This passage is a narrow path indeed.If we can but maneuver cunningly,We shall escape the Death Star with our livesAnd, what is more, our hop’d-for victory.I prithee, pilots all, attend my words:Lock all thy weapons to the largest sourceOf power, which should be the generator.[An Imperial pilot strikes Rebel Pilot #1.
Pilot 1
Alas, friends, I am hit, and go to die![Rebel Pilot 1 dies.
Lando
I would not even one more pilot loseWho under my command doth fly herein.Pay heed, all: separate by diff’rent pathsAnd fly toward the surface. See if youCan draw a few TIE fighters thither, too.This is the surest hope for our successAgainst the Death Star and its minions.Pilot 2
—Aye,Thou speakest well, Gold Leader. We’ll obey.[The rebels inside the Death Star separate. Some exit, pursued by Imperial troops, leaving only Lando, Nien Nunb, and Wedge Antilles inside the shaft.
NIEN
Ah![The
Millennium Falcon scrapes the wall of the Death Star shaft.Lando
—Pardon, Han, I did say not a scratch,But did, in this tense moment, break that vow.Yet thou and I both know it could be worse—Our Falcon hath known scrapes in times now past.Still, that last brush was far too close; so shallI try to take more care with borrow’d wings.Ackbar
Our fighters must be given yet more time.This victory is here, within our reach.Thus, concentrate thy pow’r unto the main,And give the Empire much o’er which to fret.Within a fiery blaze of weaponryLet us the Super Star Destroyer wrap.[The rebels outside the Death Star fire on the Super Star Destroyer. Admiral Piett and the Imperial controller are shaken.
Control.
Alas, Sir, our deflector shield is lost!PIETT
Intensify the forward batteries.Let nothing break the bounds. Intensify,As well, the forward firing power.Control.
—Nay!Too late it is. We die, Sir—O, we die![The Super Star Destroyer runs into the Death Star, and Admiral Piett and the Imperial controller are killed.
Enter
LUKE SKYWALKERandDARTH VADERon balcony, inside the Death Star.Vader
O Luke, I prithee: render thy supportAnd help me take this mask off.Luke
—If I do,Dear father, thou shalt surely meet thy death.Vader
Aye. Naught shall stop that now, my son. Just onceLet me look on thee with mine own eyes, Luke—These eyes that miss’d your mewling newborn face,These eyes that did not see your budding youth,These eyes that were not there to see you grow,These eyes that saw thee not when thou wert train’d.I prithee, let these eyes see thee at last.’Twill be a fitting prelude to my death.Luke