"Consider the banthas of the dunefields. They quail not; neither
do they sting. They are the holiest of beasts ..."
Oh, boy. This guy was the real item. BoShek was glad he hadn't
tried to fake the monastery religion, although the preacher didn't
seem too thrilled to be hearing a competing doctrine, either.
Well, it couldn't be helped; BoShek was committed now.
The other preacher resumed his spiel too, offering to heal
anyone who tossed him money.
BoShek gladly let them drown him out, babbling on about the
Force merely to keep up his cover. He could sense the cops behind
him, three of them sweeping blast rifles around the observation
deck. He closed his eyes and wished for a miracle, wished that
they would just turn around and march back down the ramp and go
away.
A high-pitched Jawa voice chittered angrily from below. The
unmistakable crack of blaster fire made BoShek nearly leap out the
window, but he realized just in time that the shooting had come
from outside, too. He leaned out and peered around the curve of
the hull, and could just see the Jawa lying in a smoking heap on
the ground. The patrol squad of white-armored stormtroopers stood
in the middle of the square, waving their blast rifles around
menacingly, but no one else fired.
The cops behind BoShek rushed back down the ramp to
investigate. BoShek leaned against the window frame for support,
his legs suddenly weak. Whatever the Jawa had done, its noisy
death had distracted the cops long enough for him to escape.
He turned to go, only to meet a gold-ringed fist with his face.
He staggered back and landed hard on the floor. "Mock us, will
you?" the preacher snarled at him, aiming a kick at his ribs that
BoShek barely dodged.
The other preachers quickly joined the first in kicking and
hitting him. "Here's for trying to make people laugh at us!" one
of them said as he nearly wrenched BoShek's arm from its socket.
"And here's for leading the militia up here," another said.
BoShek scrambled to his feet, trying to explain. "No, wait, I
didn't mean to - " But they weren't interested in excuses. Under
continual pummeling, he covered his head and dived for the ramp,
rolled halfway down it, and came up running. He thought the preach
ers would leave it at that, but two of them chased him right out
of the wreck and out into the plaza, where the police, gathered
around the Jawa's corpse, turned to see what this new commotion
was.
"That's him!" the cop he'd knocked down shouted, and he snapped
off a blaster shot that just missed BoShek's head, blowing a rusty
attitude jet off the side of the wreck instead. BoShek leaped over
the jet and dashed around the curve of the hull; then when he had
its bulk between him and his pursuers, he sprinted straight down
the street toward the thickest crowd he could see the buyers and
sellers in front of the Jawa trading center.
The preachers were still hot on his tail, which was the only
thing that kept him from getting a blaster bolt in the back. The
police were evidently reluctant to shoot a bona fide religious
leader, even by accident, probably fearing the trouble their
followers would cause in retribution.
Taking advantage of their hesitation, BoShek ran past the
traders and on down the street toward the used-landspeeder lot. He
thought briefly of dodging through the speeders and trying to lose
his pursuers that way, but as he drew closer he saw the triangular-
headed Arconan dealer gloating over a deal he had just made, and
he realized his salvation was at hand.
Running up to the speeder the Arconan had bought -a battered XP-
38A with two engines on the side and a third up on a fin in
back-he tossed a fistful of credits at the surprised alien, then
leaped into the driver's seat and shouted over his shoulder, "I'm
taking it for a test drive!"
"No, wait! What do you think you're-" the Arconan wailed, but
BoShek didn't stick around to argue. The engines were still
running; he jammed the accelerator on full and zoomed away, nearly
running over a cylindrical droid before he swerved the speeder
farther out into the street.
The cops took a couple of wild shots at him, but the energy
bolts only succeeded in making the people in the street dive for
cover. BoShek zoomed down the clear avenue, took the corner at the
end of the block at full speed, and continued on.
Two blocks farther, he slowed for another corner, then
proceeded at a more normal speed to the next corner, where he
turned again and tried to blend into what little vehicle traffic
there was. His zigzag course was leading him in a loop around
Docking Bay 94. Good. The jumbled streets dead-ending at the bay
would keep the police busy for a long time, if they even bothered
to look for him anymore.
He was thinking about ditching the speeder and heading back to
the monastery when he turned another corner and found himself
gliding toward a patrol of four stormtroopers who stood blocking
the street. One of the troopers raised a hand with his palm out,
indicating that BoShek should stop.
They didn't have their rifles drawn, which meant they were
probably just stopping everyone on the street for questioning.
Even so, there was no way BoShek could get past them or turn
around and flee before they could unsling their blasters and take
him out. He forced himself to let up on the accelerator and drift
to a stop before the troopers, all the while frantically trying to
think of a way out of this latest predicament.
"What's your business here?" the patrol leader asked him. His
voice was distorted by the full battle helmet he wore, and the
bubble lenses of his visor kept BoShek from seeing where he was
looking.
"I'm, uh, just headed down to the cantina," BoShek told him.
"I see. Is this your landspeeder?"
"I'm test-driving it," BoShek said.
"A likely story. Let's see your-" The stormtrooper's words were
drowned out by the roar of a ship taking off under full thrust.
BoShek winced at the blast as the ship cleared the rooftops, then
did a double take when he recognized its outline. It was the
Millennium Falcon.
Looks like the old mart must have made it, he thought. Too bad,
in a way; he could have used a little bit of his luck right now.
But it wasn't luck, was it? The guy knew about the Force, and
by the way he talked and the way he handled a lightsaber, he was a
master at it. He'd probably used its power to manipulate his way
past all the obstacles. A little roadblock like this would hardly
make him sweat.
Well, BoShek was sweating plenty. The stormtroopers had all
turned to watch the ship blast free, but
they would be bringing their attention back to him soon enough.
Go check out the docking bay, BoShek thought at them. Go bother
somebody else. Whatever, just let me go.
What had the old man told him about the
Force? "Beware the dark
side," he'd said. "Only the pure of heart can ever hope to wield
the Force's power with any success." And he'd told BoShek he'd,
have to resolve his role here on the edge of society before he
could continue his journey.
Great. Stealing the landspeeder had probably nixed whatever
chance he'd ever had at using the Force.
But he hadn't actually stolen it, now had he? He'd tossed the
Arconan who'd bought it at least fifty credits, and while it was
true that he'd only been hoping to keep the landspeeder dealer
from raising the alarm for a few minutes, he could still take it
back.
All right, he thought, directing his thoughts out into the
vastness of space where he imagined the Force accumulated. I'll
take the speeder back just as soon as I get free, and I'll quit
running hot ships for smugglers and I'll clean up the rest of my
act, as long as you get me out of this mess.
He didn't really expect it to work. The Force wasn't some
judgmental god deciding a person's fate; like the old man had
implied, the Force just was. It didn't care what BoShek promised.
The power to manipulate it came from within, and BoShek wasn't
foolish enough to believe he had reached internal harmony in the
last few seconds. But maybe, just maybe, he had changed enough to
make a difference.
He concentrated all his effort on the stormtroopers, willing
them to let him go, and he was almost sure he felt something, a
twinge of awareness directed toward them. An answering sensation
came back, as if they too possessed some rudiments of the Force,
or had once been exposed to it. They seemed to feel his touch; all
four of them turned in unison to regard the land-speeder again.
BoShek could hardly breathe. Fog your brains, he thought at
them. Forget I'm here.
"How long have you had these droids?" the storm-trooper captain
asked.
"Huh?" BoShek turned his head toward the passenger seat,
wondering how he could have missed seeing a droid there, but save
for himself the speeder was empty
"I-" he said, but the trooper cut him off.
"Let me see your identification."
Here we go, BoShek thought. He reached slowly for his belt,
wondering if he could grab his blaster and take out all four
troopers, but the captain's next words stopped him cold.
"We don't need to see his identification," he said to the
others. "These aren't the droids we're looking for."
Bewildered, BoShek could only say, "That's . . . uh, that's
good."
"You can go about your business," the trooper said. He waved
his arms in dismissal. "Move along."
BoShek's field of vision was shot full of tracers from the
sudden rush of relief. He had to take a deep breath to keep from
fainting, but he managed to urge the landspeeder forward and
around the corner before he pulled it to a stop and collapsed back
against the seat.
He had no idea what had just happened, except for one thing
The Force was real, and he had somehow manipulated the
stormtroopers with it.
But not without a price. He imagined the old man, probably half
a light-year away by now, still watching over him somehow, waiting
to see if he would follow through on his promise.
Would he? It was hardly a question. BoShek had been given a
glimpse of something vast, something at once wonderful and
terrifying. Beware the dark side, the old man had told him, and
BoShek knew the warning was sincere. He could use this newfound
power of his for good or for evil, but once he made the choice,
there would be no. going back. He was standing at a crossroads,
and whatever decision he made now would affect the rest of his
life.
Smiling for the first time in what seemed like hours, he
started the landspeeder and began driving it back to its rightful
owner.
Doctor Death The Tale of Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba
by Kenneth C. Flint
The odd scraping sound could be heard even above the distant
rumble of thunder.
One of the two figures seated at the dining table twisted
around, cocking its head to listen.
"What's that?" a gruff voice demanded. "Rover, go check!"
Something shifted in a shadowed corner. A mass slid forward
with a wet, sucking sound, coming into the light. It was a
gelatinous form, a mucuslike mass of
greasily shining bile-green that humped and slithered itself
over the floor as a ring of slender, bulb-tipped stalks wavered
atop the rounded mass. It oozed on across the width of the long
dining room toward one of the arched window openings in the far
wall.
"I wouldn't have believed a Meduza could be trained at all,"
the second figure at the table remarked with some surprise.
The first man turned back to the guest seated across the dining
table from him. "On the contrary, Senator. It's quite easy to
train. One of the most malleable species I've found, in fact. I
wish there were more like it."
The man's face was obscured by a massive scar disfiguring the
right side, leaving the right eye a slit in the sagging flesh and
flattening out the nose, giving him a piggish look.
"I can unfortunately imagine what things you wish for, Dr.
Evazan," the Aqualish senator replied with a shudder of revulsion.
Generally humanoid, he had walruslike features, with large, liquid
black eyes and thick, incurving tusks. Short bristling whiskers
lined die stubby snout that was split by a wide, thin mouth.
The senator lifted a hand to clutch the glass before him. The
hand was finlike, fingerless, but with an opposable thumb. It
marked him as a member of the more prominent of the two Aqualish
races, and thus belonging to their ruling classes. He drank deeply
of the dark green Andoan ale within the glass as he watched Rover
nervously.
The gelatinous creature had by now reached one of the window
openings. Heaving itself into a higher peak, it poised a moment,
its bulbed stalks jerking about as if sniffing the air.
Beyond die opening, the vast sea of the water planet of Ando
stretched away to a gray-black horizon. In the boiling storm
clouds that hung there, spectacular lightning flickered and flared
to light the towering thunderheads.
The deep boom of thunder rolled across the gale-churned waves
to rebound from die sheer stone walls of the spired casde perched
high upon the cliffs. Hundreds of meters below the casde window,
fists of massive waves slammed themselves against the base of the
rocky isle, splaying to white fingers that grabbed futilely
upward.
The full magnificence of the wild scene was somewhat obscured
by a shimmering scrim of light created by the energy shield that
formed a screen across each opening.
The bloblike creature sank back down. Its pod-tipped stalks
turned toward Evazan at once and waved to him, as if in urgent
signal.
Dr. Evazan cocked the remaining
eyebrow above his left eye. His
half-blasted face expressed no other sign of emotion.
"You might just want to drop down under the table now," he told
his guest in a quite matter-of-fact voice.
The Aqualish senator stared in astonishment as one of Evazan's
hands appeared from under the table clutching a blaster pistol.
The other hand lifted to punch one button on a small tabletop
console, and then a second.
All the lights went out.
Simultaneously a sizzling sound came from beyond the windows,
and the energy screens of diree openings were punctured inward as
three forms dived through them from outside.
The senator gave a shrill honk of terror and dived beneath the
thick tabletop.
The three forms hit the floor, rolled, and came in-stantly to
their feet. A flicker of distant lightning illuminated three
humanoid shapes as they lifted blaster rifles to fire.
Evazan was already rolling from his chair toward the shelter of
a conform lounge. He fired as he went, his bolt striking one of
the diree forms squarely.
The attacker let out a grunt of pain as he staggered and went
down. The other two dived for cover. Bolts from opposing weapons
crisscrossed the dark room, cracking into stone walls and ripping
through furnishings.
One of the attackers was so intent on hitting Evazan, he was
not aware of something creeping up-not until a liquid sound made
him whip about just as Rover lunged.
The intruder had no chance for defense as the Meduza's stalks
all shot forward, touching their pod ends to the other's face and
chest. Each pod flared brightly, and the victim's form stiffened,
shuddering as if an electric shock coursed through it, then
collapsed.
Evazan's twisted mouth lifted in a grotesque smile. "Good boy,
Rover," he muttered. But the smile vanished as he looked toward
the room's door, adding in an irked tone, "But where in hell are
you, Ponda?"
He moved out from his cover, crawling about the dark room,
angling for a shot at the last foe. As Evazan lifted up to take
aim at the last place he had seen the other, that final invader
drew a bead on the doctor's shadowy form.
The door of the room burst inward and a new figure plunged
through. A quick, well-aimed blaster bolt skewered Evazan's
attacker, barely saving the doctor from a fatal shot.
The last body thudded to the floor. Evazan climbed to his feet,
Star Wars - Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina Page 35
