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TYPEWRITTEN RECORD OF THE INTERROGATION OF SKYWALKER, LUKE [SUSPECTED ALIAS], SUSPECT IN CUSTODY FOR THE MURDER OF SKYWALKER, ANAKIN, JEDI KNIGHT.
DATE: 213.5.29
LOCATION: Hol High Court Detention Cells.
INTERROGATOR: High Judge Alinna Uhodo.
SCRIBE: Navaa Uhodo.
INTERROGATOR: Please confirm your identity for the record.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Luke Skywalker.
INTERROGATOR: Is that true?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Of course it’s true.
INTERROGATOR: Very well.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Why did you think I was lying?
INTERROGATOR: You are not from this world, correct? Please speak out loud, do not just nod.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Yeah, I’m originally from Tatooine.
INTERROGATOR: You are an agent of the Hutts?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What? No! Never!
INTERROGATOR: We on Holar came here out of Hutt Space 20 years ago to escape Hutt tyranny. If you are an agent of the Hutts, know that we will show you the full extent of our fury.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: My father was born a slave under the Hutts. I would never work for them.
INTERROGATOR: Yet you claim Anakin Skywalker was your father.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Yeah? Anakin Skywalker was born a slave. My grandmother’s name was Shmi Skywalker. Anakin didn’t leave to become a Jedi until he was 9, after he won the Boonta Eve Classic.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker never knew his parents and was raised in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant like all Jedi.
INTERROGATOR: What brought you to Holar?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I was looking for my father. I was raised by my aunt and uncle on Tatooine and told he was dead. It wasn’t until Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi told me that I even knew he had been a Jedi. He thought he was dead too. About a week ago, the Alliance received word of rumours that Anakin Skywalker was alive and hiding here. I had to come to find him. I had to try.
INTERROGATOR: What alliance do you speak of?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: The Alliance to Restore the Republic.
INTERROGATOR: Is the Republic in need of restoration?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: …yes? The Empire has been in power for twenty years. We want the Republic back.
INTERROGATOR: This is the same empire that attempted to exterminate the Jedi?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Yes. How did you know about that but not the Alliance?
INTERROGATOR: How did you find Holar?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: The rumour we received named a specific system—this system. There’s only one planet and two moons in this system with atmospheres inhabitable for Humans. This was the second I visited, and once I landed I sensed my father in the Force. At least… I sensed another Force-sensitive.
INTERROGATOR: So you also claim to be Force-sensitive?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Yes, like my father.
INTERROGATOR: Can you provide evidence of this?
INTERROGATOR: I see. I will accept this as evidence of your Force-sensitivity. Please put the typewriter back so Navaa can continue scribing.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Why are you using a typewriter, anyway? I’m sure Navaa is very skilled, but couldn’t you use recording equipment, or droids?
INTERROGATOR: You are an outlander, so you would not know. When we came to this planet and escaped the Hutts, we swore off the technology that had been used to oppress us. We do not need it to live. Anything powered by electricity is forbidden. Especially droids.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: No comms? No holocams?
INTERROGATOR: None.
INTERROGATOR: Please describe everything that happened once you landed your starship here.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I landed in those fields out the back of the capital city, with the long blue grass. I left my X-wing there and moved in the direction I thought I could sense in the Force.
INTERROGATOR: Please clarify what an X-wing is for the record.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Oh? Uh, it’s a combat starfighter with S-foils that form the shape of an X from the High Galactic alphabet. Wait, do you know what S-foils are?
INTERROGATOR: I do not need to.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Right.
INTERROGATOR: Please continue.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I walked across the fields to find a copse of trees. There was a cabin there, and I could hear someone inside. I knocked on the door, and a man answered it.
INTERROGATOR: Describe the man.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Very tall. Short brownish-blond hair, with a square jaw and blue eyes.
INTERROGATOR: Was this the same man whose corpse I showed you before this interview?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: …yes. Yes, it was.
INTERROGATOR: What happened next?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I asked if he was Anakin Skywalker.
INTERROGATOR: And? What did he say?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: He asked who was asking. I told him my name was Luke Skywalker—that I was looking for the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, my father. I’d heard a rumour that he was in this area, and I could sense him in the Force.
INTERROGATOR: Continue. How did he react?
INTERROGATOR: Continue, Skywalker.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: He said that Jedi do not have children. That attachments were forbidden. He accused me of lying.
INTERROGATOR: How did he seem? How did you feel?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I was shocked and hurt. My father was declaring that I shouldn’t exist. I insisted that that couldn’t be true—that Ben hadn’t told me anything like that—
INTERROGATOR: Who is “Ben”?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Oh—Ben Kenobi. Obi-Wan Kenobi. He called himself Ben while he was living on Tatooine watching over me.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: Obi-Wan Kenobi was the Jedi who accompanied Anakin Skywalker to Holar the first time he visited. They came to fight their enemy—whom they called “Separatists”—and prevent them from setting up a base on this planet. After driving them out, it was Kenobi who insisted that we contact them if the threat ever returned and gifted us communications equipment with which to do so. It was, of course, buried and never used.
INTERROGATOR: I met Obi-Wan Kenobi, many years ago. It is my belief that he would never debase himself to live under the Hutts.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: You think I’m lying?
INTERROGATOR: Everything you have said so far has holes in its truth.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What? What holes? Ben was on Tatooine to watch over me. He’d left me with my aunt and uncle to raise, but he wanted to keep me safe! He saved me from the Hutts several times, if the idea of him ever being passive is what you think is false.
INTERROGATOR: How were you related to your aunt and uncle? Through your other parent?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: No… I never knew who my mother was. Ben never told me. Uncle Owen was my father’s stepbrother.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker had no brothers that he knew of or cared about. As previously mentioned, he was raised in the Jedi Temple.
INTERROGATOR: Let us return to what happened next. He accused you of lying. You were hurt and angered by this. So you used your lightsaber to kill him?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: No! It’s not even my lightsaber; it was his! Ben gave it to me and said he’d have wanted me to have it!
INTERROGATOR: Did he recognise it?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: He looked at it, but he just frowned and didn’t say anything.
INTERROGATOR: Can you tell me exactly what he said to you?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: He said, “I don’t know who you think you are or what joke you’re playing, but the Jedi are dead. Do not make light of that, boy. And do not mock our ancient customs. You insult me by suggesting I would break it.”
INTERROGATOR: How did you respond?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I begged him to tell me who my mother was, as I didn’t know. He ordered me to leave the cabin and this planet. He said, “If I find out you threaten or bother these people, you will find out why the Jedi were so respected on the battlefield.” I left, rather than fight more. I was already crying.
INTERROGATOR: So Anakin Skywalker denied you were his son and cast you out?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: yes.
INTERROGATOR: But you still insist your name is Luke Skywalker, and that you are his son?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I… I don’t know. I thought I was. I was always told I was. Other people on Tatooine have heard of him—not as a Jedi, but as the slave boy who won the Boonta Eve—and the stories match up. I spent my life thinking he was a navigator on a spice freighter, but I don’t know why Ben would lie to me.
INTERROGATOR: Can you prove in any way that you are not lying to us?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What proof would you want? I don’t have Imperial ID—for the child of a Jedi, that would risk discovery, Ben said—but I have one I use in the Alliance.
INTERROGATOR: We do not know your alliance. We could not trust their identification.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What could you trust, then? I assume you guys don’t have DNA tests. And I thought he died when I was born, so obviously I don’t have any memories of him. I know he was a hero during the Clone Wars, though. The Hero With No Fear. That was what Ben called him.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: The “Clone Wars” is the name Kenobi and Skywalker gave to the conflict they were battling the “Separatists” in.
INTERROGATOR: Tell me what happened after you left.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I went back to my X-wing. I was really upset, and I wanted to think through some things.
INTERROGATOR: What did you think through?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Heh. What do you think? If my whole life had been a lie. If I could be a Jedi at all. If I even knew who my father was, or if Ben let me think that Anakin was my father because Vader had killed him—at least, Ben thought he had—so it would be a comfortable lie…
INTERROGATOR: Who is Vader?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: The Sith Lord who hunted all the Jedi when the Empire came to power. Ben told me he betrayed and murdered my father, and that he’d been a student of Ben’s before he became Sith.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: This aligns with what Anakin Skywalker informed us about the Jedi Purge when we agreed to shelter him on this planet. The only padawan Kenobi had, that we were aware of, however, was Skywalker himself. Skywalker had a padawan named Ahsoka Tano, who was also taught by Kenobi. It is possible she is Vader. As she did not accompany the two of them, no one on Holar can vouch for her character.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: When I heard Anakin Skywalker was alive… I was so excited. I’d already fought Vader a few times. The idea that I wasn’t alone, that Vader hadn’t killed my father… It was a blessing.
INTERROGATOR: What did you do after you had finished thinking?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I went back to the cabin to talk to him again. I wondered if maybe there was a mistake, or if I’d been lied to somewhere, or— I didn’t know. But he was a Jedi. Jedi are supposed to help those in need, right?
INTERROGATOR: And there you killed him?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Why would I kill him when I wanted his help?
INTERROGATOR: Perhaps he refused.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: He was already dead when I got there.
INTERROGATOR: Describe the scene.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I knocked on his door and called out. I don’t remember the exact words—something like, “I’m sorry about earlier, can we talk? I think I need your help.” There was no answer, but when I knocked again, a little harder, the door swung open. Then I noticed that the lock had been torn off.
INTERROGATOR: Torn off?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: There was a smoking hole where it used to be. About the size of my fist. I hadn’t looked down so I hadn’t noticed it until then. When I knocked too hard, nothing held the door closed, and it swung open. I would’ve closed it again and walked away, but I saw him lying on the floor in the main room. He was on his back, and he looked terrified. His robes—come to think of it, I don’t know why he was still wearing Jedi robes if he didn’t want to be identified as a Jedi—were askew around him.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: Anakin Skywalker often commented that his outfit helped him feel his culture and identity were not entirely gone.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: He was completely still—already dead. His chest had a large hole in it. The edges were charred.
INTERROGATOR: What sort of weapon do you think would do that?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: You’re asking me?
INTERROGATOR: I would like your opinion.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Any plasma weapon, really. A good blaster will do it, though by the size of the hole it would have to be either at point blank range or a large blaster. Lasers might too—though they’d leave a mark on the floor, I think. You guys moved the body, not me; I don’t know if there was a mark. Lightsaber would do it too.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: Our archival knowledge on outlander technology, other than the brief examples we witnessed in the Clone Wars, is archaic. We cross-referenced the accused’s suggestions with what we knew, and they seemed sound, however.
INTERROGATOR: You know this from experience of killing?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I’m a soldier in a war, unfortunately.
INTERROGATOR: So you are an experienced murderer.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I don’t like that. I don’t kill unless I have to.
INTERROGATOR: When do you have to?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: When they’re trying to kill me!
INTERROGATOR: And Anakin Skywalker did not try to kill you, so you claim you did not kill him.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Well, you guys knew my father much better than I did! What do you think he would do? Grab his lightsaber and start swinging as soon as some teenager showed up and got confused?
SECRETARIAL NOTE: Anakin Skywalker was a noble, devoted Jedi, well known to everyone in the wider Holar community. He would not do that.
INTERROGATOR: You said a lightsaber could have caused that wound. Do you deny that you carry a lightsaber yourself—one you claim used to belong to Anakin Skywalker?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Well, you guys confiscated it, so it’d be stupid to deny it. I have a lightsaber.
INTERROGATOR: But you did not use it.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: No.
INTERROGATOR: Who else might have wanted to kill him?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I don’t know.
INTERROGATOR: He was your father.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I think none of us are sure of that at this point!
INTERROGATOR: No Holarian would have access to weapons such as the ones you describe. Therefore, the murderer must have been an outlander like yourself. You are the only suspect.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I got here because I heard a rumour. Others might have heard it too, including the Empire. Have you seen any ships other than mine in the atmosphere? Or satellites, probe droids, anything? Sometimes they just look like shooting stars.
INTERROGATOR: That information is not available to you.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: So, you have.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: Astronomers have noted an increase in shooting stars. Furthermore, there have been strange noises disrupting bird flight paths and the migrations of small mammals. However, nothing conclusive has been found except for the accused’s “X-wing”.
INTERROGATOR: Was there anybody nearby to vouch for the fact that you were not present at the time of his death?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Well, there was a bird that kept trying to steal my rations while I was eating. What sort of ships have you seen? TIE fighters? They look kinda like eyeballs, and they have a really distinct engine roar.
INTERROGATOR: Birds are not a valid witness in a court setting.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: How did the rumour even spread of where he was, anyway? That might lead you to who killed him. Whoever it was probably got here before me.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: The shooting stars noted have been present for the last month. It is possible they are the “probe droids” the accused refers to.
INTERROGATOR: Although you try to deflect our attention, you remain our only suspect.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What can I do to prove my innocence?! You clearly think I’m either bloodthirsty or insane.
INTERROGATOR: I do not think that.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: You think I’m a killer, though. You’ve never fought in a war.
INTERROGATOR: I have fought to protect my home from invaders, outlander. And I fought alongside Anakin. Be grateful for the patience I have shown you thus far.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: You’ve already decided on my guilt.
INTERROGATOR: You have not provided any evidence to prove your story.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: There’s no evidence that you would accept!
INTERROGATOR: You admit yourself that Anakin himself denied you were his son.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I know! I kriffing know that!
INTERROGATOR: Who are you really?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I don’t know! My name is Luke Skywalker. I was raised on Tatooine. I am a commander in the Alliance to Restore the Republic. I… I thought my father was a hero. Now he’s a mystery too. I’m an orphan all over again.
INTERROGATOR: Please stop crying so we can continue.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: None of this makes sense! I don’t know who lied to me! Uncle Owen—Ben—the stories all seemed to add up, then they don’t, but they add up too much to be dismissed! Was there another Anakin Skywalker, the former slave? Was he never a hero at all? Was he just a worthless spice smuggler after all, and the pride I’ve had in him these past few months was nothing?
INTERROGATOR: Who your real father may have been does not directly bear on the question of who killed Anakin.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I wanted to be a hero. I thought I could be a hero—so did Ben. So did Leia. So did everyone else in the Alliance. How can I be a hero now?
INTERROGATOR: You kill people regularly, and you call yourself a hero?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What did you do when you defended your home from invasion? You seemed to be proud of that.
INTERROGATOR: If you can provide no evidence for your innocence, we will have to declare you guilty. Murder is followed by execution. You’ll be lucky if you even make it that far. Anakin was greatly loved around here—you may simply be torn limb from limb the moment you step out of this room.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill him.
INTERROGATOR: You have no evidence to prove anything.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Neither do you!
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What was that?
SECRETARIAL NOTE: At this point in the interrogation room was heard an enormous roaring sound, like a thousand waterfalls at once. It was accompanied by screams from outside.
INTERROGATOR: Is this your doing?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: That’s a TIE fighter engine.
INTERROGATOR: What?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: I told you. TIE fighters are starfighters with a very specific engine, and that engine makes a sound. That was a TIE fighter that just landed. The Empire are here.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: At this point the doors to the interrogation room opened. The accused was handcuffed to the table, so he could not run. An intruder strode in, tall and dark, with a cape behind him.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Vader!
INTERROGATOR: What is this? Who are you?
INTRUDER: Luke Skywalker is innocent.
INTERROGATOR: Who are you to proclaim this?
INTRUDER: Because I killed Anakin Skywalker.
INTERROGATOR: We suspected another outlander must be involved.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What? No, you didn’t!
INTRUDER: I killed him while Luke was in his ship. He begged for his life, like the pathetic liar he was. I hunted him because he was a Jedi, but I killed him for his audacity and his deception.
INTERROGATOR: You killed my friend.
INTRUDER: He was not your friend, Alinna Uhodo.
INTERROGATOR: I owed him my life!
INTRUDER: No. You did not.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Don’t listen to him. He’s a Sith Lord—
INTRUDER: Silence, young one. You have no idea what trickery you have stumbled upon.
INTERROGATOR: You have made your confession. Your execution for the murder of Anakin Skywalker will be swift.
INTRUDER: Tell me, High Judge Uhodo. What is the punishment for fraud, deception, or identity theft in your small community?
INTERROGATOR: You have the right to choose your method of execution.
INTRUDER: If the punishment is death, I have spared you the waste of resources.
INTERROGATOR: Your options are death by drowning, by hanging, or by hunting spear.
INTRUDER: Ah, yes. Hunting spears.
INTERROGATOR: That is your choice?
INTRUDER: Made from the wood of the wroshyr tree, are they not? This is the only planet that tree grows on other than Kashyyyk, and it is stronger than metal.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: What?
INTERROGATOR: How did you know that, outlander?
INTRUDER: I remember you fought with one such spear, Alinna Uhodo. I remember how General Grievous split it in two nonetheless, because nothing stands before a lightsaber’s bite. I remember using my lightsaber to cut you a new spear, as we were short on time and could not fetch your spare.
INTRUDER: I remember the warrior you once were.
INTERROGATOR: Kenobi?
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: He’s not Ben! He killed Ben! And he killed…
INTERROGATOR: But it was not Kenobi who cut me a new spear.
SKYWALKER [ALIAS]: Ben said Vader killed Anakin.
INTRUDER: I did kill Anakin Skywalker.
INTRUDER: I was Anakin Skywalker.
INTERROGATOR: He… he did not remember the spear. He had shellshock; his memories of the war were fuzzy…
INTRUDER: His real name, Alinna Uhodo, was Olatt Udraf. He was still a Jedi padawan during the Clone Wars, and I killed his master before she could ever knight him. But he was serving as Grandmaster Yoda’s volunteer secretary when I filed my report about Holar, and he knew he was of similar colouring and stature to me. And he knew, from that same report, that your people did not use holocams.
INTERROGATOR: I do not believe this. I recognised him. He looked just as he had in my memories.
INTRUDER: Memory is unreliable. You remember what you wish to. And you did not wish to think that your hero and friend had died in the Jedi Purge. You wished to believe that you could help him.
INTERROGATOR: He was a Jedi, though. I saw his lightsaber. I saw him use the Force. He would not have concocted such a deception.
INTRUDER: He was a poor Jedi padawan to begin with. And he had been on the run from me for four years. Desperation made a beast of him.
INTERROGATOR: And what made this beast of you, Anakin?
INTRUDER: My son is innocent. Release him from these binders, before I am forced to do it myself.
SECRETARIAL NOTE: High Judge Uhodo saw fit to oblige the intruder—full name Darth Vader—in this aspect. As we now had a confession, the accused was cleared of charges.
INTRUDER: So, I ask you again. What is the punishment for such a deception? Did I not simply carry out your justice system prematurely?
INTERROGATOR: Leave.
INTRUDER: You know that I did.
INTERROGATOR: Leave. Take your son and leave my world. Outlanders like you have only ever brought trouble.
SKYWALKER: He’s not my father!
INTRUDER: And yet you provided shelter to one.
INTERROGATOR: I thought he was my friend.
INTRUDER: That was your mistake.
SKYWALKER: I don’t know what game you’re playing, Vader. You’re not Anakin Skywalker. You’re not my father.
INTRUDER: I am, Luke.
SKYWALKER: No! My father was a hero. My father was a hero!
INTRUDER: You have already discovered how untrue that claim can be.
SKYWALKER: Then who am I?
INTRUDER: Come with me.
INTRUDER: We shall find out.
POSTSCRIPT: SECRETARIAL NOTE: Following the departure of the accused and the confessed from Holar, High Judge Uhodo resigned from her post. No further action was taken regarding this murder.