Runaway

7. Chapter

What Coris said made sense, so we all prepared for the walk. We had to leave the ship behind as well as the freight but Lydiya insisted on taking the droids with us, out of fear the Jawas would find them.
If we walked for 4 hours straight, we would reach the villages not too long after dusk. For me that was not a huge distance, I was used to long marches. But for the old man it would have been impossible, so he took the speeder along with the droids, who could neither walk through the sand by themselves nor be carried the whole way.

It was still pretty hot outside when we started walking. I thought about all the marches I had been on with the company. The ones where I was with Ace and we were joking and laughing most of the time. This one was different,nobody talked. My stomach formed a big knot and I felt nauseous as the memories of what I did overwhelmed me. Ace. How could I have done that to him. I saw his face in front of me, his face that looked like mine. I felt jittery, my hands got sweaty. The warm dusty air wasn't helping. I felt like crying but I never would. I was trained not to. I wasn't even sure if was physically able to produce tears. I tried to push the thoughts away by imagining what that village would be like.
I pictured a rural settlement, maybe a wet farm. People working under the burning twin suns to provide for their families. I had a glorified image of hard work like that. To me, living like that was a beautiful idea. It was one of the things I had pictured when I wanted to get out of the army. Just living in peace. There had been other ideas too. Going underground in a big city like Calna Muun on Agamar or Nar Shaddaar, the governmentless smugglers' moon orbiting the planet of the Hutts, that is completely covered by nested spaceport systems and kilometer-high dock towers. The other alternative would have been living as a hermit somewhere on a planet with deep forests, maybe Wayland in the outer rim or to be even further away from the republic
Bakura, a humid, rainy planet in the wild space that had oceans and mountains as well as forests and cities. But somehow I ended up here. Tatooine, a desert planet, way too hot wand way too desolate for my liking. At least I wasn't going to stay here. Whilst walking I went through all the planets I knew in my head, trying to find my final destination. I was planning to leave from one of the spaceports, once the crews business here was finished.
Every once in a while my thinking got interrupted by someone asking for water. I was almost getting mad af how bad the crew seemed to be at dividing up the water in a way that saved our stocks. At least their condition wasn't bad, so that we didn't have to make too many stops. Even 'the boss' with his short legs was keeping up well.

Both of the suns had set as we saw a handful of dim lights glowing at the horizon.
"I can see the village!", Lydiya exclaimed.
"We can all see the village", Coris tried to slow her down.
The two really couldn't stand each other. Or maybe fighting was their way of friendship.
As we got closer I could make out the individual buildings. There were about five smaller huts, one big house, almost a villa and as expected and necessary in this landscape, a wet farm.
One of the smaller buildings had a terrace attached. There were people sitting outside and music playing. Three elderly men sat at a table, they were drinking and playing a card game I was not familiar with. They didn't notice as we approached them. An old lady stepped outside onto the terrace, a plate with snacks in her hands. She flinched  as she saw us and opened her eyes wide in shock. "Caleb!", she screamed, "there are people here!"
All three of the men looked at us now, so I could not tell, which one of them was Caleb. 'The boss' stepped forward. "I'm sorry we scared you, madame. We are travelers, our ship broke down and we're out of fuel as well as food and water. We were hoping you could help us, we can't reach the city and there's a sandstorm approaching".
I had never heard him talk that softly before, but it seemed to work on the lady.
"Dear God, of course, you must be starving. Have a seat here", she pointed to the long table the three men were sitting at.
"I am Shemmy Kynnovan", she introduced herself, "this is my husband Caleb and over here we have Liran Saretti", she pointed to the one with the grey beard that was wrapped in beige linen sheets to protect himself from the sun and the sand, "and Quan Blanck", she pointed to the other man who had short white hair and more practical workwear, "I'll get you something to drink", she assured us and went back inside