strung with catwalks, bridges, and crow's nests from which the defenders
could fire on those below. Tiny lights were entangled in the overhanging
masses--lanterns, sodium flares, and here and there an occasional string of
jerry-built worklights against whose sulfurous glare Luke saw moving figures
darting among the jackstraw shadows. Arvid brought the speeder to a halt on
the crest of a ridge above the little box canyon in which the gun station
stood, per haps a hundred meters from the walls. From this vantage point
Luke watched the little band of attackers run back and forth along the
curving bastion, firing up into the superstructure with hard, clear bursts
of proton light.
"Yep, that's Gerney Caslo." Arvid had the macrobinoculars indispensable to
any frontier dweller to his eyes, adjusting them as he foLlowed this figure
or that. "Gerney's one of the biggest water sellers between here and Hweg
Shul. Without him we'd never have gotten those old pump stations going
again. The Oldtimers just let 'em rot, except for the ones in their
villages. See that gal there with the white hair? That's [lmolly Darm. She
ships out Spook crystals, the long green-and-violet kind you find in
clusters up in the deep hills.
They make some kind of cross-eyed optical equipment that's supposed to make
flowers grow better on worlds with K-class suns or something. She works for
an outfit in Hweg Shul--three suborbitals and they can pretty much ask their
own price on whatever they can slip past the gun stations."
He lowered the macrobinoculars, clearly in no particular hurry to join the
attack, though Luke noticed he kept the Merr-Sonn Four propped where he
could lay hands on it at seconds' notice. "She'll be the one to ask about
getting yourself on a ship." His breath plumed in a diamond cloud. "Her or
Seti Ashgad, in Hweg Shul itself. She can wire through for information to
the head office in town, if you'd like."
Below them a faint cheer went up. A small group of what looked like armed
farmers and townspeople scrambled onto a speeder that had been backed up to
the wall itself. Even without macrobinoculars, Luke could see the extra
buoyancy tanks strapped underneath the speeder's hull.
The attackers must have waited until the evening winds died to use antigrav
transport at such a distance from the ground.
There must have been some kind of primitive deflector shield on it as well,
for the rocks and lances hurled down from above missed it with a suspicious
persistency. One of the crouching figures did something to a stripped-down
control console, and the speeder began to rise straight up along the wall.
Luke wondered if the defenders were sufficiently wise in the ways of
deflector shields to lower a man on a rope below the rising speeder's level.
"You think Mistress Darm might be able to trace an incoming passenger for
me?"
"Don't see why she wouldn't. Just about everybody who comes in, comes
through Hweg Shul."
From the jackdaw mess of timbers overhead a rope extended. Like a plumb bob
on a line, a single lankily graceful figure in grubby crimson, tattered
leather, and what appeared to be pieces of very old storm-trooper armor
rappelled casually down the permacrete face, far enough from the speeder
with its little gang of attackers so that the curve of the wall offered a
shadow of protection against laser bolts.
Only a perfect shot could have struck the solitary defender, and none of
those on the speeder was that good. The bolts seared wild off the hard black
wall, leaving long dirty scars but no chips. The Grissmaths had built well.
At precisely the right moment the defender wrapped an extra bight or two of
line around one arm and, herting a beltful of grenades in the other hand,
kicked away from the wall in a long, flying parabola, coming pendulum like
close to the underside of the makeshift assault platform.
The men on the platform fired wildly down at the bloodred form swinging
toward them through the darkness, but the rail of the speeder impeded their
aim.
The timing was flawless. The lone defender hurled the belt of grenades up
into the speeder's undercarriage, with an expert flick that tangled it with
the emergency balance gear, then struck the wall and kicked off again,
swooping on the end of the line back into darkness.
The line was already shortening, those hidden in the superstructure pulling
the grenade thrower in. The platform headed groundward, seconds ticking
away--the crew bailed at eight meters, jumping outward, and the speeder
exploded in a rain of red-hot shrapnel two meters above where the attackers'
heads would have been had anyone still been standing underneath.
Searchlights flowed out over the gravel from the direction of the open
plain. Lances and arrows glittered in flight, and a smattering of red laser
fire stitched the night, accompanied by the flat snaps of pellet guns.
Focusing his mind through the Force to pierce the darkness, Luke saw a
ragged agglomerate of men and women approaching in speeders and on speeder
bikes, more poorly dressed than the assault forceswhom he presumed to be
Newcomers--but without the raffish tatters of the Therans.
They were far more numerous than either of the other groups, however, well
over a hundred strong. The Newcomers turned, yelling and brandishing their
weapons, and Luke could make out curses and accusations on the harsh night
air. Very few shots were fired once the two sides joined. It seemed more
like an enormous brawl, men and women pulling and pushing, hitting with
clubs or wrenches or hoes, grappling and punching and pulling
hair---enemies, he thought, but enemies who know they'll be meeting one
another in the same food store tomorrow morning.
"Are those the Oldtimers?" he guessed, and Arvid nodded sourly.
"Cheesebrained idiots," muttered the younger man. "What business is it of
theirs if we bring in ships or hOP. If we trade our crops for pumps and
processors and transportS. They can live like animals if they want to, but
why make us do it?"
Disgusted, he shoved over the levers, backed the speeder, and headed down
the ridge. Luke thought, Maybe because it's their planet?
Over his shoulder he saw forms standing among the struts and timbers of the
gun station's superstructure, silhouetted against the glare of the lights
the thin, gawky, graceful form of the crimson warrior and the lean, tiny
shape of what looked like a youngish man with long, braided hair. Behind
them, a thin lance of cold green light stabbed straight upward from the
station's main gun, losing itself in the sheer distance of the night
overhead.
A moment later a second light shot up from far over the hills. Tiny in the
infinite distance above, a bright pin of fire burst in the sky.
"Sithspawn," whispered Arvid, with a quick glance over his shoulder, as
quickly reverting to the ground ahead. "Something's coming in."
The attackers around the wall ceased to shove and curse. They, and the
Oldtimers who had taken them from the rear, only stood in sullen groups,
pantin
g like dragons in the cold. They glared upward as the gun station's
cannon flared again.
"Got one of them," muttered Arvid, braking to a halt at the foot of the
ridge. "Didn't get them all, though. Gerney'll know what stuff came in and
what they'll be charging for it."
Seti Ashgad's ship, thought Luke. Beyond a doubt the attack on the gun
station had been coordinated--in who knew how many places--to better the
populist leader's chances of a safe return.
With the tiny explosion above the atmosphere, the erstwhile attackers began
to curse and threaten again, striking out for no purpose now, but out of
frustration and anger. Arvid shoved the accelerator again in bitter silence,
and Luke's eyes were drawn back to the little braided-haired man on the wall
and the tall, thin form beside him, before the jutting boulders and crystal
chimneys hid the gun station from sight.
Where the last, scattered lines of rocks gave way to the emptiness of the
starlit sea bottoms, Arvid's speeder overtook the retreating clumps of
combatants, men and women in sand-scoured orange or yellow or green
worksuits, rifles over their shoulders or blasters hanging at the utility
belts that were the hallmark of frontier dwellers throughout the Outer Rim.
Now and then speeders or bikes carrying Oldtimers would pass them and the
Newcomers would curse and shake their fists, but no further hostilities
occurred.
Some distance from the gun station, Luke saw a line of immobilized speeders
drawn up, most of them in little better shape than Arvid's Aratech. The
Newcomers were clambering into them. One man called out, "That you, Arvid?
and a woman's voice added, "Where have you been, child?" It was an elderly
lady who reminded Luke a little bit of his aunt Beru, with Beru's
weather-worn complexion and air of quiet competence.
"And where'd you get that speeder? She badly stove up?"
"Belongs to Owen here, Aunt Gin." Arvid waved at Luke. "He--uh--took it in
trade for an injury."
Aunt Gin guided her clapped-out swoop over to pace Arvid's vehicle, smiled
slowly as her expert eye, even in the intermittent wobbling glare of the
sodium lamps, identified the probable origins of the craft strapped onto the
cargo deck. "Did he indeed. And what do you do, Owen."
"I'm a speeder mechanic, on my way through to Hweg Shul." Luke stowed
Arvid's proton blaster back under the seat. "Arvid was kind enough to offer
me a lift out of the hills when her tanks packed up."
He tucked his gloved hands under his armpits against the cold.
"Owen'll be staying with us the night, that okay, Gin?" asked the
young man, with every sign of the kind of casual friendship Luke had never
managed to achieve with his own guardians. "I thought I'd take him on to
Hweg Shul in the morning."
"Sounds dandy," agreed Gin. "Always provided he doesn't want to stick around
and work awhile. We can't pay much," she added to Luke, "but with your board
found, you can save a little for the city. We can use the help."
"We coulda used the help an hour ago," grumbled a thickset man with a beard
like a bantha in molt, coming up on the other side in an antediluvian
SoroSuub Skimmer.
Under the jarring movement of the speeders' lights, Luke was aware that the
ground had changed. He felt the shift in the air first, the easing of the
bitter dryness. Now the gravel gave place to thin, dusty soil, and he
glimpsed the hardy plants familiar to colonial terraformers Bolter,
snigvine, and the ubiquitous clumps of balcrabbian. Ahead of him, against
the dim, ambient light of a settlement, a line of scrubby button-wood trees
reared their tattered crowns; and beyond those the weird, floating shadows
of tethered antigray balls, bristling with smoot, brope, and what smelled
like majie. After the silence of the wastelands, the soft grunts of blerds
and the burble of grazers sounded weirdly loud; The droning of mikkets and
the harsh, clattering flight of nocturnal nafen.
Great, thought Luke. mikkets and nafen. He wondered if there was a planet in
the galaxy that those bad-tempered brown pests hadn't managed to colonize,
growing from minuscule juveniles hiding in packing-material and
necessitating inevitable rounds of inoculations, since they always picked up
some kind of local disease, mutated it, and fed it back to colonists and
indigenous ecosystems with their bites.
"What was that all about?" he asked ingenuously, wondering how much power
Ashgad actually had.
The heavyset man made an angry gesture. "We just got sick and tired, that's
all. We got word a planet-hopper was sending in a shipment of chips and
droid parts, and them motherless Therans were out to blast them because that
brainhaired Listener of theirs told them droids were against nature or
something. Blast it, if they got a problem with droids, we'll import
Bandies--they're tough enough to do the work of droids, if you keep 'em fed,
and just smart enough to pick and haul but don't make trouble. t hear we can
ship 'em in cheap from Antemeridian."
"Oh, come on, Gerney," interrupted Gin irritably. "If the Listeners don't
like droids, you bet they'll object to slaves!"
"Bandies aren't slaves!" flared Gerney Caslo. "That's like calling a cu-pa a
slave! You're as bad as my cousin Booldrum! Bandies breed like sand bunnies,
work like droids, and they're better off with somebody taking care of 'em."
"That's a matter of opinion."
"Oh, just 'cause some bleeding-heart rigged a big-deal Sentience Test .
"Bandies are sentient," said Luke quietly. "They may not be terribly bright,
but that's their privilege. I've met humans who weren't terribly bright,
either. They deserve better than slavery."
"And who're you?" Gerney glared belligerently across at the slight,
beard-stubbled form sitting relaxed on the speeder bench in the near
darkness. His voice turned heavily sarcastic. "You another one going to
lecture us on the motherless rights of motherless sentience the motherless
galaxy over?"
"Anyway, that wasn't all of it," put in Aunt Gin quickly. She looked up at
Luke, "You come in off the hills, pilgrim. You didn't happen to meet
Therans, did you. See them up to anything?
"Besides stripping my ship of everything but the space tape, you mean?
He grinned, understanding her attempt to head off a quarrel, and she grinned
back. Silver space tape was a standing joke among colonists, as it had been
among the Rebels Everything was held together with it, from household
appliances to--allegedly--the Imperial Palace on Coruscant.
"No, it's serious." The woman Arvid had pointed out as Umolly Darm moved
over carefully to the side of Caslo's skimmer, small and trim and pretty
with an ion cannon slung casually on her shoulder. She must have muscles
like a rancor, thought Luke. "About six hours before the attack there was a
. . . I don't know what. I've heard the Oldtim-ers talk about Force storms,
and this must have been one of them.
Weirdest thing i've ever seen. Every tool came flying off the bench,
whirling around the r
oom like a cyclone. Boxes of crystals heaving and
scattering rocks and jumping off the shelves. Down the street at the grocery
it was like somebody hit the shelves with a dirtmover.
Tinnin Droo and Nap Socker were working at their smelter; it leapt up like a
live thing, they say .... They don't think Socker's going to pull through,
he was burned so bad."
Her blue eyes narrowed, troubled and darkly angry. "They always did say the
Listeners had some kind of special power. I never heard of this kind of
thing, never. They--the Oldtimers--say there used to be these Force storms,
a hundred, two hundred years ago."
"The Oldtimers say," said Gerney Caslo with a sneer. "Like they say their
Healers can cure a man of everything from petal fever to a broken leg just
by laying hands on him." He looked Luke up and down again.
"When'd you meet these Therans, friend. And what was they up to?"
Luke shook his head. "They attacked me with lances and pellet rifles when my
ship came down, that's all," he said. "I escaped."
Six hours before the attack on the gun station.
At the very hour when he had used the Force to get himself away.
I knew it. The all-encompassing presence of the Force, the terrible strength
of it, moving like wind around him, imbuing the very air.
He had caused the Force storm.
Yoda's voice came back to him, the rough green fingers pinching his arm. Its
energy surrounds us and binds us You must feel the Force around you, between
you and the tree, the rock, everywhere.
The old Jedi must have known. Callista must have known. He had thought he
would be able to track her through the Force with his mind, but now he
wasn't sure. He wasn't sure he could track anyone or anything on this world,
with the Force like an intensity of light blinding his mind.
"Well, what's done is done," said Gin philosophically. "Talking won't better
it."
"We can festering better it by breaking a couple of heads," snarled Caslo,
and pulled the skimmer away, the blue-white glare of the Aratech's lights
flashing across the shiny black housings of his blaster rifle.
"They better be festering careful in the future, that's all I can say.
When Ashgad gets back from this conference of his . . ."
"Gerney's mouth's always been the biggest thing he's got," explained Gin,
swerving her bike to avoid the tether of an antigray ball the size of a