Star Wars - A New Hope - The Life of Luke Skywalker

by Ryder Windham

  Wald noticed the astromech droid beside Luke a said, “If you’re interested in selling that droid, you came to the right place.”

  R2-D2 let out a panicked whistle and began beeping furiously.

  “Calm down,” Luke said to R2-D2. “You’re the one who wanted to tag along.” Looking at Wald, Luke said, “No, the droid’s not for sale.”

  “Then how can I help you?”

  “I’m trying to find out some information about a Podracer pilot named Anakin Skywalker. I just came from the Mos Espa Arena. Ody Mandrell and Teemto Pagalies, they told me that Anakin’s mother used to work here, and that you knew him.”

  The Rodian snorted. “Ody and Teemto talk too much,” he said. “But yeah, it’s true. I knew Anakin. I was only six years old when he left Tatooine. Did Ody and Teemto tell you that I helped build Anakin’s Podracer?”

  “No, they didn’t. When exactly did Anakin leave?”

  “The same day he won,” Wald said. The corners of his snout flexed into something that resembled a smile. “When he crossed that finish line, that may have been just about the proudest moment of my life.”

  “You were proud because you helped him build the winning Podracer?”

  “He didn’t just win the Boonta,” Wald said. “He won his freedom.”

  “Oh?” Luke said. “In what way?”

  “Watto, the Toydarian who used to own this place, he owned Anakin too.”

  “Sorry,” Luke said. “Did you say owned?”

  Wald nodded. “Anakin was Watto’s slave.”

  Luke was stunned. He said, “Then. . . Anakin’s mother? Shmi? She was a slave too?”

  “That’s right,” Wald said. “And from the look on your face, I guess you didn’t know that either.”

  Luke shook his head.

  “You shouldn’t be so stunned. There are lots of former slaves in Mos Espa, myself included.”

  Luke was silent for a moment, then he said, “I’m Sorry. I had no idea.”

  Wald chuckled. “Nothing for you to be sorry about. It wasn’t your fault. Anyway, things turned out pretty well for Anakin. He won his freedom and left the same day.”

  “Left?” Luke said. “With his mother?”

  “No,” Wald said. “You probably won’t believe this, but he left with a Jedi. At least that’s what another friend of ours, Kitster, told me. Ah, but a fellow as young as yourself, I doubt you even know about Jedi.”

  Luke almost smiled at this. He said, “Actually, I have heard of them. Do you recall the Jedi’s name? The one who left with Anakin?”

  “Can’t say I do,” Wald said. “He was a big human, broad face, had a beard.”

  “Big? Do you mean he was tall?”

  Wald chuckled again. “I was six years old at the time. Most adults looked like giants. But I remember seeing him step out of Anakin’s place, and this Jedi guy, he had to duck his head through the doorway. I thought, ‘That’s a big human.”

  Luke doubted that the Jedi had been Obi-Wan. He said, “So, did Anakin win his mother’s freedom too?”

  “No, she was still a slave, but not for long.”

  “The Jedi helped her?”

  “Yeah,” Wald said. “Someone — probably Kitster, the friend I mentioned — told me that the Jedi sent a gift to Shmi, something she could use to buy her freedom. But she stayed with Watto for a few more years.

  Baffled, Luke said, “Why?”

  Wald shrugged. “Maybe she had nowhere else to go. Also, Watto wasn’t all that bad.” Then Wald smiled. “She was a terrific lady. She gave me some of Anakin’s tools. If it weren’t for her, I might not have wound up working here and gaining my own freedom. But to make a long story short, she finally gained her freedom, and married Cliegg Lars, a moisture farmer. I went to their wedding in Anchorhead.” Wald narrowed his gaze on Luke’s features. “Say, didn’t you say your name was Lars? Maybe you’re related?”

  “What?” Luke said. His memory flashed to the unmarked graves on the Lars homestead, and he wished he’d chosen a different name when he’d introduced himself to the Rodian. “Yes. . . but no. I mean, I’m Lars, but no relation. At least. . . I don’t think so.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t see any resemblance.” Wald shook his head sadly and said, “It was awful, how Shmi died.”

  Luke didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “How?”

  “Sand People abducted her from the Lars farm,” Wald said. “Took her off into the desert and killed her.”

  The Rodian’s words jolted Luke. He could only imagine where Shmi’s death might have occurred, but he suddenly recalled the remote, abandoned Tusken Raider camp that he and Biggs had discovered in the Jundland Wastes years earlier. His legs felt weak. He placed one hand on top of R2-D2’s domed head to steady himself.

  “I have to go,” Luke said. “Thank you. . . for your time.”

  Wald said, “You all right?”

  “Air,” Luke said absently. “I need some.” He turned and staggered out of the shop. R2-D2 followed.

  The air outside was even hotter than in the shop, but Luke took a deep breath anyway. He had spent so many years wondering about the life of Anakin Skywalker and had been so excited when he’d discovered that his father had been a Podracer pilot on Tatooine. Now he just felt drained and exhausted.

  My father and his mother were slaves. How awful for them.

  And then he felt outraged. Not just because of the injustice of Anakin and Shmi’s circumstances, but because Owen and Beru had never told him. But then he wondered, Did they even know that Shmi had been a slave before she married Owen’s father? Did Ben have any idea? He must have! He glanced at the junk shop, thought of more questions that he might have asked Wald, and then shook his head and looked away.

  He realized he wasn’t angry with Owen, Beru, or Ben for that matter. He knew in his heart that there was a reason they had not told him the truth about so many things. They’d only been doing what they’d thought was best to protect him.

  He reflected on how Owen used to get anxious to the point of fury when Luke strayed from home. If I’d known how my grandmother died, I might have been more considerate.

  R2-D2 rotated his dome to gaze at Luke through his photoreceptor. The droid emitted a somber-sounding, muffled beep.

  Luke said, “C’mon, Artoo.”

  They returned to the docking bay. After Luke got R2-D2 back into the X-wing’s astromech socket, he climbed into the starfighter’ s cockpit and saw a red light flashing on his comm. Someone was trying to contact him on the emergency frequency.

  He pressed a button. A moment later, a man’s familiar voice crackled from the comm. “Luke? Do you read me?”

  “I read you, Han,” Luke said, “but just barely. There’s a lot of atmospheric interference.” He was glad to be talking with his friend Han Solo, but given that they were communicating via the emergency frequency, he was also concerned about what Han might have to say.

  “Goldenrod told —“ Han’s words were interrupted by a burst of static before his voice continued, “— On Tatooine.”

  Luke knew that “Goldenrod” was Han’s nickname for C-3PO. Speaking to the droid behind him, Luke said, “Artoo, try to boost the signal.”

  R2-D2 beeped agreeably and extended an antenna from his dome.

  Luke said, “Han, I’m still on Tatooine. What’s wrong?”

  Sounding slightly clearer, Han answered, “A possible situation on Tarnoonga.”

  “What happened?” Luke said. He knew that Tarnoonga was a water world in the Arkanis Sector, the same sector that contained the Tatooine system.

  There was another burst of static; then Han’s voice returned. “— lost contact with two Alliance scouts. In the last report from Tarnoonga, one of the scouts said they’d found what looked like an abandoned Imperial outpost before they were attacked by an Oskan blood eater.”

  Luke had never encountered any Oskan blood eaters, but knew from holovids that they were monstrous four-armed beasts with a tas
te for humans. Because the earliest recorded sighting of a blood eater was barely twenty-five years old, and because the creatures had since been discovered on the grounds of Imperial penal colonies on numerous worlds, it was rumored that they were artificially created life-forms developed by the Empire.

  Luke said, “Were the scouts injured?”

  “Incredibly, no,” Han said, but quickly added, “At least we don’t think so. According to the report, unidentified woman killed the creature before it could harm anyone.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Luke said. “Sounds like we may have found a new ally.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Han said. “Before we lost contact, the scout said the woman use —“

  More static.

  “What?” Luke said. “What did the scout say about the woman?”

  “A lightsaber, Luke!” Han said. “The woman used a lightsa —“

  There was a loud static burst, and then the transmission went dead.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Han? Han!” Still seated in his X-wing’ s cockpit in the Mos Espa docking bay, Luke groaned in with the broken connection.

  In the socket behind the cockpit, R2-D2 beeped.

  Luke looked at the rectangular monitor on his console to read the droid’s question, then replied, “Yes, it could be a trap, Artoo. But then again, there could also be two scouts who need our help.” As he lowered the cockpit canopy, he added, “I don’t have coordinates for Tarnoonga’s star system, but I know all the stars in the Arkanis Sector by sight. I’ll be able to spot it after we reach space, and you can plot a course from there.”

  R2-D2 beeped again.

  Luke read the droid’s response, then said, “What do you mean, you know the way to Tarnoonga? You’ve been there before?”

  The astromech gave an affirmative whistle.

  Luke grinned. “One of these days, you’ll have to tell me about your exploits before we met.” He started the X-wing’s engines. The starfighter lifted out of the docking bay, then ascended from the spaceport into space.

  * * *

  Because he had only recently left a desert planet, Luke felt jolted by the sight of the ocean-covered Tarnoonga, which appeared to be in every way Tatooine’s opposite. Gray skies hung over the dark, watery surface, and a lightning storm loomed on the horizon. The only visible land masses were the uppermost areas of otherwise submerged mountain ranges.

  As the X-wing cut through the windy turbulence high over the roiling seas, Luke said, “Artoo, any luck contacting Han?”

  The droid replied with a negative whistle.

  Luke grimaced. He had hoped to reestablish communication with Han Solo after leaving Tatooine, but the only thing that came over the emergency frequency was static. Now the atmospheric conditions on Tarnoonga seemed to prohibit a clear transmission too.

  A light pulsed on Luke’s comm console. “It’s a signal from an Alliance distress beacon, Artoo! At least we’re receiving some kind of transmission clearly. Can you home in on it?”

  The droid beeped, and then Luke saw a map appear on his console. On the map, a blue blip winked on and off to the east of the X-wing’ s position.

  Luke turned his head to gaze out the cockpit’s viewport and saw what appeared to be an island of jagged rock formations. It was the top of a mountain range that was approximately three kilometers long and almost half as wide. High black cliffs plummeted to the dark water below.

  “It’s coming from that range,” Luke said. “Maybe the scouts landed their ship there. Let’s see if we can spot it.”

  They flew over the mountain range’s craggy terrain. It didn’t take them long to find the ship. It was an old Corellian G9 Rigger freighter, resting on a wide black slab of rock that appeared to be partially protected from the winds by a natural outcropping. Luke couldn’t see anything that looked like an abandoned Imperial outpost, which Han had mentioned when he’d relayed the missing scouts’ report, or any other architectural structures. Luke allowed the possibility that the alleged outpost was camouflaged or underground.

  R2-D2 helped guide the X-wing down beside the other ship. Although the freighter’s hull had seen better days, it didn’t appear to be damaged. Luke noticed that its landing ramp was down.

  Still seated in the X-wing’s cockpit, Luke checked his scopes. “No life signs on their ship, Artoo. And the beacon’s signal is coming from somewhere else. You stay put while I check out the ship and look for the beacon. It can’t be far. If I find anyone or see any blood eaters, I’ll let you know.”

  As Luke unlocked the cockpit canopy, R2-D2 responded with a spurt of excited beeps.

  Luke consulted the monitor to read the translation of the droid’ s message, then said, “No, I definitely haven’t forgotten what Han said about a woman with a lightsaber.”

  The astromech emitted more excited beeps.

  “No more arguments!” Luke said. “Your job is to stay here and keep trying to contact Han. I’ll check in with you every fifteen minutes. If you don’t hear back from me, take the X-wing into orbit and let the Alliance know where I am. Got that?”

  The droid emitted a whimpering whistle.

  “All right, then,” Luke said. He checked his lightsaber and comlink, then climbed out of the cockpit, taking his robe with him. As he stepped down to the black rock, he noticed that his legs ached a bit because he’d been traveling in such a cramped cockpit. It was chilly outside. He pulled on his robe quickly, then walked cautiously toward the freighter.

  Luke drew his lightsaber as he stepped up the freighter’s landing ramp. He moved cautiously through the ship, searching for any sign of the scouts. Upon entering the bridge, he was alarmed to see the scorched remains of the controls and communication consoles. It looked like someone had fired a blaster at almost point-blank range into the instruments.

  Luke had never heard of blood eaters using blasters. He wondered, Did the scouts do this? Or someone else?

  Exiting the freighter, he resecured his lightsaber to his belt. He walked away from the two ships, moving around the outcropping until he reached a gulley that led him up over the mountain’s southern shoulder. Although fifteen minutes had yet to pass, he activated his comlink and said, “Do you read me, Artoo?”

  R2-D2 beeped in response.

  “I’m fine,” Luke said. “Just testing the comlink.” He returned the comlink to his belt before he moved on, heading for a notch between two stony ridges.

  He kept his eyes peeled for anything unusual. The landscape was littered with broken black stones. Except for a few small patches of moss, there wasn’t any sign of life. Luke wondered why Imperial soldiers might have brought an Oskan blood eater to Tarnoonga.

  The clouds overhead became darker. Luke thought again about the report Han had relayed to him. Could the scouts have really seen a Jedi? Or was it something else? He realized that his heart was pounding unusually fast. He didn’t stop walking but took a deep bread to calm himself.

  He spied a small glint of silvery metal against the bleak terrain. He soon arrived at the thing that had caused the glint. It was a little box-shaped object, which rested on the ground between two stones. The object was slightly smaller than his comlink, and he recognized it as a compact emergency beacon.

  He picked up the beacon and examined it. It didn’t appear to be damaged. Because the transmitter would have been more effective if it had been placed in a more elevated position, he wondered if one of the scouts had accidentally dropped the device. Maybe they didn‘t have time to think about where to put it. He turned in place, scanning the surrounding area for any sign of movement. He saw none. He considered switching off the beacon but decided to leave it activated before he placed it in one of his robe’s pockets.

  And then he heard an inhuman roar behind him.

  Luke turned fast to see the blood eater running at him. The hulking beast was well over two and a half meters tall. Each of its four arms was tapered into a bladelike claw. Its hunched shoulders were topped by a gapin
g mouth with concentric layers of razor-sharp teeth instead of a head.

  Luke did not pause to wonder where the creature had come from or how it had snuck up on him so fast without making a sound. His hand simply flashed to his lightsaber and he ignited its blade.

  The blood eater’s upper left and lower right arms lashed out at Luke. Luke ducked to avoid one arm as he brought his lightsaber up fast to deflect the other. The blood eater howled as Luke’s blade cleaved through a thick layer of skin. Then it swung its other claw-tipped arms at Luke.

  Luke jumped and rolled aside as the monster’s claws smashed down into the ground. He sprang to his feet, bracing himself for another onslaught, but then he heard a sound behind him, the distinctive burst and hum of a just-activated lightsaber.