One of Jabba's enforcers, a Rodian with a particularly nasty-looking blaster riflestepped forward and began speaking in heavily accented rodain language.
"You Republic man! You and boy come here now! No trouble, just talk business with Sebulba!"
"That doesn't sound like 'just talking,'" Anakin muttered, unconsciously moving closer to Cass's side.
"The probability of peaceful resolution is now effectively zero," C-3PO observed with typical droid literalness. "Perhaps we should consider alternative options."
"It's going to be okay," Cass said quietly, placing a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to you." Whatever happened next, he had to make sure Anakin stayed safe.
The standoff stretched for several tense seconds, with both groups clearly trying to decide who would make the first move. Then Wittin, demonstrating either remarkable courage or remarkable stupidity, stepped forward and began chattering rapidly in Jawa.
"What's he doing?" Cass asked.
"He's... he's defending our transaction," C-3PO translated with obvious amazement. "He's informing Sebulba that they made a legitimate purchase and they have no intention of returning the merchandise."
Brave little guys, Cass thought with genuine admiration. Standing up to Hutt enforcers for the sake of a business deal.
Sebulba's response was predictably explosive. The Dug pilot began screaming in his native language while waving his arms in gestures that were clearly threatening. Several of Jabba's enforcers laughed and began moving forward, apparently interpreting the Jawa leader's defiance as some kind of amusing joke.
That's when things went sideways in the best possible way.
The Jawas, it turned out, were not nearly as defenseless as their small stature suggested. At some signal Cass missed entirely, every brown-robed figure in the encampment suddenly produced weapons. not just simple blasters, but modified rifles that crackled with electrical energy and threw bolts of coherent plasma that turned sand into glass.
The first volley caught Jabba's crew completely by surprise. Two of the speeders exploded in balls of orange flame, while their occupants dove for cover behind the remaining vehicles. Return fire lit up the twilight as what had started as a tense negotiation transformed into a full-scale desert firefight.
"Stay down!" Cass shouted to Anakin and C-3PO, pushing them both behind one of the larger pieces of salvage as blaster bolts began flying in every direction.
This was chaos of the most dangerous kind, multiple groups with conflicting objectives, twilight fighting conditions, and no clear lines of engagement. Exactly the sort of situation where innocent people got killed by stray shots and poor visibility.
The firefight raged with surprising intensity, blaster bolts lighting up the desert twilight like a deadly fireworks display. The Jawas had taken defensive positions around their sandcrawlers and were holding their own remarkably well, their intimate knowledge of the terrain giving them significant tactical advantages over Jabba's crew.
The chaos of the firefight provided the perfect cover. Blaster bolts screamed overhead, illuminating the darkening desert in violent flashes of red and blue. Cass pressed himself against the salvage, his mind racing through their options. They were caught between two hostile forces with nowhere to run, unless they created their own opportunity.
"Anakin! C-3PO!" he called over the din of weapons fire. "We need to move, but stay low. Follow me and don't make any sudden movements."
"Master Marcus, I must protest" C-3PO began, but another explosion nearby cut him short.
"Trust me," Cass said, grabbing a handful of sand and dirt to smear across his face and clothes. "We're going to use this chaos to our advantage."
Moving in a crouch, Cass led them around the perimeter of the battle, using the larger pieces of salvage and debris as cover. The Jawas were completely focused on their defensive positions, while Jabba's crew was pinned down behind their remaining speeders. No one was watching the flanks.
The Jawa encampment's storage area lay partially hidden behind one of the massive sandcrawlers. Cass had noticed it earlier during their legitimate transaction, rows of secured containers and equipment lockers that the scavengers used to store their most valuable finds. In the middle of the firefight, with most of the Jawas manning defensive positions, it was practically unguarded.
"Where are we going?" Anakin whispered as they duck-walked between chunks of twisted metal.
"Opportunity," Cass replied grimly. "The Jawas have more than just the parts we bought. If we're going to get out of this alive, we need leverage."
They reached the storage area just as another volley of plasma fire lit up the sky. Cass found himself face-to-face with a weapon locker that had been hastily abandoned when the fighting started. His hands trembled slightly as he picked up a modified blaster rifle, the first time he'd held a weapon since arriving in this galaxy.
The weight felt alien in his hands, yet somehow familiar. The grip was different from anything he'd known in his life, but desperation had a way of making quick teachers of us all. He checked the power cell, fully charged, and shouldered the weapon with what he hoped looked like confidence.
"Anakin, C-3PO, start loading everything valuable into that transport droid over there," he ordered, pointing to a heavy-duty loader droid that sat dormant among the equipment. "Hyperdrives, power converters, anything that looks expensive. And grab all the parts we originally bought too."
"But Master marcus," C-3PO protested, "this hardly seems ethical. We haven't paid for these items."
"We can't afford to be idealistic in this situation, Threepio," Cass snapped, then immediately softened his tone. "I'm sorry. But if we don't do this, we might not survive to worry about ethics."
The transport droid hummed to life under Anakin's skilled touch, its mechanical arms quickly grabbing containers and secured packages. Hyperdrive components, rare crystals, advanced droid parts, everything that could be quickly identified as valuable disappeared into the transport's cargo compartments.