Gauges began to whine in protest, and by ones and twos every instrument on the

control console sequentially went berserk. Try as he might, Solo couldn't keep the

surface of the gargantuan station from looming steadily larger, larger—until it became

the heavens.

Luke stared wildly at secondary installations as big as mountains, dish antennae

larger than all of Mos Eisley. "Why are we still moving toward it?"

"Too late," Kenobi whispered softly. A glance at Solo confirmed his concern.

"We're caught in a tractor beam—strongest on I ever saw. It's dragging us in,"

the pilot muttered.

"You mean, there's nothing you can do?" Luke asked, feeling unbelievably

helpless.

Solo studied the overloaded sensor readouts and shook his head. "Not against

this kind of power. I'm on full power myself, kid, and it's not shifting out of course

a fraction of a degree. It's no use. I'm going to have to shut down or we'll melt

our engines. But they're not going to suck me up like so much dust without a fight!"

He started to vacate the pilot's chair, but was restrained by an aged yet powerful

hand on his shoulder. An expression of concern was on the old man's face—and yet,

a suggestion of something somewhat less funereal.

"If it's a fight you cannot win—well, my boy, there are always alternatives to

fighting…"

The true size of the battle station became apparent as the freighter was pulled

closer and closer. Running around the station's equator was an artificial cluster of

metal mountains, docking ports stretching beckoning fingers nearly two kilometers

above the surface.

Now only a miniscule speck against the gray bulk of the station, the Millennium

Falcon was sucked toward one of those steel pseudopods and finally swallowed by it.

A lake of metal closed off the entryway, and the freighter vanished as if it had never

existed.

Vader stared at the motley array of stars displayed on the conference-room map

while Tarkin and Admiral Motti conferred nearby. Interestingly, the first use of the

most powerful destructive machine ever constructed had seemingly had no influence

at all on that map, which in itself represented only a tiny fraction of this section of one

modest-sized galaxy.

It would take a microbreakdown of a portion of this map to reveal a slight

reduction in spatial mass, caused by the disappearance of Alderaan. Alderaan, with

its many cities, farms, factories, and towns—and traitors, Vader reminded himself.

Despite his advances and intricate technological methods of annihilation, the

actions of mankind remained unnoticeable to an uncaring, unimaginably vast universe.

If Vader's grandest plans ever came to pass, all that would change.

He was well aware that despite all their intelligence and drive, the vastness and

wonder were lost on the two men who continued to chatter monkeylike behind him.

Tarkin and Motti were talented and ambitious, but they saw things only on the scale of

human pettiness. It was a pity, Vader thought, that they did not possess the scope to

match their abilities.

Still, neither man was a Dark Lord. As such, little more could be expected of

them. These two were useful now, and dangerous, but someday they, like Alderaan,

would have to be swept aside. For now he could not afford to ignore them. And

while he would have preferred the company of equals, he had to admit reluctantly that

at this point, he had no equals.

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