by Kevin J. Anderson
The sandcrawler labored up the long slope of golden sand that rippled with heat under the twin suns of Tatooine. The immense vehicle moved ahead at a moderate but inexorable rate. Its clanking tractor treads left parallel furrows on the virgin surface of the dune. Within a few hours, gusting sandwhirls would erase the tracks and return the Dune Sea to its pristine state. The desert resisted all permanent change.
Deep in the murky bowels of the sandcrawler, in the cluttered engine rooms where throbbing power reactors pounded and echoed, Het Nkik labored with his Jawa clan members. From the depths of his hood, he sniffed the air, a veritable sauce of mingled odors. The engines smelled as if they were getting old again, lubricant spoiling, durasteel cogs wearing away.
Humans and many other sentient creatures loathed the way Jawas smelled, detecting only a stink that made them turn up their noses. But Jawas derived an incredible amount of information from such smells: the health of their companions, when and what they had last eaten, their identity, maturity, status of arousal, excitement, or boredom.
Het Nkik chittered his concern. At any other time the Jawas would have rushed to avert any potential breakdown—at least until they had unloaded their wares on a hapless customer. But today the Jawas paid him little heed, too preoccupied with the impending swap meet, the annual gathering of all clans. They pushed the engine to its maximum capacity as the sandcrawler toiled across the Dune Sea to the traditional meeting place of the Jawa people.
Het Nkik shook his head, his bright yellow eyes glowing in the dim shadows of his hood. The other Jawas would know he was annoyed and impatient from his scent.
Het Nkik had odd ideas for a Jawa, and he told them to any who would listen. He enjoyed watching his clan brothers scurry around, confused at the thoughts he placed in their heads—thoughts that perhaps the Jawas could do more than run and hide from persecution by the Sand People, by the human moisture farmers, or worst of all by the Imperial stormtroopers who had decided that helpless Jawa forts made good practice targets for desert assaults. He wondered if someone else among all the Jawas had realized that Jawas were only weak because they chose to be weak. None of his people wanted to listen.
Het Nkik turned back to the engines, tearing open an access panel and adjusting the delicate electronics. He found it amazing that the Jawas could use all their skill and imagination in a desperate fight to keep this ancient machine running, yet they would do nothing to protect themselves or their property if some antagonist tried to take it.
With the sound of a grating alarm signal, the Jawas in the engine room squealed with delight. Cinching tight his pungent brown robe, Het Nkik scurried after the others as they rushed for the lift platforms to the bridge observation deck. The old elevators groaned, overloaded with jabbering creatures.
At the pinnacle of the great trapezoidal sandcrawler, fifteen Jawa crew members clustered around the long, high transparisteel window, standing on inverted spare-parts boxes to see. All during Tatooine’s long double-day, Jawa lookouts stood atop makeshift stools, gazing out upon the baked sands, looking for any scrap of metal or signs of Sand People or Imperial stormtroopers or hostile smugglers. Upon glimpsing any potential threat, the pilot would swerve in a different direction and increase speed, locking down blast doors and shuddering with fear, hoping that the adversary would not pursue them. Het Nkik had never heard of even a krayt dragon striking something as big as a Jawa sandcrawler, but that did not stop the Jawas from living in terror.
Now the other small hooded forms looked down upon the broad bowl-shaped valley among the dunes. Het Nkik elbowed his way to one of the overturned metal boxes so he could step up and look out across the gathering place. Though this was his third season as an adult on the scavenger hunts, Het Nkik still found the swap-meet site breathtaking.
He stared across the dazzling sand as the twin suns shone down on a swarm of sandcrawlers like a herd of metallic beasts gathered in a circle. The vehicles looked similar, though over the decades Jawa mechanics had attached modifications, subtle differences in armor and patchwork.
Originally the sandcrawlers had been huge ore haulers brought to Tatooine by hopeful human miners who had expected to make a fortune exploiting the baked wastelands; but the mineral content of Tatooine’s desert was as bleak and unappealing as the landscape itself. The miners had abandoned their ore haulers, and the rodentlike Jawa scavengers had seized them and put them to use, wandering the Dune Sea and the Jundland Wastes in search of salvageable debris. After more than a century, the sandcrawler hulls had been oxidized to a dull brown and pitted by the abrasive desert winds.
Their sandcrawler had arrived late, as Het Nkik had feared. Two days ago the pilot had taken them deep into a box-ended offshoot of Beggar’s Canyon where the metal detectors had found a slight trace of something that might have been the framework of a crashed fighter’s hull. But instead they had found only a few girders rusted away to flakes of powder. The oxidized debris was worthless, but before the Jawas could leave the narrow canyon, an early-season sandwhirl had whipped up, trapping them in a blinding cyclone of sand and wind. Strapped to the walls of their living cubicles, the Jawas had waited for the storm to blow over, and then used the powerful engines to plow through the drifted sand.
Though they had arrived at the swap meet late, there still seemed to be a bustling business. Far below, other Jawas scurried about like insects setting up the bazaar. Het Nkik hoped he could still find something worthwhile to trade.
Standing on their metal stools, the pilot and the chief lookout called across to each other, discussing the final sandcrawler count. Het Nkik calculated quickly with his darting yellow eyes and saw that they were not the last to arrive. One of the other vehicles was missing. Some of the Jawas around him speculated on what misfortune might have overtaken their brethren, while others consoled themselves by pointing out that even if the goods had already been picked over, they would have a new batch to inspect when the final vehicle arrived.
As the pilot guided the sandcrawler over the lip of the dunes in a switchback path down into the flat meeting area, the Jawas scurried back to their living cubicles to prep their own wares. His body wiry beneath the heavy robes, Het Nkik had no difficulty scrambling down fifteen decks to reach the stuffy cubicles.
Het Nkik slept in an empty upright shipping pod, rectangular and scarred with corrosion, barely large enough to step inside and turn around. During sleeping cycles he buckled himself to the wall and relaxed against the belt restraints where he could stare at his prized possessions stashed in pockets, magnetic drawers, and field jars. Now he grabbed the accumulated credit chips and barter notes he had earned during their great scavenger hunt and darted toward the main egress doors.
Faced with the magnitude of the great bazaar, the Jawas worked together as an efficient team. They had set up their merchandise dozens of times during their half-year trek, stopping at every moisture farmer’s residence, every smuggler’s den, even Jabba the Hutt’s palace. Jawas didn’t care where they sold their wares.
Down in the bowels of the sandcrawler, Het Nkik scurried among the merchandise, tweaking the barely functional droids and servo apparatus. Jawas had an instinctive feel for machinery and electronics, knowing how to get a piece of equipment functioning just well enough to sell it. Let the buyer beware.
The deserts of Tatooine were a veritable graveyard of junk. The harsh planet had been the site of many galactic battles over the centuries, and the dry climate preserved all manner of debris from crashed ships and lost expeditions.
Het Nkik loved to fix and recondition broken things, energized by his ability to bring wrecked machines back to life. He remembered when he and his clan mate and best friend Jek Nkik had stumbled upon a crashed fighter. The small fighter had blown up, leaving only fragments—nothing even a Jawa could salvage. But digging deeper, they had found the burned and tangled components of a droid—an E522-model assassin droid that had seemed hopelessly damaged, but he and Jek Nkik vowed to fix it, secretly scrounging spare parts from the storehouse in the Jawa fortress.
Their clan leader Wimateeka had suspected the two young boys were up to something and watched them closely, but that only made them more determined to succeed. Het Nkik and his friend had spent months in a secret hideaway deep in the badlands, piecing together tiny components and servomotors, adding new instruction sets. Finally the assassin droid stood emasculated of murderous programming, purged of all hunter-seeker weapons and all initiative to cause violence. The E522 functioned perfectly, but as little more than an extremely powerful messenger droid.
Het and Jek Nkik had proudly displayed their triumph to Wimateeka, who scolded the boys for such folly; no one would want to buy a reprogrammed assassin droid, he said. But Het Nkik could tell from the not-quite-controlled rush of scent that Wimateeka also admired the young Jawas’ brashness. Never again had Het Nkik believed common wisdom about what Jawas could not do.
He and Jek Nkik had surprised themselves by selling the repaired assassin droid to the tusk-faced Lady Valarian, Jabba the Hutt’s chief rival on Tatooine—a very risky trade that brought them even more scolding from Wimateeka. Lady Valarian was a tough customer; and the one time she had felt cheated, the only remains of the hapless Jawa traders were a few tattered brown cloaks found in the Great Pit of Carkoon where the voracious Sarlacc waited to devour anything that came within reach. Het Nkik had no idea what had happened to their reprogrammed assassin droid, but since Lady Valarian had not come after them, he presumed the huge Whiphid smuggler queen must have been satisfied.
Two years ago, Het and Jek Nkik had been separated upon reaching their age of adulthood, sent out to do scavenger duty away from the Jawa fortress. In a few years, sandcrawler crews would swap clan groupings and arrange marriages; but for the time being Het Nkik saw his friend only during the annual swap meets.
Now he had credit chips in his barter pouch, he had merchandise to trade—and he looked forward to seeing Jek Nkik.
The sandcrawler ground to a halt in the demarcated area set aside for their clan subunit. When the cargo doors opened, Jawa teams scurried to haul out the repaired droids, scraps of polished hull-metal plates, appliances, and primitive weapons they had found among the sands. The Jawas’ motto was not to look for uses in a salvaged piece of garbage, but rather to imagine someone else who might find a use for it.
Jawas bustled about setting up tables, awnings, credit display readers. Others gave a last burnish to the exoskeletons of clanking mechanical servants. A few tried to look nondescript, hiding emergency repair kits inside their cloaks in the event that their wares unexpectedly stopped functioning before a sale could be confirmed.
Power droids lumbered down a ramp, little more than boxlike batteries walking on two accordioned legs. Harvester droids and ’vaporator components were set up and displayed; Jawa salesmen took their positions proclaiming the quality of their wares. A few lucky ones rushed off to be the first to snoop among the items for sale or trade by other clans.
Around the perimeter of the rendezvous flat, Jawa sentries stood with image enhancers and macrobinoculars, searching for any sign of approaching threat. At the slightest suspicious sign, the Jawa clans would pack up their wares in a flash to vanish into the endless dune wilderness.
Het Nkik looked around but could not locate Jek’s sandcrawler.
After finishing setup procedures, he took his turn to look at the other wares. In the bustling melee, he smelled the stinging sweet scents of hundreds of Jawas keyed up with excitement. He felt the baking suns’ heat on his brown cloak, he heard the cacophony of squeaking voices, the rumble of sandcrawler engines. Electronic motors ratcheted and choked, missing beats until Jawa mechanics effected quick fixes in hopes that none of the potential customers would notice. He wandered among the huckster tables, his excitement soured by the fact that Jek’s sandcrawler was not there.
Het Nkik saw his clan leader, old Wimateeka, discussing something in hushed tones with the clan leader from an outlying Jawa fortress near the human settlement of Bestine. Het Nkik could smell the concern, the fear, the indecision. Wimateeka was so alarmed he didn’t even try to mask his odors.
Het Nkik sensed bad news. Wimateeka was whispering, for fear of sending the rest of the Jawas in a panicked flight. With a feeling of dread, Het Nkik drove back his impulse to run back to the security of the sandcrawler and pushed forward to interrupt Wimateeka. “What is it, clan leader?” he asked. “Do you have news of the last sandcrawler?”
Wimateeka looked at him in surprise, and the other clan leader chittered in annoyance. Normal protocol among Jawas held that younger members did not approach their clan leaders directly, but went through a labyrinth of family connections, passing a message up through higher and higher relations until finally it reached its target; answers came back down through a similarly circuitous route. But Het Nkik had a reputation for sidestepping the rules.
“Clan leader Eet Ptaa was telling me of a Tusken attack on his clan’s fortress,” Wimateeka said. “The Sand People broke in and attacked before the Jawas managed to flee. Our brethren will never return to their ancestral home. They lost all possessions except what they could throw into the sandcrawler.”
Het Nkik was appalled. “If the Jawas were inside their fortress, did they not fight? Why did they just flee?”
“Jawas do not fight,” Wimateeka said. “We are too weak.”
“Because they don’t try,” Het Nkik said, feeling his temper rise. His body scent carried his anger to both clan leaders.
“We would have been slaughtered!” Eet Ptaa insisted.
“Jawas are too small,” Wimateeka said. “Sand People are too warlike.” The old clan leader turned to the other, dismissing Het Nkik. “This young one has a reputation for speaking without thinking. We can only hope his wisdom will grow with age.”
Het Nkik swallowed his outrage and pushed for an answer to the question that concerned him most. “What about my clan brother Jek Nkik? Where is the last sandcrawler?”
Wimateeka shook his head so that his hood jerked from side to side. “We have lost all contact with them. They sent no explanation of their delay. We are concerned. Perhaps the Sand People attacked them, too.”
Het Nkik scowled. “We can’t simply run and hide all the time, especially now that the Imperials are growing more aggressive. We could all work together. Many small ones can make one large force. Now that the Jawas have gathered for the swap meet, clan leader, will you discuss my ideas with them?”
Wimateeka and Eet Ptaa tittered with nervous laughter. Wimateeka said, “Now you’re sounding like one particular human moisture farmer I know! He wants Jawas and humans and Sand People to work together and draw maps separating our territories.”
“Is that such a bad idea?” Het Nkik asked.
Wimateeka shrugged. “It is not the Jawa way.”
Het Nkik felt as if he were talking to a droid with its power pack removed. Nothing would ever change until the Jawas saw how things might be different—until someone set an example.
He walked along between the tables, kicking up occasional billows of dust. The smell of roasted hubba gourd made his mouth water. Looking up, he searched the rim of the dunes for any sign of Jek Nkik’s sandcrawler. As he passed a table from the Kkak clan, he heard a conspiratorial whisper, unlike the entreaties by other merchants.
“Het Nkik!” the Kkak clan member said, clicking the hard consonants and sharpening his name.
He turned and saw the other Jawa reach beneath his table to a private stash of wares. “Are you Het Nkik?” he repeated. “Of Wimateeka’s clan, the one who is always talking about empowering the Jawas, about making us fight? Hrar Kkak salutes you and offers an exchange of wares.”
Het Nkik felt a ribbon of cold inside him like a long drink of rare water. “I am Het Nkik,” he said, letting suspicion curl through his body odor. It was good to let a salesman see healthy skepticism. “The opportunity for exchange is always welcome, and the time for opportunity is always now.”
“I have something for you,” the tradesman said. “Come closer.”
Het Nkik took a step to the table, and now he was honor bound to listen to the sales pitch. The Kkak clansman looked around furtively and then hauled out a blaster rifle, scarred but magnificent. A Blastech DL-44 model, more power than Het Nkik had ever held in his own hands.
He took a step backward in alarm and then forward in fascination. “Jawas are forbidden such weapons,” he said.
“I have heard rumors of such an Imperial decree from Mos Eisley, but I have received no confirmation of it,” the salesman said. “We of the Kkak clan have been wandering the far fringes of the Dune Sea, and sometimes communication of such things takes a long time.”
Het Nkik nodded in admiration of the smooth excuse. “Does it function? Where did you get it?”
“Never mind where I got it.”
Het Nkik felt ashamed for his breach of Jawa protocol. “If I’m going to purchase this …” He removed his pouch of barter credits, knowing instinctively that he had to have the weapon. He wanted it no matter what the consequences—and the salesman knew it, too. “I need to know if it works.”
“Of course it functions.” The salesman popped out the power pack. “You’ll see that the charge is on three-quarters.”
Het Nkik saw that it was a standard power pack of the type that could be used in many sorts of equipment. “Let me try it in that portable illuminator,” he said, “just to make sure.”
Both of them knew Het Nkik could not fire the blaster with all the other Jawas present. The Kkak salesman slipped the power pack into the portable illuminator and switched it on. A bright beam stabbed skyward toward the two suns. “Satisfied?”
Het Nkik nodded. “My resources are meager, though my admiration of your wares is great.”
The two haggled over price for an acceptable amount of time, though the price didn’t change much. Het Nkik hurried away with only a few barter credits left to his name—but the proud owner of a highly illegal blaster hidden under his brown robes. For the first time in his life, he felt tall. Very tall.
He spent the rest of the swap meet looking for his comrade Jek Nkik, but the last sandcrawler never arrived.
After the swap meet disbanded, the sandcrawlers toiled across the Dune Sea in different directions, laden with new treasures each clan had obtained through hard bargaining.
After an hour of relentless jabbering, Het Nkik convinced the pilot to detour along the path Jek Nkik’s vehicle might have taken, to see if they could discover what had befallen the missing Jawas. They headed toward the outlying moisture farms among which his clan mate’s group often traded.
Het Nkik worked in the engine room, coaxing the faltering reactors to function for just a few more months until the storm season when the sandcrawlers would be parked next to Jawa fortresses in the badlands. Wimateeka’s old mechanics would have to give the ion pumps and the reactors a full overhaul. Het Nkik’s companions were much more focused on their tasks now that the swap meet was over.
At about midday, the lookout sounded an alarm. He had seen smoke. Normally the sight of burning wreckage made Jawas ecstatic at the possibility of a salvage claim, but Het Nkik felt a deep foreboding; none of the others noticed the change in his scent.
He left his post and took the lift platform to the bridge. In front of the wide viewport, he climbed on an overturned equipment box and stared. The smoke grew thick. His heart sank inside him as if he had just lost all his possessions in a bad trade.
He recognized the oxidized brown metal of an old ore hauler’s hull, the trapezoidal shape. The sandcrawler had been assaulted, blasted with heavy-weapons fire, and destroyed.
Het Nkik knew his friend and clan brother was dead.
The lookout chittered in terror, expressing his fear that whatever had struck the sandcrawler might still be around to attack them. But the pilot, seeing the enormous wealth of unclaimed salvage, overcame his uneasiness. He used the comm unit to transmit a message to Wimateeka’s fortress, establishing his salvage rights.
Greasy tatters of smoke curled up in the air as the sandcrawler descended toward the destroyed vehicle. Het Nkik felt a resurgence of anger bubble within him. He recalled how stormtroopers had assaulted Jawa fortresses for practice. He thought of Eet Ptaa’s settlement raided by the Sand People. Yet again, someone bigger had attacked helpless Jawas, perhaps out of spite, or for sport, or for no reason at all.
The only thing Jawas ever did was take their beatings, flee, and accept their helplessness. Nothing would ever change until somebody showed them another way.
He thought of the blaster he had purchased at the swap meet.
The pilot brought the sandcrawler to a halt facing the best escape route if attackers reappeared. The hull doors clanked open, and the Jawas scrambled out, ducking low for cover but eager to dash toward the treasure trove of scrap. The pilot scrambled forward to apply a claim beacon to the ruined sandcrawler, warning away other scavengers. Jawas swarmed into the half-open door of the wreck, scurrying to see what treasures had been left undamaged.
Several Jawas squealed as they realized they were not alone by the damaged sandcrawler. A bearded old human in worn but flowing robes stood off in the shade beside two droids that he seemed to have claimed for himself. He had built a small, crackling pyre. Het Nkik sniffed, smelled burning flesh; the old man had already begun the ritual disposal of Jawa carcasses in the purging flames.
The human raised his hands in a placating gesture. Some of Het Nkik’s cousins speculated that the old human had killed the other Jawas, but Het Nkik saw this was obviously absurd.
A protocol droid walked stiffly beside the old man. Its gold plating was a bit scratched, and it had a dent in the top of its head; but all in all the droid seemed to be in good functioning order. The other droid, a barrel-shaped model, hung back and bleeped in alarm at seeing the Jawas. Het Nkik automatically began to assess how much he could get in trade for the droids.
The protocol droid said, “I offer my services as an interpreter, sir. I am fluent in over six million forms of communication.”
The old man looked calmly at the droid and made a dismissive gesture. “Your services won’t be needed. I’ve lived in these deserts far too long not to understand a little of the Jawas’ speech. Greetings!” the old man said in clear Jawa words. “May you trade well, though I sorrow for your tragedy here today.”
Three Jawas bent close to the rock-strewn ground and spotted bantha tracks. They set up a wail of panic, suddenly convinced that the Sand People had declared an all-out war.
But something did not seem right to Het Nkik. He looked at the tracks, at the crude weapons fire that had struck the most crucial spots on the enormous ore hauler. He sniffed the air, sorting through layers of scent from molten and hardened metal to the burning stench of bodies, to the heated sand. He detected an undertone of plasteel armor, fresh lubricants, a mechanized attack, but he could find none of the musty smells of the Tusken Raiders or the dusty, peppery scent of their banthas.
Het Nkik pointed this out, and the other Jawas snapped at him, impatient, as usual, with his contradictory views. But the old man spoke up for him. “Your little brother is right. This was an Imperial attack, not a strike by the Sand People.”
The others chittered in disbelief, but the old man continued. “The Imperial occupying forces would like nothing better than to see a war among Sand People and Jawas and human moisture farmers. You must not allow yourselves to believe their deceptions.”
“Who are you?” Het Nkik asked him. “How do you know our funeral customs, and why have you claimed no salvage for yourself?”
The old man said, “I know of your customs because I try to understand the other people who share my desert home. I know the Jawas believe that all their possessions are forfeit to the clan at death, but your bodies are borrowed from the womb of the sands, and their elements must return to pay the debt you owe for your temporary life.”
Some of the Jawas gasped at his eloquent recital of their own intensely private beliefs.
“If you understand us so well,” Het Nkik said brashly, “then you know that no Jawa would ever strike back at a Tusken Raider, even for such a blatant assault as this. The Jawas are all cowards. Nothing will make them fight.”
The old man smiled indulgently, and his pale blue eyes seemed to bore through Het Nkik’s robe, seeing deep into the hooded shadow of his face. “Perhaps a coward is only a fighter who has not yet been pushed far enough—or one who has not been shown the way.”
“General Kenobi,” the golden droid interrupted, “Master Luke has been gone far too long. He should have had ample time to get to his home and back by now.”
The old man turned to the Jawas. “Your salvage claim is safe here, but you must warn the others of the tricks the Imperials are playing. The garrison in Mos Eisley has just been reinforced with many more stormtroopers. They are searching … for something they will not find.”
The two droids stood huddled together.
“But the Prefect and the Imperial Governor will continue to foster turmoil between the Jawas and the Tusken Raiders.” Then the human turned and looked directly at Het Nkik. “The Jawas are not powerless—if they do not wish to be.”
Het Nkik felt a lance of fear and realization strike through him. A memory returned to him like a stun bolt. He recalled with the vividness of a double desert sunset a time—less than a year before his coming of age—when he had scanned a crashed T-16 speeder out in the rocky twists of an unnamed canyon. Wanting to claim the salvage for himself, Het Nkik had not asked for Jawa assistance, not even from Jek Nkik.
When he found the ruined vehicle, he spotted a young human male sprawled dead on the rocks, thrown there by the crash. Apparently, the T-16’s repulsorlifts had been unable to counteract a sudden thermal updraft; the landspeeder had crashed and skidded, leaving a knotted tongue of smoke in the otherwise empty air.
Het Nkik had pawed at the mangled controls, ignoring the broken body that had already begun to attract moisture-seeking insects from crevices in the rocks. He had suddenly looked up to discover six young and vicious Tusken Raiders, their faces swaddled with rags, hissing through breath filters. They were angry, ready for a heroic adventure they could tell about around the story fires throughout their adulthood. The Sand People raised their sharpened gaffi sticks and uttered their ululating cries.
Het Nkik knew he was about to die. He could not possibly fight even one of the Sand People. He was unarmed. He was alone. He was small and defenseless—a weak, cowardly Jawa.
But as the Sand People attacked, Het Nkik had found the T-16’s still-functioning security system, and triggered it. The sonic alarm sent out a pulsating screech loud enough to curdle dewback blood. Startled by the noise, the Raiders had fled.
Het Nkik had stood trembling in his brown robes, paralyzed with fear and astonishment. It took him many moments to realize that he alone had scared off the Tusken Raiders. A weak Jawa had driven back an attack by bloodthirsty Sand People!
It had been a warming revelation to him: Given the right equipment and the right attitude, Jawas could be different.
And now he had a blaster rifle.
“I know we are not powerless,” Het Nkik said to the old man who continued to watch him, “but my clan members do not realize it.”
“Perhaps they will,” the old man said.
As the other Jawas scrambled over the wrecked sandcrawler, Het Nkik knew what he had to do. He went to the pilot and forfeited his entire share of salvage in exchange for a single functional vehicle that would take him alone across the desert to the human spaceport … where the Imperials were headquartered.
• • •
Het Nkik’s sand vehicle broke down twice on his trek to the sprawling, squalid city of Mos Eisley. Standing under the pounding heat of the suns as the burning wind licked under his hood, he managed to use his skill and meager resources to get the vehicle limping along again over the rocky ground.
Inside his cloak the DL-44 blaster felt incredibly heavy, cold and hot at the same time. The weight inside his chest seemed even heavier, but burning anger drove him on.
On the dust-whipped streets of Mos Eisley, Het Nkik kept the sand vehicle functioning until he spotted another Jawa—a member of a distant clan who had been in town for some time—and offered the used-up vehicle for sale. Though he drove a poor bargain, Het Nkik did not expect to live long enough to spend the credits; but his nature forbade him giving anything away.
On foot, Het Nkik trudged through the rippling midday heat, clutching the blaster close to his chest, looking at languid creatures dozing in adobe doorways waiting for the day to cool. The streets were nearly deserted. He walked and walked, feeling his feet burn; the pale dust caked his garment.
He knew what he intended to do, but he didn’t quite know how to go about it. He had a blaster. He had an obsession. But he had yet to find a target—the right target.
He noted an increased Imperial presence in the city, guards stationed by docking bays and the customs center; but no more than two at a time. Het Nkik knew that life was cheap in Mos Eisley, and killing a single Imperial trooper would not cause enough uproar. He had to go out in such a blaze of glory and heroism that the Jawas would sing of him for years to come.
In the town center he found the large wreck of the Dowager Queen spacecraft, a mess of tangled girders, falling-apart hull plates, and all manner of strange creatures, vagrants, and scavengers lurking inside the hull.
To Het Nkik it looked like the perfect place for an ambush.
His instincts told him to feel helpless, but he firmly squashed those thoughts. He had the strength, if only he could find the will to make an example of himself. It could change the lives of Jawas forever … or he could just get himself foolishly killed.
Panic welled up within him as he considered the folly of an insignificant Jawa planning something so preposterous. He wanted to hide in a shadowy alley. He could wait for darkness, scurry out of the city and find someplace where he could be safe and cower with the other Jawas, afraid of every threatening noise. Afraid to fight …
Bracing himself, Het Nkik slipped inside the bustling cantina right across the dirt thoroughfare from the wreck of the Dowager Queen. Conflicting scents overwhelmed him: strange smells of a thousand different patron species, chemicals that served as stimulants for an untold number of biochemistries, the smell of amorous intentions, of restrained violence, of anger and laughter, food and sweat. Strains of music drifted out, a mixture of noises chained to a melody.
He had credit chips. He could get a stimulant, something to help him focus his thoughts, brace up his courage.
Het Nkik moved with quick steps down the stairs, hugging the shadows, trying not to be noticed. Deep inside the folds of his garment he gripped the precious blaster. He placed a credit chit on the bar counter, straining to reach the high surface. He had to repeat his order three times before the harried human bartender understood what he wanted. Nursing his drink, Het Nkik hunched over a tiny private table, smelling rich volatile chemicals wafting from the surface of the liquid. The scent was just as intoxicating as the drink itself.
He tried to plan, but no thoughts came to him. Should he resort to a spontaneous action, an angry gesture, rather than a methodically orchestrated seenario? His plan required no finesse, merely a large number of targets and the element of surprise. He thought of the burning Jawa corpses at the wrecked sandcrawler and the old human hermit who had given him the courage.
He felt a warm rush of surprise as the old hermit entered the cantina with a young moisture farmer. The bartender made them leave their droids outside; at another time Het Nkik might have plotted a raid to steal the two unguarded droids, but not now. He had more important things on his mind.
The old hermit didn’t notice him, but Het Nkik took his appearance as a sign, an omen of strength. He gulped his drink and sat up watching the old man talk to a spacer at the bar then to a Wookiee, and when the moisture-farmer boy got into trouble with one of the other patrons, the old man came to the rescue with the most spectacular weapon Het Nkik had ever seen, a glowing shaft of light that cut through flesh as if it were smoke.
Seeing the lightsaber made him suddenly doubt his mere blaster. He pulled out the weapon and held it on his lap under the table, touching the smooth metal curves, the deadly buttons, the power pack snapped into the end. He was startled by another creature joining him at his table: a furry, long-snouted Ranat who smelled of dust and eagerness to make a trade.
Jawas and Ranats often competed with each other in the streets of Mos Eisley. The Jawas tended to roam the empty areas of sand, while Ranats stayed within populated areas. They traded at times, but generally viewed each other with suspicion.
“Reegesk salutes Het Nkik and offers an exchange of tales or wares,” the Ranat said in the formalized greeting.
Het Nkik was in no mood to talk, but he made the appropriate response. Sipping his drink, listening to the Ranat chatter about his wares, he tried to find a way to gather his own courage. But when the Ranat offered him a Tusken battle talisman, he suddenly sat up and listened.
The Sand People were great warriors; they fought creatures many times their size, slaughtered entire settlements, tamed wild banthas. Perhaps a Tusken charm could give him the advantage he needed after all. And what did he have to lose?
The Ranat seemed to realize how much he wanted the talisman, so Het Nkik offered a high price—provided he could pay a few credits now and the rest later—knowing full well that he would never be around for the second installment.
Against his better judgment, Het Nkik passed his blaster surreptitiously under the table so the Ranat could look at it. With the talisman in his hand and the blaster rifle under his fingertips, facing the burning intensity in the Ranat’s eyes, Het Nkik felt inspiration return, felt his need for revenge. He thought again of his clan brother Jek Nkik, how the two of them had done the almost impossible, repairing the assassin droid—and then he remembered the smoking wreckage of the sandcrawler.
Imperials had done that. Imperials had attacked other Jawa fortresses. Imperials continued to tighten their grip on Tatooine. Perhaps his gesture would stir up not only the Jawas, but bring about a general revolution. Then the planet could be free again. That would be worth any sacrifice, would it not?
A loud explosion and a sudden commotion across the cantina startled him. He wanted to duck under the table, but he whirled to see a human sitting at a booth. Smoke curled up from a hole in the table in front of him and a strong-smelling Rodian lay slumped on the table. Het Nkik was paralyzed for a moment in terror, though the Ranat seemed amused at the Rodian’s death. Het Nkik stared as the human slowly got up, avoiding the dead bounty hunter and tossing a coin at the bar.
Life was indeed cheap in Mos Eisley, but he wanted to sell his own for a high price. Other Jawas in the cantina scrambled to claim the corpse; at another time he too might have fought for his share of the remains, but he let his brothers take what they needed.
He looked down to see the Ranat fondling his DL-44 blaster, and Het Nkik snatched it away. He sensed determination and enthusiasm pouring through his muscles. The intoxicant buzzed through his brain. The weapon felt light and powerful in his hands.
He would never be more prepared.
Without saying good-bye to the Ranat, he took the blaster, squeezed the Tusken battle talisman, and scuttled out of the cantina, across the bright streets to the wreckage of the Dowager Queen.
As soon as he was there, Het Nkik knew he had been meant to do this. Pressing the blaster against his side, he scrambled up the hot metal hull plates of the wreck, finding handholds and footholds to get himself to a higher position, a good place to fire from.
His pulse pounded. His head sang. He knew this was his time. His entire life had been focused toward this moment. He found a shaded place. A good spot for his ambush.
A line of stormtroopers on patrol rounded the corner, marching toward the cantina as if searching for something. They marched in lockstep, crushing dust under their white heels, intent on their goal. Sunlight gleamed from their polished armor. Their weapons clicked and rattled as they walked, their helmets stared straight ahead. They walked quickly, coming closer and closer.
He counted eight in a row. Yes, eight of them. If he, a single weak Jawa, could mow down eight Imperial stormtroopers, that would be the stuff of legends. No Jawa could forget that their brother, Het Nkik, had struck such a blow against the Empire. If all Jawas could do the same thing, the Empire would flee from Tatooine.
He clutched the blaster. He bent down. He watched the stormtroopers approach. His glowing yellow eyes focused on them, and he tried to determine the best plan of attack. He would strike the leader first, then the ones in the middle, then behind, then back to the front in a sweeping motion. There would be a shower of blaster bolts. It would take them a moment to discover his location. For some of them, that would be a moment too long.
There was even the ridiculously small chance that he could kill them all before they managed a shot in his direction. In the ruined ship he had a bit of cover. Maybe he could survive this. He could live to strike again and again. Perhaps he could even become a Jawa leader, a warlord. Het Nkik, the great general!
Stormtroopers stepped in front of the ship, looking toward the cantina, not even seeing him. Arrogant and confident, they ignored the Dowager Queen.
Het Nkik gripped the blaster. His knees were ready to explode, springloaded, waiting, waiting until he couldn’t stand it a moment, an instant longer—and uttered a chittering ululation of rage and revenge in a conscious imitation of a Tusken cry. In his life’s single moment of glory, so close to the end, Het Nkik leaped up and swung the blaster rifle at his targets.
Before they could even turn in his direction, he squeezed the firing button—again, and again, and again.