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This is a work of original fan fiction based on characters and situations created by George Lucas and copyrighted to Lucasfilm, Ltd.. The intent of this work is for the entertainment of fans of the middle trilogy of the Star Wars saga, and is not intended to garner payment in any form. This work may be copied, linked, or re-posted as long as this disclaimer accompanies any such action and the author is notified in writing. Comments are welcomed, as long as they are civilised. Please do not respond with viruses, profanity, or any other destructive correspondence.
STAR WARS: In a Field of Waste
by: Lynne Freels
www. westies.com
Cold.
The word hung in his mind long after his frozen lips ceased to enunciate it. With his mind's voice, Luke Skywalker repeated the word like a mantra that would grant him privileged respite from the terrible fate that watched his slowing steps with infinite patience.
Through snow bleached vision, Luke was peripherally aware of the flutter of flaps of dead skin along his right cheek where the Wampa's claws had ripped through him. Blood from the vicious wounds had already dried and caked in the frigid temperature.
No longer able to feel pain in his numbed face, the young Commander was less and less able to fight off the sleep that whispered seductively for him to follow. Unable to co-ordinate his straining muscles into further forward movement, he collapsed into the glacier's icy embrace. Drained to brittle fragility, he succumbed to suffocating feelings of abandonment. Closing his eyes, he waited.
'What a stupid way to die,' he thought. Luke had always imagined his death as glorious, firing all his X-Wing's laser cannons at once, taking as many of the enemy with him as his weapons could track.
But not like this; a speck of nothing in an endless white sea. He wished he'd died with Biggs over the Death Star.
'Gods, Biggs! We were suppose to be unstoppable! Remember?!' Luke's mind shouted at the recollected image of his best-friend's cocky, grinning, face.
'Why did you have to die? I still need you.'
Only the low tones of the chilled wind answered as it cooed to him, pacifying his agitation, and finally lulling him into sleep ...
... "Wind storm's coming," Biggs announced as he pointed East at the rapidly swirling dingy cloud.
The younger of the two boys whipped out his binox, adjusted a few settings, and watched the gale snake its way across the barren desert. After a moment's analysis, Luke pronounced, "We can outrun this one, easy!"
Without waiting for his friend, he ran to his new landspeeder and jumped into the driver's seat. Biggs casually sauntered over to the speeder and leaned on the frame, waiting until he got Luke's attention. It didn't take very long. Incredulous at the other's indifferent attitude, Luke blurted, "What are you standing around for? A royal invitation? Come on, get in!"
"Not with you driving. Remember, as your driving instructor, I'm suppose to take over in emergencies."
"What?! I'm not moving!"
Biggs grinned out of the corner of his mouth, and continued to wait. Although Luke appeared defiant, staring straight ahead, arms crossed in front of his chest, Biggs knew he'd give in. Their previous, unsuccessful, race against a storm had frightened the boy. Luke would never admit it, though. In that, unfortunately, he mimicked his Uncle Owen.
Tears were not allowed in that dust pan of a household. It was a sign of weakness, and therefore, something to be discouraged and disapproved of. Despite Luke's incessant complaints about his uncle, he still craved the old man's approval; not that Owen was the type to ever give compliments or encouragement. That, too, was indicative of weakness. Approval seemed to be granted when the weathered farmer did not complain about Luke's performance, and those times were rare and precious indeed.
Although the winds perpetually howled along the baked planetary surface, the dust storms seemed not to have a pattern to them. They touched down in sporadic fits to wreak havoc with machinery and disrupt the routine of the locals' lives, then, disappeared in a matter of minutes.
If this storm maintained its present course, Luke knew he'd be spending the next few weeks cleaning out sand particles from the moisture vaporators. He might as well have a bit of fun with the tempest if it planned to cause him that much trouble.
He wanted to do this. He needed to do this, or else he'd spend the rest of his life cowering, and then he'd never get into the Academy.
Biggs observed a subtle shift in his friend, whose arms unlaced and reached slowly for the wheel. Whatever the risks, Biggs realised that Luke needed to test himself in preparation for weathering the storms that swelled before him.
Despite Luke's sun-bleached hair and sky-blue eyes, there was a darkness that never left his features. It swirled in obsidian depths that the older boy dared not descend into, for fear of never resurfacing. It was there where Luke would have to fight his worst battles. And win. Biggs wasn't sure he wanted to be around when that darkness oozed up from whatever abyss it came from.
Warily, he climbed into the passenger's seat and firmly locked his restraints in place. He glanced at the driver's side restraints that dangled loosely on the backside of the seat. The driver coolly met his gaze, as Biggs looked up to mutely pose the obvious question. There was to be no reasoning with Luke today. Apparently, everything had to exist exactly as it had three months ago, when they last tried to outrun a storm.
They had spotted it near the Jundland Wastes just before the larger of the two suns sunk below the horizon. They had been running storms for a couple of years, always with Biggs driving his landspeeder, and Luke laughing contiguously beside him.
This was always a secret operation, though. If they were ever caught, they'd probably be banned from driving anything for life. To Luke, being trapped on that farm, with no means of escape, was the worst punishment he could think of. As far as Owen knew, Luke was at the furthest end of the farm, repairing one of the ageing, chronically breaking, vaporators. Provided they were home just before both suns set, Owen would never find out.
This run was going to be different. Against Biggs' better judgement, he'd been talked into letting his fifteen-and-three-quarters years old friend do the driving.
Luke had never been this excited before. From driving landspeeders, he would progress to piloting gully-jumpers, then transports, and then to the biggest prize of all: piloting a Tie-Fighter. He knew he was Tie material. He would be part of the most exclusive and respected division of the Imperial Star Force; and he would be the best pilot they ever had.
The pilot-to-be held a finger that trembled slightly over the interface switch. Idling the speeder in a set-position, Luke glanced over his shoulder at the approaching storm.
A gleam of something metal caught his eye. "Someone's there!" He cried out.
Biggs squinted, but couldn't see anyone. It was probably a scrap of some pulverised machine that the winds were tossing about, and told Luke to concentrate on the jump point or they'd end up pulverised as well.
"No!" Luke protested. "There is someone there! I know it!"
As if magically conjured to add validity to Luke's assertion, a bright ball of flame lit up the spot where his stare was anchored. A second later, the grey-brown swirls morphed into an unstable infusion of colours.
"It's one of those crazy squall artists!" Biggs had to shout to be heard over the rising clamour of the onrushing torrent. "Looks like something went wrong!"
Instantly, Luke jerked the speeder around and headed straight for the storm. Before Biggs could recover enough from the shock of their suicidal course change, they had come to a jarring halt barely meters in front of the dust funnel's base. Luke leaped out, and ran to the injured artist.
"Luke! There's no time! We'll be killed!" But Biggs' words were scattered by the wind. Cursing, he jumped out of the speeder and helped to drag the badly burnt victim back.
Biggs wondered later if he hadn't hesitated, perhaps the woman would have lived. As it was, they only managed to lift her into the back of the speeder before the full force of the storm smashed into them.
It flicked the craft end over end, tossing everything in and around it in a mindless cataclysm. He'd lost sight of Luke almost immediately as it yanked them inside. Some piece of something tore into Biggs' left shoulder, while particles of colour shimmered around him. It would have been beautiful to watch, had he been far away.
Biggs appealed to every trickster of fate he'd heard of to let him get out of this alive. It seemed to work, because in the next instant, he was mashed into the ground as the storm expelled him and sped away.
Spitting out dirt and trying to wipe grit from his eyes, Biggs stumbled about calling for Luke. A weakened, shaking, voice answered from the other side of the upturned speeder. Biggs found his friend laying face-down, his arm crushed under the weight of the vehicle. Distressed, he asked Luke if he was in pain ...
... 'Only my right hand.' The cold brought him to.
Lifting his head Luke dragged his comlink closer to his mouth. "Echo Three to Echo Base. This is Skywa--" His voice cracked and dissolved.
He shuttered, and felt a curious warmth begin to creep through him from his extremities. He was going into hypothermic shock ...
... The medic had removed the cast from Luke's hand the week before his sixteenth birthday. The used landspeeder had been a gift from his aunt and uncle, as if they were trying to make up for the constant lack of money; money that would have otherwise paid for fusion repair. That procedure would have healed the injury within days; instead, the boy had to wear a bulky hunk of plaster for weeks. He'd also had to endure Fixer's ridicule when he'd gone to Tosche Station to be with his friends. He hadn't been back since.
Taking a deep breath, Luke looked over his shoulder, gauging the speed and distance of the approaching storm. Beside him, Biggs stared at nothing, while quietly tightening his grip on the side panel loop. Peripherally, he saw Luke stiffen, and fleetingly wondered if he'd frozen in fright.
With a startlingly fast reaction, Luke flipped the interface on line. With a jolt that slammed them back against their seats, the speeder took off across the desert sea; the sound of laughter taunting the lagging dust cloud behind them ...
... "Luke."
The sound of the softly spoken word aroused him this time. With great effort, he lifted his head and was greeted by an hallucination.
"Ben?"
This couldn't be. He saw his mentor die on the Death Star, ruthlessly murdered by Darth Vader. That vile name always invoked an explosive, murderous, rage; but, until the object of his revenge was obliterated by his own hands, his anger was empty. For now, though, he was too tired to care.
"You must go to the Dagobah System," the hallucination instructed.
Dagobah System? Now Luke was sure he was delirious.
"There you will learn from Yoda, the Jedi Master who instructed me."
Weakened by the attack, by exposure to extreme cold, and by shock, Luke blinked in confusion at the bizarre apparition. All he could think of was that if this thing could help him, he wanted to live.
Frantic with desperation, he appealed to the fading form. "Ben!"
The freezing wind constricted his throat. 'Help me!' He finished silently.
The apparition appeared unmoved by the struggle, as if the concerns of linear planes of existence were inconsequential to the grave consequences within obscure myriads of an indefinable continuum. Saying nothing more, it vanished in a spiralling flurry of snow. Luke's consciousness seemed to melt at the same instant, sinking back, lifeless, into the drift ...
... The low moans of Hoth's night wind were echoed by the agitated frame that shivered and tossed within the ineffective refuge of an emergency shelter. A gloved hand pressed down firmly on the young man's chest, trying to hold him relatively still.
"Just relax will ya, Luke?" Han Solo knew the injured Rebel was beyond the ability to hear, but it sure beat talking to himself.
Han reached around with his other, bare, hand and injected a tranquilliser into an exposed band of skin on Luke's neck. Within seconds, the thrashing stopped, and he tucked the thermal blanket protectively under the Kid's chin.
If Threepio were here, he'd probably be spouting the odds of surviving this little adventure, which Han knew were pretty bad. You didn't need to be a perpetually prattling piece of hardware to figure that out.
The old smuggler glanced down at his friend's inert body. Now there was a term rarely used in his vocabulary. He'd only had one other friend that he could think of, and sometimes he didn't know why Chewbacca still stuck with him, Life Debt or not. Sure, he'd had customers and business associates, but never someone he actually liked being with; that he'd play a game of sabacc with just for fun -- no money, ships, reputations, or shady motivations in the bid.
Other than Leia, Luke was the only one who wasn't intimidated by Han's seven foot co-pilot. That, in itself, was amazing for two people of such short stature.
While he still had to figure Leia out, Luke was the kid he wished he'd been given the chance to be. Damned if he'd let some scrap-brained snowman take that away.
Removing his glove again, Han fished around in the medical kit for the tube of salve, squeezing some of the solidifying goo onto a finger. Gingerly, he traced the claw marks along Luke's cheek. "Looks painful."
In a bare whisper, the Kid commented, "Only on the right side."
The relief that washed through the older man was enough to make him forget his own hardship. They'd make it.
They were both too stubborn not to.
the end
STAR WARS: In a Field of Waste, © 1998 by Lynne Freels
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