Chapter 29 of Star Wars: Heir to the Empire (1991) (EU: 9 ABY) by Timothy Zahn.

The Story So Far

Grand Admiral Thrawn and Captain Pellaeon are engaged in preparations to assault the Sluis Van Shipyards. They have left a contingent of Stormtroopers at Hyllyard on Myrkr to intercept the survivors of a crash. Thrawn correctly suspects it may involve Luke Skywalker, but has insufficient evidence to implicate Talon Karrde in his duplicity. Han Solo and Lando Calrissian however sleuth out the truth, begrudging Karrde into cooperating to bring Luke back to safety.

In the forest, Luke is marched by Mara Jade towards Hyllyard. Between the dangers of the forest and sleepless rotations, her animosity has boiled over to the point of confession. Before the deposition of the Emperor, she had held the position of Emperor’s Hand: a covert operative answering to Palpatine’s very mind.

Disguised as best they can, Mara and Luke exit the forest into Imperial custody. As they are marched through Hyllyard, Karrde’s men hand over a roughed up Han Solo. Han covertly alerts Luke and Mara of an imminent ambush, but Luke sees a tactical alternative. He creates a ruckus so that R2-D2 can inform the ambushers (via C-3PO in binary droid-speak) on the optimal timing for their attack.

Chapter 29

The ambush is set, but with new information from C-3PO, Lando and Karrde’s administrator Aves butt heads over whether to abide by their strategic preparations or Luke’s intuition. Blaster to Ave’s head, Lando stakes his and Karrde’s mens’ lives on Luke; a gamble that leaves him mortally wounded.

In the firezone, Luke, Mara, and Han take cover until Luke can engage his plan. On his command, Han creates a distraction for R2-D2 to toss Luke’s lightsaber for him. In the confusion, Luke fells the very archway the Imperials are using for cover, destroying the armoured Imperial Chariot.

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Hosts’ Thoughts

• At first I thought Han had Hoodini his way out of the cuffs and was immediately disappointed to remember he was set up with dummy cuffs
• "Blazing green blade" :( there goes my theory (though Luke was the POV character so maybe there's special pleading to be had)
• “The blade slicing through the listening stormtrooper armour with hardly a tug to mark its passing.” HOLY S***
• Luke casually destroying cultural artefacts throughout this book
  • Bimm tapestries
  • Mykyrian architecture
  • (More? Chewbacca)
• “Threepio said, obviously relieved that somebody was finally listening to him.” Threepio needs better friends
• Lando suddenly getting some pathos
  • Maybe you mean ethos? (his belief in Luke)
  • Luke = Kairos (timeliness)
  • Aves = Logos (logic: tactics)
• Luke’s blade color gets mentioned, but not Leia’s?!
• Luke’s lightsaber has a lock. Seems dangerous to throw it without the Force though

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