For the third time in three days, TIEs attack Yavin IV at dawn, downing a Rebel lookout post, but X-Wings barely fight them off. In the Massassi base, Dodonna reassures pilots concerned that the Empire is winning, unsure where the TIEs are coming from. On Centares, the outermost Mid-Systems trading world, Luke and Leia trade the yacht for a used spacecraft from Jorman Thoad, a trader with Jawa-like morals. Thoad offers to buy the droids for his cousin in Old Town, but Luke wants only information. Thoad says a House of Tagge Mining Explorer is headed for the Gordian Reach, (containing the Yavin System, Krylon, Torque, and a "jillion" other worlds) on a spice strike, so the sector is blockaded. Leia is suspicious, since the Alliance made sure there was no spice here before building the base, but realizes the blockade is meant to keep secret the Death Star's defeat and prevent the Rebels from escaping Yavin IV as they did Dantooine. Putting aside their concern for the missing Han and Chewie, they follow the Tagge ship. Aboard the ship, Orman Tagge, eldest brother and Baron of Tagge Industries, practices his lightsaber with a military aide, Shanks, to someday kill Vader for blinding him and making him need cyber-vision. Spotting Luke's ship, Tagge drops magnetic mines. Luke and Leia shoot some mines, but magnetism draws the rest near, so Luke uses the Force to make them attract each other and explode. Leia kisses him, allaying his fear that she loves Han. Clear of the mines, they hide the ship behind a small moon and don spacesuits to spy on Tagge. Viewing squads of TIEs ready to defeat the Rebels, Orman and Shanks boast they've succeeded where Tarkin and Vader failed. Luke and Leia watch as a calm eye opens in Yavin's stormy gasses to let the TIEs enter. Realizing a base is hidden within Yavin and that the TIE's possess a signal device to gain entry, they return to the ship to call the base, but a TIE patrol opens fire, disabling them.

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