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Chapter 8: An Uneasy Landing

Wispy tan clouds rushed past outside as the ship plummeted through the dusty atmosphere of Tatooine. Aleina Kaede masterfully adjusted the repulsor output to gradually slow the ship as it fell, although it still seemed to be falling fairly quickly. Both she and Kyrr were securely strapped into the harnesses attached to their seats, and Kyrr was anxiously watching Aleina's every move. He suddenly realized that he had put his helmet on again without thinking; something about the rapid landing was making him uneasy.

Aleina could easily have slowed the ship down to a hover, but Kyrr supposed that minimizing the time they spent in the air was a necessary part of being fugitives from both sides of the law. The longer it took to land, the more likely it would be that some other pilot in the area would recognize the ship's transponder code. If any of Aleina's "co-workers" were flying around, things could turn ugly later on.

I swear, this is even closer to freefall than when my speeder ran out of fuel this morning.

Kyrr really hoped that Aleina knew what she was doing. He also hoped that the Republic hadn't put a price out on his head yet; even the bounty hunters of remote and lawless Tatooine would sometimes claim a bounty for the Republic, if the price was high enough.

The clouds were starting to thin out now, allowing some features of the distant landscape to become clearly visible. There were a few cliffs and other rock formations, but the surface of Tatooine consisted mostly of vast areas of desolate, empty sand that stretched for miles. Every now and then, Kyrr saw a ship or two flying nearby, landing or departing from the planet. It really was a busy place, despite how barren it appeared to be.

When Aleina brought the ship closer to the planet's surface, Kyrr realized that they actually were moving forward. He supposed they had been the entire time, but it had seemed like the ship was falling almost straight down. Aleina started to crank up the repulsor power, slowing their descent considerably. They couldn't have been more than a kilometer away from the ground below them as a conglomeration of boxy shapes appeared on the horizon. As they got closer to the shapes, Kyrr could see that they were, in fact, the tan buildings of a sprawling Tatooine city.

Almost before he knew it, they were flying right above it at a fairly low altitude. Aleina brought the ship's speed down to a slow hover, and then there was a dull ka-klomp as the landing gear hit the ground.

Kyrr turned his head toward Aleina, and she looked back at him with her head tilted slightly, an inquisitive expression on her face. He suddenly remembered that he was still wearing his helmet. He unclamped his gloved hands from the underside of his seat and quickly took the helmet off again. He slowly began to mumble an explanation.

"I was just a little, umm…"

He trailed off and didn't finish the sentence.

"We're here," Aleina said.

"Yeah…"

They had landed in the empty sand dunes, a few hundred meters away from the city itself.

"Any reason why you chose to land here, exactly?" he enquired.

"I don't really want to have this ship seen in any of the docking bays in town. Not to mention, a docking bay would cost extra credits we obviously don't have right now… The city's called Mos Eirat, if that's what you're asking. I've been here a lot. I land here every time I come to Tatooine, so this is where all of the possible customers I know would be."

"Isn't this also where your boss is, then?"

"Yes... But if this plan is actually going to work, I can't just sell the spice blindly somewhere else on the other side of the planet. Like you said, I already know who's really in the market for this kind of stuff. It's just that I don't know many people on Tatooine outside of Mos Eirat." She paused contemplatively, and then continued. "I think we'll be fine for a little while, before we go into the city."

"I see. I just hope our being here doesn't cause any problems."

"Isn't that where you come in anyway?"

"Well, I can only do so much," Kyrr replied. "We'll have to do this whole operation very quickly…" He looked absent-mindedly at one of his blasters. "Do you know how to handle a blaster?" he asked.

"I guess, sort of…" Aleina responded, sounding unsure of herself. "I haven't really had any weapons training or anything, and I don't have much experience with using one…" She paused, taking a deep breath. "I always hoped that wearing a pistol on my belt would keep me from running into trouble… Or at least keep trouble from running into me. I didn't think I'd actually have to use it one day."

Fierfek, she's lucky she's still alive, in her line of work.

"Well, I suppose if you had known how to use that pistol of yours, I would really have been in trouble when I ran up your cargo ramp, huh? But it's probably best that I teach you how to defend yourself properly… I mean, I have to look after my investment. You're no use to me dead."

He unstrapped one of the two blaster rifles he was carrying from his shoulder, and held it out to her. She raised her eyebrows a little, and took it from him. She turned it over in her hands, looking a little bewildered as she examined it, feeling its unfamiliar metallic heaviness.

"I don't think anyone's going to give you a hard time while you've got that slung across your back," Kyrr commented.

He could see that Aleina was obviously not comfortable with larger blasters. She awkwardly raised the long black rifle to look down its sights, placing the stock too high on her shoulder to shoot effectively. Kyrr also noticed that she seemed to be aiming at him, although she couldn't keep the gun steady at all.

Shab, the recoil would break her arm with her shooting like that!

Kyrr stood up out of his copilot's chair. He could have sworn that she was tracking him with the blaster rifle, but perhaps it was only a combination of his imagination and her unsteady aim. Whatever the case, she did not turn around when he walked up just behind her and gingerly placed his hands on her arms.

"Here, move this down," he told her, adjusting the position of the rifle's stock so that it would absorb the recoil properly when fired, "and move your other hand a little farther forward… That should stabilize your aim a little."

Then Aleina did turn around, and handed the rifle back to Kyrr. "You know maybe I don't need this. I think I'll be fine with my blaster pistol."

With that, she walked off to the cargo bay to find it.