Trapped on the outskirts of the Anoat system with a malfunctioning hyperdrive, Han Solo looked for a safe port where he could repair the Millennium Falcon. His answer: Bespin, a tibanna-gas mine run by his old compatriot Lando Calrissian. The Falcon limped to Bespin using her slow backup hyperdrive, then dipped through the clouds to arrive at Cloud City.

Cloud cars escorted the freighter along the approach route to Cloud City, firing warning shots as Han asked to be put in contact with Lando. Leia was skeptical of this rude welcome, but the cloud cars finally allowed the Falcon to land at Cloud City.

At first, Lando didn’t exactly seem glad to see Han – the Corellian had won the Falcon from him years earlier in a sabacc game, a loss that apparently still smarted. But he soon acted friendlier, greeting the new arrivals and promising to repair the freighter’s hyperdrive.

As Han, Leia, Chewbacca and C-3PO followed Lando through Cloud City, the administrator talked about the challenges of running a tibanna-gas mine: He had everything from supply difficulties to labor problems, and needed to increase profits without attracting too much attention.

While Cloud City technicians repaired the Falcon, Lando put his guests up in a suite with an eye-popping view of Cloud City’s spires and the clouds of Bespin. But Leia remained suspicious of Lando – and worried about C-3PO, who’d disappeared.

Cloud City’s casinos and hotels were built atop the floating metropolis’s industrial levels, which contained mining facilities, carbon-freezing chambers and junk rooms. After a lengthy search, Chewbacca found C-3PO’s dismantled parts in a junk room. The Wookiee retrieved them after an angry confrontation with diminutive Ugnaught laborers.

Lando was wrestling with a dilemma: Darth Vader had arrived before Han, accompanied by squads of stormtroopers and the bounty hunter Boba Fett. Lando had no choice but to betray Han. Stuck with a bad hand, Lando made the best deal he could: He’d detain the Falcon’s crew until the arrival of Luke Skywalker – Vader’s real target – and in return Cloud City would keep its independence. It was a deal Lando would come to regret.

With the Empire’s enemies in his grasp, Vader changed the terms of the deal with Lando. Han would be given to Fett as a bounty, and Leia and Chewie must never again leave Cloud City. When Lando objected angrily, Vader threatened to leave a garrison in the city.

Vader decided to entomb Luke in carbonite for transport to the Empire, a process Lando warned might kill him. Vader then decided to test Cloud City’s carbon-freezing process on Han. The smuggler survived his dip in carbonite and Vader gave him to Fett as a prize. He then ordered Lando to take Leia and Chewie to his ship.

Meanwhile, Luke and R2-D2 arrived from Dagobah and landed. Vader’s troops ensured that the young Jedi found his way to the carbon-freezing chamber, where the Dark Lord awaited him.

Lando had finally had enough of Vader’s betrayals. He surreptitiously signaled to Lobot, his aide, who arranged an ambush of the stormtroopers guarding Leia and Chewie. Chewie started to strangle Lando, but stopped when the administrator gasped that there still might be time to save Han from Fett.

Fett rocketed away from Cloud City in his starship Slave I before Lando, Leia and Chewie could intervene. Lando then addressed the citizens of Cloud City, warning them that the Empire was taking over.

Some of Cloud City’s citizens responded to their administrator’s warning by frantically trying to escape, filling the city’s hallways. Amid the chaos, Lando, Leia and Chewie fought their way to the Falcon and took off.

While his friends fought to escape Cloud City, Luke confronted Vader in the carbon-freezing chamber. Luke escaped being frozen in carbonite, but Vader trapped him at the end of a gantry over a deep shaft. There, the Dark Lord cut off Luke’s hand and revealed the terrible truth that he was Luke’s father.

The young Jedi refused to join Vader and escaped capture by letting himself fall down the shaft. He survived the fall and was left clinging to a weather vane on the underside of Cloud City. Reaching out through the Force, Luke managed to contact Princess Leia’s mind. She insisted that the Falcon turn back to rescue him.

Vader curtly ordered his stormtroopers to bring his shuttle, and returned to the Super Star Destroyer Executor, confident that Luke had only briefly eluded him. Imperial operatives had deactivated the Falcon’s hyperdrive, undoing the Cloud City technicians’ work. The freighter would soon be captured.

R2-D2’s quick action allowed the Falcon to escape into hyperspace, leaving Cloud City and Bespin behind. After the destruction of the second Death Star at Endor, Cloud City’s citizens cheered the momentous rebel victory over the Empire.