Star Wars Journal - The Fight for Justice by Luke Skywalker Read online

  And I was too stunned to fight back.

  I thought I was doomed. That this was the end. I’d never get to explore the galaxy. Never see the stars up close, or visit any other worlds. I couldn’t believe I was going to be killed for the contents of my landspeeder and a couple of droids.

  It seemed so futile, so pointless, dying out there like that.

  And then there came this really strange noise—it took me a couple of seconds to recognize it as a krayt dragon. It howled and echoed all over the place, sending tingles up my spine, it did worse than that to the Sand Person, though. I couldn’t see his face, of course—but every muscle in his body spelled fear. The next thing I knew, the Tusken Raider was gone.

  First of all, I was really glad to be alive. I knew how lucky I was. And second, I was getting really scared, lying there on the ground as the creature that scared the Tusken Raider approached me. But I simply didn’t have the strength to get up and flee for safety. I’d banged my head pretty badly when I fell, and I couldn’t get to my feet.

  Then the monster appeared.

  If I hadn’t been so shaken, I might have laughed. The monster turned out to be an old man in protective robes, carrying something like a horn, through which he blew to produce that terrible shriek. It was old Ben Kenobi, and he’d managed to save my life a second time!

  His fingers obviously had some skill, because he managed to help me to my feet by manipulating my aching muscles and nerves. That and a sip of water had me feeling better in a couple of minutes.

  It turned out that Ben had imitated the cry of a krayt dragon, the one thing that terrifies the Sand People, which is why they’d fled without looking back. He might be an eccentric old hermit, as Uncle Owen said, but he was certainly good at arriving just when he was needed—and at knowing exactly what to do.

  I didn’t see how this could have been pure coincidence, Ben finding me. But it made more sense to believe Ben was just passing by, than to believe he somehow sensed my trouble.

  But that’s the weird thing—Ben had been looking for me.

  He was surprised to discover I was with a couple of droids, though. Even more so when he discovered that Artoo claimed to belong to him.

  You see, Ben is Obi-Wan Kenobi. I’m not sure what it’s all about, except that he used to be somebody really important—a Jedi Knight. And then, for some reason, he decided to lay low for a while. So he started calling himself Ben Kenobi instead. It seems kind of odd to me, but I soon discovered that Ben wasn’t as crazy as Uncle Owen tried to make him sound. A bit eccentric, maybe, but not crazy.

  Ben took us to his house. Threepio was damaged by the Tusken Raider attack, and I needed to do some quick repairs. I couldn’t take him back to the farm in the state he was in. My uncle would have been furious.

  His house was small and simple. He had a few gadgets, like a vaporator to get his own water and stuff like that. But there were no droids or any sort of transportation. He really did walk everywhere!

  I don’t think I could do without droids or speeders or any of a hundred other things, but Ben doesn’t need them and doesn’t miss them.

  I could hardly believe it when he told me he was a Jedi Knight. I mean, I didn’t know there were any Jedi Knights left. I wasn’t even sure they’d ever existed in the past.

  When I was young, I’d heard about the Jedi from someone at school. I asked my uncle Owen about them, and he told me that they were just stories. Aunt Beru had told me that there were once great and wise knights who kept the peace, called Jedi, but that they were long gone. “Most of the stories they tell about them just grew and grew,” she explained. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”

  And here was Ben, telling me that he’d been a Jedi Knight in his youth! It was incredible, partly to discover that there really had been Jedi, and partly because “crazy old Ben” had been one of them.

  And then Ben really surprised me. He told me that my father had also been a Jedi—and his close friend!

  My father…

  All my life, I’ve wondered about my father. What kind of a man was he? Uncle Owen had never told me much, just that he had been a navigator on a spice freighter. It takes skill to pilot your way around hyperspace, and I always figured I had inherited my piloting skills from my father. Uncle Owen had never told me that my father was also a Jedi.

  According to Ben, my father was a hero—a great pilot, a great warrior, and a great man. He had been trained by Ben to become a Jedi, and my father was one of Ben’s best pupils.

  Uncle Owen knew all about this, too, but he’d never revealed a word of it to me. Ben thinks Uncle Owen was wrong to hide the truth, but he won’t come right out and say so.

  I can see that Uncle Owen really believed what he was doing was right. He stopped me from ever learning how to fight, and from learning the truth about my father. He tried to make me like he was: a farmer, not an adventurer.

  But that was him, not me. I guess that, even though I never knew them, there’s a lot of my parents in me. That’s why I’ve always been so restless, always looking for something more. I knew I was missing something, only I never understood what it was. Now I think I’m starting to.

  Apparently that fight my Uncle Owen had with Ben was because Ben wanted to tell me the truth, and Uncle Owen wouldn’t allow it. That’s why he threw Ben out and asked me all those questions about what Ben had been telling me.

  It turns out that Ben’s been keeping an eye on me in his own way. That’s how he knew I was in trouble today and showed up just in time to help me.

  And then he offered me a gift, something that had belonged to my father. It didn’t look like much, just a small, stocky rod with a button it. But it was my father’s lightsaber.

  A lightsaber!

  I’d heard of such weapons, but I’d never seen one. According to the stories, a Jedi was given his lightsaber on his first day of training. Ben told me that it requires great skill to use a lightsaber, unlike a blaster or a fusion cutter. That’s why it was considered a great symbol to be able to use it well. And Ben said my father wanted me to have it when I was old enough.

  Ben actually wanted to give it to me when we’d met five seasons ago, but Uncle Owen had flatly refused. He was afraid that if I held a lightsaber, I’d go off on some mad crusade with Ben.

  Maybe he was right to be worried. Just holding the lightsaber in my hand, and making slow, careful moves with it, felt… I don’t know. Like nothing I’d ever felt before. It felt as if it were a part of me; I was somehow connected to it. Not like a blaster—that’s just a weapon you pick up and shoot. The lightsaber is something elegant, controlled… it just feels so right when I hold it in my hand.

  And it had been my father’s. I could almost feel him there, as if his hand, too, were still holding it. I was linked across time to my father through that lightsaber, and it felt good.

  I’ll tell you one thing: I’m never letting my lightsaber go.

  SIXTH ENTRY

  I finally worked up the courage to ask Ben about my father’s death. Uncle Owen had never talked about it, simply saying that he’d died during the war. I was sure that Ben knew more than that, and I was right. He told me that it was a complicated story, but that it involved another of his pupils, a man named Darth Vader.

  Vader, he told me, was once a Jedi, one of the greatest ever. But he’d become corrupt and now serves the Emperor. Vader had hunted down and killed all the Jedi Knights in the galaxy. Only he obviously missed a few, since Obi-Wan was still alive.

  All of this made me think. If the man who killed my father is loyal to the Empire, it must mean that my father would have fought against the Empire if he were still alive.

  How can I sit on the sidelines, then, while the Rebellion rages on, if my father would not?

  Ben tried to explain to me what it means to be a Jedi. It’s something to do with what Ben calls the Force. I’m not sure I really understand this yet, but he says I will with time. Ben says the Force is something that is in eac
h and every atom in the universe. It’s not a physical force, like gravity or magnetism, but a Force that links everything together. It sounds like some sort of religion to me, but Ben insists that it’s not.

  Anyway, because this Force is everywhere, it means that if you have the potential to use this Force you can do all kinds of things that normal people can’t do. It’s not magic, it’s just making use of the Force. Ben says he’ll teach me all about it, so maybe I’ll understand it better later. Right now, I’m mostly confused.

  But I do understand one thing: Darth Vader deliberately misuses the Force. Ben says there’s a dark side to it, one that enables a Jedi to use it for selfish purposes, and for evil. Vader is a master of the dark side of the Force, while Ben works only with the good.

  I know now that there is one thing I must do: I have to find Darth Vader and make him pay for what he did to my father.

  I know, it sounds crazy, but he can’t be allowed to get away with everything he’s done. I swear here and now that I’m going to find him and settle this debt.

  Suddenly Ben stopped telling me about Vader and the Force because Artoo was so insistent that Ben pay attention to him. After everything I’d been through, I’d forgotten all about the girl’s call for help.

  Last night I’d managed to convince myself that the message was old and nothing to worry about. But Artoo still insisted it was urgent.

  Despite the fact that Ben doesn’t keep any droids, it was obvious that he was pretty familiar with them. He tinkered with Artoo for a couple of minutes and got the message up and running.

  This time it was the whole message. The same beautiful girl, this time telling Obi-Wan Kenobi that she’d gotten hold of some vital plans from the Empire, and that they were urgently needed on Alderaan, where her father would know what to do with them. She begged for his help, which was the bit of the message I’d caught last night.

  I was wrong about it being ancient history. It seems that the message was recorded only days ago. We got most of the story from Threepio, who was amazed by the message. Apparently he hadn’t seen the girl give the message to Artoo.

  It turns out that the two droids were on one of the two ships I’d seen fighting. The ones my friends thought I had imagined!

  It was some sort of official ship from Alderaan, and it had been attacked by an Imperial Cruiser. Artoo had vanished for a bit during the fighting, which was when he’d been given the message.

  Then he’d taken Threepio into an escape pod and they were ejected. They’d landed on Tatooine and started out for Ben’s place, but had been captured by Jawas and sold to Uncle Owen.

  As soon as the hologram message ended, it was obvious that Ben planned to do something about it. I could see the change come over him. One minute he was cordial and cheerful, talking to me about my father. The next he was grim and intent.

  “Who was that girl?” I asked him. If she was real, and still looked like that, then I really wanted to meet her.

  Ben told me she is Princess Leia Organa of the planet Alderaan, and that she’s an Imperial Senator.

  Ouch! Talk about being out of my league! A princess? Well, that figures. She was so beautiful and so commanding, she’d have to be a princess. And a politician, too. And here I am thinking I might stand a chance with her!

  Maybe it is impossible, but I’d like nothing more than to meet her someday. Especially if I’m going to be a Jedi Knight. Maybe as a Jedi I can dedicate myself to guarding a lady. I can do that for her. Maybe she’d never even notice me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t protect her.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself, talking about being a Jedi. That was the last thing on my mind right then. Well, okay, not the last thing. My father had been a Jedi, and the idea of following in his footsteps was really exciting. Plus, Ben was definitely encouraging the idea! Now that he’d heard the message, he wanted to set off for Alderaan, just like that—and he wanted me to go with him!

  He didn’t know how tempting that was! To be off on a quest, my father’s lightsaber in my hand, some beautiful princess to save… if only I could! But that was a mission for a dreamer, for a poet, for a crazy old man like Ben Kenobi. I wasn’t any of those things. My uncle Owen depended on me to get the crops to grow on his farm. I had to think about my responsibilities.

  And since I’ve promised myself to tell the truth on this record, I’ll admit my fears.

  Maybe my father had been a Jedi, but that didn’t mean I could be. I’m not the most skillful person in the world, though I’m a pretty great pilot. What if I turned out to be a lousy Jedi? Wouldn’t that be worse than never trying?

  Trying and failing… I couldn’t face that.

  At least on Tatooine I could have my dreams. But what if trying to make them come true only showed me my failures? Could I stand that?

  So when Ben told me that he wanted me to go with him, I couldn’t do it. I tried to explain that I couldn’t just up and leave my aunt and uncle like that. That it was the middle of the season, and they needed my help. That I’d been gone long enough as it was to get into trouble with my uncle. Ben looked at me calmly and let all of these excuses wash right over him. “That’s your uncle talking,” was his reply. I guess he was right, too. It was Uncle Owen, and not me.

  In spite of my fears, I’d have loved to have gone with him, but it was just so crazy. I mean, romantic quests are fine, but we have to live our real lives, not some incredible adventures we dream up.

  I could rationalize it in all kinds of ways. Ben was known to be a little touched in the head; I’d have to be just as crazy to go with him. I didn’t really know him, after all. True, he’d saved my life twice, but I’d hardly spent any time with him.

  But that was logic speaking, and logic isn’t always enough. The funny thing is, from the moment I met Ben, I felt tied to him somehow. Sort of like fate, or destiny. Or maybe it’s that Force he’s always talking about. The point is, I feel as if I’ve known Ben all of my life. So when he said, “We’re off to Alderaan,” it didn’t seem that odd. Just impossible, because I’d never get my chores done.

  To my surprise, Ben didn’t try to talk me out of it. I was expecting him to try his best, but that’s obviously not Ben’s way. When you’ve made a decision and told him, he won’t argue with you, even if he thinks you’re wrong. He just nodded and said that I had to make up my own mind, and the Force within me would show me the right way to go.

  I wish I knew what he was talking about. I don’t feel any Force within me. Just a lot of confusing emotions and thoughts, all tugging me in different directions. I didn’t know which ones I should be paying the most attention to. That was the problem. Ben and this Princess Leia needed help, and Ben seemed to have confidence that somehow I could be that help. But Uncle Owen needed my help, too. Shouldn’t family come first? Or was that just my fears talking?

  In the end, it didn’t matter what I decided. Maybe Ben’s right about the Force leading us in the right direction.

  I offered to take Ben to Anchorhead, where he could get other transportation. He’d have to head over to Mos Eisley, the spaceport, to grab a ship to Alderaan. I couldn’t take him that far; Uncle Owen would never let me hear the end of it. Ben accepted the offer, and we set off.

  We never made it.

  On the way, we saw smoke… and that meant trouble. Out here in the Dune Sea there’s nothing to burn—no vegetation, at any rate. So if there was smoke, it had something to do with intelligent beings. Neither Ben nor I had a clue as to what the smoke was from, but it was clearly our duty to take a look and see if we could help.

  We couldn’t.

  The smoke turned out to be a blazing sandcrawler. Somebody had blasted it apart and shot all of the Jawas. There were tiny bodies everywhere and the stench of scorched meat. It wouldn’t be long before the womp rats would be around, looking to eat.

  Threepio recognized the Jawas as the ones who had captured him and Artoo. I couldn’t be sure myself, but he remembered plenty of details about the cr
awler and the other droids. Strangely enough, the droids had all been violently disassembled. I looked around and saw bantha tracks all over. There were even a couple of broken gaderffii sticks that the Sand People use.

  It didn’t make much sense to me. I know the Tusken Raiders are violent, and they’re greedy. So why did they destroy the droids instead of taking them along as loot? I couldn’t figure it out.

  But Ben could. He pointed out the bantha tracks. Like I said, there were lots of them, and that’s not something the Sand People do. Instead, they ride single file, so you can’t tell how many of them there are. And then Ben pointed out the precision of the damage to the sandcrawler. Tuskens are kind of wild, and attack and shoot at anything. But the attackers here had been very careful and precise, first stopping and then demolishing the crawler. It wasn’t Raider-style fighting, it was stormtrooper style.

  Imperial stormtroopers!

  Ben asked Threepio and Artoo to start gathering fuel and bodies for a pyre. He didn’t want to leave the poor Jawas to be eaten by womp rats. I could sympathize with that; I’ve seen what womp rats do to carcasses and it isn’t something I’d wish on any creature—even if they were dead.

  As we started work, my mind was churning. Why had Imperials attacked the Jawas? Oh, Jawas are nuisances, and sometimes steal things, but nobody really minds them. Sometimes the authorities will clamp down a bit and throw a couple into jail. But to burn them out like this? It didn’t make sense.

  And then, all of a sudden, it started to.

  These were the same Jawas who had captured the droids. And Artoo had plans inside him for something that would help the Rebellion. The stormtroopers must know that, and be looking for the two droids. They’d tracked them to the Jawas, and the Jawas didn’t have them…

  They’d be after whoever they thought had the droids now…

  With a cry, I ran for the landspeeder. Nothing else mattered right then except to get home and warn my aunt and uncle.

  It was a foolish thing to do, I know. Now I can see how dumb I was. Shooting right back to the farm while Imperials might be raiding it! And all I was armed with was my blaster and a lightsaber I didn’t even know how to use!