realized they were surrounded by twenty furry little creatures, all wearing soft leather
hoods, or caps; all brandishing spears.
    One came close to Han, pushing a long spear in his face, screeching "eeee wk!"
    Solo knocked the weapon aside, with a curt directive.  "Point that thing
somewhere else."
    A second Ewok became alarmed, and lunged at Han.  Again, he deflected the
spear, but in the process got cut on the arm.
    Luke reached for his lightsaber, but just then a third Ewok ran forward, pushing
the more aggressive ones out of the way, and shrieked a long string of seeming
invective at them, in a decidedly scolding tone.  At this, Luke decided to hold off on
his lightsaber.
    Han was wounded and angry, though.  He started to holster, with a look.
"Don't—it'll be all right," he added.  Never confuse ability with appearance, Ben
used to tell him—or actions with motivations.  Luke was uncertain of these little
furries, but he had a feeling.
    Han held his arm, and held his peace, as the Ewoks swarmed around,
confiscating all their weapons.  Luke even relinquished his lightsaber.  Chewie
growled suspiciously.
    Artoo and Threepio were just extracting themselves from the collapsed net, as
the Ewoks chattered excitedly to each other.
    Luke turned to the gold droid.  "Threepio, can you understand what they're
saying?"
    Threepio rose from the mesh trap, feeling himself for dents or rattles.  "Oh, my
head," he complained.
    At the sight of his fully upright body, the Ewoks began squeaking among
themselves, pointing and gesticulating.
    Threepio spoke to the one who appeared to be the leader.  "Chree breeb a shurr
du."
    "Bloh wreee dbleeop weeschhreee!" answered the fuzzy beast.
    "Du wee sheess?"
    "Reeop glwah wrrripsh."
    "Shreee?"
    Suddenly one of the Ewoks dropped his spear with a little gasp and prostrated
himself before the shiny droid.  In another moment, all the Ewoks followed suit.
Threepio looked at his friends with a slightly embarrassed shrug.
    Chewie let out a puzzled bark.  Artoo whirred speculatively.  Luke and Han
regarded the battalion of kowtowing Ewoks in wonder.
    Then, at some invisible signal from one of their group, the small creatures began
to chant in unison:  "Eekee whoh, eekee whoh, Rheakee rheekee whoh…"
    Han looked at Threepio with total disbelief.  "What'd you say to them?"
    " 'Hello,' I think," Threepio replied almost apologetically.  He hastened to add,
"I could be mistaken, they're using a very primitive dialect…I believe they think I'm
some sort of god."
    Chewbacca and Artoo thought that was very funny.  They spent several seconds
hysterically barking and whistling before they finally managed to quiet down.
Chewbacca had to wipe a tear from his eye.
    Han just shook his head with a galaxy-weary look of patience.  "Well how
about using your diving influence to get us out of this?" he suggested solicitously.
    Threepio pulled himself up to his full height, and spoke with unrelenting
decorum.  "I beg your pardon, Captain Solo, but that wouldn't be proper."
    "Proper!?" Solo roared.  He always knew this pompous droid was going to go
too far with him one day—and this might well be the day.
    "It's against my programming to impersonate a deity," he replied to Solo, as if
nothing so obvious needed explanation.
    Han moved threateningly toward the protocol droid, his fingers itching to pull a
plug.  "Listen, you pile of bolts, if you don't—"  He got no farther, as fifteen Ewok
spears were thrust menacingly in his face.  "Just kidding," he smiled affably.

    The procession of Ewoks wound its way slowly into the ever-darkening
forest—tiny, somber creatures, inching through a giant's maze.  The sun had nearly
set, now, and the long criss-crossing shadows made the cavernous domain even more
imposing than before.  Yet the Ewoks seemed well at home, turning down each
dense corridor of vines with precision.
    On their shoulders they carried their four prisoners—Han, Chewbacca, Luke,
Artoo—tied to long poles, wrapped around and around with vines, immobilizing them
as if they were wriggling larvae in coarse, leafy cocoons.
    Behind the captives, Threepio, borne on a litter—rough-hewn of branches in the
shape of a chair—was carried high upon the shoulders of the lowly Ewoks.  Like a
royal potentate, he perused the mighty forest through which they carried him—the
magnificent lavender sunset glowing between the vinery, the exotic flowers starting to
close, the ageless trees, the glistening ferns—and knew that no one before him had
ever appreciated these things in just precisely the manner he was now.  No one else
had his sensors, his circuits, his programs, his memory banks—and so in some real
way, he was the creator of this little universe, its images, and colors.
    And it was good.