“And all we wanted was to find his grandfather,” Biggs sighed.
“And I didn’t even sleep with a Twi’lek before dying.” The furniture hovered in the air, and honestly, there was a decent chance I could disable the MagnaGuards with it.
The important thing was landing the hit and then running like hell afterward…
“That information may be taken into consideration,” the protocol droid suddenly said just as I was about to hurl the nearest lamp at its head.
“In the event of deception, you will be terminated.” The protocol droid turned around, gestured somewhere behind itself, and from the same room it had emerged from earlier rolled out a tiny droid equipped with a single manipulator arm.
Without ceremony, it jabbed a needle into my finger and drew blood.
It took every ounce of concentration not to drop the furniture I was holding aloft as improvised weapons.
Now all I could do was hope there wasn’t poison or some other unpleasant surprise in that needle.
During the forced pause, I probed both the protocol droid and the little blood-collecting droid through the Force, ready to crush them at any moment, or at least try.
The MagnaGuards, however, were different.
I could sense them in the Force, but direct manipulation wasn’t working.
Cortosis?
Some other Force-resistant metal?
Or was I misunderstanding how it worked?
Maybe it only interfered with lightsabers.
I knew far too little about the physics of this galaxy.
I really should have questioned Qui-Gon more thoroughly.
The blood collector emitted a series of rapid, incomprehensible Binary chirps toward the protocol droid before quickly retreating.
“There is an eighty-four percent probability that you are indeed related to the Master as a grandson.
Termination procedure canceled.
Inheritance Transfer Protocol Two initiated.
Please return the furniture to its designated locations and refrain from destroying property until the inheritance has been formally accepted.” Relieved and thoroughly shocked, I lowered the furniture as carefully as possible while watching the two MagnaGuards move to stand beside the protocol droid.
If things went badly, I could always throw the table at them.
“With an eighty-nine percent confirmed probability of the Master’s death and all required conditions fulfilled, the individual hereafter designated as Heir shall proceed with Inheritance Transfer Protocol,” the protocol droid announced in its grating voice.
“Does the Heir consent to accepting the inheritance?” “Yes,” I nodded, mentally calculating whether a table could crush all three droids at once.
“I consent.” “State your full name.” The voice remained just as unpleasant as before, but there was no point showing it.
“Luke Lars.” The answer came instinctively.
After all these years on Tatooine, it was simply how I introduced myself.
The droid showed no objection.
Maybe it was for the best that it didn’t know I was actually a Skywalker.
Given the track record of my biological father’s current incarnation, it wouldn’t have been surprising if he’d murdered his own father alongside everyone else.
“Luke Lars, your succession is confirmed.
All mechanisms within the residence are now subordinate to the Heir.
The house and all contents contained therein are hereby transferred to the Heir’s ownership.” The moment the protocol droid finished speaking, its head exploded.
Metal fragments scattered in every direction.
The MagnaGuards remained completely unaffected.
I, meanwhile, thanked every deity I could think of that I had been a diligent student.
Thanks to Qui-Gon’s teachings, I had mastered a basic Force Barrier and was quick enough to throw it up in front of myself and the others.
Not that Biggs and Tank were any less stunned than I was.
“Bantha poodoo,” Darklighter finally whispered.
“How many more surprises are you hiding?” “You have absolutely no idea, Biggs,” I said, shaking my head.
“I don’t even understand what just happened myself.” The MagnaGuards powered down moments later, as though their task had finally been completed.
That left us alone inside a long-abandoned house belonging to a mysterious owner.
And left unanswered the most important questions.
Whose house had I just inherited?
And who exactly had been Anakin Skywalker’s father?
A quick survey of my newly acquired property revealed that the home’s primary systems still functioned through an archaic control panel located in the same room the protocol droid had emerged from.
We managed to open the gates and bring our swoops inside, along with Skippy, who had been guarding them.
The moment he entered, the astromech enthusiastically rolled off to inspect the remaining droids and nearly attempted to disassemble the MagnaGuards on the spot.
The situation was absurd.
Nobody knew what to do.
So we split up and began exploring the house while Skippy busied himself with the droids.
After the protocol droid’s self-destruction, all previously locked doors had conveniently unlocked themselves.
Our trio, having mostly recovered from the insanity of the past half hour, proceeded to inspect the rest of the building.
Honestly, if the HoloNet on Tatooine wasn’t such a joke, I could have started a popular exploration channel.
Technological progress in this galaxy really was bizarre.
Then again, I’d never left Tatooine.
Who knew what things were like on Coruscant?
The house itself was strange.
I hadn’t yet visited the homes of Tatooine’s truly wealthy elite, but this place felt like it had been designed by someone who didn’t actually live on Tatooine.
In fact, it seemed unlikely anyone had ever truly lived here.
More likely, they had visited periodically and wanted a secure refuge by local standards.
The first stage of exploration was therefore deeply disappointing.
No inheritance from Grandfather.
No hidden thousands of credits in a storage closet.
Of the droids, only the tiny cleaning unit remained functional.
The blood-collecting droid had died alongside the protocol kamikaze, melting its internal systems so thoroughly that even Skippy quickly admitted defeat when it came to extracting any information.
The first floor consisted primarily of technical facilities that were currently useless to me.
Empty storage rooms.
An empty food pantry filled with broken refrigeration units and rusting shelves.
An almost barren armory containing only two vibro-glaives and a solitary blaster carbine.
According to Tank, who had recently begun studying galactic military history under the delighted mentorship of Vuz Kazm, the weapon was old enough to have seen the Mandalorian Wars.
Personally, I wasn’t even sure blasters manufactured in this galaxy could continue functioning for that many centuries.
There were no hidden droid fleets.
No millions of credits in aurodium.
No concealed Sith holocrons.
Apparently I was the wrong kind of transmigrator.
And inside Luke Skywalker, no less.
There weren’t even any musical instruments.
“Further down there are just a bunch of really weird empty rooms with beds and a broken food processor,” Biggs called from another doorway.
“I see you’ve inherited a Separatist carbine from the Clone Wars.” Tank immediately adopted the expression of someone deeply fascinated by the cobweb-covered ceiling and definitely not listening.
Perhaps the runaway aristocrat simply hadn’t progressed beyond the Mandalorian Wars in his studies yet.
The rivalry between those two remained alive and well.
Fortunately, it never escalated into actual hostility.
It stayed firmly within the realm of teenage competition over who was cooler.
“Just don’t challenge each other to a duel with the vibro-glaives,” I waved them off.
“Come on.
Let’s go inspect that food processor and then check the second floor.” Teenagers were still teenagers.
Hormones demanded an outlet.
Within our little group, that translated into constant competition over absolutely everything.
Not long ago, Fixer had invented sand surfing by attaching a towline to a repulsor-powered sand barge.
The result had nearly gotten one of us killed.
Dickon’s life had been saved only because Biggs somehow managed an impossible leap and caught him by the back of his collar while he was falling.
At the same time, I had managed to use a newly learned Force technique taught by Qui-Gon to slow the unlucky sand surfer’s descent just enough for Darklighter to pull him to safety.
Tank, meanwhile, had done an admirable job covering Laze’s backside and preventing the enraged Starkiller family from murdering him before the end of the day.
Teamwork, when necessary, really was a wonderful thing.