Star Wars - Tatooine Ghost Read online

  "Last we saw of him was a flaming dot streaking off into Mesa Flats," Sligh added. "That's some swoop he has."

  "General Solo is here, too?" Jula asked.

  "Captain Solo is no longer a general," C-3PO said. "He resigned his commission less than-

  "I'm sure Jula knows all about that, Threepio," Leia interrupted. The last thing she wanted right now was to rehash the events of the Hapan rift for Gavin Darklighter's father. "The whole galaxy knows about that."

  Jula earned Leia's undying gratitude by nodding gruffly. "More than it needs to." He glanced at C-3PO. "And Han Solo will always be Gavin's general to me."

  "He'll appreciate hearing that," Leia said. "Can you tell me how difficult it would have been for him to reach Anchorhead from Mesa Flats last night?"

  Jula tried to hide his alarm by glancing toward the barrier field, but he was not quick enough to fool Leia-not when the answer mattered so much.

  She grasped his forearm. "He couldn't."

  "He didn't," Jula said. "No one did. The last thing we heard from Anchorhead was an alert advising travelers to seek shelter and ride the storm out. Nobody made it into town."

  Leia didn't bother asking if he could be sure, or arguing that nobody was as lucky or resourceful as Han. She knew he had not made it to Anchorhead. She had known before they stopped.

  Leia slipped back into the landspeeder and reached for the vidmap, only to find Chewbacca's long fingers already calling up an overview of the area. She turned to Jula.

  "Could we have some water and a few power cells?"

  "No." Jula leaned into the speeder and put his hand on her

  . "I can't let you do that."

  Leia began to fish for credits. "I'll gladly reimburse-"

  "Now you're insulting your host," Jula warned. "On Tatooine, that can get you thrown in a Sarlacc pit..."

  Leia frowned. "I don't understand."

  "I think you do." Jula took a remote from his cloak pocket and flicked it toward the barrier field, which instantly turned gold and opaque. "I can't let you go out there, not in this storm, not even for Han."

  Chapter 11

  On some level, Leia knew she should have been more interested in the farm. She should have been following Jula Darklighter and his family on a tour through the warren of whitewashed rooms that surrounded the central courtyard, trying to guess where her brother had slept, where he had played as a boy, trying to find the place where he had lain outside looking at stars and dreaming of becoming a starfighter pilot. Until she had actually come here to the moisture farm and seen the barren land that had been Luke's childhood home, she had not understood his upbringing, how much harder and simpler and lonelier his life had been than hers. Now that she was here, she could only stand in awe of the man he had made of himself... stand in awe and wonder if she could have risen so far from such modest circumstances.

  But Leia had no interest in seeing the moisture farm. She only wanted to sit here in the aboveground entrance dome, staring out into the yellow haze, listening to dry thunder growl across the plain, watching the sand lightning sheet across the curtained sky, silently begging the Force to bring the storm to an end-or at least to let her hear over her comlink the faintest scratch of Han's voice.

  Unfortunately, the Force did not answer prayers. An impersonal power that could be touched but never moved, it cared nothing for the individual and served only those who served it. The Force would not save Han. Only Leia could do that, and she had not prepared herself. She had been too frightened of what she might become.

  A woman cleared her throat on the stairs leading up from the subterranean levels. Leia turned to see Silya Darklighter stepping into the small foyer, carrying a tray loaded with pungent hubba-rind tea and Tatooine flatbread.

  "You be cross with Jula if you like, dear-I usually am myself." A thin woman no more than a third Jula's size, Silya had gray hair and a leathery face that made her look half again as old as the fifty years Leia estimated from Gavin's age. "But I won't have you sitting hungry. Not in my house."

  "I'm not angry with Jula," Leia said.

  Silya cocked a doubtful brow.

  "Well, I shouldn't be." Leia offered a guilty smile. "He's right, and I know it. I'm just so worried about Han."

  "We all are. Even the Squibs are plotting search coordinates."

  "Of course. I'm sure they smell a tidy profit."

  "One you'd do well to pay." Silya put the tray on a broad shelf built into the wall. "None of us knows the desert like those three, and with all these Imperials running around, we can't organize a big search party."

  "Good advice. Thank you." Leia noticed there was only one cup on the tray. "You're not staying?"

  Silya smiled. "I'm sure you want to be alone-I always do when I get like this about Gavin or Jula-and I need to fix something to take with us. Jula says we'll start the search as soon as the storm lifts. And since it's Han Solo we're looking for, it might be a little earlier than that."

  Leia immediately began to feel more hopeful. "I can't tell you how much your help means to me."

  "No need, dear." Silya filled the cup. "We've all been through the same thing out here."

  "Thank you." Leia took the tea from Silya. "Any word about the sandcrawler? We mustn't forget that Kitster Banai is out there as well."

  "Don't trouble yourself about Kitster," Silya said. "The Jawas will take care of him, and only the Sand People know this desert the way they do. They'll tuck their sandcrawler in someplace safe, then take him to Anchorhead as soon as the storm lifts." "You're sure?"

  "The sandcrawlers always stop in Anchorhead." Silya patted Leia's wrist. "He'll be fine-and so will your painting."

  Leia winced at the faint note of reproach in Silya's voice, but resisted the urge to reveal the true reason for her concern, that Killik Twilight contained a secret that could cost the lives of thousands of New Republic operatives-among them Wedge Antilles, Wraith Squadron, and most of the Askajian resistance.

  Instead, she asked, "How is Chewbacca doing?" When Jula had hardened the barrier field, the Wookiee had been even more furious than Leia. "I hope he hasn't started roaring again."

  "Don't you worry about Chewbacca. Jula has him installing a magnetometer in our market skiff. As long as he's busy preparing for the search, he doesn't get too grouchy."

  Leia rose. "I should be doing something, too. I'm not much good with sensor equipment, but I can help you."

  "Another cook in my kitchen?" Silya's face turned stony. "I don't think so, dear."

  "Oh." Leia felt as though she had ordered nerfburger at an Ithorian banquet. "Then I'll look after Threepio."

  "No, dear. Your droid took himself for an oil bath." Silya paused, looking a little puzzled, then confided, "It's eerie, how he knows his way around."

  "He's been here before. Luke's uncle owned him for a short time."

  "Of course-silly of me not to remember that." Silya's gaze grew uneasy. She took a step toward the stairs, then paused and removed a tiny datapad from her pocket. "Speaking of the Larses- this was left behind after they died. It has a few data skips, but you might find it interesting."

  Leia flipped the instrument open and saw that it was actually a tiny vidrecorder and playback screen. "A journal?"

  "Anya-my daughter-found it buried in the mushrooms under a vaporator last month. The next time Gavin comes home on leave, we were going to ask him to take it back for Luke. Maybe you could take it instead."

  "Of course. So it belonged to one of the Larses?" "I think so." Silya turned away a little too quickly and started down the stairs. "I only viewed it long enough to know it wasn't our affair. But I doubt Luke would mind if you looked. Maybe it will make the waiting a little easier."

  Leia waited as Silya descended the stairs. The woman had obviously seen more of the journal than she cared to admit, but why she wanted Leia to look was puzzling. Probably, she was just trying to keep her guest's mind occupied. Leia resumed her seat and activated the journal.

/>   The question ENTRY? appeared on the display. Leia asked for the first one, and a time stamp appeared in the lower corner. There was a place for a date stamp opposite, but a message read "Calendar file corrupted." A moment later, a dark-eyed woman appeared on the screen. She had a small upturned nose and brown hair pulled back, and she looked a little tired, her face lined by worry and weather. Despite her fatigue, she was still attractive in that hard Tatooine way, with a quiet dignity and serene composure that Leia perceived despite the small display.

  No... not perceived, Leia realized. Recognized. It would be difficult to discern such traits in two seconds of viewing a tiny electronic image, yet Leia did know they were qualities possessed by this woman. She felt them much as she had felt Mos Espa growing more familiar, much as she had known when she entered the slave hut where her father might have lived.

  The Force again, carrying her into the Skywalkers' past. "All right. Who are you?" Leia leaned forward, studying the image more closely. "Luke's Aunt Beru?"

  The mystery woman remained in the display, her brow furrowing as she concentrated on something. Her lips began to move, but no sound came. Leia adjusted the volume to maximum... then nearly dropped the journal when a warm female voice suddenly blared from the little speaker.

  08:31:01

  ... this thing still is not recording.

  A gravelly voice, not as loud, said, "What are you doing, woman ? told you to clean my shop. Memory chips, you clean at home."

  The woman's image was replaced by a bald blue head with large selfish eyes, a hoselike proboscis of a nose, and a huge mouth containing a handful of chunky tusks. In the background fluttered a pair of wings, moving so fast they were a blur.

  "Where did you get this?" the being demanded. "Is it yours?" "I bought it with my memory-chip earnings," the woman said. "I thought-"

  "Maybe I should sett it for disobeying me, eh?" The image in the display whirled as the being turned the journal over. "But it's not worth much, I think. Back to work, or I will."

  The display went blank-the end of the first entry. Leia took a sip of hubba tea and looked out at the roaring storm. Despite the diversion of the journal, Leia could not keep her thoughts off Han. She kept recalling the image of his swoop lying half buried in a sand drift, kept wondering whether what she had seen was accurate, what it meant, and-most of all-where Han was. The Force was acting on her; Luke had left no doubt of that. But what did it want?

  The answer, of course, was nothing. The Force did not have desires or purposes. It simply was-or so Luke had told her.

  And that knowledge was of little comfort to Leia. She could not deny that the image had come to her through the Force. But her inability to divine any clear meaning-any clear hint of what she was to do-made the waiting unbearable. Her mind was spinning with reasons Han would survive and reasons he would not, and she just kept feeling more guilty, more lonely, more tormented by her decision to let him go after the painting.

  Leia looked down to find the journal flashing ENTRY TWO? She told it to continue, and the woman's face appeared in the display, smiling.

  19:47:02

  You might enjoy something to remember Watto by, so I left that as entry one. He's not so bad, as masters go, and I do believe there are times when he truly misses your mischief.

  Annie, this diary is for you. I know you'll be gone a long time, and that you'll be very lonely at times. So will I. This diary is so that when you come home someday, you'll know you were always in my heart. But your destiny lies in the stars. You will achieve great things in the galaxy, Anakin. I have known that from the moment you were born. So you must never believe you were mistaken to leave Tatooine. Wherever you go, you carry my love with you. Always remember that.

  The journal nearly slipped from Leia's hands. "Annie" and "Anakin" had to be Anakin Skywalker, who had once been Watto's slave. The woman was his mother... and Leia's grandmother.

  Leia paused, taking a breath, then asked for the next entry. Her grandmother's face appeared in the display and began to speak to her.

  19:12:03

  Watto came back from a trip to Mos Eisley today with bad news. He told me that Qui-Gon Jinn had been killed in a battle on a world called Naboo. No one knows whether he had a boy with him, but I'm terrified, Annie. Do I still have a reason to keep this diary?

  Watto keeps saying that I should never have let you go, that you would have been better off staying his slave on Tatooine. I can't allow myself to believe that... Qui-Gon promised me he would take care of you, that he would train you as a Jedi, so I must trust that you are still all right. But who is watching after you? Who will train you now?

  Annie, I'm so worried.

  The entries for the next few months ran in much the same vein-though many had been destroyed by the data skips Silya had mentioned. Anakin's mother put up a brave front, recounting day-to-day events as a matter of faith that her son had survived and would one day hear them. But she also continued to search for news of his fate. One spacer reported hearing that there had been a boy at the battle, another a wild tale about the boy actually striking the critical blow.

  Anakin's mother even spent what remained of her meager savings on a HoloNet news search, which yielded only the unsettling news that a boy had been seen shortly before the battle in the presence of the "slain Jedi Knight." Few other details were available, for the Jedi Council was remaining even more reticent than usual about the incident.

  As Leia watched, she found herself reeling with emotion. She understood her grandmother's fear and frustration all the more keenly because of her own concerns over Han. Every rumble of dry thunder, every flash of sand lightning, made her worry more acute. Han would have run out of water at least twelve hours ago. No human could survive a full day without water in Tatooine's furnace-like atmosphere. Leia kept counting the minutes, the hours, wondering when this storm would let up-and she kept thinking of her grandmother, wondering how she had endured a wait that was so much longer.

  Leia would not have wanted to be the one who told the gentle woman the awful truth about what had become of her son.

  The wind had not blown Han into the snug little cave he had been hoping for, but the crevice was deep, sheltered, and a perfect mixture of sand and fleckrock. As long as he kept his back to the opening and his hood raised, he did not even feel the searing breeze worming its way in from the Great Mesa, and he thought he just might last out the storm, if he could only keep his tongue from swelling any more and closing off his throat.

  Han scraped another handful of sand from the hole he had been digging and packed it on his cooking stone in a tight little mound. As powdery and gray as it looked, it was a wonder it contained any moisture at all. But it was cool to the touch, and on Tatooine, what was cool had water. Han held his helmet mask over the top of the pile, then used his blaster-set on stun-to heat the cooking stone.

  The vapor that rose out of the sand wasn't even visible, but it collected on the inside of Han's face mask in three beads the size of his little fingernail. Before the moisture could dissipate into the arid atmosphere, he wiped the inside of the facemask with a scrap of tunic, then put the tiny rag behind his lips, and sucked the few drops of water into his mouth.

  Han was past the point of thinking about his odds, or even wondering if he would ever see Leia again. His vision was dimming and his thoughts came slowly or not at all, and he had one goal in mind. He set the helmet mask aside and swept the warm sand away, then pulled another handful of cool sand from the hole and packed it in a tight heap. He held his helmet mask over the pile and pointed his blaster at the cooking stone.

  Han squeezed the trigger, and the power pack depletion alarm chirped twice.

  17:30:04

  Today you're eleven years old, Anakin, and some of your friends have come over to say hello. They don't know what happened at Naboo, so don't be hurt if they... what am I saying? You're fine. Wouldn't I feel it if you weren't?

  Here comes your friend Wald. I gave him some o
f your tools__but not the droid you were building. I'll keep him, just like I promised.

  The green-scaled face of a Rodian child appeared in the display, his bulbous black eyes shining with delight and his tapered snout squirming in excitement.

  "How are things at Jedi school? Study hard, so you can come back and free us. By the way, I'm building that rocket swoop you dreamed up. Kitster's helping me. I hope you don't mind."

  Wald's face was replaced by that of a black-haired boy with a dark complexion and huge brown eyes. He smiled, then held up a flimsiplast pamphlet with a familiar tide: Par Ontham's Guide to Etiquette.

  "Look what I bought with the credits you gave me. Rarta Dal said she'll hire me to be her steward-but first I have to memorize the whole thing."