Star Wars Journal - The Fight for Justice by Luke Skywalker by John Peel

noticed. I thought that on a ship this size, there had to be women workers, so maybe a princess wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Of course, that was before I knew the Empire rarely uses women or aliens in their forces. That’s how narrowminded Vader and the rest are. They don’t think women are useful!
    Anyway, instead I decided to concentrate on one problem at a time. When we had the princess safe, the rest of the plan could be worked out.
    With any luck, that was.
    Despite Chewie’s complaints, Han managed to convince him that my idea was good. We took him to an elevator bank wearing unlocked restraints. And nobody seemed to think we were anything other than two guards with a prisoner. Some of them gave the Wookiee odd looks, but nobody asked us questions or stopped us.
    Until we reached the detention area, of course. There we ran into a major problem. There was an officer on duty at the entrance, and he was your typical Imperial by-the-book type. He wanted transfer papers and all sorts of authorizations for Chewie that we obviously didn’t have. There were a couple of guards with him, and they were starting to get suspicious.
    Luckily, Han thinks fast. He had Chewie stage a breakout, and while everyone was staring at the mad Wookiee, he and I managed to shoot the guards. Unfortunately, not before the officer sounded the alarm.
    I found out where the princess was being held and headed straight for her cell. Han and Chewie stayed behind to try and sort out the mess we’d caused. I was feeling the adrenaline pumping now, after that fight. I didn’t know whether I’d killed the guards I’d shot or simply stunned them. To be honest, I didn’t really care.
    I’d have thought I’d have felt worse about killing someone, but right then I had more important things on my mind. Besides, the guard would have killed me, so it was definitely self-defense. And yes, he was holding and would have killed the princess. But he was also a human being, somebody with a family who maybe loved him. And maybe I’d killed him. It’s a really odd feeling, thinking about that.
    But right then I was occupied with other things. Such as saving a princess.
    I found her cell door and opened it without any problem. She was awake inside, and obviously expecting to be taken off for execution. She looked up at me, and all the things I’d been planning to say went right out of my head.
    She was even more beautiful in person than she’d looked on the recording. There was a look in her eyes that told me she’d never beg for her life, and that she’d fight to the end to stay alive. So all of my Hi, I’m Luke Skywalker, and this is a rescue lines went clean out of my head. I just stood there, stammering a little.
    And she asked me, “Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?” Like that was the only thing on her mind right then.
    It was such an odd thing to say that it started my brain working again. I managed to tell her who I was, and I took off the helmet. That was so she could see my face and tell I was being truthful. It was also so I could get a better look at her. The eyepieces in the helmet were a little distorting.
    She didn’t know who I was, of course, so I explained that we had her Artoo unit, and that we were there with Ben Kenobi. That got her attention, and she started to ask questions I didn’t have time to answer.
    Suddenly there was a whole bunch of firing, and Han and Chewie came down the tunnel toward us, firing their guns behind them. It seemed that Han hadn’t managed to convince security that there wasn’t a problem, and there were more guards pouring into the area, all after us.
    The princess wasn’t exactly thrilled with this news, and Han was even less thrilled with the princess. I could see that they’d both taken an instant dislike to one another. But they didn’t have too much time to express their differences. We were trapped inside a maximum security area, with guards coming at us from the only