And now all the fun plot starts...

Chapter 2

Luke awoke the following morning unnaturally early in hopes of capturing the wayward droid that had taken off the previous evening. If the little machine was still in one piece, that is. He could not believe that the droid had run away. How could he have been so stupid to take its restraining bolt off? He never would have thought that a droid would actually escape. It was a droid after all.

His footfalls were near silent as he entered the kitchen and greeted his aunt who was busily preparing breakfast. "Where are you off to at such an early hour?" she asked, placing a soft kiss to the crown of his head and a glass of blue milk before him.

Luke drank half the glass in a single gulp before responding. "I uh…wanted to get those new droids out in the fields as soon as possible. I know Uncle Owen was anxious to get them started." He held his breath, hoping that his aunt would accept the simple lie and not press the issue further. Aunt Beru had an uncanny ability to know when he was lying, even about the smallest of things. Thankfully today she seemed to accept his answer and turned back to her food. Luke devoured his breakfast in a few quick bites and stood from the table. "I'm heading out, tell Uncle I'll be back before lunch." He didn't wait for her reply before rushing out to the garage. He needed to find that little droid before his uncle found out or there'd be hell to pay.

"Where are you going?"

Luke whirled around, nearly dropping the goggles from his grip, to find Kasya leaning against the garage wall, arms crossed over her chest in that impish sort of way. "What are you going up so early? I thought you'd be sleeping in since you don't have school today."

"I think my internal chrono is set to wake me up at the crack of dawn every morning no matter what," Kasya smiled. "That doesn't answer my question though. Where are you headed so early?"

Luke swallowed the lump in his throat; if there was one person who was a better lie detector than his aunt it was Kasya. "I'm taking the droids into Anchorhead to have their memories wiped like Uncle Owen asked."

Kasya looked around the small garage. "I thought there were two droids," she said, taping her chin with a single finger. "I only see one."

Luke thought frantically for a moment, trying to come up with a plausible excuse as to why he was missing a droid. He could come up with nothing. "Fine," he sighed, "I lost one of the droids and now I have to go find it."

There was a short pause before Kasya started giggling. "I told you not to take its restraining bolt off."

"Yeah, yeah," Luke huffed. "Cover for me while I go find it?" he asked hopefully, plastering a huge grin on his face.

"I wanna come with you."

Luke sighed, "Kasy…"

"C'mon Luke," she teased. "I don't have school today and I really don't want to hang around here." She saw her cousin's façade cracking and decided to go for the kill shot. Her bottom lip jutted out, quivering just slightly, and her eyes took on the look of a baby Kushiban—all wide eyed and innocent. "Please?"

Luke sighed and dropped his shoulders in defeat. He was powerless against that look, always had been. "Fine. Let's go."

They set out from the Lars homestead, heading west on a bearing provided by a scan Threepio had done earlier. He had checked the surrounding areas with his optical sensors and picked up a tiny blip heading away from them. Luke assumed it was their stray R2 unit and immediately gave pursuit.

The next few hours were a blur as the speeder flew across the Dune Sea toward the signal that Threepio assured them was R2D2. They finally managed to find the little droid near the Jundland Wastes still raving about his mission.

And that's when the Sandpeople decided to join the party.

When Luke came to, the bright ball of Tatoo One was almost directly overhead, its partner not far behind. How long have I been out? He wondered idly before his sense of self-preservation came to and he struggled to his feet.

"Hey. Calm down, Luke."

Turning his head slowly with aching muscles, Luke blinked rapidly. "Kasy? What happened?"

"Sand people," she explained. "They knocked you out and nearly took apart Threepio before Ben chased them off."

"Ben?" Kasya nodded and motioned over Luke's shoulder, allowing him to sit up further and turn to their other company. "Ben Kenobi."

"At your service, young Luke." The older man was crouching next to the deactivated protocol droid clutching one metal arm in his hand. "I see you've survived your first encounter with the Sandpeople."

"Hardly my first." He climbed to his feet, grimacing as a stab of pain shot up his back, and dusted his clothes off. "Though I've never been quite so close to them before."

"For that you can be thankful," Ben said. "You two are an awfully long way from home. What brings you out here?"

"This little droid," Luke said, nodding his head toward R2D2 who had rolled from the shadows. "He says he's the property of an Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I have no idea who he's talking about. I thought maybe you'd know him."

The old hermit stroked at his white beard. "Obi-Wan? Obi-Wan…now that's a name I've not heard in some time."

"So you know him?" Kasya asked.

"Oh course I know him. He's me," Ben confessed. "But I don't remember owning any droids." Before the older man could speak further, a baritone yell echoed through the canyon. "We must get inside, quickly. The Sandpeople are easily startled, but they'll soon return and in greater numbers."

Ben Kenobi's home was a short ride away and once inside, Luke set to work on reattaching Threepio's severed arm. Kasya watched him for a few moments, then took her leave to explore the home. The building itself was small and the furnishings were modest but well cared for. A small bedroom with attached refresher sat off from the main room, as well as a kitchenette and what appeared to be a small workshop of sorts. There were a handful of tools and mechanical pieces scattered across a makeshift table where it looked as though Kenobi was putting something together. Or at least trying to. Eventually she worked her way back to the main room…

…only to find her cousin holding a strange, glowing weapon.

"Whoa," Kasya gasped. "What is that?"

"It's a lightsaber," Ben explained. "This is the weapon of a Jedi. Not as clumsy or as random as a blaster, this was a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age."

She watched Luke swing the weapon back and forth a few times, the hue of the weapon changing subtly with each pass. Kasya was mesmerized by the color as well as the subtle hum it emitted. "Can I see it?"

Luke depressed a small button on the side and the glowing blade disappeared. "It's not a toy, Kasy."

"I know it's not a toy," she rolled her eyes. "I just wanted to look at it." Luke sighed and reluctantly handed the weapon over to his cousin. Kasya took the silver handle and examined the intricacies of it, from the shape of the handle to the weight of it. It was much too large for her hand and would probably make an awkward weapon for someone as small as her. She'd much rather have a blaster any day.

"Why would my father have this?" Luke asked accepting the weapon back. "He was a navigator on a spice freighter."

"That's just what your uncle told you. He never wanted you to know the truth…for your protection of course. Your father was a Jedi."

'Wait…Luke's father was a Jedi?' Kasya wondered. She watched her cousin ignite the saber again and test the sword with a few random passes. 'No wonder mom and dad never wanted to talk about it. They were probably afraid someone would find out and take him away.' She couldn't help but wonder what other family secrets had been buried beneath the sand. She would have to ask her parents about it later.

"Alderaan? I can't go to Alderaan."

Suddenly Kasya's attention was pulled back to the conversation at hand. "Who's going to Alderaan?"

"The woman in the message," Luke began explaining, "wants Obi-Wan to come to Alderaan to help her father. He wants me to accompany him."

"You can't just pick up and go to Alderaan. What about the farm?"

"I know, Kas." He turned back to Obi-Wan and gave him a stiff smile. "I can take you as far as Anchorhead. You can get a transport there to Mos Eisley or wherever you need to go."

Obi-Wan smiled sadly, he had expected this answer. "You must do what you feel is right, of course."

He had agreed to take Obi-Wan to Anchorhead, but Luke knew he was pushing it. He would be in trouble as it was when his uncle got ahold of him. He'd have to work twice as hard to get his daily chores done. Stupid droids…

Ahead of the speeder, a dark figure loomed on the horizon. It started small, but as the speeder approached, it grew larger and larger until it was easily four times higher and longer than the speeder itself. They were a hundred meters out when Luke realized what it was.

"It's a sandcrawler," he said. The hulking machine stood as still as a statue in the middle of the desert. Luke expected to see a group of Jawas milling around the bottom, but there was nothing. The scene was eerily quiet and very unnerving. As they approached the downed crawler, Luke finally understood why there was no one around. The hull of the giant vehicle was marred with blaster marks, most concentrated on a specific area but with a few scattered elsewhere.

And around the bottom of the sandcrawler lay a dozen dead Jawas, their little bodies covered by their dark robes, faces still hidden out of sight.

Luke looked over the sandcrawler, dormant as a sleeping animal. "It must have been the Sandpeople, but I've never heard of them hitting anything this big."

"They didn't, but we are meant to this they did. These blast marks are too precise for Sandpeople. Only Imperial storm troopers are so precise," Ben pointed out.

"Why would storm troopers want to slaughter Jawas?" Luke wondered aloud. His eyes dance around the scene before finally settling on the two droids. A sickening realization dawned on him like a rock falling to the pit of his stomach. "If they traced the droids here then they may have led them to whoever bought them."

"Which would lead them…" Kasya joined in.

"Back home." He was off in the blink of an eye, racing across the sand and jumping into his speeder.

Kasya took off after him, but her shorter legs were no match for him. "Luke, wait!" She watched him speed away in the direction of home, her teeth gnawing at her bottom lip as a sense of nervous anticipation settled over her.

He stood there for what felt like hours just staring at the smoking building and the charred remains of his aunt and uncle. He just couldn't believe they were actually gone. He'd just spoken to his aunt no more than two hours ago and now…now she was gone. Killed...murdered at the hands of the Empire. But Luke didn't have time to mourn, especially when he thought of Kasya. Her parents were gone, stolen from her long before they should have been. She would be devastated.

With one final glance at the smoldering remains of his previous life, Luke Skywalker turned and left. The bleak terrain of Tatooine flew past him in a blur while Luke piloted the speeder with half his mind. The other half was busy trying to find a way to tell his cousin that her parents were dead and then figure out where they would go from there. He knew what he wanted to do; he wanted to go with Ben to Alderaan, but he couldn't really drag Kasya along. Could he? Maybe the Darklighters could take her in?

It took him nearly an hour to get back to the spot where he had left Kasya and the droids with Ben Kenobi, but his whirling thoughts made the trip literally fly by. The second his speeder came to a stop Kasya was beside him, worry etched on her young face. Her hazel eyes met his, boring deep into his soul. She seemed to read him like a datapad, her shoulders slumping and beginning to shake as she realized what he wasn't telling her.

"I'm sorry, Kasy," he whispered, wrapping his arms around her shaking shoulders and pulling her near.

Kasya allowed herself to be pulled against Luke's body, though she barely felt the comforting warmth of the contact. Her body had gone numb as if hit by a stun blast. Her parents were gone, just like that. She would never see them again. Her legs gave out on her then, but Luke caught her, sliding his arm beneath her knees and carrying her into the shade of the sandcrawler. He sat down on the sand and cradled the girl in his lap letting her cry into his tunic.

"I'm so sorry," he repeated, knowing his words could do little but having nothing else to offer.

"H-how could they d-do this?" she cried, her voice muffled against his chest.

Luke's features hardened. "I don't know, but I promise you they will pay." His eyes lifted from the sand and met the sad eyes of Ben Kenobi across the way. "I will make them pay," he repeated sternly.

Ben kept his distance letting Luke comfort young Kasya, but he watched them with a trained eye. There was no blood between them, they weren't kin in the tradition definition of the word, and yet they were closer than many family members. He'd watched them for years, since that fateful day that he delivered Luke, then an infant barely a few days old, to his new guardians. He'd watched them grow closer over the years and develop a relationship that was closer to siblings than cousins. Ben hadn't counted on bringing another innocent life into this crazy war, but he didn't have much of a choice now. A gentle prodding of the Force reassured him that this was indeed still the correct path for all involved.

Eventually Kasya's sobs relented, leaving her with the occasional sniffle and hiccup. "What do we do now?" she asked her voice so soft it could barely be heard.

"I don't know," Luke admitted. "I'll need to talk with the Darklighters and see if you can stay with them before I—"

"No."

His eyes snapped downward but instead of seeing the top of a blonde head, blue eyes met hazel ones. What he saw there was a hard determination that rang of her parents. "I'm staying with you."

Luke sighed. "Kasy, you can't—"

"Yes I can," she argued. "Mom and dad are…they're gone. There's no reason for me to stay here anymore and I really don't want to stay with the Darklighters. They're nice people but I don't want to be that close to home. To know that they were…that they were murdered so close, I just don't want to be here anymore. You're the only family I have left. Where you go, I go."

Luke studied the girl in his arms that had always been like a younger sister to him. Suddenly she didn't look so young. "Are you sure? It's not going to be easy, you know."

She nodded sternly. "If you can do it, so can I."

Reluctantly Luke tore his eyes away from Kasya and looked at Ben, his eyes pleading for guidance of some sort. Ben had to mentally shield himself from the waves of pain and despair rolling off the children before him. He didn't like the thought of involving the young girl in what was sure to be an unpleasant experience, but the Force was telling him that this was meant to be and he needed to listen. With a deep sigh, he nodded his head.

"Come, Mos Eisley awaits us."