Hey sorry for the long wait everyone, I couldn't really hype myself up to write this part of the story since this is still a pretty eh part so I basically spent a load of time writing stories set after the end of Phantom Menace and before Attack of the Clones.

Shoutouts to GrandMasterNinjaRen, Juxshoa, The Taios and twisterblake2015 who left reviews on chapter 6. I really do appreciate all the support.

Feel free to offer any advice, I'm always open to ideas and/or criticism.

It only took a few minutes for Starkiller to reach the building where Qui-Gon was, it was a hovel in a slightly less awful part of Mos Eisley. It wasn't exactly where he'd expect to find Qui-Gon and the handmaiden but this was where the Jedi's force presence was emanating from. He knocked on the door which quickly opened and revealed a young boy no older that ten looking up at him.

The boy's eyes widened a little, while strange looking people were commonplace on Tatooine this man had an intimidating and almost overwhelming presence. "Um, h-hello." The boy stammered.

The Sith Lord wasn't surprised that the child was scared of him, he didn't exactly look like the friendliest person in this armour. "I'm a friend of Qui-Gon Jinn, is he here?"

The boy nodded and allowed him to enter the hovel, leading him to the main room where Starkiller spotted his companions sat around a dinner table eating a meager meal. The sight was surprising mostly because he did not expect to find such generosity from slaves on Tatooine, considering how hard life was here he expected to find people were far less selfless.

The woman who Starkiller assumed to be the boys' mother was the first to look up and waved them over. "Hello, your friends have waiting for you to arrive for a while now. I believe they were on the verge of sending out a search party." Starkiller chuckled lightly as he bowed his head slightly at the woman and took a seat at the table

"What's your name?" the boy asked, there was still a hint of fear in his voice but obviously the presence of everyone else had calmed him.

"I'm Starkiller."

"That's your name?" Anakin asked incredulously. "That's weird."

"Anakin!" Shmi quickly reprimanded Anakin which turned the boys' look of disbelief into one of guilt. Shmi sighed and turned her attention to their newest guest. "I'm sorry Starkiller, my name is Shmi and that is my son Anakin."

Starkiller cocked his head as he looked at the boy, something about him seemed familiar but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. "A pleasure to meet you both." Starkiller watched as Anakin was guiltily poking at his meal "Do not worry Anakin, it is not the first time someone has been so surprised by name, Starkiller is an odd name after all and I assure it is not one of my choosing."

That seemed to lift Anakin's spirits a little as he stopped moping. "That's very kind of you, would you like something to eat? It's not much but it's a meal."

While Starkiller had to admit he was a little hungry he wasn't about to take food away from slaves. From his time as Vader's slave he knew what it was like when food was a rare thing and didn't want to deny either of these kind people a meal. "That's very kind of you to offer but I'm fine."

"Lord Starkiller you have not eaten since you rescued the queen and I on Naboo."

Everyone was now looking at Starkiller which made the Sith Lord a little uncomfortable, he was still getting used to this idea of socialising with people and having so many eyes on him really wasn't helping. "It's fine I… I… uh I ate at the bar."

"The bars don't sell food." Qui-Gon stated with a small grin on his face.

The Sith Lord directed a string of curses under his breath at the Jedi as he knew full well what he was doing. Starkiller knew he had to deflect the attention away from this, but how? He looked around at everyone grateful that his helmet hides his expressions and then his eyes settled on Jar-Jar, the Gungan was a very easy target. "Well I must say I'm impressed Jar-Jar, you managed to survive a day on Tatooine, I was certain that someone would have removed you from existence by now."

Jar Jar frowned as his tongue quickly darted out to snatch another piece of fruit from the bowl. "How rude."

Everyone chuckled at the Gungan and Starkiller let out a sigh of relief, hoping that they could move on although it looked as though the queen's handmaiden wasn't about to let it go that easily. Before she could speak though Qui-Gon cut her off. "Well, Starkiller if you're done bullying Jar Jar I would like to enquire about why you chose to get a drink in such a questionable bar."

"We both know I didn't go into that sad excuse for a bar to get a drink."

"Indeed, I'm just hoping that you went in for information rather than… something else."

Starkiller cocked his head a little wondering what else he could have gone into a shady bar like that for. "I was looking for information regarding anyone pursuing us and I've found out that Bounty Hunters have been hired to track down the queen, though they do not believe that she on Tatooine. Apparently Ryloth and Savareen are the being searched first, I guess the reputation of this planet made them assume that she wouldn't come here."

Qui-Gon sat back and scratched his chin. "Well, that gives us a little time to figure out a plan. We did manage to find a suitable hyperdrive, but the vendor only deals in the currency called peggats which do not possess."

That made Starkiller feel a little guilty, part of him knew he should have warned them about that, but he couldn't be too kind if he was going to keep up a guise of a dangerous Sith Lord. "So, what's the plan?" Starkiller asked wondering how they were going to get off this dust ball now.

"Anakin is racing in the pod race tomorrow. We're betting on him to win which will get us the funds we need for the hyperdrive."

That made no sense to Starkiller simply because they had only just stated that they couldn't buy a new hyperdrive, so he had to wonder how the hell where they betting on a race. "Betting on him with what? You already said we have no funds."

"We're using the queens ship, and before you ask Naberrie has assured me it will be fine."

Starkiller frowned for a moment and then quickly realised that Qui-Gon must be speaking of the handmaiden. It was a strange name in his opinion but considering he was going by Starkiller he really couldn't comment on that. "Well, Naberrie while I'm glad you're so certain of the queens blessing I'm not sure if I agree with betting our only form of transport on a race. There must be some other way to make money fast on this dust ball of a planet."

There was a brief pause as everyone turned their attention to Anakin and Shmi, the former simply shrugged while the latter suddenly looked deep in thought. "Well… there is the Champion of the Arena competition. It's an underground operation, illegal even on a planet like this and it is far more dangerous than even pod racing."

The idea that there was something on Tatooine more dangerous than pod racing created a nervous tension in the room. It didn't bother Starkiller though who had simply leaned forward, interested to hear more. "Tell me about this Champion of the Arena competition. What does it entail?"

Shmi was taken aback that this man was still interested after hearing such a warning, she was starting to regret suggesting this, she never expected the man to show any interest in it. "You're thrown into a colosseum like area and locked in with increasingly dangerous creatures with only the weapons they give you. The final challenge is a Rancor, but nobody has ever gotten to the Rancor before."

Starkiller sat back in his chair nonchalantly, considering the hellhole planets he'd been on he was more than capable of dealing with one of those beasts. "That's fine. I can kill a Rancor."

Everyone sat there stunned that Starkiller could talk so dismissively of the threat a Rancor possessed. "Perhaps you can with a lightsaber and your use of the force but the Hutt's aren't going to give you weapons like that, you'll be lucky to get a spear to fight that thing." Qui-Gon stated earning an unconcerned shrug from Starkiller.

Naberrie then stood up and almost glared at the Sith Lord. "There's no way the Queen would agree to this Lord Starkiller. I'm sorry but you will not be participating in such a barbaric competition."

The straight up refusal to even consider the competition irritated Starkiller, the fact was he was good at killing things and he could win the Champion of the Arena and have the funds to get them to Coruscant without putting a child's life at risk. "So, she'll allow her ship to be gambled and let this boy put his own life in danger but won't permit me to do the same?"

Without waiting for a response Starkiller stood up and walked into the small bathroom and removed his helmet, feeling the humid air on his face. He looked in the mirror and was relieved to see the face of Galen Marek looking back at him, part of him had been worried he would be scarred like the illusion he had fought but it was the same as he'd looked before his death at the hands of the Emperor.

Starkiller sat down on the edge of the bath and put his head in his hands trying to quell the anger boiling inside him, this whole situation had him frustrated to say the least. Mostly because of this democratic approach he was having to take to make sure he stayed on the right side of everyone especially the queen, and the Jedi. With a sigh Starkiller put his helmet back on and went back into the dining room finding both Qui-Gon and the boy missing.

"Anakin injured himself earlier, Qui-Gon just wanted to properly clean and dress the wound."

A few minutes later Anakin came back while Qui-Gon had decided to remain outside, Starkiller decided this was as good a time as any to have at least a quick conversation with the Jedi alone. So, he headed outside and saw the Jedi staring at some device in his hand, as soon as Qui-Gon noticed Starkiller he quickly pocketed the device before any questions could be asked. There was a brief pause as embodiments of both sides of the force looked at one another before Starkiller finally shattered the silence. "Tell me Qui-Gon. Why do you have so much faith in the boy?"

"The boy is strong in the Force. Exceptionally strong."

That came as a surprise to Starkiller, he hadn't sensed anything out of the ordinary around the boy, sure his presence was strangely familiar but nothing to suggest he was a child with particularly powerful latent force potential. He wasn't about to let Qui-Gon know that though. "I know, I felt it too."

A light chuckle escaped Qui-Gon as he shook his head. "I'd have expected a Sith to be a better liar than that. Then again, you're nothing like the Sith of old, we were told a lot of stories about the Sith. Although some contained some rather questionable contents."

This earned Starkillers curiosity, there were so many stories the Jedi could chose from or even make up to scare their younglings, tales about Vader would probably scar them for life now that he thought about it. "Such as?"

Qui-Gon scratched his beard, pretending to be deep in thought. "Well my personal favourite was when we were told that Sith eat babies to gain power."

Starkiller dismissively waved his hand at the suggestion. "That's ridiculous, we'd never eat babies… Well not anymore at least, they taste awful, you need to give them a few years to ripen up."

"The truth is we were told many horror stories about the Sith, their cruelty, their ruthless, their desire for power. I'm not too proud to admit that I woke up screaming many nights as youngling after hearing such stories."

It wasn't hard to imagine what those stories were and what nightmares Qui-Gon had suffered as a youngling mostly because Starkiller knew that he had lived through most of those horrific stories. Looking back on it he was amazed that he was as stable as he was, plenty of those events would have broken people. The Sith Lord sighed as he looked up at the sky. "It's not surprising to hear that, believe me I've experienced my fair share of those stories. My…. Master probably made the Sith of old look like saints."

There was a long silence between the Jedi and the Sith Lord, the former wanted to enquire more but could tell that the Sith Lord wasn't ready to share more than that. "We should head back inside." Qui-Gon suggested.

Starkiller was both surprised and grateful that Qui-Gon hadn't queried him about his past and followed the Jedi back into the hovel. As everyone laid down to rest for the night Starkiller remained awake, his concerns about putting everything they had in the hands of a nine-year-old boy were still gnawing at him. Starkiller just hoped that this boy was as in tune with the force as Qui-Gon proclaimed, if he weren't, they'd be spending a lot more time here and Naboo would be doomed. Time like now Starkiller really wished he had something to kill to take his mind off this…

Alright and there is chapter 7. Again I admit that right now not much is changing but my hands are pretty much tied until we reach Coruscant. That's where the fun will really begin.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you'll stick around for another chapter.