Star Wars - A New Hope - The Life of Luke Skywalker
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S’ybll shrieked behind him. Luke ignited his blade and turned quickly to defend himself.
He didn’t realize that S’ybll was already lurching toward him. His lightsaber went straight through her chest. S’ybll’s mouth fell open and she made a croaking noise.
Luke switched off his lightsaber.
Teetering on her spindly legs, S’ybll sneered at Luke and said, “I never did like you.” Then the mind witch’s eyes rolled up into her skull and she collapsed upon the cavern floor.
Luke could hear his X-wing’s engines through the hole in the ceiling. He kept his eyes locked on S ‘ybll’s decrepit corpse as he reached for his comlink. “Artoo-Detoo, do you read me?”
The astromech responded with an affirmative beep.
“Land the X-wing and get down here,” Luke said. “I need you to look at something for me.”
Luke called out to the scouts to make sure they were both all right. He didn’t take his eyes off S’ybll’s dead body until R2-D2 entered the cavern and arrived by his side. Only after the astromech droid confirmed that he also saw the mind witch dead on the floor did Luke breathe a sigh of relief.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“S‘ybll?” Han Solo said with disbelief. He looked at Chewbacca.
Chewbacca growled.
Returning his gaze to Luke, Han said, “The mind witch? But I thought she was dead.”
“Our mistake,” Luke said.
“Our mistake?” Han chuckled. “Speak for yourself, pal. Usually when I see some old hag’s arm sticking out from under a big block of stone, I just assume she’s not gonna get up and walk away.”
Chewbacca agreed with a robust chortle.
Turning serious, Han added, “You’re positive S’ybll’s dead? For real?”
Luke nodded. “Artoo saw her body. Psychic powers don’t work on droid photoreceptors.”
They were standing on the ground beside the Millennium Falcon, which had landed on the same wide slab of rock that supported the Alliance scouts’ old freighter and Luke’s X-wing on Tarnoonga. R2-D2 was inside the freighter, helping Glaennor and Andur repair their damaged controls. The storm clouds Luke had seen earlier had since passed, and the ocean that surrounded the mountaintop island was remarkably calm.
“Sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” Han continued. “As soon as we lost contact with you, Chewie and I figured you might need a hand. We really stomped on it, got here as fast as we could.”
Just then, R2-D2 moved down the freighter’s landing ramp. Seeing the droid, Luke said, “Well, I did get a helping hand from a trigger-happy friend of ours. If Artoo hadn’t taken control of the X-wing and come looking for me, I can only imagine how things might have turned out.”
R2-D2 responded with a whooping series of beeps and whistles, and then Glaennor and Andur followed the astromech down the ramp. Looking at Luke, Glaennor said, “Our control console won’t win a beauty contest, but we’re almost good to go.”
Andur said, “General Solo, can you spare a power coupling?”
“No problem,” Han said. “Chewie?”
As Chewbacca left to help the scouts complete their repairs, R2-D2 came to a stop beside Luke and Han. Han said, “There’s something I’m wondering, Luke. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wanna.”
“What is it?”
“Goldenrod told me you went to Tatooine. Said you were on some kind of personal business.”
Luke sighed. “Threepio talks too much.”
“You’re tellin’ me? I’ve been saying that for years.”
Suddenly, R2-D2 beeped with excitement. He wobbled slightly on his legs as a panel slid back on his dome to release an extendible antenna.
“What is it, Artoo?” Luke said. “You’re picking up a signal?”
R2-D2 beeped again, and then activated his built-in holoprojector. A moment later, he beamed a flickering hologram of Princess Leia onto the ground before Luke and Han.
“Luke!” Leia said. “Are you all right?” Her voice was broadcast via the astromech’s audio transmitter.
“I’m fine,” Luke said. He gestured to Han and added, “We’re all fine.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Leia replied. “But I wish you had told me you were leaving Aridus.”
“I’m sorry,” Luke said. “It’s just that . . . Leia, found out some information about our father, and I wanted to investigate, so I —“
“So you risked your life?” Leia interrupted. She shook her head. “Did it ever occur to you that your. . . your quest for knowledge might just get you killed? Why are you so determined to find out more? Why can’t you just stop thinking about him?”
Keeping his voice calm, Luke said, “Because I’m not you, Leia. I’d rather try to have some understanding of who our father was than forget about him entirely.”
Stunned by Luke’s words, Leia’s hologram jerked slightly.
Han shifted uneasily on his feet. His eyes flicked from Leia’s hologram to Luke and then back to Leia again. Leia continued to hold Luke’s gaze.
“Please, Leia,” Luke continued. “Please just listen. I don’t want to upset you. I know you’d rather not talk about this at all, but. . . I’m not trying to convince you to forgive our father. I’m only hoping to figure out how he became the man he was and how certain circumstances of his life might have affected his decisions. I can’t learn from his mistakes if I don’t know what they were. Can we at least agree that we’re better prepared for the future if we know more about the past?”
Leia’ s hologram was motionless and silent just long enough to make Luke wonder if something were wrong with the transmission, but then she nodded and said, “Yes, I can agree with that. But we have other concerns right now. If we talk more about. . . our father, we’ll talk when I’m ready. All right?”
Luke smiled at this. “Thank you, Leia.”
“The fleet will be leaving Aridus shortly,” Leia said. “We’ve located Moff Jarnek on Spirador, and we need to go over a plan to apprehend him. Artoo has the coordinates for our rendezvous. I’ll see you there.” Slit broke the connection and the hologram vanished.
Luke looked at R2-.D2 and said, “Get the X-wing ready for launch, Artoo.”
The astromech whistled and moved off, heading for the X-wing starfighter. As the droid left, Han stretched his arms, looked at Luke and said, “So, that ‘personal business’ on Tatooine? That was about your father?”
Luke nodded.
Han lifted his eyebrows. “Yeah? Which one? The Jedi or the Sith Lord?”
“Aw, give me a break, Han. If you’re just going to joke about —“
“Hey, hey, take it easy, Luke,” Han said, raising his hands. “I wasn’t needling you, just wondering who you’re talking about.”
“Oh,” Luke said. “Well, I was trying to find out about Anakin.”
Han nodded. “See, that’s all I was askin’: So. . . how’d it work out?”
Luke shrugged. “Not the way I expected.” He turned his gaze to the ocean. “I learned from a HoloNet search that Anakin was on Tatooine when he was a boy. From what I gathered afterward, at least a few people considered him to be a remarkable person and even thought well of him. But his life was also a lot more complicated than I ever imagined. There’s still so much I don’t know about him.” Still looking at the ocean, Luke said, “As much as I might ever learn about my father, I can’t even begin to put myself in his shoes. I don’t think I’ll ever really know who he was.”
“Yeah, that may be,” Han said as he looked out over the ocean too. “But the way I see things, knowing who your father was isn’t nearly as important as knowing who you are.”
Luke looked at Han. “Say that again?”
“Naw,” Han said. “You heard me the first time.”
EPILOGUE
Imperial Moff Harlov Jarnek didn’t think anyone could touch him, especially after he used the Star Destroyers under his command to blockade the planet Spirador, where he had a private palace.
/> He was resting in a lounge chair in the palace, watching a holovid, when he heard one of his servant droids walk into the room. Although Jarnek hadn’t heard any alarms go off, he felt a sudden panic when he turned to look at the approaching droid.
The droid’s chest had been equipped with concealed blasters to kill trespassers, but Jarnek could see clearly that the droid was no longer prepared to stop anyone, because its chest was gone, along with its head and arms. It looked as though some kind of industrial laser had cut the droid in half, just above the waist.
The droid’s remains tripped and collapsed across the floor.
Jarnek couldn’t imagine how anyone could have made it through the blockade and infiltrated his palace. He had stormtroopers as well as droids monitoring the entire building. He jumped out of his chair and was about to run for a blaster that he kept on a nearby table when a hooded man appeared in the same doorway through which the damaged droid had entered. The hooded man said, “You’re under arrest, Moff Jarnek.”
Glaring at the intruder, Jarnek bellowed, “Who do you think you are?”
“I’m Luke Skywalker,” Luke said as he pulled back his hood. “I’m a Jedi.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In December of 1976, my brother Corey let me borrow his copy of Star Wars, a novelization, written by Alan Dean Foster, of the then-forthcoming movie. I cant deny that Ralph McQuarries cover art totally reeled me in. I am very grateful to these gentlemen for introducing me to the adventures of Luke Skywalker.
A New Hope: The Life of Luke Skywalker incorpora dialogue and situations from deleted scenes of writer/ director George Lucass film Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope and transcribed dialogue from the Star Wars Radio Drama, by Brian Daley. It also incorporates plots and details from previously published stories, notably Iceworid and The Paradise Detour from the Star Wars comic, by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson; the Star Wars comic book stories Crucible, by ChtJ Claremont and Archie Goodwin, and Luke Skywalkers Walkabout, by Phil Norwood; and the novel Tatooine Ghost, by Troy Denning. I am indebted to all these writers.
My daughter Dorothy, whos increasingly the Star Wars expert in our house, gave me some very useful story ideas. Several friends at Star Wars Fanboy Association, including Jean-Francois Boivin, Joe Bongiorno, Rich Handley, Chaz LiBretto, James McFadden, Abel G. Pefla, Josh Radke, and Dan Wallace, were extremely generous with their knowledge about Luke Skywalkers life and lightsabers.
My endless thanks to Annmarie Nye at Scholastic, and J. W. Rinzler and Leland Chee at Lucasfilm, for giving me the opportunity to revisit the worlds of Star Wars.