Before the suns were over the horizon, Ben and I were on the trail. We had a quick breakfast of java and greens and I went out to the corral and saddled up two of the eopies. Ben seldom rode, preferring to walk, but there was a chance that he would change his mind or we might get into a situation where a spare mount would be needed. A man never knew what the future would hold. Once the mounts were saddled, I went and got my Remchester and a Tusken cycler that we kept as a spare. The cycler I slid into the saddle scabbard, while my own was slung over my shoulder for easy use. I checked the power packs in my rifle and pistol, finding both fully charged, and I whetted the edge of my knife in my old whetstone to make sure it was good and sharp. There was no need, really. That knife was always razor sharp and could cut through flesh and bone like they were butter.

My clothing was specially chosen to blend into the desert landscape as much as possible. My shirt was a light maroon color, by trousers and leggings were both a neutral color that was almost identical to that of the sands, and my vest I now wore was of a light brown that would match the rocks of the Jundland Wastes. The only metal I wore was my belt buckle, and I had allowed it to tarnish just enough so that it would not shine.

Ben met me outside the house, still dressed in his traditional robes and his cloak. I offered him the cycler rifle, but he refused and went in favor of just his lightsaber. He was dangerous enough with just that. We talked out our plan for the day and within five minutes we were on the trail and heading toward the place where we believed the Tuskens would be camped. Ben would take the main bantha trail to the west and come up toward the Tuskens from the south, while I would swing north and come down on them from the north by way of an ancient trail that few knew and even fewer traveled. It was a narrow trail that was only followed by the occasional herd of wild eopies that went back and forth between water holes and kept to the wild back country to stay away from the predators and the Tusken hunters.

The coolness of the morning was refreshing and invigorating and I loved the feeling of the brisk air in my lungs and the cool shadows of the shaded canyon as I rode. I had always loved the cool feeling that the desert offered in the morning before the suns came up and beat down in all their fury. The desert truly was a beautiful and majestic land, but it was hard to appreciate it when a man was sweating to death and being baked in the suns. Even the deep canyons where we had made our home was like an oven when midday came around, even though it was in shade for most of the day until the noon zenith when the twin suns were directly overhead.

I followed the eopie trail into North Pass, then switched to a smaller trail that led from Bandit's Hole, where the raiders and thieves usually hid out from what little law there was in the Outer Rim Territories. It was a natural fortress that sat on top of a tall butte and could only be reached by a narrow trail where only one or two men could ride abreast at a time. One good man with a rifle could hold off an army from the escarpment and could hold the place until the stars fell from the sky, for there was a small trickle of natural water that flowed from a small crack in the rock. The Hole had been largely abandoned the last few years, but there were sometimes one or two wayward souls who took refuge there from time to time.

The trail I followed narrowed down to only a few feet wide and turned into a small canyon that ran for several miles before eventually joining up with Beggar's Canyon twenty miles to the northwest. My eopie took to the trail with ease and eagerness, for he was once a wild animal and had grown up in this country and knew the trails better than any man could. I eased up n the reins and let him have his head as he went down the canyon and picked his way along on the hardest ground where we would leave no tracks. I followed the canyon for about a mile before swinging west again and down another canyon that eventually went down and fed into the open desert. The trail led down the edge of a sheer cliff that fell away for hundreds of feet where one stirrup hung over nothing but air. I followed the trail down from the cliffs and into a small valley where some ancient river had once flowed from the mountains and fed into a larger river, both long gone and dry as a bone for untold centuries. It wasn't much of a valley, no more than a mile or so across and not more than two miles wide at its widest point, but there was a spring in the bottom and there was some game in the hills.

I found the remains of a camp in the bottom of the old riverbed, a likely place where I had camped myself several times. The banks were high and offered both shelter and concealment from prying eyes and a good reflector for the heat of a fire. I hunted around and the remains of two large fires, each with the tracks of six or seven men and the places where they had spread their bedrolls out for the night. Nearby I found the tracks of several banthas and four large piles of dung where they had been tied and waited for their masters to move out. The oldest pile was dry and hard, probably from the day before, while the newest was still steaming and couldn't have been dropped more than two hours before. There were tracks of about a dozen men and in the sand and after rooting around I found the bones of an eopie that had been their evening meal.

Following the trail of the party another half mile, I came to a place where the canyons split apart with one going to the west and another curving down to the south. Here the party split into two groups of six men each, with one group consisting mostly of young warriors and the other of more experienced men. I drew that conclusion from the fact that one group had only two banthas in it, meaning that only two warriors were old enough to have a bantha of their own. Generally, a Tusken warrior was given his own bantha at the age of eighteen and would keep it until death.

Now I had a problem on my hands. Which party would I pursue? Ben and I had planned to meet up with the main party and just keep an eye on them, but now that they had split up that would mean that one of us would have to face one of those parties alone. Obviously these men were out for raiding, but where would they go? There weren't many farms around, for Tuskens had a particular hatred for moisture farmers, and the nearest settlement of any size was the outskirts of Mos Espa and that was at least a hundred miles from here. There were isolated Jawa villages where they traded in scrap and droids and there were sometimes Sandcrawlers in these canyons that would be looking for droids and anything that they could salvage. Sand People didn't normally bother with Jawas that much, but loot was loot and if these were young warriors out for glory then they would probably grab whatever they could find.

I sat my saddle and considered the situation. Ben was somewhere to the south and was coming up the trail toward what he thought was a larger group of Tuskens, but now that group had splintered and any group he spotted would only be part of the whole. I wasn't worried about him running into the smaller group. No young sprout on his first raid had a chance against an old warrior like Ben, or even six of them of the place was right, but that other party could swing around to rejoin the first and set an ambush for Ben or anyone else who might be coming down the trail. Tuskens were masters of the ambush and it was their preferred method of attack whenever possible. Old Ben was the best fighter I had ever seen when it came to up close and personal work, but no man could stop a bullet from three hundred yards. He would be cut down without a chance and no one would be the wiser.

Considering the options, I decided to pursue the western group. I put heels to my eopie and swung my rifle around to ride with it in hand and ready for use. The trail was easy enough to follow. A bantha leaves a damn large track and there were six in this group, all riding single file in the usual habit of Sand People. They preferred to ride in single file to attempt to hide their numbers, although that didn't always work. A good tracker could still tell the difference. I rode at a fast pace now, not bothering to stop and study the tracks. They were plain enough and easy to follow in the loose sand and soft earth. I would catch up to them soon enough. A bantha is a good animal and loyal to a fault but I had never seen one that was all that fast. An eopie could easily outpace one even over a long distance. I let my mount have his head and pointed him down the trail of the Tuskens and let him eat up the miles.

I left the canyons behind and went into the rocky country at the edge of the Wastes. High rocky ridges rose on every side and the faraway sand hills of the Dune Sea showed in the gaps between the high shelves of black and red rock. By now the suns were up in full force and the day became hot and sweat trickled down my face and neck. Salt stung my eyes and I tasted it on my lips. my clothes were light and meant to shed heat, but nothing could get rid of all of the desert's fury. Heat waves shimmered across the horizon and the trail ahead of me almost seemed to dance and waver across my vision. That wasn't good. A hidden marksman could be anywhere in the labyrinth of rocks and crags and the heat waves would make it that much harder to spot him before he got a shot at me. My rifle grew hot in my hands and I wiped my palms on my vest every few minutes. At any moment I expected the feel the bite of a bullet or hear the war cry of a Tusken up in the hills.

I don't know what it was that warned me. A flash of light on a gun barrel, some small movement that didn't register on more than an instinctive level, or maybe it was the sixth sense that a man develops from living in the wilds. Whatever it was, it was just in time. My head jerked to one side and I felt something sting my neck, then I felt the whiff of the bullet as it passed by me and at the same instant I heard the crack of the gunshot somewhere up the canyon. Reflexively my went to my neck and the swift movement threw me off balance and out of the saddle. I felt the pain of a wound and saw the ground rising to meet me, and as I hit the sand I heard another shot on the heels of the first and the angry whine of another bullet striking stone and careening off into space.

I hit the ground hard, but I laid still and did not move. Somehow they had caught me in a moment of daydreaming and gotten a shot at me as I rode. It could happen to anyone, I guess. The men that had shot at me were probably up there on some ledge right now, looking down at me in the sand and wondering if they had done the job right. I had fallen from the saddle just as the bullet had hit me, for I was almost certain that I was hit, so it had probably appeared that I had been picked clean out of the saddle. I lay there on the hot sand, my face burning, and I did not dare to move a muscle. They were watching for that, watching for some small sign that I was alive, and at the first such sign they would certainly pump more lead into me to finish me off. An experienced fighter would have shot into me after I was down to make sure that I was a goner, so I guessed that these were probably two of the younger warriors in the party. Two? There had to be at least two, for no cycler rifle could be reloaded as fast as those two shots had been fired. There might be more but I knew that there were at least two shooters up there.

My eopie walked about a dozen feet before he stopped, finally realizing that his rider was no longer on his back. He turned to face me, staring down at my body in the sand but not seeming to really mind at all that I was down. My rifle was on the ground near where I had fallen. When I left the saddle it had slipped from my hand. My right hand was under my body and within a few inches of my pistol. The safety strap was still in place, but it would come off easy enough. Slowly and carefully I inched my fingers closer to the blaster until I felt the edge of the ivory butt under my fingertips. I worked my fingers to keep them from going numb, took a shallow breath and let it out gently so as not to stir up any dust or sand, and I waited.

My eopie took a couple wandering steps toward me, but stopped and turned to look at something up the canyon. A slight rise in the trail blocked my view of that direction so that all I could see was my mount and the tops of the cliffs. Something had drawn his attention. Eopies are naturally curious animals and are drawn to any strange movement. Someone was coming down from those ridges. Those two Tuskens coming down to collect trophies. An eye or an ear, something to carry back to the village to brag about to the women and the other warriors. They were on their way down, and they thought that I was dead.

Minutes passed with no sound but that of my eopie grunting and sniffing at the parched earth in search of some water. Mentally I tried to estimate the time it would take for those men to get down to this level. Five minutes? Ten minutes? Maybe less than that. They might still be watching, but they might not be. I chanced a movement and slid my hand down to the butt of my pistol. My fingers found the ivory stocks and grasped around it, my trigger finger sliding into the trigger guard and finding the trigger. I eased my position a little and took some weight off my gun hand. The other was still splayed out in front of me where it had fallen. My eyes scanned my line of sight for anything that might betray the position of my enemies. My mount was still ambling around near me, picking around in the sand and snorting every few seconds, not paying attention to anything. Minutes passed slowly by and the sun climbed higher in the sky, scorching the sand and heating the canyon to an unbearable temperature, but I still didn't dare to move.

My eopie scratched at the sand and snorted up a little cloud of dust a few feet from my face, but then all of a sudden his head came up and looked back toward the ridge again. This time he grunted and snorted, as if he was annoyed. They were close. I started to hear footsteps now, then as they came closer I could hear them talking in their own tongue. I spoke a little Tusken, but the dialect these two were using was different from the ones that I was used to. I could pick out a few words and muddle my way through their conversation. They were saying something about an old man and a kid that the others were tracking and a blue droid that they had seen. They said that the others would have fun with the droid and wished they could be there to loot the kid's speeder, but they would settle for my hands to show off.

Their footsteps came closer and their talk became louder, so that I could even hear them laughing about the women they would get when they came back with my gear and their trophies. My eopie snorted again, not liking the look or the smell of them, and took a couple steps back toward me. I laid perfectly still and clenched my hand around the stock of my DL-44. They came into view, two men of equal height dressed in tribal robes and wearing their distinctive face wrappings. They were indeed younger men, joking and laughing at each other's jokes . . . . and with their weapons out of action. One walked with his rifle in one hand and his knife in the other, while the other had his rifle slung and was walking with his gaffi stick held low. He started for the eopie, his hand held out for the reins and talking in a calming tone, while his friend came toward me with that knife. He came closer, closer, and closer still, until finally he was almost on me. His friend reached for the reins and my eopie bellowed loudly.

The two of them were momentarily distracted by the noise, and at that moment I rolled over and drew my pistol in the same movement. The one with the knife looked down at me again and started toward me, and I shot him in the throat just as he was about to let out a war cry. The bolt hit him in the neck and let out a shower of sparks and flame, his war cry was cut short and he grabbed his throat and fell to the ground. His friend let go of the reins and grabbed for his rifle. I shifted targets and shot twice into his chest. He went back two steps and dropped his cycler rifle and as he went back I got to my feet and ran for my eopie. I scooped up my rifle as I ran by and jumped into the saddle. The one I'd shot in the chest started to come at me again, but I shot him again as I rode by and dropped him with a bolt to the head.

He didn't move, neither did the other, and after a moment I holstered my blaster and started down the trail again. My face was hot and my skin felt burned by the sand and the sun, but it was no worse than I had had in the past. I put heels to my eopie and put him into a full gallop. He sped down the trail at a good clip and I scanned the ridges and cliffs for any more ambushers, rifle in hand. Those two back there had been talking of their friends ambushing Ben and the strange kid and his droids just down the trail, somewhere close by the sound of their talk. If they were close, then they would have heard those shots. They might have even heard my blaster shots as well. Blasters are quieter than guns, but in these rocky hills and canyons sound could carry for miles.

The sun was beating down mercilessly by now and I could feel sweat wetting the front of my shirt as I rode. Salt stung my eyes and I tasted it on my lips, and somewhere on my scalp I felt it stinging a cut that I must have gotten from my fall. I wanted to check it to see how bad it was but there was no time. I had to get to that ambush and either stop it or at least interrupt it as best as I could. I found the tracks of the banthas a half mile from my own ambush, all carrying riders and all traveling in single file. The sand had just started to drift over the tracks, so they were fresh. They couldn't be more than an hour or two old. On a windy day like this and in sand this loose tracks would never last much longer than that.

I followed the tracks into a shallow valley that sloped down between two high ridgelines to the west and east. Two ancient, dry creek beds cut through the desert and were bordered by high black rocks that were both red hot and razor sharp. Wind and sand often shaped the ancient basalt rocks like these over the eons into edges sharp enough to slice clean through a finger or a hand if it brushed against it just right. I'd seen men lose fingers and ruin boots and trousers that way. The bottoms of the old streams were filled with deep drift sand that would swallow man and mount both, so I kept to the rocky edges and tried to keep to the most shaded places. The rocks were like ovens and in the close air of the valley it was even hotter than it had been on the plateau. The valley itself was maybe three miles long by a mile wide and rimmed by saw-toothed spines of black basalt rock that looked like hell with the fires out. The tracks became indefinite divots in the sand as it became thicker and looser, and after following them for another ten minutes I saw the banthas.

They were all there, all four of them, and they were being watched by a single man. The other three were somewhere up in the rocks and probably setting up the ambush I was seeking to disrupt. I slipped into the deeper of the creek beds and left my eopie in the most shaded and out of sight place I could find. I tied him to a dry stand of desert scrub and went on, my rifle ready in my hands, toward where the banthas were being held. The man holding them was going from one to the other, speaking softly to them and feeding them some kind of grain that he carried in a sack at his belt. His rifle was in the crook of his arm and he had a big curved knife and a gaffi stick at his back. He hadn't seen me yet, and I crept closer to him, keeping behind the cover of the rocks and going in a low crouching walk that would have kept me out of his line of sight. I kept the banthas and the rocks between me and him as much as I could and picked my way along slowly and carefully until I was within a dozen yards of him. He still hadn't seen me and his back was to me. I started to lift my rifle, but then thought better of it. A shot now would only bring the rest of his raiding party down on me. This would have to be quiet and quick.

I slung my rifle over my shoulder and slid my knife from its sheath. It was a good knife, that one, made from alloy steel and honed to a razor's edge that would cut through flesh and bone with ease. It had an eight-inch blade that was straight and double-edged, thick enough and strong enough to be used for just about any purpose. I held it low and ready, then with a quick burst of speed I darted across the space between me and the guard. He must have heard my footsteps, for he started to turn and I saw his hand close around the stock of his cycler. I came on him just as he was turning and with one quick movement I put a hand over his hooded mouth and thrust up and between the ribs with my knife, raising a grunt and a stifled scream from him as I withdrew and struck again. He tried to bite at my hand, but his face wrappings kept his teeth in check. I sank the blade in to the hilt and felt the warm flow of blood over the handle. His body jerked and convulsed involuntarily, but then he went limp in my arms and then he was dead.

His body fell back and I caught him in my arms, drug him over to a shallow place near the creek bed, and once he was hidden there I took his cycler and his ammo belt. I stuck my knife into the sand, to cleanse it of blood, then sheathed it. A quick check of the cycler found it loaded and ready to fire. Like most Tusken guns, it was old and rusty and not in the best repair, but it was still a good gun and when I looked at the stock I found six notches cut into the wood. I slung it over my shoulder and started up the path to the high ridges, my own rifle held ready.

The path was narrow and faint, probably an old eopie or dewback trail, and it climbed up and through the rocky spine of the ridge in the usual twisting and curving way that such trails often do. The animals that made these trails always followed the easiest ways and went by the lay of the land rather than the fastest ways the way that men did. The rocks seemed to radiate heat of their own and felt like ovens when I put a hand to them. I avoided the sharpest rocks and was careful of my footing, knowing that even one wrong step could betray my position. A loose stone, and patch of hard dirt scratching under my boot, any sound could mean death. In some places there were great boulders of basalt or sandstone that had tumbled down from the higher hills in some bygone age and now blocked or skirted the paths, and behind any one of them there could be a Tusken waiting for me. With careful steps I made my way up the ridge to the cliffs that overlooked the valley, where I was sure that I would find the Tuskens.

I stopped and looked down at the valley below and thought that I saw a tiny dot coming down one of the many paths and trails that crisscrossed the valley floor. It wasn't a man, not tall enough, and he didn't seem to be walking but rather looked like he was rolling. I got out my binoculars and zoomed in on the form. Sure enough, it was an R2 unit with a blue and white paint job. What the hell would a droid be doing way out here? Is that the one that those two back yonder had been talking about? A droid this far out was guaranteed to either be picked up by Jawas or smashed by Tuskens unless its master was around to look out for it. Maybe his master was coming for him, which might be the kid that the two Tuskens had talked of ambushing. If the droid was here, then the kid couldn't be far behind. That droid was about five hundred yards off and closing fast. I didn't have much time.

A sound from the ledge above me froze me in position and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I had stopped to watch the droid under an overhang of rock that offered some shade from the suns, forming a little ledge that rose maybe seven feet from the path and ran for about a dozen yards before the path wound up and around the edge of it to the top of the ridgeline. Someone was on top of that ledge, not more than two feet above me, and they were talking about that droid. A boot scraped at the rock and send sifted over the edge, falling in a little stream right in front of my face. The first voice spoke again, this time to someone else up there with him, and he was commenting on the droid coming up the valley. I understood what they were saying and didn't like it:

" . . . . coming up fast. The owner?"

"In a speeder with another droid. Ja'Lai saw them with his seeing machine. They'll be here soon."

"And the old man?"

"We lost him in the canyons. The others are coming up from the southeast to cut him off. We'll have him soon enough."

"Who is the young one who comes for the droid?"

"The Skywalker boy from the Lars farm. He's no threat."

Luke? Since when did he come to the Jundland Wastes? I'd met Luke Skywalker a few times over the years, always when Ben and I went to trade in Mos Eisley or at his uncle's farm, and he was no kind of fighter. He was a decent shot with a cycler and a first-rate bush pilot, the kind that would be better served flying a cruiser in space than running around the deserts of this backwater planet, but I knew that he would stand no chance against a battle-hardened Tusken warrior in any kind of a fight. If they caught him, they would kill him. Why would be come into this place alone just to get a droid back?

I held perfectly still until I heard the men's steps moving down the ledge toward a better position, then went up the path and all but crawled around the bend and up onto the crest of the ridge where they were waiting. In the distance I heard an odd sound coming from the open desert. A speeder coming up fast. I ducked behind a large boulder and looked through the binocs again, seeing the dot of a speeder with a tall dust cloud behind it moving through the shimmering heat waves. It was hard to judge just how far away it was, but it couldn't have been more than a mile or two. They would be here in mere moments at the speed it was going, and I knew it had to be Luke. I crept around the boulder and, crouched low and ready for anything, I made my way to the ledge again. I saw them there, both of the warriors that I had heard talking, laying prone at the rock's edge with their guns leveled at the valley floor. In another minute or two they would have Luke dead to rights. There was no question in my mind that they might miss, for Tuskens were known to put a bullet into a podracer going three hundred miles an hour. That distant speeder was coming closer now, and the droid was within two hundred yards of the ridgeline.

"Howdy, boys."

I said it conversationally, almost pleasantly, like I was saying hello on the street, but the reaction they gave me was anything but friendly. One came to his feet and started to turn his gun on me, while the other rolled over and went to his knees as he spun around. I had my rifle at hip level and when I saw that gun coming up I just shifted it and squeezed the trigger. The distance was less than twenty feet and there was no need to aim. I just pointed that Remchester like I would point a finger and I saw the yellow bolt slam into the Tusken's chest just before he dropped his gun and fell back and over the cliff. The other got to his feet and started at me, swinging his gun like a club. There was no time to work the charging handle on my Remchester, so I stepped back and ducked away from the swing. He missed me by a hair and was thrown off balance by the impetus of the swing, and in the second it took him to recover I stepped in and hit him hard in the gut with the butt of my rifle. He grunted and went back a step and I followed him in, bringing the heavy barrel up and into his throat before swinging the gun up again in a vicious butt strike. I heard bone crack under the thick face wrappings and he fell to the ground limp. He wasn't dead, but he was out cold for sure.

Any other man in my position would have put a bolt in his head right then, and I certainly thought about it, but I wasn't about to kill a good fighting man while he was helpless. Had he risen up and come at me again I would have killed him, but for now he was no threat to me. He would live to fight another day. I took his weapons and tossed them over the ledge, then tied his hands and feet with some rough cordage I found on him. It would take him hours to get out of those knots once he came to. Just for good measure, I tied an old handkerchief around his mouth to keep him from shouting for help.

The speeder came into the valley and easily overtook the little droid. A tall blonde guy dressed in white farmer's clothes hopped out, followed a second later by a golden protocol droid with a twitchy way of moving that reminding me of an old man. They went up to the droid and were speaking harshly to it, completely unaware of how close they had just come to dying. I sat on the rocky ledge and worked the charging lever on the Remchester, uneasy. Where was the third man, that Ja'Lai that the others had been talking about? Was he up here among the rocks like the others had been? Was he somewhere down in the valley, keeping a lookout? He had to be somewhere, and wherever he was he was a threat to us all. That other group would be coming up soon and they would be down in that valley, if they weren't already.

A scuff on the rock behind me caught my attention and immediately I spun around and went to one knee, rifle up, but I lowered it a second later. It was Old Ben. He still wore his brown robes and came up to me with a finger to his lips and at a signal from him I followed him to the southern tip of the ridgeline. From there we could look down into a shallow canyon and see a small dust cloud, such as would be made by at least two banthas.

"You see it there?"

"I see it, Ben. Is it them?"

"Yes. I've been following them for some time. Did you have trouble?"

"A little. An ambush a few miles back. That Skywalker kid is down there with two of his droids."

"Luke? Why would be he so far out here?"

"I don't know, but if we don't get to him before long he'll be dead meat. There's still one more up here someplace. We need to find him."

"Alright. You stay up here and see what you can do. I'm going back down."

"What if that other war party catches you?"

"Don't worry about that. I have a plan."

With that, we parted ways. Ben slipped back down whatever hidden path had brought him up, fading into the desert like a ghost on the wind. It always amazed me the way that he could slip away into the desert with no sound or sign at all. He barely even left any tracks. Once he was gone, I went back to where I had tied up the Tusken. He was still there and was still unconscious. I picked my way through the jumble of jagged rocks and boulders until I found another path that led down the length of the ridgeline.

The rocky spine on which I sat was one of the two that bordered this little valley, running its entire length and rising to a height of a thousand feet or more above the desert below. There were escarpments and rocky ledges that offered excellent views of the valley below, but most of them were too exposed for me to use. That Ja'Lai was out there somewhere, and he would know by now that his friends were either dead or out of action. He would have heard that blaster shot, even if Luke and his droid friend hadn't, and he would be hunting me. Sweat stung my eyes as I laid among the rocks and searched every possible hiding place, every crack and cranny where a man could hide from view. Tuskens were experts at staying hidden, absolute masters of desert warfare, and staying one step ahead of them was an art in itself. I had lived and fought among them all my life and I knew most of their tricks but they were always a secretive sort that were reluctant to give away all of their secrets. He was here somewhere, hidden among these very blazing rocks, and he would kill me if he saw me. My gun grew warm in my hands and the suns beat down mercilessly. Heat waves danced among the boulders, the wind whistled and moaned over the desert flats down below, and at the trailhead one of the banthas called out into the desert.

The minutes ticked by like hours. How long had it been since Ben left? Five minutes? Ten? It couldn't have been ten, but certainly more than five. I crouched among the huge black rocks, trying not to touch them for the heat, my eyes searching for even the smallest movement. The Tusken I had tied was still where I had left him, still tied and still unconscious. From my position I could see him there on the ledge. I had hoped that his friend would go down and try to untie him or maybe come down and give him a warrior's death, as was their way when a comrade was about to be captured, but so far the trap hadn't worked. This Ja'Lai was a smart one. He knew that that man would be watched and that coming to help him would mean death, and so he stayed hidden in the rocks. Nothing would bring him out of there, either. This was an ancient, deadly game we were playing here, and it was a game at which I was much practiced. It was the game of the desert, a game of patience and skill, a game of death. I sat in the rocks squatted on my heels, just as my adversary was somewhere nearby, and I knew that neither of us would be in a hurry to expose himself to the other's fire. The first to move was the first die in this sort of game. A man as only allowed one mistake in this kind of struggle and most of the time he would never know he had made it before he was gone from this world.

Sitting there among the dark boulders, my eyes ever searching, I found myself marveling at the sheer beauty of the scene. It's amazing how a place as barren as the desert could be so beautiful, so bewitching in its sheer wildness and danger. It was a place where death and struggle were the status quo and where all life in any form revolved around the death of another. Nothing in the desert survives without struggle. Every plant had thorns, many of them deathly poisonous, every animal had horns or teeth or claws with which to fight or to kill, every water hole was hidden and naturally protected. Even the lowly eopie had its large pads and hard, hoof-like toes that could easily smash bone to bits when enough force was put into the blow. Every animal was adapted to this land and they all had their own unique way of surviving. The banthas had their fur that collected dew and any other ambient moisture and absorbed it through the skin, the eopies had their long snouts that could burrow into the sand in search of water, the dewbacks had their massive water bladders that would store the water they drank so that they could go for days or even weeks without a drink.

Just as the animals had learned to live with the desert, so had the Sand People. For untold eons they had lived in the harsh, inhospitable wastes of Tatooine, longer than anyone dared to imagine. When the first settlers came more than two thousand years ago, they were here. When the oldest surveys of the system had been made in the first days of the Republic, nearly ten thousand years ago, they were here. I had seen petro glyphs in caves and under sheltered cliffs that were hundreds of thousands of years old, seen the ancient ruins of cities and villages so old that they had been forgotten even by the Sand People themselves. For thousands of generations they had lived here, never fighting the desert but living with it and with the animals that called it home. No man could fight the desert and hope to win. The desert, like the Sand People and the stones in which I sat, was timeless. It had seen the rise and fall of empires, seen whole species come and go like the drifting sands, and yet it always it stood eternal. Its game of life and death played itself out millions upon millions of times, the bones of billions of men and beasts filled the sands and the stones and the sediments below our feet, and when all workings of man were just so much dust on the wind and man himself was a distant memory the desert would still be there just as it always had been.

The bantha called again down in the valley, answered a moment later by a second. The second group of Tuskens was here, then. Had Ben found them? Were Luke and his droids all right? I moved on cat feet and slipped between two jumbles of boulders where I wasn't likely to be seen unless from above. There was still no sign of Ja'Lai. Was he even still up here? I dismissed the thought even as it entered my mind. He was still here. I would have seen or heard him if he had gone down into the valley and I knew his kind too well to think that he would give up so easily. He wanted me and my weapons, my loot, the prestige that my head would bring him, an revenge for those friends of his that I had killed. He wanted Luke and the droids, but he wanted me more.

I picked my way carefully through the rocks, crouched low and moving slowly and carefully. My legs were burning from the exertion of crouching so long. The Remchester was growing heavy in my hands and my shirt and vest were wet with sweat. I smelled of stale sweat and dust, my mouth was suddenly dry, and my eyes hurt from staring into the bright sunlight. I started to move again when a strange sound froze me in place. It was a scream, a strange scream like no other I had ever heard before. It was high-pitched and was one of pure fear and terror, almost like the scream of an animal that had been taken down by some predator and was in the throes of death. A second later it was joined by the distinctive war cry of a Tusken and the dull clanking of metal on stone. I stiffened and instinctively spun around at the sound of the scream, and it was all that saved my life.

A war cry sound above me and I felt something hit me hard across the back even as a large weight came down on top of me and knocked me off balance. The blow knocked me sprawling and I hit the ground rolling, swinging onto my knees and spinning on my heel. My shoulder was tingling and there was a pain shooting through me. I spun around and saw the form of a Tusken rising up in front of me. He had a gaffi stick in his hands with a distinctive bone head made from the ball of a dewback femur, and there was blood on the sharp flanges that had been carved into it.

He came at me just as I spun around, bellowing out his war cry and swinging his gaffi stick in swirling patterns meant to distract and to build impetus for another blow. I saw the shaft of the bone coming down and I blocked it with my rifle, pushing the staff back and away from me and lashing out with the barrel. He ducked the under the blow and my barrel hit his shoulder and glanced off. He brought the other end of the gaffi stick up at my groin and I saw in horror that it had been fashioned into a kind of spiked mace with one long, sharp spike in the center that could easily pierce my femoral artery. I sidestepped and hit hard at his strong arm, the butt of my rifle connecting with his wrist. I heard something crack and he grunted under his face wrappings, but he didn't let go of his weapon and he rushed at me like a crazed bantha bull. He hit me with his shoulder and shoved me into the rocks, slamming me into the hot stone and knocking my gun from my grasp.

He moved fast, incredibly fast, and before I could even think about it he hit me hard in the side with the head of his gaffi stick and smashed me in the face with the shaft. I felt a stabbing pain in my side and the warm flow of blood on my lips, then saw him winding up for another swing. I shot a hard right jab into his cheek, feeling the jaw under the wrappings give way under my fist. He went back a step and I hit him with a left swing to the guts and another jab to the face. He went back another step under the force of the blows, but he quickly recovered and swung up with the gaffi stick as I came in for another punch. I saw it coming up too late and took the hit on the chin. My head snapped back and he hit me again with the and stick and knocked my head into the rock wall, then came in close smashed it into the rock wall twice more. Stars exploded in my brain and the world swam in a haze of pain and dizzy fog.

Something rough and coarse latched onto my throat and I felt myself being lifted free of the sandstone, my feet dangling beneath me, and suddenly I was fighting for every breath and clawing at the thing that was cutting off my windpipe. As my head cleared a second later I came to the horrible realization that I was being choked and that he Tusken's gaffi stick was under my chin, the rough and dry desert bark of the shaft scraping at the skin of my throat and blocking my every breath. I grabbed at the shaft of the weapon and tried to pull it down and away from my neck, but the Tusken was an uncommonly strong man and he held strong to his weapon and kept me suspended just a few inches off the ground. I felt myself getting lightheaded and the world became hazy again. I clawed again at his hands and at the gaffi stick but by now my limbs were becoming weaker and again my attacks were ineffective.

My left hand went to my side and felt for my knife, grasping the leather-wrapped haft and sliding it from the sheath before stabbing down hard at the Tusken's leg. I felt the blade sink deep and heard him let out a muffled scream of pain, felt the warm flow of blood over my hand, then withdrew the blade and stabbed down hard again, then again. This time I felt the blade go deep and stop against something solid. I tried to pull it out again and found that it wouldn't budge and I knew that it was lodged in his femur and had probably severed an artery. His grip loosened and I fell to my knees on the hard sandstone, burning my hands as they touched the hot stone and gasping for air in great heaving gulps. The stabbing pain in my side hit me harder with every breath and my throat was raw and bleeding from a dozen tiny scratches. I probably had a broken rib or two and maybe a couple more than were bruised.

I heard the Tusken behind me, groaning and grunting as he struggled to pull the knife free from his leg bone. I got my breath and managed to get to my feet. He saw me rising and his hand dropped for his belt. I followed his hand and for the first time I saw the butt of an old blaster pistol stuck behind his belt and held in a crude leather scabbard. His hand wrapped around the faded, beaten grips of the blaster and at the same instant I felt my DL-44 jump in my hand and saw the red bolt tear into his chest in a shower of sparks and flame. I had no memory of drawing the gun, but that was of no consequence. I took a step toward him and shot into him again, then again, until finally he fall back against the rock wall and slid to the sand in a burned, bloody heap. His chest was black and smoldering and his hand still grasped the pistol. I knelt down beside him and checked his vitals, finding him dead.

I all but collapsed down beside him, heaving for breath for several minutes before I got my bearings again. My throat was raw and sore from the violent attack and my lungs were burning with the effort of fighting off the attack and recovering the air I had lost. My head was still swimming, my side felt like a spear had been buried in it, and when I put a hand to my lips I found that they were smashed to a pulp. I had some loose teeth and my mouth was bloody. I finally came to myself again and holstered my pistol, then gathered up the Tusken's belongings. The pistol he carried was old and in poor repair, probably without even enough charge for a shot or two, so I tossed it away. His rifle was empty on his back and I found that he had no more ammunition for it, then took his gaffi stick and broke it over a large basalt boulder. It was only then that I remembered the cycler I'd been carrying on my own back and got it out to check on it. The barrel was broken off where the gaffi stick had hit it and the action itself was smashed beyond repair. It hadn't been a very fine gun to begin with, but it had been a decent gun that had more than likely saved my life. I'd seen men's skull split clean in two by a gaffi stick and the hit that he had given me probably would have broken my shoulder or my back if it had hit me full force I would have been a dead man and by now he would have my fingers on his necklace and he would be somewhere on the rim with a rifle pointed down at Ben and that Skywalker boy.

The Skywalker boy? It was then that I remembered the scream that had distracted me just before the Tusken came down on me. It had been like no other scream I had ever heard, either from man or beast, and it had come from down in the valley. I grabbed up my Remchester and made my way down to the edge of the rim and looked down into the valley, seeing two banthas and a guard moving toward the place where Luke's speeder was parked. The two banthas were being led by a Tusken trailing the reins to the two large animals, while two others were dragging something up to the speeder. I put the Remchester to my shoulder and zoomed in with the scope, seeing that the something they were dragging was Luke Skywalker. He didn't seem to be dead but he was certainly unconscious. They dragged him a few yards away from the speeder and dropped him in the sand, then the three of them commenced to looting the speeder.

A Tusken's life was a hard one a bitter one that was lived with few luxuries to speak of. To an average man the little gear and loot that could be found in a farm boy's speeder wouldn't even be worth the effort of looking through it, but to a Tusken there could be things there that would be priceless in trade or in some useful way around camp. Cycler ammunition, food, tools, water rations, spare clothing, parts, whatever odds and ends there might be that a farmer or a scavenger needed for his everyday work, all would be valuable to a Tusken in his own village. The speeder itself wouldn't be of much use to them in and of itself, but it could be taken apart and traded for parts or scrap of the scrap itself could be used to make weapons, tools, shields or to repair their hide lodges back at camp.

Luke wasn't moving when I looked back at him. I couldn't tell of he was dead or not, nor could I see the droids that had been with him. For his sake, I hoped that he was dead. If those devils took him back to their camp alive then he would be a long, long time in dying and his death would be anything but pleasant. There were stories of what the Sand People did to their captives and although I had lived with them and traded with them all my life I could not remember a single time when I had actually seen them do away with a prisoner. I'd heard the screams and seen the bodies afterward, or what was left of the bodies, and I had heard the warriors bragging about what they would do to the next round of captures. As I said, the life of a Tusken was a hard and dangerous one that and one that required only the strongest and the bravest to live it. A man had to be tough and brave to live their kind of life, so the only qualities that were respected by the Sand People were strength, bravery, and courage in the face of pain and torture. A man that held out against the pain was respected and given a warrior's death, while a man who screamed and begged for his life was tortured to death as a coward.

I took a bead on the two Tuskens that had brought him up and slowly took up slack on the trigger, knowing that they were at the very edge of my range but still pumped from the fight with the dead man a few minutes ago. I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, took in another and exhaled slowly again, held the reticle of the sight on one of the men's head, then started to squeeze the trigger slowly and gently.

A shrill, high-pitched wail from just up the valley stopped me. It was different from the scream I had heard earlier, fiercer and with more power behind it than fright, and this one was more familiar than the first. It was the distinctive roar of a krayt dragon. The Tuskens near the speeder immediately froze in position and all lifted their weapons, searching for the source of the cry. A krayt dragon was nothing to trifle with and one of the many creatures of the desert that were to be respected and feared above all others. A male krayt dragon could be as long as thirty feet and stand three meters tall at the shoulder and could easily kill and eat two or three banthas or dewbacks with little effort. Killing one was a rite of passage for the greatest warriors and hunters of the Tusken tribes and a challenge beyond compare to the best hunters and adventurers of the non-native settlers. The call came again and a dark figure came out of one of the many small canyons that fed into the valley and the three Tuskens scattered and ran or their banthas. Another moment and they were running at full speed down the trail to the head of the valley and out of harm's way.

Only the figure that was coming down that little canyon was no krayt dragon. I took my finger off the trigger and relaxed, seeing Old Ben in his hooded cloak coming over to where Luke lay in the sand. He knelt over the boy and spoke into the rocks at someone out of view, then the same little blue and silver astromech droid came hobbling out of the shelter of the rocks and the boulders. A smart droid, that one. No one knew better how to dismantle a droid in just a few minutes flat than a young Tusken, unless it was a Jawa. The kid came to and he and Ben spoke for a minute or two before I heard the distant call of a horn and the bellow of a bantha. They Tuskens were calling for reinforcements and were preparing to make another move on the speeder and the droids. They were probably expecting their friends to come running, the very friends that lay dead on this ridge, but it wouldn't take long for these hills to be overrun with raiding parties. If the tribes were on the warpath, then I was certain that these would not be the only groups on the move.

Ben helped the kid to his feet and they started for the rocks again, evidently looking for something, and Ben held up a hand and gave me the signal for "return". Over the years we had worked out a system of hand gestures and signals for communicating silently and across distances that made shouting dangerous. I saw the signal and whistled the call of a wild eopie, then got to my feet and started back down the trail. I passed the dead Tusken in the narrow path and the body of the sniper on the ledge, and as I went by I saw the man that I had tied moving around and trying to scoot over toward his friend's corpse. Looking for a weapon, no doubt. He stiffened when he saw me and I kept him covered with my rifle as I came over.

Any other man would have killed him right then and there, and the old voice in the back of my head warned me to finish him off as he lay there wriggling in the sand, but at the same time I felt a respect for this man that made me lower my weapon. He was a tough man and a good fighter and right now he was laying there helpless in the sand and no more threat to me than the banthas at the bottom of the hill. His hands were tied and he was gagged, and somehow in his crawling for the body of his fallen comrade his goggles and face wrappings had come loose so that his face and eyes were exposed. I looked into those eyes of his and saw the old fire that was in every fighting man, the inborn need to fight, to kill, to survive in any way possible, but there was no hate there. He looked into the black muzzle of my rifle and I saw the expectance of death come over him, the readiness to meet the end that any warrior must have, and in that moment I saw him as an equal. An enemy, yes, but a good man and one that I could respect.

"I'm letting you go, friend," I said to him, "but don't think that this is over. You're too good a fighting man to go out this way. I'm sparing you for today, but if I ever see you on the other end of my rifle again then I'll kill you deader than the Jedi Order. You understand?"

He didn't say anything, but he nodded in response. I stepped over him and tossed him the knife from his dead friend's belt, then went on down the trail to where I had left their banthas and my eopie. The animals were all still there, just as I had left them, and in a moment I was in the saddle and heading home. I gave the banthas a good slap on the rump and a few shouts of encouragement to get them started down the canyons so that they would scatter, and riding in their tracks I made my way down the canyons toward the house before leaving them a half mile up and starting back for Ben's cabin.

The trip back took less time, seeing as I no longer had to follow the Tuskens' route and could follow whichever trail I wanted. I went down the hidden trails that followed the old routes used by the wild herds and the occasional Tusken hunter or traveler. The suns were starting to wane in the sky and I pushed my mount hard, stopping only once to water my eopie and to tend to the wound in my side. A closer inspection showed that there were no broken ribs, but there was one that was certainly cracked and two more that felt bruised. The skin was dark and swollen by the time I stopped for a brief rest. I took a swallow from my canteen and wet my handkerchief, wrung some water out into my eopie's mouth, and used what was left to bathe the bruised skin. It was tender and sore, but the cool water felt good and the swelling was starting to go down. There was a cut on my head from the fight with the Tusken and my throat was ragged and raw, but those were superficial.

It was almost dark when I got back to the house. The suns were sinking below the far hills and the air was already getting cooler. It felt good on the stale sweat that clung to my shirt and clothes, and I knew that both me and my mount were happy to be home. I put my eopie in the corral and forked some feed for him, filled his water trough, and then with my rifle in the crook of my arm I started for the house. There was a light on and I could smell food cooking, and I saw the speeder sitting outside in the yard. I went inside and hung up my rifle and my saddlebags on the pegs that hung on the wall for the purpose. I was just about to start toward my room when Ben came out of the kitchen. He was dressed in his usual robes and had a towel over his shoulder.

"I was wondering when you would get back. You look like you had some trouble."

He pointed at the hand on my ribs and indicated the way that I was favoring my bad side.

"Just a tad. Not nearly as much as you would've had if hadn't got to them first."

"I can only imagine. Dinner is ready, if you're hungry, and as you may have noticed we have a houseguest. Three, actually."

I followed him into the kitchen and saw a kid in farmer's clothes sitting at the table. A golden protocol droid stood a few feet away, mixing something in a bowl on the counter, and in the far corner of the room stood a blue and silver astromech droid. I recognized them right away as the droids that I had seen earlier in the day. I sat down across the table from him and ladled up a plate full of food, suddenly realizing how hungry I was. I hadn't had anything to eat all day. The kid looked me up and down as I came in and took a seat, his eyes lingering on my pistol and knife and at the bloodstains on my shirt and vest. He didn't say anything, but I knew that he had more than a few questions.

I knew at once that this was Luke Skywalker, Owen Lars' nephew. He was a couple of years younger than me and a few inches shorter, about twenty pounds lighter, and he had the kind of sandy hair and smooth face that was always a hit with the ladies. His clothing was all white and beige tones, perfect for deflecting the rays of the harsh suns, and he had the characteristic tan of a moisture farmer. He picked at his food, obviously troubled about something. I, on the other hand, didn't have that problem. Within half an hour I had put away two plates of meat and greens, four cups of java, and a dozen of the sourdough biscuits that Ben was famous for. He said that he got the recipe from an old friend of his who ran a restaurant on Coruscant. Wherever he got it, they were the best damn biscuits that I've ever had.

"Aden, Luke here has come with some very interesting news. It seems that I am needed elsewhere and that some very old friends of mine are in need of my help. These two droids were sent to bring me back. I haven't seen them in many years, although only one of them probably remembers me, and they have brought some very disturbing news."

"What kind of news?"

"My little friend over there, R2-D2, has been given a set of plans for the Empire's latest weapon. These plans are vital to the survival of the Rebellion and must be delivered to the senator from Alderaan. His is an old friend of mine and he has been a great supporter of the Rebellion since the Empire came to power. They have been fighting against the Emperor and his ilk for years, but they have never faced a threat like this before. I must make sure that these plans are safely delivered."

"Wait a minute, the Rebellion and the Empire? As in the Galactic Empire? What does all of this have to do with us? If this is such an important mission, then why would they trust it to a droid and a farm boy? No offense, Luke, but you're not exactly a commando."

Luke started to say something to that, but Ben's lifted hand stopped him. The astro droid chirped and beeped in the corner, obviously taking offense, and the golden droid said something harsh to it and slapped it on the dome.

"There was a mission sent to find me," Ben said, "but they were ambushed by the Empire and their ship was destroyed. These two droids were the only ones to make it off the vessel and onto the planet. At the last minute, the senator sent to retrieve me entrusted the plans to R2 and sent him to find me and complete the mission. I assure you that this is very real, Aden, and that the repercussions of this are enormous. I've seen plans like these before, many years ago during the Clone Wars, and it is nothing to underestimate. The Geonosians tried to build one for the Seperatists, but we stopped them before they could even begin construction. Now it appears that the Empire has acquired the plans and have not only started but completed it. This is a weapon like no other, a mobile space station which contains enough internal firepower to destroy an entire planet with a single blast."

"Impossible."

"I wish you were right. I assure you, it can be done. I have stayed hidden here long enough. I believe it is time for me to return to the old Republic and finish what was started nearly twenty years ago.

"Aden, there are things about me that I have never told you before. You know that I was a Jedi knight in my youth, and that I fought in the Clone Wars, yes? What I did not tell you is that I was a general of the Republic Army and led them in many battles and campaigns against the Seperatists. I was one of the key commanders of the Republic's forces until the Emperor issued Order 66. That was the order for the clones that we commanded to turn on the Jedi and wipe us out in one fell swoop. I told you that I am the last of the Jedi, and now the Jedi are needed more than ever. The time has come for me to leave."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, my whole life was changing before my eyes. I had never known anything but Ben, this cabin, and the way of life to which I had become accustomed. Hunting the wild game, searching for minerals and precious metals, gathering and selling off the water that we found in the few natural pools and springs in the high mountains. Aside from the few years I had spent with my parents, Ben was the only family I had ever known and this house was the only home that I had ever had. In the back of my mind I had always known that the day would come when Ben would leave, or die, or that I would leave to find my own way, but I had never expected it to happen today or in such a manner as this. I sipped my java, feeling it growing cold in the cup, and across the table I could see Luke's face staring down at his plate. No wonder he had lost his appetite. If I had known all this before I sat down, I probably would have lost mine too.

Ben sat in his chair and refilled his cup, drank it, and in his usual calm and nonchalant manner he collected the plates and put them in the washbasin. There were some doughnuts in the oven, which apparently he had been baking, and put a tray of them on the table between us. Any other time I would be tearing into them like a starved dewback, but right now I couldn't find my old appetite for the sweet pastries. I sipped my java and rolled it all over in my mind over and over again, trying to wrap my head around the idea that man who had raised me in a nowhere part of an insignificant backwater planet was now being called away to stop the most powerful empire in the galaxy from building a super weapon. I never would have believed it had it been Ben who told me. Anyone else, and I would have punched them in the jaw after laughing in their lying face.

Half an hour passed with none of us saying a word. The droids left us and we all retired to the main den, taking the java and the doughnuts with us. Eventually I gave in and ate two of the doughnuts, unable to resist such a rare treat, but my heart just wasn't in it like it usually was. Finally I got up and went out to the porch. The house just seemed stuffy and close and I needed to get some air. The night was cold and clear, the stars were out in all their glory, and in the far distance I heard the howls of massifs in the hills. They were usually pack hunters, often kept as pets by the Tuskens, but somewhere out there were two lonely animals calling to each other. I stood and listened to the first one call out into the night, his lonely howl sounding so sad and lonesome in the dark desert until it was answered by his friend.

What would I do now? I knew nothing of the galaxy outside this planet, outside of what I knew. Luke would be right at home out there. He had always had these grand dreams of going off to the Imperial Academy and becoming a hotshot pilot. He was always talking about flying a fighter or a ship of his own or something of the sort. He would do alright. I knew that Ben would take him along when he left. But what about me?

The cabin was a cozy place to live. It had everything a man needed to live out his days in peace and quiet. There were always the Tuskens and the bandits, but a man would always need something to keep him strong and keep him occupied. If Ben left, then I could see him leaving this place to me. I loved the mountains and the desert and quiet, lonesome life that they offered. I could be happy here. I was happy here. This place had been my home for the last twenty years, the only home that I had ever known. But there was something that was missing, something that had been missing for twenty years.

"Aden," Ben said as he came up behind me.

"You really have to stop doing that."

"Soft steps, I suppose. It's a lot to take in, isn't it?"

"I'll say. Why didn't you ever tell me any of that stuff?"

"I told you what you needed to know. I couldn't risk you knowing too much. I had many enemies in my youth, enemies that would gladly hunt me down even this far after the fact. If you would like to come along with us, I would be happy to have you."

"No. I'm not cut out for space travel. My life is here. Besides, I have unfinished business here."

"Yes, I know. I know all about your business."

"You're going to need a transport. I know of a guy in Mos Eisley who might take you, if he's on planet. His name is Han Solo. He flies with a big Wookie named Chewbacca on an old freighter. Not much to look at, but they say it made the Kessel Run in record time and that Solo is the best smuggler around. He works for Jabba the Hutt mostly."

"Yes, most of the villains in that wretched hive of scum work for the Hutts. One of the many, many reasons I have always avoided that particular settlement. I thank you for the advice. Now, about the house and the land . . ."

"I'll take good care of the place."

"I know you will. Aden, I know you have plans. You've had them for a long time. I've tried to dissuade you from them but I know that when I am gone from here that you will go off to pursue them. I would say that I hope you would hold off on them until I came back, but I fear that I may never come back from this."

I didn't like to hear that. Ben had been the closest thing to a father that I had ever had after my own father had died. He had raised me as his own, after his own way, and almost everything I knew I had learned from him.

"I'm leaving you this place. I built it thinking that I would live out the rest of my days here. I expected to live them alone until I found you out there, half dead and alone. I helped you bury your family and I taught you the skills you needed to survive. I fear that I may have taught you too well. You have a Jedi's reflexes, although you are not quite Jedi material. You have too much hate in your heart. You do your best to hide it, but it is there nonetheless. I sense much hatred in you, Aden. Hatred for the men that took your family, hatred for those that ordered it done, and most of all hatred for yourself because you could not stop it. I know you want revenge, and rightly so, but you mustn't give in to your hate. Hatred leads only to pain and to suffering. If you give in to hate then that will lead you to the Dark Side.

"I know you don't believe in the Force, Aden, but the Force is everywhere you look. It is everywhere in everyone and everything. It surrounds us and penetrates us and it guides the course of our lives. If you give in to your hate and do what I know you want to do, then that will lead you to the Dark Side and the dark path. Once you start down the path of the dark side then it will forever dominate your destiny. Remember that, my young friend."

He put a hand on my shoulder and I felt his grip tighten in a fatherly gesture, then he turned went back inside. I was left alone with my thoughts. He was right, of course. Ever since that day back at my family's moisture farm I had been plotting and planning for the time when I would take my revenge on those that took away my mother and father. Not a night went by that I didn't see their faces, hear their screams, or see the men that had murdered them. Ben was also right about the hatred that I carried around. It had burned in my heart for as long as I could remember. It was my hate that defined me, that had made me strong, that had given me the drive to become the man that I was. And it was hatred that told me what I must do now. Ben was gone, I was free to go my own way, and tomorrow he would leave me to my vengeance. I tossed away the remains of my cold java and went to my bed. I would need a good night's sleep, for tomorrow I would go hunting.