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“We’ll escort the Jawa home,” another stormtrooper said.

“No,” I said. “I’m taking him myself.”

And I did. I would not let them take him alone. I thought they might kill him if they got him alone—to anger the Jawas and to drive a wedge between them and the farmers. So a stormtrooper contingent escorted us to the Jawa fortress.

I lifted Wimateeka out of my speeder, near the gates of his fortress, and he rushed inside without saying a word to me.

Day 50, Night: I Become a Rebel

The Imperial commander ordered me into Mos Eisley to make a deposition, and I had to go. Ariela asked me to take her mother and sister to the spaceport. She stayed with the other farmers to prepare for the Sand People’s onslaught of revenge.

“Eyvind left me his farm,” Ariela told me. “I’d like you to help me run it after this is over—when we can go back to it.”

So I had that to think about on my way into Mos Eisley.

I left Ariela’s mother and sister at the spaceport. In a short time, they would be safe on Alderaan. I made my deposition, and the Imperials confiscated my map and let me go.

I wondered for how long.

In the meantime, my farm was abandoned.

My hopes for making peace with the Jawas and the Sand People were ruined.

The Sand People would surely feel betrayed and kill innocent people.

My maps, my dreams, my successful negotiations meant nothing to the Empire.

All because the Empire did not want us to have peace. All because the Empire did not care about the safety and the work and the lives of its citizens. We were pawns to be used and discarded—our efforts channeled as long as possible into “approved” paths.

I stopped at the cantina for a drink. I could not go straight back.

I sat in a dark corner and watched the people around me—people from all corners of the Empire. Representatives of peoples who had each, in their own way, been oppressed by the Empire. We had all endured it.

But there was another way. I knew there was another way.

There was the Rebellion.

The Empire had driven me into rebellion.

I took another drink and looked around. I didn’t know how to find the Rebellion. I didn’t know how to join. But this cantina would be the place to find out, I thought. If I asked a few judicious questions, maybe I’d find out. I decided to ask the Ithorian a few tables down.

I took another drink, for courage, but before I could move, Owen and Beru’s nephew, Luke, walked in with somebody I didn’t know and two droids that got ordered out.

Where were Luke’s aunt and uncle? I wondered. And that started me thinking. Owen and Beru’s farm was quite far from mine and Ariela’s. Maybe they could use an extra hand or two till things settled down and it would be safe for Ariela and me to go back to our farms.

Then we could start our work for the Rebellion.

Ariela would follow me into the Rebellion. Most of the other farmers probably would too after what had happened today. The Jawas would help. In time, maybe even the Sand People might come to understand what had happened to them—and that restoring the Republic would stop Imperial atrocities. Farmers like me, in an odd alliance with Jawas and maybe Sand People, would have to fight for our right to live in peace on the world we called home.

After I thought this through, something told me I’d find the Rebellion just fine, out in the mountains and valleys of the water farms of Tatooine.

Something told me things were going to change on Tatooine, in ways the Imperials never imagined or wanted.

Something told me that, in the end, someday, somehow, there would be peace here.

We would draw the maps of peace.

One Last Night In the

Mos Eisley Cantina:

The Tale of the Wolfman

and the Lamproid

by Judith and Garfield

Reeves-Stevens

Instants after the jump from lightspeed, the situation became as simple as the balance between predator and prey. Despite the secrets bought with Bothan blood, the half-finished Death Star above the forest moon of Endor was ready for what was supposed to have been an unexpected assault. The Rebel