A bounty hunter claims Marko Tyne. He requests, then orders, two people to carry his bounty out for him. The bounty hunter has done this five times now. The bounty hunter’s name is Valance. He’s a half borg. When he turns over the capture he asks about the droids available. It’s slim pickings. He then destroys the droids he’s just paid for. This guy is keeping an eye out for the pair of droids that travel with a lad for him. It drives him crazy that the kid treats the droids as equals. In his obsession he mulls over the blockade and thinks that the kid will show up there. Meanwhile, Luke and C3PO are probing the blockade to see the extent of it. They stumble upon a battle cruiser hiding behind a planet for cover. Luke hopes the ship can maneuver as well as he was told it can so they can escape. It’s coming right at them at full speed. He borrows one of Han’s tricks, threading his way through an asteroid field. Where larger Imperial ships will struggle. While the star cruisier struggles to get through the field, Luke prepares to jump to light speed and “Junction.” Luke is excited as it’s the first real city he has seen. It’s much bigger than Mos Eisley. C3PO is only worried about the danger. They have come here to get the parts needed to repair R2D2. The first shop they go to happens to have the man that Valance does business with. He spots Luke and immediately has a message sent to Valance. Back on Yavin 4 Leia looks up at the sky thinking of two men she cares about. She tells General Dodonna about her frustration at being used as a symbol, instead of being an active participant. But then she realizes that he is trying to protect her the way she was trying to protect Luke. She goes back inside the ruins. The shop owner’s employee reaches the long rang radio only to learn that Valance has altered it. Valance calls him a traitor working for Darth Vader. The spy goes down fighting. The spy returns and his boss is upset that he’s back and doesn’t have Valance. Luke starts to get impatient. Valance finally arrives. He threatens them and tries to trap them. Luke wants the shop keeper to show him the back way out. He opens a door and C3PO heads out with all of R2’s parts. Luke holds Valance off. However, Valance has the greater fire power. Luke and the shop keeper are out cold on the floor. He approaches to go through the back door to get CePO but Luke was faking and goes for him. Luke pulls out his lightsaber and ignites it. But Valance manages to block Luke. Valance thinks he is superior until Luke points out that it will run of power at some point. Valance fires at him again, but Luke instinctively reflects it back with his lightsaber and hits Valance in the face. It melts away some of the human look to exposing is cyborg parts. Luke is shocked. Valance tries to kill him, but he manages to evade even though the shock of it he is still feeling. C3PO reappears and tries to intervene. Luke is not happy he’s worried C3PO will be destroyed. But C3PO is determined to be distraction enough so Master Luke can recover. Valance does not understand what he is seeing. Droids and humans don’t give their lives for one another. He does something surprising. He tells C3PO to take his master and leave and get as far away as possible. C3PO rushes them back to ship before Valance changes his mind.
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