“You stole my droids!” I argued.
“You stole them back!” one of the other Jawas argued, shaking their fist.
Honestly, maybe Ishouldjust jump—
“Starlight!”Sian cried.
I glanced behind me.
To my surprise, Sian had hopped on the speeder and come after me. As the crawler picked up speed, so did he. He pushed the speeder parallel to the ramp and threw out his hand. “Jump!”
Noola had no qualms about those instructions, and she scurried to my other shoulder and took a flying leap, catching herself on the speeder.
He held his hand out to me. “C’mon!”
I couldn’t make that. He kept having to dodge around rocks and debris in the road. Then again, on the other side, the Jawas came closer. The electric baton sizzled.
I squeezed my eyes closed.
Maz had said that my mom would tell me to trust myself.
So I opened my eyes and turned around, and when Sian dipped in close again, I jumped. I felt the swing of the electrified baton just miss me as I leapt. Sian grabbed my arm tightly as I crashed onto the seat, still clutching Vee’s arm, and he pulled away from the crawler quickly—too quickly. The speeder spun. I curled my hands aroundhis middle, Veebee’s missing arm securely between us, and pressed my face into his back.
Wind whipped around us. The speeder whined.
Then, suddenly, it came to a stop against an orange rock. The cloud of dust we’d kicked up swamped over us. We coughed, and he pulled his arm over his mouth. I pressed my face into his back, choking back gasps.
It was so quiet, all I could hear was my thrumming, frantic heart in my ears.
Finally, as the dust began to settle, he asked me, hoarsely, “Are you hurt?” His hands went down to mine around his waist and squeezed them tightly. “We’re alive. We’re okay.”
And we were.
He kept a tight, solid grip on my hands, letting me gather myself a little while longer, until I finally pried my arms from around his waist and eased back. I swallowed the knot in my throat and whispered, “We really need to stop almost dying together.”
“Hey, I’d rather almost die with you than the alternative,” he replied with a wink.
I was too dazed to blush, so I shoved his shoulder and muttered that this wasn’t the time for jokes. We needed to go back and get the droids. “Do you still have the lightsaber?”
He patted the inside of his jacket. “Soong eniki. I have thethingright here.”
I snorted. “That was quick thinking on your part.”
“Yours too. I’ve got tohandit to you”—and he motioned to Vee’s arm, which was still lodged between us—“we make a pretty good team.”
“A team of liars,” I pointed out wryly, remembering VB-35 and N2-0, “who probably need to go pick up their droids. Do you think those Jawas will be okay?”
Sian started up the speeder again. “They’ll be fine. Butweshould probably get out of here before they turn around and come back.”
So we picked up Veebee, who was still lying on the ground exactly where she’d slid off the ramp. With a little coaxing and a promise that I would buy her whatever ingredients she wanted—on top of that dried woodoo gizzard—for the next month, I gave her her arm back and put her onto the speeder before going to look for Entoo. The astromech droid was still on their side, blowtorch lit, livid as a gundark. We managed to calm them down enough to strap them to the back of the speeder and return to Mos Espa.
As we entered town, I dug my communicator out of my jacket to radio the ship. “Kotti, we’re on our way back,” I said, but all I got in reply was static. “Kotti?”
Veebee said, “Perhaps they’re all busy?”
“Maybe, but—oh, no.”
As we parked the speeder, a large ship rose from the spaceport into the sky. By the shape, it looked like a CR-90 Corellian Corvette. There weren’t many of those still flying, and a terrible feeling cemented in the middle of my gut.
