Dripping with sweat, and nearly to the point of absolute exhaustion, the large, muscular man forced his mind to concentrate on finishing one last Jedi training exercise. By rights he should have collapsed where he stood hours ago, but through the force, as well as sheer will power, he has sustained himself long enough to ensure a dreamless sleep when he finally did succumb to exhaustion.

"So much pain, so much anguish." A female voice said, almost motherly. Though no other living being was present. "You're not responsible for what happened, Young Padawan. Why do you torment yourself?"

"Guilt by association, I guess." Ash said, ignoring the glowing green image of a woman in Jedi robes, hovering over a large gem on a table in the corner of the room. He spun his lightsaber around so fast the blades protruding from either end appeared to have elongated into one large disk of amber light.

"But no one-" the voice said, but stopped as the young man launched into a round of spinning blades and kicking feet so fast that it was nearly impossible to tell where the blades stopped and human began.

"But the only ones who know are your immediate family. You've erased every other known link between you and your ancestral history." The woman's green image said. "There's nothing left to associate you with- Ash, Be careful!"

One of the saber blades had come too close to his side. It had come close enough to burn a hole in a part of his shirt that was actually dry, and not stuck to him with sweat.

"Maybe it'll end the argument of if I'm going to follow in my ancestor's footsteps."

"Now that's enough, Young man! I've not trained you day and night for the last 5 years to have you run off to the dark side, or get yourself killed in training exercises while trying some new reckless stunt."

Breathing heavily, Ash stopped with his exercises. Frowning with the realization that he went a little too far, he stood up straight letting go of his saber's internal activation switches with the force. Immediately, two amber blades shrank back into either side of the long shell like beige and jade handle.

"I'm sorry, master." He said, using his hands to mop sweat from his long hair, and neatly trimmed beard.

"I think that's enough for tonight Padawan." The green image said recomposing herself. "You should go to the refresher before heading off to bed."

His shoulders visibly dropped as he gave an exhausted sigh before reaching out his hand. A small stick, which looked to be fashioned from the same beige and jade shell as the handle of his double saber, flew through the air towards him. Ash grabbed it and attached it to one side of his saber's handle, creating the illusion that Ash was holding an exotic walking stick, and nothing else.

He casually tossed his walking stick to one side, and pealed off his sweat soaked shirt to inspect the new burn hole in it. The walking stick glided gracefully through the air, landing upright, leaning in a corner.

While he was vaguely aware that most people would have been a little more than slightly unnerved at the prospect of becoming one with the force in a whole new way, it didn't even faze him. He may have even welcomed it, but he didn't dwell on it.

His main focus wasn't on his on demise. His thoughts weren't on his shirt either, or even on his job for tomorrow. Instead, his thoughts were on the up coming pod-race. He guarded his feelings, but couldn't help but wonder how many would be racing; what the odds would be, and who would be the winner.

He had to be careful about it though; his master disapproved of gambling. And, though she was trapped inside a Jedi holocron, could still make up some disciplinary actions destined for the history books.

All things considered, however, he had a good feeling about the next race.

Wrapped only in a towel as he left the refresher station, his movements were interrupted as he felt his master probe his thoughts through the force.

"You're thinking about gambling again, aren't you?" The woman's green image asked, scornfully.

"Yeah." He admitted. It wouldn't do any good to even think about lying to her. But he changed the subject quickly with: "Were you watching me?"

"HA!" She exclaimed readjusting her robes, slightly embarrassed at the thought. "As if I could."

"Good. The last thing I need is a long dead peeping-Jedi for a master." He commented just loud enough for her to hear.

"Well, maybe next time I will." She said, placing her fists on her hips. "How would you like that?"

"You want to see what's under this towel?" He asked, making to pull it off. She folded her arms in disbelief.

"Here." He pulled the towel off and tossed it on top of the holocron. "You are! You're under the towel."

"Ash Peturra!" She exclaimed, and used the force to push the towel off of the holocron and onto the floor just in time to see the perfectly toned muscles on Ash's hindquarter as he entered his bedroom.

"Good night, Master." Ash said, grinning like a practical joking teenager.

"Good night, Padawan." The Jedi Master answered shaking her head and trying feebly to hide a smirk. "Nice butt."

"Hey! You were looking!" Ash exclaimed in disbelief, poking his head around to look at his now laughing Jedi Master.

"Gottcha." She said chuckling.

Sighing with a smirk, Ash closed the door and crawled into bed. His last conscious thoughts were of his master. How she was always full of surprises. The fact that she was able to put herself into a holocron was the greatest mystery of all. The Jedi have been known to record all of their lives and knowledge of the force into a holocron, but no one had ever put themselves into one.

He wouldn't be surprised if she found a way out of the holocron and back to the world of the living. But he couldn't even begin to speculate how; he was asleep before he realized it.

And it would be a good night's sleep; he would not dream. There would not be millions of people reaching out to him, demanding his attention.

The next day, he performed his morning meditation alone. His master had been insisting that he meditate and train more on his own lately. Almost as if she knew something, but wouldn't say what, or even admit to it.

Afterwards, he scrounged up enough food for breakfast before breaking his high orbit and landing on the pale bleak planet below. Before disembarking Ash threw on his signature forest green poncho, grabbed his walking stick and checked the local weather report.

"40 Degrees Celsius already, and it's not even mid day." Ash said to himself, frowning. "Why do I bother checking the report? Why do I bother even coming here?"

But Ash already knew the answer to that question. He was on this scorched sand pile of a planet to deliver ice; freshly chiseled ice from Hoth. And Tattooine was in desperate need of some cooling down. The air was always hot. Hot and dry. And Ash didn't care for it at all.

Putting all that behind him, he brought his ship down about a hundred yards from a large sandblasted building with a delivery ramp. As his repulsor lifts powered down, a repulsor sled began its way toward the loading door of Ash's ship, a medium freight bulk cruiser. The "Ice T".

Early that evening, with ninety percent of his deliveries completed, he decided to take lunch. Ducking into one of the many cantinas in the spaceport town of Mos Ooso, he was greeted by several things all at once; First and fore most, darkness. Cantinas didn't have much in the way of windows, for obvious reasons, as well as not so obvious, yet practical reasons.

Most patrons to a cantina, especially on Tattooine, don't want very much attention, and the lack of windows provided just enough darkness to allow those who want some attention to be seen, and those who prefer the company of shadows, to be anonymous.

The not so obvious reason for the lack of windows was simply because sandstorms can appear from out of nowhere, and sometimes last for a very long time, so the fewer windows in a building the better.

The second thing that greeted Ash was the music, or, what some beings referred to as music. To Ash it was the typical lyric-less, and usually lifeless, music that wafted from a jizzwailer band on a stage near the back. Playing just loud enough to be heard, yet quiet enough to be unobtrusive. Just upbeat enough to keep people interested, yet just mellow enough to keep people from wanting to get up and dance.

Ash didn't like jizzwailer music. He much preferred the more popular music found mostly on Corellia. But he wasn't in here for the music, so he just ignored it.

He was also greeted by the fragrance of several different scents. Mostly from the various drinks, and few food dishes served up in the cantina. But there were others: smoke for one, some more pungent than others, from different types of pipes smoked by the patrons. And last, but certainly not least, the various natural body odors from a hundred different species permeated everything.

He paused in the doorway, and slapped the dust from his poncho. This act also allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark interior. He also reached out with the force to gain a general feeling of the mood of the beings present in the cantina. Most people were tired from a long day's work, and were just looking to relax and have a drink.

That was good, the more tired and neutral the partons, the less likely he would be interrupted. The only beings he knew on Tattooine were the ones he sold his ice too, and one Rodian with whom he placed pod-racing bets. Other than that, he didn't know anyone, and really didn't want to.

He picked his way over to what appeared to be an empty table, and slid down into the seat with a sigh. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, but before he could lift his head up, he sensed someone standing next to him.

"Comfortable?" Came a voice in basic.

"What?" Ash said confused. He always thought droids waited on people. Lifting his head, he noticed a drinking glass sitting on the other side of the table. Something he didn't see before.

"I'm sorry; I didn't know this table was taken." Ash began standing up. "Here, let me pay for your next round."

The other one waved it off. "It's not necessary, don't worry about it." He said sitting down. "To be honest, I wouldn't mind someone to talk to who actually speaks basic."

Ash sat back down and looked around for a wait droid. Not seeing one in the vicinity, he turned back to his new companion. The young man was solidly built, with short dark hair and dressed in the familiar style as the natives of Tattooine. But when he sat down, Ash noticed there was no exaggerated sigh of relief as typical of farmers.

"Service around here is bad." The man said. "When the droid does show up, I'd recommend you order two drinks."

"That bad, huh?" Ash asked.

"My name is Accuma. I run a moisture farm around here." The other said taking a drink. "Well, I try to run it."

"By yourself?"

"Yeah, just me and my droids."

"What made you decide to do that?"

"Fulfilling a dream."

"A dream?" Had Ash been taking a drink, he would have spit it out. "Who dreams of running a moisture farm on Tattooine?"

"Just a glutton for punishment, I guess." Accuma replied with a dismissive shrug. "Where are you from?"

"Hoth." Ash said. Suddenly it was Accuma's turn to nearly spit his drink.

"What in the hell brings you here from Hoth?"

"So, you're the Ice-miner, huh?" A gruff voice said before Ash could reply. Ash sensed a point of hostility in a being standing directly behind him.

"When you show up with ice around the harvest time, it drives the price of water down." The gruff voice said, bitterly. "So, what's with you Accuma? This guy's an Ice-miner!"

The point of hostility held by that one being rapidly turned into a wave of hostility which spread through out most of the cantina at the sound of 'ice miner.'

Ash stood up to face the being; a very hardened looking man of average height, but considerable mass. Behind him was a stocky Weequay. Ash waved a hand casually. "He has nothing to do with this, He didn't know."

"Maybe you didn't know this guy was an Ice-miner." The man said to Accuma, while keeping his eyes on Ash. Accuma looked from Ash to the other farmer with reservations building in his head.

"It doesssn't matter if he knew or not!" Another being said from behind Accuma, this one a trandoshan. "Neither of them belongsss here."

In one fluid motion Accuma stood up, and spun around to stand back to back with Ash.

"Daddy'sss not here to sssave you thisss time." The trandoshan hissed quietly. The scowl on Accuma's face got harder at the realization that he wasn't getting out of this easily.

Before anyone could say another word, fourteen more male beings surrounded Ash and Accuma, some wielding vibro axes, others holding force pikes, and a couple even holding blasters.

"Well, at least you got that annoying jizwailer band to stop playing." Ash said.

Those words seemed like the cue that every one was waiting for, because as soon as Ash said them, the large man charged in, leading with his vibro blade knife. Ash knocked it harmlessly to the side and poked the man in the throat with two fingers. Not hard enough to kill, just to knock the wind out of him, and take him out of the fight that Ash hoped wouldn't last very long.

The trandoshan lashed out at Accuma. But Accuma was faster. He sidestepped the attack, and lunged a powerful thrusting kick to the trandoshan's stomach, knocking the air out of him. That allowed the lesser trained hirelings to join the fray, and try to knock down their boss's target.

A Weequay, with the top half of a broken force pike lunged in almost clumsily. Accuma stepped to the side, grabbed the handle of the force pike, and punched the Weequay in the face with it. The Weequay fell sprawling backwards, leaving Accuma with his weapon.

"Maybe we should take this outside." Ash said over his shoulder to Accuma, as he twirled his walking stick and blocked a vibro axe.

"That would be a good idea, if we can move."

"Just follow my lead." Ash said spinning around and sending one man flying into a group of others, knocking them all back.

Seeing his opportunity, Ash grabbed onto the table next to him with the force, and sent it into the jumble of bodies trying to disentangle themselves.

"Come on!" He said to Accuma. Wordlessly the two of them sprang for the door. But right before they got to the door, it opened. Another weequay, holding a slug thrower was trying to enter, but he wasn't even able to register that the door was open when the two men ran him over on their way out of the cantina.

"Where's your speeder?" Ash asked looking up the busy street. As an answer, Accuma tapped him on the shoulder and pointed in the other direction.

"That's my speeder." Accuma said, pointing though a large group of men, who looked like they were waiting for him. There were at least as many men and weequay waiting for them outside as there were inside. And these guys weren't waiting for any signal before attacking.

"Aw, come on." Ash said exasperated. "These guys really don't like ice miners, do they?"

Jabbing one man in the gut with his stick, Ash took him out of the fight by bringing the end of his stick straight up under the man's chin with enough force to more than likely break his jaw, if not knock a few teeth out.

Spinning bodies and whirling force pikes and vibro axes accompanied the pair over to an ancient orange land speeder. But the attacking horde only grew steadily larger the closer they got to it.

Somehow Accuma managed to climb in, but he couldn't start it, every time he tried to sit down, he had to jump back up to defend himself.

On the other side of the speeder, Ash was knocking people into one another; causing a large tangled jumble of bodies that need to disentangle themselves from each other before charging back in to the fray. But if all went the way Ash had planned, neither he, nor Accuma would be there to fight when the jumble of farmers did finally stand back up.

Suddenly a twinge in the force demanded Ash's attention. He couldn't put off for later. Spinning around, he used his walking stick to deflect a blaster bolt away from him.

With out the light saber, Ash couldn't control where the bolt went. But these attackers were simple farmers struggling to survive; he had no intention of igniting the blade at the end of his walking stick and turning the fight deadly.

But where did a moisture farmer get his hands on a blaster? Don't they usually have slug throwers?

The shooter took aim again. But before he could pull the trigger a second time, Accuma hurled the top of the force pike at him, embedding the blade in the shooter's chest. A Weequay was all to happy to snatch up the blaster and start shooting at everything and nothing at the same time.

Knowing the accuracy of the average Weequay, Accuma felt free to turn his attention to starting his speeder, and let everyone else duck and cover from the wild shooting spree of the weequay.

The twin turbines roared to life, and almost as quickly churn slowly back down. Frustrated, Accuma smacked the steering bar, but then found another outlet for his frustration: a misplaced Sulustan with a vibro blade knife. He deflected the knife attack and kicked the Sulustan. The Sulustan fell backwards, taking several other being with him.

Ash's unspoken plan wasn't working as well as he wanted. It was taking Accuma too long to get the speeder running, and the attackers, some dressed less like farmers than others, were already starting to stand up and throw themselves at Ash again.

"Will you get this rusted out bucket of bolts up and running?" Ash shouted whacking a farmer in the head and turning to kick someone else in the stomach while blocking a vibro axe with his walking stick.

"You want out of here so bad, why don't you just push?"

"You know, I might just do that!" Someone grabbed Ash's shoulder, hoping to hold him. But Ash was too quick, he grabbed the man's hand, and spun in a full circle coming up behind the attacker. Not only was he behind his attacker now, but he had the man's hand and entire arm bound up.

A weequay lunged in with a club at Ash's head. But Ash twisted his prisoner's hand, deftly moving himself out of the club's strike point, and his prisoner into it. Not quick enough to stop his attack, the weequay knocked Ash's prisoner out cold. Ash let him fall to the ground and jumped into a spin kick to the weequay's head, which ended the fight for him too.

Landing with an ease and grace that totally defied his size, Ash spun around to catch another virbo axe on his walking stick. Continuing his spin, he off balanced the attacker and threw him towards the speeder.

Using that as a cover, Ash quickly concentrated a force push at the speeder. When the stumbling attacker hit the speeder, so did the force push, and the speeder lurched forward. The push was what the speeder needed. Ash smiled when he heard the turbines roar to life, and was even more relieved with they stayed running.

"Get in!" Accuma shouted jamming the gear into reverse. Ash kicked someone else in the chest before jumping onto the back and deflecting an accidentally well placed blaster bolt from the trigger happy weequay with his walking stick.

With out waiting to see if Ash had jumped in, Accuma threw the gear into forward, but had to do one more thing before he could leave. He backhanded a man wielding a vibro axe who was getting too close, liberated him of the weapon, and threw it at another attacker before hammering the throttle all way forward.

Ash grabbed onto the central stabilizer fin and watched the gathered crowd as they quickly disappeared in a cloud of dust. After finding his center, and thus his ability to move, he turned around and lunged forward, grabbing onto the top of the windshield and dropping his feet down into the seating compartment. Ash sat down with a satisfied sigh.

"Thanks for waiting for me." Ash said.

"Who was waiting? I couldn't get this thing started."

"Oh wow, and I thought Hoth was cold."

"I don't even know why I told you to get in. I came to Tattooine to stop fighting." Accuma said a little perturbed.

They studied each other for a moment before Ash said "Sorry."

"Ah, it's not your fault, don't worry about it." Accuma answered, calming down.

"Those farmers were after me, not you." Ash said.

"The farmers were, yes. But there were more than farmers represented in that bunch. The trandoshan is a bounty hunter; He brought his own flunkies. And he undoubtedly was the one who incited the farmers against you.

"What do you mean?"

"You were a convenient disguise, he was after me."

"Well, a bounty hunter explains the blasters. But what makes you so important?" Ash asked putting things together in his mind.

"That's what I came to Tattooine to forget about. And tell me about you; how is it you can fight like that?" Accuma asked, switching the focus of the conversation. The two studied each other for another moment, and Ash decided Accuma's past was not worth getting into another fight over. Besides, Ash himself wasn't exactly thrilled with his past either.

"I, uh, didn't spend my whole life on Hoth. I spent a few years on Correlia." Ash said. Sensing the next question, he added: "Both sides of my family have been part of Corsec for generations. They wanted me to have a head start. But there's still the next obvious question."

Accuma paused for a moment to reply the events in his head.

"What do you mean?"

"How did the Trandoshan know that I'm an ice-miner? And, how was he able to assemble all those farmers so quickly? I've never seen him before in my life. And frankly, I don't care to ever see him again."

"That is a mystery." Accuma said. But Ash got the notion that Accuma knew more than he was letting on. "So, your parents." Accuma said, changing the subject again.

"Yeah?"

"How good of a head start did they give you with repairing machines?"

Ash answered with a humph "I have to keep just about every machine running in our operation. Why?"

"One of my vaporators is on the fritz." Accuma said.

"You have anything to drink at your place?" Ash asked.

"I was hoping you'd ask that." Accuma said.

"Speaking of decrepit machines, will this speeder get you to Mos Espa?"

"Yeah, Why?"

"Because there's a small pod race tomorrow." Ash said.

"How did I become your chauffeur?" Accuma asked in protest.

"Well, my ship is that way." Ash said pointing back towards Mos Ooso.

"A gambling man, huh?" Accuma said after a moment of drumming his fingers on the steering bar.

"It's a hobby." Ash said trying to lean back to enjoy the wind in his hair. But even the speed they were traveling couldn't do anything to beat the extreme heat radiating from the twin suns of Tattooine.