Kenobi: Star Wars

by John Jackson Miller

  Reaching Annileen’s side, Ben leaned over her shoulder and looked down at A’Yark. “You want to live,” he said. “Remember?”

  For a moment, A’Yark didn’t move, but then her hand tightened around Annileen’s. The settler and the stranger hauled the warlord up.

  Bowed but unbroken, A’Yark knelt and gazed at the smoke rising from the canyon hills below. The Jundland was unforgiving.

  “You have what you wanted,” Ben said.

  “Not all.” A’Yark turned back. Straightening, she pushed past Ben and Annileen and climbed back onto the plateau. “But deal is done. You go.”

  Annileen nodded. She could hear the sounds of pounding boots; the Tuskens would be returning at any minute. But with Ben there, she felt no fear at all.

  “I thank you,” he said to A’Yark, bowing.

  Standing before a passageway into the labyrinth, A’Yark looked back coolly. “You remembers, Ben,” she said. “You knows what you can be.”

  With that, she slipped back into the shadows.

  Annileen and Ben walked swiftly across the clearing, stopping only at Mullen’s corpse. Annileen blanched then—and turned to gaze back in the direction of Orrin’s departure.

  Ben looked at her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I’m not,” Annileen replied. Turning, she embraced him.

  It was not a passionate hug, but the exhausted collapse of someone who had had a very long day—and night, and day. This embrace, Ben did not refuse. She looked up at him and started to speak.

  He spoke first. “Not here,” he said. He smiled. “My place. Tonight.”

  Then he nudged her in the direction of the trail leading down.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  BEN HAD FOUND HIS own way home. So had Annileen, and it began the hardest afternoon of her life.

  She’d emerged from the hills to find a muted victory celebration. The farmers who’d come to the Jundland after a would-be traitor had found instead a battle with a perennial enemy, the gangsters of Mos Eisley. And the country folk had absolutely routed the city folk. Mosep Binneed, mathematician enough to calculate odds on the fly, had decided to cut his losses in the Gault affair and withdraw with only the tail of his skiff on fire.

  Ulbreck and the others were relieved to see Annileen, but unhappy to hear that they’d been robbed of their chance to settle with Orrin. Nearby, Annileen found Veeka, under treatment from Doc Mell. In shock, the injured woman didn’t respond at all when Annileen told her of her father’s demise.

  Questions came at Annileen from all directions. Thankfully, Leelee’s husband saw her situation and offered to drive her back to the Claim alone. He dropped her off and departed without a word. Home, the famished Annileen ate as she packed, explaining to her puzzled children between bites what had happened. What she understood of it, anyway.

  In late afternoon, Leelee arrived at the back door of the residence, her face an ashen pink. She stayed outside as she recounted to Annileen what was being said at her home—and at others across the oasis.

  In a moment in which every hidden resentment against the Gaults suddenly found voice, most had been quick to find Ben faultless. It was so like Orrin, they said, to deflect blame to a hapless newcomer—and someone would have had to be terrified to seek shelter in a known Tusken nest. Or crazy. But while all appreciated Ben’s revelation, it rankled many that he’d evidently learned truths in days that had evaded people who worked around Orrin for years. Blameless or not, Ben was a strange character, and few were in any hurry to see him again.

  Under the settlers’ questioning, though, once-tough Veeka had melted into a pathetic, simpering thing, describing in detail Orrin’s embezzlement from the Fund and his attacks against those who wouldn’t subscribe to it. Then, fearing for her life, she’d lashed out at the Calwells, claiming Jabe had been along not just on the staged Ulbreck raid, but all the ones before. And in Veeka’s story, Annileen had known all about it, had profited from the sales of guns and ale.

  No one was overly inclined to believe Veeka—nor the oafish Zedd, who echoed her story when confronted for his role. But the financial records found in Orrin’s home—which he had failed to erase, through lack of time or overconfidence—held damaging facts. They detailed tens of thousands of credits paid from the Fund to the Claim over the years for ale, weapons, and garaging, all the way back to Dannar Calwell’s time.

  All quite legitimate, from Annileen’s point of view; but the sums boggled the minds of many poor prospectors, who saw conspiracy. Several old-timers recalled Jabba trumping up a Tusken war, years earlier, to sell shoddy weapons. Was this like that? Annileen had seemed beyond corruption, sure—but hadn’t they seen Orrin walking behind the counter many times, plucking money from the cashbox with Annileen’s indulgence? And what about all her private financial records, sitting in the datapad right on his desk? How separate were the families, really?

  Annileen already knew: not very separate at all. There were just too many ties to disentangle, ties that Annileen had let grow over the years because it was easier not to argue with Orrin. But where the links between the two families had brought them to a position of respect and relative wealth, it now made them the focus of envy and suspicion.

  It had all transpired just as Ben had said it would; Annileen now counted fortune telling among his other talents. She had already noted that no one had arrived at the Claim for dinner. Her position was untenable. Given time, she might sort it out—if she were on Coruscant, with a lawyer. But this was Tatooine, where rumor and bad feeling spread like sand on the wind, and where minds, once made up, never changed.

  She and Leelee hugged tearfully, Annileen unable to begin to explain to her friend what had transpired, or what her plans were. She simply promised to contact her again.

  And then she shut the door, ready to walk the Claim one last time.

  Light returned to Orrin slowly. When it arrived, it was piercing—and so was the pain.

  The sky shimmered for some reason, a brilliant whorl at the end of a tunnel. He could not feel his legs. They were there, he could tell; his hands were resting against them. But there was no feeling in his feet or toes at all.

  It’s the crash, he thought. I’ve been burned. He’d been through this before. As a child, he’d stayed out on a midsummer day with no hat or skin protection—and had come back with a face so raw and parched that even smiling hurt. His parents had kept him inside for a day, his face bandaged to keep him from picking at it. The fabric on his face now felt like that, only rougher.

  Yes, that was it. He’d been bandaged and taken to Bestine. Doc Mell was probably there, conferring with the local doctors about his case. Orrin breathed in relief.

  And then he heard his breath.

  Something was over his mouth, something metallic, clacking against his broken teeth when he opened wide.

  Another sense memory flooded back, from his one offworld trip. He’d picked up a bacterial infection that had left his limbs raw and scabbing; it had earned him an hour in a bacta tank, something uncommon on Tatooine. He’d worn a breather mask then. He wore something like that now—only tinny, and cold to his lips.

  The light above disappeared. Slowly, the face of a Tusken came into view and vanished.

  No.

  He pushed down with his hands, lifting his torso. He saw his legs, now, bandaged. He felt the gloves on his fingertips. He felt the shroud on his face, and the metallic eyepieces against his eyelids.

  Merciful universe, no.

  Another Tusken stepped into view. “Orringault.”

  Orrin heard it as an animal grunt. But it was his name, and it was definitely the one-eyed Tusken he’d tried to ram. Plug-eye.

  “I am A’Yark,” the Tusken warlord said. “You lives, Orringault.”

  He clutched at the bumpy surface beneath his
body. He realized he was lying some distance off the ground, atop a rectangular pile of stones.

  “This is my son’s burial platform,” A’Yark said.

  Orrin simply shook his head, his eyes too dry for tears. He had seen the things before.

  A’Yark grabbed at his shoulders. “You have work.” She turned him. Orrin saw the familiar stone pillars go past—until, finally, he faced a shorter, metallic cylinder.

  It was a vaporator.

  He knew the model by sight. It was the vaporator the Tuskens had stolen from Wyle Ulbreck. But instead of gutting it for metals, the warrior and her companions had placed it upright. Now, heaving, they brought it closer. As it approached, he realized the funereal bier had been expanded to become something else.

  It wasn’t to be Orrin’s grave. It was his work platform.

  “You gives us water,” A’Yark said. “And you will be fed.”

  Orrin struggled. The parts of his body that could still move were suffocating, they were so tightly wound beneath the wrappings.

  “You will be fed. And we moves you when we move. And you will live—while we have water.”

  Orrin heard his breath rasping louder and louder.

  No. No. No.

  Orrin thought it, but didn’t say it. For no was a word, and hearing his voice through the mouthpiece would confirm what he knew: that he was now one of them.

  A Sand Person.

  He resolved never to speak again.

  The first sun was slipping behind the cliffs to the west when two hovercraft arrived at the foot of Ben’s hill. Gloamer had kept Annileen’s battered old landspeeder and the LiteVan, which Tar would need to run the store. In exchange, he’d provided her with two of his souped-up sports speeders, which she figured would come in handy in the desert—or wherever they and Ben ended up.

  She chuckled to herself as she parked. She’d seen Ben on a hoverbike, but had no idea if he drove a landspeeder. Well, she’d have time to find out—and teach him, if he didn’t. She stepped out of the vehicle, its backseat packed to overflowing with hastily packed luggage and goods. Across from her, Jabe and Kallie emerged from their similarly loaded repulsorcraft.

  So much stuff—but so little, too, worth taking away from a lifetime. It was sad, Annileen thought. But also refreshing.

  Jabe’s face fell as he looked up at the hut. “This is it?”

  “He still doesn’t have a door,” Kallie noted. Annileen’s daughter had been quiet since closing the livery. But seeing Ben emerge from the home cheered her up. As it did Annileen.

  “Welcome,” Ben said, walking down the slope. Instead of his cloak, he wore a white shirt with long cuffs and light gray trousers, an ensemble she hadn’t seen him in before. He looked refreshed, as if he’d somehow gotten some sleep in the few hours since she’d seen him. He carried a small beige backpack over his shoulder.

  Annileen stepped toward him, glowing. But before she could reach him, Ben’s eopies trotted from inside the house, bleating to him. “Ah,” he said, setting down the backpack. “I found them on the way home.”

  “The gang’s all here,” Annileen said affectionately.

  Ben looked up. “Are your affairs settled?”

  “As much as they’ll ever be,” she said.

  In the vehicle, she had hard currency from her stash. And Gloamer’s payment to her electronic account could be accessed in Bestine or Mos Eisley. It was enough to live on for a long time, especially out here. She didn’t know if that was Ben’s plan: he had only told her to pack for time away. Wherever it was, though, she felt safe in assuming they’d be together.

  As Kallie knelt to nuzzle Rooh and the baby, Ben studied Jabe. “Are you all right, son?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I—I want to thank you for helping us. And for saving me last night.” Jabe looked down, shamefaced. “I didn’t deserve it—”

  Ben shook the boy’s hand. “You were only a few steps down the wrong path.” He looked Jabe in the eye. “You were desperate for something to do. But someone I respect once told me that wise people never make desperate decisions.” He reflected for a moment, then smiled. “Actually, he phrased it a lot differently from what I just said. But the advice is sound.”

  Jabe smiled. Annileen beamed.

  She looked back at the landspeeders. “It’ll be dark soon. Should we unload?”

  “No,” Ben said, turning toward the pouch on the ground. “That can wait until Mos Eisley.”

  Kallie’s eyes widened. “Mos Eisley?”

  “I know we were just there yesterday,” he said, lifting the backpack. “It certainly doesn’t seem like yesterday. But there’s a transport preparing to leave from Docking Bay Fifty-Six the day after tomorrow, and passage is booked.”

  Annileen gawked. “How is that possible?”

  Before Ben could answer, Kallie hugged him—just hard enough to cause him to drop the pouch again. He laughed. “Don’t you want to hear the destination?”

  “Not really!” Jabe said, stepping back and slapping hands triumphantly with his sister.

  “The first stop is Bestine,” Ben said. “The planet, not the city.”

  “First stop?” Annileen echoed.

  “That’s right.” Ben smiled and looked over at the single sun that remained. “It should be safe going to Mos Eisley, tonight of all nights. With all the posse activity out there today, Tuskens will be avoiding the north for weeks.” He gestured to the second landspeeder. “If you would, kids, please wait at the bottom of the hill. I need to talk to your mother for a moment.”

  Dazzled, Kallie looked back at her mother. “You never said we’d be leaving Tatooine!”

  “I didn’t know,” Annileen said, mind still reeling. It seemed to fit, though: just one more impulsive act in a day of them. She felt as if gravity would give way next.

  Jabe was already behind the controls of the second landspeeder, waving. “Kallie, come on!”

  Kallie leapt up, kissing Ben on the cheek. “We’ll see you soon!” She spun and dashed to the vehicle, dust flying beneath her feet. In a moment, the siblings were driving to the foot of the hill, cheering audibly over the engine.

  Annileen looked at Ben and marveled. “You don’t give a woman a chance to catch her breath, do you?”

  Ben smiled wanly for a moment before turning away to his eopies. “I want you to know something,” he said, reaching for Rooh’s lead. “I … would have liked to have saved Orrin.”

  “He wasn’t your responsibility,” she countered, watching him place the animals in their pen. “You didn’t live around him for years, not knowing what he’d turned into.”

  Ben smiled back. “But once you knew, you did something. And you didn’t wait.”

  “You’re giving me too much credit. The only reason I did anything was because of you.”

  “No, I think you deserve quite a bit of credit. And a new start,” he said. He walked to the backpack. Opening it, he drew out a datapad.

  Annileen recognized it in the dimming light. “Hey, that’s my old one. The one I gave you!”

  Ben activated it. “I had to take the speeder bike to a village to get a signal offworld this morning. And I rode on Rooh this afternoon to get a response. But it’s official,” he said, passing the device to her. “You’re in.”

  Annileen’s eyes scanned the words. She staggered backward, as if struck by a great weight. “You sent my application?” She gawked at him. “But that was twenty years old!”

  “Alderaan still exists, right? So does the university system.” Ben stepped beside her and pointed to an entry on the screen. “They’re still doing the exobiology expeditions, launching from their branch on Naboo.”

  Annileen remembered the advertisement by heart. Ten worlds in two years, studying a thousand species, most little understood by science.
She looked at it again. “Accepted? How is that possible?”

  Ben crossed his arms. “That’s one of those things I can’t let you ask me about. Let’s just say you had strong references on Alderaan.”

  She wasn’t sure whether to believe it—or him. The whole thing seemed impossible, incomprehensible. “Going to university at my age! I just can’t believe it. It doesn’t make any sense!”

  “It makes more sense than someone of your abilities serving caf and shelving feed,” he said. “There’s a slot for Kallie to get in this season, too. And there will surely be more opportunity out there for your son than there is here.”

  Annileen looked at the screen and laughed, in spite of herself. “I see you couldn’t get me into a school on Coruscant.”

  “My powers are indeed limited.” Ben took the datapad back from her and walked it to her landspeeder.

  She glided after him, barely feeling the ground under her feet. He placed the datapad safely inside the vehicle. Almost giddy, she cracked a joke. “Are you sure you’re going to be happy being the traveling companion of a middle-aged student?”

  “I can’t deny I miss the stars,” he said, his hands resting on the door of the landspeeder. “And in another life?” He nodded gently, his mouth crinkling into the tiniest smile. Then he looked up at her, solemn. “But I’m afraid I can’t go.”

  Annileen froze. “What do you mean?”

  “I have responsibilities here. Things to look after.”

  “What kind of responsibilities?” Annileen looked back at the house. She spied Rooh in the pen. “If it’s the eopies, we can drop them at a ranch on the way!”

  “That’s not it.” Ben shook his head and started walking away from the landspeeder.

  “Wait. You did all this. You saved us. You led us all here!” She stepped after him. “We’re who you’re looking after!”

  “You don’t need looking after, Annileen,” Ben said, his back to her as he walked up the hill. “You’re quite capable. Extremely capable.”