Chapter Three

Luke Skywalker sipped his drink and looked up at the doorway at the sound of it opening. But again, it wasn't her. It wasn't Mara Kanos.

"Luke, will you chill out already?" Biggs asked him incredulously. "She'll be here. That's about the tenth time you've looked at the door."

Luke sighed. "Sorry."

Biggs chuckled. "You don't have to apologise, kid. I get it: you practically asked her out."

Deak who had overheard this leaned over the table and said, "Forget it. She 'ain't coming, Wormie."

"Yes she is because Luke asked her," Biggs snapped.

"I didn't ask her out Biggs," Luke said quickly. "I just asked her to come out with us."

"Sure."

"How did your first day go anyway Windy?" Luke asked his friend, to change the subject.

Windy shrugged nonchalantly. "Fine I guess, it was just a huge delivery of supplies. Mara has recruited old Kay Tallon too."

"When do you open?" Deak asked, with a sly grin. "We'll all come in and order two of everything."

"In a couple of days. And don't you dare, Deak, or I'll - "

Luke didn't pay attention to his threat as the door opened once more. This time, it was Mara.

Pulling open the door, Mara held it open for Roger, Hack and Simms. After the hard work of everybody over the past couple of days Mara felt they all deserved a drink. She scanned the small cantina and it didn't take her long to spot Luke and his friends. He waved, and she acknowledged that she had seen him with a nod.

"Shall we get a drink first?" Roger suggested, but already heading to the bar. "My round."

Mara ordered a rum; she was pleased to hear from the bartender that it was Corellian rum, a favourite of hers and Wedge Antilles. They took their glasses and headed over to Luke's table. They all greeted each other as the newcomers grabbed some seats, Mara sitting next to Luke.

She was introduced properly to the man with the moustache from yesterday, whose name was Biggs Darklighter. There was also Fixer, who ran Tosche Station, and his girlfriend Camie, who didn't seem all too friendly, Windy, Deacon, and Janek, who everyone called Tank. Mara wasn't surprised - he had huge shoulders and arms and looked like he worked out a lot.

"What're you drinking?" Luke asked Mara.

"Rum. What to try some?" She held out her glass. He took it and sipped, pulling a face, which made Mara laugh. "It takes a while to get used to it."

Luke nodded to agree, clearing his throat. "Yeah, no kidding." He grinned at her, and she almost faltered. He was so attractive, but also just so kind. And he seemed a bit naive about the world too, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They seemed to be about the same age but oh how different their lives were. "So how do you know those guys?"

Luke nodded towards her three companions as they chatted away to Biggs and Tank. "Oh, well Hack and Simms I've known for a while. They came with me so I wasn't completely alone, and Roger we all met only a couple of days ago. He helped us out with settling in." Ok, good so far. Not technically lies. "Have you always lived here?"

Tatooine was indeed his home planet, and his aunt and uncle raised him from birth as his parents are dead. Luke told her sadly that his father had died during his mother's pregnancy and she then died during childbirth. His aunt and uncle and father all hailed from Tatooine but his mother was from somewhere else; apparently they didn't know much about her. There were no graves for them either as they died elsewhere.

"Oh Luke I'm sorry," Mara said sadly. Someone like Luke didn't deserve that start to life.

"It's OK, really," he said. "I didn't know them. Owen and Beru are the best parents I could ask for."

"Lucky," Mara muttered, finishing her rum. She looked up at Luke from her glass, who had cocked his head.

"Don't you...don't you have any family?" he asked her timidly.

"No. My parents left when I was about five," Mara said casually.

"Left?"

"Yeah. Don't know why. They just...left me." Mara stared back into her glass. "I can barely remember it now, but what I do remember was that they were scared. I don't know what of. My father got angry at me, but I don't know what I did. I just can't remember." She snapped out of her trance, pushing the image of a young Mara, walking into her parent's bedroom the following morning and finding their beds cold and empty, out of her mind. "I'm really sorry, I don't know why I told you that."

"I don't mind," he reassured her. "What did you do? When they left, I mean."

"I moved around a lot," Mara explained. She noticed Simms and Biggs getting up and heading back to the bar as the others talked around them. "I initially stayed at a family friend's house, until she died - I was about twelve or thirteen then. Luckily she had taught me how to be a pilot so with the money I saved I bought a ship and I left after her funeral. That was my home planet, Corellia, and I haven't been back since."

"Wow," he breathed.

"I met some good people and we stuck with each other: Nolan, Ani and Talia. We traveled and moved about, working with whatever we could find until…" Mara almost mentioned the Alliance, again. As she thought before, she felt like she could tell Luke everything. But she thought of the cafe and made up a quick story. "And it somehow got to me that Avilatan was a very distant relative and well...here I am."

She thought of how she learned to become an excellent pilot as she was the only one who could fly anything properly; Nolan was the negotiator and dealt with any admin (he was now working for the political side of the Alliance); Ani was the fighter out of all of them, having had to defend herself on Coruscant's underworld (she taught Mara her self-defence skills and why she accompanied Mara on her undercover missions) and Talia was a mechanic, and also handy with first-aid. All of them, though, were experts in blending in with a new community. The Alliance to Restore the Republic called to them after about five or six years of living that kind of life, and they were fit for service. They had witnessed firsthand on many systems the oppression and tyranny of the Empire and decided enough was enough. Mara was immediately called into the Alliance military, usually switching between the Starfighter Corps and commanding her own undercover missions.

But then, that was the reason she was probably offered the Commander job here. She needed a respite from the death and destruction that came with the job. It wasn't really anything to do with keeping a low profile. Leia knew this, and that's most likely why she pitched the idea to Mon Mothma. That's what she does best: knows people well, and often saves them from themselves, not just the Empire.

"Here ya' go Mara," said Biggs, as he replenished her rum and handed Luke another drink. "Luke."

"Thanks," she said gratefully.

Biggs pulled up a chair and sat by Mara. He sat confidently, putting an arm behind Mara's back and resting it atop her own chair. "So, I hear you'll be racing with us soon. Reckon you can take on Beggar's Canyon?"

"I think I might be able to manage it," she mused. "You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?"

"Alright, looks like I will," he said, smiling. "You know, we're heading out there in a few days when my hopper is repaired. I need all the practice I can get, tagging womp rats especially."

"Why's that?"

"I've applied to the Imperial Navy Academy," he explained, grinning.

"Oh...wow, good for you." Though, Mara sounded like she thought the complete opposite. Well, she would, being an Alliance member.

Biggs frowned but their conversation was interrupted by Tank. "I'm heading to the Imperial Army myself," he said, obviously overhearing what they're talking about. Mara looked over at Luke who had turned his attentions away from her fellow pilots. He looked sad that his two friends were getting out of Tatooine without him.

"Only because you didn't test well enough to get into the Naval Academy," Biggs teased.

"I chose to go into the army I'll have ya' know, Darklighter."

Mara leaned over to Luke. "Do you wish you were going too?"

"I've deferred my application," he muttered. "I'll go, someday."

"Don't rule anything else out though," Mara said gently. She of course couldn't tell him what she meant by that. Yet. "You can do anything. You don't have to wait for the Empire to enlist you."

"Luke, you should just be content with your life as a moisture farmer," Deak said harshly from the other side of the table. "He's watched the Space Academy's Recruitment tape about a million times."

"Don't you have any ambition?" Mara hit back before Luke had a chance to defend himself.

"No he doesn't," Biggs answered for him.

"Why are you here then Kanos?" Deak challenged. "If you're so full of ambition and 'well-traveled' what landed you here? Are ya' running away from something?"

"Yeah, I'm a wanted criminal so watch it," Mara replied sarcastically, so the others sniggered.

"Yeah, well, I'll make the best of what I've got here," Deak muttered.

"Hear hear," Fixer agreed. "Once I've finished building the podracer I'll throw Camie a lavish wedding and we'll have enough money leftover to - "

"Don't let these guys stop you Luke," Mara told him quietly, ignoring Fixer's big plans. "It's good to have ambitions."

"I just feel like I'll never get out of here," he said. Leaning closer to her as it was beginning to get noisy again, he said excitedly, "So tell me about some places you've been."

"Well, I'd say my favourite planet is Naboo," she said, sighing at the memory. "Oh Luke it's beautiful there, so peaceful…" she told him about the rolling grass plains, the beautiful seas and the huge hills. "We were lucky enough to visit a vacation estate, in an area called the Lake Country. It was entirely surrounded by mountains and valleys and even waterfalls, and we spent a few days in the meadows there."

For a while she told an eager Luke some stories of the planets she had visited, including Coruscant, Alderaan, Corellia, her home planet, and Chandrila. He told her again of his desire to fly among the stars, visit every single planet and even discover new ones that were far away. Hack and Simms also joined in the storytelling, being older than Mara they had a lot of stories.

Even Fixer told a good story of when he invented his own sport of 'sandsurfing.' Apparently, in the sport, a person would wear repulsor disks on their feet and grab onto a set of handles that connected to a sand skiff by a thin cord. But Fixer was determined to be the king, so he programmed a skiff's autopilot to drive itself. "I even managed a double backwards loop," he said proudly.

"Yeah, all of this was going just swimmingly until the skiff sped up and took a sharp turn, heading straight for the Great Pit of Carkoon," Biggs then informed them.

"The pit of the Sarlacc?" Roger said gasping. Mara's eyes widened; she had heard of that creature. Apparently it was huge and plant-like, complete with tentacles, and its huge mouth was the only visible body part.

"The very same," said Fixer, clearly enjoying the attention of his story. "I planned for the skiff to take me to the pit. There were ramps of sand on both sides, and I hit the first one perfectly. I was just half a meter short of the second one!"

Camie was looking pale at the memory. "I'll never forget watching Laze hit the side of that damn pit. There was an explosion and everything."

"I was sliding down towards the mouth of the Sarlacc," Fixer said dramatically. "Unconscious."

"Luke and I saved him," said Biggs. "I headed over there on my skiff, tied a cord around my waist and jumped down to grab him."

"I saw the tentacles reach out," Luke then said. "I managed to hit one with my punch gun."

"It was a great shot, considering the angle and the range," Biggs said in admiration. "If it wasn't for Luke heading over and pulling us out, I reckon we both would have been gonners."

So Luke's a good shot, can repair things, and apparently is a good pilot. He'd be an asset to the Alliance. But, the base can't take anybody else on as the Alliance were sending them pilots who need to finish their training, and Roger had already filled the other spaces with newbies. And the Alliance was dangerous to work for, anybody Mara got involved could end up dead. And Luke seemed to want to join his friends at the Academy, so she wasn't sure he would even want to join the Alliance...

It was getting late. They all got up together, making their way out of the Cantina.

"We should do this again sometime," Simms said to Biggs as they shook hands before the evening sun. Mara shivered in surprise as it was getting very cool.

"Well thanks for coming," Luke said to her, smiling and putting a hand through his hair nervously. "I had fun."

"Me too. We'll do this again, I owe a couple of people drinks!"

Suddenly, there was a commotion heading their way. A group of local moisture farmers, it seemed, were banded together, holding blasters and torches.

"What the hell's going on?" They all muttered amongst themselves as Biggs asked one of them what they were doing.

"Some girl called Kandji has been kidnapped by a village of Raiders," he replied breathlessly. "We're heading out now to save her before it gets too dark."

Biggs went pale. "I'm coming with you." He called after his father who was apparently in the group of locals.

"Who's Kandji?" Mara asked Luke quietly.

"A local girl Biggs is seeing," Luke muttered back. "I sure hope she's alright."

"Hey Mara," called Hack. "They need everyone with a gun involved. You in?"

"Sure." Luke looked at her worriedly as she pulled her blaster from under her tunic. "What is it?"

"Just...be careful. They don't mess around."

Mara put her hand on his shoulder. "Don't you worry. We'll be OK."

He looked over at Biggs sadly who was talking frantically with the others. Mara squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, and then turned to join the others. Little did she know it would turn out to a nightmare night.

Mara, riding in her speeder, thought about the evening and the events that had just occurred.

Kandji was dead. According to Roger, Kandji was the victim of a ritual called 'bloodrite.' This was where an adolescent was tasked with proving his hunting skills by capturing and torturing something, sometimes for weeks to extend the pain before eventual death. This one decided to do the ultimate bloodrite and capture a human. From the look of her, she had indeed been tortured, quite brutally; Mara saw her slumped on her knees at first, in their camp. Kandji's head hung lifelessly and her hair covered her face. Blood and sweat was sliding off her body.

Biggs and Kandji's family had cried out in pain at the sight of her. Apparently the Sand People knew they were coming to rescue Kandji, so they murdered her, out of spite. Biggs blamed himself for not bringing her to the cantina, gladly accepting a small hologram of her from her family; he vowed to carry it with him for the rest of his life.

All they could do was take their revenge, and leave with her body. It certainly was an interesting start to Mara's stay in Tatooine.

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this update! I wanted it to be longer as I have Mara's stay on Tatooine all planned out in full, she'll leave the same time as Luke - as a teaser, they won't be leaving together... But that's a few chapters away yet. I have a couple of deadlines approaching so I'll see you all in a couple of weeks, when I'll be free! :)