Chapter Text
IT WAS AN old settler’s saying that you could scorch your eyes out faster by staring at the sun-reflecting sands than at the twin suns of Tatooine themselves. While I wasn’t sure I believed this, I had tried both methods in my youth. Naturally, such resulted in a cuffing from Uncle Owen and a lecture on why I must never engage in such idiocy again. Stumbling back to my room, half blinded by my youthful foolishness, I considered which I thought might have done the job faster.
I didn’t wonder about such matters anymore. The sun was scorching. The sands were scorching. And the day was scorching in more ways than the mere physical. What did comparisons of their varying levels of efficacy matter?
Mos Eisley. A wretched hive of scum and villainy if there ever was one. Nonetheless, I dismounted from my speeder bike, did what little I could to tidy myself up (not that anyone paid mind to the one random farmer who was covered in dust and sand the same as everyone else), and then headed toward the exodus of beings marching obediently forward. City center. Parade day. Fabulous. Because, even though Tatooine was a hunk of rock out in the middle of nowhere, thirty-three years of subjugation was to be celebrated.
“Happy Empire Day, Lucky!” someone shouted.
I turned to see one of Camie Marstrap’s little boys. Well—she was Leozoner technically, but given Laze’s long-ago death in the stormtrooper ranks, people mostly forgot this fact. I managed a smile for the boy. “Hello, Tumin,” I replied.
“Happy Empire Day!” Tumin insisted.
I maintained my smile, feeling like I’d swallowed acid. “Happy Empire Day,” I returned.
“Empireempireempire!” babbled the toddler Riva, secure on Camie’s hip. She clapped her hands together in glee, as if practicing for the parade marches.
I let the anger rise up, and then I let it go. Holding on did nothing. Letting go did little. But it did more than allowing rage to become my world, as Camie, for instance, had.
Slurring at this early hour, she quieted her younglings and then demanded of me, “You coming to the store soon?”
I had had a feeling that she would go there. “Yes,” I said, mostly in placation. Everything I had on my farm worked. “Probably in a few weeks.”
Camie “hmmed,” then shot me a sloppy smile. Ever since Laze’s death and my shocking success at farming (at least, everyone I’d ever known seemed to be shocked I was even half competent), she’d been after me. I’d tried so many ways to indicate my complete lack of interest—I couldn’t even do that anyways—but she didn’t get the message. And she didn’t know my reasons, either. So she remained set in her determination to marry the modest moisture farmer who did as reasonably well as anyone ever could out here: The man once called “Wormie,” now called “Lucky Luke” for his remarkable skill and supposed fortune in always picking the right parts and best power converters.
I managed to ditch her as the crowds turned into a large arena. Stormtroopers guarded at every gate; it felt like I was headed to prison. Of course, I could be. Because no one would ever look at me and think, There he is! The criminal! But that was what I was.
A criminal. A Jedi. But a useless, purposeless criminal and Jedi. I wasn’t even sure it remained fair to call myself such. I was a farmer, and thirty-five years old, my best years gone. No Rebellion existed to nourish the tender flames of. Bail and Breha Organa were dead. The so-called “Peace Star” had brought order.
The best I could hope was that I could keep safe those who remained more in the direct danger—my sister, Queen Leia Organa, her Viceroy, Han Solo, and their daughter, Princess Padmé Solo (supposedly named for a great Nubian queen and supporter of Palpatine, our wonderful Emperor).
The best I could hope for.
The Rebellion’s final defeat had been long ago now, but the fact still left a bitter taste in my mouth, and a residual feeling of hopelessness in my heart. I doubted it ever wouldn’t. And while I didn’t agree with how Leia decided to raise Padmé (or not, since she constantly put duty first over her daughter), I understood why she let love for the Empire be drilled into her daughter’s heart. It might be the only thing to protect her someday.
I took my seat in a virtually unoccupied part of the arena, hoping to remain inconspicuous for the course of the afternoon’s “celebrations”. That went like a lead balloon. Not five minutes later, an Imperial officer who I vaguely recognized as being in charge of the planet strutted out and happened to take the route traversing down my aisle. Stromtroopers surrounded him. I attempted to look the other direction and seen fixated on the broad Imperial banners waving in the wind so as to avoid eye contact.
It didn’t work. Picking a spot where I was alone also meant I stuck out like a sore thumb in this instance. I heard the lock-steps stop. My heart began to beat harder.
“You there!” a stormtrooper called.
Frantically, I wondered if I ought to try and make a run for it. They know, I thought feverishly. They know. But I couldn’t run. Where did I have to run?
I turned, offering an easy smile. I thought of Han as I did so. “Yes?” I asked sweetly.
“This is a restricted area,” one trooper said. “Why are you sitting here?”
I balked, truthfully. “No one said anything.”
“You’re in violation of the law,” the other railed on. “You will be punished.”
Punished. A violation of seating arrangements at the Imperial parade wasn’t as bad as my true violations of the law, but it still meant either whipping or death. I felt myself pale despite everything, and made to speak, but then the officer stepped forward.
He was smiling, smiling in a way that reminded me of a beast before the kill. “Oh, he meant no harm. It was hardly his fault if no one told him anything.” His eyes drank me in, and I suddenly felt the urge to put on more layers despite the scorching hot day. “Your name?”
I said, “Luke.”
“Luke. My, my. What a lovely name for such a lovely man. Don’t worry, Luke. They can get a little overzealous sometimes.” He nodded to the troopers. “You may go,” he uttered to the group, and they lock-stepped away without further comment. Then he sat down beside me. “You know, this is actually the seating for all of the officers.”
Force surround us. Of all the rotten luck—
I hadn’t been paying enough attention. My senses had been clouded by the dark and the pain of the day. That much was clear. “Oh,” I said somewhat feebly. “I’m sorry. Well—I’ll just go.” I sat up—
But he pulled me back down, still smiling. “Now, you don’t need to do that. I’m sure what you did wasn’t purposeful—unless you were hoping to meet some officers today?”
“No,” I said firmly, anger rising afresh. I let this, too, go. I was no longer afraid; I just felt disgusted. I’d heard the tales, of course, of an Imperial setting eyes on a particularly good-looking she, he, or zhey, and then getting their “consent” to invariably take them in an evening of purely power-playing pleasure, but I’d never once considered it might happen to me.
Could I chance a mind-trick? Out here? So exposed? No. Cameras were everywhere. I’d somehow have to… maneuver out of this situation another way. But what?
The Major soothed me, “Of course not. Such a pretty thing like you. What are you doing all the way out here on Tatooine?”
“I live here.”
“Such a waste,” he mused. “Have you ever wanted to go anywhere else?”
Like below you? came the derisive thought. “I like the sand,” I offered.
He chuckled. “Really? I can’t stand it. I supposed it’s an acquired taste.”
“Much like you seem to be, Major,” came a cool, clipped Coruscanti accent. “Precisely how many times in the past week do I need to remind you to keep your personal life and your public duties separate? These seats are for Imperial officers only. Your blonde here will just have to—” The man stopped short on seeing me. I couldn’t speak on seeing him. I flushed hot and then cold, and couldn’t muster up words; I recovered myself quickly.
“Admiral Darklighter, sir! I apologize. I was just explaining to this miscreant that he’d broken the law by purposefully placing himself here in a feeble attempt to gain attention.”
Anger shone in the Admiral’s hazel eyes. “Really?” he returned. “Is that what really happened?”
“Of course, sir! And he will be punished.”
Try to kriff me and then throw me under the speeder, why don’t you? I thought, meeting Darklighter’s hazel gaze with evenness. I raised an eyebrow at him. One single eyebrow, but a world of boldness.
There was no smile. No twitch of lips. No hint of the boy I’d once known. But he did go on and say, “Luke, you really need to stop getting yourself in sticky spots.”
The Major’s eyes widened on realizing we knew each other. Or, at least, that we once had. But I replied lightly, “Oh, this isn’t typical, Biggs, I promise. I’ve been pretty good since we last met.”
Biggs Darklighter, my once best-friend. The man I hadn’t seen in person for nearly twenty years. Now an Imperial Admiral. Well, well, this day just got worse and worse, didn’t it?