Room 317 [early afternoon]

[tatooine_doofus]

After spending some time removing onion dip from Artoo’s internal systems-Force know how that had gotten there-Luke finally reached for his comlink and made a long-delayed transmission.

Leia answered immediately, and Luke chattered happily on about his workshops-and Tori- and some of the new students he’d met, including Bigg’s cousin-and Tori-and

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[tatooine_doofus]

Luke jumped about a foot in the air.

"Come in, Tori!" he squeaked.

[tatooine_doofus]

From his hiding place in the closet, Artoo let out a moan.

"My twin sister's coming to visit this weekend," Luke said.

He should've been thrilled. Instead, he looked a little green.

[tatooine_doofus]

"She's not particularly happy with me at the moment," Luke said, understating things by almost a ridiculous margin. He patted to a spot next to him on the bed. "This is going to take a bit of explaining, if you're up for hearing it."

...and here's where we go NFB, please...

[tatooine_doofus]

Luke reached and took her hand, then blew out a breath. "Okay. Skywalkers set new standards for dysfunction, so I'll totally understand if you, you know, run screaming from the room. I grew up on Tatooine with my aunt and uncle believing that my father, who had been a great Jedi, had been exterminated with the rest of his Order right before the rise of the Empire."

He made a face. "The official story was that the Jedi had tried to take over the government and rule absolutely, but since that's, well, entirely what the Emperor did, I call banthashit. My uncle absolutely refused to talk about my father, or the Jedi, or anything about how life had been before the Empire. I grew up restless and bored."

Re: ...and here's where we go NFB, please...

[tatooine_doofus]

"A little less than a year ago, my uncle bought two droids to help out with the harvest--Artoo and his counterpart Threepio, who's a protocol droid."

Artoo let out a little chirp but made no move to come out of the closet. He was staying there until Leia left, dammit.

"We didn't think anything of them until Artoo--claiming to be the property of Obi-Wan Kenobi--ran away. I chased after him, and while I was gone, the Empire's Stormtroopers tracked the droids back to the farm, burned it down, and killed everyone inside."

Luke's voice wasn't quite as steady as he'd like it to be.

Re: ...and here's where we go NFB, please...

[tatooine_doofus]

Luke gave her hand a squeeze. "It kind of goes downhill from there for a bit," he said softly. "If you want to bail out..."

Re: ...and here's where we go NFB, please...

[tatooine_doofus]

"Okay," Luke said, taking another deep breath. "It turned out that there was a reason the troopers were after Artoo and Threepio: Artoo had the complete schematics to the Death Star--a massive weapon--size of a small moon massive--that could blow up planets. Leia had put them into his memory and sent him off to find Obi-Wan Kenobi, the only Jedi Knight who was still alive, and that was a closely guarded secret."

He ran his free hand through his hair. "Ben--that's how I knew him--had been on Tatooine watching over me because he and my father had been best friends, though I never knew that because my uncle wouldn't let him within a klick of the farm. Artoo found him, Ben recognized Leia on the tape, the farm was destroyed anyway, so off we went to return the droid to the girl on the message."

Re: ...and here's where we go NFB, please...

[tatooine_doofus]

Luke nodded. "Ben had fought with Leia's father during the Clone Wars, so we hired a freighter and headed for Alderaan." He swallowed hard. "The Death Star had gotten there first. Billions of lives gone in an instant. And Leia had to watch."