"Look over there, Luke," Kenobi ordered, pointing to the southwest. The

landspeeder continued to race over the gravelly desert floor beneath them. "Smoke,

I should think."

Luke spared a glance at the indicated direction. "I don't see anything, sir."

"Let's angle over that way anyhow. Someone may be in trouble."

Luke turned the speeder. Before long the rising wisps of smoke that Kenobi

had somehow detected earlier became visible to him also.

Topping a slight rise, the speeder dropped down a gentle slope into a broad,

shallow canyon that was filled with twisted, burned shapes, some of them inorganic,

some not. Dead in the center of this carnage and looking like a beached metal whale

lay the shattered hulk of a jawa sandcrawler.

Luke brought the speeder to a halt. Kenobi followed him onto the sand, and

together they began to examine the detritus of destruction.

Several slight depressions in the sand caught Luke's attention. Walking a little

faster, he came up next to them and studied them for a moment before calling back to

Kenobi.

"Looks like the sandpeople did it, all right. Here's Bantha tracks…" Luke

noticed a gleam of metal half-buried in the sand. "And there's a piece of one of

those big double axes of theirs." He shook his head in confusion. "but I never

heard of the Raiders hitting something this big." He leaned back, staring up at the

towering, burned-out bulk of the sandcrawler.

Kenobi had passed him. He was examining the broad, huge footprints in the

sand. "They didn't," he declared casually, "but they intended that we—and anyone

else who might happen onto this—should think so." Luke moved up alongside him.

"I don't understand, sir."

"Look at these tracks carefully," the older man directed him, pointing down at

the nearest and then up at the others. "Notice anything funny about them?" Luke

shook his head. "Whoever left here was riding Banthas side by side. Sandpeople

always ride one Bantha behind another, single file, to hide their strength from any

distant observers."

Leaving Luke to gape at the parallel sets of tracks, Kenobi turned his attention to

the sandcrawler. He pointed out where single weapons' bursts had blasted away

portals, treads, and support beams. "Look at the precision with which this firepower

was applied. Sandpeople aren't this accurate. In fact, no one on Tatooine fires and

destroys with this kind of efficiency." Turing, he examined the horizon. One of

those nearby bluffs concealed a secret—and a threat. "Only Imperial troops would

mount an attack on a sandcrawler with this kind of cold accuracy."

Luke had walked over to one of the small, crumpled bodies and kicked it over

onto its back. His face screwed up in distaste as he saw what remained of the pitiful

creature.

"These are the same jawas who sold Uncle Owen and me Artoo and Threepio.

I recognize this one's cloak design. Why would Imperial troops be slaughtering

jawas and sandpeople? They must have killed some Raider to get those Banthas."

His mind worked furiously, and he found himself growing unnaturally tense as he

stared back at the landspeeder, past the rapidly deteriorating corpses of the jawas.

"But…if they tracked the 'droids to the jawas, then they had to learn first who

they sold them to. They would lead them back to…" Luke was sprinting insanely

for the landspeeder.

"Luke, wait…wait, Luke!" Kenobi called. "It's too dangerous! You'd

never…!"

Luke heard nothing except the roaring in his ears, felt nothing save the burning

in his heart. He jumped into the speeder and was throwing the accelerator full over

almost simultaneously. In an explosion of sand and gravel he left Kenobi and the

two robots standing alone in the midst of smoldering bodies, framed by the still

smoking wreck of the sandcrawler.

The smoke that Luke saw as he drew near the homestead was of a different

consistency from that which had boiled out of the jawa machine. He barely

remembered to shut down the landspeeder's engine as he popped the cockpit canopy

and threw himself out. Dark smoke was drifting steadily from holes in the ground.

Those holes had been his home, the only one he had ever known. They might

as well have been throats of small volcanoes now. Again and again he tried to

penetrate the surface entrances to the belowground complex. Again and again the

still-intense heat drove him back, coughing and choking.

Weakly he found himself stumbling clear, his eyes watering not entirely from the

smoke. Half blinded, he staggered over to the exterior entrance to the garage. It

too was burning. But perhaps they managed to escape in the other landspeeder.

"Aunt Beru…Uncle Owen!" It was difficult to make out much of anything

through the eye-stinging haze. Two smoking shapes showed down the tunnel, barely

visible through tears and haze. They almost looked like— He squinted harder,

wiping angrily at his uncooperative eyes.

No.

Then he was spinning away, falling to his stomach and burying his face in the

sand so he wouldn't have to look anymore.

The tridimensional solid screen filled one wall of the vast chamber from floor to

ceiling. It showed a million star systems. A tiny portion of the galaxy, but an

impressive display nonetheless when exhibited in such a fashion.

Below, far below, the huge shape of Darth Vader stood flanked on one side by

Governor Tarkin and on the other by Admiral Motti and General Tagge, their private

antagonisms forgotten in the awesomeness of this moment.

"The final checkout is complete." Motti informed them. "All systems are

operational." He turned to the others. "What shall be the first course we set?"

Vader appeared not to have heard as he mumbled softly, half to himself, "She has

a surprising amount of control. Her resistance to the interrogator is considerable."

He glanced down at Tarkin. "It will be some time before we can extract any useful

information from her."

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