THE STORY OF THE SKYWALKERS

(As told by Boba Fett.)

Boba Fett watched the brilliant pair of ten year-olds strip and clean their blasters without him reminding them for once. He was proud of them. Luke and Leia had already proven their worth several times over in the nearly four years that they had been in his care. They would both become excellent bounty hunters in their own right. Luke was an excellent shot as well as a phenomenal pilot, and Leia was an excellent mechanic as well as being extremely proficient with explosives and possessing negotiating skills that left him in the dust. Both children possessed the better traits of their biological parents.

As he watched the children work, he remembered the day when they were seven and had somehow acquired their own genetic testing kit...

"It's a match." they both said at the same time.

"So that means that what he told us..." Leia began.

"Is true." Luke finished.

After he'd taken both children in and had been told on no uncertain terms by Kal Skirata that they were his responsibility and that he wouldn't be getting any help from that quarter, he had compiled every fact he could about Anakin Skywalker, and had given the information to the twins in a format that he hoped that they would understand considering how young they were, a bedtime story...

Once, many years ago, on the planet Tatooine, there had been a slave boy named Anakin Skywalker. He had lived with his mother Shimi and worked in the shop of their owner, a Toydarian named Watto, in the town of Mos Espa. The boy was very special. As well as being an exceedingly skilled mechanic, he could do something no other human could, he could survive and actually win Pod races.

One day, about thirteen years before you were born, which was incidentally the year I was born, a Jedi got himself and the Queen of Naboo who was a girl called Amidala, stranded on Tatooine. In a successful attempt at getting the necessary parts for the queen's ship so they could reach Coruscant, the Jedi called Qui-gon exploited the boy's abilities. The boy ran and won the Boonta Eve Classic, after which, the boy's ownership transferred from Watto to the Jedi Qui-gon.

Believing himself to have been freed by his new master who had failed to win his mother as well, the boy followed him to the Jedi temple and another form of slavery. Believing the Jedi's lies that this was a good opportunity for her son, and that she would see him again, his mother Shimi gave him her blessing.

Usually, the Jedi only accept babies and toddlers which they have taken from their gullible families into the order, since such small children would be unable to remember or even contemplate a life anywhere else as they grew up with the Jedi. But, since Anakin showed such great potential, namely Podracing, and single-handedly destroying a Trade Federation Control Ship, they made a special exception for him, and inducted him into the order before he could learn about any of his other potential opportunities.

For the next ten years, Anakin studied under a Jedi named Obi-wan Kenobi who had been Qui-Gon's student, not allowed to go back home and see his mother, or even contact her in any other way.

One day, when he was supposed to be guarding the former queen and then senator Amidala, and his master was poking his nose where it didn't belong on a planet called Kamino where my father and I were living, Anakin snuck back home to see his mother. After finding out that she had been bought and married by a man named Lars, Anakin raced over to the farm only to discover that she had been taken by Sand People, and that he had come in time to bring her body back for burial.

He didn't have time to stay and properly mourn his mother's loss, because his master had gotten himself stranded on the planet Geonosis and needed rescuing. So, Anakin was forced to drag the senator to Geonosis where he, his master, and the senator were captured and sentenced to be executed as spies. During what was supposed to be the execution, a large number of Jedi showed up to rescue their comrades, and started the first battle of the Clone Wars, during which a member of their "esteemed" council named Mace Windu cut my father's head off.

Some time during the Clone Wars, Anakin Skywalker and Senator Amidala fell in love, which had been long forbidden by the Jedi who held to a code of non-attachment, and eventually started a family, which was also forbidden. Shortly before the two of you were born, the Clone Wars ended with the Jedi Order being declared traitors, and the Jedi exterminated. It was at that time that your father went missing and was presumably killed.

The Jedi Master Obi-wan Kenobi, and the Jedi Master Yoda survived the initial purges and somehow discovered that Senator Amidala was carrying Anakin Skywalker's children. They took her to the medical facility at Polis Massa where she gave birth early, crying out the entire time for her lover Anakin.

First, she gave birth to a boy whom she named Luke. He was given to the son of his grandmother's husband and his wife Beru who lived on a moisture farm on Tatooine. There, he was watched by the Jedi Kenobi who planned on taking him from the family that was raising him and using him to rebuild the Jedi Order. Instead of caring for him properly, his relatives who didn't know how to deal with his abilities had hit him.

(At this point Luke pointed out that his aunt never hit him).

Correction, his uncle hit him, and his aunt went along with the abuse hoping to avoid confrontation.

Second, the senator gave birth to a girl whom she named Leia. This girl was neither given to her relatives on Tatooine where her brother was sent, nor to her grandparents on Naboo, but instead she was given to a man who had the means to, and could have quite easily taken both children, but only took one, a man who didn't care that he had separated her from the only family she had.

Shortly after giving birth, senator Amidala died of a botched C-section. Kenobi claimed that it was a broken heart that killed her as I was leaving, but I had seen the incision and a five year-old with a pair of scissors could have done a much better job.

The children had many questions he didn't know the answers to after he had told them the story, but he vowed that he would find them if it were at all possible to do so.

He was brought back to the present by a click, Luke had finished reassembling his blaster first. Leia finished a second later. He inspected their blasters, both were perfectly cleaned and assembled. Yes, his children were good children, and they would go far. Senator Amidala and Anakin Skywalker never knew of the precious gift they had given him that long-ago day, but he couldn't imagine life without them.

Edited on 3/13/2012