The First of my Childhood Tragedies

Date
1 BTC

Location
Corellian Wilderness

Contributor
Balan

I was born and grew up on Corellia, far from the busy metropolises, on a small family farm started by my father. It was a humble life but my mother and father worked hard to provide for me and my only sibling, an older brother. My father farmed and hunted, and taught us boys those vocations, along with many other skills. Among those was the use of the Force, and a lightsaber; not as weapons to merely kill or for fun at the expense of others; but as tools, to subdue threats, and protect and help those in need.

One day though, pirates came. They landed their corvette, likely by chance, a few milometers from our homestead. My father believed they were laying low from some danger, perhaps the authorities or someone seeking vengeance on them. Four of the pirates, on speeder bikes, happened onto the farm. They saw my mother alone, tending her flower garden. I watched from the kitchen window, unsure of their intentions or identities, as they approached her casually. When they were a short distance away she started to get up, wary of them. They suddenly ran to her, grabbed her, pinned her to the ground. She kicked and screamed, crying, fighting with all her might. They just cackled, mocking her attempts to escape.

I pounded on the window yelling at them to stop. They turned to face a me, one of them staring me directly in the eyes; a small, cruel grin on his face. My father then, seeming to come from the sky, jumped down from the roof and landed on his feet just in front of the men pinning mother down, a shimmering blue-bladed lightsaber in his right hand. His back blocked my view as he slew the man who'd been staring me down with a single slash, and then the next closest pirate with a second swing. The last two pulled their blasters, fleeing for their speeder bikes and firing wild shots behind them. Father deflected those heading for him and mother, bouncing one back into the head of one of the pirates. The other made it to his speeder, and zipped off back to their ship.

Father turned to mother, intensity in his eyes I'd never seen before, or even thought possible of such a gentle man. This intensity driven by his protective feelings, he snapped at her to get in the house and stay with us boys. Father made sure the pirates were dead, before using force speed to reach one of the remaining speeder bikes. As he sped off in pursuit, mother obeyed his command slowly, in shock. She managed to get on her feet, then staggered to the door, before she fell and had to crawl the rest of the way. I opened the door for her and helped her in, before running out after father to try to protect him.

I didn't know how to drive a speeder bike, father hadn't taught either of us boys yet, he said they were too dangerous for us. So I ran, using what little force talent I then had to speed myself along. Eventually I saw the landed ship and figured that's where father had gone. I was sure of it when I saw a dozen or so bodies of armored pirates littering the field around the ship. I retreated to about a kilometer away and got down on my stomach to hide in the brush. I decided I would rest a few minutes before going in after him. I was fortunate to have ran out of energy. Explosions boomed through the ship, breaking the framing, making huge cracks and holes throughout the hull. Someone had set off the self-destruct mechanism.

I huddled as closely as I could to the ground, covering my head. The larger shrapnel missed me by a relatively good distance, but I got peppered by smaller pieces, some of them burning through my clothes and burning my skin. I jumped up shouting from the pain, shaking the red-hot pieces off of me. I then remembered my father in the ship, and broke down in horror, shock, disbelief. I fell to my knees, punching the ground screaming "why?!" over and over.

About an hour later, I'm really not sure how long, I finished my mournful raging. My eyes and cheeks red from crying. By now it was evening. I then remembered that the first explosion came from what looked to be the bridge, with large, thick, protective material windows. The windows had seemed to almost pop when the explosion broke through them, and something small had flown out one of them. I went to where I thought it had landed, maybe it held some clue as to what happened. In my mind it didn't seem to have been just another piece of shrapnel. I searched through the knee-high grass for a good twenty minutes or so, before finding it. Lying on the ground, covered in soot, was my father's lightsaber. I slowly picked it up, shock taking it's affect on me again. Overwhelmed with emotion I examined the hilt to find a pattern of lighter soot that wrapped around the hilt, I then realized it was father's hand print. I grasped it like he did, my hand dwarfed by the outline of his. I collapsed, sobbing once again.