Tatooine Ghost Page 22

  The Wookiee, barely visible in the shadows beneath the dewback’s chest, was using the skirts of Han’s saddle to pull his weight off the straps. He caught Leia looking and flashed a friendly snarl to show he was doing fine. Han was sitting too upright, staring straight ahead with an artificial smirk across his lips, obviously aware that Leia was checking on him and just as obviously trying to appear stronger than he was.

  “Drink something,” she mouthed.

  Han raised a water bottle to his lips, then made a sour face and said, “You owe me some Gizer.”

  Then a familiar whine sounded in the sky. Leia looked toward the noise and found herself staring into the blazing white eyes of the two suns, Tatoo II quivering and flickering like something alive as it chased its twin higher into the sky. She turned away, trying to blink the blindness from her eyes.

  The whine grew more distinct.

  “Han—”

  “TIEs,” he confirmed. “Coming out of the suns, subsonic. They’re just taking a look.”

  As the whine grew louder, the dewbacks broke into a nervous trot, and the Askajians were suddenly too busy slapping their herding spears across the pack beasts’ noses to continue talking. Leia felt a rein against the back of her leg and turned, bringing her spear down across the nose of the offending beast. By then, the whine had grown to a shrill howl. She glimpsed an H-shaped silhouette dropping into the sky beneath Tatoo I. It swelled almost instantly into a TIE fighter—a fighter that came screaming up on the caravan from behind, flying so low that Leia and everyone else ducked instinctively.

  The dewbacks bellowed and would have scattered had the fibrasteel reins not snapped the pack beasts back toward the lead mounts. As it was, the entire caravan burst into a panicked gallop and bolted across the salt flats in a column. Then the TIE’s ion drives appeared in the sky ahead, and Borno’s mount broke to the right, leading the rest of the caravan after it in a long curving arc. Leia nearly bounced out of the saddle before she managed to get her weight into the stirrups, and even then she came close to flying off each time the seat slammed into her from below.

  The TIE went into a steep climb and did a wingover, then fell ominously silent as it began to dive back toward the caravan. The dewbacks dropped out of their gallop and began to rumble to each other in low, barely audible tones.

  Then the whine started again, and the TIE swelled in the sky, now coming at the caravan from the flank.

  This was too much for the dewbacks. They turned as one and fled in rank. Leia glimpsed Han beside her, a Wookiee hand hanging on to the saddle alongside his leg.

  The TIE shrieked past overhead, trailing panic and the harsh smell of ozone. Leia’s dewback broke right, dragging the pack beasts along and slamming hard into Han’s trio. All six creatures nearly went down, but the lead mounts pushed off each other at the last minute and dragged their followers back to their feet. Leia spied a pebbled flank ahead and frantically slapped her spear into her dewback’s head, barely turning it in time to avoid another collision.

  The caravan dispersed, galloping across the plain in a hundred different directions, and Leia thought for a minute it would scatter to the far corners of the mesa. But once the whine of the TIE had faded, a low thrumming almost too deep to hear began to roll across the plain behind her. Her mount and the pack beasts turned toward the sound immediately and continued at a dead run.

  Leia hauled back on the reins, trying to slow down until she could see what was causing the sound, but the effort was useless. When her mount slowed, the pack beasts charged forward, their fibrasteel leads pinning her legs against the saddle skirts. When she slapped the herding spear across their snouts, her mount charged ahead.

  She finally began to feel vibrations in her stomach and realized her dewbacks were thrumming in reply, and she gave up trying to slow them. A few moments later, she began to see other riders charging toward the same spot she was, converging on Borno and his mount.

  As Leia arrived at the edge of the throng, Sligh was complaining, “How can you leave us under here? We won’t have a hair left on our bodies!”

  Borno ignored the Squib and his fellows, issuing a series of commands in his own language. His drivers quickly arranged the dewbacks into a giant outward-facing circle and linked each creature to the two adjacent, connecting the whole caravan together via the sturdy fibrasteel reins.

  Leia was impressed with Borno’s foresight. After making his initial pass, a good reconnaissance pilot would return a few minutes later to record a second set of pictures and data that would show how the subject had reacted to his first pass. Often, the differences between the two were more telling than the data itself.

  As they waited for the TIE to return, Leia glanced over and found Han waiting with his herding spear leaning against his leg and both hands braced on his saddle pommel. The muscles on the backs of his hands were trembling visibly.

  “Drink some water,” Leia said.

  “Just did.” Han straightened his back and patted the water bottle hanging beneath his cloak, then seemed to wobble in the saddle. “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “Because you’re looking a little shaky,” Leia said. “You shouldn’t be out in this heat, not so soon after yesterday.”

  “I don’t think the Imperials are giving us a choice,” Han said. “Except maybe a nice climate-controlled berth on the Chimaera.”

  Chewbacca groaned an opinion about that possibility.

  “I don’t care for how it would end, either.” Leia reached into her satchel and removed the vidmap Han had taken off his borrowed swoop before abandoning it, then called up a schematic of the area. “But the Darklighter Farm isn’t far.”

  “Not far at all,” Emala agreed from beneath her dew-back. “You could be there in half a day at most, even by dewback.”

  “So?” Han demanded.

  “So you shouldn’t be out in this heat,” Leia said. “You haven’t recovered. I’m sure the Darklighters will hide you for a day or two.”

  “Us,” Han corrected. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

  “Han, you know I can’t,” Leia said.

  “Sure you can,” Emala said. “Your partners will recover Killik Twilight.”

  “You?” Leia glanced in the Squibs’ direction. Her view of them was completely blocked by the adjacent dewbacks, but she shook her head anyway. “You’re the biggest reason I need to go.”

  “You don’t trust us?” Sligh gasped. “When have we ever given you reason to be so rude?”

  “Trust is earned,” Leia said. “You have a little work to do.”

  “And you’d rather let your mate die than take a chance on us?” Grees demanded. “Some heartless jillie you are.”

  “That’s enough out of you three,” Han said. “I’m not going anywhere without Leia, understand?”

  Leia shook her head in frustration. “You’re impossible.”

  “Yeah? I’m not the only one.”

  An uneasy silence fell over the area as nearby Askajians politely averted their gazes and tried to pretend they had not overheard the argument.

  Leia sighed, then turned to Han and ordered, “Drink some water.”

  Han glanced over, not quite scowling, and said, “You, too.”

  They pulled their water bottles from beneath their cloaks, then tipped the necks toward each other in a silent toast. They drank together, the mystified Askajians watching and murmuring as they puzzled over erratic human behavior.

  After Han finished drinking, his gaze remained fixed on the blazing sky. “That didn’t take long.”

  A familiar whine rose from the direction of the sun. Leia barely had time to put away the vidmap and her water bottle before the TIE was on them, screaming over the caravan so low that she was sure a lucky Askajian could have planted a spear into one of its solar panels. The dewbacks bellowed wildly and tried to scatter, but found themselves pulling against their fellows and went nowhere. The circle simply undulated until the starfighter was past, then
settled back into stillness as the craft climbed into the sky.

  Borno shouted a command, and the Askajians began to draw their blasters from beneath their sand cloaks. The TIE did a wingover and approached on a vector perpendicular to its first pass. Again, the alarmed dewbacks attempted to flee and found themselves restrained by their neighbors. The Askajians added to the panic by shooting into the air, clearly trying to send a message by firing directly at the starfighter. Leia doubted they really meant to bring it down; Borno struck her as a competent enough warrior to know that the best way to bring down a low-flying craft was to put a wall of fire up in front of it.

  Leia glimpsed a pair of pods—sensor and imaging—hanging beneath the cockpit where the blaster cannons would normally be, then the TIE was gone, climbing into the sky, wagging its wing panels and shrinking into an H-shaped dot. The Askajians cheered in triumph and, not waiting to see if it would return, began to free the dewbacks from the circle.

  Borno rode over and waved a puffy hand at Chewbacca and C-3PO. “We can unstrap your friends now.” He turned his narrow eyes toward the Squibs, then added, “And those three, as well—so long as they don’t try to sell me any more vaporators.”

  “Sell a shrewd tomuon herder like yourself?” Sligh said. “That’s impossible.”

  “We assumed someone of your intellect would want the best,” Emala added. “Our mistake.”

  Borno chuckled. “The wise ones say you must never ask galoomps to stand still. I see this is so.” He motioned to the driver of their dewback. “Free them. We would not want even a Squib down where they will get smashed when we reach rough terrain.”

  Han dismounted and set to work unstrapping Chewbacca, but Leia remained in her saddle.

  “Borno, forgive me for questioning your wisdom,” she said. “But these Imperials seem more thorough than most, and they have a very clever commanding officer. I think they’ll be back with an assault shuttle.”

  Borno smiled broadly. “Of course they will, but they will look out there.” He pointed in the direction the caravan had been traveling so far, then swung his massive arm in a ninety-degree arc, pointing toward a shimmering blue-brown curtain that might or might not have been the foothills of the distant Needles Mountains. “And we will be there.”

  Han stopped working on Chewbacca’s straps long enough to peer in the direction the Askajian was pointing. “Why there?”

  “Because that is where my vaporators are,” Borno said. “There is a hiding place about three hours from here where the Jawas go when the winds are too strong. If the sandcrawler isn’t there, it will be a good place to start searching.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  Leia slipped out of her saddle and, trying not to gag on the musky stench of the dewback’s belly, quickly unstrapped C-3PO.

  Chewbacca and the Squibs had a few bald spots where the slings had rubbed off their fur, and C-3PO complained bitterly about the sand in his servomotors. Otherwise they all seemed to have survived the ride relatively intact.

  Borno pointed at C-3PO, then asked, “Can the droid ride?”

  C-3PO answered in Askajian, drawing an incredulous guffaw from Borno and several other caravan drivers within earshot. Oblivious to their reaction, C-3PO turned to Leia and translated.

  “I explained to Chief Borno that I’m an excellent rider. If he wishes, I can supply a complete listing of the eight hundred ninety-seven different vehicles in which I have been a passenger.”

  Han said, “Threepio can’t handle a dewback.”

  “I thought as much.” Borno told his drivers to arrange mounts for Chewbacca and the Squibs, then waved C-3PO toward his own huge dewback. “You, I take.”

  “Take?” C-3PO turned to Leia. “Pardon me for saying so, Mistress Leia, but I fail to see what use a protocol droid of my sophistication could possibly be to a tribe of… herders. Especially in a sandy climate like this.”

  “He means you’re to ride on his dewback.” Leia pointed him toward the animal. “Ownership isn’t being transferred.”

  “Thank the maker!” C-3PO went to Borno’s mount, where a pair of Askajians were waiting to heft him into the saddle. “I am sure to make your ride a pleasant one. Perhaps you would enjoy a recitation of the Song of the Dongtha Slayer in ancient Askajian? My memory banks contain all seven hundred twenty-two known verses.”

  Borno paled. “I am very glad you are not giving me this droid,” he said to Leia. “But perhaps now would be a good time to make payment.”

  Leia’s stomach knotted. “Of course.” She glanced at the Squibs. She was not happy to see them busy inspecting the dewback they would soon be riding. “I’m unaware of the final price, but I’m sure we have more than enough to cover it.”

  “It isn’t much.” Borno extended his hand. “Who carries the vidmap?”

  “The vidmap?” Han exploded. “They’re giving that away?”

  “They cannot?” Borno’s expression quickly went from perplexed to angry. “But they did.”

  “What my husband means is we still have need of it,” Leia said.

  “So do I,” Borno said. “That’s why I agreed to take it.”

  “Agreed to take it?” Han glared across the circle at the Squibs. “They offered it to you?”

  “Of course they did,” Leia said. “How else would Borno have known about it?”

  Borno glanced from Han to Leia. “They should not have done this?”

  “No,” Leia said quickly—too quickly.

  Borno’s face turned the color of a volcanic eruption, and he barked something at his drivers. They immediately stopped what they were doing and began to unstrap the Squibs’ saddle.

  “My apologies,” Borno said. “I should have checked with you before taking the word of rodents.” He cast a dark look in the Squibs’ direction, then asked, “So, what are you willing to pay for our help in escaping the Imperials?”

  Under any other circumstances, after-the-fact would have been an awkward time for a negotiation. But on Tatooine, in the middle of the desert with the possibility of an Imperial assault company dropping in any moment, the timing could not have been more perfect for Borno.

  “I know you’re not interested in credits.” Leia was thinking of the Askajian’s reaction to the Squibs’ attempts to buy his tomuon wool. “So what would interest you?”

  Borno glanced briefly at C-3PO, then shuddered visibly and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “The vidmap.”

  Chewbacca groaned, and Han said, “I told you. We need that.”

  “Then why did the Squibs offer it?” Borno demanded.

  No sooner had the Askajian asked than Leia saw the answer. The Squibs knew this terrain. She and her companions did not.

  Leia turned to find Grees leading the other two over.

  “You’ve got a death wish?” Grees demanded. “Turn over the vidmap.”

  “And place ourselves in your hands?” she asked. “I think not.”

  “It’s either that or watch your husband die of thirst out here—right before you,” Grees said. “We struck a bargain with Borno.”

  “A bargain that leaves us dependent on you.” Leia phrased this as a conclusion, not a question. “How convenient.”

  Sligh shrugged. “You said make a deal with the caravan to save us. We made the deal.”

  “Give him the vidmap,” Han said.

  Leia turned. “What?”

  “Sligh’s right. A deal’s a deal.” Han shrugged. “Besides, what choice do we have? Let Borno leave them here to die?”

  “Them?” Emala gasped. “After all we’ve been through together, you talk like we’re not even partners?”

  Leia stepped over to her dewback’s flank and opened the utility satchel hanging from her saddle. After digging her way past the holocomm, the first thing she found was the journal. She was tempted to see if she could convince Borno to take one or the other instead of the vidmap, but she would need the holocomm later, and she was not ready to give up her grandmother�
��not after finding her so recently. Besides, a deal was a deal. She put the journal back and fished around until she found the vidmap, then went over to Borno’s mount and passed it up.

  “Now take us to our sandcrawler.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was only midmorning, and already Leia felt as though she had a crystalplas skull—as though the twin suns were blazing through her sand hood and baking her brain in hot bright light. Even through her darkened goggles, the plain ahead was a shimmering white haze, with the cruel blue hoax of a mirage sea always rippling just on the horizon. The air was still and stifling, every breath a suffocating blast.

  The caravan was moving fast, trotting toward the hideaway that Borno had assured them would have been the Jawas’ first choice of shelter during the storm. The search would continue from there, depending on what they found… and whether they found anything at all. Again, Leia had the feeling she was being influenced by the Force, drawn out into the wilds of Tatooine—though she could not imagine to what purpose. The Great Chott was as empty as it was vast; as far as she could tell, there was no place to conceal another surprise about her family—or anything else.

  The Askajians were scattered across the plain, being careful to form no rows or columns that would make the caravan easier for a high-flying surveillance droid to identify. Their globular bodies neither swayed nor rocked on their mounts, despite the dewbacks’ spine-hammering gait.

  Han rode ahead and off to one side. His pack beasts had become mounts for Chewbacca and the Squibs, so he did not have any extra dewbacks to lead. Still, the heat was taking its toll. He was wobbling and bouncing, and occasionally he struggled to stay in the saddle.

  Leia urged her dewback forward and drew alongside him. With his eyes and face hidden by his goggles and scarf, it was impossible to read his expression. But Leia could tell by the way his shoulders slumped and his chin drooped that he was not doing well.

  “Hey—” It hurt to talk, Leia’s throat was so dry.

  Han’s dark goggles swung in her direction. The slump vanished from his shoulders—a brave front for her benefit—but his chin continued to droop. Not a good sign.