Star Wars - Kenobi

wondering what I could have done to help him.
    I look, and I look, for answers. Then I put it away in the trunk, and try to forget.
    It’s impossible, of course.
    Maybe if he’d grown older—had been able to grow older—he’d have gotten some perspective. But that just wasn’t to be.
    If only he’d listened to reason, hadn’t forced me to do what I had to do, then I wouldn’t be here, now, feeling like a—
    No.
    Good night, Qui-Gon.

PART TWO
    THE
KILLING GROUND

CHAPTER TWELVE
    A LARGE HOVERCRAFT LEFT the compound, heading to the east. There was a dark-haired human male driving it, not much more than a youngling. A’Yark had seen this one before, and kept silent count as the vehicle made for the horizon.
    Once it had left, A’Yark slipped back behind the dune and brought out the black rock. A smudged mark was made on the wrappings of the warrior’s left arm, while another was rubbed off the tally on the right arm. Too many marks remained there, each one representing a settler present in the oasis compound. Dozens arrived before the suns rose each morning, and the place remained in motion until well after night fell. Keeping count had tested A’Yark’s wits. And the total didn’t even include the people who lived in the buildings.
    Only one of them mattered, of course.
    A’Yark checked the stock of the blaster rifle, where more counting could be found. Ten whittled notches. Ten days since the raid on the human farm had gone wrong. Ten days since the human woman had avoided death by dewback by mystical means. The Sand People, hearing A’Yark tell of her, had chosen to call her Ena’grosh, the Airshaper. A’Yark had not had to convince them of what her existence meant. Settlers so empowered would threaten them all.
    A’Yark had known one person to have such powers: another Tusken, long since dead. That raider had come to join the Sand People willingly, an exceptionally rare thing—and had survived the welcome and trials that followed, which was almost unheard of. That warrior had the ability to shape the air, too, a fact that had certainly helped during the initiation.
    But that recruit had ultimately proved mortal—and that gave A’Yark hope now. It meant an Airshaper could die. This woman must, before she taught her skills to the other settlers.
    A’Yark had found the Airshaper’s home easily; she’d made no efforts to conceal the path of her surviving dewback. Settlers might have found tracking difficult on the rocky ground between the pitted area and the oasis, but they were not Tuskens. A’Yark had crept up to the compound for a simple reconnaissance—only to realize the scope of the challenge.
    It was more than the sheer number of arrivals and departures. This place was the fortress of the Smiling One.
    It had to be. The war leader recognized from afar the vehicles the settlers had used in the defense of the farm. These and many more were stored in the huge garages. How large an army did the Smiling One have? A’Yark hesitated to find out.
    A’Yark had also seen the fuzzy-faced eopie rider from earlier—but only once, seven days ago, departing the compound quickly with his mount. The human’s presence had been puzzling, as A’Yark had never seen him arrive; he had to have traveled with the Jawas. That fact alone was offensive. Jawas were no better than the parasites the Sand People plucked off their banthas. They were the children of the coward sun, to be sure. The eopie rider even dressed like one of them, in his brown robe. Perhaps Hairy Face—that seemed a good name for the man—was a shaman to the Jawas, able to command the chattering things.
    The watchful raider had thought to follow the man as he journeyed toward the wastes. But the Airshaper had appeared in the yard, calling vainly after Hairy Face—alongside her foolish dewback-riding child. A’Yark had realized something else, that day: the Airshaper also had a son. He was the one who had just driven away in the repulsorcraft. The boy wasn’t much older than A’Yark’s own son.
    Young A’Deen was back with the others today, going through the rites of adulthood. A’Yark didn’t want to be there. It would mean seeing what had become of the ritual. By tradition, the tested youth was to have hunted and killed a krayt dragon. But krayts were few in The Pillars where the tribe hid, and so were eligible Tusken youths. So the elders had decreed that some other creature might suffice, such as a logra. Still dangerous,