And Ben. Again.
“They’re just sitting there,” Mullen said. “Don’t they want a piece of this?”
Orrin looked back and cracked a smile. “Not everyone’s a fighter.”
Annileen turned back toward the speeder bike, hovering at the foot of the rocky stair. There wasn’t much else she could do, she thought. Orrin would get Jabe home. And there was so much to take care of back at the store. Her shoulders sinking, she looked at Ben. “My guests are gone. I’m sure we could use a hand on cleanup if you wanted to stay—”
“I really should fetch Rooh and go home.”
“Fine.” She didn’t try to argue. She started down the hill, past enormous boulders, toward the vehicle.
She didn’t get there. A tall Tusken emerged from behind a great rock, gaderffii clutched overhead in both hands. For a moment, she stood motionless, too startled to move.
The Tusken did the same, recognizing her. “Ena’grosh!”
Annileen felt Ben’s arm touch hers from behind—and then the world went flying around her. In the next second, Ben was standing where she had been, arms raised and grappling with the Tusken for control of the great weapon. Brown and tan capes spiraled in a stumbling dance across the broken ground, boots just missing Annileen where she had fallen.
She reached out, hoping to grab the Tusken’s boot and trip him. But in the confusion, she caught Ben instead, sending him off balance. The Tusken surged forward in anger, forcing Ben backward. Knocked to the ground, Ben clung to the gaderffii with both hands, pushing up against the weight of the attacker now trying to crush him.
Scrambling to her knees, Annileen suddenly remembered the one thing she’d brought with her besides Ben and the speeder bike. Ripping the blaster from her holster, she stumbled toward the Tusken, preparing a point-blank shot—
—only to see the raider suddenly go limp, a deadweight. Ben heaved at the gaderffii and the figure rolled over, and over again, tumbling down the incline toward the speeder.
Annileen reached for Ben. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said, brushing himself off. “But I think our friend was almost dead when he got to me.”
Keeping her pistol pointed at the body, Annileen slowly approached. The Tusken’s robes were singed, the result of a precision blaster rifle shot. “Dying? But he tried to kill you.”
“He made one last effort,” Ben said, bringing the warrior’s weapon downhill.
Annileen looked back at Ben in disbelief. Calm as usual.
Ben passed her and knelt next to the Tusken’s body. “Yes,” he said, examining the corpse. “Dead for sure. And young, too. Probably Jabe’s age.”
Annileen’s eyes widened. She had never looked closely at a Sand Person. One didn’t want to linger around them too long—as she’d just experienced!—and there wasn’t much to see. The wrappings, robes, and cape all hid the figure within. But she could see it now as Ben rolled the Tusken over. The warrior’s frame was slight, like her boy’s.
“Jabe’s age,” she said, staring at Ben skeptically. “People, just like us?”
“No, that’s not the lesson here.” He looked up at her. “You wanted to be an exobiology student. The galaxy is full of creatures that are nothing like us at all. We can try to understand them, and we should. But even if we accept that they’re doing what comes naturally, one is not beholden to comply when the sarlacc asks for dinner.”
Annileen chuckled for the first time since that afternoon, in the store. But the breath of relief that followed wasn’t fully out of her lungs before she saw another figure, peeking over the northern ridge at her. The sight froze her in place.
“Plug-eye,” she said, recognizing the face from earlier.
“And company,” Ben said, gesturing west and south. All the survivors were here, it seemed, lurking over the hillsides. Heads bobbed up and disappeared—as did gaderffii and blaster rifles.
Annileen started toward the speeder bike. Ben rose and stopped her. “No,” he said. “They’ll shoot us just as the posse shot at them.”
The posse! Annileen looked back at the rise to the east. She and Ben would be targeted for sure trying to scramble up there—and none of Orrin’s group knew they were even here.
There was motion beyond the hills. “They’re regrouping. Probably making sure we’re alone,” he said, lowering his voice. “Stay calm and follow my lead.”
She looked at him, startled. “To do what?”
“A little exobiology experiment,” he said, kneeling beside the dead Tusken. “Quick. Give me a hand!”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THIS IS CRAZY! THIS IS CRAZY!
Annileen shivered in the afternoon suns, oblivious to the heat. Fear had long since turned her blood to ice, her muscles to stone. Still, Ben walked, so she did, too.
They walked on either side of the hovering speeder bike, each holding a handlebar. The dead warrior’s gaderffii stick was propped across the bars, in front of them at chest level, as they pushed the vehicle forward. Slumped over the seat lay the body of the Tusken raider, half hanging where Ben had placed it.
She’d thought Ben insane when he’d lifted the stinking corpse from the ground, and had raised her voice to object when he hefted it atop the bike. He’d quickly shushed her. The Tusken survivors were out there, probably looking down at them. The fact they hadn’t attacked yet, Ben had whispered, meant they were figuring out whether Ben and Annileen were alone. But it was just a matter of time. So he had started walking the bike toward the northern rise.
Now Annileen saw them all on the other side of the hill. Plug-eye knelt, weapon in hand, above seven Tusken survivors. The warriors had taken refuge in a blowout: a hollow formed by the wind rushing and eddying against the slopes leading toward the gorge. Lying prone in its shallow recesses, their tan capes blended in with the sand, protecting them from the eyes of whoever was in the skyhopper.
Annileen looked up, worried. She hadn’t seen the flier in a while. Maybe it needed refueling, or the posse no longer required it. Annileen sure needed it now. The Sand People watched as she and Ben approached—some looking at them, some looking up. They know it, she thought, breath catching in her throat. They know we’re alone.
“You’re not alone,” Ben said.
In the sandy indentation a dozen meters away, Plug-eye rose. Others stood, too, watchful of their leader. Unconsciously, Annileen slipped her right hand from the handlebar and felt for the blaster, holstered at her hip.
“Don’t,” Ben said.
A’Yark stared, dumbfounded. Surely the warrior’s single remaining good eye was failing now. The humans—Hairy Face and the Airshaper—were walking steadily toward them.
The Airshaper had no sirens here, no trickery. Did she have such power that she could walk brazenly into the Tuskens’ midst? Even if she did, such presumption had to be punished. Even hunted, even terrified, the Tuskens would exact revenge—
“A’Yark!” a warrior said. “Look!”
A’Yark looked between the humans and recognized the limp form on the vehicle.
A’Deen.
Annileen forgot Ben’s warning when the one-eyed warrior snarled. She released the handlebar and drew her blaster. The Tusken started toward them. Behind, more Sand People rose from the depression. But before Annileen could shoot, Ben moved in front of the bike and into the line of fire.
Only then did Annileen realize that Ben had the dead boy’s weapon in his hands. Ben raised the gaderffii—and then did something that astonished Annileen and the Tuskens both.
He placed it on the ground.
Slowly, so the Tuskens could clearly see what he was doing.
Plug-eye, who had closed half the distance to them in the previous moments, stopped.
Ben kept his eyes on the Tuskens as he released the weapon and backed up. “I’m showing,” he said, just above a murmur, “that I haven’t taken a trophy.”
He took another step back and gave the hoverbike a gentle shove with h
is hand. Annileen, startled, clutched in vain at the seat as it passed.
The vehicle floated gingerly across the distance to the lead Tusken, who grabbed at it. In a hurried move, Plug-eye yanked the body from the speeder bike and knelt over it, while the other warriors stood behind.
Annileen watched as the hated marauder examined the body. Something was off. The crease of the cloth, the shape of the kneeling figure. But mostly, the way Plug-eye touched the face of the dead youth—
“She’s a female,” Annileen whispered to Ben. “She’s his mother.”
A’Yark looked up at the sound of the Airshaper’s voice and howled.
Who cares if the settlers hear? Fury charged through A’Yark’s tired limbs. Many foolish warriors had died this day. But A’Deen had acted as a Tusken!
A’Yark bellowed and lifted her son’s gaderffii. Behind her, the others raised their rifles. The Airshaper had caused this. Her existence had compelled A’Yark to lead her people into this great massacre. Who cares if the Airshaper has a blaster, or great powers? She will pay!
Before A’Yark could take another step, Hairy Face darted in front of the Airshaper, his brown robe parting as he moved. Metal flashed at the human’s waist, catching the afternoon suns.
A weapon? No matter! A’Yark charged—
—and stopped, looking again at the short metal rod hanging from a clip in the folds of the man’s cloak. The Airshaper could not see it, but A’Yark could. And A’Yark remembered seeing such a thing before, years earlier.
“Sharad,” A’Yark said, pointing at the man’s half-hidden weapon. “Sharad Hett.”
Now it was Ben’s turn to look stupefied. Annileen couldn’t see what had made the Tusken woman stop her advance. But whatever she had just said had apparently mystified Ben.
“Sharad?” Ben gently closed the folds of his cloak, suddenly seeming to understand. “You knew Sharad Hett.”
Behind, a couple of the warriors started to move again. The war leader snarled at them. An argument ensued. Ben listened, keenly interested.
“A’Yark,” Ben finally said, daring to interrupt. “That is your name? A’Yark!”
Hearing her name in a settler’s mouth made A’Yark flinch. Names were precious things to Tuskens. The humans gave names to animals, so they would come when called. No settler had the right to call a Tusken anywhere. Not if he wanted to live.
And yet, Hairy Face was something else. He carried the blade that made light, just like Sharad Hett. The wizardly warrior who had come to live with their people, so many years before—a being wielding the same magic powers A’Yark had ascribed to the Airshaper.
One of A’Yark’s younger companions started forward again. He had not known Sharad, not understood the human’s power. Before A’Yark could say anything, Hairy Face raised his hand.
“You don’t want to hurt us,” he said, using the strange settler words. A’Yark understood them, barely. She had learned the talk from her adopted sister, K’Sheek—and Hett, whom her sister had married.
The young warrior did not know the human words. And yet, he said them now, in the Tusken tongue. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“There has been enough killing,” Hairy Face said.
“There has been enough killing,” the warrior repeated.
A’Yark gawked. Those were words no Tusken had ever said in any language. There was no doubt. A’Yark realized her mistake. The Airshaper hadn’t saved herself from being crushed out in the desert that day. It had been Hairy Face with the power, all along.
A’Yark recalled the settler building from earlier, and the bodies on the floor. The blows dealt her kin had not resembled blaster marks—and Sand People surely knew those. A’Yark hadn’t thought anything of it then. But now?
“Stay back,” A’Yark told her companions. “I will explain later. Stay back—and beware.”
The Tuskens shifted anxiously but complied, moving back toward the depression.
“Ben?” the Airshaper asked Hairy Face now, frightened and puzzled.
“Ben,” A’Yark said, looking again at the silvery weapon, barely visible within his cloak. “You are Ben.”
Annileen had thought she was past the point of shock. But hearing Basic words in the braying voice of a Sand Person was yet another stunner.
Ben simply nodded. “You would know the words, wouldn’t you?” he said, carefully. His voice was soothing, as smooth as when he’d spoken earlier to A’Yark’s companions. Somehow, they’d understood—and complied.
Annileen gawked. Who is this guy?
“Perhaps you can understand this,” Ben said, pointing to the body behind A’Yark. “This woman—Annileen—did not shoot your son. You know the burns. That mark was from a long-range rifle.”
A’Yark did not turn to look. “One settler killed. All settlers killed.”
“You are mistaken.”
This wasn’t something to debate, Annileen thought. She’d certainly shot at plenty of Tuskens earlier, at the Claim. Ben seemed to want to defuse the immediate tension, at least with his words. His body remained poised, ready to act—although Annileen didn’t know what an unarmed man could do against the Tusken woman and her band.
The Tusken woman. Annileen looked at A’Yark, seen before through a mist of fire retardant and by others only amid panic. As far as Annileen had ever heard, Tuskens had distinct gender roles. Males fought; women tended the banthas. The few images she’d seen showed Tusken females dressed in even bulkier outfits, their hoods pulled down over large faceplates. But the one-eyed Tusken before them was outfitted as all the others, save for the lack of bandolier.
Ben pointed to the suns, creeping closer to the heights of the western Jundland. He spoke in simple terms, matching the Tusken’s. “You struck. The settlers struck. The day ends. We will depart.” He nodded to the east, where hooting and hollering had commenced beyond the hillside. “We depart, and you depart,” he added ominously, “while you can.”
A’Yark looked down at the gaderffii stick in her hands. It had belonged to her father, and it had not saved him. Nor had it saved her son. It was right to plunge its point into humans, to crush them with its bulk, to grind their bones with its flanges. Hairy Face—Ben—might have the power to kill her. She would die, but the others would live, and they would exact a price.
But then A’Yark thought again of the magic weapon the man carried, and the last time she had seen one. She wanted to know more, but knowledge could not come from a dead wizard. And if the human cheers over the ridge meant the rest of the band was gone, then A’Yark and the survivors could not linger.
A’Yark turned back to A’Deen. Handing her gaderffii to another, she heaved the corpse from the ground.
“We depart, and you depart,” A’Yark said. “While you can.”
“Forty-eight,” Mullen said.
“Forty-eight!” Orrin looked down at the canyon floor as he descended the rocky stair. “That the head count?”
Mullen gave a laugh, a rare guttural thing that had always made his father cringe. “I can’t make any guarantees about body parts,” Mullen said. “Some of the Tuskies that fell hit pretty hard.”
Orrin surveyed the scene. It was truly a mess. The trail of Tusken corpses wound around the corner of the gorge and out of sight. He whistled. “I didn’t think this many hit us at the oasis!”
“There were some in camps east of the Claim that Jayla Jee saw,” Mullen said, referring to their friend in the skyhopper. “I think they were in reserve to take captives. But when the Tuskens at the Claim fled, they all went.”
Most of the vigilantes had already made their way down here, making sure none of the injured Sand People would come back to haunt them. Orrin’s daughter was here, too, trying her best to make her way through the organic obstacle course at the foot of the eastern rock face.
“Disgusting,” Veeka said, holding her nose. “Let’s get out of here.”
Before Orrin could respond, a shrill beep resounded from his pocket. “
Just a second,” he said, pulling out the comlink. “How’s our recon, Sky One?”
“All clear, Master Gault,” crackled the voice of the skyhopper pilot. Orrin had directed her to complete a wide circle. “And it looks like you were right,” Jayla said. “Annie Calwell and that drifter were here—but they’ve ridden off to the west.”
The west? Orrin’s eyebrow rose. West to Ben’s place, maybe? The Claim was back to the north. He thought to go after them, but then an approaching group of celebrants reminded him of what needed to come next. Rifle-toting Jabe was among them, receiving backslaps from the older settlers. Orrin clicked off the comlink and smiled. “You get any, son?”
“I did, sir. Or I think so.”
“Well, pick out a prize so we can go.”
Beaming, Jabe stepped toward the twin tangles of metal. The vigilantes had piled the gaffi sticks and rifles separately. The boy looked back at Orrin. “You think the one that got my dad is here?”
“Great suns, boy! I don’t know. Just pick your favorite.” While Jabe deliberated, Orrin edged back to confer with Mullen. “We need any of this junk?”
“No, we’ve got plenty.”
Jabe reached into the gaderffii pile and found a silvery specimen, shorter than the others and relatively clean. Veeka laughed. “Just your size, runt.” The others laughed at the blushing kid before surrounding him, offering congratulations.
Orrin looked back at the killing ground. The Tuskens deserved every bit of this, surely. His boy Varan. Dannar Calwell. Even that Lars woman—all had gotten some justice today. But Orrin understood that squaring accounts here made for a change to the rest of the balance sheet.
“Will Zedd be ready to go again soon?” he whispered to his son.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Mullen said. “Doc Mell only had a second with him, but he said he could be out for a month this time. Maybe more.” He raised a hairy eyebrow. “Why, are you afraid this thing today will mess us up?”
“I don’t know,” Orrin said. He turned back to the crowd and locked eyes on Jabe. The boy always looked happy outside the store, but now he was positively over the suns. Jabe spotted Orrin and raised his shiny trophy, earning another cheer from the others.
Kenobi Page 16
