the Night Watch

the Night Watch
The Kitchen Maid
The Lady of Shalott
the night watch by rembrandt
aside—and stumbled backward in a state of shock. Filling the door completely was a towering hairy form. Chewbacca leanedinward and with a bone-splintering howl flattened the benumbed officer with oneswipe of a pan-sized fist. The aide was already on his feet and reaching for his sidearm when a narrowenergy beam passed completely through him, piercing his heart. Solo flipped up thefaceplate of his trooper helmet, then slid it back into place as he followed the Wookieinto the room. Kenobi and the 'droids squeezed in behind him, with Luke, also cladin the armor of a luckless Imperial soldier, bringing up the rear. Luke was looking around nervously as he shut the door behind them. "Betweenhis howling and your blasting everything in sight, it's a wonder the entire stationdoesn't know we're here." "Bring 'em on," Solo demanded, unreasonably enthused by their success so far."I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around.""Maybe you're in a hurry to die," Luke snapped, "but I'm not. All this sneakingaround has kept us alive." The Corellian gave Luke a sour eye but said nothing. They watched as Kenobi operated an incredibly complex computer console withthe ease and confidence of one long accustomed to handling intricate machinery. Ascreen lit up promptly with a map of sections of the battle station. The old manleaned forward, scrutinizing the display carefully. Meanwhile, Threepio and Artoo had been going over an equally complicatedcontrol panel nearby. Artoo suddenly froze and began whistling wildly at somethinghe had found. Solo and Luke, their momentary disagreement over tactics forgotten,rushed over to where the robots were standing. Chewbacca busied himself hangingthe gentry officer up by his toes. "Plug him in," Kenobi suggested, looking over from his place before the largerreadout. "He should be able to draw information from the entire station network.Let's see if he can find out where the tractor beam power unit is located." "Why not just disconnect the beam from here, sir?" Luke wanted to know. It was Solo who replied derisively, "What, and have them lock it right back on usbefore we can get a ship's length outside the docking bay?" Luke looked crestfallen. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that." "We have to break the tractor at its power source in order to execute a clean