Skywalker's Legacy, page 28
Chapter Five
The first rays of the morning twin suns had barely touched the scorched, parched land when Brenna left her brightly lit sleeping unit for the kitchen unit. Her father was already there---had been there all night, in fact. His features were drawn, his body and mind exhausted, and his eyes troubled. Corran had been fortunate, if you could call it that. His skill at bio-control had always been better than the others', and he was able to end it for himself much sooner than it would otherwise have been. Still, Owens' closeness to Corran had taken its toll.
Brenna moved mechanically, gathering plate, cup, and utensils more by habit than by motivation. "I couldn't sleep last night," she said. It was all she could think of to say.
"I know."
"I don't think I'll go to school today."
Owens didn't answer. There was a long silence. Then Brenna asked, "Are you all right, Dad? That last attack was the worst one yet."
"I'm okay."
"I wish you would tell me what they are," Brenna said. "They don't sound like anything I've ever heard of."
"Don't worry, Bren. There won't be any more."
"How do you know?"
"I just know."
Brenna pretended to be absorbed with making breakfast. Suddenly, she turned and said, "Who's 'Corran'?"
Owens looked at her sharply.
"You said his name during your attack. You said, 'Leave Corran alone!'"
Owens stood up and poured himself a cup of coffee, which he really didn't intend to drink. "Corran...was a friend of mine. He's dead now. I... must have been thinking about him when I had the attack."
Brenna pushed her plate away. "I think I will go to school today, after all," she announced. "I have a research project I need to work on..."
"Take the Artoo unit with you," was all her father said.
Brenna got a pass from her first period teacher to go to the computer library to work on her 'research project.' There were fourteen million, three hundred ninety-two thousand, four hundred and twenty-four records from five hundred and eighty-eight systems, that matched the name 'Corran.' She narrowed it down to those who had been born since seventy-five standard years ago, figuring she'd add about twenty-five years to her father's approximate birthdate, just in case this 'Corran' person had been older than her father. Then she narrowed it down to just males, since her father had also said, "Leave him alone." Matches: one million six hundred forty-two thousand, one hundred, and two. Still too many to search individually.
Brenna sighed. Then she cross-referenced all the records with the name 'Ben Owens.' Matches: zero. Well, no surprise there. She'd already tried to look up her father on computer searches ages ago. He'd just seemed to appear on Tatooine out of nowhere. There wasn't even any visual likeness of him on record.
Then she looked for any records of her narrowed 'Corran' search that were associated with Tatooine. Matches: zero.
Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Maybe instead of trying to reference the name with her father's name or Tatooine, she should be looking for some other connection. But there was something familiar about the name 'Corran'.
Not that, with so many possibilities and so many worlds, she had even a prayer of finding out who this Corran person was, and what his relationship was to her father, but she was still determined to try. She thought for another moment, then eliminated from her search any of those that had never been off-world, since obviously her father had had to have known him from somewhere, but that failed to accomplish much of anything.
When the bell rang, Brenna was one of the first students out of the door. But once outside the library, she stayed near the door, searching the sea of students for the one that she wanted. The Artoo unit parked itself nearby like the faithful little 'droid that it was. It scanned for weapons and other signs of nearby hostiles, as Brenna's father had programmed it to do, and not for symptoms of a rare medical condition flare up, as school officials had been told it would do, to explain its occasional presence. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, it remained silent.
Finally, the face Brenna wanted appeared in the crowd, and Brenna made her way towards the approaching student. Artoo fell in behind her, and stopped when she stopped.
"I see you brought your babysitter with you today," the other student commented, looking at Artoo.
"Yeah," Brenna said. "Did you get it?"
He held up a code key. "Right here. You'll have to do it this period, though. Old man Goslin has his prep now."
"No problem." Her second period teacher was absent today, and attendance records of substitutes were notoriously inaccurate. With her past attendance, the attendance office was bound to assume an error. She reached for the disk, but the other student snatched it back.
"First my insignia," he said.
Brenna reached up to her collar, unpinned the pilot's insignia she'd put on when she'd gotten dressed for school, dropped it into the other student's hand, and took the disk which he now let her have.
The other student grinned and pinned the insignia onto his own collar. "Nice to have it back. Your plan won't work, though. Not unless you have the 'droid's security codes."
"Got 'em," Brenna informed him. "All I need is to get into the room."
"Well, you're on your own. I got better things to do." He turned and started to walk away.
"Hey, Ace," Brenna called after him.
He turned and looked at her.
"Anytime you want to lose that insignia again, just let me know."
He shook his head and walked away.
Ten minutes later, Brenna led Artoo into the 'droid repair room of the vocational department of the school, using the code key for which she had just traded back the pilot's insignia. She had managed to luck out one night a couple of months ago when her father was making some minor repairs on Artoo's sensors and thought she was asleep in bed. He had relayed the codes verbally, and she'd been in a position to hear. She'd held onto the information, saving it for a rainy day, so to speak, and today on the desert world of Tatooine, for the first time in ages, it was pouring. With any luck, her father wouldn't have thought to change the codes since then.
Brenna got Artoo into position by telling it she'd lost an expensive hairclip in that part of the room and asking it to help her look for the missing accessory. When the Artoo unit rolled near the memory connectors, she'd simply turned it off.
Since the memory storage areas were passive circuits, the little 'droid would never even know it had been violated. All it would know was that it had been turned off, and for how long.
When Artoo was connected, Brenna activated the analysis unit, punched in Artoo's codes, and grinned at the options displayed before her. "Yes!" she exclaimed. There were messages recorded and saved in memory, and she pondered over her choices briefly. It wasn't a difficult decision. She'd simply view them in chronological order. The older messages were bound to be the most interesting. She punched the choice for the oldest message, and sat back to watch.
It seemed immoral, spying on her father's private messages like this, but he never told her anything, and she had the right to know who he was, didn't she?
The message was from some woman, a girl really, and one who was oddly familiar. It had been recorded to playback at 1/8 size, so it stood less than a foot tall. She was elegantly dressed in a white hooded outfit, and there was a look of desperation about her. "General Kenobi," she said. "Years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father's request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack, and I'm afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed. I've placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this Artoo unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this 'droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope."
Brenna raised her eyebrows and looked at the 'droid with new respect. Artoo Detoo had somehow been involved in the Rebellion against the Empire? But Alderaan had been destroyed in the wars. Oh, well. Brenna would do more research later, and try to find out who this 'Obi Wan Kenobi' and the woman in the message were. But right now, she only had one period to complete her mission, and she pressed the button to play the next message.
Unlike the previous message, this one was set to play at 2X size. The holo-image loomed larger than life in front of her. The image was huge, almost four meters tall.
"Whoa," Brenna said, grinning. It was her father, all right, but as a young man. She'd never seen any images of him at all, much less any images of him when he was young, but she knew him right off. He stood there, in desert robes, his hands folded in front of his stomach in that weird, placid fashion of his, one hand covering the other, thumbs touching. It seemed ostentatious for this to be played back double-size, especially given that the previous message was so small, and that was surprising, given that her father abhorred ostentation. She didn't have time to think about it, however, because the image began to speak.
"Greetings, Exalted One," the image began.
Brenna wondered who in the galaxy her father would ever address as 'Exalted One.' It seemed totally out of character. Maybe he was teasing the recipient of the message.
"Allow me to introduce myself," the image said. "I am Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, and friend of Captain Solo."
Brenna blinked, wondering if she had heard correctly. 'Luke Skywalker' was a name not unknown to her. She had once considered him as a possible Jedi Knight candidate, given Skywalker's role in the Battle of Yavin, but he hadn't done much of note since, except disappear off the face of Coruscant. The odd thing was, Skywalker's homeworld was right here, on Tatooine.
The message continued, heedless of her reaction. "I know that you are powerful, Mighty Jabba, and that your anger with Solo must be equally as powerful."
But Brenna only half listened to the rest of the message. She was thinking about the second sentence of the message. Luke Skywalker...Jedi Knight? Her father?
"I seek an audience with Your Greatness," the image went on, "to bargain for Solo's life."
The names 'Jabba' and 'Solo' barely registered in her consciousness. She repeated the sentence over and over in her mind. I am Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, and friend of Captain Solo.
"With your wisdom, I'm sure that we can work out an arrangement which will be mutually beneficial, and allow us to avoid any unpleasant confrontation."
'Unpleasant confrontation'? That phrase, at least, penetrated a layer of her consciousness. Brenna's father was the most un-confrontational man in the galaxy.
"As a token of my good faith, I present to you a gift these two 'droids. Both are hard-working, and will serve you well."
The message faded out, and it took Brenna a few heart-beats to realize it was no longer playing. She stared at the space where the image had stood, dumbfounded.
I am Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, and friend of Captain Solo.
Her father was a Jedi Knight!
It would explain a lot. He hadn't been just 'passing by' Beggar's Canyon. And even if he had been, how would he have known that she was one of the pilots? How could he? He had to have known through the Force, of course. And all this time, she'd thought he was a non-sensitive!
But if this message answered some of her questions, it raised many more that were unanswered. The first one was, why hadn't he ever told her?
Brenna remained lost in her thoughts for a long moment. She had intended only to learn some tiny tidbit of information about her father, expecting to find nothing of any real interest, really. Instead, she learned that her father's secrets and her own heart's quest were so intimately entwined they were essentially one and the same. She nearly laughed out loud. She'd been ready, as soon as she reached her majority, to board the first freighter headed off-world to go in search of the elusive Jedi Knights, and it turned out her own father was one!
Brenna stared at the empty space where the message had played, half-wondering whether she had heard the message correctly. Then, just to make sure she'd made no mistake, she pressed the button to replay the message.