Beggar's Canyon

"In a hurry, Luke?"

Uncle Owen's voice wasn't suspicious – yet – but Luke tried to slow the rapid pace at which he was bolting his breakfast anyway. He worked hard to keep his voice casual, no more than normally eager. "I'm heading over to the Darklighter homestead as soon as I'm done. Biggs has some projects I'm going to help him out with."

Uncle Owen frowned at him. "Chores all done?" Though it was a restday, many of the farm's tasks must be performed with ceaseless regularity, regardless of human schedules or customs.

"All finished. And my schoolwork, too," Luke added, forestalling the next question.

"Very well. Have a good day, then." Luke could almost believe Uncle Owen was suppressing a smile. "Taking the speeder?"

Luke looked down at his food. "No. My T-16."

The secondhand T-16 Skyhopper had been a gift from his uncle and aunt a few months ago when he had turned fifteen. Since then, there had not been a moment of Luke's free time that had not been spent tinkering with it, cleaning it, maintaining it, or most often and most gloriously, flying it. Luke looked out from under lowered brows to catch Uncle Owen regarding him with a fond, if rueful, smile. Luke lifted his head and grinned back.

Turning his attention back to his interrupted breakfast, Uncle Owen said, almost absently, "Don't you and Biggs get too carried away, now, racing those things. Wouldn't want either of you to get hurt."

Luke nearly choked on his last swallow of blue milk. Uncle Owen didn't know the half of it. "No, sir. We won't, sir. I mean…"

Uncle Owen smiled into his cup of caf. "Have fun, Luke. Be home before I shut down the power for the night."

"I will." Luke couldn't suppress a grin as he hurried to dump his empty dishes into the cleaner. It took only a matter of moments to race through the homestead, still chilly with the night's cold, the earliest slanting rays of first sunrise casting long shadows before him, to the garage where his T-16 waited. Soon he was behind the controls of the little triangular craft, skimming across rolling golden dunes towards the Darklighter homestead.

He was only a little more than halfway there when he spotted another Skyhopper soaring toward him. He flicked on the comm. "Biggs?"

"Hey, Luke." The voice was crackly with static, but cheerful. "Everything go as planned?"

"Yep. Uncle Owen thinks I'm spending the day at your place."

"And my folks think I'm at yours." Suddenly the voice over the comm was tinged with apprehension. "Are you sure you want to go through with this, Luke? I know some great terrain over toward Mos Eisley, we could go spend the day there. Or Dad's been complaining about the womp rats getting into the crops again, maybe we could go hunting…"

"Biggs!" Luke was outraged. "You're not going to wimp out on me now, are you? We've been planning this for weeks!"

The pause before Biggs replied wasn't long, no more than a second or two, but it was long enough for a sinking feeling to grip Luke's stomach. Finally, the comm crackled back to life. "No, of course not. It's just, it's a long way from home, and nobody would know where we were if something happened…"

"You sound like Aunt Beru," Luke said flatly. He maneuvered his craft into a sharp left hand turn, cutting in front of the other Skyhopper and striking off on a new course. "I'm going. You can come or not. I don't care."

But of course he did care, and he gripped the controls so tightly his hands ached.

He stared resolutely ahead, but remained acutely aware of the sensor display in his peripheral vision, until he glimpsed the small yellow arrowhead that marked Biggs' Skyhopper looping around and falling in behind him.

"Slow down, Luke. Let me catch up."

Luke eased up on the forward thrust controls just a tad, only long enough for the other craft to draw within a few hundred meters. Then he gunned the engine again and the two Skyhoppers streaked together across the desert.

"Luke, we're not racing yet. You're going to blow an engine if you keep up this speed all the way to Mos Espa."

Luke's annoyance with his friend was already evaporating, lost in the excitement of finally being on their way. He slackened his speed just enough to conserve his beloved engines. "Can't go too slow. It'll take at least two hours to get there, and another two to get back, and I have to get home before Uncle Owen shuts the power down. We need to hurry if we want to have enough time there to make it worth the trip."

"Don't worry; we've got plenty of time. So, did you ever install those modifications on the rear stabilizer you were talking about?"

They passed the long journey in animated discussion of the technical details of their craft, and boastful fantasies of upgrades and improvements they'd make if the money found its way into their hands. The suns were high in the sky by the time Mos Espa appeared on the horizon.

They skirted the outer edge of the city, stopping only long enough to refuel and buy a quick snack at a roadside stall. Then they were back in their skyhoppers, heading around the city to the northeast. An awed hush fell over them as they drew within sight of their goal.

The Mos Espa podracing track had been abandoned for more than ten years. The sight that met Luke's eyes as he maneuvered his T-16 in through the gate was one of magnificent desolation.

Long since stripped of any salvageable bits of metal, the stands where spectators once crowded to watch and cheer still rose against the towering cliff face, except for one section that had collapsed into a vast pile of rubble. The bridge that spanned the track, marking the start and finish line, had cracked in the middle, one half lying at a steep angle, a fragment of the other sticking out, ending in a jagged cantilevered balcony. Massive columns that had once supported viewing platforms lay askew like the trunks of fallen trees in some giant forest on another world. Only one still stood, reaching toward the sky, its tip lost in the glare of the two suns as Luke craned his head back to see. Of the various hangars and buildings of the complex, only a few walls still stood, covered with scrawled graffiti. The rest had contributed their substance to the chunks of duracrete and pourstone that lay in heaps and drifts and scattered clusters throughout the site.

Luke settled his T-16 on the clearest spot he could find, near where the racers once lined up to start, and climbed out of the cockpit. The only sound to meet his ears was a faint haunted whistle of wind. He turned to Biggs, who had landed next to him and left his craft, too.

"Well," he started, his voice falling unnaturally loud in the hush and echoing strangely from the hard stone and duracrete surfaces. He had the uneasy feeling he might be waking ghosts better left to slumber undisturbed in the ruins. Shaking his head to dispel the irrational notion, he tried again, voice softer this time. "Well, we're here. It's something, isn't it?"

Biggs gazed around in awe, eyes wide. "Can you imagine what it must have been like, when it was open? Those stands must have held thousands of people. Tens of thousands."

Luke could indeed imagine it. The images sprang up vividly in his mind's eye. A sea of faces, a roar of voices, cheering, booing, babbling, buzzing with speculation and excitement. The enticing aromas of cheap, greasy food and exotic delicacies mingling with the stinks of beasts of burden and thousands of excited and overheated beings of every species imaginable. The crackling voice of the announcer proclaiming the names of famous racers from all corners of the galaxy. For a moment he could sense it all so clearly that he was startled, as if waking from a dream, when Biggs spoke again.

"Damn Empire."

Luke nodded mutely. There was nothing more to be said, really. The Empire had shut down the pod racing circuit only a few years after the Emperor came to power. The official excuse had been a crackdown on gambling, along with other easily targeted vices, but it was widely rumored that the true reason had more to do with the human Emperor's intolerance of any activity that his own species could not dominate. Pod racing, with its incredibly fast speeds and intricate maneuvering, required reflexes found only in various alien species.

"Bet I could've done it, though," Luke muttered to himself.

"What?" Biggs must have overheard him.

"Race pods."

"Don't be silly. You may be a good pilot, but those things were death traps, even for aliens. Lots of racers died." Biggs shaded his eyes against the glare and sighted out along the beginning stretch of track. "Although I did hear a crazy story one time, that a human once won a race here."

"No way. Who told you that?"

"An oldtimer from Mos Espa, in Anchorhead on business. Said he'd seen it himself, more than thirty years ago. Biggest upset ever – beat the reigning champion. Said they hushed it up afterward, 'cause too many people lost too much money. And get this, he said it was a little kid, not even ten years old."

Luke laughed. "I think your oldtimer must have been a bit sun-touched. Who could believe a story like that?"

"That's what I thought. Well, let's get going. Unless you think T-16's are too slow to bother with, compared to pods."

"Heck no!" Luke jumped back into the cockpit, pausing before slamming the door shut. "Let's go once around to scout out the course, then we can race."

Biggs agreed, and the two set out, Luke in the lead.

Luke called up a map of the track on his viewscreen. Somehow the Empire's censors had missed this copy of a copy, tucked away in a forgotten misfiled corner of the byzantine tangle of Tatooine's electronic records. When Luke had stumbled across it while researching sources for T-16 parts, he had known almost nothing of the long-abolished pod races. But staring at the image on his computer screen of the arduous course laid out between towering natural rock formations, an intense desire awoke in him to fly that path himself.

Now he steered his T-16 along the winding track marked on the map. Across flat plains, through a twisting gorge, along a mesa studded with rocks carved by the wind into bizarre mushroom shapes he flew, then through a narrow gap into a deep, steep-sided canyon.

He maneuvered carefully through the bends and curves of the canyon, noting obstacles he would have to avoid when racing through at speed. Biggs close behind him, he skimmed along, already scanning the map to identify the next obstacle on the course, when he rounded a tight curve and instinctively threw his craft into a steep climb to avoid crashing into a tumbled wall of rocks that blocked the far end of the canyon.

"What was that?" Biggs' voice over the comm was alarmed.

"I don't know! It's not marked on the map. Must have been a rockfall sometime. It blocks the whole end of the canyon." He consulted the map. "Beggar's Canyon, this is called. Well, we can go over when we race, like we just did. We just have to remember it's there. You can't even see it until you're right on top of it."

They circled the site of the old landslide for a few minutes, fixing the contours in their memory. Then they continued along the track, finding no other blockages.

At the vast plain that made up the final portion of the track, Luke couldn't resist opening up the engines to their full power, hurtling down the homestretch and sweeping into the arena, blazing to a stop in a swirl of sand at the foot of the vast stands. He could almost see the crowds of excited spectators, on their feet, cheering wildly, all for him, the only human ever to win a pod race….

Biggs caught up and settled his craft beside Luke. Luke shook his head, dispelling the vivid fantasy from his eyes and ears. He spoke into the comm. "You ready?"

"Whenever you are."

"All right then." Luke checked one last time over the controls of the T-16, making sure all was in readiness. "Three laps around, just like the pod racers. Loser buys the winner dinner in Mos Espa on our way home."

"You're on."

Luke gripped the controls tightly. "On your mark, get set… Go!"

He slammed the T-16 into full forward thrust.

…as the gong rang in his ears, his heart plummeted in unison with the cough and sputter of flooded engines dying, hot shame flushing his face as his competitors roared past, leaving him to choke on the dust of their passing….

Luke reflexively let up on the thruster, hands going to adjust the fuel mixture to restart his stalled engines. Then, blinking, he realized the Skyhopper's engines had not died, but continued to hum in perfect adjustment. The momentary slackening of his speed, however, allowed Biggs to shoot past him, kicking up a cloud of dust eerily like that he'd imagined the moment before.

With an angry shout, Luke gunned the engines until they screamed in protest and he was forced to accept they were giving him the maximum speed they were capable of. He chased Biggs across the plain, but was still well behind as they darted into the shadows of the first gorge.

Here in these narrow, twisting confines he would have the opportunity to make up the time his mistake had cost him. Biggs' Skyhopper was slightly newer and faster, but Luke had always been the better pilot. He breathed deeply to clear away his confusion and frustration, and turned all his attention to maneuvering his craft with maximum efficiency. He felt himself sinking into the focused, almost trancelike state that always accompanied his best flying. The rock walls of the gorge whipped past much too fast to see, and he relied more and more on feel to steer through the tight curves. A broad grin spread across his face, and as he burst out of the mouth of the gorge, hot on Biggs's heels, he laughed aloud.

Among the wind-carved rocks of the mesa Biggs pulled a bit more ahead, but he slowed as they approached the entrance to Beggar's Canyon, and Luke was able to slip ahead. They screamed through the tight space of the canyon together. Luke watched his map carefully, and was prepared to pull up in plenty of time to soar cleanly over the tumbled rocks of the landslide blocking the canyon's exit.

They continued around the course, trading the lead back and forth, Biggs gaining ground on the more open sections, Luke making up time in the close confines where quick maneuvering was paramount.

Through the arena they passed, zooming high over the fallen bridge and dropping down again to retrace their course. The second lap passed without incident. Predictably, Biggs pulled ahead again on the final open plain. But Luke wasn't worried. He'd have plenty of chances in the last lap to establish a commanding lead.

Luke exulted in the thrill of flight. Never had he been so at one with his craft. He imagined he could see two powerful engines linked in front of him, towing him along in their wake, and it seemed perfectly natural that his imagination grew more and more vivid, until he was hearing their deafening roar. As they swept through the arena the second time, he saw the crowd on their feet, cheering, as the announcer proclaimed "And it's Skywalker gaining on the leader…"

Momentarily it seemed strange to him that they flew over the starting line bridge instead of under, but he brushed that aside. His competitor was close in front of him now, and he focused all his attention on the burning need to overtake him, to prove himself, to win this all-important race for those who were depending on him…

Far away across the desert, the nagging anxiety that had troubled Ben Kenobi all morning sharpened suddenly into the acute awareness of danger. He dropped the tools he'd been using to tend his small garden, and sank to his knees. A few centering breaths dropped him into a deep meditative trance, and he cast his awareness out in search of his charge. There was Luke, not south where he should be, but far to the north, racing unaware toward a looming threat. As the images took shape in his mind, he knew with a sinking feeling of dread that he recognized them. For although he had never seen the place himself, it had been described to him many times. He could almost hear a very young Anakin's boastful voice. "… and when we started the third lap, I was right behind him. I finally caught up to him just as we reached the entrance to Beggar's Canyon…"
Luke could see his competitor immediately in front of him as they swooped through the narrow entrance into the canyon. Ignoring the tightness of the quarters, he pulled alongside, straining to pass. So deeply was he concentrating, he didn't even hear the crackly voice over the comm. "Luke, what are you doing? Give me some space, Luke!"

He felt a jolting crash as his competitor's craft swerved sideways, slamming deliberately into his. What did he expect? His opponent had always flown dirty. He would stop at nothing to win. But this time he would not get away with it. Luke gripped the controls tightly, took a deep breath, and threw his craft suddenly left, striking the other craft a sharp blow.

"Luke!" Biggs screamed over the comm. "What do you think you're doing? Stop it, Luke!"

But Luke was far beyond hearing. He fought to keep his craft steady as his opponent crashed again and again into him. He was being forced sideways. Ahead the canyon narrowed, he knew. If he had not passed by then, he'd be forced onto the maintenance ramp.

Now it was upon him. Desperately he slammed once more into his opponent, but the rebound sent him skidding to the right, up onto the ramp anyway. He had the satisfaction, as he fought to keep control of a craft suddenly launched much higher into the air than its repulsorlifts were designed to handle, of seeing his opponent spinning sideways out of control, toward the canyon wall.

Ben threw all his strength in the Force around the little Skyhopper as it careened toward destruction. He could not prevent the crash completely, but he cushioned its fall so that it struck the canyon wall only a glancing blow, then plowed nose first into the sand.

Then he could spare it no further thought, for all his attention was riveted on the other craft. The T-16 was designed for atmospheric flight, and could have flown up and out of the canyon easily, but its pilot was lost in the illusion that he flew a different craft, and had aimed it downward, back to the floor of the canyon. Ahead, around a blind curve, Ben sensed the wall of rock that had not been there when Anakin flew this course, and knew with terrible certainty that Luke would not remember its existence until too late.

Anakin's hand had soared and dived in illustration as he excitedly described the race to his patiently listening master. "… and I kept the engines level all the way down, until the repulsorlifts caught again. Nobody ever did that before! And then whoosh, zoom, out of Beggar's Canyon, onto the flats…"

All Ben could do was cry out in warning, hoping desperately that Luke would hear. "Pull up, Luke! Pull up!"

"Pull up, Luke! Pull up!"

Luke shook his head, confused. Luke? He struggled to understand who he was, for suddenly he was not at all clear about that. Why should I pull up? There's nothing there, and if I slow down he'll catch up and pass me…. But the past was losing its grip on him now, and as he blinked he lost the vision of huge engines in front of him, seeing instead the familiar controls of his T-16. Before he remembered why, instinct seized him, and as he rounded the last tight curve he threw the Skyhopper into a steep climb. The topmost rocks of the landslide scraped the bottom of the Skyhopper's hull as he barely cleared the pile of rubble.

Dazed, he looked ahead down the course. Biggs must be far ahead of him now, because he wasn't even in sight. Then a flash of memory swept across his mind's eye. A T-16, tumbling out of control toward the canyon wall…

"Biggs!" Luke spun his craft around and sped back along the canyon. There was Biggs's T-16, nose buried in the sand of the canyon floor.

Horrified, Luke slid to a stop in a shower of sand and threw open his cockpit, racing to Biggs's door. His hands shook as he wrenched it open. Biggs was slumped over his controls.

"Biggs! Are you all right? Wake up, Biggs." Luke was nearly sobbing. He didn't quite dare touch his friend.

Biggs stirred, and blinked in confusion as he straightened. He started to raise his hand to his head, then cried out, and cradled his arm to his chest, his wrist bent at an odd angle. But the pain brought him fully back to consciousness, and he turned in baffled anger to Luke. "Why'd you slam into me like that, Luke? What were you thinking?"

"You hit me first!"

"I did not!"

"Yes you did! At least I think… I felt something hit me…" Luke tried to remember, but the last few minutes were blurring into a muddle of confused images and feelings. "I… I… I'm sorry, Biggs. I don't know what happened. Are you going to be okay?"

"I think so. It's just my wrist, and my head hurts like crazy."

Luke looked around them. It struck him forcefully just how alone they were, miles from any aid. It was up to him to take responsibility for his injured friend.

"Can you walk? Here, I'll help you." He lent his shoulder to support Biggs under his uninjured arm, and settled him in the passenger seat of his Skyhopper. Then he rigged a tow cable to the disabled craft, and maneuvering carefully, managed to extricate it from the canyon.

The two T-16's limped out of the canyon, a sad contrast to their eager entry just a few hours before. Luke looked back once, as they passed through the arena and left the track behind. He didn't understand what had happened, but he knew he had touched something there, a presence both thrilling and unsettling.

The droid at the med center in Mos Espa splinted Biggs's broken wrist and pronounced his skull intact, though mildly concussed. Long after the suns had set and the usual hour for shutting down the power had passed, Luke delivered Biggs to the Darklighter homestead and returned home. He was met by a blistering reprimand from Uncle Owen, which he bore stoically because he knew it was well deserved, and anxious tears from Aunt Beru, which were in their own way worse for the guilt they inspired in him. He was glad when finally they ran out of angry and distraught words, and he was free to crawl, exhausted and despondent, into his bed.

Ben watched until he was sure both boys were safe, then he let his awareness of Luke recede back into the constant subconscious vigilance that was its usual state.

His hand worried at his beard as he gazed across the starlit dunes toward the Lars homestead. He didn't know how much longer the situation could remain as it was. Not yet, the Force whispered to him. But Luke would have to receive training soon. His undisciplined sensitivity to the Force had very nearly gotten both himself and his friend killed today.

The echoes of Anakin's presence must have been very strong in that place. Not surprising, considering the strength of the emotion he had felt there. Winning that race had been one of the happiest moments of his Padawan's life.

It had been a very long time since Ben had thought of Anakin as the innocent, eager young boy he had been when first they met. He lay awake long into the night, mourning anew that bright promise lost to the Dark Side, and worrying about the son who was all too much like his father.

Tired as he was, Luke had a hard time falling asleep. He lay awake for a long time, wondering how his long-anticipated adventure could have gone so badly wrong. Biggs was still angry with him. Biggs' Skyhopper was smashed up, and Luke's was badly damaged underneath where he'd scraped the rocks. Uncle Owen had grounded him for three months, and would probably be berating him over the incident far longer than that.

How had it happened? He tried to remember. He had been imagining he was flying in a pod race, and the past he envisioned had become more and more real, until it was as if he were actually there. He had touched a lingering presence that for a few moments had possessed him, and through him lived again.

As he remembered, a resolve formed in Luke's heart. He would go back. Sometime, after his term of punishment was up, he would return there, and fly Beggar's Canyon again, and again, until he had mastered it and it had lost all terror for him. This time, he would not let that prescence take control of him. But maybe, if he was lucky, he would feel it again. Its touch had been compelling. Luke found himself feeling a deep sense of kinship with that ghost of another time.

As he finally relaxed enough to drift into sleep, the image of a tousle-haired, dirty-faced boy floated for a moment before his eyes. The boy pushed his goggles back on his head and grinned at Luke.

… a human once won a race here… a little kid, not even ten years old…

No, that was impossible. But Luke smiled in return anyway, and his dreams that night, and for many nights afterward, were filled with the roar of engines, the heart-pounding excitement of twisting and turning between narrow canyon walls, the exhilaration of flight that the two of them shared.