“It was just supposed to have been rifles on stun,” Jabe said, his voice faltering. “It was to teach Old Wyle a lesson, for showing up Orrin all the time. Nobody likes Ulbreck anyway, Mom. You know that!”
Wraithlike, she rose and found the medpac on the kitchen counter. There was still that raging bruise and scar on Jabe’s forehead. She could treat that, even if she had no idea what was going on inside his skull.
Jabe breathed faster, the details of the raid spilling forth as Annileen cleaned the cut. He told of knocking Wyle down, and of Mullen and Veeka’s capture of Magda Ulbreck. He told of Ben’s arrival and the Gaults’ subsequent departure. And he told of the real Tuskens appearing, and the ambush. His words growing quicker and louder, he moved his head against Annileen’s efforts to treat him.
“Ow! Ow!”
“Do you want me to stop?” Annileen asked, pulling back the applicator.
“No,” Jabe said, tears in his eyes. “I want to feel it.” Forlorn, he looked up at her. “Do you want me to stop?”
She shook her head. “I need to know. You said Ben saved you?”
Jabe nodded. “I woke up and Orrin was gone. And Plug-eye was there. And Ben was talking to them. In Basic,” he said, puzzled. “Somehow he was talking to them, bargaining for me!” Every word seeming to remind him of how close he’d come to the end, he struggled to catch his breath. “Mom, they were going to kill me—or worse!” He blinked rapidly, tears finally falling.
Annileen put down the applicator and pulled his head close to her chest. “I know. But Ben was there.”
“Yeah,” Jabe said, sniffling. “I don’t know what he said, but it worked. And he took me out of there.” He looked up at her, his eyes red. “But the Gaults just left me. Orrin ran—”
“It’s okay—”
“—he ran, and the others were already gone,” he said, his voice rising with alarm. “And Mullen and Veeka, back with the old woman—they acted like they were really going to hurt her, Mom! And I hit that old man …”
“And that’s not okay,” she said, stroking his blood-matted hair. “But we’ve all found out a lot tonight.”
“I wanted something to do,” he said, voice faltering. “I’ve just been so sick of the store. I wanted some action. But this wasn’t like going with the posses. This was wrong.”
Annileen just nodded. Well, I’m glad to hear that.
She released him and dried his eyes. “Did you tell all this to Ben?” she asked, placing the bandage.
“All of it.”
“And?”
Jabe wiped his eyes. “He said I should follow his advice for Orrin—that I should turn back now. And he said that only a fool follows another fool.”
Kallie watched, mystified. “Do you still think he’s crazy?”
Jabe smiled weakly. “I’m not one to judge.”
CHAPTER FORTY
ANNILEEN HAD SAT WITH her children until after midnight, comparing notes about what had transpired with Orrin. Now that her exhausted kids had gone to bed, Annileen clutched her pillow against the breeze and tried to sort it out. So much news. So little sense.
What Jabe had done was bad, yes—but she couldn’t figure out Orrin’s involvement. He’d made the trouble Jabe was in sound darker than a botched prank. But if Orrin needed untraceable money, he wasn’t going to get it robbing Wyle Ulbreck, who famously kept most of his fortune in aurodium-plated ingots, buried somewhere underneath his septic system.
So what were they doing out there?
She looked for the seventh time at the chrono by her bed. It was her birthday, now, and had been for three and a half hours. Hours in which she hadn’t closed her eyes, except to cry. Her sparely furnished room lay more than a meter underground, with a high window cracked open to the outside; the smells from the livery, as pungent as they sometimes were, reminded her of her childhood home. But after the night’s events, she just felt cold. She pulled at the brown fabric she’d been resting under until it was over her head.
“Is my cloak comfortable?”
Annileen looked out from beneath the makeshift cover. Backlit by moonlight, Ben sat perched in the open window. He wore the clothes she’d seen him wearing outside his house, the day of that first visit—and he looked grim.
But she was glad to see him, even here, even now. Given his penchant for sudden appearances, this circumstance seemed almost normal.
“Hello, Ben,” she said, sitting up. Belatedly realizing she was lying half dressed under his cloak, she pulled it to her chin and blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess you need this back.”
“No, no, you hang on to it!” Ben turned his head quickly, nearly hitting it on the ceiling above him.
Annileen chuckled, her first laugh in hours. She had him look outside for a moment while she found her nightshirt. “Crisis averted,” she said, passing him his cloak as he slipped down to the floor.
“You must be exhausted,” she said, watching his shoulders sag as he sat on the floor against the wall. She had almost forgotten that their day had started in the desert, before Mos Eisley.
“I am tired. I’ve been very busy,” he replied quietly, a respectful distance from her bed. In the hallway, there was only darkness. “I need you to listen,” he said, “because I don’t have much time.” He looked up at her. “I know Orrin was here.”
Shifting to sit on her knees, Annileen nodded.
“He told you about the money he owed Jabba?” Ben asked.
“And the bank.” Annileen shook her head sadly. “It’s so much. I don’t get how he came to this.”
“It’s about water,” Ben said. “A magical water, that tasted better than any other. And the vaporators that produced it.”
“You mean this,” Annileen said, holding up the flask from her bedstand. She handed it to him.
Ben didn’t refuse it. He drank, thirstily. Wiping his face, he continued. “You told me Dannar had never developed the formula because of the cost. But that after Dannar died, Orrin invested heavily.”
“Six years ago,” she said, nodding. “Dannar was gone. Orrin’s wife had left. He’d hit bottom. I think Orrin decided it was the way to reclaim his life.”
“But success never came,” Ben said. “Orrin’s debts grew. And he took a loan from someone who really worked for Mosep Binneed, one of Jabba’s business managers.”
“Orrin told me,” Annileen said.
“He started selling things off,” Ben said. “I know because I just came from his office at his ranch.”
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
Ben nodded. “I figured he kept things there he wouldn’t keep in his office here in the store.” Then he looked up at her guiltily. “Although I checked there, too.”
“But how did you get in?” Annileen squinted. She sighed, impatient. “Never mind. Go on.”
Ben stood, still speaking quietly. “Orrin was broke. So he turned to a resource he had control of. A public trust.”
Annileen gasped. “The Settlers’ Call!”
“You told me there was once enough money in the Fund to defend half the galaxy.”
“I wasn’t serious,” Annileen said, reaching over to nudge the door to the hallway shut. “And he was legitimately using the money to buy weapons and landspeeders. There’s that whole arsenal in the garages!”
“But he also uses those speeders for his ranch,” Ben said. “And there are loans taken out on all the Fund’s vehicles. As for the weapons, they all came from your store. He wasn’t exactly paying full price.”
“And my new landspeeder?”
“Leased. The dealer wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
“Figures.” Annileen’s mouth twisted as she rolled her eyes. “So he’s an embezzler. I guess I’m not surprised.”
Ben paced b
ack in front of the window, his shadow cast by the moon outside falling across the bed. “I’m afraid that’s not all. Orrin could only rely on the Settlers’ Call for financing while the Fund was flush. When the Tuskens were on the rampage, that was no problem. But three or so years ago … something happened.”
“I remember,” Annileen said. “After the raid at the Lars place.”
“Yes,” Ben said, looking mysterious in the moonlight. “I’ve heard about that. After that attack, something happened to the Tuskens—I’m not sure what. But it chilled the Sand People to their bones. And the attacks mostly stopped afterward. Didn’t they?”
Annileen sat, wooden, contemplating.
“The attacks stopped,” he said. “And within months, the money stopped. The Settlers’ Call Fund began to dry up.”
“People even stopped buying so many weapons here,” she added.
“Orrin couldn’t make Jabba’s payments. There was nothing left to borrow against. His strategy relied on fear of the Tuskens. So when that fear vanished, he had to create some.”
Annileen’s eyebrows shot up. “I can’t believe this!”
“It’s true,” Ben said, clasping his hands together. “Orrin and his kids—and probably some hands—staged their own attacks. And your arms business came back, and the Fund came back.” He looked out the window. “And they didn’t choose random targets. They struck those who wouldn’t contribute.”
Her mouth dropped open. “How do you know this? Did Jabe tell you?”
Ben shook his head. “The boy seems only to have been brought in now, at the end.”
Annileen was glad to hear that.
“No, the first clue I got was from A’Yark, tonight. She said her Tuskens of the Roiya Rift—what they call The Pillars—have been struck by settlers nine times this season.” He counted on his fingers. “That matches the Fund’s recorded attacks. But A’Yark said the area Tuskens have only raided four homes in that time.”
Annileen sat fully upright. “You believe her?”
Ben looked directly at her. “Why, exactly, would a Tusken lie?”
“It could have been another band. There are so many!” Looking back at the closed door, she lowered her voice. “A Tusken can’t know everything that happens!”
“I think this Tusken knows. More than most, anyway,” he said. Ben knelt before her. “Orrin targeted the holdouts. His strikes never killed. But they frightened and injured, and drove people to buy in. And to complete the illusion, he sent his vigilantes to wage punitive strikes against the Tuskens—and those did kill. Orrin needed a cycle of violence to profit. So he created one.” Ben looked away. “I’ve seen it before,” he said, darkly.
She looked at him in anguish. “But there are Tusken attacks! We lived through one!”
“Yes. But how often do you think real Tuskens strike isolated farmers and leave them alive?” Ben stroked his beard. “Do you know Lotho Pelhane?”
Of course she did. “Tyla Bezzard’s father. He worked for Orrin’s ranch, years ago. The Tuskens killed him the day you and I met!”
“Lotho was a holdout. Weeks earlier, he was beaten by night raiders. He moved to his kids’ place, where they finally subscribed to the Fund.” Ben looked at her. “That’s in Orrin’s records—along with a notation of problem solved from the night Lotho was allegedly originally attacked.” He sighed. “There were others. Orrin wasn’t just skimming from the Fund. He made it into something Jabba would understand: a protection racket.”
Annileen looked into the blackness. “Then he’s betrayed every single person on the oasis.”
“And the wastes,” Ben said. “Don’t forget that. Sand People have been dying, because killing Sand People was the service he sold.”
“You’re not going to get me to feel sorry for the Tuskens,” Annileen said indignantly.
“All life is sacred,” Ben said. “Even life that comes in forms that we don’t understand.” He looked up at her. “You know that, don’t you?”
She closed her eyes tightly, caught her breath, and nodded.
“But everything changed today. Mosep wants his money. That’s what the Mos Eisley trip was about,” he said.
“So you did overhear something!”
“Yes.” Eyes on her, Ben spoke tactfully. “I … fear the marriage proposal is more about money than love. I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
“I found out a couple of hours ago,” Annileen said. “I don’t care. I just wish you’d told me on the way home today!”
Ben took a deep breath. “I don’t like to interfere. But Mosep said something else about Orrin’s ‘other resources’ that put me to thinking about the Settlers’ Call, and about Ulbreck, his biggest holdout. On a hunch, I rode there and saw Orrin in his disguise. And he saw me. That changes everything.” He spoke gravely. “Right now, if I know his mind, Orrin is planning to have me killed.”
“Killed!” She laughed. “Orrin might play dress-up, but he’s no killer!”
Ben disagreed. “He won’t come for me alone. His kind never does. But I can handle it. I have a plan.”
Annileen sat forward on the bed and appealed to him. “Ben, no. Seriously. You said yourself he hadn’t killed any settlers. He’s not some galactic menace—”
“There are monsters in all walks of life,” Ben said. “One doesn’t need unlimited power to create victims. One just needs to be desperate.”
“There’s still good in him,” Annileen said, thinking of the smiling man she’d known for years. “I admit he’s a lying, cheating, out-of-control scoundrel and that it’s hard to see the good—”
“Maybe there is good,” Ben said, rising from the floor. “There’s good in most. But look at what he’s done. What he’s willing to do. Where do you draw the line?”
The question made Annileen dizzy. “I thought you two were friends.”
Ben fixed his gaze on a darkened corner. “I don’t know that we were,” he said, softly. “But even if we’d been friends for years, things would be no different. When friends go wrong, you don’t get a choice about what to do.”
“It sounds … like you know something about that.”
“More than I ever wanted to,” he murmured. He looked away.
Annileen stood. Ben had to be reasoned with. Yes, Orrin’s crimes would hurt the Calwells if exposed, even if Jabe’s role in the Ulbreck attack never became known. The families were linked in the eyes of the whole oasis, and she had been profiting from the Fund’s weapons purchases. All might well be lost for her as well as Orrin. But she couldn’t risk another life being destroyed.
She reached for him. “You don’t have to face him, Ben. This isn’t your responsibility.”
“No,” Ben said, turning his back to her. “It’s in motion. He’ll call out his allies to silence me, and I’ll call on my own.” He didn’t explain who or what they were. “But no matter what the end, your path is clear.”
“My path?” she asked.
Ben turned and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. “Annileen, do you trust me?”
“What?”
“Do you trust me? To know what to do now?”
“Yes,” she whispered without pause. “Absolutely.” Like no one since Dannar, she nearly said.
He looked her in the eye. “What are you prepared to give up, to save your future?”
Annileen inhaled deeply. “A few hours ago, I was ready to give up everything to rescue my son.”
“That’s what I needed to hear,” Ben said. He spoke urgently. “Tomorrow, when Orrin comes for me, I want you to clear out. You, and your family. Take what you need, but also take what you don’t want to lose. Because you will never be coming back.”
Annileen’s heart caught in her throat. “It’s that bad?”
His eyes bored into hers.
“I think you know it is. I said I could handle Orrin, and I will. But if we do what’s right, the lives of you and your children here are collateral damage. I’m sorry.” He looked down. “I’d stop it if I could. I know there’s nothing worse than losing a home you’ve known for years. But I can’t see any future where that doesn’t happen.”
Annileen’s tears were flowing now. She didn’t know what to say, other than that he was right. She survived entirely upon her neighbors’ trust. When the truth came out, what had taken twenty years to build would vanish in an instant, no matter how they’d felt about her before.
He dabbed at her cheeks gently with the back of his hand. “It isn’t fair, I know. The order in our lives can simply vanish. Sometimes it’s because we’re not diligent. Sometimes it’s no one’s fault—”
Sniffling, she looked up at him. “No,” she said, wiping her face. “It was my fault. I wasn’t diligent.” A feeling of resolve came over her. A second wind—or whatever had blown Ben into her world? It didn’t matter. She’d had her low moment. Weakness wasn’t in her. She straightened her shoulders. “All right,” she said, “let’s fix this. I’m ready.”
Ben brightened. “All right, then.” He turned and hoisted himself up to the windowsill. “Start packing. Make the arrangements you need, but tell no one else. Join me again just before the suns set. My work should be done, then.”
She handed his cloak to him. “Where will I be going?”
“My house,” Ben said. “And that’s just the start.”
Meditation
I am putting an end to this.
You see where I am, Qui-Gon. Sitting in the cold, alone on a hillside, waiting for the suns to rise. You see what I’ve been doing, the steps I’ve taken.
Moreover, you’ve seen why I’ve taken them. I hope you don’t judge me too harshly, because of it.
“There’s still good in him.” That’s just what Padmé said to me about Anakin. I don’t know whether I believed that about him. Maybe if I had been more aware of his smaller transgressions, I might have seen what they were leading toward. I don’t know. I do know that Orrin Gault hasn’t fallen as the result of a single act; he’s had a lifetime of small crimes. He smiles, and lies, and people like him. But the bill has come due. And his fear has driven him to ever-worse acts.
Kenobi: Star Wars Page 30