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And they had no idea how deep into the Wastes the bounty hunter had taken them—or in what direction home might be. Their only hope was to choose a direction and start walking, in hopes that in another few hours, or another few days, they would reach the border of civilization. They chose west, at random, knowing that choosing wrong would mean death. They had no food and no water, which meant a few days might be a few too many.

On the other hand, if they survived a few days in the Jundland Wastes, without getting eaten by a krayt dragon or besieged by Sand People, they would be lucky.

They would be lucky if they made it through the night.

"We just have to keep going," Luke assured Jaxson, with more confidence than he felt.

"What do you know?" Jaxson retorted. "You don't even live here anymore.

Who are you to tell me what we should do?"

"You have a better idea?" Luke snapped.

There was a pause.

"Then we keep going," Luke said.

They walked several paces in silence.

"You got a problem?" Luke finally asked.

"Yeah," Jaxson spit out. "I'm stuck in the Jundland Wastes. In case you haven't noticed."

"I mean a problem with me," Luke said.

Jaxson just grunted.

"Because if you do—"

"I don't like traitors," Jaxson growled.

"But I told you—"

"And I don't like people who tell me what to think," Jaxson added, glaring at Luke. "Especially people who think they're better than everyone else, just because they can break orbit."

"I don't think I'm better than anyone," Luke protested.

"Coulda fooled me," Jaxson said, then quickened his pace so that Luke fell a step behind him.

Do I really act superior? Luke wondered. His eyes strayed to the lightsaber.

Whenever he wielded it, he felt special, like there was something in him that was worthy, even powerful. He'd spent so many years feeling like a nobody, on a nothing planet—and then, to discover that he was somebody, a Jedi? Maybe the only Jedi left in the galaxy? He'd be crazy not to feel special.

But that didn't mean he thought he was better than anyone else.

Did it?

They walked briskly through the moonlit desert, trying to ignore their thirst and fatigue. The night had grown as cold as the day was hot, and Luke's fingers were growing numb. Gradually, a strange, unsettled feeling descended over him.

For an instant, his senses clouded over, sheathing the world in shadow, and then the cloud dropped away, and everything was sharper, clearer than it had been before. Luke froze. He recognized that feeling.

Luke grabbed Jaxson's shoulder, gesturing for him to stop and stay silent.

Everything was thrown into sharp relief. The desert grit coating his skin, sandpapering his hands and face. The smell of the Wastes, a pungent mix of rot and death. The quietest sounds of the night screamed in his ears, separating themselves into discrete, recognizable units: the scurrying profroggs. Womp rats, feeding on a desiccated bantha corpse. And a shuffling sound.

Like footsteps, in unison, sweeping through the sand.

A muffled grunt, like the complaint of a bantha forced to carry a load heavier than it could bear.

Luke pressed himself against the wall of the nearby cliff, silently urged Jaxson to join him.

"What's wrong with you?" Jaxson hissed. "We have to keep going."

Luke shook his head.

The shuffling sound seemed to roar in his ears. How could Jaxson not hear it, not feel what was coming?

"Are you having some kind of fit, Skywalker?"

Sand People, Luke mouthed, then pointed over Jaxson's shoulder as the row of masked predators appeared on the horizon. Marching single file, each carrying a deadly gaffi stick and a rifle, trooping closer and closer to where Luke and Jaxson stood frozen, with no cover in sight. Jaxson's mouth formed a perfect

"O" of horror. He threw himself against the wall of the cliff so hard it was as if he imagined he could bore through the stone with sheer will, lodging himself inside the rock until the danger had passed.

But unless the cliff magically swallowed