Unless you are a Jawa, the only time you will ever catch one of my people without a robe is in the baths of the Moesta Oasis.

The water flows underground, into square `tubs' carved into the rock. We barter with other Jawas for their hourly use. We' includes my family clan. This is all to explain why I can go into one and come back out without a single romantic encounter.

We Jawas resemble hairless rats with glowing yellow eyes. We have beaks on our muzzles, neck fins, and feathers. I have naughty bits, but the way my life was going, they were as useless as my feathers. For the curious, the male organ is basically a set of bumps, kinda resembling a number five on a domino, the four outer ones convex, the center concave.

"Awkward, are you reading in the bath again? Hurry it up!"

I was. I'd found a book that told me about dominoes and other ancient things (I found the game strangely erotic).

My name is actually Nolbox, which sounds a lot like the word for `awkward' in our language. Since I suffer from intense shyness, I am unfortunately stuck with the moniker.

A Jawa wears a lot of layering. We sunburn easily, we have a religious restriction about showing even an inch of our flesh, and heavy clothing is standard garb for desert travel. The inner layer consists of our water suit, which recycles sweat, urine and feces into drinkable water. Underwear and two layers of robes go over that, in addition to the light sensitivity goggles.

I was just putting on my water traps when my sister Qabvorc just came barging in, unclothed and ready for her turn.

For a moment we stared at each other. I mean, you know, it would be the only time I'd actually get to see any female Jawa unclothed. But then...

"Gross."

"Sorry," I stammered, rushing to get dressed.

Qabvorc hurried into the water. You know we wouldn't get an opportunity to bathe again for some time.

Moesta is busiest around the Seventh Moon Festival (that's the seventh passing of the moon, of course. We don't actually have seven moons). That means the best trades, the cheapest deals. Everyone in my entire family said I should use the opportunity to find a female...every year I went there.

Yeah. That's great, but I didn't know the first thing about picking up females.

While trading droid parts one year, I asked out a female ten years younger than I. After dating a couple times, her mom got mad and told me to stop. How could I tell her age under all that covering?

Shortly after that, I asked out a female at least a decade older than I. She called me an idiot and said no.

Anyways, now that my bath had been taken, I had stuff that needed to be done. I shrouded myself, returning to my family's traveling home, an immense Sand Crawler.

Blocky, rusted and silica weathered, the machine stood four stories tall and had four sets of tank treads supporting it. A magnetic lift on its underbelly brought in metal scrap, but we entered and left through a hatch on the south end. If we found any, we could have driven a few vehicles up its super wide ramp.

Uncle Sogmop assigned pairs of family members a hovering pallet of salable junk to vend at key locations in the area while he sold robots around the ramp. It didn't seem entirely fair, but he was the expert at droids, and had sold more than anyone else in our crawler.

Currently he had a lot of inventory to liquidate: An R5 unit, which looks kind of like a trash can with feet, a blocky, two legged Gomp droid, which you used for charging machinery, a rolling, bucket shaped mouse droid, and some humanoid things.

Moesta is weird during Seventh Moon. Since we're not near a major space port, a lot of our `sales' tended to be barters. You had to be careful not to get stuck with inferior but shiny looking goods.

The place was a busy mess this time of year, all manner of desert transports circled in the sand amidst colorful tents, huts and awnings. I saw mainly Jawas and Tusken raiders, the latter being goggle masked figures in bandages and brown robes. The creatures talked in donkey brays and sign language, which made for a difficult sale. Occasionally I'd see a human, maybe someone wearing armor and a helmet with a T shaped visor, or maybe a skull helmeted figure in white armor - `Storm Trooper' guys that never got the hint that the war was over.

My brother Rumsani and I set up shop in front of a rock outcrop, near an oasis swamped with Bantha. The animals are like wooly mammoths with dog faces and huge curly ram's horns. Their musky skunk odor wafted through the site we picked, but I didn't mind it much, it's more pleasant than other things I've smelled.

We had a fairly good assortment to hawk. Jewelry of questionable value, appliance parts, armor, rugs, clothing, some engine parts near the bottom...

Rumsani sold some irrigation equipment to a farmer, along with a necklace that was probably costume jewelry, price inflated.

Sadly, this proved to be our last successful sale of the day, due to no fault of my own.

You see, we got visited by a gang of Gamorreans.

The creatures are big, muscular, pig faced, with green skin and scary horns and armor.

It seemed some of the equipment on our pallet belonged to their family members. They overturned our display and set about beating us to a bloody pulp.

I've been beaten before. Uncle Sogmop says you come to expect it with the job.

Getting beaten by three pig monsters at the same time, that I wasn't used to. I cried as they beat me into the gritty sand strewn dirt, robbing my pallet. Rumsani tried to help, but they threw him into the rock wall, and he didn't get up again.

VOOOMMM!

Light saber.

I've heard the sound once or twice in my life. Mostly other Jawas recreated the sounds in tall tales they told, or I'd hear it on a camera recording of old battles. Grandma used it once to describe the great slaughter that took place a few miles from Moesta. She still puts stones on little markers we set up around the area, to honor the lost family members.

This time, though, it was up in my ear, accompanied by a sparking sound, and the icky noise of meat separating from bone.

I thought for sure I would be soon leaving to meet my ancestors in the beyond.

When I saw a green hand appear in front of my face, I flinched, thinking it to be another Gamorrean.

But then I noticed how slender it was, and how it connected to a shapely body in a leather bikini.

Twilek. I recognized the type by the two tentacular `legs' danging from the sides of her skull like hair.

She actually looked...worried. For me! "Are you okay?"

"Uh," I stammered. "Yes. Just bruised. I'm used to it."

And then it hit me. "Wait, you speak my language!"

The female shrugged. "It helps me to buy things at a fair price."

When she helped me to my feet, I noticed she was smiling.

"Thank you for saving me." She made me feel nervous, but, weirdly enough, for reasons unrelated to her skill with a deadly laser beam weapon. "Normally Jawas look out for their own, and no one else cares about them."

My acquaintance looked saddened. "That's too bad."

"Rumsani!" I cried, rushing to check my brother.

Happily, he'd just been knocked unconscious. He stared at the dead bodies. "What...happened?"

I told him about the incident.

"I'm glad he's all right," the Twilek said. "I thought for sure he was dead!"

I thought this stranger was wonderful, but Rumsani wasn't too keen on her. "Nolbox! She stole that saber from our pallet!"

"She saved my life with it!" I shouted. "My life for a saber! I call that fair!"

Rumsani crossed his arms indignantly. "I do not. She probably orchestrated the whole attack to rob us of our things."

"You are too cynical, brother."

"And I think you are in love with her, and it's clouding your judgment."

I was glad no one could see me blushing under my darkened hood. "I am thinking just fine, Rumsani!" Note how I didn't exactly disagree with him.

The female hadn't left. She'd been eavesdropping on the whole conversation, and smirking at me. "I meant you no harm. My friend lost his light saber on the Dune Sea, and this one looks just like it. I don't know if it is, but I do know that a Jedi never sells or barters away their weapon."

"She speaks our language!" Rumsani exclaimed.

And I loved how musically it flowed from her lips. "Yes, brother. She has a point."

"Nonsense. I've heard of Jedi gamblers, and Jedi so desperate for food and water that they'll give anything."

The female sighed and handed us money.

Feeling depressed, I leaned on the pallet. "Brother, could you at least give her something to repay her for this kind act?"

Groaning, he muttered, "You're sweet on her, aren't you?"

I don't think I could admit it out loud, even to myself. "She saved my life."

Rumsani took a deep breath. "Very well. Since you saved my brother, you may take one free item from this pallet."

The female grabbed me.

"Um," I blurted as the female dragged me past the Bantha oasis. "Uh, technically I'm not for sale. I mean, I appreciate you saving my life, and you...are very beautiful, but I'm a Jawa."

"I know," she growled.

"I don't understand. Are you in need of a housekeeper? My uncle sells droids that can do much better. We can get you a good one at a fair price. Besides, Uncle Sogmop would not allow me to work for you. He needs me here to sell things."

She scowled and kept marching.

Unable to free myself, I stumbled along beside her, past a row of vendor stalls, the sweet fragrance of baked goods reminding me that I hadn't eaten lunch yet.

"Where did you find the lightsaber?"

"I don't know." I tripped, unable to keep pace with her long, finely sculpted legs. "Every other day we scour the desert looking for junk to sell at the market. You expect me to know where we found one random piece of mechanical debris?"

The Twilek stopped in her tracks, waving her newly purchased weapon in my face. A green thumb edged threateningly close to the `on' button. "You call my father's light saber junk?"

I flinched. "I thought you said that was your friend's!" Then, as her thumb moved closer, "Okay, okay! It's not junk! It's not junk! Please don't kill me!"

She clipped the weapon to her belt again.

"It d-doesn't c-change the fact that Tatooine is a big place, and that thing is just one small item in a huge mountain of scrap!" I shrank before her when I saw a green hand reaching for the weapon again.

"Then you'll have to retrace your steps until you locate the spot where you found it."

"Look," I sighed. "I don't know anything. Uncle Sogmop is the one who steers the Sand Crawler. You'll need to talk to him to get our route information. I didn't even know we had one of those things until you dug it out."

The female put her hands on her curvy hips. "Where is your uncle."