Star Wars - Kenobi

landspeeders laden with lowlifes arrived behind the skiff. But why now? And how did they know to come?
    Settlers trained their weapons on the skiff, keeping the criminals at bay. The vigilantes, already made restless by the banthas and Ben’s words, looked positively rattled now. Jabba’s thugs lived right alongside Tuskens in the settlers’ list of enemies. Both lived by a strange code in a world to themselves—until they came out to terrorize the peaceful. Now they’d blocked the settlers’ access to the desert, even as they themselves had trapped Ben.
    Waller goggled. His crimson eyebrows flared as he looked at Orrin. “Jabba? You dealt with Jabba?”
    Before Orrin could think of a response, Mosep spoke again. “I was told you were taking an army—such as it is—back into the hills. Now, why would you do such a thing when a bill is due today?”
    Veeka looked at her father, concerned.
    “It’s an old story,” the Nimbanel accountant continued, from the deck of the skiff. “People refuse their obligations and try to run. Some take up arms and try to fight.” He snapped his hairy fingers, and Jorrk took up station at the skiff’s deck gun. “The afternoon deadline is rescinded, Orrin. You will pay us now.”
    “What’s this about?” Orrin yelled nervously. “Did the Tusken-lover bring you here?” Elated to have hit on another tactic, he brightened as he looked around. “I guess Kenobi works with scum, too!”
    “I don’t know who you mean,” Mosep said, growing impatient. Behind the skiff, another vehicle was arriving from the north. “Your neighbor called me.”
    My neighbor? Orrin swallowed, his throat dry. He had rivals among the farmers, here. Did one of them know something? He looked around in shock and surprise, anxious to make a good show of it. “Is one of you here trying to set me up—to embarrass me with this nonsense?”
    The landspeeder that had been racing up from behind now passed through the criminals’ line of vehicles. Settlers raised rifles against the hovercraft entering their midst—and then lowered them, as they recognized the driver.
    Navigating among the overturned landspeeders, Annileen brought the ruby JG-8 to a stop near one of the pathways leading up the rift. She stepped out near the Gaults and held a red comlink high. “ I called them,” she said.
    Aboard the skiff, Mosep raised an identical communicator: the one Orrin had dropped in his lair. He smiled toothily. “Good to see you, Mistress Calwell.”
    Orrin gaped at Annileen. “Y-you?”
    “Yes.” Catching her breath, she turned to the vigilantes. “Ben’s innocent. I heard what Orrin said back at the Claim. Now you should hear the real story!”
    Mullen started menacingly toward Annileen. “Woman, you’d better not!”
    Annileen turned to see Veeka approaching from her other side. Veeka clutched at Annileen’s arm. Her eyes looked wild. “Think about that whelp of yours!” Veeka said.
    Orrin could only look at Annileen imploringly.
    Annileen pulled her arm free from Veeka’s grasp. Staring at Orrin, she spoke with an assurance he’d heard before—the tower of power he’d often described her as. “I’m not going to let you hurt someone whose only crime was to help me,” she said. “I do care about my family. But what you’ve done is wrong !”
    Ulbreck stepped forward, rifle in hand and clearly flustered. “I don’t know what in blazes is going on here!”
    “I think I do,” Waller said. He shook his head at Orrin. “We trusted you.” All around, settlers began to turn their weapons away from the skiff and its associated hovercraft and toward the Gaults.
    Orrin looked to his right. There was the USV-5, where it had come to rest after the stampede. He started toward it—
    —only to see his precious hovercraft explode in a blossom of metal and flame.
    Spun around by the shock wave, Orrin saw what had happened. On the skiff, Mosep gestured to the Klatooinian at the smoking deck gun. “Jorrk’s an oaf, but with a big enough gun, even he can’t miss,” the accountant said. “You people can’t have Gault until we’re finished. He owes us money!”
    Ulbreck shot a hateful look at the Nimbanel. “You pirates don’t have any say here! This is the range!”
    The old farmer’s companions raised their rifles. “Our justice comes first!” another settler said.
    Mosep glanced up at the suns and mopped sweat from his fuzzy face. “You really are a trying lot,” he said. “I