A/N: Now that I know so much more about Star Wars (bless the Wookiepedia) I am quite embarrassed about my story and the way I've turned it out. However, I started it; therefore I shall continue to write and update it. Please R and R.

Anakin slid quietly into the clear bubbles that made up the underwater palace of Otoh-Gunga. For the most part, everything was quiet, but somewhere from within, he could hear the shouts and commands of the Gungan officers.

"Thisen way," Mansa Musa whispered, pulling Anakin behind a statue made of coral. "Da Bongos are on the west side. I have things to do first; can you find yousan way there?"

Anakin shrugged. "If you give me instructions."

"Okey-day. Yousan hafta go down the right way or suffer da grave consequences! First, follow the small bubble lights underneath disen platform, until you see a tunnel fork. Dive into the right side, den swim until you find da third air pocket. There should be another tunnel leadin' up into the Bongo Bay.

"Got it," Anakin said, and hurried down the tunnel.

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Mansa Musa made sure that he had left before he snuck down another path. This one led deeper underground, to a mucky, slimy cavern, full of large holes and pits. This was the dungeon, where the dangerous undersea creatures and Gungans awaiting their sentence were kept.

Mansa Musa carefully took a small pouch from under his shirt and walked through the length of this cavern. An octopus extended a slimy tentacle over his foot, causing the Gungan to shrink back in disgust. Carefully picking his way through the mass of creatures, he finally found the second-to-last cell.

"Fatha?" he asked.

"Mansa Musa? Is disen you?"

"Ehh…yah. I bought you some fish."

"Thanks." Jar-Jar Binks wolfed down the food. Since he had been placed here several months ago, he had barely been given anything suitable to eat. The only thing that sustained him was his son, who was as faithful as a dog, plus kept good company.

If only he had been a little more composed while speaking as a Representative, he might not have made that fateful mistake which had landed him here. It was too bad that Gungans were born with naturally long and annoying tongues; otherwise things might have gone more smoothly.

"So," Mansa Musa interrupted his chain of thoughts, "Have ya decided how yousa are going to escape?" "Shush!" his father cried, slapping his hand over his mouth. "We are being watched!"

"Ehh…so?" his son replied. Jar-Jar sighed. Since he had been kicked out of the Senate, he had set to thinking more. As a result, he was twice as wise as he had been before he had been given the boot. Unfortunately, Mansa Musa did not seem to have felt the same way.

Well, he would just have to be forced to learn. Jar-Jar changed the subject. "Is everything all right at home?" "Nah. I tripped over da Boss's feet while giving him his food. So, I was suspended for several weeks.

"Mansa Musa Binks," his father scolded, "Do you want to end up like me, stuck in a mis-err-able pit underneath with the scary undersea monsters? At least yousa can try to be less clumsy?"

Mansa Musa's head drooped. "Sorry," he apologized, "I will try."

"Good," his father replied huffily. "Now go backen to your business." Mansa Musa left hurriedly, to catch up with Anakin. On his way back up, he stopped to pull a barnacle off the cavern which, as the Boss has told him, contained a Special Prisoner. "Oh, yousa stop being naughty," he told it as he threw it into a container of water.

The captive was leaning against the wall of the cavern, repeatedly pressing a sponge that was growing next to her. "Hey!" she shouted. "When are you going to bring my next meal? I'm starving!"

"Okay, okay!" Mansa Musa threw up his Gungan arms. "I'll let the cook know." Idiotic humans…he thought as he slunk away. The girl always creeped him out whenever he passed her. Since he had Anakin the other day, those feelings were confirmed.

The strangest part was that every time either of them passed him, he could feel a strange aura coming from them. It felt like the Jedi power that his father had often told him about…but then of course, there was also the possibility that they were Sith. Unless you could tell their energies apart, they radiated the same kind of power. Unfortunately, he, being a Gungan, couldn't tell which was which.

Just in case, he would be careful whenever he was around them. If he had just led a disguised Imperial Spy to his homeland, he was going to be in big trouble. Better safe than sorry, after all.

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Tahiri watched him leave with loathing. That idiotic Gungan had been the one to report her as a spy, when all she had been doing was tracking down her best friend Anakin. Of course, she hadn't been spying on Master Luke, or overheard any of his family troubles, for that matter. Ben had e-mailed the entire thing to her.

After much meditation, she finally decided to go and look for him in Naboo, where she was pretty sure that he had gone. Having been on Tatooine while visiting Sliven, her foster father, she had been closer to Naboo than Anakin, and had thus made it there first. However, she had not known that. After scouting the city, she had gone further in, to the uninhabited part of the planet.

Losing her way in the vast jungle, she had stopped to camp by a large lake, where she had gone swimming. Unintentionally, she led herself to Ota-Gunga, where that loser of an amphibian had spotted her and screamed the alarm.

Now, she was in a filthy cavern that was hardly even large for her to lie down. Her lightsaber had been taken away, leaving her defenseless. There was barely any chance to mind trick the guards, not when they were droids who were programmed to shoot anyone who tried anything nasty.

Her only hope was if Anakin found her and decided to make his way to her cell. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a chance for that. As Threepio would have quoted: "Mistress Tahiri, I am afraid to say that the odds are one million to one."

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"For the last time," Jacen repeated to his sister, "She's only an old lady. Tell me, what harm could she possibly do to us?"

"Um…how about a lot?" Jaina muttered. She still felt miffed about being "babysat". She was a teenager, for goodness sakes! Were it not for her twin brother and her computer, she wouldn't be able to survive. Despite the fact that they had been forbidden to continue on their search, the Solo twins were planning to keep up their work even during an exile from their home. They still had their Human Rights, after all…

Jacen pressed his thumb against the speaker button. "Mrs…Degrasimo?" he said. "Are you in there?" At first, he did not hear anything but a tinny clink, monotonous but steady in the background. Finally, a voice called, faint but clear, "Yes, I am. Pray, come in; your mother has told me all about your little dilemma."

Jacen went in first. His sister had been right in her comment about the smell of the house; it did have a strange odor about it. It sent a chill up his spine, though he couldn't ascertain why.

The woman who came out from the kitchen was barely up to anyone's standards. She was small, her frail body hunched over a cane and her hair tied back in a thin, straggly bun. Her old-fashioned dress signified that she was clearly used to a different time and era. Jaina could have laughed, but her politeness took over.

"Hi," she laughed, trying to sound comfortable when she wasn't. "Well, now that all that is over, why don't you show us around?" Following that sentence, the twins were brought all over the apartment, showed where everything was, and then led to their rooms.

"Enjoy your stay! Dinner is at 06:00," the eccentric woman chirped, and then left them to settle in.

She's…kind of weird, huh?

You really think so? Okay, then take a look at my room. It's full of old memory chips, which, according to the labels, hold all the information about what happened in Uncle Luke's glory days. In other words, this person is a history freak.

Strange how she lives next door to us and never came over to ask mom or dad about it, huh?

Maybe she didn't know.

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Ben was running out of time. He pressed all the buttons he could think of, quickly calculating all possible combinations. There wasn't enough time for him to do them all. He was virtually helpless.

Five…four…three…two…one…

At precisely the last moment, of course, the doors slid open, revealing a cleaning droid on his way up. He spotted Ben. "Name?"

"Uh…Ben."

"Password?"

What was with all the tight security in this building? Ben had a bad feeling about staying around too long. Quickly, he dodged past the droid into the open Hangar Bay.

"Hey!" he heard it call behind him, but Ben was far too busy trying to find somewhere to go. He spotted a speeder, and ran towards it, shouting at the driver. "Hi," he said. He was almost out of breath. "Do you think you could take me to the…old Jedi temple?" The driver raised an eyebrow. "That old place? Why?" Ben chewed on this for a moment. "Uh…just because. I have ten credits that I could give you."

The driver's eyes lit up at the mention of the money. Pulling back on the throttle, he took the craft out into the night. Ben gazed out at the ecumenopolis below him. It wasn't as peaceful as Yavin 4; that was for certain. Right now, though, Ben had a mission, and that was to find his cousin, Anakin. He would stop at the Jedi temple to stay the night and perhaps attempt to call on the old Jedi Masters to help him. He would then call Jacen and Jaina.

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'Dear dad. Aunt Leia let me go home with her for the weekend. Everything's okay. You can even call her to confirm it.'

Luke, after reading this, had immediately retired to his room. He wasn't able to make calls. A naughty kid had disabled his Commlink. As a result, he was now sitting at his desk, fixing the circuits while writing a letter to request more funding.

'Dear Senate,'

'For a while, the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4 has gone without much funding or people to help with the training. Recently, I noticed that…'

Buzz! Zap! Luke quickly pushed a datapad out of harm's way. After re-soldering several circuits, he continued to write.

'…more than two hundred students have joined since I founded the academy, and there are only eight Masters in total. As I know that it is impossible for you to supply more people skilled in the Jedi way…'

It was almost done. All he had to do was to twist those two wires together…

Finally! It came together, and Luke was able to access his messages. Therer were, naturally, a lot, but two were flagged as Urgent. Luke opened the first one and was surprised to hear the voice of Leia's husband.

"This is Han speaking. I'm in Tatooine with Lando Calrissian. Please don't tell Leia, she'll kill me or somethin'. ."

Luke's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Tatooine? The last time Han had been there, he had almost gotten himself killed. Why did he want to risk his life again?

"Anyway," the message continued, "I'm here because of Anakin. Lando has promised to help me gather the funds to find him, and to pay off the debt to my neighbor. We were about to win it in a game of Sabacc-"

So this was what it was all about. Gambling. Luke shook his head with a woeful smile. He would have deleted the message, were it not for something that urged him to continue it.

"-when things got a bit complicated. So, we're on Tatooine, trying to make for two thousand Womp rat pelts by the end of the week. The thing is, Lando and I have only caught three, and it's already the end of the first day. I don't know if you still remember, but you once told me that you were an expert in shooting down those crazy things. I was wondering whether you could help me out."

"Why do you always need help?" Luke almost screamed. He already had enough on his hands without having to help his troublesome brother-in-law win a gambling deal. Leia would be learning about this, for sure.

Before he made the call, though, he had a sudden flashback to one of his earlier days.

Biggs and I were out all day, shooting Womp rats. The T-15s have served us well. At the rate we're on, we might be able to afford the Imperial Academy in two weeks.

Han only had one week.

Luke struggled with himself. His responsibilities and the knowledge that he had to shoulder them struggled to overcome his lust for adventure.

A Jedi craves not these things…

I used to shoot them all the time at home.

An hour later, after completing his letter and finishing up the rest of his paperwork, Luke stopped by Mara's office. "Do you think you could handle everything for a couple of days?" he asked. "I've got to go fish Han out of another tricky situation, but I'll be back."

Mara turned from her data pad, her eyes focusing on his. They remained there for several moments.

Finally, she sighed. "Be back soon, okay? And Luke…" she twirled a strand of hair around her finger, "It's really been a long time since we talked to each other. As a family. Maybe this is getting to be too much…"

"I know." Luke sighed. "It's been really hectic, and now that Anakin's gone…" he trailed off. "Tell you what," he promised. "As soon as this whole ordeal is over, I'll bring you out. Just the two of us, for dinner or something. I probably have to sit down and talk to Ben, too; he's been feeling left out lately."

"Well," she joked, "The way of the Jedi is filled with Hardships and Pain, is it not?" Luke chuckled. "You have that one right. Thanks, Jade."

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Ben is supposed to be rather annoying and immature, right? He is only 10, after all…