Star Wars. Suns Among Stars Trilogy, Book One: A Man Among Boys

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen:

(A/N: I may have played a little with Luke's age just so you know.)

It was just another extremely hot day in the double suns, and Luke could feel the perspiration dripping down his back in ticklish trickles. His hand ached from the abuse it was receiving as Luke struggled to loosen a stubborn bolt on the moisture vaporator in the south field.

With a grunt, Luke heaved his arm muscles; straining against the small, but troublesome piece of metal.

"Come on, blast you!" Luke muttered in irritation. "Come off!"

At that moment his wrench slipped, and Luke's hand launched forward from the unexpected motion. A line of searing fire laced his palm as a sharp piece of metal sliced into it.

Luke gasped in pain, jerking his hand away from the offensive piece of equipment and checking to see how serious the injury was. There was a good amount of blood, but he supposed it was due to the location of the cut more than the depth of it.

With a silent curse, Luke shook his head and collected his gear for his return to the house. It was the end of the workday anyhow. He would have to ask Uncle Owen if they had any lubricant he could try using on the stuck bolt.

Luke saw that he was leaving a little dribble of blood and thinned his lips, looking through his toolkit for a rag. Finding one, he grimaced: it was filthy.

But, other than tearing his clothes he had no other option, and in any case it was just until he got to the house. Luke held the rag in place as he walked, with his tool bag now resting in the crook of his elbow.

As he moved along, Luke's thoughts went back in time four years to when, behind the very moisture vaporator he'd just been working on, he and his uncle had finally healed the growing rift between them.

Those nine long months of Venussia's pregnancy had been the most harrowing in Luke's admittedly short lifespan, but as he looked back, he also saw how that time had refined both himself and Owen.

Luke had become more calm and serene, though he still enjoyed a good high-speed race now and then. He'd even threaded the Stone Needle in Beggar's Canyon, but had afterwards realized how stupid that had been.

What if he'd crashed? What would have become of his daughter?

Luke liked to think of himself as further matured; he was definitely more level-headed than he had been before Shmi.

As for Owen, he had become less callous... or maybe Luke was just much better at reading the quiet man now. But Luke's uncle did show his love better now, and in ways others may have easily overlooked.

But Luke saw it in the way Owen would show his nephew a trick or two in getting the farm equipment to do its job a little faster. Or how he'd open up in the evenings with a fact or two about the woman Owen had once called mother.

On a few rare occasions, Luke had asked tentative questions about his own mother and to his surprise had received the minimal facts that Owen and Beru knew. They wouldn't give Luke a last name, but they had given him her first name.

Padmé.

The kind woman had been beautiful and kind, yet obviously was a person who would fight for what she felt to be right. Beru had remarked in passing one night how Luke must have gotten his good heart from Padmé. And while they did not have a holo to show Luke, Owen and Beru had given him a basic description of Padmé: deep chocolate hair, brown eyes that were far more intelligent than her years should have allowed, yet not bitter because of it.