Star Wars: Specters of the Past

By SSG Michael B. Jackson

Disclaimer: Star Wars and all associated characters belong, ultimately, to George Lucas, and aren't mine, more's the pity. Still, he's done a damn good job so far, so who's complaining?

His tone still puzzled, Threepio said, "I'm afraid I still don't understand, sir." Then, once more directing his attention toward the little astromech droid, he said, "Just who exactly is Mistress Padmé, Artoo?"

Artoo's reply was a string of chirps and squawks that simultaneously managed to convey incredulity and exasperation.

"How can I not remember?" Threepio said questioningly. "Artoo, what are you talking about? Remember what?"

This time, the tone of Artoo's electronic voice managed to convey a sense of thin-stretched patience, as if he were explaining something blindingly obvious to a particularly dense child.

"What?!" Threepio said incredulously, and then, "Why that's the most preposterous thing I've ever-!"

But before he could finish, Han Solo cut him off, saying in an exasperated tone, "Alright, Threepio. Calm down before you fuse a circuit. What'd the little guy just say?"

"He said, sir, that this woman, Mistress Padmé, is one of our former owners," Threepio said a bit indignantly, and then added, "Our original owner, in fact, over sixty years ago." Then, the electronic equivalent of a frown coloring his voice, he said, "But there's no way he could possibly know that, sir. Both of us have had more than one memory wipe over the years." And, addressing Artoo again, he said, "Isn't that right, you little metallic menace?"

Artoo replied with what sounded like an electronic raspberry, followed by a rapid series of beeps and chirps.

"Didn't I stash away back-ups?" Threepio said disbelievingly. "Well of course not! Even assuming that I knew how, the whole point of a memory wipe is to baseline a droid for a new owner. Do you mean to tell me that-!"

But before he could finish that particular line of inquiry, the woman, Padmé apparently, stirred again and said hoarsely, "Threepio? Is that you? You're here too?"

At a momentary loss for words, Threepio finally stammered, "Well, ah, yes, mistress, I mean that is-"

By this point, Han had heard enough, and butted in with, "Well I guess that settles that. Whether you know her or not, she sure knows you. Kinda' lends credence to what the little guy's saying, don't you think?"

Quiet until now, just watching the exchange between the woman and the two droids, Luke finally chose to step forward and speak up.

"Excuse me, Miss... Padmé, was it?" he said softly.

Coughing slightly, the woman replied, "That's right. But I'm afraid you have me at a bit of a disadvantage." Then, after a short laugh that brought on another coughing fit, she said, "Actually, a big disadvantage. I can't even see right now, and my throat feels like a few kilometers of Tatooine desert. I don't suppose you can do anything about either of those problems before we go on?"

Looking questioningly in his direction, Luke said, "Doctor Morell?"

"Well," the doctor said slowly, "There's really nothing we can do about her vision problem right now. It's just a side effect of the hibernation sickness, and will go away on it's own in time."

"Don't remind me, Doc." Han muttered under his breath with a shudder, quietly enough that no one but Leia heard him.

Oblivious to Han's remark, the doctor continued. "As for the dry throat, well, that's no problem really. I think she's more than capable of dealing with fluids right now, though I'd hold off on solids. Contrary to popular belief, metabolic action doesn't come to a complete halt under carbon freezing conditions, and, given the situation, I'd wager that the young lady here has not only exhausted whatever was in her digestive tract at the time, but has probably dug quite deeply into her body's reserves as well. Too much too soon would only make her violently ill, I'm afraid."

Nodding politely at the doctor's unsolicited explanation, Luke said, "I, ah, see. Can we get her some water then, Doctor?"

With a soft grunt of acknowledgement, the doctor turned and retrieved a plastic cup and a straw from a nearby cabinet and filled it roughly half full at the washbasin at the back of the treatment room. Returning to Padmé's side, he gently moved the oxygen mask aside and, touching the straw to her lips said, "Here you are. Just be sure to sip, not gulp, and don't drink too much all at once. If you do, I'm afraid it'll just come back up and that'll do no one any good."

Gratefully, she took the straw between her lips, and after drinking her fill said in a much more normal voice, "Thank you, doctor. That's worlds better."

Then, turning her sightless eyes in the direction she remembered Luke's voice coming from, she said, "Are you still there? I'm afraid my eyes still aren't any better."

"Don't worry," Luke said reassuringly. "It'll take a little time, but you'll be able to see again."

Nodding slowly, she said, "I guess I'll just have to take your word for that." Then, frowning, she said, "But I've got something a lot more important on my mind right now. Namely, where am I and what's going on here?"

"Well, for starts," Luke said slowly, "Right now you're aboard the Galactic Alliance medical frigate Mercy's Light, and at the moment, we're in orbit over Coruscant. As for what's going on, we were hoping that you could help us figure that one out."

"Coruscant?" She said with some trepidation. "The last time I checked, Coruscant was in fairly unfriendly hands. Imperial hands. I really hope you're about to tell me that's not the case anymore."

Smiling, Luke said, "Thankfully, it's not. There's been no Imperial presence on Coruscant for- well, for a long time." Considering for a moment, he came to a decision, and then continued. "In fact, the Empire is gone, Padmé," Luke said quietly. "Well, most of it, anyway. And what's left of it is nothing like the Empire you must remember."

"Gone," she said in a tone fraught with hope and wonder. "And the Emperor?"

"Dead," Luke said flatly. "Over twenty-five years ago, now, though he did leave behind a few... tricks, I guess you'd say. But even those were taken care of a long time ago."

"Twenty-five years ago?" She said, her eyes widening in shock. "Just how long- how long was I in that Sith-damned block of carbonite?"

Frowning, Leia stepped forward and, sending her brother a hard stare said, "Sweet Force, Luke. Do you think you could've brought that up any LESS tactfully? Do you want her to go into shock?"

"Of course not, Leia," Luke said a bit sheepishly. "But diplomacy isn't exactly my strong suit, I'm afraid. Maybe you should take over for now."

Shaking her head slowly, Leia said, "I suppose maybe I'd better." Addressing Padmé, she said, "I'm sorry. My brother means well, but sometimes he-" And then she stopped, brought up short as she saw Padmé's eyes widen even further and the color drain from her face.

Concerned, Leia said, "Padmé? Are you all right? Do you need Doctor Morell?"

"No," she said in a whisper, "It's just- your name is Leia? Is that right?"

Cocking her head quizzically, Leia said in a puzzled tone, "Yes."

"And the other man, your brother, you said. His name is Luke?"

Still puzzled, Leia said, "Yes. Why do you ask?"

Swallowing a sudden lump that'd formed in her throat, Padmé said in a tiny voice, "You didn't grow up together, did you?"

Truly baffled now, Leia said slowly, "No. We were separated at birth because- well, for reasons that are way too complicated to go into right now. I grew up on Alderaan, and he was raised on Tatooine. We didn't even meet until we were almost twenty, and it took us quite a while to figure out that we were brother and sister. Now, if you don't mind, I'd really like to know just where you're going with this."

But instead of answering, Padmé just flopped back down on the stretcher, as if all the breath had suddenly been knocked from her. "Oh, Force," she said in a strangled whisper, "I can't believe this! I-!"

Worried more than ever now, both Luke and Leia moved to Padmé's side, and Leia said, soothingly, "Hey, it's alright. Everything's going to be fine. You just need to tell us what's wrong."

Padmé shook her head slowly, her eyes misting up incongruously, and said, "It's just-! I-!" And then, biting her lower lip delicately, she started over from an odd tangent. "I remember Alderaan before the Empire. Before the Clone Wars, even. It was such a beautiful place. Even after the Emperor came to power, it was still a citadel of light amid the darkness. And Bail Organa... Bail was always such a good friend to me. Someone I could trust, even in my darkest hour." Then, turning from Leia's puzzled and slightly shocked gaze toward where she thought Luke must be, she said, "And Tatooine. Tatooine has always been one of the cesspools of the galaxy, just a big fiefdom for a pack of Hutt gangsters, really. In fact, the only good things I ever saw come out of that world were a little boy, his mother, the man she eventually married, and that man's son and the son's wife. I'm so sorry you had to grow up there, Luke. I only hope that Owen and Beru were... good to you."

His expression now matching Leia's, Luke, normally the unflappable Jedi master, stammered, "How- how do you know all this? And- who are you?"

Padmé closed her eyes and ,bowing her head slightly, said in a soft, faraway voice, "I know because- because it's all a part of my life. That little boy from Tatooine... he was just a nine-year-old slave boy when I met him. But he was a hero, even then. He risked his life to help me and two Jedi knights get off of Tatooine after our ship had been damaged." Then, tears welling up in her sightless eyes, she said in a bare whisper, "The first time he saw me, he asked me if I were an angel..." She paused for a moment, swallowing around a sudden tightness in her throat, and then continued. "That little boy left Tatooine with us, and after helping to save my planet from an invading army went on to Coruscant to be trained as a Jedi."

She stopped there for a moment, working to control her emotions while both Luke and Leia sat in rapt attention, waiting for her to continue. Both of them had an odd, fluttery sensation in the pits of their stomachs, and somehow they both had an eerie premonition about where her story was going. Finally, feeling herself to be sufficiently collected, Padmé continued.

"He did become a Jedi, eventually, and the next time I saw him, ten years later, he was all grown up. We ended up on another grand adventure together, then, and somewhere along the way we... fell in love. We even married, in secret, even though it was forbidden; he was a Jedi Knight, and I was a Senator of the Republic. But we were young, and we thought that, somehow, it would all work out." There was another short pause, and when she continued, her voice was a bare whisper. "But it didn't work out. We could only keep our marriage a secret for so long, and then the Jedi Counsel found out. And even before that, things were going wrong. So many things had happened to that little boy from Tatooine, that man I'd married. Terrible things. He was full of grief and anger and frustration. The Clone Wars didn't help matters any, even though he proved himself a hero all over again. And then there was Palpatine, the Supreme Chancellor at that time. No one knew what he was up to then, and no one knew the poison he was whispering into my husband's ears. Not until it was too late, that is. For him, for me, and for the Republic." She paused once more, and then continued in a flat, almost dead tone. "I lost my husband then. Along with just about everything else. He was still alive, but he was as good as dead to me and to everyone else who'd ever cared about him. The only thing I had left of him, as it turned out, were his children. I only thanked the Force that neither he nor Palpatine knew, and then did all I could to make sure they never would. That involved some... very hard decisions. I was only lucky that I had good people to help me. People like Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi. If it weren't for them..."

Then, turning once more to Luke, she said softly, "You asked who I am, Luke? Well, my full name is Padmé Naberrie Amidala... Skywalker. And the man I married was-"

"Anakin Skywalker," Luke said in a tone of soft wonder, both his and Leia's eyes wide and moist as they beheld this strong, sad, beautiful woman; their mother, they both realized with awe and amazement.

That's it for chapter two. Hope this 'delivers the goods', so to speak. I sort of had a hard time with this, and re-wrote most of the chapter, trying to get the whole 'revelation' right. Please let me know if I was anywhere near the mark. Oh, and next chapter, I'll be dealing with some of the other members of the Skywalker/Solo clan's reactions, so don't worry about that.