Leia suspects there's a tracking device on the Millennium Falcon and yet they fly straight to Yavin 4 anyway... â @msharp
Many things in Star Wars donât make sense, but this one turns out to be pretty straightforward. Leia is badass.
Senator/Princess Leia Organa doesnât know she is going to be rescued from captivity on the Death Star moments before she
is scheduled to be executed, but when it happens, and when the ship she is rescued in is allowed to get away
suspiciously easily, she thinks on her feet.
She knows the moons of Yavin have no sentient inhabitants outside the rebel base, and after seeing Alderaan blown up
she wants the Death Star as far away from civilian populations as she can get it.
She knows the clock is ticking on the value of the plans she stashed away in R2D2. The Empire knows exactly
what was stolen, and it is only a matter of time before they do exactly the same analysis that the Rebellion wants to do,
leaving the Rebellion with the embarrassing prospect of showing up to bomb an exhaust port that was already closed for emergency
maintenance.
She has seen that Admiral Moff Tarkin is drunk on the power trip he gets from being in charge of a moon-sized death
machine. She knows that given the choice between sending a couple of Star Destroyers to take out the Alliance base, and
blowing them up personally with his planet-killer, heâs going to choose the Big Round Fucking Laser.
But she knows she doesnât want to give them too much time to think and maybe come up with a proportional, sensible response.
So Leia figures either theyâll find something useful in the Death Star plans or they wonât. If they donât, theyâve got
a pretty hairy evacuation in their future and theyâll need to find a new base, but theyâve at least got advance warning
the Empire is on its way. If they find something though, this is their
best and possibly only chance to get the Death Star to come to where they are tactically strongest,
without the rest of the Imperial fleet getting in the way.
And she thinks this through in the time it takes to tell Han what course to plot. Fuck yeah Leia.