“Wherever I am, Luke,” Fixer said. Turning to his girlfriend, he added, “Right, Camie?”
Camie pursed her lips and blew a kiss at Fixer. Luke thought, Oh, brother.
Windy said, “Hey, boys, guess what Skywalker was doing?”
“Hey!” Luke said. “Shh!” He wished Windy would keep his mouth shut, but like most of his wishes, this one didn’t come true.
“Sitting in the tech dome,” Windy continued, “playing an Academy recruitment tape!”
Everyone jeered. “I was not,” Luke lied. In fact, he had been listening to the tape that came with the Applicant’s Information Packet from the Imperial Space Academy when Windy had arrived at the Lars homestead. When he had heard Windy entering the tech dome, he hadn’t been able to switch off the tape and hide it fast enough. It wasn’t that Luke was ashamed of wanting to go to the Academy, but that he resented how everyone teased him about his desire to become a starpilot. He gave Windy a dirty look and thought, You can find your own way home.
“You never change, Skywalker,” Fixer said. “That all you want out of life, to parade around in a fancy uniform?”
Luke snapped, “So what do you want that’s so much better, Fixer?”
“Hey, you watch it, boy!” Fixer said. “Just because you got lucky on a couple of crummy tests, that doesn’t make you some kind of junior space explorer.”
Shaking his head, Luke said, “I never said I was any better than y—”
Fixer interrupted, “You know what I did back when they made me take those exams? I walked in, filled out my name, and walked out again. I showed ’em.”
Everyone but Luke seemed to find Fixer’s claim impressive as well as amusing. Windy waved dismissively at Luke and said, “Just because he can answer fancy trick questions and do schoolbook flight maneuvers, he thinks it makes him better than us.”
“I do not,” Luke protested.
Facing Luke, Fixer said, “So you happened to qualify? So what? What do ya think you are, Biggs or something?”
“Yeah,” Camie said, laughing. “He just wants to go to the Academy because Biggs did. He always was his hero.” The way she said hero made it sound like something foul.
Luke felt his face flush as he tried to ignore Camie. He kept his gaze on Fixer and said, “Yeah, I’d like to go to the Academy. Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because it’s for suckers, Skywalker!” Fixer said. “They want to stick you into a uniform and give you orders. At least at the power station, I’m my own boss.”
Windy said, “Anyway, my father says the Empire’s just recruiting more people into the academies so they can draft them into the starfleet.”
Deak looked down his nose at Luke and said, “Do you think anybody out there cares about Luke Skywalker?”
“If you leave home,” Camie added, “nobody knows you.”
Fixer drained his beverage container. “Hey, where is the juice?”
As Camie handed Fixer another drink, Luke said, “So, what’s on the program for today, Fixer?”
“Speed runs, Skywalker,” Fixer said. “Speed runs.”
“Oh?”
“Gonna see how much time I can shave off the back stretch.”
Windy said, “There’s no way you can cut much more time off your lap, Fix. You’re almost matching Biggs’s best time around Beggar’s Canyon as it is.”
“Yeah, well, Biggs isn’t here, and I am!” Fixer bellowed. “I’m as good as he ever was!”
“Oh, yeah?” Luke said. “Well, then why don’t you thread the Stone Needle like Biggs did? That ought to take five seconds or better off your time.”
Camie gasped. Although Luke had sounded pleasant, as if he were casually offering advice to a friend, Camie knew that he had just proposed a very dangerous challenge to Fixer. Deak and Windy knew it too and looked at Fixer to see his reaction.
Fixer squinted at Luke and said, “Yeah? And Biggs is the only one who ever flew through it at racing speed, is that what you’re saying?”
Luke chuckled. “No, I was just saying that if you want to improve your time, you—”
“You’re crazy, Luke!” Camie said, glaring at him. “Why don’t you guys go buzz the womp rats and take a few potshots at them? This speed run stuff is gonna get somebody killed.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Fixer said. “What’s the matter, Camie? You don’t think I can do it? Listen, anything the great Biggs Darklighter could do, I can do.”
“I never said you couldn’t,” Camie said, trying to placate her boyfriend.
“Yeah,” Windy said, “nobody was knocking you, Fixer.”
“Besides,” Fixer said, “I don’t need any shortcuts.”
I knew he’d make some excuse, Luke thought. He smirked as he looked away from Fixer. Unfortunately, Fixer noticed.
“Hey!” Fixer said. “Do you wanna try and keep up with me?”
“Oh, Fixer,” Camie said, shaking her head with disgust.
Still gazing at Luke, Fixer said, “Huh?”
Luke looked back at Fixer. “What?” Luke said. “Me?”
Fixer leered at him. “What, are you scared, Wormie?”
Luke exhaled. He knew that Fixer was just an overgrown jerk and that it was stupid to let the guy get under his skin. But with everyone looking at him, expecting him to back down, Luke wasn’t in the mood to think reasonably. He said, “Yeah. All right. You’re on!”
“Hoo, boy!” Deak laughed. “Wormie against the Fixer! That’s gonna be a slaughter!”
Luke scowled. “Well, then you can ride with Fixer, Deak!” He turned for the door. “What’re we waiting for, boys? Let’s go!”
“Fixer!” Camie shouted as the four young men walked off. “Come back here, Fixer!” she hollered from beside the folding chairs. “I want this to stop right now!”
No one paid any attention to her.
Windy was scrunched inside the cockpit of Luke’s T-16, poking around as he tried to find the macrobinoculars Luke had concealed. As Luke squeezed in behind the skyhopper’s controls, Fixer’s voice crackled over his comm. “Good luck, Skywalker,” Fixer said. “See you in the tight spots!”
“Hey,” Windy said, “I couldn’t find those macrobinoculars anywhere.”
“Never mind, Windy,” Luke said. “Buckle up.”
Luke revved the T-16’s engines. He had adjusted the thrust sequence for extra boost, and the noise was phenomenal. Hearing the racket, Windy said, “Hey, what’re you doing!”
“I’m standing in for Biggs!” Luke said. “Brace yourself.”
Luke’s skyhopper shuddered as it lifted slowly off the ground. Over the comm, Fixer said, “Here we go. One run down the back stretch, Skywalker, whenever you’re ready.”
Windy was reaching for the T-16’s sissy bar only to discover that Luke had removed it. “Hey, wait a minute!” he said. “You and Fixer in the bottleneck together? Count me out!”
Luke gestured to the hatch and said, “Well, jump!” But because they were already hovering several meters above the ground, he wasn’t surprised that Windy remained seated.
Fixer said, “Fall in even with me, Skywalker, and we’ll let ’er rip.”
Luke maneuvered his skyhopper so it hovered in the air beside Fixer’s. As soon as Luke was in position, Fixer said, “Okay, hit it!”
Twin clouds of dust exploded from behind the two skyhoppers as they tore off into the canyon. As Luke accelerated and swung unnervingly close to the canyon’s wall, Windy groaned loudly, then shrieked, “Look out!”
“Will you shut up and keep still!” Luke snapped.
Suddenly, Fixer’s skyhopper zoomed forward and slid in front of Luke.
“Aw, no!” Luke said as he tapped his brakes to avoid flying straight into Fixer’s thrusters. “You distracted me, Windy! Now Fixer’s got the lead!”
“Well, let him keep it!” Windy shouted. “I want to live!”
From the comm, Fixer laughed and said, “How does my afterblast feel, Luke?”
The can
yon corridor seemed to be rapidly closing in around them. Luke held tight to the controls as he searched for any way around Fixer’s skyhopper, his eyes darting from his scopes to the high-speed blur in front of his canopy. Angry with himself for having fallen behind, Luke said, “It’s too narrow to get past him!”
Windy said, “Whatever you do, don’t go for altitude! Don’t go for altitude! The crosswinds will smash us right into the canyon wall!”
Fixer’s voice crackled. “Just make yourself comfortable back there, farm boy! It’ll all be over in a minute!”
Luke snarled, “That’s what you think!” He brought his T-16 up fast and veered around a rocky outcropping.
“Wha—Wait!” Windy gasped from behind. “Hey, you idiot! You took the wrong turn! You’re headed for the Stone Needle!”
“Yeah,” Luke said. “I bet we shave five seconds off our time.”
“You’re gonna kill us both!”
The Stone Needle came into view. As the distance closed between the skyhopper’s nose and the Needle’s jagged opening, Luke instinctively realized he was going too fast. With his left hand, he reached for a switch to cut power and shut down the afterburners, and the T-16 decelerated and dropped slightly. Then Luke kicked on the power again.
“There’s no going back now,” Luke said as the T-16 closed with the opening. “Stay gripped, Windy!”
The skyhopper was suddenly buffeted by crosswinds. Windy yelled, “No-oooo!”
Luke clutched the controls with almost crushing strength as he kept his trajectory for the opening. As the skyhopper tore through the Needle, Luke let out a whoop of excitement that was so loud he almost drowned out a series of nasty thuds, the sound of metal grinding and breaking against stone.
Incredibly, they were still airborne.
“We made it!” Luke said. “Windy, open your eyes! We made it!”
“I-I’m alive,” Windy stammered. “I don’t believe it.” Then he braved a glance at Luke’s console. “Hey! Your stabilizer’s gone!”
Luke felt the skyhopper begin to lean hard to the port side. Tugging at the controls to compensate for the lean, he said, “I can hold her. We’ve still got to cross that finish line.”
“You’ll crash us!”
“Here we go.…”
Luke saw the end of the course and revved down the engine for landing. The skyhopper hit the ground at a slight angle, jolting Luke and Windy, then bounced over the finish line before it hit the ground again. Luke’s skyhopper kicked up a wide spray of dust as it slid to a stop.
“I told you I could bring her in,” Luke said as the engines died down. Catching his breath, he added, “Hey…Windy…we won!” He laughed. “We won!”
“Won?” Windy gasped. “Luke, you’re crazy. Crazy! I’m riding home with one of the others.” He scrambled out of his seat and opened the hatch. “You’re just an accident looking for a place to happen.”
Luke was still laughing wildly as Windy staggered away from the skyhopper. He tilted his head back and said, “Oh, Biggs, you should’ve been here!”
Luke was on the south range of his uncle’s moisture farm, working alongside a WED Treadwell droid to repair a broken moisture vaporator, when his eye caught a bright sparkle in the morning sky. Stepping away from the vaporator, he removed his macrobinoculars from his utility belt to get a better look.
He spotted two points of light and quickly adjusted his macrobinoculars’ magnification. Although the two points remained indistinct, he could tell that they were starships, and that one was considerably larger than the other. Pulses of light flashed near and around the smaller ship.
Luke realized he was witnessing a space battle. He could hardly believe his eyes. Lowering his macrobinoculars, he glanced at the Treadwell droid and said, “Come on, Treadwell. Get yourself over to the landspeeder. I’ve gotta get into Anchorhead and tell Fixer about this!”
The Treadwell droid was right in the middle of making an adjustment to the vaporator. It swiveled its binocular photoreceptors to watch Luke run to the landspeeder that was parked a short distance away, and emitted a flurry of protesting beeps.
Although Luke didn’t know exactly what the droid had just said, he recognized the tone well enough to understand that it was reluctant to stop working. He said, “Well, get it in gear, will ya?”
Like most of the equipment owned by Owen Lars, the droid was in need of repair, so Luke wasn’t totally surprised when its engine suddenly exploded in a spray of sparks. As white smoke poured out of the Treadwell’s engine, the spindly-necked droid beeped furiously.
“Stay put, then,” Luke said. “I’ll pick you up on the way home.” He hopped into his landspeeder and took off across the desert, heading west for Anchorhead.
“I’ve told you kids to slow down!” an old woman hollered as she shook her fist after the landspeeder, which raced at a ridiculously fast speed toward Tosche Station. Luke swerved and brought his vehicle to a sudden stop, kicking up a wave of sand and dust.
He leaped out of the speeder and ran into the pourstone building, taking his macrobinoculars with him. Entering the station’s sales office, he found Fixer seated with Camie, behind a cluttered table. Fixer was asleep, and Camie looked like she was just waking up. Luke picked up a piece of scrap from the table and tossed it at Fixer, but Camie’s hand darted out to swat the scrap to the floor. The sudden movement made Fixer’s eyes pop open.
“C’mon, shape it up, you guys!” Luke said as he moved toward the adjoining room, where Windy and Deak stood facing each other over a large console as they played a computer game. Beside Deak, another man stood with his back to Luke. The man had dark hair and wore a cape over a drab uniform, and he looked like…“Biggs?”
Biggs Darklighter turned with a broad grin on his face. He threw his arms around Luke, who exclaimed, “Hey! I didn’t know you were back! When did you get in?”
“Just now!” Biggs said, beaming as he stepped back to look at Luke. “I never expected you to be out working!”
They both laughed at this. Luke didn’t notice any obvious change in Biggs’s appearance, so he said, “The Academy didn’t change you much.…Oh, I almost forgot. There’s a battle going on! Right here in our system! Come and look!”
Hearing Luke mention a battle, Deak groaned, “Not again! Forget it!”
Windy said, “Hey, what’s all the noise about?”
As Briggs left the computer console, Deak pointed to him and said, “Did you come back down here to play the game?”
Luke ignored Deak and Windy and headed for the exit with Biggs right behind him. As Fixer and Camie followed them out, Camie muttered, “I think Wormie’s caught too much sun.”
Luke led the others onto the elevated terrace that wrapped around the station. While Fixer and Camie raised their hands to shield their eyes from the sun, Luke trained his macrobinoculars high into the sky and resighted the pinpoints of light. “There they are!” he said, then quickly handed the macrobinoculars to Biggs.
“Let’s see,” Biggs said. He craned his neck back and gazed up through the powerful lenses. A moment later, he said, “That’s no battle, hotshot…they’re just sitting there!” Handing the macrobinoculars back to Luke, he added, “Probably a freighter-tanker refueling.”
“But there was a lot of firing earlier,” Luke said. He was about to look through his macrobinoculars again when Camie snatched them from his hand. Annoyed, Luke said, “Hey!”
While Camie looked through the macrobinoculars, Biggs said, “I tell you, Luke, the Rebellion is a long way from here. This planet…?” He shrugged. “Big hunk of nothing.”
Fixer added, “I doubt the Empire would even fight to save this system.”
Biggs headed back into the station with Fixer right behind him. Camie lowered the macrobinoculars and casually tossed the expensive device to Luke. Luke reached fast to catch them, but they nearly slipped from his fingers. Glaring at Camie, he snapped, “You watch it!”
As Camie walked back inside, Luke ca
st another glance upward and thought, I know it was a battle. I’m sure of it!
Later, after getting some drinks at Tosche Station’s small cantina, Luke and Biggs walked outside. Luke was just finishing his account of his most recent race at Beggar’s Canyon.
“So I cut my power,” Luke said, “shut down the afterburners.…I was so close, I thought I was going to fry my instruments. As it was, I busted up the skyhopper pretty bad. Uncle Owen? Furious! He wound up grounding me for the rest of the season.” He chucked Biggs on the shoulder. “You should have been there! It was fantastic!”
“You ought to take it a little easy, Luke,” Biggs said. “You may be the hottest bush pilot this side of Mos Eisley, but those little skyhoppers are dangerous. Keep it up, one day…whammo! You’re gonna end up a dark spot on the down side of a canyon wall.”
“Look who’s talking,” Luke said, grinning. “You’ve been hanging around the starfleet so long you’re beginning to sound like my uncle. You know, you’re getting a little soft in the city.…”
Biggs gave Luke a playful shove. “I’ve missed you, kid.”
“Yeah, well, things haven’t been the same without you, Biggs.” Luke kicked at the ground. “It’s been so quiet.”
Biggs glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one else was in earshot, then said, “Luke, I didn’t come back just for a visit.” He looked at the ground for a moment, then lifted his gaze to Luke. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but you’re the only one I can trust. See, I may never come back, and I just want someone to know.”
Luke just stood there, looking at Biggs, wondering what had brought on his friend’s sudden seriousness. Confused and alarmed, he said, “What are you talking about?”
Biggs threw another cautious glance over his shoulder, then looked back at Luke. Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, “I made some friends at the Academy. When our frigate leaves for one of the central systems, I’m gonna jump ship and join the Alliance.”
Luke was stunned. “The Rebellion?”
Lives & Adventures Page 20
