Star Wars - Kenobi

there, Orrin saw. A backflip put the man on the krayt’s hind side, with an intervening lightsaber slash at one of its tough backfins.
    The act seemed only to infuriate the dragon. It charged away from Ben, pulverizing more columns as it did. From behind a teetering formation, a Tusken elder appeared, carrying an infant. The figure froze in panic before the rushing creature’s advance.
    Ben was running, too. His free hand whisked through the air in a purposeful wave—and up ahead of the krayt, the Tusken pair suddenly went aloft, flying harmlessly out of the monster’s path. Startled, the dragon slid to a halt—and screeched to the sky.
    It was a sound they’d hear in the oasis, Orrin thought. The Tusken child cowered, burying its head against Orrin’s shoulder. This time, Orrin pushed it away. Ben, the madman, had reached the dragon in the newly created clearing. Any thought of escape had passed: Orrin had to see this.
    Aware now of the danger Ben’s weapon posed, the krayt turned on all fours and lashed out with its massive barbed tail. Ben leapt over it the first time it passed, ducked it the second, and slashed at it on the third. There was no fourth stroke. The krayt howled, recoiling.
    Orrin looked on with amazement. The surrounding stone pillars framed the combatants like some impromptu arena—only one far too narrow, and that would surely become Ben’s undoing, Orrin thought. The krayt seemed to realize it, too. Hampered by its injured tail, the krayt chose a new tactic—crushing Ben with its immense weight. Pointing toward Ben and tilting its head, the dragon threw its body into a roll. With nowhere to leap, Ben disappeared beneath the mass of tumbling fury. Another megalith was struck, and then another—tipping and shattering like ale bottles knocked over on a bar. Shards pummeled the krayt. And still it rolled, vanishing in the rising cloud of dust, Ben nowhere in sight.
    A second later the dragon appeared again, racing from the haze on all fours toward Orrin and the Tusken child. Orrin yelled—but then the krayt did, too, stopping meters short of them. Its head turned, its pointed beaklike mouth snapping in the direction of its shoulders—and now Orrin saw why. Ben was there, clinging to the creature’s jagged back, his tunic dirtied and torn. Somehow he had survived the roll and wound up on top. And he was no passive rider. He raked the creature’s haunches repeatedly with the energy blade. That was what had stopped its advance, Orrin realized.
    And stopping, for the krayt, was deadly. Hopping from scale to stony scale, Ben landed astride the monster’s neck. Finding a weak plate in its carapace, Ben plunged his blue blade in. The krayt screamed, louder than any of Orrin’s sirens ever had. It shuddered, and Ben had to fight to stay atop the beast. But he did, and his lightsaber found a home again inside the animal—this time, inside its primitive brain.
    The dragon died, its head thudding to rest meters from Orrin and the child.
    Mesmerized, Orrin looked at the massive carcass. A nasty black tongue slipped from its mouth, already beginning to dry and rot in the suns. Beside Orrin, the youngling glanced back once at the dragon—and then at his savior—before scampering away without a word.
    Ben slipped off the creature’s back and stared silently at it. To Orrin, Ben seemed satisfied in the first moment—and then crestfallen in the next, as he seemed to realize what he’d just done in front of his witness.
    “You … you’re a Jedi !” Orrin exclaimed.
    Ben said nothing. His arms hung at his sides, the lightsaber limply pointing toward the ground.
    Orrin’s mind raced. He thought back to the holonews he’d seen in Anchorhead a while back. There’d been some kind of coup, waged against the Republic by the Jedi, he thought. Orrin didn’t know much about Jedi. It had never made sense to him why the Republic would put its faith in a group it neither controlled nor understood. It wasn’t smart business. Something must have gone wrong, because the Jedi had been purged, giving rise to the Empire.
    “That’s why you’re here,” Orrin said, clawing at one of the rocky walls in an attempt to stand. “That’s why you’re hiding. They’re looking for you. Everyone!”
    Ben just looked at the krayt corpse. But he had not deactivated his weapon, and at once, Orrin realized the danger he was in. Ben had just killed a krayt dragon—and now his secret was out.
    Orrin winced as he