Trilogy (13 page)

“L
OOK OVER THERE
,
LUKE
,” Kenobi ordered, pointing to the southwest. The landspeeder continued to race over the gravelly desert floor beneath them. “Smoke, I should think.”

Luke spared a glance at the indicated direction. “I don't see anything, sir.”

“Let's angle over that way anyhow. Someone may be in trouble.”

Luke turned the speeder. Before long the rising wisps of smoke that Kenobi had somehow detected earlier became visible to him also.

Topping a slight rise, the speeder dropped down a gentle slope into a broad, shallow canyon that was filled with twisted, burned shapes, some of them inorganic, some not. Dead in the center of this carnage and looking like a beached metal whale lay the shattered hulk of a jawa sandcrawler.

Luke brought the speeder to a halt. Kenobi followed
him onto the sand, and together they began to examine the detritus of destruction.

Several slight depressions in the sand caught Luke's attention. Walking a little faster, he came up next to them and studied them for a moment before calling back to Kenobi.

“Looks like the sandpeople did it, all right. Here's Bantha tracks …” Luke noticed a gleam of metal half buried in the sand. “And there's a piece of one of those big double axes of theirs.” He shook his head in confusion. “But I never heard of the Raiders hitting something this big.” He leaned back, staring up at the towering, burned-out bulk of the sandcrawler.

Kenobi had passed him. He was examining the broad, huge footprints in the sand. “They didn't,” he declared casually, “but they intended that we—and anyone else who might happen onto this—should think so.” Luke moved up alongside him.

“I don't understand, sir.”

“Look at these tracks carefully,” the older man directed him, pointing down at the nearest and then up at the others. “Notice anything funny about them?” Luke shook his head. “Whoever left here was riding Banthas side by side. Sandpeople always ride one Bantha behind another, single file, to hide their strength from any distant observers.”

Leaving Luke to gape at the parallel sets of tracks, Kenobi turned his attention to the sandcrawler. He pointed out where single weapons' bursts had blasted away portals, treads, and support beams. “Look at the precision with which this firepower was applied. Sandpeople aren't this accurate. In fact, no one on Tatooine fires and destroys with this kind of efficiency.” Turning, he examined
the horizon. One of those nearby bluffs concealed a secret—and a threat. “Only Imperial troops would mount an attack on a sandcrawler with this kind of cold accuracy.”

Luke had walked over to one of the small, crumpled bodies and kicked it over onto its back. His face screwed up in distaste as he saw what remained of the pitiful creature.

“These are the same jawas who sold Uncle Owen and me Artoo and Threepio. I recognize this one's cloak design. Why would Imperial troops be slaughtering jawas and sandpeople? They must have killed some Raiders to get those Banthas.” His mind worked furiously, and he found himself growing unnaturally tense as he stared back at the landspeeder, past the rapidly deteriorating corpses of the jawas.

“But … if they tracked the 'droids to the jawas, then they had to learn first who they sold them to. That would lead them back to …” Luke was sprinting insanely for the landspeeder.

“Luke, wait … wait, Luke!” Kenobi called. “It's too dangerous! You'd never …!”

Luke heard nothing except the roaring in his ears, felt nothing save the burning in his heart. He jumped into the speeder and was throwing the accelerator full over almost simultaneously. In an explosion of sand and gravel he left Kenobi and the two robots standing alone in the midst of smoldering bodies, framed by the still smoking wreck of the sandcrawler.

T
he smoke that Luke saw as he drew near the homestead was of a different consistency from that which had boiled
out of the jawa machine. He barely remembered to shut down the landspeeder's engine as he popped the cockpit canopy and threw himself out. Dark smoke was drifting steadily from holes in the ground.

Those holes had been his home, the only one he had ever known. They might as well have been throats of small volcanoes now. Again and again he tried to penetrate the surface entrances to the below-ground complex. Again and again the still-intense heat drove him back, coughing and choking.

Weakly he found himself stumbling clear, his eyes watering not entirely from the smoke. Half blinded, he staggered over to the exterior entrance to the garage. It too was burning. But perhaps they managed to escape in the other landspeeder.

“Aunt Beru … Uncle Owen!” It was difficult to make out much of anything through the eye-stinging haze. Two smoking shapes showed down the tunnel barely visible through tears and haze. They almost looked like—He squinted harder, wiping angrily at his uncooperative eyes.

No.

Then he was spinning away, falling to his stomach and burying his face in the sand so he wouldn't have to look anymore.

T
he tridimensional solid screen filled one wall of the vast chamber from floor to ceiling. It showed a million star systems. A tiny portion of the galaxy, but an impressive display nonetheless when exhibited in such a fashion.

Below, far below, the huge shape of Darth Vader stood flanked on one side by Governor Tarkin and on the other
by Admiral Motti and General Tagge, their private antagonisms forgotten in the awesomeness of this moment.

“The final checkout is complete,” Motti informed them. “All systems are operational.” He turned to the others. “What shall be the first course we set?”

Vader appeared not to have heard as he mumbled softly, half to himself, “She has a surprising amount of control. Her resistance to the interrogator is considerable.” He glanced down at Tarkin. “It will be some time before we can extract any useful information from her.”

“I've always found the methods you recommend rather quaint, Vader.”

“They are efficient,” the Dark Lord argued softly. “In the interests of accelerating the procedure, however, I am open to your suggestions.”

Tarkin looked thoughtful. “Such stubbornness can often be detoured by applying threats to something other than the one involved.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only that I think it is time we demonstrated the full power of this station. We may do so in a fashion doubly useful.” He instructed the attentive Motti, “Tell your programmers to set course for the Alderaan system.”

K
enobi's pride did not prevent him from wrapping an old scarf over nose and mouth to filter out a portion of the bonfire's drifting putrid odor. Though possessed of olfactory sensory apparatus, Artoo Detoo and Threepio had no need of such a screen. Even Threepio, who was equipped to discriminate among aromatic aesthetics, could be artifically selective when he so desired.

Working together, the two 'droids helped Kenobi throw
the last of the bodies onto the blazing pyre, then stood back and watched the dead continue to burn. Not that the desert scavengers wouldn't have been equally efficient in picking the burned-out sandcrawler clean of flesh, but Kenobi retained values most modern men would have deemed archaic. He would consign no one to the bone-gnawers and gravel-maggots, not even a filthy jawa.

At a rising thrumming Kenobi turned from the residue of the noisome business to see the landspeeder approaching, now traveling at a sensible pace, far different from when it had left. It slowed and hovered nearby, but showed no signs of life.

Gesturing for the two robots to follow, Ben started toward the waiting craft. The canopy flipped open and up to reveal Luke sitting motionless in the pilot's seat. He didn't look up at Kenobi's inquiring glance. That in itself was enough to tell the old man what had happened.

“I share your sorrow, Luke,” he finally ventured softly. “There was nothing you could have done. Had you been there, you'd be dead now, too, and the 'droids would be in the hands of the Imperials. Not even the force—”

“Damn your force!” Luke snarled with sudden violence. Now he turned and glared at Kenobi. There was a set to his jaw that belonged on a much older face.

“I'll take you to the spaceport at Mos Eisley, Ben. I want to go with you—to Alderaan. There's nothing left for me here now.” His eyes turned to look out across the desert, to focus on something beyond sand and rock and canyon walls. “I want to learn to be a Jedi, like my father. I want …” He paused, the words backing up like a logjam in his throat.

Kenobi slid into the cockpit, put a hand gently on the youth's shoulder, then went forward to make room for
the two robots. “I'll do my best to see that you get what you want, Luke. For now, let's go to Mos Eisley.”

Luke nodded and closed the canopy. The landspeeder moved away to the southeast, leaving behind the still-smoldering sandcrawler, the jawa funeral pyre, and the only life Luke had ever known.

L
eaving the speeder parked near the edge of the sandstone bluff, Luke and Ben walked over and peered down at the tiny regularized bumps erupting from the sunbaked plain below. The haphazard collage of low-grade concrete, stone, and plastoid structures spread outward from a central power-and-water-distribution plant like the spokes of a wheel.

Actually the town was considerably larger than it appeared, since a good portion of it lay underground. Looking like bomb craters from this distance, the smooth circular depressions of launch stations pockmarked the cityscape.

A brisk gale was scouring the tired ground. It whipped the sand about Luke's feet and legs as he adjusted his protective goggles.

“There it is,” Kenobi murmured, indicating the unimpressive collection of buildings, “Mos Eisley Spaceport—the ideal place for us to lose ourselves while we seek passage offplanet. Not a more wretched collection of villainy and disreputable types exists anywhere on Tatooine. The Empire has been alerted to us, so we must be very cautious, Luke. The population of Mos Eisley should disguise us well.”

Luke wore a determined look. “I'm ready for anything, Obi-wan.”

I wonder if you comprehend what that might entail, Luke, Kenobi thought. But he only nodded as he led the way back to the landspeeder.

Unlike Anchorhead, there were enough people in Mos Eisley to require movement in the heat of day. Built from the beginning with commerce in mind, even the oldest of the town's buildings had been designed to provide protection from the twin suns. They looked primitive from the outside, and many were. But oftentimes walls and arches of old stone masked durasteel double walls with circulating coolant flowing freely between.

Luke was maneuvering the landspeeder through the town's outskirts when several tall, gleaming forms appeared from nowhere and began to close a circle around him. For one panicked moment he considered gunning the engine and racing through the pedestrians and other vehicles. A startlingly firm grip on his arm both restrained and relaxed him. He glanced over to see Kenobi smiling, warning him.

So they continued at a normal town cruising speed, Luke hoping that the Imperial troops were bent on business elsewhere. No such luck. One of the troopers raised an armored hand. Luke had no choice but to respond. As he pulled the speeder over, he grew aware of the attention they were receiving from curious passersby. Worse yet, it seemed that the trooper's attention was in fact reserved not for Kenobi or himself, but for the two unmoving robots seated in the speeder behind them.

“How long have you had these 'droids?” the trooper who had raised his hand barked. Polite formalities were to be dispensed with, it appeared.

Looking blank for a second, Luke finally came up with “Three or four seasons, I guess.”

“They're up for sale, if you want them—and the price is right,” Kenobi put in, giving a wonderful impression of a desert finagler out to cajole a few quick credits from ignorant Imperials.

The trooper in charge did not deign to reply. He was absorbed in a thorough examination of the landspeeder's underside.

“Did you come in from the south?” he asked.

“No … no,” Luke answered quickly, “we live in the west, near Bestine township.”

“Bestine?” the trooper murmured, walking around to study the speeder's front. Luke forced himself to stare straight ahead. Finally the armored figure concluded his examination. He moved to stand ominously close to Luke and snapped, “Let me see your identification.”

Surely the man sensed his terror and nervousness by now, Luke thought wildly. His resolution of not long before to be ready to take on anything had already disintegrated under the unwinking stare of this professional soldier. He knew what would happen if they got a look at his formal ID, with the location of his homestead and the names of his nearest relatives on it. Something seemed to be buzzing inside his head; he felt faint.

Kenobi had leaned over and was talking easily to the trooper. “You don't need to see his identification,” the old man informed the Imperial in an extremely peculiar voice.

Staring blankly back at him, the officer replied, as if it were self-evident, “I don't need to see your identification.” His reaction was the opposite of Kenobi's: his voice was normal, but his expression peculiar.

“These aren't the 'droids you're looking for,” Kenobi told him pleasantly.

“These aren't the 'droids we're looking for.”

“He can go about his business.”

“You can go about your business,” the metal-masked officer informed Luke.

The expression of relief that spread across Luke's face ought to have been as revealing as his previous nervousness, but the Imperial ignored it.

“Move along,” Kenobi whispered.

“Move along,” the officer instructed Luke.

Unable to decide whether he should salute, nod, or give thanks to the man, Luke settled for nudging the accelerator. The landspeeder moved forward, drawing away from the circle of troops. As they prepared to round a corner, Luke risked a glance backward. The officer who had inspected them appeared to be arguing with several comrades, though at this distance Luke couldn't be sure.