The Crystal Star Read Online Free PDF Page A

where we're going? Maybe some more Jedi Knights to
    help with the school." "Maybe," Luke said. "I hope so." The Millennium Falcon swept out of hyperspace,
    diving through streamers of light into normal space.
    The alarms shrieked and the radiation shields snapped into existence around the Falcon.
    Han swore. He had expected a heavy radiation flux in this region--he had outfitted the Falcon to
    withstand it--but nothing as powerful as the X-ray storms raging around them.
    When he had checked the ship's systems to make sure none were damaged, Han took a moment to look
    outside. He whistled softly in awe.
    A dense, brilliant starfield spread all around his ship. Two star clusters collided: Bands of red giant stars,
    like veins of glowing blood, meandered through regions of white dwarf stars. The stars clustered so
    closely that they formed one huge chaotic system, spinning around each other, pulling each other into
    different dances, one snatching star-stuff from the surface of another.
    Chaos reigned in the impossible circle-dance of stars; no one could predict the changes each star's
    pattern would take--if anyone could find a pattern to start with. Soon, measuring by astronomical time,
    the cluster's stars would fly off in all directions. Or perhaps the whole cluster would collapse in upon
    itself. It would squeeze its mass into the size of a planet, a moon, a fist, a pinprick. And then it would
    vanish.
    "If I may be so bold..." See-Threepio said. "Despite the extra shielding I can feel X rays penetrating my
    outer shell, all the way to my synapses. I can hardly imagine what they might do to your more delicate
    biological structure. Crseih Research Station was constructed to withstand this assault.
    Might I suggest that we get beneath the spaceport's shielding as soon as possible?" As if to punctuate
    See-Threepio's comment, a bright flash of light with no apparent source streaked across Han's vision; he
    recognized it as a cosmic ray traveling across his retina.
    "Good thinking, Threepio," he said.
    He laid a course for the Crseih Research Station.
    Han piloted the Millennium Falcon through the strangest star system he had ever approached. An ancient,
    dying, crystallizing white dwarf star orbited a black hole in a wildly eccentric elliptical path.
    Eons ago, in this place, a small and ordinary yellow star peacefully orbited an immense blue-white
    supergiant. The blue star aged, and collapsed.
    The blue star went supernova, blasting light and radiation and debris out into space.
    Its light still traveled through the universe, a furious explosion visible from distant galaxies.
    Over time, the remains of the supergiant's core collapsed under the force of its own gravity.
    The result was degenerate mass: a black hole.
    The violence of the supernova disrupted the orbit of the nova's companion, the yellow star. Over time,
    the yellow star's orbit decayed.
    The yellow star fell toward the unimaginably dense body of the black hole. The black hole sucked up
    anything, even light, that came within its grasp. And when it captured matter--even an entire yellow
    star--it ripped the atoms apart into a glowing accretion disk. Subatomic particles imploded downward
    into the singularity's equator, emitting great bursts of radiation. The accretion disk spun at a fantastic
    speed, glowing with fantastic heat, creating a funeral pyre for the destroyed yellow companion.
    The plasma spiraled in a raging pinwheel, circling so fast and heating so intensely that it blasted X rays out
    into space. Then, finally, the glowing gas fell toward the invisible black hole, approaching it closer and
    closer, appearing to fall more and more slowly as relativity influenced it.
    It was lost forever to this universe.
    That was the fate of the small yellow star.
    The system contained a third star: the dying white dwarf, which shone with ancient heat even as it froze
    into a quantum crystal. Now, as the Millennium Falcon entered the system, the white dwarf was