Bespin

After the Battle of Hoth, a malfunctioning hyperdrive left the Millennium Falcon crippled. With Imperial forces scouring nearby systems for rebel stragglers, Han Solo sought a safe port close enough to reach. He chose Bespin, a gas giant that was the site of the floating Tibanna gas mine known as Cloud City, run by Han’s old smuggling associate Lando Calrissian.

Cloud City was an odd mix of tourist attraction and mining facility – but it had largely escaped the Empire’s notice. That made it an ideal place for the Falcon to hide out – or so Han hoped.

Bespin’s defense forces reluctantly allowed the Falcon to land, but warned Han not to deviate from his current course. The cool reception led Princess Leia to wonder if Lando was really the old friend Han claimed he was.

Leia was even less certain about Han’s plan when Lando greeted him with a stream of invective. But Lando then appeared to let bygones be bygones, promising to get his people working on the damaged Falcon right away.

That was enough for Han to assume all was well. But Leia still had doubts about Lando. And then C-3PO went missing, turning up in pieces in a junkpile. The princess feared something was wrong on Bespin.

But not even Leia could have guessed the peril the Falcon’s passengers faced. The bounty hunter Boba Fett had figured out that the Falcon was headed for Bespin and led Darth Vader there even before the freighter arrived. Vader had forced Lando to betray Han, Leia and Chewbacca – they were now prisoners of the Empire.

The Falcon’s passengers were pawns in a Sith game: Vader tormented them in hopes of luring Luke Skywalker to Bespin for an ill-advised rescue attempt. Vader turned Han over to Fett as a bounty and told Lando that Leia and Chewbacca could never again leave Cloud City. When Lando objected that the Sith Lord was altering their deal, Vader brushed him off, threatening to leave an Imperial garrison behind.

In a carbon-freezing chamber deep within Cloud City, Vader tested his trap for Luke by encasing Han in carbonite. The smuggler survived the freezing process and Vader turned him over to Fett. He then ordered Lando to take Leia and Chewbacca to his ship.

That pushed Lando too far. He quietly alerted his aide, Lobot, who led a contingent of guards and ambushed Vader’s stormtroopers. Lando then freed Leia and Chewbacca, telling them there was still a chance to save Han from Fett.

Leia, Lando and Chewbacca tried to intercept Fett before he left Bespin in his starship, Slave I. But they arrived too late – and stormtroopers were pursuing them. Meanwhile, Vader dueled Luke in the carbon-freezing chamber.

Luke wasn’t ready to confront Vader. The Sith Lord battered down Luke’s defenses, struck off his hand, and revealed a terrible secret that would change Luke’s destiny: He was the young Jedi’s father.

Rather than join Vader, Luke let himself fall down a deep shaft within Cloud City. He survived the fall and wound up clinging to machinery beneath Cloud City, among Bespin’s clouds. The friends he had interrupted his Jedi training to rescue wound up having to double back in the Falcon to rescue him.

The Falcon fled Bespin, but Imperial forces were in hot pursuit – and the Empire had undone the repairs made to her hyperdrive. In the nick of time, R2-D2 fixed the starship, allowing the rebels to escape into hyperspace and elude Vader.

When word reached Bespin that Emperor Palpatine had died aboard the second Death Star, Cloud City erupted in celebration, joining the revelry in a galaxy freed from the Empire’s tyranny.