Star Wars - Kenobi

paying currently, except for Ulbreck, if he ever bit. “And we’d need that up front to get weapons caches and patrols set up.” He looked Ben in the eye. “I don’t know if you can find that.”
    Ben suppressed a laugh. “I don’t know that I can, either!”
    Thought so. Orrin nodded and started to put away the datapad. Then Ben said something in a softer voice: “But I don’t know that I can’t .”
    Orrin raised an eyebrow. He’d known Kenobi had money enough to buy supplies, but why would anyone of means live and dress as he did? “What kind of work are you—”
    He was interrupted by a high whine from outside, syncopated with a thumm-thumm-thumm that grew louder every second and rattled cans from the shelves. Annileen looked up. “What the—”
    Jabe peered out the window behind the counter. “You’re not gonna believe this, Mom!” The screech passed from east to west, heading toward the parking area. Annileen hurried to the side door, Orrin alongside her.
    It took Orrin a second to realize what he was looking at. It was a landspeeder, but some idiot had modified it to make it look like a snubfighter, with wings mounted on either side and a long, pointed nose grafted onto the front. The vehicle was painted a shocking red, with orange mock flames on the air intakes. And it was currently making violent revolutions in the sand, its fake wingtip cannons nearly clipping several of the vehicles parked nearby.
    The thumm-thumm-thumm resolved into a musical beat. Orrin saw now that the central turbine for the ridiculous-looking landspeeder was, in fact, a giant speaker, blasting sounds that nearly lifted pebbles from the ground.
    Behind Orrin and Annileen, Kallie yelled to be heard. “The animals are going crazy! Did the Call siren break?”
    “I don’t know what it is,” Annileen said, gawking.
    The canopy of the strange vehicle slid forward to reveal the driver, a spindly thing with a leathery face and a head shaped like a teardrop. His cranium tapered off into a gray curl that pointed to the sky. He wore a black trench coat—in Tatooine heat!—and as he stood up in the driver’s compartment, Orrin spied not one, but three blaster-bearing shoulder holsters peeking out from underneath. Picking up a jeweled cane, the alien stepped out of the strange speeder.
    Half the occupants of the store were at the windows now, watching the driver. Two sets of knees divided his legs into thirds, and golden anklets shook back and forth as he kicked the sand with his hooves. Any jangling the rings did was purely theoretical, as the speaker continued to boom away.
    “That’s a Gossam,” Ben said, at the window.
    “That’s an idiot,” Annileen replied from the doorway. “What’s he brought with him?”
    They soon saw. Crammed into the backseat of the vehicle were two enormous green masses—figures that now struggled with each other. If the driver was a mystery to many of the Claim’s patrons, all could recognize Gamorreans, the great porcine warriors who worked for any lowlife that would feed them. The two fought, each trying to squeeze through the small space to exit the vehicle. When one finally won out and clambered out on the right, the entire speeder-thing nearly flipped over. The Gossam driver berated the Gamorreans, cracking at them with his gem-tipped cane.
    “What the blazes is he supposed to be?” Annileen said.
    Orrin froze. Sudden realization washed over him. No. No, they wouldn’t send anyone here. Would they?
    It took him just a second to answer his own question. Orrin stepped backward into the store, nearly stumbling over his own feet. The good day had taken a turn.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
    “WE’RE HERE TO SEE Orrin Gault,” the shrivel-faced Gossam said, standing in the doorway to the Claim.
    “I can’t hear you,” Annileen said. “You’ve deafened us all.” She had let the creature enter only after he agreed to turn off the alleged music; that communication had required two minutes of makeshift sign language.
    The Gossam clip-clopped on the synstone floor. His sickly yellow eyes traced the shelves around him, as if taking inventory. He reached for a flask inside his jacket, revealing his blasters for Annileen to see clearly. A swig later, his gray lips smacked loudly. “Orry-Orry-Orry,” he said, as if trying out a new tongue. “Orrin. Orrin Gaa- woooolt. Orrin Gault. Is one of these sounds familiar to you, grubber?”
    Orrin was missing, but over the shelves Annileen saw