The next night Caeben and Arra sat in The Rainbow's End, the cantina they'd found when first arriving in Rismyne. It was possibly the most badly misnamed establishment either life-long traveler had ever encountered, which was saying something.
Each morosely nursed a drink. Their attempts at finding a mechanic for the right price had been unsuccessful. Caeben was beginning to fear that they were stuck on Crenellia until they could earn enough credits for repairs.
Arra growled a question, and Caeben looked up. "What time is it?" he repeated absently.
The young Sylelian glanced at his wrist chrono, stared harder, shook it, tapped it, pounded it on the table, and shook his head. "Ah, Sithspawn—my chrono is broken."
Arra rumbled a comment.
"Yeah, my eyes are telling me it's time for bed, too. What do you say we head back to the Wind?"
Outside the cantina, night was coming on. Caeben took off his chrono and knocked his knuckle against it, then shook his head again. Arra growled for him to hurry.
"Excuse me, sir. Do you need your chrono fixed?"
Caeben looked up, then down, and found himself staring into the blue eyes of a street boy. Arra woofed a short bark of surprise.
"What?" Caeben managed.
The boy's eyes were intelligent and straightforward. With a thin hand he pushed over-long dark brown hair away from his face, revealing a bruise on his cheek. Arra saw other dark bruises and livid welts through the rends in his tunic.
"I can repair your chrono." The urchin indicated the tool kit on his hip. "Five credits."
It was less than a shop would charge, so the pilot handed the chrono over. The boy took out a small multitool, opened the device, glanced at the inner workings, then set to work. Within a minute he closed the chrono and handed it back.
Caeben looked it over, found it to be in perfect working condition, and reached into his credit pouch. The waif's skill and speed had left him speechless.
Arra looked the boy over with discerning eyes. His uncannily correct judgment of character had often served him well where he existed at the edges of the law, and he saw here a street vrelt who refused to act like one.
The boy seemed at ease in his surroundings, showing that he'd survived the streets for some time. But he hadn't begged and he hadn't tried to steal Caeben's credit pouch, which Arra knew by painful experience was very easy for most street boys. He had repaired the chrono with a competence and swiftness beyond the best of the trade, and he had asked less than a reasonable price.
Arra also saw that the young alley waif was swaying with hunger or pain, his thin body covered with welts and bruises. The Wookiee's compassion was aroused.
Caeben handed over twice the asked price. "What's your name, kid?"
The boy looked up, startled. "Jae Tallen, sir." He glanced at the credit chit in his hand, then tried to give it back. "I'm sorry. I don't have enough change."
"Keep it, Jae. You look like you could use a good meal."
The youngster nodded slowly.
Arra turned to his human friend. Ask him what else he can repair, he said in the barking, growling Wookiee tongue.
"Anything," Jae said at once, startling them both. "Data-logs, comlinks, electronic journals, droids, speeders, comps, even hyperdrives. Anything made of metal and wire, I can fix. I don't really know how, but it's always been that way for me—if I can see it, I can repair it."
And you understand Wookiee, Arra rumbled in surprise.
"Yes. Also Sullustan, Rodian, gutter argot, a few others."
Caeben looked at the boy with growing interest. "Ever fixed a ship?"
"No . . . but I think I could, if I was asked to."
"Would you be willing to work for us on our ship, the Sylel Wind? We need a mechanic."
Jae's face suddenly fell. "I can't go beyond Tairan Street." Pointing at the device on his wrist they had taken for a chrono, he explained its function.
You are a slave? Arra growled, anger in his soft brown eyes.
The waif's shoulders slumped. "I wasn't until Kaltyk took over this street, about a year ago. I got along pretty well until then, working in a repair shop and sleeping on the street. But that big vrelt and his gang demanded 'protection' fees of all the shop owners, and made my employer let me go so I could work for Kaltyk, begging and picking pockets." He glared at the stun bracelet. "This keeps me from leaving, but I can't beg and I won't steal." Jae glanced at Arra, hard determination in his eyes. "I just won't. Kaltyk beats me every day because I never reach my quota, and I'm always hungry, but I will not steal. I just won't. And that's that."
Caeben had lost interest the moment he learned Jae could not go with them to work on the Wind. "Come on, Arra. Let's get back and get some sleep."
Arra did not like leaving the boy; he had grown firmly attached to him even in such a short time. He asked Jae why he could not take off the stun device. Surely he had the tools and mechanical ability.
"Attempts at removal activate it," Jae wearily replied, leaning against the wall. His brief anger seemed to have left him more drained and weak than ever, his trembling limbs unable to support his slender weight. "And then the tracking function kicks in. Every time I've tried, when I woke Kaltyk was there and beat me again."
"Come on, Arra, let's get back to the Wind."
The Wookiee reluctantly let himself be dragged down the street, frequently glancing back. Jae had sunk down to the pavement and hidden his face in his arms, despondently leaning on his knees. He looked very small and vulnerable, alone and lonely.
At the end of the street Arra turned, wanting a last glimpse of the unusual street boy. At the sight he grabbed Caeben.
"What—?" The young pilot swung around. "Oh."
A group of large youths had converged on Jae's position. He was standing, slight figure dwarfed by the youths, pinned between two of them and facing the leader. The leader fingered a few credits in his hand, among them the one Caeben had given the boy.
Even from down the street they could hear the young gang leader. "Huh, fourteen credits. Better than yesterday, but still not quite thirty. You aren't holding out on me, are ya? You know I'll kill you slowly if you try that, right?"
Arra growled and started heading back, hands moving to the blasters he kept on both hips. Caeben followed. He was cursing softly, but Arra's affair was his affair, no matter how foolhardy. "Arra, this isn't our fight. Leave it alone, will you?"
Arramylian growled the negative and asked whose fight it was then as he slipped into cover behind a fruit stand. Caeben followed. They silently traveled toward Kaltyk's harsh voice. "Okay, comrades, hold him down."
Arra barely suppressed a roar of rage as he heard the sounds of leather striking flesh, sharp cracks that seemed to bruise the air. They went on for more than a minute—a seemingly eternal minute—as the crew of the Wind sneaked steadily nearer. Caeben thought he heard a small, strangled whimper in Jae's voice, but it was so quiet, he wasn't sure.
At last Arra burst out of cover with a Wookiee roar, Caeben at his heels. At the sight of the enraged two-meter creature, all muscle and fur, the youths scattered—all except Kaltyk, whom Caeben grabbed in a choke hold. The Sylelian's blaster muzzle dug through the young tyrant's spiky green hair and into his temple.
"Drop the belt," Caeben growled, his slow-coming compassionate ire roused by the sight of blood on Jae's back. The boy still lay on the wet pavement, momentarily too weak and ill to rise.
Kaltyk muttered a strangled curse as he dropped the bloody strip of reptiloid leather. Caeben's arm around his throat made breathing a task that required effort and concentration.
Arra knelt by Jae and helped him sit up, his anger gone as quickly as it had come. He wurfled a concerned inquiry, gently drawing the boy's tunic back over his abused body.
"I'll be all right," Jae said shakily, gripping Arra's hairy arm for support. He glanced warily at Kaltyk. "At least until you leave. He'll hurt me worse than ever tomorrow."
"You're coming with us," Caeben said, making up his mind. Arra barked his thanks and gently ruffled Jae's dark hair.
"He can't!" Kaltyk blustered despite his constricted throat. "Only I know the code!"
The boy's grip tightened on Arra's arm, and the Wookiee growled, protectively leaning a little closer to the shaking youngster.
"So tell it to us." Caeben's voice was dangerously quiet, and he tightened his hold on the gang leader's throat.
"No!"
The blaster muzzle dug harder into Kaltyk's scalp. "You don't have a choice, vrelt."
Kaltyk swallowed in sudden nervousness. Being a coward, he didn't have an alternative. "All right," he said through gritted teeth. "Beneath that protrusion is a button. Push it."
Jae pressed the button Kaltyk pointed at and a panel flipped open, revealing a tiny numpad.
"Enter 35562," Kaltyk said, resentment seething in his eyes and voice. "The stun bracelet will open into two halves."
The boy entered the code with a small, trembling hand, and the device fell off his arm. Jae gasped in relief and leaned against Arra's furry side, barely able to believe his good fortune. "I'm free," he whispered.
"Free as the wind." Caeben grinned. He released Kaltyk, keeping his blaster trained on the belligerent youth. "Get outta here." The young man fled, fury in his hard features.
Arra stood and helped Jae to his feet, leaving the stun bracelet where it had fallen. Jae suppressed a groan. His entire body ached fiercely and relentlessly, and his stomach was tied in several anguished knots.
"Time to get back to the Wind," Caeben said with satisfaction, replacing his blaster in its holster. "We've found our mechanic."
Arra rumbled a worried question.
"Yes, I can walk," Jae said faintly.
They had made it two blocks when Jae collapsed but was caught before hitting the ground by Arra's strong hands. Back on his feet for the moment, he stood swaying, blue eyes clouded and dazed.
"Kid, are you all right?" For once, Caeben was pulled out of his self-contained shell. Genuine concern softened his features.
Jae's arms wrapped around his torso, and he bent almost double in pain. "I—I can't go on," he murmured slowly, head spinning.
Arra growled and scooped the shaking urchin up in his arms. Quickly, to the Wind, he said. We have med facilities there.
Caeben didn't argue, but swiftly led the way.
The lights and shadows of the Rismyne streets whirled around Jae, and he leaned on Arra's furry warmth and closed his eyes. Pain and hunger faded into black, leaving one thought.
I am free.