Startled, I looked toward the voice.
Lanky build, threadbare gray jacket, dust-covered dark trousers, scuffed boots, a shock of silver-white hair.Sian.Pointing with a half-eaten meat skewer into the desert, following the main road.
I righted myself, not quite trusting my eyes.
“At least, that’s the direction their caravan went,” he added, and pulled another piece of meat off the skewer. Noola, on his shoulder, purred. “That the direction you’re going?”
I looked at the compass again. “Yes. I think.”
He finished the skewer. “Perfect,” he said with a mouth full of food. “Let’s go.”
“But…”
“I know.” He sighed dramatically. “I have great timing.”
“And you’re very modest about it,” I said.
He smiled and dug into his jacket, pulling out a ticket-chip. “Jee riqsi. I know. You think I can convince the Advozse over there to exchange this ticket for his speeder?”
A ticket off-world? I had begun to tell him that I could do it myself, that he didn’t need to change his plans for me, when he gave me a knowing look. So I settled for, “You don’t have to.”
“You helped me on Coruscant,” he replied, pulling a small satchel with food and supplies over his head. A present from Veebee, no doubt. He must’ve grown on her like a wart. “Let me repay the favor.”
I just hoped he wouldn’t end up regretting it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Incident
Turned out, the Advozse refused to trade a few hours on their speeder for a ticket off-world, so Sian put a hand on their shoulder and looked them in the eye. The Advozse tensed, brows wrinkling all the way up to their cranial horn. I couldn’t see their eyes—Advozse had very sensitive vision, so this one wore goggles—but the rest of their face cracked with abject horror, and then…
Nothing.
Their shoulders slumped. Their arms went lax.
Sian patted their shoulder and muttered,“Aplot, ma bukee,”and shoved the ticket into their pocket anyway. Then he motioned for me to follow him to the speeder.
“What did you do to them?” I asked, worried, as he climbed onto the vehicle and Noola scrambled into his jacket. He fastened her in to make sure she was safe and secure.
“You know when I asked if you were okay lookinginto my eyes, when I tried to hypnotize you?” he replied, flicking a switch to turn over the engine. It sputtered to life, levitating the speeder off the ground. “That’s kinda what’s supposed to happen. People normally get disoriented. Confused, sometimes. Or worse…”
I glanced back at the Advozse, who had pushed up their goggles and was rubbing their eyes. “Will they be okay?”
“Yeah, it’ll wear off. They’ll just have a headache for a minute. We’ll bring their speeder back,” he promised, and told me to get on.
I motioned for him to scoot back. “No, I’m driving.”
“You?”
“I promise I’m a better driver than you,” I replied, and it didn’t even take him a second to think about it before he scooted back in the seat. I climbed up front. I tested the brakes and the acceleration, revving the engine to get a feel for the speeder, and then I told him to hang on. He wrapped his arms around my middle tightly, and I ignored the way my stomach flipped at his touch as I whipped the speeder around and set off down the dusty main road into nowhere.
The sandcrawlers couldn’t have been too far ahead.
And luckily, they weren’t.
The problem was, however, getting them to stop.
“Get out in front of them!” Sian yelled above thewind. “And park sideways! They won’t want to run you over!”
