Star Wars - Kenobi

“I’m out of time. This time tomorrow—” He paused, looking through the darkness at the chrono behind the counter. “No. In about fifteen hours, I have to come up with fifty-six thousand credits.”
    Annileen laughed. “What crazy scheme is it now?”
    “No scheme,” Orrin said between gulps. He wiped his face with his sleeve. “Just a plan to save my life. My ranch. Everything.”
    Annileen gaped at him for a moment before looking at the office door. “Wait. Not the Gossam and the Gamorreans?” She put her hands on the counter and loomed over him. “ That’s what the Mos Eisley thing was about?”
    Orrin looked down in silence.
    “Of course,” Annileen said, wandering half dazed to the end of the counter. “Of course!” She looked back at him. “I called you on the direct link. I got a Gamorrean!”
    His head down, Orrin rolled the bottle against his forehead. “I lost the comlink in Jabba’s town house.”
    “Jabba!” Annileen exploded.
    Orrin didn’t move. “They’re going to kill me, Annie.”
    “They’ll have to wait in line!” she thundered. She stomped toward him. “Is this about the vaporators? I thought that bank in Mos Eisley loaned you the money to buy the Pretormins!”
    “They did,” Orrin said. “Six years ago. After Dannar died. After Liselle left. My land was the collateral. But the harvest I needed never came in. I never could figure out the formula.” He stood abruptly and started to pace. “I had to borrow more and more. And they wouldn’t loan me any more, and I couldn’t make the interest payments anymore.”
    “So you went to Jabba ?” Annileen seethed. Nothing her son had ever done, no previous madcap act of Orrin’s, had ever angered her so. “The Hutt? The criminal!”
    “I went everywhere,” Orrin said, looking up at her. In the moon rays from the window, he looked like a wounded animal. “No one helps a farmer! And I didn’t go to Jabba. When someone offered money, I took it—”
    “No questions asked,” Annileen finished.
    Orrin hung his head in shame. “Not enough questions, no. And now I need your help.” He cast his eyes past her, to where the cashbox and her datapads rested. “I know how you save. You can save me. Save my world—”
    Annileen fell back against the sink basin, stunned. “You want my money. To pay the Hutt!”
    “No,” Orrin said, waving his hand. “I mean yes. But no, it won’t be like that. It’ll be our money, and my fields will be your fields. Once we’re married!”
    Annileen rubbed her temples. “I think I’m going to have a stroke.” She looked over at him. “You’re still going on about that?”
    “Yes. We belong together!” Orrin put on a smile, but it began to wilt as she watched.
    Annileen shook her head. “I don’t get it. You’re in financial trouble, but you’ve got enough money to buy me a landspeeder just so you can win me over? It must have cost—”
    “Thousands. But thousands won’t make any difference to me. My problem’s a lot larger. It’s going to take your whole cash account to make Jabba go away.”
    “How do you know he will? He’s a Hutt!”
    “I don’t know,” Orrin said. “Maybe he won’t. But I know the bank won’t go away, and I owe them many times as much.” He stepped up to the counter again and tried to compose himself. “I also talked to them today,” he said more calmly. “They’d be willing to renegotiate—and that’s where the store comes in.”
    Shocked, Annileen looked around in all directions. “I’m not giving them my store!”
    “It’ll be our store,” Orrin said. “If the Claim is added to my land as collateral, they’ll negotiate a new payment plan. There’s enough in your cash account to get out from under Jabba now. Then the store’s cash flow will help me service the loan until we get a good harvest.” He gestured to the darkened shelves behind him. “They know what it’s worth, what it brings in. They want it operating!”
    Annileen reeled, struggling to register it all.
    He folded his hands on the counter, nervous. “They just want an ironclad guarantee that the Claim will always be there as collateral, always operating to service the debt.”
    “I can’t guarantee that,” Annileen said. “Your insane marriage plan or not.” Looking at him, she felt a moment’s pity. “You know, if you’d asked like a normal person, I’d have tried to help you. You know that. But even then, I wouldn’t be able to just chain