Chapter 9
Rescue

It was deep night now. The triple moons were mere slivers of white, barely giving off more light than the tiny distant stars. The air was cold enough for his breath to form misty clouds of vapor in front of his face. But he barely noticed the dark night and cold air. What he did notice was the Tusken Raider camp spread out in the valley beneath his hidden position high up on a cliff.

Angry did not even come close to describing his mood. Furious was closer, but it still wasn't a strong enough descriptor. Enraged beyond all measure was as close as language came to defining his current emotional state. If he was certain that his mother was perfectly safe and he was in the middle of that camp right now, he'd slaughter them all like the filthy animals that they were.

But his mother wasn't safe; she was down there hidden away in a tent. If he went down there now with lightsaber blazing, they could very well kill her before he was able to cut his way to her. And so stealth was his only option, mass-murder would have to wait.

Leaning hard on the training he'd received from Obi-Wan, he cast aside his anger and sought a sort of calm clarity. If he used the Dark Side in this situation, he could very likely lose his head and sight of his main objective, save Mom, and just go on a killing spree. So he would use the Light Side.

With great effort, he pulled himself into a light meditative trance. He forcibly divorced himself from his emotions, and watched the movements in the camp with a detached air. Vader did his best to be droid-like, to quickly and efficiently weigh each possibility, each plan. And only when he felt he had a few good plans of action in mind and the Force felt right, did he move.

Silent as a shadow, he slunk down the cliff to the valley camp below. He paused when his boots hit the sand, waiting for the Force to tell him when it was safe to make his move. When the prompting came, he darted over the open ground to the cover of the primitive bone-and-hide tents. From there, it was a simple matter of avoiding the Tusken sentries and finding the right tent.

Despite his attempts at a calm mind, the blood was roaring in his ears and his heart raced. Adrenalin was doing its best to undo his hard-won Jedi trance. His 'inner peace' was slowly crumbling. And there was no place for him to stop and work to get it back. If he was caught, the Tuskens wouldn't hesitate to kill him.

A faint tug in the flowing streams of the Force led him to a certain tent on the very fringes of the camp. Two male Tuskens sat vigil outside the front flap, so Vader slipped around behind it. Then, he used a little mind-trick to incite a pair of bull Banthas to get into a fight. Their battle cries made enough noise to cover the sound of a lightsaber carving a second door into the dome-shaped tent.

Vader darted inside, squinting slightly against the flickering glare of a glass lamp powered by animal fat. Against one wall of the tent, his mother hung, strung up by her wrists. She was eerily still and silent. With shaking hands, he sank down beside her and fumbled with the leather ties that bound her.

She moaned faintly, gasping in pain when blood rushed back into her hands. Once she was free, she sank into his arms no longer strong enough to support her own weight. When he brushed her hair from her face he was horrified at the damage he saw.

Her face was puffy and spotted with bruises. A dried trail of blood was caked at one corner of her mouth. Her hair was a mess, and greyer than he remembered. Her clothes were torn and peppered with blood stains. She looked like death warmed over.

"Mom?" He whispered hoarsely.

"Mmm…" She groaned and her eyes fluttered for several seconds before opening. Her brown eyes seemed to take an eternity to focus on his face. "A…Ani?"

"Yes Mom, it's me." Vader whispered, gently stroking her battered face. "I've come to get you."

"O-oh Ani…look at you. You're all grown up." She croaked, slowly raising an arm to trace the contours of his face, as if to confirm that he was real.

"Yeah," Vader grinned a little, blinking back tears. He cursed himself for not bringing any water with him, she sure looked like she was in serious need of some. But there was nothing he could do about it now. "Hang on Mom, we're getting out of here." He told her and very carefully gathered her up into his arms.

It was strange, he'd always thought she'd be heavy, but in reality she really wasn't. Maybe it was because he'd always been smaller than her before, but now that he was fully grown and several inches taller than her, it wasn't true. Moving slowly so as not to jostle her unnecessarily, he crept out of the hole he'd cut in the back of the tent.

Since she wasn't able to run, he used the same mind trick he'd used before to stir up all of the Banthas and divert the camp's attention. While the small herd milled about on one side of the encampment, Vader smuggled his mother away on the other. The Force was with them and they made it to the cliffs unseen.

From there, Vader was forced to sling his mother over his shoulder to get back to the top. He could always look for an easier route, but he feared that would take too much time. He really didn't want to be around when the sand people discovered their prisoner had broken loose.

"Hang on Mom," Vader murmured as he carefully settled her on the swoop bike in front of him. "Just a short ride and you'll be home, safe and sound."

"Okay," she moaned, sinking weakly against his chest as he revved the engine.

"Hang on," he repeated and then leaned on the throttle. The swoop bike roared before lurching forward, swiftly vanishing into the night…

Obi-Wan slumped dejectedly onto his sleep couch in his quarters, burying his head in his hands. He'd spent all day hunting for his wayward charge and come up with nothing but a missing Starfighter, his own Starfighter in fact. He found this most disappointing and worrisome.

It was his job to keep an eye on the boy at all times. It was his duty to keep him safe from whatever enemies hunted him. The boy was his responsibility and bothered him immeasurably that Vader was so foolish as to vanish without giving any warning. If Vader had decided to leave the Temple for good, Obi-Wan expected to at least be left a note saying that that was what was going on. There had been no such note or any other warning of any kind.

This is partly my fault, Obi-Wan mentally sighed. Aside from training him, I barely pay any attention to him. There were probably signs that I missed that would've hinted at his disappearance and, more importantly, why and where he's gone.

Sighing aloud, he lay down and tried to sleep. There was nothing more he could do tonight. He could only sleep and then wait for either Vader's return, or some news of his whereabouts.

Sleep was a long time coming…

Vader leaned against the wall of the sunken courtyard of the Lars' farmstead. One finger tapped an impatient rhythm against his upper arm as he waited for the doctor's report. It was all he could do to keep from all-out pacing like a caged animal.

In the early morning, just as the greater sun was rising, he'd made it back with his Mom. She'd been unconscious, but thankfully was still alive. Owen, who'd been so blank and uncaring when he'd first met him, had nearly lost himself to excited panic at seeing the woman he considered to be his mother return from certain death. Fortunately Beru took things in hand and settled Shmi into a bed and called the local doctor.

Waiting along with him was Owen, being held back from pacing as well by Beru, and Cliegg who was propped up in a hover-chair. Even the droid, Threepio hovered anxiously nearby. The air was tense with anxiety and excited hope. No one who had been captured by the Tuskens had ever made it back alive before. Everyone prayed that Shmi would be the first.

The doctor, a bespectacled older man with skin the color and apparent texture of wrinkled, aged leather, finally emerged out into the double-sunlight. Cliegg steered his chair over to the man and Owen all but dashed to the doctor's side with Beru close behind and Threepio edging nearer after her. Vader stubbornly forced himself to stay by the wall. He felt like an outsider here and had no wish to horn in on this family's moment of togetherness.

"She is a bit dehydrated, malnourished, and bruised, but she has no serious internal injuries or broken bones. With fluids, food, and a few weeks bed-rest, she should be as good as new." The doctor declared, looking very pleased.

"Oh thank the Gods," Cliegg sighed, limp with relief.

"Wonderful news!" Threepio cried, both relieved and elated.

Owen and Beru said nothing, they just hugged and smiled. Watching them, Vader felt an odd twinge of envy. He was just as glad, if not more so, than they were, but, again, he felt out of place. After his nightmarish time with the Count and then his dully serene time among the Jedi, he felt…different…damaged. He wasn't the same as he had been as a child, like he wasn't quite human anymore. His mother had a new life now, a new family, and he didn't belong anymore.

Almost before he realized it, he was climbing the stairs back up to the ground level. He strode stiffly to his waiting Jedi Starfighter and threw himself into the cockpit. Without really thinking about it, he brought everything online and blasted skyward.

He'd done what he'd come here to do. He'd found his mother and gotten her to safety. Now that he knew she would be fine, it was time for him to go. So he hooked up with his orbiting booster ring and locked in a course back to Coruscant. In under ten minutes, he had left Tatooine behind and was deep into the misty world of hyperspace.