Star Wars - Kenobi

to be proud of. But who would tell the stories if all fell?
    At the well, the thirsty war leader dismissed the idle thoughts and pulled the rope. The noons were coming. Younglings needed feeding, gaderffii points sharpening—and a new target would need to be chosen. A’Yark would select it, as always.
    The container reached the top of the well. For the third time in as many days, it held only damp sand. Others had called it an ill omen. A’Yark simply wanted to kill something.
    A cloth-bound youngling ran up and bleated a message from the watch. A’Yark listened with rising anger. There was someone riding an animal through the dunes. Again.
    There had been other encroachments near the wastes, recently. A’Yark had even heard of a single hooded human, riding a heavily laden animal across the desert from east to west, untouched by the Tusken scouts who espied him. A’Yark had flown into a rage over that one. A settler might take a machine across the dunes, or attempt to. But this was the act of one whose wits were lost—or of a being so powerful he felt none could harm him. A’Yark didn’t care what the answer was. Such impudence should have been dealt with, no matter what their current state.
    The others hearing the youngling took up their weapons right away. Good, A’Yark thought. Even after this morning, some spirit remained. But much needed doing here. They would stay, while A’Yark went to investigate and punish the intruder. And if they argued the point, someone else would lose an arm.
    This kill would belong to A’Yark.
    “Yaah!”
    Annileen yanked again at the reins. Vilas heard and rumbled forward, nimbly crawling over the rocky outcrop. He was over it in a few seconds. Another call from Annileen and he was off again, barreling across the floor of the dusty bowl valley.
    Kicks from a rider meant nothing to the dewback, whose brownish red scales could protect it against any spur. But Vilas seemed to understand where he was going, and what he had to do.
    It was why Annileen had headed directly for him when she’d seen the busted fence. Her landspeeder would have been faster, but Kallie and Snit had lit off in the direction of The Rumbles, a lightly rocky stretch known mostly for the turbulent ride it gave hovercraft. That was no problem, but it also made for more difficult tracking at speed. Vilas, on the other hand, knew right where to go—she hoped.
    “That’s the one,” she said, picking out the right cloud from several dust devils in the distance. Vilas knew it, too. She clung to him. Annileen hadn’t ridden in three years, but it wasn’t something she was likely to forget. Half the dewbacks in Bestine today had descended from Caelum Thaney’s herd. She’d be working on her father’s ranch still, if the animals hadn’t gotten the Parch, a wasting disease that prevented their cells from utilizing water.
    By the end, there had been little left of the herd—or of Caelum, who’d watched as all his farmhands left. After Annileen was forced to take a job working for Dannar, her father became unreachable. Four years later, after she and her mother relocated to a hut nearer the oasis, he finally took a blaster to his sorrows. Annileen had found him at home just three days after her announced engagement. He’d relocated the dozen remaining dewback eggs to what had once been her nursery, years before.
    The livery stables and corral at the Claim had been Dannar’s surprise wedding present to Annileen; the Thaney legacy lived on outside her store window, providing her distraction and solace. And when Dannar had died, Kallie—then nine—had found that same peace in tending the creatures. Annileen had ceded all care of the animals to her then. Kallie needed it, and there was something else: the girl wouldn’t have to spend her teen years debating the price of blankets with people who couldn’t remember her name.
    It felt good to be on a dewback again, though—even given the danger. Snit had been a temptation, a challenge sitting there for Kallie for far too long. Annileen suspected now that Snit had mountain dewback blood in him; one of Orrin’s crews had brought a batch of eggs after digging them up in a field. Mountain dewbacks were just shy of the cannibal breed for craziness. Annileen cursed herself for not doing a proper genetic workup before. She knew how, and the stable had simple diagnostic tools. But she’d been too busy. And neither of her kids was proving much good against