Runaway

9. Chapter

The next morning Quan Blanck took us to his farm. It wasn't only a wet farm, he also used part of the water to cultivate vegetables and bushes with berries on them as well as grain crops. He must've gotten soil from somewhere, because in the sand that stuff would never grow. He also had a stable with a few animals. Not too many, he told us, because he can't grow enough to feed them all. He invited us into his barn and showed us his stocks. He packed some of the veggies and berries as well as flour he made from the corn and milk from his animals into a box and handed it over to us. "This should be enough for roughly two weeks", he said.
"Thank you very much sir, we really appreciate this", 'the boss' said, in his now polite voice.

"Now you should go over to the Pacas, they got the only ship around here, and the only fuel", he Quan told us.

On our way out we passed the stables. In front of them there was a young woman, she can't have been a lot older than her early twenties. Her hair fell down her shoulders in loose blonde curls, she was wearing an almost white tunic and on her arm sat a little girl with the same blonde locks, even lighter, wrapped in a blanket of robust fabric to protect her against the sun and the sand that flew through the air with every gust of wind. The woman looked at us and gave us a shy smile, then she turned to her daughter again. She pointed at the animals, and she was telling her daughter something. The child laughed. Their interaction was the most beautiful thing I had seen in a while.
"Stop staring at her like you've never seen a woman before", Lydiya ridiculed me.
"I wasn't staring", I defended myself. "Yeah, sure", she said sarcastically.

We knocked at Ren Pacas door.
A Gran opened the door. The first member if another species that I encountered here so far.
"Ah, the travellers!", he seemed to be happy to have guests, "come in, come in". He made an inviting gesture with his claw like hands.
"WuFei!", he shouted upstairs, but still in a friendly manner, "come down and say hello to our guests!"
We all sat down in the living room. You could actually tell that he was an architect, his house was light and friendly, less like the rustic stone chunks of the other residents. The late morning sun was shining through the big window in his living room.
Ren Paca was, as the Grans are said to be but also as the rest of the village was, a very hospitable man. He told us a lot about his life here, how he got to the village after his wife died and he found a new home here. He had high hopes that his son, who had a talent for agriculture, would one day inherit the farm of Quan Blanck and bring new life to this village by starting his own family here.
"Can I offer you anything?", he asked.
"Actually, we were hoping you'd have some fuel for us", 'the boss' told him.
"Yes, of course. Give me one minute, I will get it from the garage", he assured us and got up.
R6-T15, who had been standing next to the table repeatedly bumped against Tarash's chair. "Hey, what's up?", the old man asked. The droid beeped, and Tarash wrinkled his forehead.

"The droid says he can't reach the ship anymore", he said worriedly, "The Jawas must've found it and taken it".

"Shit! What do we do?", Lydiya asked.
'The boss' sighed and shook his head, "Honestly, I have no idea".
Not even Coris had anything to say.

Ren came back with three canisters of fuel. "Here you go"

"We appreciate your offer sir, but unfortunately were just informed that our ship has been stolen. We're stuck here", 'the boss' explained to him.

"Oh no! The Jawas, I suppose?",said Ren.

"We think so, yes", answered 'the boss'.

"Oh now that is really unfortunate. That is bad bad timing. As you know, I'm the only one who owns a ship here, but it broke down last week. My son and I have been trying to repair it, but we haven't gotten far. There are parts missing, this is going to be a lot of work", he told us.

"I know a thing or two about ships", Lydiya claimed, "and that astromech is not too useless either"