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Stripping off her elaborate dancer’s headdress, she ran her fingers through her long hair with a sigh of pleasure. She’d never realized how heavy the thing was until she knew she wouldn’t have to put it on again. Splashing water onto her face, she removed most of the large, warty “beauty patches” that Jabba had thought attractive.

“I didn’t realize those were makeup,” Doallyn commented, as she did so.

“Jabba liked them. He told me they reminded him of his mother.”

Doallyn’s helmeted head moved in a slow shake. “Jabba had a mother?”

Yarna smiled at him. “My reaction exactly.”

Filling the water container again, the dancer slowly poured the cool liquid over her head and body, letting the fluid trickle over her skin.

When she finished, she found Doallyn watching her intently. His mechanical tones sounded surprised. “You’re … bigger,” he said, his helmeted head moving as he surveyed her from head to toe. “Your skin … it’s so tight.”

“Askaj is a desert world.” Yarna answered his unspoken question matter-of-factly. “My people’s bodies absorb and hoard water most efficiently.”

He nodded. “Can you live on a nondesert world?”

“Certainly,” she replied. “But when we don’t need to hoard the water, we don’t.”

“How would you look on a nondesert world?” He sounded genuinely curious.

“Thinner,” Yarna said briskly, shaking out the folds of her desert robe. She pulled it over her head, then snatched up the blankets, the old jackets, and one of the water flasks. Doallyn caught up the food and the rest of the water.

When they reached the motor pool, they saw that the supply of suitable landspeeders and shuttles was sadly decimated. Only one vehicle was left, and it was in the repair section. The mechanics who were supposed to keep the machinery running in good order were nowhere to be seen.

Another wavering shriek rose in the distance, only to be brutally cut off in mid-ululation. Yarna and Doallyn looked at each other. “Can you pilot that thing?” she asked.

He nodded.

Within moments they had loaded up the landspeeder with their provisions. Doallyn located a length of sun-shield material in a locker, and they were able to improvise a burnoose for him. They stowed the rest of the material in the baggage compartment of the vehicle.

At Doallyn’s signal, Yarna hoisted her bulk into the passenger’s seat of the speeder. It was a tight squeeze, but she made it. The guard opened the outer door to the motor pool, then, feeling the cold night air, both hastily donned the jackets.

“Let’s go,” the Askajian dancer said impatiently, when her companion remained standing beside the landspeeder.

“I should have gone back to the barracks,” Doallyn said, regarding the entrance into the palace.

“Why?”

“All I have as a weapon is my blaster, and no extra charges,” he said. “There are wild banthas out there, and krayt dragons. It’s a long way across the Jundland Wastes to Mos Eisley …”

“How far?”

“Twenty-five hundred klicks … as the shell-bat flies.”

“A what?”

“Flying reptile from my world.”

Yarna felt a flicker of curiosity. “Which planet is that?”

“Geran, Mneon System.”

Yarna glanced over her shoulder at the entrance to the palace. “Do you really want to go back in there?”

Doallyn shook his head. “No. I want to get out of here. I feel …” He glanced nervously behind him into the shadows. “I feel as though I’m being watched.”

“So do I,” Yarna said. “Let’s just go.”

Doallyn nodded, then clambered into the pilot’s seat. “I only hope that this thing was repaired before they abandoned the motor pool,” he said, and manipulated the controls. “It’s not really one of the fast, long-range models.”

The speeder eased forward, and the darkness closed in around them. Within seconds they had left Jabba’s palace behind. The vehicle picked up speed, until they were skimming the ground faster than any bird could fly.

The cold wind of their passage struck Yarna like a blow, but she was so exhilarated she scarcely felt it. Free at last! After a miserable year of insults and servitude, she was