Title: Ghost of the Past
Author: Spirit White
Summary: Luke Skywalker died at thirteen years of age. Abruptly, the threads of the future were torn to pieces and remade, and Leia Organa and Lord Darth Vader must deal with the consequences.
A/N: Revised Tuesday, May 8th, 2007.

Prologue

With breathless excitement, Luke Skywalker, thirteen standard years old – finally! – scrambled into the cockpit of his brand new T-16 Skyhopper. His eyes were impossibly wide as he ran his awed hands over the immaculate controls. Well, perhaps not so immaculate – with an irritated frown, he brushed off the sand that had settled across the throttle. Sand gets into everything, he lamented, but he was far too energized to think of it for any more than a second. In fact, he thought he just might combust any minute from the sheer excitement.

Outside, standing in the bright glare of two suns in the blue Tatooine's sky, stood the tall figures of his Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen, who had gifted him with the Skyhopper for his thirteenth life-day. With a broad, brilliant smile at the pair of them, Luke gripped the controls and started the engines, gasping a delighted breath as they rumbled strongly to life beneath them. He bounced a bit in his seat, unable to sit still.

The engines whined as the little hopper slowly lifted from its perched position into the air, rotating slowly. With a firm Uncle Owen directing from the ground, Luke slowly made himself familiar with the presence of the Skyhopper around him – the strength of the small engines, the smoothness of its flight pattern, the responsiveness of the brand new, perfectly made controls. Almost an hour later, after several signals from Owen to land, Luke finally let the Skyhopper settle onto the ground, the engines making flurries in the ripples of sand. Leaping out with a delighted cry, Luke flung his arms around his Uncle, babbling a hundred words a minute.

"Did you see, did you?" He giggled, eyes sparkling. "How smooth it was – the controls were great…" On and on he went, until he was too out-of-breath to speak anymore. Owen and Beru smiled at his excitement, and Uncle Owen even ruffled his hair as he tugged his nephew towards the homestead dome, despite protests that he had to check the hopper and make sure nothing was damaged in the test flight.

He glowed with a mixture of joy and excitement all through dinner and getting ready for bed. He didn't think he'd be able to sleep that night, not with a brand new Skyhopper in the sunken yard. He was right, for two hours later he was still tossing and turning, heart thumping every time he thought of his brand new hopper. Finally, unable to stop himself, he sat up in bed and began to pull on his whites. Just a quick check couldn't hurt, right? Just to make sure nothing was wrong, check for Sandpeople out to steal and such.

It wouldn't take long, he thought. Just a quick look and back to bed. No real reason to take a warming nighttime coat even. With that assurance, Luke quietly made his way towards the door of the dome, easing it gently open. In the moonlight, the Skyhopper gleamed silver instead of gray, settled like an ungainly sky predator on the sand. Grinning, Luke darted across the sand to run his hands over the wings and cockpit, feeling his heart pound. It was beautiful, and more importantly, it was his! No way could Biggs beat him now…not even with his own Skyhopper. Luke would practice until he could take the Stone Needle at full throttle. What would Biggs have to say about that!

He took a deep breath of the cold Tatooine night air. Over on the horizon, Tatoo 1 was already sending a slight glow over the sands, despite the early hour. Because Tatooine had two suns, the days were always much longer than the nights, with daylight coming with Tatoo 1 and falling with the setting of Tatoo 2. For a moment, Luke simply looked at the pale blue glow before glancing back at the Skyhopper.

Could it really hurt? He wondered, staring contemplatively. After all, he knew all the controls, and he wouldn't do much. Just a quick jaunt around the farm, nothing dangerous…he knew what he was doing.

Mind made up, Luke climbed into the cockpit, readying the controls and starting the simple start-up sequence. Obediently, the engines rumbled to life, and he joyfully lifted the Skyhopper off the ground.

He looped gently around the homestead, careful to watch the rising of the sun and being sure he kept out of sound range of the dome. With a sigh of pure bliss, Luke sat back and began to enjoy the ride. Mentally, he pointed at each control and recited what they did, feeling satisfied when he managed each one without fault. He looped higher and tighter, feeling a dizzying jolt of excitement as he did so. He coiled tighter, almost a spiral into the sky.

He could see the stars…a brilliant backdrop of pinpricks of light against the velvet blackness of space. He imagined that he was flying a starship, out among those stars, seeing all of them in person, learning everything he could about all the planets…

With a jolt, he realized suddenly that he was very high…higher than he was comfortable with, truthfully. His homestead was a tiny white spot below him, and the suns looked different from this height. Suddenly uneasy, Luke began a downward loop, letting the Skyhopper drift downwards towards the farm. The hopper was steady, even if Luke's heart was hammering uncomfortably in his chest. He took a deep breath, his mind flashing to the homestead far below, where, hopefully, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were still obliviously asleep in their beds. His mind was far away from the controls, but his hands operated them without his conscious thought, so when the hopper vibrated ominously, Luke didn't notice. It wouldn't have mattered if he had.

Because the next second, the engines died.

It could have been anything. An irresponsible tech, bored with his station, taking a shortcut with the building process of one of the essential operating parts. Sand invading and clogging the engines themselves. A freak accident. Destiny. Whatever the cause, whatever the reason, Luke didn't know, and didn't have time to care, as the T-16 Skyhopper, Luke Skywalker's pride and joy, seemed to hover, immobile, in the air for one starkly endless moment.

Then, with a heavy, slow realization, Luke simply watched the ground rush towards him at an astonishing rate, his stomach in his throat, his heart and lungs constricted painfully. He wasn't even able to utter a sound, and so it was with dead silence that Luke Skywalker, finally thirteen years old, hit the dusty, sandy earth in almost the middle of his aunt and uncle's sunken courtyard, just as Tatoo 1 cleared the horizon, spreading its bloody light across the sands.

He didn't die instantly, which surprised him, really. He lasted long enough to realize what had happened, and feel the horrible agony of his twisted body within the equally twisted remains of his prized Skyhopper, and have the dull, slow realization that he was dying, and there was nothing he – or anyone else– could do to stop it.

He had only a single, drawn-out moment in which he saw his uncle charging through the dome's door, his face twisted into horrified, anguished disbelief, before he blinked once, twice, three times, and forgot to open his eyes once more.

A moment later he was standing upright, looking at his empty Tatooine whites crumpled in the twisted metal and plastisteel of his brand new, absolutely trashed T-16 Skyhopper.