The Maw…a seemingly endless cluster of black holes located on the Kessel Run. Many had tried to do the Kessel Run, but had gotten lost while going through the Maw. For the fortunate few who made it through the Maw, an even larger threat awaited the: The Pit. The largest asteroid field ever know, the Pit ranged from, at the best, tricky to impossible to navigate. Han Solo had navigated it successfully once with an older smuggler, Roa. Now Solo was forced to go back through the Maw and the Pit, for a New Republic convoy had been lost in the Maw, and possibly in the Pit. Normally, Solo wouldn't have thought twice about turning down the request, but this convoy had a few "special" passengers: Leia, Jacen, Jaina, Anakin, and Chewbacca. To make matters worse, unbeknownst to anyone else, someone else was looking for this convoy too: Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Chimera.
"OK, Luke, finish the system check and we'll be ready to go" said Han to Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master and Han's temorary co-pilot.
"Check," said Luke. "All systems go. I'm ready." Han peered over at the status screen and strted the Falcon's startup sequence. The engines started to hum, and after about a minute, the Falcon was off the ground and heading up a spaceship access tunnel away from the surface of Kessel. Luke walked back to his bunk to get a data card and suddenly fell back into his bunk as the ship jumped into hyperspace. Luke got up and headed back into the cockpit.
"Now, we have to be careful, Luke, with all these planets around, or we'll fly right into one of the black holes in the Maw.
The Falcon shook. Han took this signal and decided to come out of hyperspace early. As the Falcon came out of hyperspace, Luke and Han could see the gigantic blackness of the Maw. Then there was some more shaking and a few alarms.
"Oh, shit" cursed Han.
"The negative power couplinks and power converters have completely blown out. We're slowing to less than one parsec per..." Luke reported with his usual calmness.
"No need to tell me," said Han grimly. "We're stranded and drifting into the Maw."
Thrawn sat on the bridge of the Chimera surveying the starlines rushing toward him.
"Admiral, we will be coming out of hyperspace very close to the Maw," Palleon grunted to his commander. "Don't you think it would be wise if we... maybe come out of hyperspace early?"
"No, Palleon. I have had it with you questioning my authority to make decisions! If you dare have the nerve to question me again I will have you scrubbing carbon scoring off the hull!" Palleon gullped, nodded, and left the bridge.
Thrawn watched as the Chimera came into realspace. Thrawn immediately spotted the stranded Falcon.
"Wel, well, well," Thrawn smiled. "the first catch of the day..."
Back on the Falcon:
"Looks like we've got company!" Han shouted, pointing at the Star Destroyer through the transparisteel window. He took evasive manuvers and tried to outfly the menacing Star Destroyer. The Falcon shuddered as the large ship's tractor beam took hold.
Han cursed to himself. "Come on baby you can take it."
"The ship's falling apart, Han," Luke said with a hint of nervousness in his voice.
"She can take it, kid," Han replied quickly muttering to himself, "I hope she can take it." The tractor beam slowly pulled the ship in, as Han pondered on what to do. Taking another look at the Star Destroyer, Han noticed something familiar about it. It was the Chimera, Thrawn's flagship. "Hey, uh, Luke, that's the Chimera," he said.
"I know, I can sense Master C'Boath's presence," Luke replied calmly. The Millenium Falcon was pulled into the enormous docking bay. Four stormtroopers with blaster rifles approached the ship and opened the hatch. Walking up the ramp, the troopers held their rifles forward, prepared for any opposition. Once the four stormtroopers had entered the darkness of the ship, Luke ignited his green lightsaber and cut the first two troopers in half. Han raised his heavy blaster pistol and fired on the remaining men. The stormtroopers were cut down fast and Han and Luke got into stormtrooper armor having an intense feeling of deja vu. The two ex-rebels knew they had to disable the tractor beam and get out alive. The future of the whole New Republic and the Order of the Jedi Knights rested in their hands, but Luke still had the nagging feeling that this was a trap and Master C'Boath was near.
Joruus C'boath smiled. Everything was going according to plan. The clone of Thrawn was handling things very nicly, and C'boath could be sure that he wasn't scheming behind his back, like the clone's predecessor had.
C'boath knew that he was a clone, but being a clone didn't bother him. The Emperor had had several clones, yet he did not finish the work which he had started. C'boath vowed that he would, and then he would be Emperor of the New Empire, and not some weakling. All that remained in his way were the insignificant Rebellion and the new Jedi.
The Rebellion would be no problem, he would let the clone of Thrawn handle that, but the Jedi. That was a different story. Skywalker escaped from C'boath's own mad predecessor, along with Mara Jade, and they had defeated him. C'boath was sure that he didn't suffer from Clone Madness, and he would not let any Jedi stand in his way. They all would turn or die. Turn or die.
He smiled again. When the transport was found, the most important Jedi would be his, and all others would fall into his grasp. There was no way that he could fail now. The Empire would rise, the Rebellion would fall, and the Jedi would be his.
Dressed in stormtrooper atire, Han and Luke walked out of the docking bay, showing themselves to one of the guards on the other side of the docking bay main exit. The guard didn't pay much attention to them, and he let them pass.
"Okay, Luke. We need to make our way to the reactor so we can shutdown the tractor beam. It probably won't be easy, so be prepared all the time,"Han instructed Luke as they walked down seemingly endless halls to get to where the reactor was located.
"Han. I have a bad feeling about being here. I have a feeling that we are walking into a trap,"Luke said with a hint of him being scared in his voice.
"Well, Luke, I don't know what to say. All I know is that we have to get out of here either way. So just stay extra alert and tell me if you sense something."
"Alright."
Five minutes later the two of them made it to the reactor. They were on a bridge with a small platform of reactor controls. Han could see the tractor beam switch. Luke was keeping two of the guards who were on the bridge busy. He was playing with their minds making them run to something that wasn't even happening. Han found it useful to have a Jedi around.
"Did you disable the tractor beam, yet?"Luke asked Han. Luke kept a constant eye on the hallways the led to the bridge. He didn't see anyone coming.
"Yeah, I've got it. Let's get out of here,"he said running to where Luke was, and then runnning the whole trip back to the Falcon. When Luke and Han made it inside of the Falcon, they found to their surprise no one. Without questioning the situation, Han took off and piloted the ship quickly out of the docking bay. Once outside, he and Luke took off their stormtrooper atire and got into normal clothing. Once they did this, they saw a whole squadron of Imperial TIE Interceptors coming towards them.
"I knew we escaped too easily,"Luke said looking at the sight of all of the TIE Interceptors.
"Well, Luke, hold on. It's going to be difficult fending the TIEs off without someone to man the laser cannons."
"I'll man one of the laser cannons. You fly the ship and angle the deflector shield to save power. Don't worry, we can do this."
"I hope you're right, kid."Han said aloud as Luke went out of the cockpit and down to one of the double laser-cannons.
Meanwhile two TIEs got up behind of the Falcon. One of the TIEs began firing, and hit the Falcon with no avail. The blast was deflected by Han's quick moving. Luke started firing at the TIEs, and took one down. The TIEs didn't know someone was manning the cannons, so they didn't expect to be hit by them.
"That was good, Luke,"Han said loudly as he did some dodging maneuvers with his ship.
Luke targeted the other, fleeing TIE and tried to take it down. He didn't succeed, but within a few seconds the whole squadron had come up behind their ship. Luke fired rapidly and wildly taking some of the fighters down. There were about fifteen fighters left. All of them were firing at the Falcon. Han was doing a good job at keeping the TIEs from hitting his ship. So far the ship had only been hit once.
"Here we go,"Luke said firing at a nearing TIE. He hit the TIE, and the small craft exploded into a beautiful explosion. Two TIEs fired at the Falcon as soon as Luke took down the other TIE. Both of the TIEs who fired hit the "Falcon", but didn't do any damage. Luke was right on top of the TIEs, and took them down. There were about ten more, and Luke was firing at all of them. He scraped a few of them who were flying in close formation, and made them collide into eachother. Then the TIEs started spreading out more, making it harder for Luke to target them.
Han yelled down from the cockpit to Luke. "You better take the rest of them down before we get into a fight in the Maw."
"Alright, Han,"Luke said firing at the other TIEs with more accuracy then before. He was thinking how bad it would be to die by flying into one of the black holes of the Maw.
Withing five minutes, Luke had taken out all of the TIEs, and the Falcon had only taken a few additional hits.
"That was a good job, Luke. Now, before more ships are sent to us, we need to go through the Maw and find our way to Leia and the others."
"Yes. Let's get going."