An Old Hope
by ardavenport
- - - Part 1
"Hhhhssssssss!"
The Bith musician threw his cards down on the table in frustration. It was not a large pot, but the Bith did not like to lose. He had been losing all night and now gambled away his last credits.
The Human spacer and her Twi-asfel first mate laid their hands down in disgust. The Yebeck crew member scowled and conceded defeat as well.
Ben Kenobi's cards only added up to twenty-two, but everyone else was too high or too low, so the hand was his.
His face in shadow under the hood of his robe, Ben scooped up the pot as the Bith, hoping for a chance at redemption, began checking his empty pockets for more cash. Ben did not like to press anyone to their limits on his forays into Mos Eisley, but when he had sensed that all the other players were out of bounds he'd called 'sabaac' and ended the round. He would not hinder anyone else's bad choices and the Bith would be paid again tomorrow after the next night's gig. Ben's hut needed a new power unit.
Tatooine's economy of gambling was easy pickings for a Force-user. Especially in a galaxy where everyone took for granted that all the Jedi were gone.
The other players looked disappointed when Ben excused himself, but did not object. He had not won too much. He always made sure he did not win too much or too consistently in any one place. This was his forth, and last, game table for the night.
The Bith sadly bid farewell to them and his money as well. The others just grunted in reply, hardly looking at him. There had been no introductions. This gambling house did not encourage association, only the swift and intoxicating risks of winning and losing and the resulting exchange of cash. His three other games had been in cantinas and cafes where the casual conversation and slightly drunk players had supplied him with gossip and news of the galaxy.
The news was bad as usual. There was talk everywhere of a Rebellion forming to challenge the Empire, but little evidence that it was militarily viable. The small rebellions that flared on oppressed planets were ruthlessly suppressed by the Emperor's clone legions and loyal governors installed over defeated populations.
It had been that way for ten years now. It was almost routine.
Ben made his way through the dark, grim gambling room, weaving through the tables where the *faces of determined gamblers huddled around their illusionary lights of quick winnings.
He presented his chips to the check-out droid, precisely stated the amount and watched the currency being ejected from the droid's black, armored body. Even though he immediately saw that it was the right amount, he carefully and visibly counted it. Money was always watched on Tatooine, a wariness of being cheated being part of the local etiquette.
Tucking it away in his belt pouch and pulling his worn brown robe more tightly around him, he left the gambling house. The night sky above was black, clear and spattered with stars. The outside air was fresher than the confines of the gambling house, but still rank with the stinks of the low-tech city that had been cooking all day in the desert heat. Looking both ways on the darkened street, he saw no ruffians or thieves looking for an easy victim. He turned toward the cheap hostel where he would stay the night before buying his supplies in the morning and leaving to return to the Jundland Wastes. . . .
. . . and stopped.
It was the Force. A subtle intuition, an impulse halted his steps. When he was younger, he might have ignored it, or not noticed it, but his years of isolation in the desert had sharpened his senses. There was something else for him to do.
Ben turned the other way and strode down the street. He cleared his mind of thoughts of huts and power units and supplies and left it open to this new calling to act. It was something new. He did not sense the presence of his Master and guide, Qui-Gon Jinn, who was now part of the Force, having transcended his own death in these strange times.
He left the darkened side street and entered a wider and better lit boulevard with some foot and speeder traffic. Ben waited for a Hutt transport, big as a barge, to glide past before crossing to a row of cantinas and eateries. He walked, his steps even, his head down and hooded. He passed one. . . . then two. . . . and stopped at the third establishment.
This was the one.
He walked down into the sub-level main room of the cantina, shouldering past three exiting patrons before stopping in the entry archway. There was a lighted bar and surly bartender on one side of the room along with a buffet of unappetizing looking food. There were tables and chairs in the middle, booths along the opposite wall. The gambling was in the back, opposite from the entry archway. Most of the patrons were there.
Ben went to the bar and asked for a drink. He got a cup of one dollop of distilled algae alcohol and the rest was water. On a desert world like Tatooine, water was no less prized a liquid than anything else. He slapped a coin on the bar and went to the back. He wasn't interested in any refreshment, but not getting a drink was conspicuous.
Scanning the back, he saw mostly sabaac games at small tables and a couple of large pit tables of chance. His eyes locked on the largest one and he knew why he had come.
Someone else was using the Force at that table.
He pulled his hood lower over his face and found a place between an Askajian woman and a furry white Talz. The Askajian glanced his way to see if he was anything interesting. Sipping his drink, he gave her no reaction and she whispered to her companion, a Human woman in a metallic blue jumpsuit.
None of his nearest neighbors were the Force-user and he scanned the rest of the players around the pit.
"Place your bets, and we spin the wheel," the game master called. Most people already had their gambling chits on their chosen squares in the pit. The largest pile was in front of a young Human male with sparse black beard and mustaches. Ben watched his face, then his hands.
The wheel spun.
Closing his eyes, the young man held his hands out with palms toward his pile. Gamblers had their own rituals and this one was no more notable than any other like the Gamaspian at the end of the table who looked cross-eyed at the wheel while silently moving her lips.
The young man lifted one hand just a little as the wheel slowed. Ben felt the Force, fitfully connecting to the wheel. It stopped on his shapes.
The other players grumbled and scowled. No one else at the table pit had bet on any of the winning shapes, so everyone's bet went to the young man.
He was winning too much.
He was becoming conspicuous.
Some of the other players were looking hostile. The gamblers on Tatooine did not believe in other people's luck. Or the Force. They believed in cheating, which was handled severely by the Hutts. It hardly mattered that it could not be proved, the accusation alone was dangerous.
The young man re-stacked his piles of chipped green, blue and brown chits, preparing to slide them onto another chosen square. Ben's right hand lifted slightly from the edge of the table pit.
The stack of blue chits toppled over. The young Human's hands froze. The taller stack of green chits toppled over.
"Choose your bet. Choose your bet."
Ben felt waves of fear spreading outward from across the table pit. The young man had sensed his presence.
"Now we spin. Spin for money."
The young man hastily pulled his chits back to him, out of the field of play. His neighbors scowled at him as he clumsily grabbed the chits, clutching them to his body to get them all. Waiting until he had gone to the money minder, Ben before moving away, leaving his drink behind on the edge of the pit. No one noticed him. But he noticed the Askajian and her companion left the table before him.
The young Human tucked his winnings into a belt pouch. His clothes were simple, clean and not too badly worn; plain pink shirt, brown pants and a long dark brown coat. He kept looking around, running a nervous hand through his straight black hair. Ben could see that he had lost his focus and had no chance of identifying the people watching him, not even the dangerous ones.
The two woman exchanged predatory smirks. The Askajian was broad in the shoulders, her forearms meaty and strong, her six pendulous breasts cupped in the same maroon leather that covered her hips and powerful legs. She could easily overpower the young man. Her companion was thin and agile, with a face lined with experience. They knew how to hunt and they enjoyed it.
They followed the young man out of the cantina. Ben followed them.
They were a three element line. The young Human at the head, nervously leading, though he did not have enough Force-sense to know it. The two women, their thoughts and intentions on taking their prey's winnings. And one Jedi Knight in hiding, wondering what the Force had brought him.
This man was not a Jedi. He did have Jedi traits, the awareness of the Force and some ability that allowed him use it. And the learned calm and detachment with which he used it was a Jedi art. But even a Jedi apprentice would have had more confidence in his actions. He clearly had some Jedi training, but how? Were their other Jedi who had escaped the purge, finding other potential Force-users and training them? Could it be possible? But if so, why was this one out on his own, vulnerable on a dangerous world?
Though he was fearful now, Ben sensed no darkness from the young man. Thankfully he was not Sith trained and he seemed an unlikely candidate for it. Ben sensed his potential, but not any serious power or desire for it. This man wanted safety, and though he was doing it badly at the moment, a desire to hide drove his actions.
Completely unaware that he was being watched covetously, the young man ducked into a side alley, still warily looking around him. Perhaps he thought it was a shortcut to some refuge, but Ben knew it was a dead end. The women disappeared into the alley after him. Ben quickened his pace.
He entered the alley nearly at a run. There were only incidental lighting and deep shadows between the buildings. Sand shushed and trash crunched under his feet. He turned left and found them.
The two women had the man with his back to the wall, their shapes black on dark gray. They had blasters down, the Human woman's with a long deadly muzzle, the Askajian woman's small, compact and easy to conceal. If the young man had a weapon he had not had time to draw it. There were no windows, no doors, no chance for anyone else to see, if any residents of Mos Eisley ever bothered to take note of any criminal activity happening to someone else.
"Those winnings are too rich for the likes of you," the Askajian woman drawled, her snub blaster pointed at the man's middle, her free hand out. Trapped, the man had his arms up defensively, looking from one to the other of the robbers.
Hearing Ben's boot steps, the Human woman turned. She did not hesitate. Neither did he.
The deadly yellow blaster bolts lit up the alley for only a few seconds, along with the blazing pale blue lightsaber that deflected them. The woman's rapid fire exploded and flashed against the sides of the buildings and into the ground, except for the last three shots. One ricochet exploded into her unprotected chest. The other two struck the Askajian, one in the stomach, the other in the head.
The eerie blue light remained as the bodies hit the ground and Ben's forward motion carried him to the young man. He brought the saber up as he stopped and shut it off. The blade light vanished. Darkness reclaimed the alley.
- - - End Part 1