Star Wars - Kenobi

Annileen concluded, he’d gone with the crew this morning in retaliation for having been made to clean the cookers before dawn. And if he followed them into danger, that’d be spite, too. That irritated her beyond measure. Spite was stupid. Even Kallie was too smart to ride Snit just to make a point. And Annileen had always figured Jabe had sense … her sense. He’d give the Tuskens the same berth, wouldn’t he?
    She was afraid she knew the answer. She found her inventory datapad and returned to staring at it. She couldn’t read a word, of course. She only saw Jabe—and Orrin.
    Orrin. The Claim had thrived long after Dannar’s death because Annileen had one steadfast rule: she never let anyone have anything on account. There was only one exception: Orrin, Dannar’s best friend and sometime business partner. Orrin and Dannar’s friendship had gone back years, long before Annileen had come to work at Dannar’s store as a teenager. The two men had so many side deals that she’d always felt awkward trying to set limits. But Orrin was sorely testing her patience now, dangling the possibility of range work for her son.
    Orrin’s family was a mess. Why did he meddle with hers? Aggravated, she tried to focus again on the datapad.
    “You’re holding it upside down,” Leelee said from behind.
    Annileen didn’t look up. “Are you still here?”
    “I’m waiting for my change.”
    “You’re out of luck. Change is the one thing Tatooine doesn’t have.” Taking a deep breath, she looked back at Leelee and smiled wanly. “How much was it?”
    Leelee waved her hand. “Keep it. Maybe you can pay Dr. Mell to give you something to help you relax.”
    “Yeah,” Annileen said. “Like a ticket to Alderaan.”
    As if Leelee’s words had summoned him, the local physician, a Mon Calamari man, popped his head in the side door.
    “Annileen, are they back yet?” Mell wore a special cowl supplying his tentacled head with moisture, but he was flushed red nonetheless. “The posse. I heard the Call go off!”
    “They heard it on Suurja, Doc,” Annileen said. “And Suurjans don’t have ears.” She didn’t know if Mon Calamari had ears, either, but she knew Doc Mell wouldn’t mind the joke. The Call was a gaudy display of decibels. Half the breakables in the store had fallen to the first test of the system, years earlier. Annileen had learned to tune it out—a talent perfected during a lifetime in retail.
    “They still might need a medic. I should meet them on the way back,” the doctor said, before cracking the door and pushing his young son inside.
    Annileen started. “Hey, wait. Don’t leave your kid here!”
    “I’ll be back!” The door slammed.
    Annileen pitched the datapad over her shoulder and felt her forehead. Yes, she was still here—and so were the four other younglings that had already been dropped off when their parents left with the posse. Two were at a table, eating food plucked from the shelf; two more were hiding somewhere. Babysitting wasn’t her job, but with people rushing out to help someone in need, she’d found it hard to argue.
    Except people frequently left their children when there was no emergency, too.
    Annileen looked down on the sniffling pink ragamuffin and rolled her eyes. She sighed. “Oh, all right.” She took the boy by the shoulders and pointed him to a rack near the wall. “Take a broom, kid. And nothing else.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” The child began to dutifully sweep the floor near the table where the other children were sitting.
    From inside the front door, Leelee laughed. “Good luck, Annie.”
    Annileen scowled, playfully. “Just go. You’re letting the tepid air out.”
    A low whine sounded from the west, slowly increasing in volume and crescendo. Annileen dashed to the counter to check the video feed from the southern hillside security cam. She saw what she expected to see: landspeeders, coming back from the Bezzard farm.
    And she also saw what she had feared to see. Jabe, perched precariously on the back of Veeka Gault’s snazzy landspeeder.
    Annileen opened the window and called out to her daughter. “Kallie! Bring me a bantha prod.”
    The girl looked up from her work. “You want the training prod or the big one?”
    Dark eyebrows made an angry vee. “Doesn’t matter.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    FOR ORRIN, RETURNING TO the Claim was always like coming home. It wasn’t his home, of course; it was Dannar’s. And then Dannar’s and Annileen’s, and for