Wimateeka shook his head so that his hood jerked from side to
side. "We have lost all contact with them. They sent no
explanation of their delay. We are concerned. Perhaps the Sand
People attacked them, too." Het Nkik scowled. "We can't simply run
and hide all the time, especially now that the Imperials are
growing more aggressive. We could all work together. Many small
ones can make one large force. Now that the Jawas have gathered
for the swap meet, clan leader, will you discuss my ideas with
them?"
Wimateeka and Eet Ptaa tittered with nervous laughter.
Wimateeka said, "Now you're sounding like one particular human
moisture farmer I know! He wants Jawas and humans and Sand People
to work together and draw maps separating our territories." "Is
that such a bad idea?" Het Nkik asked. Wimateeka shrugged. "It is
not the Jawa way." Het Nkik felt as if he were talking to a droid
with its power pack removed. Nothing would ever change until the
Jawas saw how things might be different-until someone set an
example. He walked along between the tables, kicking up occasional
billows of dust. The smell of roasted hubba gourd made his mouth
water. Looking up, he searched the rim of the dunes for any sign
of Jek Nkik's sand-crawler. As he passed a table from the Kkak
clan, he heard a conspiratorial whisper, unlike the entreaties by
other merchants.
"Het Nkik!" the Kkak clan member said, clicking the hard
consonants and sharpening his name.
He turned and saw the other Jawa reach beneath his table to a
private stash of wares. "Are you Het Nkik?" he repeated. "Of
Wimateeka's clan, the one who is always talking about empowering
the Jawas, about making us fight? Hrar Kkak salutes you and offers
an exchange of wares."
Het Nkik felt a ribbon of cold inside him like a long drink of
rare water. "I am Het Nkik," he said, letting suspicion curl
through his body odor. It was good to let a salesman see healthy
skepticism. "The opportunity for exchange is always welcome, and
the time for opportunity is always now."
"I have something for you," the tradesman said. "Come closer."
Het Nkik took a step to the table, and now he was honor bound
to listen to the sales pitch. The Kkak clansman looked around
furtively and then hauled out a blaster rifle, scarred but
magnificent. A Blastech DL-44 model, more power than Het Nkik had
ever held in his own hands.
He took a step backward in alarm and then forward in
fascination. "Jawas are forbidden such weapons," he said.
"I have heard rumors of such an Imperial decree from Mos
Eisley, but I have received no confirmation of it," the salesman
said. "We of the Kkak clan have been wandering the far fringes of
the Dune Sea, and sometimes communication of such things takes a
long time."
Het Nkik nodded in admiration of the smooth excuse. "Does it
function? Where did you get it?"
"Never mind where I got it."
Het Nkik felt ashamed for his breach of Jawa protocol. "If I'm
going to purchase this . . ." He removed his pouch of barter
credits, knowing instinctively that he had to have the weapon. He
wanted it no matter what the consequences - and the salesman knew
it, too. "I need to know if it works."
"Of course it functions." The salesman popped out the power
pack. "You'll see that the charge is on three-quarters."
Het Nkik saw that it was a standard power pack of the type that
could be used in many sorts of equipment. "Let me try it in that
portable illuminator," he said, "just to make sure."
Both of them knew Het Nkik could not fire the blaster with all
the other Jawas present. The Kkak salesman slipped the power pack
into the portable illuminator and switched it on. A bright beam
stabbed skyward toward the two suns. "Satisfied?"
Het Nkik nodded. "My resources are meager, though my admiration
of your wares is great."
The two haggled over price for an acceptable amount of time,
though the price didn't change much. Het Nkik hurried away with
only a few barter credits left to his name - but the proud owner
of a highly illegal blaster hidden under his brown robes. For the
first time in his life, he felt tall. Very tall.
He spent the rest of the swap meet looking for his comrade Jek
Nkik, but the last sandcrawler never arrived.
After the swap meet disbanded, the sandcrawlers toiled across
the Dune Sea in different directions, laden with new treasures
each clan had obtained through hard bargaining.
After an hour of relentless jabbering, Het Nkik convinced the
pilot to detour along the path Jek Nkik's vehicle might have
taken, to see if they could discover what had befallen the missing
Jawas. They headed toward the oudying moisture farms among which
his clan mate's group often traded.
Het Nkik worked in the engine room, coaxing the faltering
reactors to function for just a few more months until the storm
season when the sandcrawlers would be parked next to Jawa
fortresses in the badlands. Wimateeka's old mechanics would have
to give the ion pumps and the reactors a full overhaul. Het Nkik's
companions were much more focused on their tasks now that the swap
meet was over.
At about midday, the lookout sounded an alarm. He had seen
smoke. Normally the sight of burning wreckage made Jawas ecstatic
at the possibility of a salvage claim, but Het Nkik felt a deep
foreboding; none of the others noticed the change in his scent.
He left his post and took the lift platform to the bridge. In
front of the wide viewport, he climbed on an overturned equipment
box and stared. The smoke grew thick. His heart sank inside him as
if he had just lost all his possessions in a bad trade.
He recognized the oxidized brown metal of an old ore hauler's
hull, the trapezoidal shape. The sandcrawler had been assaulted,
blasted with heavy-weapons fire, and destroyed.
Het Nkik knew his friend and clan brother was dead.
The lookout chittered in terror, expressing his fear that
whatever had struck the sandcrawler might still be around to
attack them. But the pilot, seeing the enormous wealth of
unclaimed salvage, overcame his uneasiness. He used the comm unit
to transmit a message to Wimateeka's fortress, establishing his
salvage rights.
Greasy tatters of smoke curled up in the air as the sandcrawler
descended toward the destroyed vehicle. Het Nkik felt a resurgence
of anger bubble within him. He recalled how stormtroopers had
assaulted Jawa fortresses for practice. He thought of Eet Ptaa's
settlement raided by the Sand People. Yet again, someone bigger
had attacked helpless Jawas, perhaps out of spite, or for sport,
or for no reason at all.
The only thing Jawas ever did was take their beatings, flee,
and accept their helplessness. Nothing would ever change until
somebody showed them another way.
He thought of the blaster he had purchased at the swap meet.
&
nbsp; The pilot brought the sandcrawler to a halt facing the best
escape route if attackers reappeared. The hull doors clanked open,
and the Jawas scrambled out, ducking low for cover but eager to
dash toward the treasure trove of scrap. The pilot scrambled
forward to apply a claim beacon to the ruined sandcrawler, warning
away other scavengers. Jawas swarmed into the half-open door of
the wreck, scurrying to see what treasures had been left
undamaged.
Several Jawas squealed as they realized they were not alone by
the damaged sandcrawler. A bearded old human in worn but flowing
robes stood off in the shade beside two droids that he seemed to
have claimed for himself. He had built a small, crackling pyre.
Het Nkik sniffed, smelled burning flesh; the old man had already
begun the ritual disposal of Jawa carcasses in the purging flames.
The human raised his hands in a placating gesture. Some of Het
Nkik's cousins speculated that the old human had killed the other
Jawas, but Het Nkik saw this was obviously absurd.
A protocol droid walked stiffly beside the old man. Its gold
plating was a bit scratched, and it had a dent in the top of its
head; but all in all the droid seemed to be. in good functioning
order. The other droid, a barrel-shaped model, hung back and
bleeped in alarm at seeing the Jawas. Het Nkik automatically began
to assess how much he could get in trade for the droids.
The protocol droid said, "I offer my services as an
interpreter, sir. I am fluent in over six million forms of
communication."
The old man looked calmly at the droid and made a dismissive
gesture. "Your services won't be needed. I've lived in these
deserts far too long not to understand a little of the Jawas'
speech. Greetings!" the old man said in clear Jawa words. "May you
trade well, though I sorrow for your tragedy here today."
Three Jawas bent close to the rock-strewn ground and spotted
bantha tracks. They set up a wail of panic, suddenly convinced
that the Sand People had declared an all-out war.
But something did not seem right to Het Nkik. He looked at the
tracks, at the crude weapons fire that had struck the most crucial
spots on the enormous ore hauler. He sniffed the air, sorting
through layers of scent from molten and hardened metal to the
burning stench of bodies, to the heated sand. He detected an
undertone of plasteel armor, fresh lubricants, a mechanized
attack, but he could find none of the musty smells of the Tusken
Raiders or the dusty, peppery scent of their banthas.
Het Nkik pointed this out, and the other Jawas snapped at him,
impatient, as usual, with his contradictory views. But the old man
spoke up for him. "Y our little brother is right. This was an
Imperial attack, not a strike by the Sand People."
The others chittered in disbelief, but the old man continued.
"The Imperial occupying forces would like nothing better than to
see a war among Sand People and Jawas and human moisture farmers.
You must not allow yourselves to believe their deceptions."
"Who are you?" Het Nkik asked him. "How do you know our funeral
customs, and why have you claimed no salvage for yourself?"
The old man said, "I know of your customs because I try to
understand the other people who share my desert home. I know the
Jawas believe that all their possessions are forfeit to the clan
at death, but your bodies are borrowed from the womb of the sands,
and their elements must return to pay the debt you owe for your
temporary life."
Some of the Jawas gasped at his eloquent recital of their own
intensely private beliefs.
"If you understand us so well," Het Nkik said brashly, "then
you know that no Jawa would ever strike back at a Tusken Raider,
even for such a blatant assault as this. The Jawas are all
cowards. Nothing will make them fight."
The old man smiled indulgently, and his pale blue eyes seemed
to bore through Het Nkik's robe, seeing deep into the hooded
shadow of his face. "Perhaps a coward is only a fighter who has
not yet been pushed far enough - or one who has not been shown the
way."
"General Kenobi," the golden droid interrupted, "Master Luke
has been gone far too long. He should have had ample time" to get
to his home and back by now."
The old man turned to the Jawas. "Your salvage claim is safe
here, but you must warn the others of the tricks the Imperials are
playing. The garrison in Mos Eisley has just been reinforced with
many more storm-troopers. They are searching . . . for something
they will not find."
The two droids stood huddled together.
"But the Prefect and the Imperial Governor will continue to
foster turmoil between the Jawas and the Tusken Raiders." Then the
human turned and looked directly at Het Nkik. "The Jawas are not
powerless - if they do not wish to be."
Het Nkik felt a lance of fear and realization strike through
him. A memory returned to him like a stun bolt. He recalled with
the vividness of a double desert sunset a time - less than a year
before his coming of age - when he had scanned a crashed T-16
speeder out in the rocky twists of an unnamed canyon. Wanting to
claim the salvage for himself, Het Nkik had not asked for Jawa
assistance, not even from Jek Nkik.
When he found the ruined vehicle, he spotted a young human male
sprawled dead on the rocks, thrown there by the crash. Apparently,
the T-16's repulsorlifts had been unable to counteract a sudden
thermal updraft; the landspeeder had crashed and skidded, leaving
a knotted tongue of smoke in the otherwise empty air.
Het Nkik had pawed at the mangled controls, ignoring the broken
body that had already begun to attract moisture-seeking insects
from crevices in the rocks. He had suddenly looked up to discover
six young and vicious Tusken Raiders, their faces swaddled with
rags, hissing through breath filters. They were angry, ready for a
heroic adventure they could tell about around the story fires
throughout their adulthood. The Sand People raised their sharpened
gaffi sticks and uttered their ululating cries.
Het Nkik knew he was about to die. He could not possibly fight
even one of the Sand People. He was unarmed. He was alone. He was
small and defenseless -a weak, cowardly Jawa.
But as the Sand People attacked, Het Nkik had found the T-16's
still-functioning security system, and triggered it. The sonic
alarm sent out a pulsating screech loud enough to curdle dewback
blood. Startled by the noise, the Raiders had fled.
Het Nkik had stood trembling in his brown robes, paralyzed with
fear and astonishment. It took him many moments to realize that he
alone had scared off the Tusken Raiders. A weak Jawa had driven
back an attack by bloodthirsty Sand People!
It had been a warming revelation to him Given the right
equipment and the right attitude, Jawas could be different.
And now he had a blaster rifle.
"I know we
are not powerless," Het Nkik said to the old man who
continued to watch him, "but my clan members do not realize it."
"Perhaps they will," the old man said.
As the other Jawas scrambled over the wrecked sand-crawler, Het
Nkik knew what he had to do. He went to the pilot and forfeited
his entire share of salvage in exchange for a single functional
vehicle that would take him alone across the desert to the human
spaceport . . . where the Imperials were headquartered.
Het Nkik's sand vehicle broke down twice on his trek to the
sprawling, squalid city of Mos Eisley. Standing under the pounding
heat of the suns as the burning wind licked under his hood, he
managed to use his skill and meager resources to get the vehicle
limping along again over the rocky ground.
Inside his cloak the DL44 blaster felt incredibly heavy, cold
and hot at the same time. The weight inside his chest seemed even
heavier, but burning anger drove him on.
On the dust-whipped streets of Mos Eisley, Het Nkik kept the
sand vehicle functioning until he spotted another Jawa-a member of
a distant clan who had been in town for some time-and offered the
used-up vehicle for sale. Though he drove a poor bargain, Het Nkik
did not expect to live long enough to spend the credits; but his
nature forbade him giving anything away.
On foot, Het Nkik trudged through the rippling midday heat,
clutching the blaster close to his chest, looking at languid
creatures dozing in adobe doorways waiting for the day to cool.
The streets were nearly deserted. He walked and walked, feeling
his feet burn; the pale dust caked his garment.
He knew what he intended to do, but he didn't quite know how to
go about it. He had a blaster. He had an obsession. But he had yet
to find a target-the right target.
He noted an increased Imperial presence in the city, guards
stationed by docking bays and the customs center; but no more than
two at a time. Het Nkik knew that life was cheap in Mos Eisley,
and killing a single Imperial trooper would not cause enough
uproar. He had to go out in such a blaze of glory and heroism that
the Jawas would sing of him for years to come.
In the town center he found the large wreck of the Dowager
Queen spacecraft, a mess of tangled girders, falling-apart hull
plates, and all manner of strange creatures, vagrants, and
scavengers lurking inside the hull.
Star Wars - Tales From The Mos Eisley Cantina Page 26