Desert Drifting
It was hot already, though the suns had yet to rise enough for light to reach into the sunken courtyard of the Lars homestead. Luke Skywalker yawned as he stepped out of the entranceway leading back down in his bedroom. It was early still, but days on Tatooine were always long. The desert planet had the barest semblance of seasons; stories of balmy summers and snowy winters belonged to other, exotic places, planets far away.
"Luke?" His uncle's voice was heavy, just like the man himself. Not in physical size, but in philosophy and belief and attitude and every thing else – Owen Lars was the heaviest man Luke knew. His feet were welded to the bleached, merciless dirt they lived on.
Luke barely controlled a scowl as his uncle emerged from the other side of the courtyard, dressed in scruffy desert wear, his short greying hair sticking up angrily. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked tired – tired and irritated. He always did in Luke's presence.
"What?" Luke muttered.
"What kind of time is this? The suns are up, there's work to be done—"
"Only one of them is up, and just barely. It's not that late."
His uncle huffed. "For you it's not. I certainly don't have to time to be waiting while you idle half the morning away in bed. What time did you get home last night?"
Luke crossed his arms, lowering his head, glaring at his feet. "It wasn't late."
"I hope you reset the power grid for the perimeters when you came in."
"Yes. I did."
"You know it disrupts the alignments? That's an outage we can't afford to lose—"
"All right, I'm sorry." Luke shifted his glare to his uncle, then looked away. "I went for a drive, that was all. You can't blame me if I wanted to get off this stupid farm for a bit."
His uncle said nothing for a while. Luke could feel the other man's gaze, though, as severe and unrelenting as the suns' hot power might have been, had they risen enough to crest the edges of the small courtyard. His uncle walked forward, his steps shushing lightly over the sandy ground. Luke turned his face away further, keeping his eyes averted.
"This farm," said his uncle, his voice uninflected and soft but somehow more powerful for it – perhaps because of rarity – "This stupid farm is what has put food in your stomach and clothes on your back for seventeen years, boy. I won't hear you disrespect it."
Luke glanced at him then averted his gaze again, partly resentful, partly ashamed. He didn't say anything. After a moment, Owen turned his back and began to walk across the courtyard. "Get a move on," he said over his shoulder, his voice as hard as ever. "We've got work to do."
"I was going to meet Biggs later—" Luke began, but his uncle cut him off with a sharp, "You can idle in your own time. I don't want to hear it." Luke sullenly subsided.
Aunt Beru was gentle as she handed him a quick breakfast, her sympathy warm and light, hidden in the back of her eyes. "It's not fair," Luke said bitterly, taking a piece of buttered flatbread and stuffing it in his mouth while shoving the other items, wrapped, into his pockets for later. Chewing furiously, he muttered, "He just doesn't understand."
"He's looking after the farm, and us," his aunt said mildly. "He needs your help, Luke."
"Yeah." Luke held back other comments, less charitable. It wasn't his aunt's fault. Sometimes it was easy to implicate her by association, by passivity, but she tried to play mediator because she loved them both. Her presence alone was often enough to smother an argument between him and his uncle; with her there, they both forced a strained pretence of politeness. He crammed another piece of flatbread in his mouth, chewed and swallowed rapidly, then downed the glass of blue milk his aunt had poured.
"Luke!" His uncle called from above.
"Yeah, Uncle Owen, I'm coming." He set down the milk, gave his aunt a lacklustre smile, and grabbed his pack and tools. "See you this afternoon, Aunt Beru."
"Be careful out there," she called after him. "Make sure you take your hat!'
Safely beyond view of the room, he rolled his eyes at her concern.
His chores were tedious, uncomfortable and boring. He swore softly over the burned-out innards of a moisture evaporator, rifling one-handed through his tools as the suns beat down on him. He knew an array of swear words in Huttese and Basic picked up from other teens in Mos Eisley and some of the farmers his uncle traded with, but didn't use them often. Somehow Luke just couldn't pull them off properly, no more than he could tell a convincing lie. It was annoying.
Blowing out a sigh, Luke sat back on his heels, letting the hydrospanner dangle from his fingers. The little J-7 model maintenance droid his uncle had recently purchased from Jawas beeped to itself on the other side of the vaporator, running a diagnostic. Luke suspected there was something askew in the maintenance droid's innards, because it offered gibberish rather than valid results half the time. He'd have to take it apart later and have a look at it, see if he could figure out what was wrong.
The suns were climbing in the sky, now, a bright patch of haze against eye-watering blueness, too brilliant to look at directly. He'd left his uncle a few hours ago after they'd repaired the faulty processing station on the eastern perimeter. It had broken down the day before and fixing it had turned out to be a more complicated task than his uncle had initially assumed, requiring two sets of hands. Working quickly and efficiently, barely exchanged two words beyond terse discussion over what required replacing, they'd repaired it, and Owen had taken the other landspeeder to continue along the eastern perimeter, collecting water to be processed. Luke took his own speeder and headed out along the western route.
This was the second vaporator he'd found out of order. A localised sandstorm had probably passed through the area overnight; it wasn't uncommon. Sometimes the operation of the farm seemed to be little more than repairing an endless stream of malfunctioning machinery. Luke could fix sand blockage corruption in his sleep.
Turning so that his back was against the moisture evaporator, Luke tilted his head up, tipping the brim of his hat back to watch the sky. The suns were on the other side of the vaporator, and the tall machine cast a spindly shadow that fell over him, offering slight reprieve from the heat. Not much – the sand reflected most of the sunlight, meaning that the heat came from above and below – but it was better than nothing.
The sky was a deep, unending blue, unbroken by the ragged clouds that sometimes drifted across the desert horizon. Its purity was beautiful, Luke thought, but painful at the same time, because it was just like the desert in a lot of ways, that sky – vast and aching and endless. Unlike the desert, however, the sky offered a chance to someday escape.
He sat staring into the sky for longer than he should have, his mind on other worlds. His uncle, had he been there, would have snarled and sniped for laziness, his arms crossed across his chest, his feet planted solidly to the ground.
On the other side of the tall moisture evaporator, the little J-7 gurgled and beeped in sudden distress, then blew a circuit, a thin trail of smoke winding its way up forlornly from its squat head. It fell silent.
The moisture evaporator groaned sadly, its metallic voice strained with heat.
His thoughts filled with distant star trails, Luke paid no heed.
By the time he'd finally finished his circuit of the farm and headed back into the homestead, the suns had begun to sink in the sky. Uncle Owen was still out on the eastern perimeter, a fact for which Luke was secretly glad. He'd heard enough about his idling ways and lazy friends for today, and if he didn't see Owen, the other man couldn't delay him with more work to be completed before he left the farm. Sometimes it seemed Owen would come up with any excuse just to keep Luke on the farm for another hour, and another, until the suns fell and darkness swarmed and it was too late to escape…
It was like Owen thought that if Luke stayed here long enough the dirty gold of the sands would creep into his heart and bind him just as Owen and Beru were bound. Or maybe the sand would send tendrils over his boots, messy, corrosive things, like the tree roots of mythical forests in old off-world stories, climbing over the bodies of interlopers, possessing them slowly.
Well. It wasn't going to happen, not if Luke had anything to do with it.
And this kind of thinking was exactly the kind of thing that Uncle Owen made a point of blasting Luke for. He grimaced and vaulted out of the landspeeder, jogging through into the house. Aunt Beru was in the courtyard, tending her hydroponics with a careful hand. Luke called a greeting as he passed, heading for the kitchen, not slowing as she began to straighten.
"Uncle Owen's still out on the eastern perimeter," he called over his shoulder. "Looks like there might have been a sandstorm out that way last night. Couple of the vaporators were damaged." He keyed open the door to the cooling unit, rummaging through the stores inside. A covered tray offered enticement: his aunt had been cooking this morning, it seemed. Luke twitched aside the gauzy cloth drape.
A hand from behind swiped his fingers reprovingly. "Those are for dinner," Beru chided. "Did you get the vaporators fixed?"
"Of course." Luke turned, flashing his aunt a grin. "Is there anything I can't fix?"
She narrowed her eyes at him, but there was a smile on the edges of her lips, barely hidden. "We haven't come across anything yet," she conceded.
"See?" Luke said smugly. "I can fix everything."
Beru shook her head, that smile growing like one of the tiny flowers she sometimes grew at the edges of the hydro gardens, creeping out of concealment. "You're wasting power, standing with the unit open," was all she said.
"Well, you won't let me have anything to eat, and I'm starving. Really." He showed her a beseeching look. "Just one."
Of course, Beru let him take one of the hotbreads she'd made that morning. Two, in fact, in the end. He made appreciative noises and she tried not to look delighted. That was how their system worked, whenever his uncle wasn't around. He'd always gotten on with his aunt better than he'd gotten on with Owen.
Maybe that was one of the reasons his uncle was so hard on him.
He left details of the condition of the vaporators with his aunt, for her to pass on to Owen, when the other man got back from the perimeter. Luke offloaded the water he'd collected from the vaporators (those still functioning) into the collector tanks in the homestead's vast basements, then, with a shouted goodbye to his aunt, set off for Anchorhead.
"Don't forget you uncle wants you back before power-down time," she called as he was leaving.
"I know," Luke replied, allowing a grimace she couldn't see. Hard to forget, the way Owen had harangued him this morning.
Heading into Anchorhead, he let his speed build until the surroundings were all but a melding of sand and sky. Luke was a little in love with speed – okay, he could admit privately, maybe not a little. Maybe a lot. There were others his age who liked flying almost as much as he did, and some who were nearly as good. Not many – Biggs was probably the only one who came close. But Luke didn't think any of them really understood what it was like to be totally in love with flying, to feel as though speed was a drug, like it was only times like this, with the wind stinging and hurtling and the sky a whistling blue –
– it was only times like this he was really alive. Not that he wasn't alive at other times, it was just that this was more alive, truly alive, with all his senses tingling, his awareness so strong and pure it almost hurt, knowing the sand and sky so intimately it was as though he could reach with his fingertips and brush them –
No one else knew what this was like. And it was why none of them were as good as he was. No one else flew like they were a part of the sky and the sand and the sharp lines and metal heart of the vehicle they rode.
When he was younger, he'd thought of asking, but he'd known they would only laugh at him, and they did that often and well enough without his assistance. He'd asked Biggs once, but he'd been unable to put into words the exact feeling of it – the clarity, the exhilaration, the vastness and the concentration – and even Biggs, who'd never laughed at him like others even when he was younger, small for his age and awkward – even Biggs had only been able to say that he didn't understand, and look at Luke a little strangely, as though he'd somehow grown slightly different in the space between seconds.
If Biggs knew, Luke wouldn't have had to tell him. He would have known at once.
Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru definitely didn't understand. They disapproved of his recklessness, and probably for the same reason at heart: that he risked too much while flying, endangering machinery and life and limb. But the few times Uncle Owen had attempted to curtail his racing had been short-lived, for even his uncle could see how utterly miserable it made Luke to be grounded. It was like the colour had been stolen from his life, like he couldn't taste food properly. Unbearable. Owen was harsh and abrasive, but he wasn't cruel.
A few burly farmers swore at him as he sped through Ancorhead in his battered landspeeder, weaving deftly through the narrow streets until he reached boxy Tosche Station, located on the settlement's outskirts.
The building was dingy and dry inside, the hot air heavy with dust. Luke spotted Tank and Fixer and Deak, over in the corner, but he didn't feel much like socialising. Biggs was standing by himself at one side of the room, away from the dismembered machines taking up the bulk of the space. "Hey," Luke greeted him laconically as he approached.
Biggs turned and gave him a smile, the edges of which were a little strange. "Hey, Luke. 'Bout time you got here."
"Yeah, sorry. Uncle Owen had me working on one of the processing stations." Luke snagged a crate with his foot, dragging it closer so that he could use it as a makeshift seat. "Stupid things seem to crash every second day lately."
"Yeah." Biggs ran a hand through his hair, dark eyes scanning the interior of the workshop absently. His father owned most of the moisture farms in the area, but Luke doubted Biggs had been made to fix a faulty vaporator in his life. He was always willing to help whenever he visited the Lars farm despite that, though, and he knew almost as much about machinery as Luke did.
"Hey, Wormie," someone called from the other side of the room. "You still driving that piece of junkmetal you call a speeder? Should ask your uncle for a raise so's you can buy a newer model. But – oh right, he can't afford to pay you." There were a few snorts of laughter.
Luke flushed and turned, glaring. "Shut your mouth, Tank."
"Luke could whip your rear riding a swoop, flekbrains," Biggs added. "Or d'you forget that he thrashed you in your new skyhopper out at the canyon last weekend?"
It was Tank's turn to flush angrily. "Didn't ask you, Darklighter."
Luke rolled his eyes. Biggs replied, "Yeah, whatever."
Fixer made a comment about the race, Camie laughed, a silvery trill, and Tank responded surlily. "Want to take a walk?" Biggs asked Luke.
Luke shrugged and pushed off the crate. "I guess."
The air outside was a few degrees cooler than the stifling mustiness of the station, so long as they stayed in the shade. Luke kicked sand as he walked. His cheeks still felt warm, and he didn't think it was sunburn.
"They're idiots," Biggs said after a few silent moments. "Don't let them get to you, Luke. You're smarter than they are."
"Yeah, well, he's right, isn't he? I'll never get anywhere stuck on this hole of a planet."
Instead of commiserating, Biggs twisted his lips and looked away.
"I mean," Luke went on angrily, "it's not like it's just the planet, is it? As if that's not bad enough. It's also a dead-end farm in the middle of nowhere, barely making a profit, barely making enough to survive, filled with rusting equipment that does nothing except break down and get fixed and break down again. And it's true. Owen can't even pay me."
"Luke…"
"I wouldn't ask much. Just enough to upgrade the T-16 or my speeder. Enough to save a little, even. But no."
"Luke—"
"I can't even talk to him about it anymore. I can't talk to him, full stop. All we ever do is argue, because in the end it comes down to him wanting me to stay and me wanting to go. I'm sick of it. He thinks he can wear me down, that one day I'll wake up like him, buried in sand before he's dead—"
"Luke!"
It was Biggs' tone that tripped him mid-tirade, more than the volume. Biggs was one of the most even-tempered people Luke knew. He'd rarely known the other man to get upset, even when the others prodded him with subtle barbs about his father and his life that made Luke seethe on his behalf. Now, though, his voice was sharp, a little strained. Luke looked at him, surprised, and saw that something was wrong in the stillness of his friend's face. "What?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
Biggs drew a breath. "Nothing," he said. "Nothing – nothing's wrong. It's just – well." He fumbled for a moment, then said, "I'm leaving."
"Leaving?" Luke blinked. The word seemed wrong, like it was in Jawa or something, because it didn't make sense to him. "What – what do you mean?"
"Imperial Academy," Biggs said simply. "I've been accepted. I have to leave straight away. Tomorrow morning, first thing."
Luke could only blink again. "Oh," he said. Then, "Really?"
"Yeah," Biggs said carefully.
"Oh," Luke said again. "Hey. Wow. That's great. When did you hear?"
"Only yesterday. My father – " Biggs always referred to Huff Darklighter that way, never as anything less formal that Luke imagined sons would normally call their fathers by, like Dad " – had me doing the social thing. Showing off to all the family and everything. I think Gavin was going to blow a gasket or something. He was practically green with jealousy. Says he wants to be a pilot too." Biggs started to grin, only a small grin, but impossibly bright with pride and exhilaration. He caught himself, though, and stifled it, his face going still again, his eyes careful as he looked at Luke. "That's why I didn't tell you sooner. Sorry."
"No, that's okay," Luke said automatically. He felt strangely numb, all weird and blank. Of course, he'd known Biggs was applying, but everyone said that almost no one got into the Academy first time. The Darklighter family's wealth and influence must have helped with that, Luke thought. Huff had been prepping Biggs for the Academy for years.
And now Biggs was in. Now Biggs would be escaping Tatooine, escaping the endless boredom of their lives, travelling across the galaxy to another planet, seeing some of those stars they'd dreamed of seeing since they were ten years old, flying his own ship among them—
"Wow," Luke said again, and he turned, grinning. "You hutt-slime! You know what this means? You're going to be a pilot! You're going to be out there, you know? Wow!"
Biggs matched his smile, that brilliant grin tugging at his lips, desperate to spill out. "I know."
"Wow!" Luke repeated again. He laughed, shook his head, and said – "I can't believe it. You're in! You're out there! Biggs, this—"
"I know," Biggs said again, watching his reaction. The grin was full-grown now, and Luke could see his relief. "I still can't believe it either."
Luke shook his head again in amazement, and Biggs grinned more widely. They fell silent, Luke wonderingly, Biggs lost in his own thoughts. The sand blew hotly. They were around the back of the station now, standing in the narrow strip of shade the building cast. The desert fell away in front of them, scrappy vegetation and patchy dirt marking the edges of the town.
"I wish," Biggs said suddenly, "I really wish you were coming too."
Luke struggled to maintain his grin, but lost the battle. "Yeah," he said.
"The acceptance period hasn't closed," Biggs said hopefully. "You might still get in. I know it's hard to get in first time, but once they see your results on the aptitude tests – "
"I didn't apply," Luke said, and it came out flatter than he intended. "Uncle Owen asked me not to. He needs me on the farm this season." He turned away so that Biggs couldn't see his face, because right now, suddenly, it really hurt that he'd had to make that sacrifice. He didn't want Biggs to mistake it as resentment for his own achievement.
"Oh." A brief pause. "There's next year, then, I guess." Biggs wasn't very good at hiding his disappointment. He must have been hoping they could enter the academy together.
"Next year," Luke echoed. "That's right."
Biggs lifted a hand to Luke's shoulder and squeezed. "I know you'll get in, Luke. You're the best pilot on the planet."
Luke lifted his eyebrows, feigning surprise. "Better than you?"
"Well… I wouldn't go that far…" Biggs grinned. Luke smiled back. It was an old exchange, one that had long ago lost its original rancor. His smile faded as the wind blew suddenly, spraying sand across them in a stinging wave.
Luke turned to look at the desert, because it was easier than meeting Biggs' eye. "I'm going to miss you," he said awkwardly. "I'll have no one to fly against. No one good enough, you know."
"I'll see you again," Biggs said. Luke nodded, not meeting his gaze. The grip Biggs had on his shoulder tightened slightly, and Biggs said, "Just… make sure you do get off this planet, Luke, okay? Don't get stuck here. That would be a waste."
Luke glanced at the other man finally, and was taken aback by the intentness of his gaze. "I don't plan on staying," he assured him. "We're going to be out there, remember? Both of us, together. We agreed. Two shooting stars. Nothing will hold us down."
Biggs grinned and released him. "Just checking."
They walked back around to the front of the station. The suns were lower, the first a finger's-width above the darkening horizon. The building was still dingy inside, Fixer propped on a crate, Camie draped in his lap, Tank and Deak leaning over an old games console.
Luke didn't much feel like their company, right now. He ran a hang through his hair raggedly and gave Biggs an unfelt grin. "I'd better be getting home. Uncle Owen – he wants me in before powerdown."
"Yeah," Biggs nodded. "Right, okay. Well, uh…" He trailed to an awkward silence.
Luke lowered his head, tucking his thumbs into the waistline of his pants, stiff with heat and sand and sweat. The fabric that had been rough enough to begin with, and hadn't improved with years of wear. Sand was beginning to seep over the toe of his boot, pushed by the wind. He kicked it away. "Well," he said, not looking up, "well, take care, Biggs. Fly straight, you know? Don't forget me out there." He gave Biggs a sharp nod, then turned on his heel and headed for his speeder, the vehicle sprawled languid in the sand like a half-lame bantha. He walked quickly, because his eyes hurt and his throat was burning and this wasn't fair. He didn't know what to feel. Biggs was his best friend and he deserved this even if his father had bought him his way in, but that meant Luke was going to be stuck here alone—stuck on this nothing planet doing nothing while Biggs was out there learning to fly between the stars.
A hand fell on his shoulder before he reached his speeder. "Not so fast," Biggs said behind him. "One last race? For old time's sake." The hand tightened for a moment. "Can't leave without beating you one more time."
Luke turned his head, eyeing Biggs. The dying suns caught his face and made him look different, older, someone Luke didn't know anymore; but then Biggs grinned, and he was the same friendly, cocky, sometimes-arrogant boy Luke had known forever.
Luke let his lips curve. "Beat me?" he repeated. "I don't think so."
"Yeah? You gonna prove it?"
"You bet I am."
"What, standing there? I doubt it."
"Come on, then!"
"You'll be eating sand—!"
They were scrambling into respective landspeeders, there was the rattle of Luke's ignition and the deeper thrum of Biggs' newer model, and sand sprayed everywhere as they took off. Farmers swore and marketholders glared as they sped down Anchorhead's narrow streets, around and through and between banthas and droids and people.
Then they were out in the desert flats, under wide blue skies, and it was all right again. It wouldn't be the same, maybe, but it would be all right.
Luke watched the stars that night, lying alone on the sand long after his aunt and uncle thought he'd gone to bed. The stars were clean and cold and clear in the black sky, glittering like tiny jewels scattered from an unwary hand, close in the desert night but always just beyond reach.
They'd always said they'd be the best pilots in the galaxy, he and Biggs. Because everyone else on Tatooine was bound to the ground, stuck in the dirt, but they – they were shooting stars. Wind in their hair, in their blood. They'd visit every system. See all the sights. Never come back to hot, dry, narrow endless Tatooine, with its heavy horizons and stifling, smothering air.
"Clear skies, Biggs," Luke said aloud, softly. "The stars'll be ours someday. We'll touch them all, and we'll be the best in the galaxy. I know we will."
I know I'll make it.
A shooting star fell, or maybe it was a ship coming in to land. Luke stood and shook off the clinging sand, then went inside.
It would be an early start tomorrow.
fin