“Luke!” his comlink crackled. “There’s something wrong with Leia—she’s, I don’t know, she’s having some kind of seizure or something. Luke, what do I do?”

“I don’t know,” Luke said as he watched Vastor’s body do the same: writhe in slow, twisting convulsions like a Riddellian bloodworm baking on a hot fry-rock. There came a clatter from above: blaster rifles slipping from stormtrooper hands to bounce on the stone of the ring ledge. The stormtroopers, each and every one, began to buckle at the knees. They twisted and jerked, bucking in slow motion, clutching at their helmets with gauntleted fingers as though to claw out their own eyes.

“Han,” Luke said. “Go. Go now.”

He reached out with the Force and slammed shut the Falcon’s hatch just as the Vastor body lurched to its feet and reached Luke in one lightning bound. Impossibly powerful hands seized Luke’s shoulders as Vastor lifted him like a doll, and shook him and roared rage and bloodlust into his face, and there was nothing human left in Vastor’s eyes. He sank his teeth into Luke’s throat, and bit down.

And on the ring ledge above, the stormtoopers started to scream.


- Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, Chapter 17