It took ten more minutes of waiting in the sun, but she knew it would be worth it. Eventually she heard the loud rev of Lar’s bike’s engine, and Zed’s slightly quieter one. Jada smiled- her mother was always after them to buy sound dampers. But even though her Da would claim they couldn’t afford them, she knew Da just liked to have everyone know when a Sandancer was coming.
Another minute and their bikes whipped around the corner of the large rock on the canyon trail floor. Jada stopped the pretense of looking around and snapped her binoculars to her belt.
“You still causing trouble?” Lar asked with a smile after he’d brought the roaring bike to as close to her as he could. She didn’t budge, having played this game with him multiple times.
“Always,” she said, keeping a straight face, her sunglasses hiding her eyes.
“If you are finished showing off who’s cooler,” said Zed, dismounting from his bike and approaching Jada, “we’d best get to Anchorhead and drop off the evidence we have.”
“Evidence like this,” Zed said, holding up a small datapad. He’d found it in a junkheap, and even though their family made too little money to afford them for everyone, he was pleased beyond words to have gotten the thing working, even if it was outdated. He showed the pictures he’d snapped with it; he gotten a shot of the speeder bike, and a closeup of a symbol scratched on it.
It looked like a white gear on a black background.
“What’s that?” Jada asked, looking closer.
“At first, I thought it was just some kind gang symbol. But then I took a closer look at the bike. It was too sleek, put together too well to be something made by a bunch of scavengers, gangers, or even desert pirates. This is more like something...I dunno. We never see new tech out here. But if we did, I’d think it’d look like this. But the really interesting thing happened when I plugged my datapad into the thing’s scanner...”
“It had a scanner?” Jada said. A scanner for a bike was an unimaginably expensive luxury for someone raised in their circumstances. For a moisture farmer, buying a scanner for a speeder bike was like buying a vaporator and paying six men to carry it around in the desert for you in case you got thirsty.
“Yes, it had a scanner,” Zed said sarcastically. “But I see why you’re surprised. That’s usually ‘way out of a ganger’s league. But when I plugged it in, I found...this.”
Zed held the pad up at eye level. On the screen was a rotating line-drawing of Jada’s bike, with a number of technical points filing up in neat lines beneath it.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
And each line started with the odd, white gear graphic they’d found etched on the biker’s ride.
“That’s more than a little scary, Zed.”
“You’re telling me, little sis? Look, this thing picked up your top speed, turning rate. And here,” he said, stabbing one line with his finger, “is where it spotted that fuel line of yours that’s always popping loose. Lucky for you, the thing tried to send out a signal to someone, but the rock walls kept that from happening.”
“Really?” said Lar, with more than a little interest suddenly in his voice. “A gadget like that could come in handy back at the farm.”
Zed smiled, reached over his head and into his pack behind him. He pulled out a small, rectangular block of metal about the size of a man’s hand, with several small antennae and tiny radar dishes placed at irregular intervals all over it. Two wires snaked out from one corner of it, looking like they’d been hastily cut with a dull knife.
“You think that’s safe?” Lar asked.
“Can’t see why not. I didn’t see anything inside that looked like a tracer. Besides, we called in to the local troopers that we had a stalker of some kind. I think maybe those two were drifters of some kind, maybe mustered out military themselves. The fellow we took down didn’t look like anyone I know- didn’t even have the look of someone’s family about him. Tan skin, weird accent- who knows where he came from? As to where they got their bikes? My guess is that bikes like that ‘fell off a transport,’ or something like that. Anyways, my guess is that the troopers’ll be happy to hear we found their stuff for them. We left your new friend cuffed with his own tendril-wire to the bike after we disabled it. You know what happened to the other one?”
Jada smiled, and pointed down the canyon trail.
Her brothers smiled too. “Lucky boy up there might last a day,” said Lar. “Hopefully for his sake, the troopers’ll find him before the Sandpeople do.”
“You ready to ride?” Zed said.
They nodded, and headed to their own bikes. Each speeder bike was over a generation old, hewn and patched many times over. There would be no room for a prisoner, they all knew. And in the desert world, someone who made bad choices were likely to be left to the consequences, especially by those they’d tried to victimize.
“Thanks for coming for me,” Jada whispered as they revved their bikes.
“Wanna go to Mos?” yelled Lars as the bike revved up, “I heard they’ve got something new in the cantina!”
“I’ve still got work to do!”
“Da said you were off duty if it turned out to be something bad. I think this counts. Let’s ride! Last one pays!” Lars yelled, kicking the accelerator and flying off.
“Hey!” Yelled Jada. “But you said...”
Zed had already smiled, his own bike suddenly bolting after Lar.
“Worthless pair of nerfhacks,” she grumbled as she revved and kicked her own bike after them. The odds were against her winning. But if she pushed her bike hard, she just might, might come second.
#