Alrighty then! Here is Part Three of 'Tatooine'.

Reviewers: k00lgirl1808 - "This is Getting really good, I like the whole history of the planete."

Thank you for the review! I am glad you are enjoying the fic.

Wilkes had left later that night, when the winds had died down into nearly nothing and Beru and Owen sat down and talked. It was the first good talk they had had since Luke had come to them, and it was well deserved.

They had put Luke to bed, walked into the kitchen and poured themselves a glass of Otolla milk and spoke, at long, of things.

First they spoke of Luke, how he had grown and how beautiful his little eyes were. And then they spoke of who he was, who his father was, and what the chance of Luke staying with them was. And then the spoke of themselves.

And when they were done speaking it was nearly morning, the tip of the first sun was rising over the wastes and the unearthly glow of lighted sand washed over them.

Life as moisture farmers was hard work. From the moment the second sun eased its way above the dunes the were working, setting up the power cables that couldn't be left out at night, reattaching lines and empting vats of dirty, dust water. After the water had been pumped from the low levels of the sand and the air, it had to be cleaned through a series of filters which by itself was a very labor intensive job.

Each Moisture Farm had a large area from which they could draw out the water, and the Lars farm was not small. Each day, before the suns rose too far and all their hard earned water evaporated, they had to check and collect each vat within their twenty mile radius farm. Most farmers only had dewbacks to help them, but the Lars family was well enough off to own one speeder and a series of droids. Of course after the water was successfully withdrawn, each and every vat had to be replaced in the ground, several meters away from yesterdays spot so not to over use the ever decreasing water supply.

It was a daily routine that had driven their lives since childhood and before. Ever since their first breath they had tasted the water in the soil, tasted it in the air, and ever since the were old enough to walk, they had taken pride in driving it out of its hiding places and into the vats.

They were moisture farmers, they were proud, strong people. But they were not fearless. They feared, more than anything else, change.

For generations upon generations upon generations the only change they had seen was new models of droids, flashes of distant politics of sand filled screens and holo monitors and the ever increasing number of Storm Troopers based on the dust planet.

But no direct change. Nothing that influenced their personal and simple lives. Yes, rugged and ruff cities such as Mos Eisle had their new things, pod racing, slavery, prostitution, but the land of the moisture farmers was left untouched by the new civilization, left untouched by Jedi and Sith alike.

But this… Luke…it made things different. It made for change. And change was something Owen and Beru were afraid of. It made for messy business, change did, and was best avoided in most situations. So they hid from it. Twenty-nine year-old Owen and Beru Lars hid from change. They reared Luke not as a Jedi, but as a moisture farmer, as a safe boy, who would live out his days in the dusty outbacks of Tatooine. Where no Sith would find him, where no space battle would kill him, and where no child would die.

By the time his first cycle on Tatooine came to a close, the new parents had fallen in love with Luke, and by the time his fifth had come to pass, he was a sure part of their family. He started to walk in his eighth cycle and talking, if only in small, useless words, was soon to follow. He always had a smile on his face, and his tufts of white blonde hair and his sky blue eyes made him look just like a normal boy from Tatooine. Just like a moisture farmer.

Right from the start they had began teaching him of their life, of farming, or water and of the desert. They had also told him that they were his aunt and his uncle. It had pained both of them to say that. To tell their beautiful little boy that they weren't his parents, that they would never be, that his parents were dead. But it was for the best, they had decided. As much as they wished Luke to be their own child, he wasn't, but he wasn't Vader's either, not if they had anything to do with it, so they concocted an intricate lie.

Luke's father, or so they told him, was a space trader, that had died suddenly in an accident. They never told him much about his mother, only that she was beautiful and was also dead.

But Luke, much as it pained them at times, was a very inquisitive little boy, and by the time he stared his education he felt he had a right to know everything. And Owen and Beru supposed he did. They let on little details, little lies to satisfy his curiosity, but never told him too much.

Once he asked what his mother looked like. They told him she was very beautiful, slender and had the prettiest hair anyone had ever seen. He had her eyes, they would tell him, but he had his fathers hair. Hers was darker.

They would take careful note of their lies, recording them within their minds in a methodical, and rehearsed way so they would never be caught saying something wrong.

And so it was that when Luke was starting his second year of primary education he asked another question.

"Aunty Beru, why did my parents die?" Luke was no taller than the waistband of Owen's trousers and the locks of hair that lay on his head seemed to whiten with each year.

Beru slipped his arms through his school pack and ruffled his hair. "Everyone has to die, Luke darling. Even us and you some day."

Luke pouted at her with his blue eyes and turned to look at her. "But why did they have to die before I could know them?" With the overly large school pack firmly attacked to his back he looked even smaller than ever.

Beru, suddenly overcome with the urge to pull the boy into a hug, knelt down to look him in the eyes. "Your parents loved you very much Luke, they loved you even more than the stars themselves. If there is one thing you should know, it is that."

That seemed to satisfy the boy and he gave her a lop sided smile. "When are we going to school? That Madam Berch doesn't like me at all, and she will get very mad if I am late again." All too late he realized the mistake of his words and covered his mouth with his hand.

"Luke…" Beru admonished, taking the mother position fully, "you have been late before?"

Luke looked downwards and shifted his feet. There was one thing he wasn't good at, and that was lying. He could beat any of the larger boys in a race, out do them in a speeder, but while the older children could lie to their guardians, Luke could not. "Yeah…" he mumbled, and lifted his blue eyes up to her. "I was late twice. But me and Biggs weren't doing anything bad, we were just playing. Your not mad are you?"

"No, Luke, I'm not mad." And Beru wasn't. But a surrogate mother she was, and the admonishing had to be done. "But you shouldn't be late again, you boys can play all you want after school, until we need you for harvest of course."

The two of them took off their indoor over shoes and stepped out into the heat of the morning.

The thing that startled most of the new comers of Tatooine was the similarity of each day to the next. There was no change in the clouds since there were none, and the temperature was the same day to day: cool in the morning, blistering in the day, and cold as hell in the night. Nothing changed, and for the people of Tatooine, that was good.

This particular morning though, was not quite the same as the rest. Where most of Tatooine's early hours were brisk and sharp, this one was muggy. The air was damp, extremely damp, and Luke froze as soon as he passed through the door way.

"Luke, what's wrong?" Beru asked, although she herself knew something was. No morning was like this without reason.

"Things feel weird, Aunty Beru, really weird," Luke said and Beru had to look at him again.

Words came back to her, Obi-Wan's promise that Luke was not a little Jedi, Wilkes proclamation that he was. And Beru frowned.

"I don't think we should go to school today, I really don't… Aunty Beru, something is wrong."

Beru, in a moment of over protectiveness, scooped Luke up into her arms and set him on her hip. "I know, Luke, I know." Beru was worried. She had never, in all her married life or otherwise, seen this phenomena before. Part of her was ecstatic. The amount of water they would be able to draw from the air would be unprecedented! The vats would need to be changed at least twice! But the rest of her, the majority of her, was afraid. This was new. This was change.

"You go inside, Luke, I'm going to find your Uncle." Luke, thankfully, complied and slipped the over shoes back on his small feet.

Owen was in the garage, which lay directly to the left and under their house, and when he heard her come in he looked up. "Beru?"

"Have you been outside yet today, Owen?" Her hands, her hard, worn, workers hands, were ringing her blue skirt in a habit that clearly associated 'fear'.

"No." His eyes bored into her own and she motioned for him to follow her. Three sets of blue eyes met each other in the hall and three sets of eyes pulled off their over shoes and stepped in the damp, muggy morning.

And Owen blinked. Even the sand and dust beneath their feet was soft with wetness, soft with water, soft with wealth. His eyes widened and he turned around slowly to face his wife.

"Beru," he started, his voice uncommonly quiet, "This is wonderful… all this water…" He seemed at a loss for words, but Beru continued to stare at him.

"But Uncle Owen, it feels wrong."

Owen smiled lovingly at his son. No, he corrected himself, his nephew. "It feels wrong because it is different, that is all. But this is wonderful! Beru, start up the speeder, we have got to change the vats!"

Beru gave one last look at Luke and her husband before nodding sternly at both of them and rushing off to start the speeder.

"This is a miracle! The water, it is everywhere!" Owen lifted Luke up and twirled him around before finally setting him down on his shoulders. Luke, from his perch, called down to his Uncle, "So this isn't bad?"

"No Luke, this isn't bad at all. After today will have to make a special trip into Anchor Head just to sell all this water. We might even be able to buy another droid!" He spun around, drawing out a happy giggle from Luke. "You like droids don't you Luke? What kind are your favorite?"

Luke pulled on Owens hair, a slightly darker shade of his own blonde, before giggling again and responding with, "Asteroid droids!"

"Maybe, but those aren't really designed for the desert, they were really made for space ships. How about a-"

"But I like space ships!"

Owen stopped spinning. The air suddenly seemed much too damp for his hardened sand lungs. "You don't mean that, do you Luke?"

"What, about the space ships? Of course I do! Space ships are cool!"

Owen pulled Luke off his shoulders and set him down in front of him, staring into his eyes. "Now you listen here, Luke, space ships aren't things you, or any other boy should think about. You've got more important things to worry about, like helping me and your aunt get all of this miracle water out of the vats. Do you understand that?"

"Yes Uncle Owen. But do you think one day, I could be a pilot? When I'm bigger of course." Luke looked at him so earnestly that all of Owen's speeches on moisture farming and how nothing as silly as being a spacer was needed, fell out of his mouth and all that was left was a simple, "Maybe someday Luke, maybe someday."

It was five hours later that they were finally complete with the emptying of the moisture vats and by the sixth hour they had all been replaced in order so that they could be emptied a second time that day.

Owen hefted the last of the vats, large, metallic containers that weighed more than Luke, into the ground in its new location. Their work was finally complete and they could finally see what their efforts had born.

It was a common superstition among moisture farmers, not to see your water until the last of it has been collected, else it all might evaporate before your eyes. But it was not one to be held lightly, and the Lars family obeyed it well. The three of them peered into the tank in the back of the speeder and gasped collectively when Beru read aloud the marking on the side wall.

"Fourteen."

"Fourteen, did you hear that Luke? Fourteen! That is a weeks worth of water! All in one afternoon too! I'll bet we can get twice that much tonight too!" Owen kissed Luke on the forehead and Beru on the lips before repeating the number several more times to himself.

Beru herself was glowing. She had been a moisture farmer for just as long as her husband and knew the implications of that seemingly simple number. It meant that when the cold season finally came, as it was due to in about twenty years, they would have to worry less. Not much less, mind you, but with Luke there, anything helped.

In the fridged years of the cold season the sand was hard and the water even harder to draw from it. The air was frozen and the only moisture you could draw from it was your own breath. This was the time when even the suns ran, leaving the fragile humans alone. Any and all extra wealth made in the hot season was saved to make the cold one more bearable, and if your generation did not see it, you saved it for your children. Just as they were saving it for Luke, when the cold season met him. He would be as old as they were now, and would probably have many children, but he would have something, at least, from them.

And then, the last vat in place, they heard a scream that did not belong solely to the desert. The scream was amplified by the canyons around them and repeated several more times.

Luke let out a cry of his own, and pressed his hands over his ears before scooting under the seat of the speeder.

Owen and Beru's reaction was quiet different.

They looked each other in the eyes, Tatooine blue met Tatooine blue and they leapt to the vehicle, starting it up with pounding hearts.

They knew this sound all too well.

It was the scream of the Tusken Raiders.

Hehe... don't kill me, please.

Alright, there ends part three of 'Tatooine'. Please leave me a review saying what you think, every letter will be appreciated, I assure you.