Star Wars - Kenobi

away from the house and turned east. The barracks were that way, Orrin knew, and more sentries.
    His kids knew it, too. “Dad, go!”
    With that, Mullen and Veeka took off, heading behind the house.
    Ben looked back with satisfaction—and then stared directly at Orrin. “I noticed something today. You don’t do so well alone.”
    Orrin turned and ran.
    In the blackness to the north, Orrin saw two Sand People rocketing away on speeder bikes. A surreal sight, but one that meant that Mullen and Veeka had escaped. His heart pounding, Orrin hastened over the dunes to the west.
    Why did I park so far away?
    Breathless, he glanced behind him. He’d lost his rifle tumbling over the side of a dune, and he wasn’t going back for it. Especially not now, as Ben appeared over the rise. The man dropped Mullen’s gaderffii in the sand.
    Orrin patted at his chest as he ran. He’d replaced his pistol since the afternoon in the Hutt’s abode, but he wasn’t about to try to fish for it in the folds of stupid Tusken garb. Not when his speeder bike was there, its engine already running, thanks to his young assistant.
    Mask discarded, Jabe Calwell stood between the bikes, frightened out of his wits. “Orrin, come on!” he yelled. “He’s coming!”
    Orrin looked quickly behind him. Ben was still on top of the crest, yelling something. “Orrin, watch out!”
    Orrin decided he wasn’t falling for that. He reached the speeder bike—
    —and, in that instant, four figures arose from the night, lunging at them.
    Real Sand People.
    Two Tuskens grabbed at Jabe, yanking him down into the darkness. Another charged at Orrin, striking the back of his speeder bike with a gaderffii. The hovering vehicle spiraled on the air toward him. Without another thought, Orrin leapt onto it.
    The bike continued to spin with him aboard, and the world spun in Orrin’s mind, too. He saw Kenobi, still frozen on the hillside. He saw Jabe, clawing at the air in vain as one captor raised a rock to strike him. And he saw the fourth Tusken charging him, gaderffii held high.
    Plug-eye.
    Orrin squeezed the throttle and vanished into the night.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
    ANNILEEN WEARILY PACED THE floor of the darkened store. Another night, another missing child. What else was new?
    She didn’t know what was keeping Jabe, but at least this time she knew where he was. Or thought she did. Orrin had driven his kids and Jabe to the Gault ranch; Kallie had continued onward to the Claim, as promised. Annileen’s exhausted daughter had shared that much before heading back to the residence to collapse.
    But it was nearing midnight, and no one was answering her pages at the Gault place. She’d even tried to reach Orrin on the red comlink, but something must have been wrong with the subspace network. All she heard on the other side were grunts, sounds like the Gamorreans had made in her store. A wrong connection, to be sure. Who knew Gamorreans even carried comlinks?
    At least this time she could worry in peace. The store had been empty when Annileen returned from Ben’s. Tar Lup had closed the Claim on schedule, which was more than she could do, most nights. The Shistavanen clerk was staying with a friend locally and would drop off the passkeys in the morning. Annileen reminded herself to thank him. As tightly as she ran the Claim, she had to admit Tar would make a decent manager of his own place someday.
    The moons shone outside the window behind the counter, casting the interior contours of the Claim into bluish shadow. Annileen sighed. The store always seemed so much friendlier at night. During the days it was either trying to kill her with stress or bore her to death. There was no middle path.
    She’d grown accustomed over the years to the fact that nothing was ever going to change. Sure, there would be some trends amid the daily disasters and intermittent doldrums. Jabe and Kallie would present new and different challenges. The customers would become harder to take. And there would continue to be less time for her at the end of each day. But these would be gentle slides, ending only when she could no longer get her hoverchair behind the counter. Then they’d check her into the senior center outside Bestine, where, no doubt, Erbaly Nap’tee would be her roommate. Annileen would spend her remaining years explaining that no, she didn’t work for the center.
    The slide had been gentle—until now. The ride had gotten bumpier. The highs had been higher, filling