"Are you paying attention?"
Luke turned his head toward his annoyed sister. "What? Oh yeah, the vaporator..."
"We have to finish this before dark."
Luke rolled his eyes, "Yes Mother." He was not in the mood for this today. It was bad enough having to fix yet another vaporator, but doing it with his increasingly shrill sister was almost more than he could bear. Leia had always been bossy but lately she was getting even worse than normal. He was sick to death of it.
"Stop it."
"Stop nagging then, I get enough of that from Uncle Owen."
She glared at him, "If we don't get this done, we'll be grounded."
"No," he sighed, "If we don't get this done, he'll blame me and I'll be the only one grounded." In their sixteen years, Luke could barely count on one hand the number of times he remembered his uncle punishing Leia for anything.
"Which, in this case, will be right," Said Leia. "It's because of you that we're not finished."
Seething, he gripped his wrench even tighter and began roughly re-assembling the machinery. "Fine!"
The twins were silent for several minutes, and even though he refused to look at her, Luke could feel his sister's eyes on him. Finally, she broke the silence. "You're still mad at me from yesterday."
With those words, Luke felt something nearly snap inside him. There were a few times in his life, usually when having an argument with his uncle, when he would feel something well up inside of him--something dark, frightening, but strangely familiar. Because of that, he tried to avoid getting angry at all cost; but he was nearly at his limits.
"Leave it alone, Leia," He warned.
His twin sister was never one to back down, "I was right."
All of Luke's previous control immediately evaporated; he threw the wrench as hard as he could across the workshed. He then stood to tower over his seated twin. "You told Uncle Owen that I was talking to an Imperial recruiter! Did you think I would be happy?"
For a moment, he could see something strange in the girl's eyes. It was shock at his outburst, of course, but for a second he saw true fear. Finally, the moment was over and she stood to face him. Leia Skywalker never backed down from a fight. With an accusing finger in his face, she shouted0 back. "Stop yelling at me!"
Before she had a chance to continue what would most likely become a long tirade, Luke swatted her finger out of his face. "No, I'm sick and tired of you trying to run my life. It's bad enough I get it from Uncle Owen, but you're my sister!"
Leia appeared shocked at Luke's physical outburst. Still, she refused to let anything stop her. "Don't you ever touch me again! I was trying to help you, and this is the thanks I get!"
Luke wanted to say more--much more; but seeing his sister's own anger made him realize what he was doing. He had seen Leia's temper many times, and he had known for a long time that whatever comes over him when he was angry was much worse with her.
In defeat, Luke sunk down on the repair bench and put his head in his hands. He wanted nothing more than this conversation to be finished. "Get out of here."
Instead of leaving, Leia sat down next to him. With her own anger released, she put her arm around him. "Please, I just wanted to save you."
"Save me from what, getting away from sand?" No matter how much he tried, he could never convince Leia or his uncle that he was made for much more than the life of a moisture farmer. His aunt was always sympathetic, but it was his uncle that he would need to convince to let him go. It did not help matters that his own sister was almost in constant collusion with Owen in these matters.
Leia sighed, "I'm saving you from joining the Empire."
"You only want to keep me here, just like Uncle Owen. You two probably sit around and think of ways to ruin my life."
"Luke, I've heard things...really bad things about the Empire."
He looked up and turned to face his sister, "We've all heard that stuff, I'm sure some of that stuff is true, but I think most of it is just rumor. I don't want to be one of the higher-ups who make decisions, I just want to fly. The Imperial Flight Academy is the best in the galaxy."
Luke had heard many things in his life against the Empire. He was no apologist for them, and he certainly did not care about the politics surrounding them; but he wanted to fly more than anything. I had been his dream for so long, and now it was finally in his grasp.
"I don't want to lose you," Leia whispered.
"You won't lose me. We can write each other, and I'll come back to Tatooine on leave." Despite Leia's nagging and bossiness, he did love her very much. He knew his life would be incomplete without her.
"That's what Elan said, before he was killed."
Luke sighed, "It was an accident; he fell down one of maintenance shaft. We all know that."
Elan Gerant was the son of one of the moisture farmers in the area. Leia had crush on him for most of her teenage years, but him being three years older than she made any kind of courtship an impossibility--much to her dislike. Her uncle had forbid it.
One year ago, Elan enlisted in the Imperial military and trained as a stormtrooper. He was only one month into his first assignment when his body was returned to Tatooine.
"That was the official report, but it was a lie." The official explanation was that the death was accidental, but Leia had never believed it.
"Why are you being so paranoid?"
Leia looked down to the floor for a few moments and then quietly answered. "Because you didn't receive communications from him, I did."
"Elan was writing you?" This was the first time he had ever known Leia to so openly disobey their aunt and uncle. If Elan was not already dead, Owen would have killed him.
She then glared at Luke, "Yes, if you tell Uncle Owen, I'll tie you to a vaporator and leave you to the sandpeople!"
Despite the seriousness, it was all Luke could do to not chuckle at his sister. Finally, he regained his composure before Leia could make good on her threat. "What did he say in his comms?"
"He wrote me all during his basic training, and for the first few weeks of his assignment...to Vader's ship."
Luke's eyes widened in surprise. "He was on Darth Vader's flagship?" Like almost everyone in the galaxy, he was well aware of the mysterious figure that commanded the Imperial forces.
Leia frowned, "Yeah, Elan was terrified of him...all of the men on board was. He said that he couldn't say much because they might be reading his personal comms; but what he did say was scary."
"What did he say?"
"He said that if Vader wasn't happy with someone, they were sometimes never seen again."
"You think he killed them?" Luke asked. This was not the first time that he had heard about Vader's ruthlessness, but he was never sure that those stories were true.
Leia nodded, "Elan thought so...he was afraid that he wasn't good enough. Then he was killed."
"The report of his death said it was an accident, " Luke gently reminded her.
"Every thing that is in me is telling me that it wasn't."
"Leia..."
She stood and began pacing the small confines of the work shed. "Please listen, I overheard one of the Darklighters talking after Elan's funeral. He saw his body and said that it looked like he'd been strangled; there were bruises around his throat."
Luke shook his head, "Even if this is true, what does it have to do with me?"
Leia threw up her hands in frustration, "I don't want you to join the Empire; I don't want you to end up like Elan."
"I want to be a pilot, not a stormtrooper."
She was silent for a few moments, before she tried another tactic. "Luke, have you ever seen Vader?"
"I've seen a few holos...from a distance."
"I have seen a holo up close, when we were last in Mos Espa," Leia began. "I was in one of the trading centers waiting for the droids to finish with that big fabric order that Aunt Beru wanted, they had a transmitter showing HoloNet news...I saw Vader."
"You were scared of him?" If Leia was known for anything in the Lars household, she was known for her fearlessness. Luke could not imagine her being frightened by anything, least of all a man in a mask.
"There's something about him...something really odd and terrifying. I wanted to shut it off, but I couldn't move. I just stood there and watched it."
"Leia, it's just a mask."
"It's much more than that!" Leia shouted. "Something is wrong with him...very wrong." She then took a deep breath, "Ben told me once to trust my instincts, and that's what I'm doing."
Luke knew that he was beaten, he would not win this argument today. "I just want to leave here; I can't stand being on this planet. I want to see something besides sand."
She again sat down next to him and put her arm around him again. "Just promise me that you'll think about what I said before you run off and do something stupid."
He nodded, "I will...I promise."
"Thank you."
To Be Continued...