Star Wars - Kenobi

me to move someplace else, farther away. There may be wisdom in that. I seem to attract trouble, even in such a remote place as this. There was some mischief yesterday at Anchorhead—and before that, some trouble in one of the spaceports I passed through. None of it was really about me, thankfully, or why I’m here. But I can’t afford to react to things as Obi-Wan Kenobi anymore. I won’t be able to turn on my lightsaber without screaming “Jedi Knight” to everyone around. Even on Tatooine, I expect someone knows what that is!
    So this will be it. From here on out, as long as it takes, I’m minding my own business and staying out of trouble. I can’t play Jedi for this world and help save the other worlds at the same time. Isolation is the answer.
    The city—even a village like Anchorhead—runs at too fast a pace. Out on the periphery, though, should be another story. I can already feel time moving at a different pace—to the rhythm of the desert.
    Yes, I expect things will be slower. I’ll be far from anywhere, and alone, with nothing but my regrets to keep me company.
    If only there were a place to hide from those.

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE
    EVERYTHING CASTS TWO SHADOWS.
    The suns had determined this at the dawn of creation. Brothers, they were, until the younger sun showed his true face to the tribe. It was a sin. The elder sun attempted to kill his brother, as was only proper.
    But he failed.
    Burning, bleeding, the younger sun pursued his sibling across the sky. The wily old star fled for the hills and safety, but it was his fate never to rest again. For the younger brother had only exposed his face. The elder had exposed his failure.
    And others had seen it—to their everlasting sorrow.
    The first Sand People had watched the battle in the sky. The suns, dually covered in shame, turned their wrath on the witnesses. The skybrothers’ gaze tore at the mortals, burning through flesh to expose their secret selves. The Sand People saw their shadows on the sands of Tatooine, and listened. The younger spirit urged attack. The elder told them to hide. Counsels, from the condemned.
    The Sand People were condemned, as well. Always walking with the twin shadows of sacrilege and failure beside them, they would hide their faces. They would fight. They would raid. And they would run.
    Most Sand People struck at night, when neither skybrother could whisper to them. A’Yark preferred to hunt at dawn. The voices of the shadows were quieter then—and the settlers who infested the land could see their doom clearly. That was important. The elder sun had failed by not killing his brother. A’Yark would not fail, had never failed, in killing settlers. The elder sun would see the example, and learn …
    … now.
    “Tuskens!”
    A’Yark charged toward the old farmer who had given the cry. The raider’s metal gaderffii smashed into the human’s naked chin, shattering bone. A’Yark surged forward, knocking the victim to the ground. The settler struggled, coughing as he tried to repeat the cry. “Tuskens!”
    Years earlier, other settlers had given that name to the Sand People who obliterated Fort Tusken. The raiders back then had welcomed the name into their tongue; it was proof the walking parasites had nothing the Sand People could not take. But A’Yark couldn’t stand to hear the proud name in the mouths of the appalling creatures—and few were as ugly as the bloody settler now writhing on the sand. The human was ancient. Apart from a bandage from a recent head injury, his whitish hairs and withered flesh were exposed to the sky. It was horrible to see.
    A’Yark plunged the hefty gaderffii downward, its metal flanges crushing against the settler’s rib cage. Bones snapped. The weapon’s point went fully through, grinding against the stone surface beneath. The old settler choked his last. The Tusken name again belonged only to the Sand People.
    Immediately A’Yark charged toward the low building, a short distance ahead. There was no thought to it. No predator of Tatooine ever stopped to reflect on killing. A Tusken could be no different.
    To think too long was to die.
    The human nest was a wretched thing, something like a sketto hive: scum molded and shaped into a disgusting half bulb, buried in the sand. This one was formed from the false rock of theirs, the “synstone.” A’Yark had seen it before.
    Another shout. A pasty white biped with a bulging cranium appeared in the doorway of the building,