Tatooine Ghost

by Troy Denning

  “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? I 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 sell 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 near
ly 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 furnacelike 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 face mask 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 of 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 title: 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.”

  Banai’s face was replaced by that of Anakin’s mother, this time in profile as she told the pair to have a seat at the table—she just happened to have a fresh pallie tart in the oven. Once they had gone, she spoke into the journal again.

  They are so proud of you, Annie—and so am I. You have given them the courage to dream of things they could not imagine. And honestly, I don’t know what I will do when they stop coming around. I see your reflection every time they smile.

  Perhaps that’s why I bake so many pies.

  Leia asked the journal to mark the current entry, then lowered it and stared out into the howling sands. She had finished Silya’s flatbread and hubba tea more than two hours ago, and still the storm was in full blow. She clicked her comlink for the ten thousandth time and, when she heard nothing but white noise in reply, refused to despair. Until the storm ended, she could do nothing but assume the best and carry on.

  She had learned that from her grandmother.

  Chapter Twelve

  Even with a landspeeder and a swoop tied down in the rear cargo compartment and six chairs and a suite of emergency search sensors magnoclamped to the floor in the forward compartment, the Darklighters’ market skiff was large enough to accommodate the search party in relative comfort. It was also heavy enough to avoid being tossed around by stray gusts, which meant that the minute the winds dropped beneath a hundred kilometers per hour, Jula had them loaded and under way.

  Jula and Silya were in the driver’s cabin, pretending to be exactly what they were: a pair of moisture farmers out searching for storm survivors. Leia and everyone else sat in the forward cargo area—which was refrigerated to retard produce spoilage—shivering and watching passive search sensors. After two frigid hours of breathing musky hubba gourd scent and looking at nothing but empty desert on her optical scanner, Leia was both overwrought and mind-numbingly bored. She recalled feeling like this on some of the military assaults in which she had participated during the Rebellion. There was something about a long ride into combat that brought out the silence in soldiers, turning even the most gregarious extrovert somber and reflective.

  But they were not going into battle, and the question on everyone’s mind had less to do with how they would react to the roar and the fury than with what they would find when they reached the primary search zone—a large fan of desert that Jula had calculated would be the most likely place to find Han. The Squibs had developed an insightful list of places where Han might have taken shelter during the storm and plotted a thorough grid pattern for doing a sensor sweep of the basin itself. But the truth was, they were not sure they would find anything. The search zone was based on everyone’s best guess as to where Han had been when he commed to report Kitster’s accident with the sandcrawler. For all they really knew, he could have been on the outskirts of Mos Eisley.

  With the storm moving away, comm traffic was starting to return to normal. Still, Leia resiste
d the urge to try raising Han on her comlink. Several Imperial spy craft were already flying holding patterns high above the desert, no doubt monitoring all channels and analyzing every signal for clues as to the location of Killik Twilight’s thief. Han and Leia both used military-grade scramblers on their comlinks, so a transmission coming from a local market skiff was sure to bring a company of stormtroopers to investigate.

  Instead, Leia tried again to picture Han waiting in Anchorhead, sipping a Gizer ale and drumming his fingers on the table. Again, the image simply vanished. This time, the picture in her mind didn’t even fade to a half-buried swoop. She simply heard a muffled whine, so distinct and tangible that she scowled and looked at the ceiling.

  Chewbacca garuumphed a question.

  “Don’t you hear them?” Leia asked.

  “Hear what?” Sligh demanded, instantly suspicious.

  Leia cocked her head. There was definitely a whine. “TIEs.”

  The Squibs looked from each other to Chewbacca.

  The Wookiee spread his furry hands and shrugged, then Jula’s voice came over the intercom.

  “Stay off the sensors back there. We’ve got—”

  A deafening shriek reverberated through the market skiff roof, a TIE flying by to take a look. There was also the rumble of something larger, muffled and in the distance ahead.

  Leia glanced at the ceiling. “You heard that, right?”

  The Squibs’ fur was standing on end, and Chewbacca’s nose was twitching in alarm.

  “I certainly did,” C-3PO said.

  The market skiff began to decelerate, and Silya said, “We’d better go to Operation Bodybag, dears. It looks like an assault shuttle just dropped off a scouting patrol.”

  Chewbacca released a tarp that had been furled against the ceiling, and a matte painting of a dark wall dropped down to conceal their sensor equipment. The Squibs dragged a bodybag over near the door and piled in together. Leia climbed into her own, while Chewbacca had to use two, pulling one up over his legs and another down over his shoulders. They all took their weapons, but were careful to conceal them under their hips.