the PROLOGUE A long time ago in a galaxy far far away After the destruction of Death Star the Sith Lord Darth Vader became obsessed with finding Rebel pilot Luke Skywalker Vader almost caught him on the ice planet Hoth but Luke hoping to learn more about the Jedi arts fled to Dagobah where he trained with the aged Jedi Master Yoda With the aid of the bounty hunter Boba Fett Darth Vader captured Luke Skywalker's friends and used them as bait to lure Luke into a trap on Cloud City Despite Despite Yoda's admonishments Luke went to save them only to be brutally wounded in a lightsaber duel with Vader The Sith Lord further stunned his adversary with the declaration that he was really Luke's father Vader's Vader's claim was all the more shocking because Luke's trusted mentor Ben Kenobi the Jedi Master formerly
runins known as Obi Wan Kenobi had once told Luke that his father had been murdered by Vader Luke managed to escape Vader's clutches but not before his friend Han Solo a slightly reformed smuggler had been frozen in a block of carbonite and turned over to Boba Fett After several with competing bounty hunters Boba Fett delivered Han's frozen form to the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt on the sand planet Tatooine While Luke and his allies prepared to rescue Han the evil Emperor Palpatine sent Darth Vader to a remote sector of space where the Empire's most powerful powerful secret weapon was now under construction
orbit CHAPTER 1 The second Death Star was far from finished of the gas giant Suspended in a synchronous giant Endor's forest covered moon the space station was at its present stage an immense exposed superstructure only partially covered by armored plating Enormous skeletal girders curled away from the completed areas wrapping protectively around the internal reactor core that ran between the station's poles Even in its unfinished state it was obvious that the station would be sphere shaped And like its predecessor the station had a super laser focus lens positioned in its upper hemisphere and a trench that ringed the equator However it had none of the former Death Star's design flaws The redesigned redesigned superlaser would require mere minutes not hours to be recharged and could be focused more finely allowing it to fire at moving targets such as
capital ships With a projected diameter of 160 kilometers kilometers and a substantial increase in firepower the new Death Star would be not only larger than the original but also much more lethal An Imperial Star Destroyer arrived near the building building site then a Lambda class shuttle and two TIE fighters fighters dropped out of the Star Destroyer's main hangar As the shuttle and its escorts traveled toward the Death Star its captain spoke into a comlink Command station station this is ST Three twenty one Code Clearance Blue We're starting our approach Deactivate the security shield From the Death Star a controller answered The security deflector shield will be deactivated when we have confirmation of your code transmission Stand by you are clear to proceed We're starting our approach On the shuttle Darth Vader peered through a window window at the monstrous assemblage He thought Even if it succeeds where the previous Death Star failed it is an infant's trinket compared to the power of the Force As Vader's shuttle neared the space station's equatorial equatorial trench its hinged port and starboard wings raised in preparation for landing The TIE fighters peeled off and the shuttle proceeded to enter a wide hangar where it touched down on a gleaming black deck In the Death Star control room the shield operators
