Star Wars_ Shatterpoint - Matthew Woodring Stover [64]
He says such things defiantly, as if daring me to hurt him for it.
As if I ever would.
The older girl, Keela, has the most serious injury. In the steamcrawler's tumble down the gully, she was thrown from her seat. She has a skull fracture and a severe concussion. I was able to salvage a spare medpac from the 'crawler before it went over the precipice. She's in no grave danger, now, so long as she remains quiet and gets a few days'
rest. The medpac had a new bone stabilizer, so Terrel's arm should heal nicely. The younger children-Urno and Nykl and the brave little girl Pell-have nothing worse than a few bruises, and scraped hands and knees from scrambling up the landslide.
So far.
I have not bothered to maintain my pretense of belonging to the guerrillas, though I have also avoided explaining who I really am. The children seem to have decided that I'm a bounty hunter, since I don't
"act like a korno"-which is to say, I haven't tortured and killed them, as they were all half expecting, based on the tales they've heard from their parents. As they were all half expecting despite being alive right now only because I saved them. They have decided, based on their vast experience of bounty hunters-courtesy of countless half-cred holo-dramas-that Besh and Chalk are my prisoners, and that I'm going to deliver them to Pelek Baw for a big reward.
I have not disabused them of this notion. It's easier to believe than the truth.
But what should be merely a childish fancy has become unexpectedly complicated and painful; even the kindest illusion will often cut deeper than any truth. One of the younger boys-rather arbitrarily-decided that I must be "just about the greatest bounty hunter there is." A six-year-old's instinctive reaction, I suppose. Soon, he got into a heated discussion with his brother, who insisted that "everybody knows" Jango Fett is the greatest living bounty hunter. Which led the first boy to ask me if,' am Jango Fett.
I cannot help but wonder: if I had told them I'm a Jedi, who might this boy assume I am?
I was saved from answering by a scornful declaration fromTerrel."He ain't Jango Fett, stupid. Jango Fett's dead. Everybody knows that!"
"Jango Fett is not dead! He is not!" Tears began to well in the little boy's eyes, and he appealed to me. "Jango Fett ain't dead, is he? Tell him. Tell him he ain't dead."
At first, all I could think to say was "I'm sorry." And I was. I am. But the truth is the truth. "I'm sorry, but yes," I told them. "Jango Fett is dead."
"See?" Terrel said with terrible thirteen-year-old scorn." 'Course he is, stupid. Some stinkin' Jedi snuck up behind him and stabbed him in the back with one of them laser swords."
Somehow this hurt even more. "It didn't happen that way. Fett was...
killed in a fight."
"Tusker poop," Terrel declared. "No stinkin' Jedi could've took Jango Fett face to face! He was the best."
With this I could not argue; I could only contend that Fett had not been stabbed in the back.
"What d'you know about it? Was you there?"
I could not-still cannot-bring myself to tell them just how there I had been.
And I cannot properly describe the wound Terrel's tone has opened within me: the way he says stinking Jedi tells me more than I want to know about what Depa has done to our Order's name on this planet. It was not so long ago that every adventurous boy and girl would have dreamed of being a Jedi.
Now their heroes are bounty hunters.
The line of steamcrawlers has halted half a kilometer below us-where the lava wash took out the track. This won't stop them for long; when the cliff collapsed, it made a natural dam across the break. In the hours since the eruption, I would guess that the lava has penetrated the rocks and dirt, and cooled enough to stabilize the slide. Intelligently cautious, they're testing its integrity before attempting to cross. But I know they'll make it. Then what will I do?
It