by Troy Denning
A couple of minutes later, a strange croaking arose in the back of the gorge. Then the Squibs started to argue in angry voices.
“Han?” Leia started into the crevice, but Chewbacca held her back—and the firmness of his grasp made clear there was no arguing the point. “What’s happening?”
Again, there was a strange croaking, and more Squib voices.
“Grees? Sligh?” Leia called. “Someone answer me!”
Chewbacca added a roar of his own, and Sligh finally came scampering back, bouncing from wall to wall, his ears flattened and his fur caked with wet sand. This time, not even a Wookiee could hold Leia back. She leapt out of the market skiff and began to slog into the sandy gorge.
“What is it?” she demanded. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Sligh echoed. “Your mate’s as bad as a Hutt, that’s what’s wrong! Are credits all he ever thinks about?”
“Credits?”
Leia stopped short, trying to puzzle out what Sligh was saying, then realized what he was telling her. If Han was arguing about money, he was alive—better than alive. He was awake; he was awake and determined not to be cheated.
Her fears of the last twenty-four hours left in a rush, leaving a void into which poured all the other emotions she had been struggling to contain—the confusion, the guilt, the anger. Like a runaway reactor core, she reached the flashpoint in a single instant of uncontrolled fusion and exploded with a speed and fury that surprised even her.
“Listen!” Leia snatched Sligh off the crevice wall and, paying no attention to the sharp fangs concealed in his cute little snout, lifted the Squib to her face. “I’ll pay whatever you want! Just get my husband into that skiff! Now!”
But it was impossible to intimidate a Squib, even for Leia. Sligh simply stared back at her, then calmly reached over and began to pry her grasp open, finger by finger.
“You… humans… and… your… money!” He peeled her thumb back and dropped into the sand. “How can you think I’d take a credit? I’m insulted.”
Leia scowled in confusion. “Then this isn’t about—”
“Money? Only a Jawa would charge for saving a partner’s life.” Sligh took her hand and started into the cleft. “He’s afraid we sold him out. He won’t move until he sees you.”
They clambered through fifty meters of sandy, boulder-choked gorge, then there Han lay, his head in Emala’s lap, Grees slowly dribbling water onto his cracked lips. He looked absolutely terrible, with heat blisters all over his face and hollow cheeks and sunken, closed eyes. Leia dropped at his side.
“Han?” She took his hand and found it was as rough and hot as the cleft’s stone walls. “Han, wake up.”
Han opened his eyes. “Leia? Is that you?”
“Yes, Han. I’m here.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure, Han.”
“Good.” He let his head drop back into Emala’s lap and motioned Leia nearer. “ ’Cause I gotta tell you something.”
Leia leaned closer. “What?”
He pulled her down, bringing her ear close to his mouth, and whispered, “Killik Twilight.”
“Han, don’t worry about—”
“Listen! Don’t tell the Squibs. It’s going to…” His eyes closed, then opened a moment later. “It’s…”
“Going to Anchorhead,” Emala finished. She motioned the other two Squibs to take Han’s feet. “Everyone knows that.”
Han opened his eyes and flashed the Squib a look of horror. “They do?”
“Of course,” Grees said, grabbing a foot.
Sligh grabbed the other. “Sandcrawlers always stop in Anchorhead.”
Chapter Thirteen
The search party had rushed to Anchorhead not because it was close, though it was, and not because it had an emergency medcenter, though it did. They had come to Anchorhead because Jula Darklighter assured Leia that the Sidi Driss Inn would be as safe as anyplace on the Great Chott for Han to recover—and certainly the most comfortable. They had come, too, because the Squibs claimed that the only sure way to recover Kitster Banai and Killik Twilight was to intercept the Jawa sandcrawler in Anchorhead.
But the mission could wait. For the moment, Leia was enjoying a bath in one of the Sidi Driss’s huge, sunken, Hutt-sized tubs. It had fixtures of burnished verdisteel and tiles hand-painted in stylized florals of cobalt blue and cinnabar red. It had blast scrubbers, pulse kneaders, and flab ticklers, and it had a rack full of snap-on nozzle attachments whose purposes Leia could only guess at. The water cost as much as Endorian port, but it came out of the nozzles steaming hot or refreshingly cool, straight or with bubbles, pure or suffused with any of a hundred different oils and unguents—plain or perfumed with the scent of any flower on Tatooine, which meant there were at least a dozen different choices.
And Leia was enjoying all this alone, while Han slept in the next room with a hydration drip in his arm—clean, cool, and out like a wreck. It hurt to think of all he had gone through in his chase for Kitster and the painting, but he was safe now and recovering. Leia was thankful for that.
She was trying to sort out the rest. With the ordeal over, she was starting to feel more grateful than frightened. Still, Han had been chasing the painting for her, and Leia knew she had allowed her duty to interfere with their relationship—again. Perhaps it had not been to the same degree as during the Hapan crisis, and perhaps Han had even been a willing participant, but she could not have him risking his life for a government he no longer respected. It was tantamount to using him.
The obvious solution was simply to avoid getting Han involved in New Republic business, but Leia knew that was about as likely as a Tatooine rainstorm. If there was trouble within a dozen parsecs, Han Solo would find it.
Instead, Leia needed to do everything possible to protect him—just as she knew he would safeguard her in return. She was already an excellent shot with a blaster, as well as a quick thinker and a fast talker in almost any circumstance. But, having accepted that she had experienced two visions since entering the Tatoo system, she also realized she possessed more potential in the Force than she had previously been willing to admit.
The trouble was, she could not shake the image of the twin suns glaring up at her from the black well of space. She could not forget those heartless eyes, glaring out from beneath the black cowl, nor the face that lay behind the dark mask.
The Force was a dangerous ally, and Leia knew she was not ready to embrace it. Whenever she thought of her father, she still saw Darth Vader overseeing her torture, or standing behind her as Alderaan exploded, or ordering Han frozen in carbonite. No, Leia was not yet good Jedi material, and perhaps she never would be. She was still too filled with anger… and also with fear, for whenever she thought of children, their faces belonged to Darth Vader, too.
The temperature-control jets activated and began to shoot cooling currents into the tub, a sign that Leia had been in the bath so long the water had grown as warm as the room. She turned up her hands and, seeing ten wrinkled Darwikian climbing pads where there should have been fingertips, decided she had been soaking long enough. She rose and walked up the Hutt ramp to the dryers, selected CRISP, and watched the goose pimples rise as the air blasted her dry.
Leia slipped into a robe and changed Han’s hydration drip bag. She ached to lie down and curl up around him, but she was too unsettled to sleep and would only disturb him. And the deeper he rested now, the safer he and everyone else would be tomorrow. With so many Imperials around, the longer they remained in one place, the greater the chance they would be discovered and captured. She settled for kissing his unshaven cheek, then left the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
The sitting room had a complete entertainment center, but Leia was not interested. Her eyes went to the journal sitting on the table with her blaster, the portable holocomm, spare power packs, and some of the other essentials they did not dare risk leaving in the landspeeder. She had not looked at the journal since the s
earch. There had been no time—but now, with the sitting room to herself, she could not resist.
Leia took a chair and asked the journal to play the next entry. Immediately, the image of her grandmother filled the display and began to speak—the dark, tan woman whose name Leia did not even know.
18:15:05
Still no word from the Jedi Council about what happened at the Battle of Naboo. Watto is beside himself with fury, complaining that if I can spend a hundred credits to send a message, then the Jedi can spend a hundred credits to answer. It worries me that it’s taking them so long. Three days should be long enough to figure out whether you were at Naboo, and whether you’re still alive.
As Leia asked for the next entry, the door buzzed for attention. She paused the journal and, leaving her grandmother’s image frozen on the display, went to the entrance. The security screen showed a round-faced woman with dust-colored hair and a desert-scrubbed complexion. She was holding a tray of sliced fruit and iced friz.
Leia opened the door and stepped aside. “Dama, you’re too kind. Thank you.”
Dama was the proprietress of the Sidi Driss and younger sister to Luke’s Aunt Beru. Jula Darklighter had assured Leia that Dama could be counted on to keep a secret—especially from Imperials, whom she hated for killing her sister and Owen Lars. From what Leia had gathered, the Sidi Driss had been just another farm on the outskirts of Anchorhead when Dama met her husband while accompanying Beru on a trip to meet Owen. They were married a few months later, and the slow transformation from a failing moisture farm to an elegant inn and watering stop had begun.
Dama slipped into the room and set the tray on the table next to the journal. “It’s no trouble. I’m sure you’re famished.”
“Now that I’m clean, yes.” Leia took a slice of pallie. “Any sign of the sandcrawler?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure it will come in tonight. There’s a caravan waiting on a vaporator shipment, and it’s not like Jawas to keep customers waiting.”
“Did Jula and Silya leave safely?”
Dama nodded. “They disassembled the search sensors and removed the rescue signs. Even if the Imperials stop them, it’ll be as if they never met you. And Jula said he’ll send word to Tamora tomorrow, though I don’t know how frank he’ll be. If she starts running around Mos Espa looking to hire a party of rescue hunters, it won’t take the Imperials long to figure out who she’s looking for.”
As Dama spoke, her gaze dropped to the journal and lingered there a moment, then she blushed and looked away. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You must think I’m snooping.”
“It’s okay,” Leia said. “It’s hardly a council secret—just a journal Silya Darklighter asked me to give Luke.”
Dama’s brow rose. “Silya gave that to you?”
Leia nodded. “She said her daughter found it buried under a vaporator. I’ve certainly noticed enough data skips to support that.”
Dama’s expression grew more relaxed. “Of course. That makes sense.”
Now it was Leia’s turn to be confused. “How so?”
Dama studied the image a moment, then nodded.
“That’s Shmi.”
“Shmi?” Leia asked.
Dama looked up. “Shmi Skywalker.”
Leia turned to face Dama. “You knew this woman?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say knew. But I met her a few times, when I went with Beru to visit Owen before they were married.” The memory caused Dama to blush for some reason, but she smiled and did not turn away. “I was supposed to be her chaperone, but the truth is I spent more time in Anchorhead with my own beau than at the farm.”
Leia frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Shmi was Owen’s mother—his stepmother, really. Owen’s real mother died when he was younger.”
“Now I’m really confused. This woman is—was—a slave in Mos Espa.” Leia paused, then asked, “She was Anakin Skywalker’s mother, right?”
“That’s what I was told, but I never met Anakin.” Dama sat in a chair next to Leia, slipping smoothly from the role of innkeeper to new friend. “He was gone before Beru met Owen. From what I understand, it would have been better if he stayed with his mother.”
“That has to be the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard.” Leia studied the image of the slave woman. Of her grandmother, Shmi Skywalker. “Do you see a resemblance between us?”
Dama put her hand on Leia’s and did not even look at the journal. “I saw it the minute Jula brought you into the lobby. Even if he hadn’t told me that I needed to open the luxury wing and keep you out of sight, I think I would have seen it in your eyes.”
“In my eyes? Really?” That was not the good news Dama seemed to believe. Leia poured herself a glass of friz and moistened her drying throat, then said, “I still don’t understand how Shmi came to be Owen’s stepmother.”
“Owen’s father bought Shmi from Watto.”
“Bought her?” Leia’s heart grew as heavy as fleckstone. “So Luke belonged to Owen and Beru?”
The thought occurred to her that she might have belonged to the Larses as well at one time. She began to have visions of being traded to some smuggler as an infant. It could explain how she and Luke became separated.
But Dama looked confused by her question. “Their property? Why would you think that?”
“Didn’t the children of slaves belong to the masters, as well? My memory of Outer Rim law is pretty hazy, but I seem to recall that in most cases—”
“Shmi wasn’t Cliegg’s slave!” Dama chortled. “Where did you get that idea? He bought her freedom. He married her. This was after Anakin was freed and left to become a Jedi.”
“I see.” Leia thought of Shmi’s struggles to find out what had happened to her son. “Did she ever see Anakin again?”
Dama shrugged and pointed at the journal. “You’ll have to look in there.” She placed her hands on the table and started to rise, then caught herself and stopped. “But I think my sister did meet Anakin once, after he became a Jedi and came back to rescue his mother from the Sand People.”
Leia’s blood went cold. “My grandmother was taken by Tusken Raiders?”
Dama’s expression grew somber. “I’m afraid so.”
“But Anakin—my father—came back and found her.” Leia phrased this as a statement because it was what she wanted to believe. “He saved her.”
Dama finished rising, then spoke in a gentle voice. “He brought her back.” She laid a hand on Leia’s shoulder. “I don’t know whether she was still alive when Anakin found her—Beru would never say what he told them about that. But she was dead when he returned to the farm.”
Leia found herself fighting to push down the lump in her throat. “What happened then?”
“They buried her, then Anakin left.”
“On the moisture farm?” Leia asked. “Is that where she’s buried?”
Dama nodded. “Out beyond the western edge of the sand berm. Cliegg’s buried there, too. They used to stand there together and watch the twins set.”
“I didn’t see any headstones.”
Dama shook her head. “After Luke arrived, I noticed their headstones were missing. All Beru would say about it is that Owen didn’t see a need for anyone to know where Shmi was buried.”
Leia was silent for a minute, trying to absorb everything she had just learned, then finally reached up and patted the hand on her shoulder.
“Thanks for taking the time to speak with me, Dama. It’s late, and I know you have work.”
“Not so much.” Dama withdrew a datapad from her pocket and placed it on the table. The screen showed an image of the Sidi Driss’s lobby. “It’s linked to the security monitors—twenty different vidcams, all hidden. I gave a ’pad to Chewbacca, too. I thought you’d like to keep an eye on things.”
“You’re very thoughtful,” Leia said. “It will take more than money to repay your kindness.”
Dama waved her hands. “It’s nothing. But I do need to
ask one thing. It’s about the Squibs.”
Leia’s pulse quickened. “They’re not leaving, are they?” Without awaiting an answer, she stood and turned toward the door. “I thought Chewbacca was keeping an eye on them.”
Dama cut Leia off at the door. “They’re not going anywhere. That’s actually the problem.”
She looked away, obviously hesitant to bring something up.
“We’ll pay for whatever they steal.”
Dama shook her head. “Squibs don’t steal, at least not the way you mean. It’s just that they’re using a lot of water. A lot of water—and I have a caravan watering up out on the edge of the property. I’ll run dry.”
“I’ll have Chewbacca talk to them,” Leia said. “He has a way of reasoning with Squibs.”
“Thanks,” Dama said. “I appreciate that—and so will the Askajians.”
“Askajians?” Leia asked. “On Tatooine?”
“Refugees. They’re the ones waiting for the sandcrawler—though I think their patience is at an end. They’re packing up to leave tomorrow.” Dama pointed at the datapad she had given Leia. “Keep that on. If the Imperials come, take the back way out. You remember what I showed you?”
Leia nodded. “The false room.”
“Good.” Dama opened the door and stepped into the hall. “I’ll let you know if I hear they’re coming, but you know how they can descend on a place. Worse than skettos.”
The door closed, leaving Leia alone to reflect on what Dama had said about how Shmi had died. Well aware of the Sand People’s reputation for cruelty, Leia found herself tormented by her own imagination, reacting viscerally to the very vagueness of what she had learned about the circumstances of her grandmother’s death. How horrible it must have been, how frightening and lonely. Knowing that Shmi’s one wish would have been to see her son again, Leia found herself hoping that Anakin had reached his mother before she died, that she had seen him just once as a Jedi. It was a strange feeling for Leia, for it forced her to see him for the first time not as Darth Vader, but as the son Shmi had loved so dearly. It sent a prickle down her spine.
