Valia decided she had done enough housework for one day and wandered toward the kitchen. She found Velk there, looking somewhat bright-eyed and healthy again. He flashed her a grin from the table where it looked as though he had just finished a considerable lunch.
"I see you've recovered," Valia said, sitting across the table from him and tearing off a chunk from the crusty loaf of bread.
"Good as new," he said. "Whatever Qui-Gon made me drink fixed me right up. I wouldn't mind getting the recipe for it, in case this happens again. Not that it will."
"Of course not," said Valia with a wink. "What did he give you?" She helped herself to a sliver of cheese.
"I don't know, and he didn't tell me. He took something out of his belt pouch, and then went outside to forage for some herbs in the garden. Nasty-tasting stuff, whatever he brewed up in the guest-house kitchen, but it worked."
"Do you feel good enough to go out and do some shooting this afternoon?" Since it had rained yesterday afternoon they had not gone. Valia wanted to get out of the house for a while. "I could use some fresh air."
"Sure. We can go right now, if you want."
They went to Velk and Prawni's area of the house and made selections from the large arsenal that was Velk's personal collection. They slung the blaster rifles over their shoulders and gathered power cells and targets. They left the house, passing Obi-Wan in the kitchen garden. He eyed the blasters with a look of stern caution on his youthful face.
"We're just going to do a little target practice for a couple hours," Valia assured him.
"Don't go far," Obi-Wan warned them. "And don't go near..." he gestured with his head in the general direction of the hidden canisters.
"Yes, sir," she said with a grin.
Obi-Wan's face softened to a curious smile. "I thought you said once you didn't really like guns."
Valia shrugged. She unshouldered the strap and cradled the rifle, inspecting it. She caressed the handsome satiny greel-wood stock with admiration. It was decorated with an intricate design of inlaid wood and shell pieces.
"I suppose I do, but it's more of an, ahhh, artistic appreciation for the craftsmanship," she said. She was beginning to get rather attached to the piece she'd chosen. It had caught her eye at once in Velk's gun case. She was beginning to hope he would let her take this one home. Even if she only displayed in on her apartment wall, she could still enjoy it.
"She's a born Traxis. Of course she likes guns," Velk said with a nod.
Velk mounted an air swoop in an outbuilding and Valia hopped on the seat behind him, both blasters hanging from her shoulders. A knapsack full of cartridges and targets was stowed between Velk's knees. He touched the controls and they zoomed forward, jetting out of the building and toward the trees. When Valia saw which direction they were headed, she leaned forward.
"Don't you think we ought to go the other way?" Valia yelled over his shoulder into his ear to be heard over the rushing wind noise. She'd been amused by the seriousness with which Obi-Wan had delivered his warning, but she intended to heed it.
"We'll be far enough away from those things," shouted Velk back at her, steering the swoop down the long aisle between the trees. The branches whipped past in green and red blurs.
"I don't know if we should go this way. We can go anywhere to do this."
"We'll be fine!" he reassured her. Valia leaned back, not totally convinced going this direction was a good idea. There was already enough tension between her and Qui-Gon. If they happened to get too close, and cause a disturbance for him... She didn't want to run into him that way.
"Besides," Velk turned his head to shout over his shoulder. "If we're supposed to act like we don't know that stuff is out here, then we have no reason to not go this way." He slowed the swoop to turn between trees and move several rows over. "I usually go out this direction to shoot anyway. Makes sense, right?"
Valia saw his logic, but she had a feeling he wanted to stay in this area to keep an eye on things himself, if only from a distance. She wondered about Qui-Gon, how he was, and exactly where he was in this vast expanse of trees. She felt a fresh wave of sorrow over the night before, and wished both to talk to him and avoid him.
She soon put her worries aside when they started shooting. She became caught up in the simple joy of being outside in the warm sun, and the silky smooth performance of her rifle. Best of all, she was giving her brother some fierce competition. They were hitting equal numbers of flying targets.
They were taking a break to gather the larger pieces of blasted target debris out of the grass when Velk thought he saw a motion out of the corner of his eye, far down the row of trees. He turned to look but saw nothing. He squinted through the dark glasses on his face.
"What's wrong?" Valia asked.
"Thought I saw something." He shrugged and bent to pick up a blackened piece of target and fling it into a pile. "Probably just a kuodimo snacking on the trees," he concluded, referring to the brown, hoofed herbivores they had seen yesterday. "How long has it been since you've had a nice juicy kuodimo steak?" he asked, craning his head for a better look in the direction he thought he had seen the movement. If he could do a little pest control along with target practice, so much the better.
"Forever, because there's no way to make those rangy old things juicy," Valia said with a grimace.
"Wait, you don't suppose Qui-Gon would be checking up on us, do you?"
Valia looked in the direction he was searching. "I don't think so. I hope not. If he was, you probably would never see him at all."
"Well, I don't want to get into trouble with him. We're not that close to the stash anyway. Hey, how did it go with him last night?"
"Last night? Oh. Well, ahhhhh..." Valia turned away to inspect a speck of carbonization on the muzzle of her rifle. "Not quite the way I had planned."
"Oh."
"Now quit trying to distract me and break my concentration," she said lightly with a sudden grin. She teased, but Velk understood she didn't want to talk about it.
They continued to pick off the globe-shaped flying targets. The low noise of an approaching harvest team with their orchard crawler grew in the distance. Velk was sure they would be out of their way by the time they reached this area. He was still determined to get one or two more hits than his sister. The targets were getting more difficult to hit. They had programmed their flight pattern to nearly the most difficult level. It was taking longer to hit them, but for every one Velk hit, Valia hit one too. She was doing her best to hit one in flight now. She had fired three shots, but the target continued to elude her. She took a deep breath and steadied the rifle. The target swooped low, nearly to the ground. She squeezed off a shot and nearly succeeded in hitting it. She swore softly as she missed. The rifle bolt shot away down the row of trees and scorched a distant trunk.
"Hey, careful," Velk warned. Valia made a noise of disgust at herself and took aim again. The blaster fire that came straight toward them from that direction stunned them both into frozen positions. The next bolts that came zinging their way sent them diving to the ground. They lay flat on their stomachs, looking at each other wide-eyed.
"That came toward us," said Velk unnecessarily.
Valia dragged herself through the grass to get close to him, pulling her rifle with her. "Who else is out here with a blaster?"
"There shouldn't be anyone else." They were both whispering and breathing hard in fear. Being at the business end of a blaster was a shocking new experience for both of them.
"Were those deliberate shots?"
"I don't know, but I'm going to find out," Velk growled, rising to his knees.
"No, don't stand up," Valia told him. There was no way she was getting off the ground at this moment. Velk reached out to lean against the nearest tree trunk to get to his feet. Green fire leaped from the distance again and struck him squarely in the back of the hand. He cried out between clenched teeth and rolled to the ground, hugging his hand to his chest. Valia wriggled across the ground to him. She reached out to him, partly to push him the rest of the way to ground, and partly to see how badly he had been hit. Seeing no other injury, she pulled at his arm but he kept it tightly curled to his chest. She got only a glimpse of a blackened wound on his hand and an already reddening welt that covered most of the back of it. He was moaning softly, his eyes shut. Her hands started to shake as she helplessly pawed at her brother. Where was the med kit? There was no med kit. They hadn't thought to bring one with them. What was she supposed to do? All there was to put on the burn was water, and that was in a drinking bottle over on the swoop. She pulled at his hand again to get another look at it. She wasn't very experienced in treating wounds, and this one looked bad to her. She looked around fearfully, having no idea how far the shooter was from them, and wondering if they could run to the swoop and make an escape. Why was someone shooting at them, anyway?
A sound cut the air, a sound familiar to Valia's ears, but one Velk had never heard before in his life. The swish and hum of a lightsaber being ignited.
In later years, as Velk told and retold the story, his children and grandchildren would exchange fond smiles and indulgently roll their eyes. The tale would become slightly more fantastic with each telling. "Over the trees, I'm telling you," he would say. "Right over the trees he leaped, with that saber burning, bright as the sun..." His account of how he himself had bravely defended his sister would be met with more smiles, because it would strangely conflict with her sharply worded recall of events.
Valia was sure she must have blinked. That was the only way she had not seen Qui-Gon appear out of nowhere between the two nearest trees. Then all she saw was his flying hair and his back as he twisted and swung the saber this way and that, deflecting the oncoming blaster bolts. He moved out into the space between the trees, standing guard between them and the flying green bolts. The high, wild shots he ignored. They zinged through the trees, singeing branches and leaving sparks, smoke and the scent of burnt leaves and fruit in the air.
At last the firing stopped. Qui-Gon extinguished his saber and shaded his eyes to take a long look in the direction the firing had come from. Then he turned and hurried to Valia and Velk. They had sensibly crawled behind the trunk of a nearby tree.
"His hand," Valia said as Qui-Gon crouched beside them. "He's hurt."
Qui-Gon calmly removed supplies from one of his belt packs. He reached for Velk's hand and firmly pulled it away from his chest. "It's just a singed a little," Velk said with a pasted-on smile, determined to be as self-controlled as possible in front of Qui-Gon. Thus far today he had not managed to do that very well.
"A bit more than a singe, I would say," Qui-Gon said, inspecting it. "You'll likely not lose it, though," he reassured him. Velk's pasty smile faltered. He winced as Qui-Gon quickly treated and bandaged it.
"Now, to get you two out of here," Qui-Gon said. Valia heard the mild reprimand in his voice. She would be more than happy to leave this area as soon as possible.
"No," said Velk, getting to his feet but staying behind the sheltering trunk of the tree. Valia aimed a look at him that clearly called him a blithering fool.
"You both are in danger here until we catch that gunman."
"That's right, 'we'," said Velk in his most outraged landowner tone of voice, picking up his rifle again.
"I think the 'we' he means is him and me," said a voice behind him. Velk jumped and turned. There was Obi-Wan, breathing hard from his run from the house. He had not even paused long enough to answer Qui-Gon's commlink call when the shooting had begun, and had started running as though his life depended upon it. More blaster fire sizzled past them. Valia and Velk dove for the ground again. There was something random about the firing pattern, as though it was only meant to cause chaos, not hit a target. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan instantly drew their sabers and fended off the bolts.
"This is useless, I think we need to start firing back!" shouted Velk over the noise.
"Why not?" Valia reached for her rifle. She aimed for the source of the shots from her belly position. She squeezed off a few shots. The bolts coming at them only seemed to increase.
"No, Lia!" said Qui-Gon, motioning for her to stop.
The rumbling of the crawler was getting closer and the engine noise died as it came to a stop somewhere behind and to their left.
"Those harvest workers need to be warned to turn around," said Qui-Gon. "And you two get on that swoop and get out of here now." He frowned down on them and pointed back down the row where it was parked. Without another word, Velk and Valia half crawled and crouched their way to the small swoop while the two Jedi stood to block any more blaster fire. Velk and Valia chose different epithets, but used them simultaneously when they saw the swoop. The right handlebar and all the controls in it had been hit by a random bolt and were fused into a blackened mass. The vehicle was ruined. They looked at each other, imagining the look on Qui-Gon's face when they told him this piece of news. They crawled back to where the Jedi tensely stood. As predicted, a scowl hardened Qui-Gon's face as he turned around. "I told you to leave," he began.
"No can do," Velk said.
"The swoop's been hit," Valia explained. Qui-Gon's mouth tightened and he looked away for a moment, thinking of what to do next.
"This way, to the crawler," he said, gesturing for all of them to follow. Now Velk's self-preserving instincts kicked in and he could not see the sense in getting off the ground to run in the face of blaster fire. "We'll cover you," said Obi-Wan, waving them forward and ducking between the trees. He swung his saber blade in a circle with almost casual ease.
"Come on," Valia said, taking him by the arm and pulling at him. The firing had started again. They ran low to the ground, stumbling in fear as the Jedi covered their flank, deflecting one bolt after another. After crossing six rows and apparently leaving the range of the shooter, they saw the yellow bulk of the crawler through the trees. This would at least offer them some shelter, and would provide a way for all of them to get out of the field at once.
The two fruit pickers with the crawler stood uncertainly next to the last car attached to it. It was half full, and soon they could take this load out of the field. They had heard what sounded like gunfire and now here was their employer crazily stumbling out of the trees at a run with his sister and two men armed with strange, blazing swords. Was this just a continuation of last night's party, some crazy new game to amuse the farm owners and their guests? All they were out here to do was pick fruit, and do it as efficiently as possible.
Velk reached the side of the crawler first, and swung up the ladder to the cab using his good hand. The driver greeted him with a surprised but deferential tone. He could be seen speaking into the crawler's commlink after a hurried request by Velk. Velk grumbled a swear word when he ended the connection. "What few police we have are all tied up in town because of the crowds there for the festival," Velk explained after climbing back down and rejoining the group on the sheltering side of the crawler. "It might take a while for them to get anyone to spare to come out here and check this out."
"You told them there was shooting involved, didn't you?" Valia asked.
"No, I had Carilso here tell them I wanted them to stop by to check out some suspicious animal droppings in the crawler bay," Velk sneered at her.
"Well, if you didn't do so much shooting out here day in and day out, they might not be blowing you off right now," Valia countered.
"Hey, who was out there hosing firepower around with me just a few minutes ago--"
"That's enough." Qui-Gon gave both of them a stern look which silenced their bickering. Everyone now looked at him for some kind of plan of action.
"I'm not going back to the house," Velk spoke up, guessing he was going to be told to go back there for his own safety. This was happening on his land, therefore it was his problem to manage. He didn't want to be cowering while it was happening.
"You're injured," Obi-Wan pointed out. Qui-Gon's lowering brows added his own opinion.
"I still have one good hand and two good feet," Velk insisted. Valia stayed quiet, knowing she would most likely be told to get back to the house as well, which to her seemed a perfectly good idea, if they could just find a way to get there.
A hum of a revving motor in the distance caught their attention. It sounded like a landspeeder. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan exchanged a look. They knew the lay of the land here well enough to know the sound came from the place the canisters were hidden. They needed to get there as quickly as possible. They needed to get there right now.
There was no time to debate or argue about what to do. Qui-Gon quickly thought of what he needed to accomplish. Their first priority was to keep those canisters immobile. In doing that, they would hopefully catch whoever was responsible for hiding them there. But he also needed to protect Velk, Valia, and the picking crew.
The shooting had stopped, so he decided the pickers would be safe right here by the fruit cars if they didn't move. Any movement seemed to draw more fire, panicky and poorly aimed though it was. He sensed it was designed to be a screen, and not meant to kill. But all it would take to end a life would be one bolt.
"All of you, find a place to lay low until someone comes for you or tells you it is safe," he commanded the pickers. They moved to cluster at the base of a tree and sat. It looked like they were in for a long, enforced break from their work.
Qui-Gon naturally wanted Obi-Wan along with him. It would more than likely take their combined skills in capturing Jax or whoever was making off with the canisters. Velk had already declared his refusal to let someone else deal with a problem he had claimed as his own, and would prove to be an obstacle if he was ordered to stay behind. He could help as navigator out here. As for Valia, where would she be safest? He wanted her with him, he decided without hesitation. For some odd reason he took no time to analyze, that decision was the easiest of all the ones he had just made.
"We'll take the crawler. You two, get in." Velk and Valia exchanged a quick, surprised look before obeying the order. They clambered up the ladder into the cab. Velk paused on the way up. "Wait, we need to uncouple these cars before we can even think about--"
A lightning swing of a saber blade and a flash of green fire made short work of the connection between the heavy fruit harvesting car and the crawler. Velk stared in disbelief at the glowing metal and smoking remains of the coupling. Qui-Gon was already entering the cab from the other side. "In!" he ordered Velk. The young fruit farmer scrambled the rest of the way into the cab using his good hand. "Pop's going to be pissed," he moaned.
Valia had already taken the drivers' seat, seeing a way she could be helpful. "You can't drive this thing with your burned hand," she pointed out when he began to protest.
"Then let's go," Velk barked.
Valia shoved the speed control stick all the way forward. The crawler jerked ahead like a drunken bantha. She fought with the steering stick, seeking to straighten out the vehicle. The nose swung right and then left and back again. There was a sharp crackle of branches as the crawler plowed into a tree. Branches scraped the metal exterior and broke, flinging twigs, leaves and fruit in all directions. Torn leaves flew into the open window and freelas splattered against the forward windows.
"Easy, easy!" Velk yelled. "Back off on the juice!" Valia swung the crawler aside just before it could hit the tree trunk. She overcorrected and headed straight for another tree. Velk yelled something incoherent that might have contained at least half a dozen profanities as the front corner of the crawler slammed into the second tree. The vehicle shuddered, but sheer mass worked in its favor, and it kept going. The screech of wood on metal filled the cab as she swung away from the tree. A large branch snapped off and dropped heavily to the ground. Smaller branches scraped and groaned against the side of the crawler and whipped Velk's ear through the window as they snapped back. Velk swore, howling at the pain and at the damage.
"Sorry!" Valia shouted with a quick look back at her passengers. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan looked calm enough, but her brother's face was alarmingly blotched with angry red. He was gripping a boarding loop over the passenger door with his good hand and breathing hard.
"Take it easy!" she yelled to him over the rumble of the engine. "I haven't driven one of these things in over fifteen years." She wrestled with the steering handle.
"I can see that!" Velk shouted. "Don't jerk the stick so hard!"
"All right, all right!" She remembered now how touchy the steering was. "Let's see, where are the wipers?" she muttered. She found the control and touched it. Dark red freela pulp smeared the windows in curved streaks. Velk raked his good hand through his hair and made a disgusted grunt.
"Let me drive, dammit!"
"You know you can't with your hand, dammit!"
"You're too far over to the right," he complained.
"Look, if you're going to be a back-seat driver, you can just get your ass back there," she shouted.
"We have a far more pressing problem than who is driving at the moment," came a shockingly calm voice from the rear seat.
"What?" both brother and sister asked.
"If we are going to have any chance of catching that speeder which is most likely making off with those chemicals, we are going to have to move faster." Qui-Gon said, with a hint of impatience.
"And in a straight line," added Velk, with a look at Valia. She glared back. "But this is about the fastest this thing will go. There's a governor on the engine."
"Master, we can go faster on foot," suggested Obi-Wan. Qui-Gon considered this for a split second but shook his head. They would need all their physical strength to deal with subduing who they chased.
"Can the governor be disabled?" asked Qui-Gon. A smile began to dawn on Velk's face.
"Yes, it most certainly can be," said Valia. "Why didn't we think of that before?" she asked, aiming a look at her brother that accused him alone of not thinking of it. "And you know how to do it, too."
"That was a long time ago!"
"He disconnected one when he was fourteen years old and went joyriding with a bunch of his friends," explained Valia as she drove the crawler. She wondered if she or Velk was going to have to explain joyriding to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, which was something else they had probably never done in their lives. "Did he ever catch flames for that, too."
"Did I ever," said Velk with a mixed expression on his face that suggested he was remembering both the speed and thrill of the ride, and the severe dressing down he'd received from their father for the stunt.
"I'll help you do it," said Obi-Wan. Valia jerked the crawler to a stop. Obi-Wan and Velk climbed out of the cab, Velk awkwardly with only one hand. The wounded hand still throbbed in spite of Qui-Gon's dressing. It would need more attention as soon as possible.
The sound of an access hatch being opened on the underside of the crawler vibrated into the cab, which was otherwise uncomfortably silent. Valia sat still, staring out the forward windows. She listened to the sounds of Obi-Wan and Velk working and talking hastily below. She flicked away a leaf and a twig from the console in front of her and closely examined the gauges and controls as if they were the most fascinating things she had ever seen in her life. She felt Qui-Gon's eyes on her back and neck. At last there was a slight shifting and a small, deep sigh from behind her that tugged at her heart.
"We need to talk," he said very softly.
"I know," she answered without turning around.