Tatooine Ghost Read online

  “It’s only the officer,” Leia said. “He’s out there alone.”

  Han peered at the display over her shoulder and saw the stormtrooper lying on the floor at the corner of the security door, arms crossed with a blaster rifle in one hand and blaster pistol in the other, keeping up a constant barrage of fire.

  “So much for lower training standards and sagging morale,” Leia said.

  “Yeah, you’d think the Emperor had come back to life or something.”

  Leia winced. “Han, I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.” She slipped the datapad into her cloak pocket. “I wish you wouldn’t even think them.”

  She grabbed Sligh’s pack and dragged it over.

  Sligh was instantly at her side. “You’d steal my water?”

  “My water—I’m the one paying for it.” Leia traded the straps with Han for his blaster. “You know what to do.”

  “Yeah.” He lifted the pack and, surprised by how heavy it was, braced himself to throw. “Be ready.”

  “For what?” Sligh stepped toward the pack. “Wait!”

  Han hit the Squib on the backswing and sent him tumbling across the suite, then whipped the pack around and launched it through the door.

  Even one-handed, the officer was a good shot with a blaster rifle. No sooner had the black shape started flying toward him than he began to pour fire into it, melting the plastoid bottles and instantly superheating several dozen liters of water. Billowing vapor filled the corridor. Leia rushed past Han, pressing his blaster back into his hand, dancing into the steam and raising her pistol toward the officer’s position. Han followed and saw a golden-brown blur launch itself from the opposite doorway, leaping toward a hazy white shape scrambling across the corridor, toward the control panel on the other side of the security door. “Hold on!”

  Han reached over Leia’s shoulder, pushing her weapon arm down just as the brown blur flew past. A tremendous thunk sounded from the side of the corridor, followed by the clatter of plastoid armor sliding down the wall and the scrape of weapons being kicked away across the floor. Chewbacca roared in triumph, one hand holding what appeared to be the officer’s head. Then he rowled in astonishment and fell backward, arms flying up to launch the head into Han’s chest.

  Han caught the thing in both hands and heard a tinny voice coming from the helmet speaker. “Sir? Sir, are you there?”

  Leia filled the corridor with blasterfire again, and Han looked up to see a blurry black oval bouncing back and forth in the steam, growing rapidly smaller as the hazy white armor beneath it dodged down the corridor. Han dropped the helmet—the empty helmet—and added his own fire.

  The officer dived for cover and vanished from sight, apparently around the corner of an intersection.

  “Chewie, you okay?”

  Chewbacca growled and started to clamber up.

  A pair of indistinct red eyes appeared ahead, glowing through the dissipating steam from where the officer had escaped. Han locked gazes with the eyes and raised his blaster to fire, but Chewbacca rose and blocked his shot. By the time he could step around the Wookiee, the eyes were gone.

  “Did you see that?” Han asked. “Red eyes?”

  “Yes,” Leia said. “The Empire using aliens? They must be getting desperate.”

  Or maybe just smart, Chewbacca suggested.

  C-3PO came out of Chewbacca’s suite, Grees and Emala close behind him. They were not quite staggering under the weight of their packs, but both were hunched far forward.

  Han took one look and said, “You’ll never keep up.”

  “Is that your problem?” Grees demanded.

  “You’ll be happy later that someone has water to sell,” Emala added.

  Sligh clattered up, loaded down with blaster rifles and utility belts stripped off dead Imperials.

  Han shook his head and started down the corridor. “If they fall behind, Chewie, shoot ’em.”

  Sligh stopped to retrieve the squad leader’s rifle and utility belt, and the weapons left by the officer.

  Noisy as they were, the Squibs did keep up, and a minute later the group was sneaking out the side door of the Sidi Driss. Leia pointed toward the entrance of what had been a subterranean workshop when the Sidi Driss had still been a moisture farm.

  “That’s the garage.”

  “Doesn’t look like they have anyone watching it yet.” Han started across the dusty ground toward it. “If we hurry, we can be out of there—”

  “You must be sunsick!” Grees huffed up, both hands hanging onto his pack straps. “The Imperials see a landspeeder or swoop leaving this town, there’ll be an assault shuttle on it faster than a farm boy on a womp rat.”

  “You have a better idea?” Han asked.

  “That would be hard?” Grees twitched his snout and pointed out toward the watering corral on the perimeter of Sidi Driss land, where the humped silhouettes of several dozen dewbacks were arranging themselves into a caravan line. “The idea is to disappear into the landscape.”

  Leia came to Han’s side and took his hand. “Han?”

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s a better idea.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Askajians had paid a fortune for the right to water at the Sidi Driss, and they would not be hurried, not by Grees’s threats or Sligh’s pleas or Emala’s promises, not even by the prospect of a battle erupting in the midst of their caravan, and Leia thought that was probably a good thing. For now, the surviving squad and a half of Imperials was too busy searching hangars and disabling landspeeders to worry about plodding dewbacks, but that would certainly change should the caravan show any sign of haste. For now, it was better to allow every beast its fill at the watering basin, to give each Askajian driver all the time he—or she—needed to gulp down that last liter or two from the spigot.

  “P-P-Princess Leia!” C-3PO sputtered. He was strapped in a smuggler’s sling beneath the dewback that would serve as Leia’s mount, concealed from the side by low-hanging saddle blankets and lying far enough forward that his head dipped in the basin whenever the huge lizard lowered its scaly head to drink. “If this continues, my circuits will short!”

  “Even without power?” Leia asked. She was standing beside the dewback, holding its reins.

  “No, b-but corrosion is always—oh…”

  Leia waited until the dewback raised its head, then reached underneath its chest and flipped the primary circuit breaker on the back of C-3PO’s neck. He emitted a wet pop and fell silent. As refugees from a desert world long under Imperial domination, the Askajians had been quick to strike a bargain with the Squibs to help the group track down the Jawa sandcrawler, which was now alarmingly overdue. But they had also made clear they would abide no disruptions to their business.

  Leia only wished the Squibs were as easy to silence as C-3PO. All three were hanging beneath the adjacent dewback, strapped in a smuggler’s sling and hidden from view like C-3PO. Despite this, they were chattering incessantly to the caravan leader, a round mountain of an Askajian who stood on the opposite side of the basin directing the final watering.

  “… give you a better price for tomuon wool than any Jawa,” Grees was saying. The Squibs had been trying to strike a bargain ever since they had discovered what the caravan was carrying. Tomuon wool was prized across the galaxy for its sheen and comfort, and when this tribe of Askajians had fled their home, they had possessed the foresight to resettle on a desert world where their stock could thrive. “And we’d never tell the Imperials where to find your village.”

  “Neither would the Jawas,” the leader, Borno, said. With his epidermal sacs gorged with water, Borno resembled an immensely corpulent human with a bluish pallor and heavy brow folds. “They don’t know where it is. No one does. We like it that way.”

  “Very wise,” Sligh said. “We can see you’re a shrewd being who appreciates the value of a credit—which we can get you. Imperial or New Republic.”

  “We don’t need credits.” As Born
o spoke, he was careful not to look toward the dewback. Even with only a dozen stormtroopers to search all of Anchorhead, there always seemed to be one set of electrobinoculars turned their way. “We need our vaporators. They’re on the Jawa sandcrawler.”

  “Our credits are better than Jawa vaporators,” Emala said. “With our credits, you can buy vaporators—vaporators that won’t break down.”

  “All vaporators break down,” Borno said. “If you knew anything about vaporators, you’d know that.”

  “You’ve never owned a Tusede Thirteen,” Sligh said quickly. “Someone like you would really appreciate the quality. Self-cleaning condenser filters, redundant sensors, magno-shielded intake vents, everything a shrewd buyer like you would want.”

  “That so?” Despite the query, Borno looked unconvinced. “Then I guess there wouldn’t be any need to find out why the Jawas are so late in their sandcrawler. That would be a real bonus.”

  The Squibs fell abruptly silent. Valuable as tomuon wool was, it was worth only a fraction of what they stood to earn by recovering Killik Twilight.

  Finally, Sligh said, “You’re too smart for us, Borno. We’d better stick to the plan.”

  “As long as you can really locate the sandcrawler,” Grees added. “If the Imperials find it first, you can forget about your vaporators.”

  “Yes, so you have told me,” Borno said. “Besides, we already have a Tusede Thirteen. Those extra features are just more things to go wrong.”

  The Squibs’ dewback stopped drinking, and Borno motioned it away. The driver led it over to the caravan column, being careful to keep himself between the beast and the Imperials watching from Anchorhead. Hanging in their smuggler’s harness behind the long saddle blanket, the Squibs were well concealed, but it always paid to be careful when there were stormtroopers about.

  Han was the next to lead his beast forward. Like Leia, he carried a long Askajian herding spear and wore a huge sand cloak over thick pads of musky-smelling tomuon wool tied to his stomach, back, and shoulders. He still seemed skinny for an Askajian herder, but too large and round to be one of the humans the Imperials were seeking. The disguise would probably work, as long as the stormtroopers remained at a distance and the morning light did not grow too revealing.

  Leia was less confident of Han’s ability to wear it. The battle at the inn had left his face pale and drawn, and she could tell by the weight of her own disguise that the extra padding would take a toll on his strength. Were it not for the Imperial threat—and the fact that the Squibs would pursue Killik Twilight alone—she would have insisted on taking shelter at the Darklighters’ farm for another day or two.

  Chewbacca was strapped beneath Han’s mount, his big shoulders squeezed tight between the dewback’s front legs. Though his head also sank into the water as the beast lowered its mouth to drink, he accepted the dunking with remarkably good grace—perhaps because he could sense how uncomfortable Han and Leia were in their disguises.

  “I’m sure that alien officer called the rest of his company,” Han said to Leia. “If we’re still here when they come, it’ll take more than a hundred Askajians to keep them from searching the caravan. You’re sure this is a better idea?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know.” Leia watched as their landspeeder emerged from the vehicle storage room of the Sidi Driss, its finish flushing pink in the morning light. Behind it came a pair of stormtroopers walking the Squibs’ swoop. “But had we left town in our landspeeder, how long do you think it would have taken the officer to call in a flight of TIEs?”

  “Not long.” Han glanced at his mount’s long tongue lapping water out of the basin, then whispered, “They’ve figured us out, Leia. They must have.”

  Leia nodded. “I think so.” Her stomach knotted with worry—not for herself, but for Han and Chewbacca. “I never imagined recovering the painting would lead to so much trouble. I feel terrible about the way I dragged you and Chewie into this.”

  “Yeah, like I’d rather be home wondering what’s happened to you.” Han looked at her from beneath his sand hood. His eyes were sunken and hollow. “Besides, you know I’m the only one who can get you out of this mess.”

  “Really?” Leia folded her arms across her wool-padded chest. “And you’re certain I need someone to rescue me right now?”

  Han waved a hand toward the Sidi Driss. “Yeah.”

  “You seem to have forgotten why we were there in the first place.” Leia spoke in a deliberately even voice. “I’m not the last one who needed rescuing.”

  Leia’s mount finished drinking, and Borno signaled her to leave. She led the beast away from the basin, freeing the spot for the last dewback in line, and went over to join the caravan column. Several Askajians were careful to remain between her and the town, filling water jugs at the clean-water spigot or walking a few steps alongside, chattering merrily in their own language. She was grateful for their caution. C-3PO’s metallic finish had been smeared with a mixture of dewback saliva and dung ash as a safeguard against a saddle blanket being inadvertently drawn aside, but it never hurt to be cautious.

  The caravan was forming a tight defensive column, three animals abreast with the rider in the middle leading one cargo beast to each side. Leia walked her mount into the center position at the end of the line. Two Askajians helped her into the saddle, then taught her to stop her mount by hauling upward on the reins and to turn it by tapping its head with her herding spear. Once she confirmed her understanding, they brought two cargo beasts to flank her and secured the fibrasteel reins to a pair of saddle rings behind her legs.

  “Your mount should stay ahead of the pack beasts,” one of the Askajians advised. “But if you feel a rein pressing the back of a leg, strike the pack animal across the nose. That will slow it.”

  “What if I want it to go faster?”

  This drew a deep Askajian laugh. “You won’t.”

  A few minutes later, with Han and the last Askajian in line behind Leia, Borno opened the flush valve to send the unused water back to the recyclers, then lowered the basin’s sand cover and joined the rest of the caravan.

  A light hoverscout emerged from Anchorhead, one stormtrooper standing in back at the speeder’s blaster cannon. Two more Imperials were visible through the front windows. The one in the passenger’s seat wore the blaster-scorched shoulder pauldron of a squad leader.

  Borno stopped near Leia and Han and pretended to check the cargo straps on the dewbacks they would be leading. “Do the same as everyone else,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, but if they realize we’re hiding you, the deal is off. This caravan is too important to my people to risk it in a firefight.”

  “We understand, Borno,” Leia said. “And we’re sorry for putting you in any danger at all.”

  “A caravan is always in danger,” Borno replied. “And you have nothing to be sorry about. On Askaj, we had a saying: those who wish to rid themselves of fleegs must clean the hair of their neighbors.”

  “A wise saying.” Leia’s scalp began to itch beneath the sand hood.

  “And one that applies double to Imperial fleegs,” Borno replied. “We will do what we can to keep our part of the bargain.”

  Borno departed.

  Behind Leia, Han asked softly, “What’s our part of the bargain?”

  “Who knows?” Leia glanced over her shoulder, more to make certain he was holding up than to make herself heard. “All I could get out of Emala was that Sligh made an excellent deal, and not to worry. They always have our interests at heart.”

  Han winced. “I hate it when they say that.”

  As the hoverscout angled toward the caravan, Borno barked a command and pulled a repeating blaster from beneath his sand cloak. The rest of the Askajians followed his lead, exchanging their herding spears for an astonishing array of weaponry ranging from sniper rifles to power blasters more than capable of piercing an infantry vehicle’s armor. Leia removed her blaster from its holster and propped her elbow on her hip, so that the weapon w
ould be in plain sight. Though Askajians were a peace-loving people, the Imperials had obviously taught them the value of intimidation.

  The stormtrooper gunner started to swing the blaster cannon around, but the squad leader quickly waved him off. The hoverscout pilot closed to within twenty meters of the caravan and flew slowly alongside. The gunner kept his helmet lenses fixed on the cargo line, while the squad leader studied the riders in the center. They passed Borno without incident and rounded the front of the column, then came slowly down the other side.

  When the hoverscout reached the end of the column, it stopped. The squad leader leaned out of his window.

  “Very well. You are free to leave.”

  The Askajians responded with a chorus of belly laughs so deep it sounded like sand thunder. Borno took his time walking to the head of the caravan, stopping to check cargo straps and chat with drivers. Though Leia knew he was only putting on a show of contempt for the Imperials, she could not help wishing he did not have such a flair for the dramatic. Every minute they tarried brought the rest of the stormtrooper company a minute closer to Anchorhead.

  Finally, Borno reached the front of the caravan and hoisted himself into his saddle. Without looking back toward the Imperials, he boomed a command in Askajian that caused his followers to hide their blasters again and take up their herding spears. Then, at last, he urged his mount forward, and the caravan left Anchorhead behind.

  The dewbacks were sluggish and slow at first, plodding along barely faster than Leia could walk. But as the suns warmed the morning air, the creatures grew steadily more energetic, and it was only a few minutes before the caravan was ambling at a swift pace. By the time the last blush of Second Dawn had faded from the air half an hour later, the purple crags of the Jundland Wastes could be seen rippling in the distance ahead.

  They rode for only a quarter hour more before the Squibs began to complain about chafing. Though most Askajians could speak Basic, they paid no attention and kept up a merry prattle in their own language. Leia glanced back to check on Han and Chewbacca.