Chapter Twenty-Two The Incident #2
“Yes?” I squeaked. No. No it absolutely was not. He wasn’t actually going to trade that, was he? The same thing we’d almost been killed over on Coruscant?
The Jawas all exchanged looks. One of them grabbed for the lightsaber, but Sian held it high above his head, which was a little mean, but then again so was stealing two droids and disassembling them within the span of, like, an hour.
“What is it?” one of the Jawas asked.
“Junk,” spat another.
From the sandcrawler, Veebee said, “We are doomed.”
Sian clicked his tongue in admonishment.
“This is a famed and terrifying artifact from a long-extinct era,” he began dramatically.
The Jawas seemed very dubious. “I spent the better part of my life trying to acquire it. Countless people have died for it and by it—including my own mentor. It is a cursed and terrible thing, and it’s wanted by some of the most nefarious people in the galaxy! ”
“Droids can’t be worth that much to trade. You lie,” said the third Jawa as their buddy switched on the electric baton again to give Sian another zap.
I quickly added, “He isn’t!”
The Jawas exchanged looks again. Then the third one asked, “Then why trade?”
“Because…” I racked my brain. Sian motioned for me to keep going, so I did. “Because…what could we do with a relic? My d—my captain—needs those droids for his ship, but we’re too novice to know what to do with a relic. But you guys? I’m sure you’ll know immediately.”
“But what is it?” asked the first Jawa, and the others chattered in agreement.
Sian and I exchanged looks, and then he held out the package. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”
The first Jawa took it and undid the string, rolling the saber out into their other hand. The old metal flashed in the afternoon suns like a flare. The Jawa said something to their friends, too fast for me to figure out, and handed it to the second one.
The second Jawa pressed the button. There was a satisfying click and then—
Nothing.
The Jawa shook it. The saber’s insides rattled.
The first one jabbed a finger at me and accused, “You lie!”
I winced. “We never said it worked?”
The fourth Jawa, the one with the baton, gave an enraged cry that in any language sounded like death, and the other Jawas reached for weapons in their robes.
Oh, no.
“Noola! Now!” Sian cried.
Suddenly, a loud thunk came from the sandcrawler again, and then it shivered and slowly began to ease forward. The Jawas looked at each other, counted four, and realized no one was left on the crawler. So there was no one to drive it. And it was currently gathering speed away from them.
Regrettably, with both my droids still on it.
With shouts of surprise, the Jawas abandoned us completely. They tossed the lightsaber away and ran after the crawler. Sian stumbled to his feet and caught it as I lurched after my droids.
“Vee!” I cried.
VB-35 turned her head just enough to watch me dodge between the scrambling Jawas and make it to the crawler first. “This your plan?” she asked as I passed her going into the vehicle, found N2-0’s head on a workbench, and shoved it back onto the rest of the droid.
Entoo gave a war cry, popping out a small arm with a blowtorch attached. I shoved them off the ramp, and they smacked against the hard ground and rolled to a stop, almost knocking Sian down in his rush to follow me.
The Jawas had caught up to the crawler, though it had begun to pick up even more speed.
Suddenly, something small and scaly darted between my legs and scrambled up the side of the crane. Noola bit into the wires and chewed through them.
“Well, sh—” Vee crashed onto the ramp and, with agonizing slowness, slid off into the sand with a screech of metal on metal.
Noola jumped onto my shoulder and purred.
“Thanks, friend,” I whispered, scrubbing the top of her head, and grabbed Veebee’s missing arm from the nearby workbench.
A moment later, the Jawa with the baton smacked it against the bench, electrifying it.
I jumped away and slowly sidled toward the edge of the ramp, the angry Jawas cornering me.
I held Veebee’s arm tightly to my chest. “But how are we supposed to get out of this?”
The Jawa with the electric baton crept closer. I shuffled backward until my heels dipped off the edge of the ramp. The crawler was going fast enough that if I jumped, I’d get hurt. I’d get hurt very, very badly.
“Thief!” the Jawa cried, jabbing the baton at me.
“You stole my droids!” I argued.
“You stole them back!” one of the other Jawas argued, shaking their fist.
Honestly, maybe I should just jump—
“Starlight!” Sian cried.
I glanced behind me.
To my surprise, Sian had hopped on the speeder and come after me. As the crawler picked up speed, so did he. He pushed the speeder parallel to the ramp and threw out his hand. “Jump!”
Noola had no qualms about those instructions, and she scurried to my other shoulder and took a flying leap, catching herself on the speeder.
He held his hand out to me. “C’mon!”
I couldn’t make that. He kept having to dodge around rocks and debris in the road. Then again, on the other side, the Jawas came closer. The electric baton sizzled.
I squeezed my eyes closed.
Maz had said that my mom would tell me to trust myself.
So I opened my eyes and turned around, and when Sian dipped in close again, I jumped.
I felt the swing of the electrified baton just miss me as I leapt.
Sian grabbed my arm tightly as I crashed onto the seat, still clutching Vee’s arm, and he pulled away from the crawler quickly—too quickly.
The speeder spun. I curled my hands around his middle, Veebee’s missing arm securely between us, and pressed my face into his back.
Wind whipped around us. The speeder whined.
Then, suddenly, it came to a stop against an orange rock. The cloud of dust we’d kicked up swamped over us. We coughed, and he pulled his arm over his mouth. I pressed my face into his back, choking back gasps.
It was so quiet, all I could hear was my thrumming, frantic heart in my ears.
Finally, as the dust began to settle, he asked me, hoarsely, “Are you hurt?” His hands went down to mine around his waist and squeezed them tightly. “We’re alive. We’re okay.”
And we were.
He kept a tight, solid grip on my hands, letting me gather myself a little while longer, until I finally pried my arms from around his waist and eased back. I swallowed the knot in my throat and whispered, “We really need to stop almost dying together.”
“Hey, I’d rather almost die with you than the alternative,” he replied with a wink.
I was too dazed to blush, so I shoved his shoulder and muttered that this wasn’t the time for jokes. We needed to go back and get the droids. “Do you still have the lightsaber?”
He patted the inside of his jacket. “Soong eniki. I have the thing right here.”
I snorted. “That was quick thinking on your part.”
“Yours too. I’ve got to hand it to you”—and he motioned to Vee’s arm, which was still lodged between us—“we make a pretty good team.”
“A team of liars,” I pointed out wryly, remembering VB-35 and N2-0, “who probably need to go pick up their droids. Do you think those Jawas will be okay?”
Sian started up the speeder again. “They’ll be fine. But we should probably get out of here before they turn around and come back.”
So we picked up Veebee, who was still lying on the ground exactly where she’d slid off the ramp.
With a little coaxing and a promise that I would buy her whatever ingredients she wanted—on top of that dried woodoo gizzard—for the next month, I gave her her arm back and put her onto the speeder before going to look for Entoo.
The astromech droid was still on their side, blowtorch lit, livid as a gundark.
We managed to calm them down enough to strap them to the back of the speeder and return to Mos Espa.
As we entered town, I dug my communicator out of my jacket to radio the ship. “Kotti, we’re on our way back,” I said, but all I got in reply was static. “Kotti?”
Veebee said, “Perhaps they’re all busy?”
“Maybe, but—oh, no.”
As we parked the speeder, a large ship rose from the spaceport into the sky. By the shape, it looked like a CR-90 Corellian Corvette. There weren’t many of those still flying, and a terrible feeling cemented in the middle of my gut.
“Is that…?” I ventured.
“Yes,” Veebee confirmed, “I believe that is our ship leaving.”
The thrusters lit and propelled the starship into the sky, through the clouds, going, going—
“No,” I whispered, pressing the button on my communicator again. “Kotti! Anyone! I’m not on the ship! Hello!”
The ship rose higher in the sky, barely a pinprick, almost nothing at all.
“Starfarer!” I called. “You’re missing—”
One moment the ship was there, and then its light streaked across the sky…and it was gone.
“—me.”
The Starfarer had left.
It had actually left.
And I was still on Tatooine.