Kenobi: Star Wars

by John Jackson Miller

  Orrin knelt and set to work lowering their quantity. A slight-looking raider was high on the far rise, scrambling up a rocky incline toward a gap. Orrin sighted the bandit and fired. The shot struck the Tusken in the center of his back, throwing him across the other side of the crest and out of sight.

  “Was that Pluggy?” his neighbor asked.

  “Too tall. But we’ll sort ’em out later,” Orrin said. He clucked. “They’re wearing their death-shrouds, folks. Put them in the ground!”

  Annileen gasped.

  From the western side of the gorge, she and Ben had ridden up a spiraling, pebbled approach to a notch in the hillside. Creeping up the shattered rock incline, she’d heard the shots echoing all throughout the canyon. Now, lying on her stomach, she saw everything.

  “They’re … they’re being massacred.”

  Ben, a few meters behind her, said nothing.

  “The Tuskens, I mean,” Annileen said, looking back over her shoulder at him. “They’re being massacred.”

  “I know,” Ben said. He was kneeling, his eyes closed. He seemed to have a headache. From the suns or the sounds, or the whole day? Annileen didn’t know. He seemed to have gone to that dark place again—the place that his trips to the Claim had helped him escape. But she could feel a headache coming herself—especially when she spied Jabe, happily blasting away in the shooting gallery alongside his friends.

  She shook her head. There was no reaching Jabe’s location from here, but he wasn’t in any danger, and neither were she and Ben. She stood, intending to try to yell to her son. But muscles that had been tensed since the Tuskens arrived at the Claim suddenly became jelly. Feeling the wind leaving her, she fell to her knees, eyes still focused on Jabe.

  Ben joined her at the lookout point. Kneeling beside her, he spoke, his tones low and measured. “How does this make you feel? Given what the Tuskens did to Dannar. And to your store.”

  “Bad.” Annileen closed her eyes, not realizing why she’d answered that way. And then she said it again. “Bad.”

  Ben lowered his head. For a moment, she thought she heard him say, “Good.”

  A’Yark leapt, cape blousing as boots hit the ground. Up from the gully, another warrior cowered beneath an overhang. Seeing A’Yark, the terrified warrior crept out, quivering.

  Not my son. A’Yark simply pointed to the short rise, behind. Another coward, another lost fool who didn’t deserve saving. But there’d be time for recriminations later.

  A blaster shot struck the nearby rock face. Throbbing feet again went into motion. A’Yark knew the gorge, and its places to hide. A’Deen would be somewhere. A’Deen, who had listened, and not fled. Listened, and gone to find the others.

  A’Yark heard more Tusken voices over the rise. There was still a chance.

  “That’s a speedy one,” Mullen said, watching his father shoot.

  “Yep.” Orrin couldn’t keep a bead on the Tusken, but it hardly mattered. One Sand Person would hop out of his rifle sights, and another would dart back in, begging to be scorched.

  Blaster bolts everywhere, all heading in one direction. This was one of the great battles, Orrin thought.

  Centuries earlier, Alkhara, a researcher-turned-bandit, had turned on his Tusken allies in the Great Mesra Plateau, wiping them all out. Scores of Tuskens had been slain more than a decade earlier, caught up in a battle between Hutts. No one counted bodies those times; of the former, only the legend existed. Orrin was a farmer, not a general, but he had a feeling the Comet Run Day Battle would be high on the list of Tusken takedowns of all time.

  It was dizzying. Lowering his rifle, his eyes went from one corpse to another to another. So many it began to give him pause. “Too much,” he said to his son, under his breath.

  A fellow farmer overheard him and laughed. “What, are you boys afraid we’ll put the Settlers’ Call out of business?”

  Mullen shot his father an anxious look.

  “No,” Orrin said, raising his voice. “There’ll always be Sandies behind every rock in the Wastes.”

  He went back to his crouch and scanned the nooks in the opposing rock face. Tracing a tumble-down upward, he saw movement. His finger brushed the trigger for half an instant before his mind registered what he’d seen.

  “Annie?”

  Mullen stepped up beside him as Orrin stood and pointed. They passed Mullen’s macrobinoculars back and forth. It was Annileen, all right, Orrin saw.

  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 body. “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 co
mply 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 expedition,” 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 his 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 of 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 F
ace 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.