Star Wars - Episode I Adventures 005 - The Ghostling Children

by Dave Wolverton

  He began to imagine that it must have an electronic lock. Perhaps if he bombarded it with a magnetic wave generator, he’d hit the right frequency and get it to open.

  But he knew that if something really important was inside, the box might be encoded. He might never get it open.

  Anakin was asleep on his feet by the time he got home. As he reached the barracks, he felt happy to see that the light in the main room was still on. His mother was up waiting.

  He opened the door and called, “Hi, Mom.”

  His mother, Shmi Skywalker, was up late, working to repair a maintenance droid. She had parts everywhere strewn upon a bench. “Oh, there you are,” she said. Her voice was tired and full of worry. "At last.”

  “What are you doing?” Anakin asked. He couldn’t imagine that Watto would have his mother up so late.

  “You know my friend Matta?” Shmi asked. “She came down sick, and couldn’t finish her quota of repairs today. I... was afraid that Master Dengula might sell her if she falls behind, so I brought this home to work on.”

  “If Dengula sold her,” Anakin said hopefully, “it might not be so bad. He’s a cruel master. She could hardly do worse.”

  “Yes,” Shmi said, “but Dengula would never sell her to someone kind. It would only cause unrest among his other slaves. No, he’s just the kind who would sell her to the spice mines of Kessel...” The spice mines of Kessel were a slave’s nightmare. The glitterstim spice mined there was far underground, and any exposure to light ruined it. So the miners had to work in total darkness, digging, digging, digging with their hands. And there were monsters in the mines that crept up on people and ate them.

  Shmi balled her fists up angrily and glanced at her son. Anakin knew that he must have looked tired. She said, “Well, don’t you worry about it. Get some sleep.”

  Anakin could hardly think about sleep. He thought about the Ghostling children, locked in their cage for the night, waiting to be fitted with transmitters. He thought about Pala scheduled to leave the day after tomorrow.

  He was worried about them, just as his mother was worried about Matta. The only difference was, he couldn’t do anything to help Pala or the Ghostlings. Could he? If there was any way at all — he would have to try.

  “I’m not that tired,” he said. “I’ll stay up until the droid is fixed.”

  He went to the worktable and glanced at the parts, mentally sifting through them, deciding what to do first. His mother couldn’t fix things as well as he could.

  Shmi Skywalker rubbed his shoulder and said in gratitude, “Thank you. Whenever we do something kind, it makes all of the problems in the universe shrink a little.”

  Anakin looked up at his mother. The universe was so full of problems, and all of them seemed so much bigger than Anakin.

  Yet when he blinked, when he closed his eyes, he imagined that he was in the hold of a spaceship, that Pala and the Ghostling children were all around him, and he could hear the sound of engines rumbling and feel the familiar sensation of flight.

  It was just like being in a Podracer, hurtling through the canyons, where dangerous walls of rock reared on every side.

  Except that in this dream, he knew that something grand waited beyond the finish line. There was freedom for Pala and the Ghostling children.

  It was so real, for a moment he almost thought he saw it, tasted it, felt it. He was flying free with Pala and the Ghostling children.

  He blinked away the waking dream, and got back to work fitting the droid pieces together.

  “Mom,” he asked. “What if you want to do something good, but it’s hard? Or what if you want to help someone, but you’re afraid?”

  Shmi smiled down at him. She closed the droid’s service panel. “Helping others isn’t always easy, is it? If people paid us to be good, the galaxy would be overflowing with kindness. But most of the time there isn’t much reward, and sometimes it even costs us dearly to do good things.”

  “Yeah,” Anakin said. “What if it costs so much that it hurts?”

  “I think we should do it anyway,” Shmi said. “Make it a habit, like eating or breathing. Once you do, you’ll hardly even notice the cost.”

  When they finished the droid, Shmi got out some cold dinner for Anakin. He ate and drank a little, then went to bed. His mom kissed his forehead and whispered, “Go to sleep. The suns come up early, and we’ll have a long night tomorrow. Matta’s still sick.”

  In her cage, Princess Arawynne cuddled with the little ones. At seven years of age, Arawynne didn’t know much about how to be a princess.

  She knew that princesses were responsible. She knew that they led their people. But where could she possibly lead the young ones?

  Borofir, the youngest boy, was only three years old. He had black, curly hair, and his eyes were deep blue. All through their trip, he’d sucked his fingers and cried for his mama. Arawynne didn’t know what to tell him, other than to promise that he’d get to see her again soon. She begged him to stop crying, and mostly he did.

  All of the children here were younger than Arawynne. Conno was five; Alamar, the oldest next to Arawynne, was only five and a half.

  The pull of gravity had been light on their old planet Datar. There, Arawynne had weighed much less than she did here on Tatooine. She found that she got tired if she tried to stand up in her cage for long. Sometimes it was hard to breathe.

  No wonder humans from other worlds seemed strong! Ghostlings were very frail in comparison.

  Her captors had not given the Ghostling children much food or water. She’d had to divide it as best she could, and Arawynne didn’t take much for herself. Her stomach growled loudly.

  “Mama? Daddy?” Borofir cried. He stirred in his sleep, then got up to his knees, looking around. If he’d been back home, he would have had his mother and father sleeping with him in his nest. He’d merely have to feel for them.

  Arawynne wished that she had a blaze bug to give a little light, so that she could see better.

  “I’m here,” Arawynne whispered. She squeezed Borofir’s small hand. “It will be all right.”

  “I want to go home,” Borofir begged.

  “We’ll go home soon,” Arawynne replied.

  But she had no way to keep such a promise. She was locked in an energy cage and had no idea how to get out. Worse than that, she had been moved to Gardulla the Hutt’s fortress. Gondry was still guarding them, and beyond the doorway she could hear other guards stirring from time to time, as well as the sound of heavy-sounding doors sliding open and closed.

  Desperately she thought about the boys who had looked through the air holes to her cage earlier today. She’d hoped that they’d free her. A small part of her still dared to hope.

  She wished that she were a Jedi, with knowledge of the Force. She thought of the boys and tried to imagine sending her message across the gulf of space. “Please,” she silently begged, “come set us free.”

  But she knew that they would not come. Because the boys were only slaves themselves.

  Kitster had a secret.

  In fact, Kitster had lots of secrets, and he was good at keeping them.

  There was one secret that he’d never told anyone — not even his best friend, Anakin. And if he ever dared tell anyone, he’d probably be killed for it.

  Kitster knew who his own father was.

  When Kitster was a child, he recalled being aboard his father’s warship. His father was a pirate of sorts, named Rakir Banai. Some called him a pirate, some said that he was something more, something of a lawman who worked not for any government, but to satisfy his own sense of justice. He traveled along the trade routes here on the untamed rim of the galaxy, where slavers and spice lords abounded. He’d capture their ships, free their slaves, steal their money, and destroy their payloads.

  For that, Rakir Banai was a hunted man. All of the Hutt crime lords had placed bounties on his head.

  When Kitster was four, he’d been aboard a pirate ship that some bounty h
unters captured. Kitster and his mother were separated and sold as slaves. She’d warned him, “Never tell anyone who you are. Never tell them who your father is. And never forget who you are — or how much I love you.”

  So at age four, Kitster was caught and sold. He had no idea who his mother was sold to, but Kitster was sold to Gardulla the Hutt. That’s where he first met Anakin and Pala.

  Kitster was good at keeping secrets, and he’d learned a good one today.

  After Anakin had to run off to work, Kitster, Pala, and Dorn watched the loading bay at the spaceport to find out where the Ghostling children would be taken.

  Pala and Dorn were both good watchers. Madame Vansitt had trained Pala to be a spy, and Dorn’s owner, Jabba the Hutt, was doing the same for him. Dorn was a Bothan, after all. They made the best spies in the galaxy.

  Pala and Dorn had seen something interesting: Gardulla the Hutt had purchased the Ghostling children. They’d all been taken to Gardulla’s fortress, just outside of town.

  Kitster lay awake in his bed, his head whirling, as he considered that piece of news. He couldn’t imagine why Gardulla, his own master, would want such creatures. The Ghostling children were very expensive, and they didn’t have any skills at all. They weren’t good fighters. They wouldn’t make good guards or warriors. They weren’t any smarter than other species. So why had Gardulla gone to so much trouble to capture them?

  All that they had was a rare and special beauty unlike anything that Kitster had ever seen.

  He was lying on his cot in the slave quarters thinking about it when he heard a faint noise, a tapping on his wall: Tap, tap, pause. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  That was Dorn's signal. The Bothan boy was outside Kitster’s room. How had he gotten into Gardulla’s fortress?

  That was dangerous. If Dorn got caught sneaking around here at night, he’d be in big trouble! Like any criminal, Gardulla also had secrets to hide and treasure to guard.

  The other slaves were all snoring in their sleep. A dozen slaves were kept in nearby rooms. Kitster was afraid that one of them might wake.

  He crept to the front door and pushed the OPEN button.

  As soon as the door hissed open, Dorn ran through in a crouch, holding a small bundle in his hands. He hit the CLOSE button, and the door snapped shut.

  Both of them stopped for a moment, to see if they’d attracted any attention.

  Dorn went to a nearby table, dropped his bundle next to a small computer terminal. It was a mess of wires all attached to a small keyboard. It looked like the kind of thing that criminals used to break electronic locks.

  “What’s going on?” Kitster whispered.

  “I’ve been thinking about those new slaves, the Ghostlings,” Dorn whispered in reply. The little Bothan spy raised his long eyebrows at a tilt then dropped them quickly. Kitster didn’t know Bothan body language, but suspected that he was saying, as I’m sure that you have. “I thought maybe we could find out what Gardulla wants them for.”

  “What are you going to do?” Kitster asked.

  Dorn put a finger to his mouth, warning Kitster to be silent, then snapped a clip onto the cable of the computer terminal. The terminal had the “house” systems on it. It regulated the temperature, monitored for fires and intruders, and occasionally used its electronic eyes to scan the quarters so that it could send cleaning droids when needed — or simply to look for slaves.

  Now, Dorn rapidly began typing on his keyboard, and the computer screen faded. In seconds the light reappeared, but instead of the normal household menu on screen, there was a list of options that Kitster had never seen.

  “You’ve hacked into Gardulla’s main terminal!” Kitster whispered in amazement.

  “It’s all part of one big system,” Dorn said casually. He began typing really fast now, and information flew across the screen. Bothans have quick eyes, and Dorn seemed to read ten times faster than Kitster.

  In moments Dorn turned to Kitster and whispered, “Interesting. Did you know that Gardulla is building a huge underground pleasure garden? It will have open ponds, streams, and imported trees.”

  “Yeah, everyone knows about it,” Kitster said. It was going to be perhaps the most extravagant garden on Tatooine, a place with rich, moist air where the wealthiest scumbags on the planet could gather for parties. It was the kind of place that Hutts liked. “So what does that have to do with the Ghostling children?”

  “Gardulla wants to put them in her garden.”

  “As caretakers?” He could hardly imagine that the Ghostlings would make good workers. They were far too frail. Touching a Ghostling bruised it.

  “No, more like lawn ornaments,” Dorn said in an angry tone.

  Kitster let out an astonished gasp. It wasn’t such an odd idea. Slave owners often paid more for beautiful slaves — pretty young girls to serve their drinks, handsome men to guard their rooms. But kidnapping children in order to use them as lawn ornaments seemed... excessive, even on this corrupt planet.

  “The thing is,” Dorn lowered his voice and whispered in a dangerous tone, “Gardulla is going to put other creatures in the garden — animals that could hunt the Ghostlings. Those kids won’t last a year.”

  Kitster was hardly shocked by the idea. Hurting helpless creatures made the Hutts feel strong. Gardulla had killed expensive slaves before, often to show guests how powerful she was. It was a savage entertainment.

  “Gardulla’s doctor is scheduled to come in the morning, to implant the transmitters. If we’re going to save the Ghostlings, we’ll have to do it tonight.”

  Kitster’s mouth was dry, and his palms were sweaty. He hadn’t really thought about trying to save the Ghostlings. He’d never tried to free a slave before. He knew what would happen if he got caught.

  “Where —”

  “They’re in the dungeon, in the hospital,” Dorn whispered. “You want to try it?”

  Kitster knew Gardulla’s dungeons well. He’d spent time down there before. You couldn’t just walk in and walk out. There were droid guards and Gamorreans, electronic gates and keyed gates.

  “We’d never make it,” Kitster said. “We’re just kids!”

  “Pala could help,” Dorn said with a wry grin. “And Anakin.” Pala was good with computers and spy equipment, and she was an excellent liar — almost as good as Kitster. And Anakin was a wizard with anything electronic. Yeah, they were all kids, but they were special kids.

  Kitster thought fleetingly of Wald and Amee. They might be willing to help, too. But almost immediately he had to reject the idea. They might have the guts for this kind of thing, but not the training.

  “What do you say?” Dorn asked. “Are you in?”

  “We could get caught. We might get killed.”

  “I dare you,” Dorn said with a grin.

  And Kitster... Kitster’s specialty was sneaking around. He was always sneaking away from work, sneaking back into work.

  “I double dare you,” Dorn said.

  “All right," Kitster whispered. “Let’s give it a try.”

  At this point, you can either continue reading this adventure, or you can play your own adventure in The Ghostling Children Game Book.

  To play your own adventure, turn to the first page of the Game Book and follow the directions you find there.

  To continue reading this Star Wars Adventure, turn the page!

  Anakin and his friends Dorn, Kitster, and Pala glided on their sand skimmers along the dark streets of Mos Espa toward the Palace of Gardulla the Hutt.

  An eopie’s squawk echoed from the pour-stone walls of the slave quarters. Elsewhere, Anakin could hear a heavy clanking.

  Though it was late, the cool wind on his face helped wake him. Dorn had roused him from a dead sleep and had outlined his plan to save the Ghostling children.

  “All right, I’ll help,” Anakin had agreed, though he knew it was dangerous.

  Really, he was just returning something that had been stolen. But could he really ever return the child
ren? They were from Datar. They had no way to pay for passage home. How would he ever get them back to their parents?

  Dorn and Kitster had brought him a Jawa’s robe made of sandstone-red homespun fibers. Anakin could smell the vermin odor of the Jawa who’d worn it.

  Dorn had done more than dress them like Jawas. He’d brought light patches to put above their eyes so that if anyone looked under the hood, they would think that they saw a Jawa’s glowing eyes. Anakin even wore gloves, so that his hands looked like a Jawa’s.

  It was just like Dorn to have these disguises.

  Kitster had a description of the dungeon, and knew what guards were on duty. He told his friends where to meet if there was trouble. He’d even brought a Jawa’s ion blaster to disable any droid guards. Pala was pulling a repulsorlift sled, so that they could bring the Ghostling children back to town once they got them out.

  Soon, they neared Gardulla’s fortress.

  Jagged peaks rose up from the desert like teeth in a rotted, overturned skull. The fortress squatted atop them like a giant spydr. The huge black central dome of the fortress could open to receive spaceships. To Anakin it looked like a spydr’s back. Then, down among the jagged peaks, were black towers of synth-steel that had gun emplacements on them. Anakin imagined that these were legs to the spydr.

  But the building was only part of the fortress. Legend said that it was built atop an old mine. Tunnels and caves riddled the hills beneath the monstrous fortress. He remembered vaguely that it was a maze down there.

  As he stared up at the insectlike building, he felt despair. How would they ever get the Ghostling children out?

  Silently, Anakin and his friends streaked over the hardpan toward Gardulla’s fortress, hugging the shadows beside a pile of rocks. They stayed hidden from anyone on the palace walls. Red lights on the fortress dome reminded Kitster of bloodshot eyes — searching, searching.

  It was good that the lights looked like eyes. It reminded Kitster of the fact that there were very real sentries on the walls. There were guard droids inside whose only purpose was to stare over the walls and emit a shrill whistle if anything odd approached, or if anyone tried to escape.