Despite the dreadful life Anakin Skywalker was born into as a slave on the backwater planet of
Tatootine, his hope of freedom held high, having been sparked by his mother’s love during his
early upbringing, and later maintained by sharing this dream with his friends Kitster and Wald.
The three young slaves’ passion for podracing later contributed
to Anakin earning his liberty and starting his path to becoming a Jedi.
Both Kitster and Wald’s own freedom came years later, when Padme sent one of her closest
handmaidens, Sabe, to the desert world to free Shmi from slavery. However, after failing to
locate her, Sabe instead decided to free several hundred slaves in Shmi’s honor, which included
young Skywalker’s friends. The freed slaves later set up a colony on the planet Gabredor 3.
Decades later, shortly after the events of The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader began a
personal crusade on discovering who hid his son after Padme gave birth. This quest led the Sith
Lord to eventually work with Sabe, who was also personally invested in uncovering the mystery
of her friend’s demise. Together they uncovered the scant information that remained of Padme’s
final moments, in which she professed her belief that there was still good within her husband
despite his fall to the dark side. During this, Sabe figured out that the dark lord
was indeed Anakin Skywalker, revealing this to him soon after. With her sharing such a similar
likeness to the woman he loved and the recent revelations relating to his past having already
rattled his core, Vader allowed the handmaiden not only to live but also challenge his worldview.
Believing in Padme’s judgment of there still being good in her husband, Sabe hoped to serve
her former Queen one last time by proving her right.
She revealed the efforts undertaken by herself and Padme in freeing the hundreds of slaves on
Tatooine in Shmi’s honor, and how that legacy of both his wife and mother was now being
threatened by a corrupt Imperial governor that had aligned with Crimson Dawn’s rebellion
against the Empire. And that by saving this colony,
Vader could finally make good on his word of bringing order and
justice to the galaxy with his Empire, the very things he swore he was choosing to do when he
refused to run off with Padme. Vader accepted her proposal and
together they embarked to the colony. Upon their arrival, they
learned that the governor had been starving them of resources and had also kidnapped 33 of
the colonists to be put to work on her secret weapon project.
As they were being shown around the colony, a Rodian mentioned the name Kitster and how
together they had built the pod racer before them, just like back in the old days. Hearing this,
Vader turned to the Rodian and the man next to him, asking for their names.
Kitster and Wald they said, igniting a flashback when they were all kids back on Tatooine within
Vader. This revelation apparently stun-locked Vader so hard,
that Kitster slowly started to break the awkwardness of the Sith Lord just standing
there by asking if they could do anything for him. Vader snapped out of it and then dismissed them,
not wishing to remember the person he once was and the pain it brought, choosing instead
to believe they meant nothing to him anymore. But Padme was right. As later when both Kister
and Wald were about to get killed by beasts ambushing the colony, Vader went out of his
way to save them, swooping in so fast and with such precision, that he was able to slice all the
creatures midair as they descended upon his old friends without either of them being touched.
After displaying such an impressive feat, to save others no less, Vader walked off like it was no
big deal, refusing to even acknowledge their gratitude for saving them.
Later, they witnessed Vader ride the pod racer they had built during the fight against the
governor’s weapon, reminding them both of young Anakin’s skill displayed during his races on
Tatooine. Eventually,
the planet was freed from the governor’s control and her weapon draining the planet
of its life was destroyed. Vader nearly sacrificed himself when destroying the weapon, being
saved only when his suit’s life support was restored by Sabe, who began to believe that Padme
may have truly been right about him. As the pair left the world,
Kitster and Wald continued living in the colony, helping rebuild it from
the damage occurred by the governor’s hands, fully unaware that they had just been saved by
none other than their childhood friend Anakin Skywalker.