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 behind 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!”
Ben dashed forward from the garage where he’d left Bohmer. He slid to a grinding stop behind Orrin’s landspeeder. Between shots, Mullen looked at him and snarled, “Next time, bring a blaster. You ain’t getting mine!”
Ben ignored him. “Another wave!” he yelled, and pointed to a new group of Tuskens. Screened by their attacking companions, the newcomers charged across the Claim’s southern yard toward the giant vaporator.
Orrin looked through the chaos at them, momentarily confused. That was Old Number One, the first Pretormin tower in the oasis. The Tuskens were attacking it, clubbing its base with their gaffi sticks.
Annileen pointed at the tower’s tip. “It’s the Call! They’re after the Call!”
Of course. Orrin understood right away. The Settlers’ Call used a standard transmitter to connect the subscribing farms and the vigilantes. But there was also the siren—and here, as at the Bezzard farm, it sat at the highest point in the area: atop the vaporator.
Which also happened to be where the transmitter was located.
A daylight raid—and now this! It added up. “Plug-eye’s here!” The crafty Tusken had figured it out somehow, and was trying to gag the oasis before any cry for help could be raised.
Ben yanked at Orrin’s sleeve. “They’re not in the garage complex yet.”
Orrin looked back. Only one bay was open—the one Annileen’s landspeeder had exited earlier. What Ben saw was true, but it didn’t make sense. “There’s a pass-through between the store and the garages,” Orrin yelled. “If they’re in the store, why haven’t they come through there yet?” Tuskens attacking from the garages would effectively envelop them.
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “Something’s stopping them. Let’s take advantage. Get people to safety!”
It made sense. Orrin gestured for the surviving Devaronians, both scared witless, to make a break for the open garage. They did, and the others followed, one by one. After Ben helped Zedd, in agony since his attack, stagger in, Mullen and Orrin followed. Now their cover became the Tuskens’ cover, as the warriors crouched behind the landspeeders and fired into the garage bay.
Orrin looked back at the work floor. If they could avoid the Tuskens’ blasterfire, they could reach the hallways leading to the rest of the bays, including those with the Settlers’ Call vehicles. There would be more weapons there, and a chance of escape—and he and Annileen both had the codes to open the doors. But Ben, crouching with poor Bohmer, kept looking at the doorway leading back to the store.
“There’s a reason they haven’t come through,” Ben said.
He seemed to be concentrating. How anyone could concentrate in this situation was beyond Orrin. “What difference does it make?”
“No,” Ben said. “Listen!”
Orrin stood as close to the doorway as he dared, fearing Plug-eye and friends could charge in at any second. But all he could hear was blasterfire and the horrific screams of Tuskens.
“What in—” Orrin looked back at the people in the garage, hiding behind equipment and firing out at the Tuskens. His kids and Zedd. Annileen and her kids.
Who were the Tuskens inside fighting?
“Was anyone else coming from Mos Espa?” Annileen asked from cover.
“We left early to beat the rush,” Orrin said, scratching the side of his head with the barrel of his blaster. “Was anyone else in the store?”
Annileen’s eyes widened. “Ben!” she said. “The surveillance cams!”
Ben looked to his side. There was a flickering screen, a monitoring station for all the locations within the garage. Orrin watched as Ben quickly cycled through them. The man seemed to know his way around a security system, the farmer noticed. The garage bays all seemed empty of Tuskens. The only activity was in the store, which came up as the final image.
“That’s what I thought,” Ben said, turning. A determined look on his
face, he left Orrin’s side and reached for one of Gloamer’s big fire extinguisher canisters. “Hold the fort,” he said as he disappeared around the corner into the pass-through.
Orrin’s jaw dropped. Is the man crazy?
“Ben!” Annileen yelled. Heedless of the incoming blasterfire, she dived across the garage floor to Orrin’s side. “Ben’s unarmed,” she yelled to Orrin. “We’ve got to follow him!”
“No,” Orrin said, clutching at her sleeve. “Wait. Look here!”
Annileen glanced for an instant at the security monitor—and then looked again at it, gawking alongside Orrin. There, in the overhead view of the retail store, they saw what was occupying the Sand People. Old Ulbreck had wedged himself behind the collapsed rifle racks and the weapons counter and was using the full arsenal at hand to keep the Tuskens at bay!
“Well, I’ll be,” Orrin said, bringing the cam into focus on the old man. “I’ll be blasted!”
“So will he,” Annileen said. “He can’t hold out much longer!” More Tuskens were entering the store from the front entrance and the livery yard. She tugged at Orrin. “We’ve got to—”
At that moment the scene on the monitor began to cloud up. The blasterfire could still be seen—and then just light. Blue light, flashing around in a haze. Orrin shook his head, unbelieving. What’s happening in there?
Annileen broke loose from his hold and dashed into the hallway. Orrin looked back at the others in the garage. “Hold ’em off! I’ll be back!” he shouted.
Orrin ran through the short hallway. He skidded to a stop when he saw Annileen ahead, just standing there, her ankles lost in a lowering cloud of chemical retardant. The haze inside was still thick, but the flashing blue lights had stopped. And in place of the many combatants seen on the monitor earlier, only one figure stood now amid the smashed tables of the luncheonette: Ben. Standing over the bodies of a dozen or more Sand People, his hand slipped inside his tunic, as casually as if he were putting away his credit pouch.
A familiar old and now very weary voice came through the mist from Orrin and Annileen’s right. Wyle Ulbreck popped out from behind the gun counter, repeating blaster rifle in hand. “Die, you wretched—”
Ben stepped quickly between the old farmer and the newcomers. “It’s all right, Master Ulbreck. It’s just friends here.” He gestured to the fallen Sand People. “You got them all.”
Orrin looked at the bodies, stunned, and then up at Ben. The man had a canny look on his face. “Wyle did all this?”
Suddenly self-conscious, Ben stammered. “I, uh—saw what he was up against.” He gestured to the spent canister, nearby. “He just needed a little distraction so he could finish the job.”
Annileen looked dumbfounded. At Ben, then at Ulbreck, and finally at the mess of a store. “I’m speechless,” she said.
Orrin looked at the old man, coughing as he staggered out from behind his makeshift fortress. “I woke up and these characters were coming in,” Ulbreck said, eyes wandering in tired amazement. “I don’t rightly know how I got ’em all—”
“But you did,” Ben quickly offered. “Every one. All on your own.”
Orrin shook his head. Old Ulbreck would be telling this story for years. Orrin stepped over to try to help the frazzled man stand—only to have his effort rebuffed.
“Lemme go, Gault!” Ulbreck snarled at him, suddenly fully aware again. “And you wanted to provide security for me? You can’t even keep your own spread safe!”
Orrin’s breath caught in his throat. Yes, this surely looked bad. But the blasterfire was still going outside, and the other Tuskens might reenter at any minute. He prodded Ulbreck toward the center of the store, and the old man didn’t object.
Annileen was in motion now. Stepping over bodies, she reached her counter.
Ben saw her kneel and start to dig around. “What are you looking for?”
“The cashbox!”
Orrin raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think the Tuskens care much for credits.”
Annileen ignored him. Finding the box beneath a smashed shelf, she slipped Dannar’s old pistol from its position in the lock. “Here,” she said, tossing the weapon to Ben.
Orrin darted from one shelf to another, trying to stay out of sight of the doorways. There were Tuskens everywhere outside, and with the screen of the chemical fog dissipating, every entrance was vulnerable. Reaching Ben, Orrin saw the man holding the pistol, contemplating it. “I hope you learned to use that, where you came from.”
Ben had started to respond when figures loomed in the doorways on every side of the store. Tuskens, all—carrying gaderffii and blaster rifles. Orrin started to raise his rifle, only to have Ben place his hand on his wrist. “Not now,” Ben said.
The Tuskens at the front of the store parted to allow another to enter. Orrin strained to see through the haze. Shorter than the others, this one wore looser-fitting robes, with no bandolier like the others. And only a single eyepiece, on the left. A red gem glinted where the right eye should be.
“Plug-eye,” Orrin whispered, gravely. This was it. He hoped his kids had made it out.
But the lead Tusken wasn’t interested in Orrin. A wrapped hand thrust forward, pointing at Annileen. “Ena’grosh,” a low voice said, less guttural than other Tuskens whom Orrin had heard. And he heard many, now, as the others repeated the same word. “Ena’grosh.”
“They mean you,” Ben said, watching Annileen walk around from behind the counter, cashbox in hand.
Orrin moved to stop her, but Ben again held his arm. “I think she’s got this,” he said confidently.
Annileen stood bravely before the Tuskens, opened the cashbox, and pressed the button of the small device inside. A device Orrin recognized as the remote control activator for the Settlers’ Call—a call which now went out from the oasis, both over the airwaves, and as a roaring scream from a siren outside. A siren that still worked.
The recorded krayt dragon screeched, and behind Plug-eye, the Sand People responded as Sand People usually did.
“We’re closed,” Annileen said coldly. “Get the hell out of my store!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FOR THE SECOND TIME in a month, A’Yark stood before a human settlement, yelling after fleeing cowards.
“Prodorra! Prodorra!”
Hoax!
It was no use. Despite the war leader’s efforts to teach the others, it was the morning raid at the farm all over again. A’Yark had explained that the krayt dragon call was a deceit. They even knew how to silence it, by attacking the towering water-leech with the sound-maker atop it. Their minds understood, and their bodies had followed the initial plan. But their attacks had failed to squelch the siren, and now their spirits betrayed them. Even A’Deen had fled the Airshaper’s home, ignoring his “honored parent.”
A’Yark looked back over the rise at the structure. The Airshaper was still in there, as were the bodies of the first wave of Tusken attackers. So many slain! Had the Airshaper somehow struck them down? This was her sanctuary. It made sense she would call upon all her powers to defend it. But A’Yark still knew the numbers favored the Tuskens, if they could be compelled to fight.
Young A’Deen skittered up the dune. “We must go,” the youth said, rushed breaths whistling through his mouthpiece.
“No!”
A’Deen was A’Yark’s only surviving child—yet the warrior struggled to resist the urge to smash the youth’s face in. Such fear in A’Yark’s bloodline? Unthinkable!
So A’Yark chose not to think on it. “No. Recall the others. We get what we came for, or—”
The warrior’s head turned. The siren was still blaring, its scream having resolved into a long monotone. But there was another sound there, too.
“Landspeeders,” A’Yark spat. Responding to the alarm, or arriving by chance
? It didn’t matter. A’Yark looked south. The retreat of the others had turned into a mad dash, all of them heedless of their leader and without any care for their camping gear, abandoned in the staging area.
A’Deen bowed his head, looking suddenly quite small. “Honored parent. We must go.”
“All my offspring were born under the cowardly sun,” A’Yark said, stomping past the child warrior. “We must catch up to the others.”
“It is right. They go to safety.”
“No.” A’Yark said, hardly believing what was happening. “We must catch them—because they’re heading the wrong way!”
The ground quaked beneath Orrin’s dress boots. A dozen meters above, the Settlers’ Call siren screamed its ear-piercing warning to the oasis and beyond. But neither sound waves nor retreating Tuskens could distract the farmer from the sorry sight in front of him.
The base of Old Number One sparked, the vaporator’s control panels bashed to bits. Dannar’s secret formula was gone. Orrin had recorded the settings many times over the years, with the Calwells’ permission, but the water from his Pretormins never been as sweet. Old Number One was unique. Some flaw, some short circuit, perhaps even some rewiring Dannar had never told him about. Orrin had feared to pry further into the device, so as not to destroy its magic.
Now it was gone.
But the siren had done its job, safe on its mount. It had been Dannar’s notion to place it up there; Orrin would have preferred to see it located anywhere else, in case the thing upset the prized vaporator’s performance. Dannar had safeguarded against that by powering the alarm independently from the vaporator’s grid. That decision by a dead friend had saved them all. Short of climbing to the top or knocking the column over, the brutes had no chance of disabling the clarion.
Dannar had saved them. And now, the siren would avenge him and his home. Settlers arrived by landspeeder and dewback, eopie and speeder bike. All had been returning from Mos Espa, already bound for the Claim; the siren and digital signal had sped them along.
Kenobi: Star Wars Page 14