Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [37]
“What are they looking for?” Oola asked as they hustled up a narrow alley.
“Not what. Who. From the way they searched us, they’re looking for a person.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Don’t ask. I’m off schedule now,” he grumbled, forgetting to condescend and speak pidgin. He bundled them into a wheelless craft with three aft-mounted engines. Oola claimed the back seat. “Fortuna’s going to be busy for more than an hour. We’ll have to—” His testy words faded under engine noise.
Oola stared over the side of the craft as Rudd steered across the ugly little town. It was all aboveground, not sensibly nestled in solid rock. Already she felt homesick. Debris lay heaped alongside square buildings the same ugly orange as Tatooine’s sand. Rudd steered around several turns, until Oola would’ve gotten lost except for her unfailing sense of the suns. If you couldn’t orient yourself on Ryloth, you could die before your time. “Just a little farther.” Rudd stroked Sienn’s leg as she sat in the front seat beside him. “And we’ll—whoops.” He’d been decelerating. Abruptly he sped up again and raced around a corner.
“What was that?” Oola asked. She craned her neck to look back. Nothing interesting showed.
“Visitors outside Jabba’s town house. Not the kind I want to show you girls to. Let me think.” Moments later, he braked the craft beside a sizable pile of debris. Metal spars and hull plates lay tangled with shredded cloth shrouds: evidently two airships had collided over Mos Eisley, crashed, and been preserved in Tatooine’s dryness … except for their removable parts. Those were long scavenged, judging by the sand that drifted through holes in what remained. “Out,” said Rudd. “Out.”
“Here?” Sienn’s lekku wriggled in confusion. It was a natural gesture their teachers had taught her to emphasize, just as Oola had learned to swing her lekku in free, wild arcs.
“Yep.” Rudd gave Sienn a shove that sent her over the side. Oola vaulted down with a long, lazy flip.
Rudd followed. He poked at a long metal engine shield, slid a spar aside, and finally lifted a large sheet of yellowish cloth. It might have once served as a sail, attached to a long straight boom and ripped into weathered yellow strips at one end. “Climb under this. Wait till I get back. Don’t make a sound. Mos Eisley is full of predators.” He mimed a toothy growl and pretended to claw her. “Predators eat nice little girls. Put your hoods up.”
Sienn had already rolled into the sail’s stuffy shade. “Get in here, Oola,” she whispered. “Hurry. Someone might see you.”
Oola crawled close, curling her lekku close to her neck inside the hood. She couldn’t let sand scratch their sleek skin. That would hurt … and it would decrease her value to Bib’s famous employer.
It was finally sinking in: they were on the same world as the fabulous Jabba the Hutt. Master Bib Fortuna had spun mouth-watering tales of Jabba’s wealth and splendor—his legendary palace, his exquisite taste in food, females, and other luxuries. Oola imagined soft cushions and costumes that fluttered in every breeze, composed solely of artfully draped dancing veils. Her handsome new master would be suave, powerful, and very deeply impressed with her … a station worth the insignificant price of the freedom she’d flung aside.
But she lay hiding in a pile of garbage. Sienn sniffled behind her.
Several minutes later, Oola blinked a runnel of sweat out of one eye. She’d changed her mind about Tatooine: it was hotter than Ryloth. Her vision blurred in heat that shimmered the air. An ill-defined shadow seemed to detach from the nearest building and flow toward the rubbish heap.
That was ridiculous. Even at midday, shadows didn’t—
Sienn grabbed Oola’s leg. “Oola,” she whispered. “What’s that?”
Oola blinked. It wasn’t an hallucination, but a black-robed … person. Mos Eisley is full of predators. Even Rudd traveled cautiously here. Oola