Star Wars - Kenobi

LOOKED DOWN AT the exposed face of the unconscious settler in Tusken clothing. Grotesque, as flesh always was. A’Yark was glad it was nighttime. But she could tell the human was not much older than her A’Deen had been. His forehead bled from the rock he had been struck with. He still breathed only because A’Yark wanted to know something. Why is he here?
    Curiosity had driven A’Yark to the ranch in the first place. The vaporator thieves from the day before were the dregs of the clan, but they’d stumbled on a gap in the area patrolled by the Smiling One’s posses. A’Yark had insisted on returning with them after dark, to learn more.
    The findings had disappointed. By pilfering the worthless water-making device, the young fools had put the local farmer on alert. His house lacked sufficient defenses, but even so, A’Yark had no faith in her companions’ ability to strike it.
    But before she could turn her band back to The Pillars, the false Tuskens had arrived. A’Yark’s eye was good enough to tell imposters even at a distance through darkness; the worst of her people didn’t comport themselves like the costumed bumblers. Then Ben had arrived, galloping past on his eopie. A’Yark had instantly resolved to stay, ordering the others to hollow out a hiding place near the pretenders’ parked speeder bikes.
    Alone, atop the western ridge, she’d seen an initially weaponless Ben fight the costumed settlers. The fight had confirmed what she’d suspected.
    “You are Ben,” she said to him now.
    “Yes,” Ben said. He stood halfway down the rise, looking down at her and her companions, all standing guard over the motionless youth.
    A’Yark strained to remember the words K’Sheek had spoken in their exchanges, so long ago. But they came to her now, when needed. “You are … a great worrier.”
    Ben chuckled. “Yes, I suppose I am.”
    “Great warrior, ” A’Yark repeated, annoyed.
    “Wars do not—” he began, still grinning in the moonlight. Seeing that his expression offended her, he changed it. “Never mind.”
    Ben walked cautiously down into the depression. He looked different now. Dark robe removed, he wore a light tunic giving him more range of movement—and yet he did not shiver in the wind. He gestured to the prisoner, collapsed and guarded at the bottom of the dugout. “This boy, Jabe, is the son of my friend. You met her.”
    “Ann-uh- leen, ” A’Yark pronounced, without thinking.
    “Yes, you did hear me say it,” he replied. For some reason, the human’s words were easier for A’Yark to understand, and he understood her. Was it his magic, somehow?
    “Release Jabe,” he said, slowly. “So I can take him to her.”
    “No,” A’Yark said.
    Ben raised his hand and waved it before A’Yark. “You will release him.”
    “No,” A’Yark said.
    Ben nodded. “All right.” He put his hand down. A’Yark watched warily as he began to pace, keeping a generous distance between himself and A’Yark’s party.
    “All right. You should release him, then,” Ben said. “It is right. You remember—I brought you your son. The day of the massacre.”
    “My son was dead,” A’Yark said, words dripping with bile. With that, she turned and stepped over Jabe’s body. Turning back so Ben could see, she suspended her gaderffii above Jabe’s head, ready to plunge the heavy end downward into his skull. “You takes Annileen a dead son,” she announced. “It is right.”
    Her companions fanned out, gaderffii ready. Ben reached for the fold of his tunic. In the dark, A’Yark couldn’t see where he carried the weapon, but she was sure it was there. “I hoped we could bargain,” he said, calmly. “I guess you’re not a transactional people.”
    A’Yark stood silent, not understanding.
    Somehow sensing her confusion, Ben spoke. “ Trade . Tuskens don’t trade.”
    “No. Tuskens take !” A’Yark shouted, raising her gaderffii.
    At the sound of her voice, two young warriors charged Ben from either side. Ben swept his hands upward. The fighters went aloft, carried by an unseen windstorm. They landed to either side of the pit—while one of the gaderffii pinwheeled through the air right over A’Yark’s head. The other weapon buried itself into the ground to her left.
    Ben hadn’t even looked at the attackers.
    “Wait,” she told the others in their language. Theirs was a mad attack, but it told her again how powerful he was. Yet Ben had chosen not to kill her companions.