Star Wars - Kenobi

Kallie explained. “I took the LiteVan out, like you’d said. To get rid of the bodies.”
    “I meant we’d get Orrin’s hands to help do that—not for you to go alone!”
    “It was horrible, Mom. The smell was driving the dewbacks berserk. And it wasn’t good for me, either.” Kallie’s small nose crinkled. “Once I got out there, I just unhooked the hoverpallet and left it. Believe me, you’ll never want to use it again.”
    One more expense. Annileen frowned. “And then?”
    “Then I swung past Hanter’s Gorge—but it was all over then. The landspeeders were leaving. And I saw the two of you, heading for Ben’s place. I wanted to make sure you were okay—”
    “So you followed us?”
    “I tried—but your bike was a lot faster than the LiteVan. When I got there, you must’ve already left.”
    “If I was already gone, how did you know you were even at the right place?” Annileen asked.
    Kallie pointed behind the counter. “You circled his place on the map the other day after you came home.”
    “I could’ve been marking a sarlacc pit to avoid!”
    “But you weren’t,” Kallie said. “And you told me about the curtain on his door.”
    Annileen scowled. “And you talked to him? I can’t believe you bothered him at—”
    “Oh, he didn’t know I was there,” Kallie said. “At least, I think he didn’t. I was kind of … hanging around outside.”
    Annileen stood up abruptly, her chair squeaking against the stone floor. “You peeked in on him?”
    “I couldn’t see much—”
    “I don’t care!” Annileen looked at the ceiling, mortified. “You invaded the man’s privacy?”
    Jabe shook his head between bites. “Glad it’s not me this time.”
    Kallie sneered. “Shut up.”
    “Wait,” Annileen said, turning. “You thought I was in there, didn’t you? In this man’s house!”
    Kallie blushed. “The thought did cross my mind.”
    “So you listened at his door!”
    “It’s not a door. It’s a curtain. And I didn’t stay long,” her daughter said.
    “How long?”
    “A couple of hours.”
    Annileen gawked. “A couple of hours?”
    “I needed to make sure you weren’t in another room.” Kallie said, smiling meekly. “And it got interesting—”
    “I don’t care how interesting it was,” Annileen said. “You could have gotten killed out there at night!”
    “But I didn’t.”
    Annileen shook her head. There was never any good answer to that where her kids were concerned. They’d had the safety argument again and again. A danger survived was no danger at all, to hear them tell it.
    Moreover, intrusion on this scale was an entirely new entry in the portfolio of her children’s misdeeds, and that made the episode all the worse. What made Kallie think that was acceptable? Annileen found her chair and let gravity take hold.
    Kallie took her mother’s vacant expression as a signal to go on. “His name’s Kenobi.”
    “Someone called him that?”
    “He called himself that,” Kallie said. “I couldn’t see who he was talking to—but he said it. He was just sitting there, talking about his day, and the people he’d met, and the Tuskens.”
    Annileen looked at her with skepticism. “You’re not just making this up?” She tried the name out. “ ‘Ben Kenobi.’ ” She’d known other customers by the surname over the years, and seen it spelled several different ways on her receipts.
    Jabe dabbed up the last of the gravy on his plate. “Lot of Kenobis around. There’s the couple near Bildor’s Canyon.”
    “There was that podracer pilot,” Kallie interjected, excitedly.
    “No! He was a Muun!”
    “Please don’t start this,” Annileen said. “I already have a headache. Just tell me what he said. All of it.”
    Kallie’s smirk returned as she wiped off a blue milk mustache. “I thought you wanted to protect his privacy.”
    “A little late, now. Speak.”
    Kallie told, as best she could, what she could remember. “Ben Kenobi” was upset about his trip to the Claim, upset that he kept walking into disruptions. He was troubled by what he’d seen at the Gorge—who wouldn’t be, Annileen thought—and he wasn’t thrilled with how Orrin had led the assault. Jabe rolled his eyes at that. And then he talked about the Intrepid Annileen.
    “And then?” Annileen asked.
    “And then, nothing,” Kallie said. “He heard me—or heard something. I dashed back over the hill to where I’d left the LiteVan.”
    Jabe snorted. “Did he come out