My name is Krentaloxin, or Krent for short. Among my people I would have been a hero, if anyone ever knew of my deeds. I would have been the first Jawa to have ever done something heroic. But my deeds go unknown, except for a few people who were there, but they are dead, as am I. This is my story as it would have been told had anyone lived to write it down or tell the tale. The events are as true and factual as I can make them. I have no reason to tell falsehoods, no one will ever read this, and I am as forgotten now as the day it all started.
The twin suns on Tatooine were beating down hard during the midday. I stayed in the shade of the Crawler as much as I could. The R5-D4 Astromech droid was proving to be more problems than it was possibly worth. We had lost a sale on this droid to the Skywalker farm recently and the chief of our wandering tribe had not been happy. The younger male of the Skywalker family had replaced his purchase of this droid with a much better working model of an R2-D2 Astromech droid. It was because of this that I am now out in the hot sun working to fix this Astromech, so we might be able to sell him.
It is later in the day when the scouts report that there are incoming men on Dewbacks heading towards us. The are identified as Imperial Troopers. Some of the Jawas are nervous and start to collect up their belongings and scurrying inside the crawler. The leaders come together and await the arrival to see what they want. We are all expecting trouble. As I hide near the back tread of the massive crawler, the R5-D4 droid I was working on comes on-line and starts to move away across the desert. Small jets appear from its side legs and he takes to small flights of short hops across the desert. One of the leaders notices this and yells at me that I am not to let that droid escape and to bring it back. I quickly snatch up my pack of tools and my ion gun and start to head out after the runaway droid.
It was late into the night when I finally found the droid. The jets must have stopped working while he was trying to cross a deep ravine. There were parts and pieces of it everywhere. I would not be able to bring it back by myself. I would have to go back to the tribe, and find others to help me. This would not make me popular with the leaders and I am sure some form of punishment would follow this incident. I was also very worried about being spotted by those lawless and barbaric Tuskin Raiders. I hurried back the way I came and tried to keep out of sight within the rocks best I could until I reached the sandy desert again. It was morning by the time I reached the Crawlers, or at least what was left of the Crawlers. The bodies of my tribe were scattered everywhere, smoke plumed to the sky from the burning Crawlers. In going after the droid, I had become the last survivor of my tribe. I walked around for a while collecting my stuff and trying to find any other survivors, but none were to be found. It was only at the sound of an approaching landspeeder that I quickly ran away, never looking back.
I am unsure of how much time I spent in the desert and amongst the rocks and hills. I had never been along before. There had always been the Crawlers and the people of my tribe. But now it was all gone. The likeliness that another tribe would take me in was doubtful at best, most tribes tended to stay away from each other unless they needed to barter for goods from each other. No I was alone, and so I figured I would die out here, by myself.
I must have walked for days. I had little food and some water, but they had quickly been used up. I ended up in Mos Eisley after much wandering. I stayed in the shadows and tried to remain out of sight as I managed to find some water and some food that merchant was not watching well enough. I was scared, for all around me I kept seeing the Imperial Troopers walking around and I knew that they had killed my people and in doing so had killed me as well. I scurried around the city for long time, until I found myself near the spaceports. A large imperial shuttle was docked nearby and I saw many droids being loaded into the ship. I am not brave by any means, and I will blame this next action on the days of being in the hot sun and lack of food and water. I crept slowly towards the shuttle, intent on taking a droid from them as some small payment for what they had done to my life. The droids were the shiniest droids I had ever seen, clean and well maintained. I would be able to fetch a good price for one of these droids. All I needed to do was to get close enough to one of them and attach a controller port to their external sensor and I could make the droid follow my commands. This was usually attached after we had disabled a droid in the desert with a blast from an ion gun. But I could not risk the noise and draw attention to myself. I moved slowly and quietly towards the droids. A few of them noticed my approach, but did not seem to care or make noises in warning. I noticed a very well maintained R5 Astromech droid near the back that I hoped I could easily attach the port to and get away out a back door. I moved in slowly and was almost to the droid when alarms started to sound. Imperial Troopers started to appear and I panicked. The droids started to move into the cargo area of the shuttle so I moved with them, hiding within the droids. In all the confusion, no one paid much attention to the droids, and I was on board the shuttle and I found a small storage area to hide within. I have never been off my planet of Tatooine. The sensation of the ship taking off made me queasy. I don't know how long I was on the ship for, all I remember was a sudden lurching feeling and I hit my head on the wall and I close my eyes.
I awoke to the sounds of small explosions nearby. I gathered my belongings and opened the hatch to look out. The ship was empty and the seemed to me a lot of commotion happening outside of the shuttle. I crawled out of the storage space and moved to the loading ramp to look out. Imperial Troopers were running around in every direction, and other men in black uniforms were barking orders and looking worried. I slowly went down the ramp and moved behind some large crates as I watched in wonder and horror at the figures running around. I moved past the crates and continued towards an opening I saw. I hoped it lead someplace safe and I wished it lead to the outside and I could escape back into the desert and hide from all this. A few Imperial Troopers ran past me, and I am sure one spotted me, but it kept on running and after my heart started beating again, I continued towards the exit. I scurried down the hallway, hiding behind bulkheads and in doorways when ever I heard the approach of footsteps. The moving forward was a slow and tedious process. I found a lift shaft and decided to go up in hopes that it would lead me to a way out. The lift ended into another hallway and I followed it. The noise and presence of imperial troops seemed less here and I was feeling a little safer and quite sure I was heading in the right direction. I reached the doors at the end of the hallway when an explosion rocked from someplace knocking me off my feet. I picked myself back up and started moving away from the doors when they opened up and Imperial Troopers started coming my way. I looked quickly and saw a small hatch in the wall and opened it up and jumped into it. I closed the hatch behind me. The hallway I was in now was just a little taller than I was and seemed to be made just for someone my size. My thoughts quickly turned to the possibility that there were other Jawas here and these might be the tunnels used by them. I followed the hallway for a long time, it turned and twisted and I passed several side tunnels as well. There were other hatches I saw and I when I opened them to see where I was, I only saw more Imperial Troops and Men in black uniforms. I climbed up several ladders and down a few others in the process of making my way through these Jawa tunnels I had found. I was worried after a while that I had not yet found any of my people in the tunnels and figured maybe they were hiding because of all the commotion happening everywhere.
The tunnel I was in finally ended at a ladder going up to a hatchway door. I felt certain that through that door I would find the Jawas that lived here and I would be able to find a way out of here. I climbed the ladder and pushed at the hatch, but it would not open. There was a circular ring in the center of the hatch so I tried to turn it. I lost my balance twice and fell to the ground below, but I was determined to get through the hatch and find my freedom from this place. After a few more tires, the circular wheel turned and after a few spins a click was heard and the door moved upward a little bit.
I pushed the hatch up and looked about. There was a large room with many panels of bright lights and switches. A few men dress like Imperial trooper but in black stood around looking at the lights and talking to each other. Another explosion shook the room and they hurriedly ran to another area and started flipping switches and talking loudly about keeping the containment fields running. I opened the hatch enough to crawl out of the hole and moved quickly to the side of one of the large panels. I saw a door on the other side of the room and I hoped it was the door to the outside world and away from this place. I moved slowly from panel to panel, trying my best not to breathe loudly or make a noise. I was getting close to the door when it opened and two more black uniformed men entered the room. The first one started yelling at the men to maintain field integrity and the second man looked around the room. His eyes stopped when he saw me and he started yelling at me to come to where he was and identify myself. I got very scared and started to run away. Someone had a blaster and started to shoot at me until an someone yelled at him to stop, that he might damage one of the control panels. I looked for a way to escape and could only see the door from which the two new men had come through. I saw the men moving towards me and heard their yells for me to come out. I did not know what I was thinking at the time, but suddenly a strange feeling came over me and I stood up. I grabbed for my ion gun and started running for the door. I pulled the trigger on the gun and a cloud of ion particles shot forward at the men. It did not seem to affect them but the panels behind then suddenly went dark. I turned and pulled the trigger again and again. Sparks from some of the panels flew like sparks from a nights campfire. The men started yelling and running towards the panels, a red light started to flash and a new voice stated that the containment field had failed. I continued to pull the trigger long after my ion pack had emptied and I ran to the door but it would not open. The men ran to me, but ignored me as they tried to open the doors. I saw fear in their eyes and they tried to open the doors. One of them, the man with the blaster started shooting at the door. The bolts ricocheted off the door and one hit another man standing next to him. He screamed and fell to the ground. I did not know what to do, so I ran back to the hatch in to floor, but it now had a new door closed above it and I could not get it to open. I ran to the back of the room and hide behind a panel. The screams and shouts of the men in the room were frightening me and I could not think, so I balled up behind the panel and hoped this was a bad dream.
A lone X-wing pilot made his way down the trench, having just had the last of the Imperial Tie-fighters removed from chasing him by a freighter ship above him. He moved towards the end of the trench and fired 2 torpedoes down a small shaft and pulled up and away from the Large DeathStar…..
The smoke in the room increased, and it was becoming hard to see and breath. The men were still yelling and some of them were now at the panels trying to flip switches and pounding their fist on the control counters. Coughs could be heard and one of the men fell to his knees. I laid there, curled up and wished I was home, thinking about the crawler and my tribe, the warmth of the sun on my back as I worked on the droids.
There was a flash of light so bright I had to close my eyes and put my face into the sleeves of my cloak. I heard one of the men scream and then I felt a wash of hot wind blow over me and I thought for a second I was home and then I felt nothing…
The X-wing pilot along with a few other ships, one of them being the freighter who had saved him from the tie fighters watched from a distance as the DeathStar exploded behind them, and they went home.