[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Covalent Bonds

Chapter 22

"Unka Unka Unka! Unka Unka Unka! Un--"

"Sabra, honestly! Let Uncle Anakin debark first before you -- "

"It's fine, Beru." Anakin braced himself at the top of the ramp. "Let 'er rip."

Sabra might be a toddler still, but she could run full tilt up the angle of the ramp. Anakin scooped her up. "Sabra, kissy?"

Sabra obliged. "Obwahn?"

"He's not here. He sends ... this." Anakin hoisted the little girl to straddle his neck and she grabbed his braid for balance. Why did the Order come up with this hairstyle ... when I am Grandmaster ... Anakin suffered her to yank his plait, thankful that she was not teething as she had been at six months. The drool output had been horrendous. Her diaper crinkled against his skin and one sturdy boot drummed against his tattoo. Ow.

"Thaaaat's enough, Sabra. Come to Pa." Owen stretched out one meaty arm as Sabra shrieked and grabbed the back of his hand. He spread his hand atop her tawny hair, she braced herself and clung to his thick fingers, he lifted and she transferred to him, opening her legs wide before clamping them around his waist. Owen settled her against his hip and smiled. "Anakin, brother, welcome. It's been too long."

"Couldn't miss her second lifeday, could I?" Anakin said. He reached inside his cloak's inner pocket. "For you, sweetie." He pulled out a gaily-wrapped box the size of a holonet emitter, palm edition.

"Pwesent. Fank oo." Sabra accepted the gift and then turned shy, tucking her head against Owen's chest as she clutched the box. She didn't say anything else until they all were seated in the Lars' kitchen with herself sitting crosslegged in the middle of the dining table. By the smashed cake on the floor and dabbled frosting on the walls, Anakin assumed her party had not been over with for long. He draped a length of fine hair behind her ear.

"Go ahead. Open it."

"Yaybo!" Sabra wouldn't look at Anakin until he crossed his eyes and placed his braid on his upper lip like Obi-Wan's moustache. She giggled. "Unka Wahn." Perfect. She made the connection. For a split-second he pitied her, as she would never know the Force as he did. Then he saw Beru and Owen's content and figured that Tatooine's sandstorms blew in the faces of the Force-sensitive and the non-Force-sensitive alike and stopped that train of thought.

Sabra undid her present. "Oooo, shiny." The tiny droid uncurled like a droideka. A benign droideka. It rolled, it twittered like a gibbit bird, it came to a dead stop. From a lens on its front sprang a hologram of Hologram Fun World in miniature, displaying pink dewbacks on parade, a banner scrolling across their rough hides. They skipped along as Beru read aloud, "'Tickets for two days, one night at Koann Kondominiums. Meals included. Koann Kondominium World, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hologram Fun World, welcomes you. Claim your prize. No time-share presentation at entry. Tickets for: Owen Lars. Beru Lars. Sabra Lars. Anakin Skywalker.'" Beru's quietude fled. "Oh, Anakin. It's so generous of you. How did you get these tickets?"

Anakin kept his eyes on Sabra. "They were part of a benefit incentive I attended on Coruscant a while back. It was for a Jedi Children's Museum. These were given away to everyone there, whether they were parents or not. I'm glad you can use -- "

Owen broke in. "Pa wouldn't want us to take charity." Anakin saw Cliegg's gruffness in his son, not yet tempered with age's benevolence. We Jedi are spoiled. We live like lordly Hutts in a clean Temple and haven't a clue about struggling for a livelihood. Even as a slave, Mom and I knew where our next meal was coming from.

Beru looked as if rounding on her husband happened once per wet season. "Owen. He can't use them, he'll never use them, and Sabra loves FlibbertiGibbit so. She'll get the biggest kick out of this -- "

"I don't want to cause any trouble, Owen -- "

Owen worked his jaw, his beard a thin fuzz compared to Obi-Wan's lush growth. He stared at Sabra, who was touching the toy droideka, then reaching through the pink dewbacks. Totally absorbed, she was unaware of being the center of attention. "All right. I won't fight you, Beru." The dewbacks' message faded, but they continued to skip, prancing through Sabra's clutching fingers.

Anakin poked Owen in the arm, feeling the brawn, a different kind than a Jedi's. Owen's was built by heavy lifting since childhood, but he would need help making this hard living after fifty. Or maybe the Tuskens will raid again ... no. Anakin shut down the image. Today was for rejoicing. "Start out tomorrow?"

Beru raised her eyebrows at Owen and they communed much as Anakin did with Obi-Wan. He could imagine hearing them, splintered thoughts and concerns of the day being dealt with. Any promises to keep over the next few days? No. Caught up with work? As much as we ever are. Someone to look after the animals? The neighbors will. Enough funds to treat Anakin to a decent meal out when we're there? Playing across their faces were the thoughts of any couple wanting a small break from routine. Beru nodded to Anakin. "We thank you. Sabra thanks you."

Sabra looked up at the mention of her name. She scrambled for Beru's arms, sensing tension. Beru stood. "Come on, Anakin. Let's go visit your Mom and Cliegg." She led the way until just before the entrance to the burying ground, then allowed Anakin and Owen to step together onto the smoothed area between the two memorials. Cliegg's wasn't like Shmi's at all. Owen had molded three vaporator control plates to form a meter-high obelisk and engraved Cliegg's name and dates on its pewter-like surface. Anakin touched it curiously. Six months ago. We were on Alliga then and I got the news two months late. The suns were fierce, but Anakin didn't mind. There was no wind. That might come later in the day.

Anakin remembered the sandstorm that had divided his life in two: before and after Qui-Gon Jinn. Qui-Gon, who would perhaps laugh at the solemnity of this visit. "You have Obi-Wan back where you want him. You have family to visit, a second lifeday to celebrate, for fuck's sake. You have a duffel with bottled joy in it. Why so glum, Ani?" To Anakin, the imagined voice had the self-contained wisdom that sometimes came with age, the kind that had lost the ability to connect with a young one's passions and problems. It was the voice that Master Yoda did not use.

Anakin replied to the absent Jinn, "I'm in a graveyard, standing over my mother's tomb. Why are you so kriffing happy?"

"It is in me and I must share," Qui-Gon answered. "There is no other reason."

In Anakin's mind's eye, the Master Jedi lost some remembered luster. My grief for her was real. I killed for it. It was said that the moisture farmers here feared the women Tuskens' custody of prisoners more than they did the men's. The women were skilled at meat butchering, flaying ... Anakin shivered. He did not want to revisit that awful night. The men may have deserved his judgment, the women also, but the children? No, no, no. Sabra's eyes were no more precious than the Tusken children's, clear and ungoggled as they were in the blasting midday heat. She reached down from Beru's grip, patting his head as he sank to his knees by Shmi's headstone. Mom.

Nighttime brought a chill spring wind to Anakin as he retraced his steps alone to the burying ground. He clutched a poncho that Owen had loaned him, though his own Jedi robes were warmer. Somehow the signature Tatooine garment felt more in tune with this solitary visit. The moonslight glinted off Cliegg's marker, but Shmi's name was in shadow. Anakin settled against the stone. "To you, Mom," he said as he raised his Whyren's Lite high before guzzling half the bottle. It smells like sour grain. It tastes bad. He finished the bottle. Warmth spread from stomach to gut and back up to gullet. Mom. You didn't know me as a man. We never knocked back a cold one after coming home from Watto's. My opinion of you has never changed. Would yours, of me?

By the time Anakin had finished the final bottle, Owen's voice streamed across the sand. "Anakin! I'm shutting down the power now!"

"Be right there!" On unsteady feet, Anakin crunched through some hardpan before gliding once more in shifting sand. He used the Force to make whirlwinds all around him as he walked along. They ceased when he entered the compound. Owen took the two bottles from him and put them in a covered recycling bin filled with odds and ends. Mostly odds. Anakin opened the bin to see its sorting mechanism, but sealed it quickly when a powerful odor filled his nostrils. "Stang, Owen, that is the most putrid -- "

"It's the diapers. The bacteria takes a while to break everything down, you know. We don't have Coruscant magic out here."

"But does she normally -- "

"We're never feeding her that brand again, I can promise you." Owen met Anakin's eyes and laughed. "Brother, you're out on your feet. C'mon, time to rest. Sabra's way too squirmy to sleep with, so here's your bed." Owen guided Anakin to the kitchen and a plain cot of the sort that seemed galaxy-wide. Anakin felt right at home as Owen took back the borrowed poncho and pulled off Anakin's boots. "No, don't help. I can do it faster. I did the same thing as you after Pa passed on. It took me months to say goodbye." Owen pushed Anakin's head down on the pillow and covered him with one blanket and a quilt. "It's chilly. Get me up if you really can't take it. That Temple of yours probably has you spoiled, central heating and all." Anakin saw a twinkle in Owen's eye. "I came home late and toasted once or twice, a few years ago. Your Mom did this much for me."

"Did you call her 'Mom'?" Anakin hiccupped.

"Yes."

"Good. I know she liked that. She, she was the best Mom, Owen -- "

"She was and she wouldn't like to see you crying. Sleep now. Hush." Owen turned off all power to the homestead except for the perimeter security net and felt his way to the door of the kitchen. "We want an early start."

Anakin turned on his side, pulling up the quilt to his chin. In the darkness, an embroidered design on the fluffiness brushed his fingers. An appliqued jewel intrigued him. "What is this on here? It feels like something expensive. I don't feel right using this if it's an heirloom, Owen -- " I don't want to throw up on it. I don't know that I will, but I'm not used to drinking.

"You beat everything, you know that? Half lit and worrying ... It's Sabra's old pink FlibbertiGibbit bird quilt. That's his beak you're fiddling with. Leave it alone and get some rest. You're piloting tomorrow and you've got precious cargo." Owen's laugh was the last thing Anakin heard before succumbing to sleep.

Meanwhile, in hyperspace ...

This is how Padmé Skywalker felt when Anakin and I were together in the war. Duty first, then pleasure. This is waiting, cubed. Obi-Wan kept up the chitchat with Siri with his upper brain while his lower replayed the scene in the hospital hydrotherapy room again and again. It would be something he could not share with Siri, though her experiences with Krayn's group had led her to a wider understanding of what the non-Jedi part of the galaxy took for granted as essential to life. Even now, with the Order going through some birth pangs as it processed its new Code slowly out to AgriCorps and its other service branches, Obi-Wan's and Siri's chaste upbringing made them reticent about many personal things. It was a breakthrough for her even to mention his kiss-swollen lips, as offhanded as she had been. He rubbed at his moustache while her attention was on their current position.

"Another half hour. Extra-vehicular suits checked? Speeder bikes? Fuel for speeder bikes?" Siri practiced her Force-bubble restraint of her medium-length hair idly. It was a weak exercise from her youth she hadn't paid much attention to as a Padawan, though Soara and Quinlan and Shylar made much of their wild locks' arrangement, shocking each other with new styles weekly. She played with an upsweep, a flip, a sleek chignon and finally decided on a simple pullback. It was the most she had ever indulged her fancies and she wondered if Obi-Wan's proximity influenced her primping. Probably. Ferus, dearest boy, you were always complimentary and I needed that, but Obi-Wan is a peer. Siri speculated on Ferus' whereabouts, secret mission or no. Tholme would know, she was certain, not that he would ever tell her. No, he'd keep a straight face and say, "Why are you asking?" and any hemming and hawing on her part would be put down to pure sentimentality. Which, of course, it wasn't. Stay safe, Knight Olin, my first. Don't let those ideals of yours blind you to reality.

She played making a Padawan braid in the midst of all that diddling around. She's thinking of Ferus. "Siri, everything's checked. This ship is positively ready to be hidden away. Behind Olanet's umbra would be too noticeable, I'm thinking, and onplanet would be more favorable. Olanet has numerous wildernesses with few citizens in them. Might try there."

"I'm thinking of Tunroth Colonial Valley, in among the Grizmallt nerfs. We could camouflage it."

"With what? This ship is ninety-meters of shininess. It may even be visible from space."

"With help from my contacts among the Tunroth. There are a few favors they owe me. I was able to warn them of the Lortan threat." Siri looked at the starstream without blinking. "If they only take heed and arm themselves with energy weapons instead of those bows, they'll have a chance." She grimaced. "But tradition is strong with them and they probably won't. Eh, back to something I can control." She raised her eyebrows to Obi-Wan. "I'm open to suggestions." I don't know these particular Tunroth, but I'm certain I can deal with them. I will deal with them.

She is a good partner. "Very well. Tunroth Colonial Valley it is."

TBC

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