One Moment in Time

One Moment in Time
precious time
Red Hat Girl
Red Nude painting
The Wookie turned something on the console before him. At the same timeSolo pulled back on a comparatively large lever. Abruptly the long streaks ofDoppler-distorted starlight slowed to hyphen shapes, then finally to familiar bolts offire. A gauge on the console registered zero. Gigantic chunks of glowing stone appeared out of the nothingness, barelyshunted aside by the ship's deflectors. The strain caused the Millennium Falcon tobegin shuddering violently. "What the--?" a thoroughly startled Solo muttered. Next to him, Chewbaccaoffered no comment of his own as he flipped off several controls and activated others.Only the fact that the cautious Solo always emerged from supralight travel with hisdeflectors up—just in case any of many unfriendly folks might be waiting for him—had saved the freighter from instant destruction. Luke fought to keep his balance as he made his way into the cockpit. "What'sgoing on?" "We're back in normal space," Solo informed him, "but we've come out in themiddle of the worst asteroid storm I've ever seen. It's not on any of our charts."He peered hard at several indicators. "According to the galactic atlas, our position iscorrect. Only one thing is missing: Alderaan." "Missing? But—that's crazy!" "I won't argue with you," the Corellian replied grimly, "but look for yourself."He gestured out the port. "I've triple-checked the coordinates, and there's nothingwrong with the nav'puter. We ought to be standing out one planetary diameter fromthe surface. The planet's glow should be filling the cockpit, but—there's nothing outthere. Nothing but debris." He paused. "Judging from the level of wild energyoutside and the amount of solid waste, I'd guess that Alderaan's been blown away.Totally." "Destroyed," Luke whispered, overwhelmed at the specter raised by such anunimaginable disaster. "But—how?"