Kenobi

by John Jackson Miller

  Annileen laughed. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “I have another friend who owns a diner,” he said, disappearing into the alcove. “He’d have fired me on the spot.” Dishes clattered.

  Annileen rocked back in the chair and laughed again. Well, Ben has friends, whoever he is. It wasn’t hard to see why. He played the quiet one. But scraping the surface, she found an infectious enthusiasm for all things. Their lunch had lasted an hour and a half, as they’d shopped from the shelves to find what he was looking for—and the repast had spread across two tables. He’d listened intently to her stories of life on the ranch and at the oasis—and now he was doing the dishes.

  And he was living as a hermit?

  “Don’t feel bad,” she said as Ben reappeared. “We didn’t exactly have all the ingredients.”

  “You came close,” he said, wiping his hands on a towel. “As frontier stores go, this is a supermarket on Coruscant.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  Ben looked at her for a second—and then over at Old Ulbreck, who let loose with an angry snort. The farmer had been snoring loudly in his chair for hours, after having gorged on jerky. Annileen had joked that Magda Ulbreck—or his heart doctor—would send over a bounty hunter for him any minute. Ben had laughed, but she’d noticed his slight tension at first meeting Ulbreck, and for a moment, she could’ve sworn Ulbreck recognized Ben. But the old man had obviously dismissed the thought, because after that he paid Ben no mind. Which was, Annileen thought, a lucky stroke for Ben: to Ulbreck, strangers were either potential thieves, or audiences for his stories. Now Ben nodded toward the farmer. “He looks happy,” he said.

  “I’m happier when he’s asleep,” she said, rising. “But don’t change the subject.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you’ve done it again. You’ve managed to let me talk all through lunch, and you’ve hardly gotten a word in edgewise.”

  “It’s called being a polite guest,” he said.

  “Are you sure you’re not wanted for something? No price on your head on Duro for running illicit omelets?”

  “No, nothing like that,” he said, leaning against the counter. He looked around, taking everything in. “I just—I guess you could say now I just watch. And this is a peaceful enough place for it.” He looked out the window toward the livery yard.

  “What do you think so far?”

  “It might seem that there’s not much here,” he said. “But what there is, there’s plenty of.”

  There was something uncertain in his voice, Annileen thought, as if Ben couldn’t yet decide whether he liked Tatooine or not.

  He turned back to her. “Sorry—no offense to your home. Far be it from me to judge something from one part.” He walked back to the table for more dishes.

  “No, you’re perfectly safe in judging one part of Tatooine from another,” Annileen said, surveying the room. “Grains of sand, settlements, settlers—we’re all pretty much the same. It’s always been like this, and it’s never going to change.”

  “I try to avoid the words always and never,” Ben said, taking the cloth to a plate that was already clean. His tone grew solemn. “Things that seem permanent, a given, have a way of changing quickly, to something you don’t recognize. And not all change is for the better.”

  She studied him closely. Pleasant on the outside, torn up on the inside? Many of the people in her life were the opposite—you had to get through layers of abrasiveness to find the niceness in them, if it existed at all. Maybe this was the key to the man. “Did … something happen to you, Ben?”

  “No,” he said, looking at the dish. Almost under his breath he added: “Not to me.”

  Abruptly, he turned away—and began wiping off the tables they’d sat at. He stepped gently past Bohmer, who still sat motionless at his solitary table with his beverage. Brightening, Ben regarded him with admiration. “Now, here’s someone who knows how to watch.”

  Bohmer’s focus hadn’t changed, still on the steaming cup.

  “I never know what he sees there,” she said. “I don’t even know why he comes in every day.” She wondered, sometimes, what sadness was in the Rodian’s life.

  “Do you speak any Rodian?” Ben asked.

  “I’m not sure he does. All these years, and I don’t know anything about him.” She cocked an eyebrow at Ben. “I guess it’s contagious.”

  Ben looked at the chrono on the wall. “Well, I should buy my keg of water and go,” he said. “Your race fans will be back soon.” He walked to the stack of transparent drums in the corner. Lugging one of the large containers down, he turned and fished for credits in his cloak.

  Watching him count, Annileen spoke up. “Hey, wait,” she said. She started toward the door to the garage. “Meet me outside, okay?”

  Ben looked back at her, puzzled. “I should really be getting—”

  “Just trust me. I’ll be just a second.”

  * * *

  Ben stood with his keg on the stoop outside the store. A garage door opened, and Annileen’s old X-31 emerged, with her at the controls. She parked it next to him and debarked. “Everyone’s not due back for a couple of hours,” she said, reaching for the water container. “I’ll drive you.”

  “That’s not necessary!”

  “No, it’ll be fine,” she said, lifting. “We’ll go around to the livery and put Rooh in the rumble seat.”

  “Will she ride there?”

  “My kids did. So we know it holds wild animals.”

  Ben looked back, seemingly troubled. “Really, you don’t have to do this. It’s been a fun afternoon—something I didn’t know I needed. But you can’t leave the store empty.”

  “It’s just Ulbreck and Bohmer in there. I think it’s safe.” Annileen gave Ben a look that exuded confidence. She’d gotten him to relax; she wasn’t about to let him ice up again. She reached out with her hand, only barely aware of a high, distant whine on the air. “It’s all right, Ben. I’m just saving you some time. Come on—”

  The sound grew louder—and Ben’s eyes widened, suddenly serious. He grabbed her arm. “Annileen, look out!”

  She saw it just for an instant, out of the corner of her eye. A copper-colored shape rocketed around the corner of the garage. The vehicle clipped her parked landspeeder where it hovered, sending it spiraling.

  In the same second, Ben threw his body into hers, knocking her off her feet. The two of them hit the sandy ground together. The world above went black as the underside of the careening X-31 whipped over them. The landspeeder slammed into the synstone outer wall of the building with a colossal crack.

  Ben rolled free, wary and alert. Annileen sat up, bewildered. Her landspeeder sat on the ground a short distance from the garage entrance. The vehicle’s right side was dented. Its left engine hung off, lopsided. And behind Ben, she could now see the cause: Veeka Gault’s Sportster, its nose smashed and half buried in the sand. Behind the controls, dazed, sat the young woman herself.

  And in the passenger seat: Jabe!

  Annileen sprang up, overcome with worry, but on reaching the wreck, her expression changed. Her son looked up at her—and giggled uncontrollably. “Hi, Mom. We’re home!”

  She could smell the cheap lum ale the Hutts served at the raceway. “Are you kidding me?” Her eyes darted to Veeka, similarly inebriated. Annileen scrambled across the crushed hood of the vehicle to reach her. “Veeka!”

  The young woman looked at the shopkeeper lunging toward her and burst into giggles herself. “Mama’s Jabey is all right,” she said in a syrupy voice. “But you shoulda parked somewhere else. It’s race day—”

  “Where’s your father?”

  On cue, two more landspeeders arrived, hurtling around the corner of the garage building. The first, driven by Zedd and Mullen, nearly caused another collision. Behind it, Orrin’s silver landspeeder arrived in a more orderly way. Kallie was driving, as Orrin chatted over the seat to a trio of horn-headed Devaronian males. Annile
en recognized them as the business contacts from Mos Eisley he’d been desperate to impress.

  “We’re in the holy compound now, folks,” Annileen heard Orrin say to them as they stopped. “Kick the sand off your shoes, and genuflect as you enter.” Stepping out of the vehicle, he saw Annileen’s wrecked speeder first—and then her, charging toward him. “Uh-oh.”

  “Look!” Annileen sputtered, arms waving. “Look what they did!”

  Orrin walked up to the Sportster. Veeka and Jabe tumbled out, rocky on their feet but otherwise unharmed. He looked them over and then glanced at the battered wall of the garage. He whistled. “Looks like another lap at Mos Espa,” he said loudly. The Devaronians laughed.

  Annileen wasn’t amused. “Your daughter was drunk! And driving my son!”

  “The race ended early,” Orrin said.

  “This one did! Is that your idea of an explanation?”

  Orrin closed the distance with her. “The race was flagged to a stop halfway through. Two of the Hutts’ teams got into a brawl. Big disappointment.” He shifted to a quieter voice and gestured toward the store. “Everyone’s going to want drinks, Annie—”

  “Everyone’s been drinking—or hadn’t you noticed?” She turned to see Jabe trying to edge his way toward the store. She pointed at him with a force that could have knocked him down. “And don’t you think of moving!”

  Annileen turned back on Orrin, who was clearly uncomfortable with the scene playing out before his wealthy customers. She didn’t care. “Orrin, Jabe is not an adult. I said he could go to the races if you watched him. You call this watching?”

  Orrin put his hands up before her. “Annie, you know these trips are a rite of passage for these kids. And besides, this is Tatooine. A body that works all the time is pretty grown up, no matter what the age. Isn’t that right—”

  Before Orrin could get whatever support he was expecting for his argument, a high female voice carried over all the others. Kallie, who at first had been spellbound by the wreck scene, had suddenly noticed someone at the periphery. “Ben!”

  Forgotten by Annileen since the crash, Ben had stepped up to check on Jabe, earning a bad look from the boy. Which made four, as Ben was getting them now from Veeka, Mullen, and Zedd, as well. Kallie’s greeting was as enthusiastic as theirs was hostile—and Orrin’s was different altogether.

  “Oh. Hello, Ben,” Orrin said mildly, after the surprise registered. He looked back at Annileen, eyebrow raised. “You two were here all day?”

  Ben stepped backward toward the wreck of the landspeeder. “Really, I just stopped by for water—”

  Orrin saw the bashed keg, its precious contents on the ground and evaporating. He saw his ranch’s label there and smiled. “You liked it, then?” Suddenly elated, Orrin pushed past Kallie and took Ben by the shoulder. “This is wonderful! Ben, there’s folks I’d like you to meet.”

  As Orrin pushed him toward the Devaronians, a squirming Ben looked back at Annileen in near panic. She merely shrugged. No force in nature could protect someone once Orrin was in salesman mode. And especially not when he had a celebrity endorsement in the making.

  “Ben, these people run the Lucky Despot, a hotel, casino, and conference center going in at Mos Eisley.” Orrin turned to his guests. “This man—a big hero around here, by the way—rode all the way in from the wastes, just for a drink of Gault’s Sparkling Seven. The best-tasting water in any tap from Tatooine to Taanab!”

  Ben nodded meekly as the Devaronians enthusiastically shook his hand and chattered about their trip—and him. They had many questions:

  Did you really come so far just for the water?

  Would you go to Mos Eisley for it?

  How much would you pay, by the glass, in a posh metropolitan setting?

  Did you really save the store owner’s daughter from a rampaging stampede of banthas, as she told us in the landspeeder?

  Hearing that, Annileen looked at Kallie, whose shoulders sank in embarrassment. But Kallie’s imagination and crush were relatively important. At least Kallie was sober, as she always was. Jabe seemed to be steadying, but he wouldn’t be for long if he followed Veeka inside. “The bar is closed!” Annileen yelled.

  Orrin stepped back, waving his hands. “Now, don’t say that too loudly. I’m supposed to be showing these people a good time. And they only got to see half a race!”

  “They’ll see a murder if your kids get within a light-year of my son again.”

  Orrin grasped for her hand. “You know I’ll make good on the landspeeder. Just more work for Gloamer. But I really need this. Okay?”

  Annileen groaned, disgusted. “Fine. I’ll serve the Devaronians—only. But let me go extricate Ben before he decides to never visit this—”

  She stopped speaking as she noticed Ben’s expression, from amid the group of visitors. Orrin noticed it, too. “Something wrong, friend?”

  The man looked back at the store, eyes narrowing. He started to speak—when the side door burst open. Bohmer appeared in the doorway of the Claim, his big, dark eyes bulging. He tripped on the stoop and fell forward—

  —revealing the dagger protruding from his back.

  And the giant Tusken Raider standing behind him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THEY HAD APPROACHED THE OASIS from the northeast. The passage had been difficult, but A’Yark had studied the problem closely. There was no other way. The warriors had spent three days on a long, looping approach from The Pillars, stopping only to overnight in quickly erected—and just as quickly dismantled—huts constructed of canvas and bantha ribs.

  A’Yark had made a gambit based on the suns themselves. Whatever their failings, the skybrothers’ movements were reliable. The accursed shadows told the wise Tusken much: not just the time of day, but also the time of year with great accuracy. And near this day in past years A’Yark had seen travelers making pilgrimages to the northwest, like kreetles drawn to a corpse.

  Was it some sort of rite? A curious raider had followed once, reporting back a great gathering where settlers paid homage to their bloated Hutt gods with games and spirits. It was vile foolishness to A’Yark, who nonetheless saw an opportunity. As larger vehicles began traversing the desert, taking supplies northwest, A’Yark had inferred that the next fête day was near. An opportunity to find the oasis lightly defended.

  The Tuskens had infiltrated the compound in pairs, hiding behind the barn buildings. The structures were large enough to screen the movements of many. And A’Yark had brought many, indeed. All the warriors had come: the aged, the injured—even son A’Deen, on his first hunt. Only the women and children tending the banthas had remained behind.

  From a surveillance perch atop one of the barns, A’Yark had seen the Airshaper and Hairy Face in the main building. Alone, or close enough. It was perfect.

  Perfect—until the first landspeeder had appeared from the northwest, early and unbidden. A’Yark had recognized the newcomer as the settler vehicle that had arrived first during the assault on the farm, days earlier. Two landspeeders followed behind, including the shining vehicle of the Smiling One. Undeterred, A’Yark had leapt from the rooftop and started the charge. The Tuskens still had superior numbers and surprise.

  They had caught all their enemies at once. Warriors streamed across the livestock yard toward—and into—the buildings. A’Yark hooted. There was no need for a command. The others knew.

  Find the Airshaper—and kill the rest!

  “Tusken!” Orrin pulled his blaster from his shoulder holster. He’d only worn it to impress the Devaronian investors. Now he fired it into the doorway of the Claim. The rifle-toting warrior ducked back inside and began returning fire.

  The Devaronians stood mystified, perhaps thinking the event was a frontier entertainment staged by Orrin. That ended when one of them took a rifle blast to the chest. Orrin screamed for the others to get down with him, using his vehicle for cover. To his right, Zedd and Mullen drew their blasters; to his left, Veeka and Jabe hid beh
ind the wrecked Sportster. A savage in the compound was a sobering sight, to be sure. Orange fire painted the approach to the building.

  “Hold your fire!” From his position along the outside wall near the doorway, Ben pointed at Bohmer. The Rodian, knife still in his back, was clawing at the dust, trying to pull himself forward, even as the blaster bolts blazed above him.

  Orrin gawked at Ben. Hold fire, now?

  But Ben was already on the move. Whipping off his cape, the man spread it like a net and hurled it toward the doorway in one swirling motion. The Tusken’s rifle bolts followed it upward. Ben dived downward, tumbling across the narrow field of fire. Reaching Bohmer’s side, Ben took hold of the Rodian and heaved. A second later, both figures were huddled against the synstone wall, just to the left of the open doorway. The Tusken blazed away again, raking the place where Bohmer had fallen.

  Hiding behind her downed landspeeder with Kallie, Annileen yelled to Orrin, “Don’t shoot! You’ll hit Ben!”

  Orrin sent her a plaintive look. Veeka and Jabe had retrieved their weapons from her vehicle and were firing wildly. It was clear from the ruckus that the Tusken in the store was definitely not alone. There was no telling anyone to cease fire, not now. Ben seemed to know he was on his own, too, as he struggled to drag the bleeding Rodian back away from the firing zone and toward the nearest garage bay.

  “There’s more!” Mullen yelled, pointing southeast. More Tuskens appeared around the corner of the store, gaderffii raised. One charged Zedd, smashing the massive farmhand in the rib cage. Orrin brought the exposed attacker down with a blaster bolt and yelled for Mullen and Zedd to fall back. They’d been successfully outflanked. The Sand People were striking from inside the store and from around it.

  Mullen reached his father’s position, gasping. “The Call! Activate the Call!”

  “I left the activator at home,” he said, swearing. “We were going to the races!” He looked back to Annileen, behind the nearby X-31. “Do you have your activator?”

  She couldn’t hear him. Annileen had found a moment to fish her rifle from her backseat—and was angrily blasting away at her uninvited guests. Orrin repeated his question, straining to be heard. She looked at him, flustered. “I don’t carry the thing around! This is your home base. It’s supposed to be safe!”