“You’re stealing!” cried the first Jawa, taking an angry-looking ion blaster from their robes. “We don’t like stealers!”
Think, I told myself, mind scrambling for something—anything. So I gasped in offense, slapping my hand to my chest, and feigned naivety. “I amnota stealer!”
“Aren’t you with this?” The fourth Jawa jabbed their electrified baton into Sian again as he got to his feet.There was apssst, and he jerked in pain—with a yelp—and dropped to his knees.
I winced. “I…don’t know him?”
Sian gave me a tortured look.
The fourth Jawa prepared to strike him again.
“Well!”I quickly added. “I don’t know himwell! He just wanted to…um, to make sure the droids were intact. You stopped, so we figured…”
“Hesnuckon,” the fourth accused.
I blinked slowly. “No, he didn’t,” I said, my voice strangled yet calm. “He walked up the ramp. Didn’t he,” I added as a not-question to the Jawa’s three friends. They’d all had their backs to the ramp the entire time, so they couldn’t say and ended up shrugging in answer. “See? He just wanted to see the droids.”
The fourth Jawa narrowed their eyes. “You could ask.”
Then they marched back up the ramp, grabbed a rope, and tugged at it. The arm of a crane swung out, and strung upside down from it was Veebee, an arm missing and one eye cracked. From here, I could also see Entoo inside the crawler, already half stripped of their exoskeleton, hood completely gone.
Oh, poor things.
VB-35 saw me and limply hung there, as if she’d lostthe will to live. “Oh, take your time,” she commented dully. “I will just be here, hanging around.”
“Trade?” asked one of the Jawas. “Big trade.”
Right. Big trade, and I didn’t haveanythingon me to do that with. Jawas were scavengers, so I was sure the rarer the haul, the better. So what was rarer than a cobbled-together junk droid and an astromech?
I wrinkled my nose. “You know, I think I changed my mind. They aren’t worth much.”
Veebee stared at me. “Thank you. I will remember this.”
I ignored her and cleared my throat. “Sian, don’t you have the—the—” I had to stall while I thought about what toactuallydo. “Thething?”
He stared at me from where he knelt, crispy from being shocked and dusty from being sent rolling across the ground. At that moment I could see all hope leave his eyes. “The thing,” he repeated like a dead man.
I bet he was regretting not taking that shuttle off-world instead.
“Yes, thething. Thethingwe’re going to trade. Thethingthat’s really valuable,” I insisted, trying to clue him in to play along. I didn’t care what he had—a knife, a belt buckle,something. As long as it was athing.
He gave me a long, steady look and then took a deepbreath through his nose. “Right. Thething.” He held up his hands to show the Jawas that he was going to reach for something and slipped his hand into his pocket.
Stars, I hoped it was something good and not—
Oh, void take me.
He held up the lightsaber, still wrapped in brown cloth.
“This what you were thinking?” he asked.
“Yes?” I squeaked.No.No itabsolutelywasnot. He wasn’t actually going to tradethat, 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 alittlemean, 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.
