Star Wars - Kenobi

“I think we can both agree on one thing.” She opened her eyes and looked directly at him. “I don’t need that. Not anymore.” She turned and started walking. “I feel sad for you, Ben. Good-bye.”
    Stiffly, she climbed into the landspeeder. She paused only for a single look back to see Ben, alone and watching from the doorway.
    Then she drove down to where her children awaited and beckoned for them to follow. Together, they sped across a desert already covered with stars.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
    THE YOUNG WARRIOR SWUNG his gaderffii, impaling the Jawa. The little beast squealed and shook, and life left his body.
    A’Yark looked on the carnage with approval. The change was working. Two days earlier, settlers had been threatening to overrun The Pillars. Now, attacking at sunset rather than dawn, her little band had conducted its first raid in the Western Dune Sea, south of the Jundland. The region was sparsely populated, and tonight’s catch was nothing more than a caravan of Jawas late for a rendezvous with their sandcrawler. The clan of Yark and Sharad Hett would never have bothered with such rodents. But tonight, they’d made excellent prey for a people robbed of confidence.
    A day at a time had always been the only way forward for the Tuskens; there seemed no other way for those who lived under a curse. Something, however, had changed, and it had changed in A’Yark. The war leader wanted her whole clan to reach the future. That meant selecting targets in the proper order. Attrition was unacceptable. Strikes had to be more than an expression of Tusken hate and dominance. They had to be useful. They had to teach the warriors something.
    And her desire to survive had required something else.
    The one called Orrin had taken to mewling weakly at all hours. They had tied a guard massiff to him, to make sure he didn’t try to drag himself away, but there seemed no danger of that. A’Yark doubted he would live much longer. But he’d gotten the vaporator working in his hours on the bier, and that was all that was important. Alone among clans this season, A’Yark’s people would drink and grow mightier.
    Taking water from the sky was forbidden, yes. But A’Yark had paid little mind to other superstitions in the past. Neither skybrother was worthy of respect. Why should their sky be protected? A metal knife to the clouds was no less than they deserved.
    The water began transforming the remnants of the tribe within hours. It was sweet to the taste; magical, the elders said. Little children on the edge of death began to revive. Banthas were working longer. Even the few remaining warriors seemed readier to fight. A’Yark would take any improvement. Sometimes, a little sacrilege came in handy.
    They would live. And they had to live, because for the first time, her people were daring to care about tomorrow.
    The other Tuskens had seen Ben’s defense—had seen the monstrous cloud he raised in The Pillars, had seen the corpse of the krayt. There had to be some reason these powerful figures kept arriving amid the Sand People. Some role their clan was intended to play, in the next cycle of the story of the suns. More vocally than ever, her people spoke their longings for a powerful outsider to help them destroy their enemies.
    Ben would never be that person. A’Yark would warn the other Tuskens away from his home; he had nothing to take, and there was little value in irritating a wizard. It didn’t matter, the believers said: someone would come. But while A’Yark welcomed any hope that encouraged her people to strive once more, she herself now looked to a different day.
    A day when the clan would realize that it didn’t need a mystical outsider, after all—that it already had the leader it needed.
    With that thought, A’Yark plunged her gaderffii again into the Jawa leader’s back. Existence was a curse. But it was not without its pleasures.
    The Lady of Bestine hung in orbit over the glistening golden crescent of Tatooine. Annileen stood at the giant observation window in her cabin and looked down. It seemed so strange to see her world like this for the first time. Tatooine had more clouds from this angle than she had ever seen from the ground.
    Ben’s Alderaanian patron, whoever he or she was, had come through not only with the university fellowship, but with first-class accommodations. Lady had not been expected to launch until early that morning, and Annileen had figured on taking the kids to the Twin