For Love of a Skywalker Part 2: Owen Lars
Aura Thundera deonii@yahoo.com

Author's note:
This is the shortest part of this story, but it may well deal with some of the most important pieces of the plot.  It is also the last piece that I have completed on my hard drive.  The next three pieces (Leia, Tionne and Mara) are longer than this-at an average of 40 handwritten pages.

     Miri Avendahl was sitting in the garden.  Lady Lai was watching the fountain and softly discussing fashion with Miri.  Moira Jade had the day off and was teaching her daughter how to do simple embroidery.  Moira was glad enough to do her job keeping Lady Lai company when Moira had those quiet, beautiful mother moments with her daughter Mara.

    Sometimes the mere sight of little Mara was enough to force Miri to flee the room.  Queen Amidala's memories of her tiny, sweet-smelling son would surface and knife her heart.  She had never gotten up the courage to make the trip to Tatooine.  She was afraid of being recognized by some Imperial patrol and hauled before Anakin-Darth Vader, she reminded herself.  If that happened, all would be lost.  She had seen the destruction that Palpatine had done.

    There was one hope, she had finally come to realize.  The salvation of the galaxy and the restoration of the Jedi rested on one man, the Chosen One.  Padme Amidala Skywalker's son, the lost child whom Miri Avendahl mourned but spoke little of.

    A small silver speck shot past in the sky above, holding a circling pattern toward the landing pad a kilometer to the south.  Miri instantly recognized it as a ship.

    Lady Lai noticed the speck too.  "Let's go to the launchpad!  Tanas is coming home early, so something must have happened.  I hope that it's good news that he brought home for us!"

    "Wait," Miri said.  "That wasn't Lord Lai's ship.  Lord Lai uses a YT-1300, and that was a Lambda shuttle, like the Empire uses.  I remember seeing them on the holovids."

    "You're right...it didn't look like Tanas' ship.  Maybe I better call the landing pad and find out what's going on from the crew down there," Lady Lai said.

    "South Landing Field, what's going on down there?" Lady Lai asked.  The only response that came from her comlink was a faint hissing of static and a few muffled grunts.

    Miri clutched the hem of her tunic and twisted, suddenly nervous and afraid.  Anakin was part of the Empire now.  What if he'd traced her here?  She might only be bringing death and destruction on the quiet and caring community that had sheltered Queen Amidala when there was nowhere else so nice to hide.  If she was forced to flee this quiet home, Miri/Padme knew she would not recover.  She would miss Moira Jade and even Moira's little daughter.  She would miss Lady Lai, and all the others.

    "Answer me!" Lady Lai shouted.  The comlink only relayed frantic grunts and moans.  Frantically, she keyed a new sequence into the comlink, this time for the small security force that was maintained on the estate.

    Miri clenched her hands.  If it was Anakin...Vader...there would be nothing that security could do.  And it was all her fault.

    "Lady," the voice of Garric, the head of security, issued from the comlink.  "Lady, Imperial troops have taken the landing pad and are fanning out.  They seem to be led by Lord Vader.  If anyone resists, they are tied up, but not harmed.  They seem to be looking for someone."

    Miri hunched up beneath her tree.  They were looking for her.  And Anakin was here...her shields were as nothing against his power.  The secret of Luke's hiding place would be dragged out of her and her son would be betrayed to the Emperor.

    A sob escaped Miri's choked throat.  If Luke was not killed outright, he would be trained by the Emperor.  Luke would become a Dark Lord, a Sith.  That was a fate perhaps worse than dying, Miri mused, that her sweet, Jedi-born son would be perverted to the Dark of the Force.

    Lady Lai got up and stood regally in the garden.  "Go back to your cottage, Miri.  Moira's little daughter will be frightened by this upheaval.  Maybe you can help her."

    Miri nodded and ran toward the cottage.  She could see approaching foot soldiers in white armor, that she recalled were called stormtroopers.  They were coming toward the cottage. So be it, Padme thought.  The best laid plans of the Jedi Council are in ruins now.

    She remembered the execution of the Jedi Council...all except for Yoda, who had supposedly died soon after the purges had begun.  She remembered watching it on the holo, unable not to.  She remembered seeing Mace Windu and Adi Gallia fall and dissolve, the images flooding back into her mind.  Now it would be her turn to be eliminated for the greater glory of the Empire.

    Inside the cottage, Moira Jade was cuddling Mara close.  The four-year-old child was crying into Moira's tunic.  "What's going on?" Moira asked.

    "Imperial troops are here, with one of the major leaders...they're looking for something or someone," Miri said, her face paling.  "My husband was one of the great Masters...the Emperor may fear that I have a child.  I think they're here for me."

    "Then go, hide in the inner bedroom," Moira said.  "My powers and Mara's are small and dormant enough to go unrecognized.  Besides, I don't think Palpatine considers me a threat--he let me escape once already."

    Moira didn't need a second urging to try one last-ditch effort to escape Anakin's wrath.  She scrambled through the door into Moira's bedroom and shut it behind her.  Then she dashed through the second door on the far side, into the small room that held Mara's bed and toys.  Miri hunched on Mara's bed and clutched a stuffed feline that Mara had abandoned on the pillow.

    Miri heard the door of the cottage slam back and the rumble of voices.  Any moment, she expected to find the door of the tiny bedroom flung open by Vader in that terrifying black armor that he wore to preserve his life after Obi-Wan had nearly killed him.

    Miri lifted her head, the pride of Amidala flaring in her eyes, and mentally cursed Obi-Wan for the millionth time.  His bumbling had caused this whole mess.  Miri was lifted out of her mental remonstration of Obi-Wan Kenobi by the sudden sound of Moira's shriek.  It was wordless, but spoke of pain and terror.  Miri's keen ears also caught the sound of Mara's crying, getting softer.

    Vader had indeed come for Moira, sent by the Emperor to deal out punishment for her crimes as Lady Jade.  The crime of sheltering Jedi.  The Jedi, the light of the universe.  Miri supposed that Lady Jade should have been executed for her Rebel sympathies long ago.  But to wreak vengeance on Moira's innocent child seemed excessive cruelty, even for the darksider Anakin had become.

    Then the door of the cottage slammed shut, and Miri dared emerge from Mara's bedroom.  She hoped that Mara had been left alive.  Miri would raise Mara Jade as a service to her dead friend, Moira.  Moira, who had understood the pain of seeing one's husband destroyed by the Emperor, was gone.

    Miri entered the main chamber.  Moira was slumped on the floor, sobbing but alive!  Miri gasped in relief at seeing that her friend had survived what had been done.

    "Moira!  Thank the Force you're alive!" Miri shouted.  "I heard you scream and thought you were dead!"

    "My baby!" Moira sobbed into Miri's shoulder.  "They took my baby!"

    "Mara?  Mara's gone?" Miri said, unable to comprehend.  "Vader took Mara?  Why?"

    "Vader took Mara," Moira said.  "He said something about her being strong in the Force and he followed her presence.  She was what they came for!  They're all leaving now, with my daughter!  They'll kill my baby!"

    "Vader came for Mara," Miri said, feeling frozen.  "But why would the Emperor send his right-hand man for a child that he intends only to kill anyway?  Unless...the Emperor is a Sith...so is Vader."

    "Are you saying that they are looking for an apprentice?" Moira said.  "Or a Force-sensitive to produce an heir?"

    "It could be either or both," Miri supposed.

    "I hate them!" Moira shouted.  "I hope my daughter should die before become a servant or worse, a concubine to that foul Emperor!"

    "There's no choice in that now," Miri said.  "I don't like it either.  May the Force have mercy upon her and release her from the Emperor, that she may know love."

    They both shivered despite the warm summer day.  Somehow, Miri's words rang prophetic, and she knew that she had tapped the prophetic gift that Anakin had long ago showed Padme in the halls of Theed Palace.

    "Miri, I know that you haven't been telling me the truth about yourself ever since we met." Moira said.  "I know that you had a Jedi child that you lost, but I think there's more to it than that.  Don't worry, I have shields as good as yours.  I promise that I will not betray you."

    Miri settled on the couch with a sigh.  "I'll tell you the story, to distract you from your pain.  You see, I know what it is to have a child taken from me."

    "I knew it!" Moira said gleefully, then remembered that Mara was gone and it was no time for glee, and her face fell.

    "My name is not Miri Avendahl.  That is the name that the Jedi Council gave to me to protect me," Miri said, the proud self possession of Queen Amidala returning to her.  "My name and title, such as they were, is Queen Padme Naberrie Amidala Skywalker of Naboo."

    Moira sucked in a breath.  "You were a Queen?" she gasped.  "The Queen.  The one who had the most beautiful gowns in the Senate.  It was you that all the ladies of Toriya tried to emulate."

    "Is that so?" Padme asked.  "Well, even if it was, it is not so any longer.  Naboo is no more; it is a dead world."

    "I did not mean to open old wounds..." Moira said, her voice trailing off.

    "It is so old it does not hurt anymore," Padme said.  "Anyway, I need to talk about it.  My husband was Anakin Skywalker, a very powerful Jedi Master.  But he fell to the Dark Side.  The emperor seduced him to it, by telling him that his son and I were dead.  Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Knight who trained Anakin, fought Anakin and left him for dead, but the Emperor saved Anakin's life.  And Anakin became Darth Vader, the Emperor's loyal minion in all things."

    Moira gasped at the sudden reminder of the black-helmeted figure carrying her daughter away and a tear trickled down her cheek.

    "Yes," Padme gave a humorless chuckle, like dry leaves on stone.  "My onetime husband took your child.  But Obi-Wan helped me escape from Naboo before Anakin arrived in his battle fleet to bomb the coast city where I allegedly died and poison Naboo for allowing me to die.  And so all life on my homeworld is dead now.  But I escaped with my son, Luke Skywalker, the heir to the crown of Naboo and heir to his father's powers."

    "Why didn't Luke come with you here?" Moira asked.

    "As the Jedi Council put it, two are more conspicuous than one," Padme said.  "Luke was sent with Obi-Wan's brother to live on Tatooine.  That is why I talk about going to Tatooine on leave, because the family I have there is my son.  He doesn't know me, but he is a beautiful boy."

    "I can picture him," Moira said.  "If he is like you he is small and handsome, with dark hair and eyes."

    Padme shook her head.  "He is small and fair-skinned like me, but otherwise he is like his father.  He has every ounce of Anakin's handsomeness, and then something more besides.  Luke has blonde hair, the color of Tatooine sand, and ice blue eyes.  And there's something else about him," Padme said, "but it's nothing you can define.  It's like there's this incredible, pure light inside him, that radiates out from within him."

    "He sounds beautiful," Moira sighed.  "I wish that I could meet your son someday.  Mara would like to play with him, I know...or would have..." Moira trailed off into her pain.  "Now I think I understand how you felt that day back on the old transport.  You looked so lonely and hurt...you had just lost your son to a brutal world amid the farmers of Tatooine."

    Padme nodded.  "I lost son, husband and position forever that day."

    "I hope that someday the Empire will be defeated," Moira said.  "Maybe I will get to know my daughter at least.  May the day be soon, I don't think I can bear it."

    "The council's prophecy said that there is at least fifteen years before the defeat of the Emperor, because it must befall at the hands of my son," Padme said.  "Or so they told me.  They spoke of an old prophecy of a great Master who could walk the sky and would save the Jedi from the gravest peril in which they ever lay.  The Council said that they had made the mistake of thinking Anakin to be the destined Master.  And only after Anakin betrayed them did they think of his son."

    Moira snorted.  "Well, why look at the kid when the dad is a Force-strong Skywalker too, right?"

    Padme looked down.  "Why look at the son when the father is a brave boy who saved a planet is more like it.  He was a celebrity after he destroyed the Neomoidian ship, you know."

    "I remember hearing about that...I was on Coruscant at the time with my father, and everybody was making this big fuss about the little Jedi kid," Moira said.

    "That was my Ani.  We liked each other even then, but he was apprenticed to Obi-Wan Kenobi and I didn't actually see him again until he was almost grown up," Padme said.  "But all of us met again on Coruscant to talk about old times.  I could not take my eyes off of Anakin, and Ani looked only at me.  We were meant to be."

    "I can't believe that the Emperor would pervert a bond like that,"  Moira said.  "You must have bonded in the Force if what you say is true."

    "We were," Padme said.  "Ani's end of the bond was severed when he was unaware...Palpatine invaded his mind to do it.  The Jedi Council severed my end, because they knew that I would not want to feel the terrible things that Ani was doing."

    "I hope one day the Emperor will die and all can be put right again," Moira said.  "I want to see our children together with us."

    "May the Force grant that, friend.  But remember, here I am only Miri Avendahl.  You must not speak a word of it to anyone else..."

***

    A tiny blonde boy, no more than three feet tall, clothed in as baggy white pullover top and too-big leggings laboriously climbed a sand dune in the endless Tatooine desert.  Luke seated himself on the crest of the small dune near the south fence of his uncle's moisture farm.

    From here, Luke could watch Tatooine's twin suns slowly sink into the sandy horizon.  As the small boy watched the suns sink lower, he began to dream of piloting a swift ship between the stars emerging on the great dark dome overhead.  Lost in his imaginary battles against space pirates, he began to make sound effects.  Luke never heard his uncle coming up behind him.

    "Daydreaming again?" Owen Lars growled at the boy.  "You were supposed to be out at the third ridge vaporators so that I could show you what to do."

    Luke looked at his feet, wrapped in small sand-boots.  "'m sorry, uncle," he murmured.  "The sky, it's just so big and beautiful.  My father flew up there...I bet he had a big fast ship!"

    "Your father was a navigator on a freighter, Luke," Owen said, setting out for the ridge and swinging his lantern.  "A large cumbersome ship, and his recklessness got him killed.  You should be happy, right here in safety on Tatooine."

    "But Tatooine is so boring!" Luke whined.  "Tank says that ships go to every world in the galaxy from Mos Eisley..."

    "Don't whine, Luke," Owen reprimanded.  "You have no reason to go to Mos Eisley.  It's full of thieves and rabble.  I'm amazed that your friend Tank's parents take him along when they go there.  It's a dangerous place."

    "Tank talked about the podraces that they have in Mos Eisley today in school," Luke said.  "He got to see one last month when his family went.  The pods sound so great...they go fast and fly.  Driving one of those would be no different from flying the skyhopper, and you showed me how to do that.  I'm sure that I could fly a pod-"

    "Don't say a word about it, Luke!  Not a word, it's bad enough that I taught you to fly the 'hopper, because you're really too young!" Owen said, panic in his voice.  The Empire would surely hear of a human boy who could fly pods.  Luke must not betray his existence, he thought.  "Podracing is dangerous, do you hear me?  Even the spectators sometimes get hurt by debris."

    Luke bowed his head and trudged up to the malfunctioning vaporator.  Slowly, his feelings crushed, he began to disassemble the malfunctioning pump mechanism.  Under his uncle's watchful eye, Luke cleaned the interfering grains of sand from it, then reassembled it.

    Owen tested the boy's workmanship, and the pump growled to life and sent water coursing back to the collecting tanks.  He decided to reward the boy with some praise for his quick work.  And maybe help persuade the boy that farming was not all bad.  If Luke was happy, it would be easier to keep him on the farm until he was ready for training.

    "Well done, Luke.  You have a gift for this," Owen said.  "You will make an excellent moisture farmer someday."

    "I'm not gonna farm," Luke said defiantly.  "I want to be a pilot, even if it's just a smelly freighter like my father.  I just want to see the stars."

    Luke still seems resistant to the idea of being a farmer.  How am I ever going to keep the kid out of the Imperial academies?  A boy like Luke would be a cannon fodder pilot to the Empire.  He'd be dead in the first space battle, Owen thought, and he is too valuable for that.  He must fulfill the destiny of the Chosen One.

    "Come along, Luke," Owen said, beckoning for the boy to follow him.

    Luke followed his uncle back to the house, walking into the warm glow of the dining chamber where his Aunt Beru had dinner waiting for them.  It was only cabbage soup, but it tasted good enough to Luke.  He sat down and devoured his bowl without talking.  After he had finished and stood up, he carried the bowls to the kitchen for his aunt.

    "Thank you for helping me, Luke," Beru told him.  "Go to bed now, you've got school in the morning."

    Luke nodded and swiftly dashed into his room to grab a sleepshirt, then ran into the small household fresher.  There, he took off his clothes and slipped the large shirt over his head.  It came almost to his ankles, and hindered Luke as he attempted to clean his teeth.

    Luke managed, though, and went back to his room.  His bed was built into a comfortable alcove in the adobe wall and covered with old blankets.  But the faded colors of the blankets did not bother Luke since they kept him warm through the chill Tatooine night.

    "I bet my father was a brave pilot," Luke murmured dreamily as he lay down in the bed.  "And if he wasn't dead, he'd take me out on his ship with him, to see the stars.  I bet he could even take me to meet a real Jedi Knight!  He'd let me try a podracer too...Tank said that there was a plaque at Mos Eisley commemorating another human boy who raced pods."

    Luke lay silently down and went to sleep and drifted into pleasant dreams of a man with his hair and eyes.  The tall man cradled him gently, but then he was falling, falling.  A red glow and a black face loomed out of the darkness.  Luke woke in a sweat.

    Morning dawned on Tatooine with the usual fierceness of the binary system.  Luke was out on the flats, working on a clogged filter in a vaporator.  Once when he looked up to rest his hands, he spotted a landspeeder, streaking across the plain from the direction of Anchorhead.  As he watched, it seemed to turn toward where he sat by the vaporator.

    Luke picked up the electrobinocs he kept with him at all times.  They were meant to be used to spot approaching Tusken Raiders, but now he turned it on the approaching speeder.

    There was an unfamiliar woman sitting alone in the speeder.  It wasn't Biggs' mother; and Mrs. Darklighter was usually the only one who ever came to visit them.  Deciding that he didn't like this turn of events, Luke quickly scrubbed off the filter and replaced it.  Then he dashed back in between the dunes  nearby so that he was out of sight.  From there, Luke dashed across the flats near the farmhouse and ducked into the stairs as fast as his short legs could carry him.

    "Uncle Owen!  Aunt Beru!" Luke shouted.  "Someone's coming!  From the South!"

    "Who is it?" Beru asked.  "Tania Darklighter wasn't going to come today."

    Luke shook his head.  "I don't know.  I've never seen her before."

    Owen snorted.  "It's probably Tania.  The boy is dreaming of some crazy adventure again."

    Beru glared at Owen.  "It could be-"

    "Not in front of Luke, Beru," Owen chastised.

    "Luke, go to your room," Beru said.  "If you're needed, your uncle will come get you."

    Luke marched sulkily off to the small room.  He heard a speeder stop outside, but wasn't sure that he wanted to look out.  Whoever it was, it had Uncle Owen scared.  And that didn't sit well with Luke.  The only other things that made his uncle afraid were sandpeople and Luke's safety.

    Out in the common room, Luke could hear voices rising and falling in what sounded like a soft argument.  After several hours, the door to Luke's room slid open.  Aunt Beru entered.

    "Someone is here to see you.  Your uncle forbade her to see you, but for her sake, I will sneak you out.  Do not be surprised at...anything that happens.  I can't tell you more.  If you accidentally let it slip to your uncle, he will know I told you," Luke's aunt said.

    Luke followed his aunt out into the desert.  She led him up into the dunes by the ridge, where the unfamiliar speeder was parked.  A small woman, clothed in ragged white clothes stood by the speeder.  Her dark hair was pulled back into a utilitarian plastic clip.  She had large dark eyes and an exotic but worn beauty that even Luke noticed.

    "Luke!" she said, softly, but with a distinctly yearning tone.  Uncertain, Luke hung back, clinging to his aunt's hand.  Padme held out her arms to her small son, aching to feel him nestling against her breast.  His small golden head and delicate body was the form of a prince, as she had known it would be.

    "It's all right, Luke," Beru said.  "You don't have to let her hold you if you don't want to."

    Tears dripped from Padme's eyes.  So, the vision was indeed true.  Even while still tiny, Luke has no memory of the life of a prince,  Padme thought.  So be it.  I had hoped that his powers somehow... but he was just an infant when he was taken from me.  I shouldn't have expected him to run into my arms and call me "Momma".

    "Maybe I should leave.  It will be better for Luke this way, if he has no memory of me," Padme said, watching the tiny boy as he sat at the foot of the sand dune.

    Beru shook her head.  "Owen tried to warn you, Miri.  We are all he knows.  But thank you, so much.  You can't imagine what it was to have Owen lay a tiny, cooing bundle in my arms and tell me that this beautiful, tiny child was mine to raise."

    "I have seen the joy in the face of my friend Moira as she raised her daughter," Padme said, looking up at the stars glimmering in Tatooine's evening.  "And I have seen that there is no justice in the galaxy, with neither a Republic or an Empire. The same greedy fools rule always, and to them love means nothing."

    "May Luke always know love," Beru said.  "I hope that I can watch as he learns what it is to love another, but we are in mortal danger from the Empire.  Owen knows that our time is limited here and we cannot guard Luke forever."

    "The mistake of the Jedi was training too young," Padme said.  "Those children of the old Order never knew what it was to feel, to understand how destructive anger can be on their own.  I would have done much to spare my son that path, although this is a road no one would willingly choose, no matter what the end."

    "All will be well," Beru said.  "All must be well, for the sake of the galaxy."

    "Then I suppose that I must do what is best for the galaxy," Padme said dryly.  She turned to the speeder, and it disappeared among the dunes, heading for Anchorhead.

To be continued in For Love of a Skywalker Part 3: Leia Organa