Mace Windu walked down the shuttle's ramp into Tatooïne's baking heat. The twin suns glared down at him from the sky, and the warm breeze made his robes flutter as he walked towards the nearest patch of shade he could find. As he rested in the shade of a small shop, he took in his surroundings and the bustling activity all around him. Everywhere he looked, people of all races and sexes were milling about, checking out shops, barking at each other, or just rushing by in a stressful sort of way. All the buildings he could see were made of dried earth, and yet there was apparently no local architecture. Great monumental domes stood beside small dirty huts and spiky roofed buildings. The occasional freighter would fly low over the town, heading for one of the many subterranean landing bays or off into the blue. The occasional sound of a blaster or a yell would rise from any of the many narrow alleys, but no one seemed to pay them much attention. Mace smiled. It wouldn't be difficult to pass around unrecognized here.
He began making his plans about what he was going to do. He knew he needed to replace his lost arm, for one. He also knew he needed a new lightsaber. The process of constructing one was a long and tedious task, and even with his new arm he would undoubtedly require many weeks to accomplish it. Once those two things were done…he didn't know yet. Try as he might, he couldn't think of any way of getting back at the Sith Lords.
In the end he decided to meditate over those facts later. He began wandering around the filthy streets, looking for any form of medical center. After about ten minutes, he spotted a small dingy shop that sported medicinal and biomechanical gear. He entered the small shop and gazed around hesitantly, not too sure if he should go for it or not. Before he could walk out though, the shopkeeper, a rather smallish Gand with a patch over his middle eye, came out of the recesses of his shop and greeted him.
"Welcome my dear customer! What can I do for you today? I can see you are quite the muscular type, perhaps you would be interested by our all-new physical booster? Only seven hundred…"
Mace cut him short. He explained his need in a few words, and the Gand took it he knew what he was here for.
"Of course we have arms sir. We have a fine selection of human models along with skin tissues of all colors and textures. Follow me."
The alien led the Jedi to the back of his shop through a small door and into the gloomy back area. Behind a shimmering laser barrier, there stood a dozen biomechanical arms lying on glass shelves. The range of choice was impressive. There were seven-fingered ones, some with three articulations, and even one with a piston inserted in the wrist for added crushing power. Mace contemplated the collection briefly and pointed out the simplest and cheapest model, a slim forty centimeter long forearm, made of a hardened alloy, practically unbreakable. The vendor's face fell slightly when he saw his client's choice, but he caught himself almost immediately.
"Very well good sir, a PIX-97 it is. I presume you would want to have it grafted right away?"
Mace nodded.
"Then follow me please, we'll enter the surgery room. This should only take an hour or so, as I've got to connect all your nerves to the arm's electrical systems."
He led Mace into another small room in the middle of which stood a large surgery chair. The shelves were packed with various instruments and components, and the place smelled strongly of anesthetic and various other medicinal products. The Gand indicated the chair to Mace, who sat down, and rushed out to get the arm model from the glass shelves. He came back a moment later, holding the arm in his hand.
"Excellent choice sir, excellent choice." He muttered.
He administered a local anesthetic and got to work on Mace's arm. The Jedi sat there in the chair as the Gand sawed his arm apart, not feeling a thing. His thoughts were drifting back towards the matter of the Sith. He was still amazed at the way they had made their comeback, after a thousand years of near extinction. They had passed from oppression to leading the galaxy's greatest force in a matter of days. They had whipped out the Jedi Order. For all he could tell, he, Mace Windu, was the last Jedi left alive in the galaxy. That meant that not only did revenge lie on his shoulders, but the survival of the entire Jedi Order. He sighed to himself, thinking about his friends who must have died at the hands of the Sith. He remembered when Palpatine slew the three Jedi that had accompanied him to his office. He remembered when he had attacked him and thrown him out of the window to his doom. He had to be destroyed, Mace thought. He had been on the brink of doing it when Skywalker had gotten involved. Had it not been for him, the Sith would have been destroyed for good. As he thought over it, he became amused at the thought that the fate of the galaxy had been gambled in that instant, and that the gambler had miserably lost. So much for freedom and peace, he thought. He let himself snooze as his operation pursued.
He woke up an hour later, with the Gand shaking him.
"Sir, your arm has been successfully attached. I estimate you will recover within a week ninety-seven percent of your former arm's efficiency. If you would care for some skin, I can show you our selection."
Mace nodded to the Gand again. The little creature hobbled away and returned a moment later bearing a platter on which stood quite a grisly show. Two dozen pieces of skin were stuck at specific places, each one labeled with a number. Mace indicated a dark tone that matched his own skin at best, and the Gand nodded his approval. He went to a closet and rummaged around in it, muttering to himself, and returned with what looked like a dark wobbly glove. He took Mace's arm and inserted it into the glove, which turned out to be his new skin. The Gand sowed up the end with Mace's real skin, and announced that it should mend naturally within two days. Mace slowly got up from the chair and flexed his new fingers. A slight buzzing sound came from his wrist as he did so, but the fingers and hand moved perfectly, and he found all his former dexterity in them. He thanked the vendor and let him lead him back to the front of the shop to the counter. He paid the sum the Gand asked for, however exorbitant it seemed, and walked out of the shop, his new arm swinging at his side.
As he wandered around the streets, he began establishing a mental list of all the materials he would need to build his new lightsaber. Some were quite rare and undoubtedly very costly. The Adegan crystals for example would be out of price. And he needed to consider all the metals, cables and the extremely long-during power cell needed in the construction of a Jedi's weapon. As the day wore on, he decided that he would first find a place to rest and resource himself. He needed sleep and food, things that were essential even to a Jedi. In the mid afternoon he found a small building whose owner accepted to rent him a room for a low price. Mace told him he would likely be there for several weeks, perhaps even months, and the man just nodded away at him over his drink. "No problem", he would keep telling him. "I've got plenty of rooms in there". Mace ate at the closest bar, returned to his small room, which had for only furniture a bed, a small table beside it and a rickety desk at the end of the chamber. He fell down onto his bed and went into a dreamless sleep almost immediately. When he woke up, it was dark outside. The air was surprisingly cold, and he drew himself together as he began to meditate. He sat there, eyes closed in silence until the sun rose, lost deep in thought, thinking many things over in his mind.
As the day rose over Mos Eisley and the twin suns stared once more down onto the town, Mace walked out of his room, refreshed mentally and physically. After eating, he began questing for the materials he would need for the construction of his lightsaber. He checked out every shop that may have anything precious to him, and returned to his room at the end of the day carrying a large bag full of metal alloys and circuits, to his host's greatest surprise.
"What you gonna do wi' all dat?" He asked inquiringly
Mace smiled at him and did not answer, but dropped of the bag in his room and spent the evening and night alone, deep in thought as the last. He spent his first week in this fashion, going out all day and returning in the evening with a bag or box full of materials. He managed to find all the alloys he would need, along with many precious circuits he would have to insert into the hilt. The crystals however, he could not find. Nor had he seen any power cell or flux conductor powerful enough to be inserted into a lightsaber. He knew he could not commence the construction until he had all the required materials, and he also knew he would not commence it under the roof of his current host. The host, a human male named Rack, was beginning to get suspicious of him. Once or twice, he tried to get a peek inside the Jedi's room, but all he could see were crates and bags full of metals plates and circuit, before Mace closed the door in his face.
It was, finally, on the twelfth day of his stay that Mace found what he was looking for. He had wandered that day into a large shop that boasted many high-powered components, usually used in the construction of starships. He found a power cell, which was usually used in the construction of starship weaponry, and flux conductors that usually served in the coolant systems of a cruiser's electrical systems. To his amazement, the vendor even had a small collection of Adegan crystals which he claimed were used by the mighty "Jaydie" in the construction of their light sticks. He considered his collection as more sentimental that authentic, and didn't really believe in the legend anyway, and so Mace was able to get three crystals off him for hardly anything at all. That night he returned to his room and deposited his latest bag. He spent the whole night organizing his materials for the construction, and by morning he had stripped down his twelve bags down to two. That, he estimated, was the strict minimum he could use for the construction of his new saber. The next day he thanked his host, paid him the fee he asked, which had gone up considerably since he had seen Mace smuggling all those bags into his room, and left his room.
That day he walked, walked away from town and into the poor areas. He was searching for a new home, further away from the populated places of Mos Eisley, a place where he could concentrate himself on his task without being disturbed or suspected. By nightfall, he had found, more by luck than anything else, a small hut where lived a small family of two. They accepted to lodge him, and Mace insisted he would pay them for their trouble and kindness. He went into his new room, even smaller than the last and devoid of desk, and set his two bags down beside his bed. Tomorrow, he thought, he would begin the construction. Tomorrow he would see just how much he had forgotten of that long and tedious process since his days as a Padawan. Grinning inside, Mace lay down and fell asleep.