“I thought you checked the weather before we left, Windy!” Luke shouted over the roaring wind as he guided Huey toward a cluster of towering buttes.
“Relax, Skywalker!” Windy shouted back. “It didn’t say anything about a sandswirl!”
“Well, Huey’s getting restless!”
Huey responded with a nervous grunt as he lowered his head and trotted faster.
High winds tore at the two boys and their dewback mount. They’d been traveling for far more hours than they’d anticipated along the edge of the Jundland Wastes, keeping a careful watch for Tusken Raiders and other predators. They had pretended not to notice the sky that began to darken as evening fell, but could not ignore the winds that had blown in as if from nowhere. They knew that a storm was coming and that they couldn’t stay out in the open. To make matters worse, Windy had just discovered that he’d accidentally overcharged his comlink’s battery, leaving them without any way to summon help.
Luke had studied an old datatape at home when he’d plotted their journey to Ja-Mero Ridge, and he thought he’d found a shortcut. But as they approached one butte that was bracketed by two others, he suddenly realized he wasn’t sure which way to go.
Luke said, “I say we take the right fork.”
“Left!” Windy said. “It’s to the left!”
Huey grunted again. Holding tight to the reins, Luke guided the dewback to the right, and the boys found themselves moving past two walls of rock. As the space between the walls narrowed, Luke noticed an unusual stillness in the air. He said in a low whisper, “I got a bad feeling about this.”
They emerged from the passage onto a high ledge that hugged the edge of the butte. The ledge overlooked the twisted canyons of the Jundland Wastes, and Tatooine’s two suns hung low on the horizon. Massive storm clouds loomed in the bloodred sky above the Wastes. The clouds appeared to be growing and expanding, moving toward the boys’ position with the all the subtlety of an enormous malevolent beast.
The wind picked up suddenly. Luke knew they needed to find shelter fast. He dug his ankles into Huey’s side, and the dewback bolted forward along the ledge, which descended into a steep incline. Windy clung to the grips on the side of the saddle as Huey galloped down the incline that wrapped around the butte.
The wind was howling and Huey was still running fast when they arrived at the base of the canyon. Huey was in midrun when he let out a whining snort, as if he’d gotten a whiff of something he didn’t like, and then he stopped and reared without warning.
Luke and Windy were thrown from Huey’s back. Windy screamed as they tumbled to the hard ground. Luke pushed himself up in time to see the frightened dewback race into a dark, narrow-walled ravine, taking the rifles and provisions with him.
Luke reached out to help Windy get up, but Windy shoved his hand aside and shouted, “All this is your fault! It was your idea to come out here!”
“Well, you fried the comlink!” Luke said. Furious, he pulled a strip of cloth from a pouch on his utility belt and wrapped it around the lower half of his face.
Ducking into a wall’s shallow alcove, Windy tried to escape the stinging bits of fine sand that whipped through the canyon. Seeing Luke securing the cloth strip over his face, he said, “What do you think you’re doing, Skywalker?”
“I’m going to find Huey,” Luke said as he pulled his goggles up over his eyes. “His homing instinct is the only thing that can get us home.”
“You’ll never make it! You’ll never find your way back!”
“Huey can’t be too far,” Luke said. He started to walk off.
Windy watched Luke for a moment, then said, “I’m not staying in here by myself!” He pulled on his own goggles as he moved after Luke.
They entered the ravine and began calling for Huey. The dewback responded immediately with two urgent grunts. They found him hugging the ground and trembling with fear a short distance away. The rifles and other gear were still strapped across his back.
“It’s okay, little guy,” Luke said as he placed his hands on Huey’s head, trying to comfort him. “We’ll get you to cover.”
Luke looked at Windy and saw him standing rigid beside Huey. Windy was stammering Luke’s name as he pointed down the length of the ravine. Luke followed Windy’s gaze to see an immense shadowy form shift amid the swirling dust and sand.
It was a krayt dragon.
Luke gasped. The monster’s wide, massive body very nearly filled the ravine. It lumbered forward, brushing against the rocky walls as it raised its horned head to display a mouth filled with thick, sharp fangs.
Luke knew if he didn’t do something fast, he’d be dead. He jumped behind Huey and practically pounced on his laser rifle. He yanked the rifle free, swung the stock up against the right side of his chest, aimed for the krayt’s head, and fired two quick bursts.
The krayt stopped and jerked its head back as the fired energy bolts slammed into it, right between the eyes. Seeing that he’d slowed the krayt, Luke clutched his rifle with his right hand while he reached out with his left to pull Windy’s rifle free. “Come on, Windy!” Luke said as he held the other rifle out to his friend.
But Windy didn’t take the offered weapon. Instead, he said, “Run, Luke! Run!”
“No!” Luke said. “We can hold him off!”
Windy panicked. He turned fast, knocking his own rifle from Luke’s hand before he started running back the way they’d come.
The krayt roared. Luke raised his rifle and squeezed off more energy bolts into the krayt’s head. As the krayt roared again and advanced in his direction, Luke realized that he’d only managed to make the monster more enraged.
The krayt lunged at Luke. Huey made a sudden jerk that knocked Luke aside, throwing him back after Windy’s fleeing form. Luke rolled across the hard ground. As he raised his gaze back to the krayt, he heard a terrible crunching sound and saw the krayt biting down on Huey.
No!
Huey’s body went limp and dangled from the krayt’s jaws. Luke backed away slowly, slinking after Windy and hoping the krayt wouldn’t notice his movement. Before he rounded a turn in the ravine, he glanced back at Huey and whimpered, “I’m sorry.”
He tried to ignore the sound of the krayt tearing into the dewback.
As the ravine grew darker, Luke realized that the suns had finally set. He took a glowlamp from his belt and activated it so he could see better, but moved carefully so he wouldn’t cast any shadows that might attract the krayt.
He heard Windy sobbing and felt a rush of anger. If he could hear Windy’s sobs, he guessed the krayt might hear them too. He arrived outside the mouth of a shallow, low-ceilinged cave. He held the glowlamp before him as he entered the cave, and saw Windy slumped against the wall with his hands over his face.
“It’s coming for us,” Windy cried. “We’re dead.”
Luke heard a loud shuffling sound from outside the cave. He whispered, “Windy, be quiet.”
Windy sobbed. “Mama…Mama…”
A moment later, there was a tremendous crash as the krayt’s horned head slammed against the mouth of the cave. Because of Windy’s sobbing, Luke had not heard the krayt’s approach. Luke and Windy fell back to the deepest recess as the krayt drew back. Then the krayt launched itself again at the cave’s entrance, ramming it so hard that it shattered rock.
Windy screamed, “We’re dead!”
As the krayt prepared to throw its full weight against the crumbling wall, a strange, eerie howl drifted through the ravine and echoed off its walls.
Luke said, “What’s that sound?”
Windy held his breath for a moment, then replied, “The wind?”
The howl continued for a moment longer, then died off. Luke peered cautiously out of the cave and saw the krayt lying on the ground. Its eyes were closed, and it was making a rumbling sound through its flared nostrils. Luke realized that it had fallen asleep.
Luke thought he saw a figure move in the darkness beyond the krayt’s slumbering form. He held
very still and watched the area for several seconds but decided he must have just seen some dust shifting in the ravine. The krayt remained motionless.
Turning back to Windy, Luke said, “It’s asleep. We can get past it.”
“And go where?” Windy said, outraged. “Without Huey? In the middle of a sandswirl? We’re never going to find the way home.” He shook his head and began to sob again. “They’ll find our bones one day. Just old bones.”
Luke was about to grab Windy and haul him out of the cave when he heard a man clearing his throat. Both boys turned their heads fast to see a hooded figure standing outside the cave. He was wearing a dark brown robe and holding a staff that was topped by a slender glowrod. The figure pulled back his hood to reveal the weathered face of a white-haired, bearded man.
“I’m Ben Kenobi,” the man said. “We don’t have much time if I’m going to get you boys home.”
Still on board the New Hope in orbit of Aridus, Luke recalled how Ben Kenobi had taken him and Windy back to the Lars homestead. Luke’s uncle and aunt had been waiting with Windy’s parents, who were extremely grateful to Ben for rescuing their son. Everyone was stunned when Owen abruptly told Ben to leave and not to come back.
The experience had left Luke baffled. Even now, some ten years after the incident, he still did not know why Owen had been so angry with Ben. From what little he knew, he assumed that Ben’s purpose on Tatooine had been to discreetly watch over him while Owen and Beru raised him as if he were an ordinary child, not the son of a Jedi-turned-Sith Lord. But if both Ben and Owen had been responsible for protecting Luke, why hadn’t they gotten along? Luke could only imagine why Owen had so aggressively objected to Ben’s presence.
Luke remembered listening to conversations between his uncle and aunt, practically spying on them, hoping to hear any small detail about his father or Ben Kenobi. Owen and Beru never revealed much but merely reinforced that they preferred not to discuss either man.
Once, when Luke was about seventeen, Owen had become outraged when Beru had mentioned Anakin in front of Luke. After Owen had stormed off, Luke had asked his aunt what had happened between his father and Owen. His aunt had fumbled with words, said something about how Owen might have been disappointed when Luke’s father had chosen to leave Tatooine, and without even saying good-bye. Luke couldn’t recall exactly what Beru had said, but suspected she hadn’t been entirely truthful, possibly to protect him from any knowledge of Darth Vader. He was left to wonder how well his uncle and aunt had known Anakin, and whether they had ever even liked him.
It suddenly occurred to Luke…If they did know my father, maybe they were afraid of him because he was fearless?
Often Uncle Owen had often reprimanded Luke for lacking fear. Luke had never felt especially courageous, just restless for adventure, ever ready to seize an opportunity to journey beyond the limited range of the Lars homestead. If he’d ever been afraid of anything, it was that he might wind up stuck on the sand planet forever.
Still, he could now understand why his uncle had been so frustrated with him, a boy who so often seemed to lack common sense as well as fear. He wondered what Owen would have thought if he’d known about the first time Luke had been truly terrified.…
“Don’t be scared,” Biggs Darklighter said. “Climb in.”
“Who’re you calling scared?” Luke said as he secured his laser rifle next to Biggs’s weapon on the back of his friend’s landspeeder, which was parked a short distance from the entry dome to Luke’s home. “Just because you’re five years older’n me doesn’t make you five years braver!”
It was Luke’s fifteenth year on Tatooine, and he desperately wished he had his own landspeeder. His uncle had let him drive the family speeder a few times, but never alone, and only back and forth to Anchorhead. Luke had suggested to his uncle that it might be a good idea to buy a second speeder as a backup vehicle, but Owen said they didn’t need more than one. Luke knew he’d have to come up with a much better reason for another speeder before he pestered his uncle again.
Meanwhile, and most fortunately, Biggs had his own landspeeder, and he enjoyed spur-of-the-moment jaunts just as much as Luke did. Biggs’s speeder was an open-cockpit jalopy, an old Selanikio Sportster with a rebuilt Aratech Arrow engine that had a top speed of 250 kilometers per hour. Even resting motionless in the air, it purred loudly, as if it wanted to get moving.
Luke jumped into the front passenger seat. “Why’re we still sitting here? Is this your landspeeder or your grandmother’s?”
Biggs wiggled his fingers beside one ear, as if he were flicking an invisible irritation. “Did I just hear a joke?” he said. “Tell me, do you think my grandmother’s speeder can do this?” He popped the clutch and stomped on the accelerator. The landspeeder tore off.
“Whoo-eee!” Luke shouted.
“Nice day for a ride!” Biggs shouted over the roar of his speeder’s engine as he made a wide turn around Luke’s home and headed north. “Where do you wanna go?”
“As far as we can get!”
Biggs grinned. “Would you settle for seeing the Spice Siren?”
Luke frowned. “Well, that’s only about ninety klicks away.”
Biggs laughed. “Would you rather I turned around?”
“Not a chance! I did extra chores yesterday so I could have today off. Let’s get to the Siren already! Can’t this heap go any faster?”
“Heap?! That tears it, Skywalker!” Biggs hit the brakes and brought the landspeeder to a sudden stop.
“Gosh, Biggs,” Luke said as the speeder bobbed in the air over the desert’s baked surface, the Lars homestead still visible behind them. “I was only joking.”
“Joking?” Biggs shook his head. “Of all the nerve…” He jumped out of the speeder’s cockpit and ran around the front of the vehicle to Luke’s side. Staring hard at Luke, he said, “You just insulted my speeder for the last time.”
Luke had never seen Biggs so angry. “Biggs, I’m sorry I said—”
“Don’t waste your breath saying sorry to me,” Biggs said. “If anyone deserves an apology, it’s my speeder.”
“Your…speeder?” Luke gasped. He couldn’t believe how Biggs was overreacting. “Are you serious, or—”
“Shh!” Biggs interrupted. He leaned over the speeder’s hood, placing his left ear close to its hot metal surface.
Concerned, Luke said, “Something wrong with the engine?”
Biggs raised his head from the hood, then shook his head. “She…she’s crying, Luke. She said her heart’s broken because some…some moisture farmer’s nephew called her…a heap!” Biggs made a sad face that was too ridiculous to take seriously.
Luke burst into laughter. When he was done, he said, “You really had me going there, pal.”
But Biggs wasn’t finished. “She also said maybe you’d joke about her less…if I let you drive.”
Luke started to laugh again, but then he saw the grin on Biggs’s face. The laughter caught in Luke’s throat. He gasped. “Really?”
Biggs gestured to the empty seat behind the speeder’s controls. “Shove over, hotshot. My speeder’s ready to go, and we ain’t got all day.”
Luke slid behind the controls and Biggs jumped into the passenger seat. As Luke gunned the engine, he decided for the millionth time that Biggs Darklighter really was the best friend anyone could ever have. He pressed the accelerator and they zoomed off.
The Spice Siren had once been a Republic freighter, but that was before it had crashed on Tatooine and been reduced to a large scrap heap. Although Jawa scavengers had picked the large wreck clean ages before, it had evolved into something of a minor tourist destination on Tatooine. Unfortunately, when Luke and Biggs arrived at the Space Siren’s final resting place, they found that it had attracted the wrong kind of tourists.
“Womp rats!” Luke said. The large omnivorous rodents were crawling all over the derelict.
“At least a dozen of ’em,” Biggs said. “Careful, don’t drive to
o close to the—”
Before Biggs could complete his warning, a womp rat leaped from the wreck’s broken tail section and landed on the back of his speeder. Luke heard the loud thud behind him and stomped on the accelerator, launching the speeder forward and sending the womp rat skittering back against the speeder’s central thruster. The womp rat dug its razor-sharp claws into the speeder’s hull.
Biggs moved fast, twisting in his seat to grab his rifle just as the womp rat turned and opened its fanged jaws. Biggs fired an energy bolt directly into the womp rat’s head, and it toppled off the back of the speeder.
Breathless, Luke said, “You all right?”
“Yeah,” Biggs said. “Circle back. We can’t let those womp rats become someone else’s problem!”
It took them almost fifteen minutes to kill the remaining womp rats. They shot skillfully and efficiently, never leaving the safety of their vehicle until their last target had fallen. When they were done, they climbed out of the speeder to survey the carnage.
“Good thing we got here when we did,” Luke said. “If some family had come to the Siren with kids…I hate to think what might have happened.”
Biggs nodded. Toeing one of the carcasses, he said, “I’ve never seen womp rats this big outside of Beggar’s Canyon.”
Luke nodded. Beggar’s Canyon was a long, winding channel of dried riverbeds that snaked through an area northeast of Mos Espa, and it was home to a notoriously large number of womp rats. Despite the verminous population, the canyon had long been a popular hangout for youths, a place to test their souped-up landspeeders and skyhoppers.
Luke said, “Think there might be more rats on the loose?”
“You can bet on it. We’d better report this to the officials in Anchorhead. But first, let’s torch these carcasses before they attract more scavengers.”
“The officials might not believe us. Maybe we should bring one rat back for proof?”
“Good idea.”
They gathered the carcasses, dragging them away from the Spice Siren, and used some spare fuel to set all but one of the larger womp rats ablaze. After they loaded and strapped the remaining carcass onto the back of the speeder, Luke returned to the driver’s seat and they took off.
Lives & Adventures Page 17