Chapter IV – Tale of the Beast

"You've got to be joking!" Luke exclaimed.

A sentiment I echoed exactly.

"Oh, c'mon, he's just a baby," Jessa protested. "And he's kinda cute…"

"Cute?" Luke repeated in disbelief.

There before us, tangled thoroughly in the undergrowth, was a very young acklay, eyes bright with panic and shrieking hoarsely. Jessa had been right – it couldn't have been more than a few months old, seeing as its shoulder barely reached my chest. Its hide showed a fiery red under the layer of dust and grime, the brilliant red of a setting sun. And it was obviously not going anywhere anytime soon, for its legs, claws, and the remains of a broken halter were snarled hopelessly in the bramble and vines.

"Right, now approach it slowly," advised Jessa. "Speak softly to it, it's pretty frightened."

"How can you be sure it will understand me?" I asked doubtfully.

She slammed a hand against her forehead. "Good gravy, didn't I just get through telling you? The ring! It'll understand you, trust me…"

I remembered her telling me the ring would enable me to communicate with animals, but it was one thing to trust in a theory, another to put it into practice. All the same, I stepped cautiously forward, ready to dodge if it took a slash at me.

"Easy now…" I told it hesitantly.

"Go away! Go away! Go away!" The creature did not speak Basic, of course, but the meaning of its cries was clear in my mind anyhow. "I'll cut you to pieces!"

"I'm not here to hurt you."

The terrified acklay stared at me with tiny, squinted eyes, belly heaving as it panted for breath, limbs twitching. "I can understand you. You're not like the others."

"I wear the unicorn ring." I lifted my hand to show it. "We can understand each other as long as I wear it."

The beast leaned forward as far as its bonds would allow and sniffed experimentally at my offered hand. "Never heard of a unicorn ring…" But I sensed some of its fear ebbing. "Doesn't smell like anything I recognize… can they talk to me too?"

"The others? I'm afraid not. But they are my friends, and they will do you no harm."

The acklay sighed. "Been here for days. Hungry. Want to go home…"

"Does it agree to help?" asked Jessa.

"I have not asked yet," I replied. "Luke, we need a knife or some other blade from the packs. We have to cut it loose."

Much later, when the relieved creature finally stepped free of the confining undergrowth, I explained to it what we needed. It considered a few moments, then nodded its crested head.

"You helped me. I'll help you. Only fair. I'm very strong, I can carry your supplies." It lifted a hind claw to scratch at its shoulder. "Been a long time since I had a good master."

"It agrees," I told the others.

"What'd I tell you?" Jessa said triumphantly. "Um, is it a boy or a girl? Kind of hard to tell with them, isn't it?"

"I'm male," the beast replied on request. "Females gray or brown, males red or orange or black, hatchlings yellow-white until one month. Not hard."

"This feels kind of strange," Luke admitted as we strapped our baggage to the acklay's back. "I mean, you never think about animals being able to talk, or being able to understand them…"

"It makes sense," I replied. "All creatures have some sort of intelligence. It's only logical that they have some means of communicating with one another."

At last we set off. Using the remains of the acklay's halter, Jessa had cobbled together a sort of collar that fitted around the creature's neck, and Luke used this to lead him.

"So where does he come from?" asked Luke. "Does he have a name? And who was his master, and what happened to them?"

I posed the questions to the acklay, who was delighted to be consulted.

"All acklays have names," he assured me. "Don't think you can pronounce them, though. Mine is…" And he made an eerie, keening howl of sound that sent shivers down my spine.

"Sounds like the wind at a window late at night," Jessa noted.

"Then for the moment, we will call you Nightwind," I told him.

"Nightwind. Okay by me. Gone by lots of names, but Nightwind's the best. Better than Red or Killer or Spike… I'm hungry."

Despite being able to communicate with us – or at least with me – he still thought like a creature. And like most creatures, he lived for the moment, eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, fighting or fleeing when confronted with a danger. The past was valuable for its accumulated experience, but hardly worth grousing over as most humans did. And while we might find his back-story interesting, he obviously didn't think it more important than the pressing need to fill his stomach.

"Didn't think about feeding it when you convinced us to take it along, did you?" Luke told Jessa in a teasing tone.

I don't know how a droid's face can look sheepish, but she managed it.

"I can hunt," Nightwind chimed in. "Old enough. Can't catch big things yet, but I can feed myself anyhow. Take off the packs, and I'll be back soon. Never takes long."

He was right; he had only been gone fifteen minutes or so before he was back, licking his fangs and lowering his head to accept the collar again.

"Good hunting…" he remarked with a gusty belch. "Anyway, story. Hatched on world far away from here. Dark and cool, lots to eat, brothers and sisters to play with. Don't remember much else. The hunters came, killed our mother and father, and took us away. Spent days on their ship, crammed in cages. No food, no water, stank, lights too bright… nearly died…

"They sold us to different masters. One man bought five of us, and he tried to teach us tricks. Was a cruel man, he beat us. Our sister finally had enough, and she tried to kill him… he beat her in the head with a shovel. She never was right after that…

"Man who worked for our master felt sorry for us, and he tried to buy us. Didn't have enough money, so stole Sister and a brother and me and ran away. He was kind. Always fed us enough, never hit us or used shock poles. Did tricks for him because we liked him, not because we were afraid of him. He helped us, so we helped him.

"Then more men came, men wearing white armor. Told our master he couldn't keep us, because he didn't have something called a 'lye-sense.' I don't know what that means, but somehow we knew we would be taken away from him. Didn't want that. Brother thought if we killed the men in white, we could stay with him. He attacked them… they shot him.

"Sister and I were taken away and sold to a circus, where we did tricks for food. Didn't feed us if we didn't do a good show. We were always traveling, and always hungry because they didn't feed us enough, even when we did do tricks for them. Sister got sick, and the owner of the circus decided we weren't worth keeping anymore. Decided to sell us to a zoo.

"Never got there. The ship crashed. Our master died. Sister was hurt badly. I left the ship to hunt, thinking she would get better if I got her some food. Never made it back, I got stuck…" He whimpered sadly. "Sister's dead now. Can't have survived this long."

I relayed the story to the others. Luke reached over and placed a sympathetic hand on Nightwind's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he told him. "I wish there was something we could do to help."

Nightwind understood the gist of it, and he butted Luke affectionately.

"Tell human boy…"

"His name is Luke," I told him.

"Tell Luke thank you. He's a nice man. Like my second master. Can I stay with him?"

"I don't know if you'll be welcome where we're going," Luke said hesitantly. "We'll probably be imposing on Wedge's friends as it is…"

"Oh well. Won't stay with you, then. I'll find a new master, one that will take good care of me. Must be at least one wherever we're going."

Like Jessa, Nightwind had an unflagging optimism I had to admire. He seemed absolutely sure that someone at our destination would be willing and able to take on and raise a half-grown acklay. I could only pray that his hopes would not be dashed.

Break…

Over the next few days, I learned much about my three companions.

A new facet of Jessa's personality surfaced early, when about an hour into our journey she suddenly asked, "Anyone mind a song for the road?"

"Not at all," Luke replied.

"Right." She cleared her throat and began a lively tune, one that I was totally unfamiliar with but enjoyed nonetheless. I wondered if her counterpart had been musically inclined… then again, with his internal organs frequently exposed as they were, I doubted his lungs would have been healthy enough to attempt it.

"What song is that?" Luke inquired once she had finished.

"'Ghost Riders In the Sky,' classic western tune," she replied. "I loved that song, but the choir director made me learn the alto part because we had too many sopranos. I have a fairly broad vocal range, so I can sing either soprano or alto, though I prefer soprano. Care for another one?"

Music was not my field of expertise, but I did appreciate her serenading our journey from that point forward. It made every kilometer less tedious.

Personality-wise, Nightwind was a fairly simple creature, though only time would tell whether that was due to his species' nature or his young age. All that concerned him were his stomach and the needs and temperament of his current master. The complexity lay in his means of communication, which I understood instantly thanks to the ring, but which might as well have been Binary to Luke and Jessa. I wondered if, with time and training, they might also be able to understand him.

I suppose I should explain the animal concept of "speech." Only about ten percent of their communication is through sound – the rest is conveyed through posture, body language, scent (which is beyond most humans given their inferior olfactory sense), and thoughts. Strange how sentient creatures think of telepathy as a supernatural talent, yet animals think it no more odd than communicating through a growl or tilt of the head.

It certainly makes one wonder which species is the higher, and which the lower.

But it was Luke who I wanted to learn the most about, and Luke who commanded most of my attention, attention that neither Jessa nor Nightwind begrudged in the least.

Though I was reluctant to divulge details of my past to my son, I listened intently as he talked about his own life and answered my questions. We had twenty years to make up for, after all, and I wanted to know everything I could. I knew we couldn't run forever – sooner or later someone would turn us in, and I would most likely pay for my crimes with my life. I wanted to die with closure, with fond memories of Luke to cling to.

I learned I had a son who loved flying as much as I did when I was a youth, a son who had lived as a moisture farmer on Tatooine with his aunt and uncle. I learned of his escapades with his friends, first in the backwater farm community of Anchorhead, then later among the scamps and rascals that made up Rogue Squadron. I learned of his desire to become a Jedi Knight like his father, to help restore justice to the galaxy. And most of all, I learned of his lifelong desire to know a father, to have some sort of patriarchal figure to guide his way. Obi-wan and Yoda had done well in that respect, but he still thirsted for memories of his own father.

In return for telling his story, however, Luke wanted information about my own life. He wanted to know about his mother, about my childhood, why I had turned to evil, what had damaged me so badly that I now had to rely on machinery to exist. I didn't want to think about the past; it was so painful to remember everything…

"Father, I have to know," he pressed. "It's part of my life too."

In the end, I conceded, and to say Luke was stunned to hear the highly ironic tale of how I had joined the dark side to save his mother's life, only to kill her in a fit of rage in the end, would be an understatement. The anger on his face cut me deeply, and I feared that I had just alienated him forever through revealing my dark and twisted past.

But his reply shocked me. "Why couldn't the Jedi help you save her? I thought they were stronger than the Sith. If you had told them about your visions, couldn't they have done something to save her life?"

"Luke, you don't understand. Marriage is forbidden in the Jedi Order. If I had admitted to marrying Padme and fathering children, I would have been punished, perhaps expelled…"

"Wait a minute," he interrupted, glaring at me. "The Jedi don't allow marriage?"

"'A Jedi shall not know discouragement, nor despair, nor love,'" I quoted. "Did not Yoda and Obi-wan tell you of that?"

"No," he replied in a resentful voice. "Apparently they forgot to mention that little detail." The tone of his voice suggested that he hardly thought it a trivial detail.

"The Jedi thought of love as a liability," I told him, unable to keep my own resentment out of my reply. "Any relationship aside from a Master-Padawan bond was discouraged."

His gaze remained fixed on the path ahead, but his blue eyes were hard. "I wanted to be a Jedi like my father," he said quietly. "But now that I know that they hold love and friendship in such low regard… I'm not sure I want to be one anymore."

"Luke, do not blame the Jedi for my fall," I encouraged. "I have no one to blame for my actions but myself. And do not hate Obi-wan and Yoda for failing to tell you about the Code. They acted with the best of intentions."

Luke gave a sharp nod in reply, but his face remained fixed in a bitter look.

"It must be your decision to follow the Jedi path… or abandon it," I told him. "No one can choose for you."

At that moment, daylight broke upon us as we emerged from the forest. Our path led us to the crest of a great hill overlooking a village, a village about the size of Mos Eisley but with less of a frontier-town feel to it. The surrounding land had been carved out into neat squares of farmland, each square a slightly different shade of green to indicate a different crop grew there. Everything seemed neat and quiet… too quiet.

Nightwind hissed. "Too bright, hurts my eyes…"

"Something's not right," Luke said warily.

I agreed – and so did the ring, which prickled ominously.

"I'll have a look," volunteered Jessa. "If I'm not back in two hours, go on without me."

"We'll come looking for you," Luke promised. "We're not leaving you behind."

She rolled her eyes. "Stubborn Skywalkers," she muttered, and she broke into a panther-like lope as she descended into the valley.

Luke led Nightwind slightly into the forest, where the acklay's sensitive eyes would not be so irritated, to await her return. "Do you think they had to evacuate the town for some reason?"

"More likely the citizens are barricading themselves in their homes," I replied. "These are unstable times. The Empire is dissolving, and the 'criminal Rebellion' they've been warned about for so long is taking over. Naturally they would be wary."

It took an hour and a half for Jessa to return, panting somewhat but not coughing. There was a strange look in her eyes, a troubled expression that confirmed our fears.

"It's safe to go down if you want," she reported. "But there's not much to see."

"What happened?" Luke asked. "Is anyone hurt? Is there something we can do?"

Her gaze dropped as she considered her next words. Involuntarily I followed her gaze, and I saw something that made my stomach turn – her feet were covered in blood.

"Someone attacked and looted the village," she replied. "Whoever it was, they're gone now. Everyone's dead. Everyone."