Runaway

8. Chapter

"What are you guys playing?", Tarash started a conversation.
"That's our own version of sabacc", Caleb explained proudly, "it's more like the one they play in the casinos of Basthata"
"That's where I'm from! I told them how to play!", exclaimed Liran Saretti.
"How come you live out here, isolated from everything?", Coris asked.
"We came here more than 50 years ago",told us Quan Blanck, "we were a group of young men and women full of hope and dreams to build our own city. Now it's not exactly a city, but we built this all by ourselves. Caleb and I belonged to that group of founders as well as our village elder and Caleb's wife Shemmy. I am a farmer, the wet farm you see over there, that's mine, it keeps the whole village running"
Those men seemed contend and even proud of their little village.
"How many people live here?", I asked, out of genuine interest.

"Well there is the eldest and his son, our mayor Desric Dusat, and Desric wife. Then there is the lovely Quia Benoo and her little daughter Xii, Lania Oorhies, she's a widow, Ren Paca, our master builder and his oldest son WuFei Paca, he helps me at the farm, a wonderful young man. I wonder if he'll stay here. The youth always wants that big city life. Maybe he finds a nice girl and settles down here", Caleb listed.

Shemmy came back with our drinks. "Here you go", she set down the glasses on the table, "so, now tell us, where are you from, what brings you here?"
'The boss', seemes to have been prepared for such questions. Quick-wittedly he replied: "We are traders, on our way to Mos Eisley to sell our products, we specialized in importing minerals and ores".
That wasn't even too far from the truth. It was to my advantage, that no one here seemed to have ever seen a clone trooper or they would have been way more suspicious. In general those old people had incredibly good faith. For all they knew we could be thieves or murderers.
"I'm sorry, I didn't introduce us probably, this is our pilot Coris Pax, this is Lydiya, she's a better mechanic than one may assume, and this is my former mentor Tarash", 'the boss' introduced everyone except for himself and he did it with such a naturalness, that no one even questioned it. I guess he had forgotten me on purpose. "And the handsome young man?", Shemmy asked. I blushed and of course Tarash chuckled. "Oh that, that's-", now even 'the boss' lacked words. For all of our journey they had been addressing me as "hey, you" or "the clone", if they were talking about me in third person. "I'm Chase", I said. It was the first thing that came to my mind, the combination out of Ace and the first letters of my name. Chicken, I couldn't have said that. The crew looked at me, trying not to make it obvious, that this was new information. "They just hired me a few days ago to lift all their heavy crates and stuff", I tried to explain the awkward situation and again, they seemed to believe every word.
Shemmy even invited us to stay the night. There was an empty hut, the old couple that used to live there had died years ago and their children had moved to the city. It felt a little bit weird to sleep in this abandoned house, I wondered who had been laying in this bed before me. During the night the expected sandstorm hit the village. I was unable to sleep, the sound of wind and sand hurling against the stone walls of the small house was unfamiliar and my thoughts were keeping me awake.
Thoughts of the people I met in the village that day, thoughts of the people I would meet in the village the next day, and thoughts of the people I would never meet in the village because they weren't there anymore. Thoughts of people that weren't there anymore, thoughts of Ace, of the other soldiers, the commander.
But also thoughts of the people that were here, the people in the rooms next to me. People I barely knew and wasn't sure I liked, but they were the only ones I had.