Anakin painstakingly dug himself out of the sand, and looked around at the predicament he now found himself in. He couldn't believe they were in an even bigger mess than they were before. "What were you thinking!?" he shouted at Davy, who also was digging himself out, "I didn't tell you to land!"

"I couldn't exactly steer us away," he explained, "besides, now we have a chance to get some real help and get a distress message back to Coruscant. Maybe the people here are friendly. It's worth a shot."

"No, it isn't!" he said, "The people here are not friendly! We were better off floating through the void of space and fixing the ship ourselves!"

Shali asked, "How do you know, Anakin?"

He took a deep breath, knowing he had to get ahold of himself. It wasn't like the two of them understood the danger they were now in. "This is Tatooine," he explained as calmly as he could muster, "I was born and raised here before I was a jedi." He groaned in anger and held his head in his hands, exasperated at the situation.

"Master!" Ahsoka exclaimed as she ran into the bridge, "What happened? Where did all this sand come from?"

"We've crash landed on a hostile desert planet far from republic influence," he answered, "have you figured out what caused the explosion yet?"

"It was definitely an electrical ion charge," she answered, still half panicked, "like Huron said earlier, and it doesn't look like whoever set it off was going after one specific jedi, but the entire group of us as a whole. They planted it in a spot where they could get the most people hurt and killed. With all the droids down, I can't bring up a proper ship manifest. I don't understand who could have done this."

Anakin said, "We could have a stowaway."

Shali looked out the broken window and said, "That might have to wait. It looks like things are about to get worse! A sandstorm is headed this way!"

They all looked out the broken windows to see dust clouds headed straight for them. "That's no sandstorm," Anakin said anxiously, "that's a group of Tusken Raiders! You set us down near one of their settlements!"

"I thought I was getting us help," Davy said, "what's a Tusken Raider?"

"A brutal race of sand people who have us outnumbered and out supplied," he answered, "they won't hesitate to capture, enslave, and torture us all to death. Nobody leave this ship! I'll take care of them myself!"

Ahsoka walked after him, "Master, wait. Let me help."

He stopped her. "No Ahsoka, I'll be fine. If this goes well no one else will die today. Stay in here." He marched down to the main entrance of the ship, blocked with enough sand to make his exit difficult, but not impossible. The desert heat and blazing suns greeted him as warmly as he remembered in his worst nightmares. He couldn't believe he was reliving this!

Outside, the Tusken Raiders quickly had the ship surrounded. They readied their blasters for an attack, until they saw Anakin step out the main exit. They stopped and readied their aim straight for him instead.

"You're in deep trouble if you kill me!" Anakin said in Huttese, "I've already killed a jedi and stole this vessel from him myself, and if Jabba doesn't get this ship himself, you'll have to answer to him!"

"You're with Jabba?" one of them asked.

"He wants this entire ship?" another asked.

Anakin explained, "Yes, the entire ship, so it's best you don't get in his way." He ignited his lightsaber to taunt them.

Thankfully, they all understood his message and quickly scrambled away. At least this was one less tribe he'd have to deal with, but he knew they still had a lot of problems to worry about, and weren't in the clear yet.

When he made it all the way back up to the bridge, everyone stared in awe as the sand people drove off back to where they came from.

"Did you threaten them with your lightsaber, Master?" Ahsoka asked, "You know that isn't the jedi way."

"I didn't," he said, "and besides, we have bigger problems to deal with now, like the fact that we're stranded here with no Tatooine credits and no way to get ourselves back to Coruscant."

Just when he was thinking things couldn't get any worse, the entire ship slowly rocked forward, as if it were sinking down into the ground further. Shali asked, "Oh no, Davy, did you land us in quicksand?"

Anakin lead the way outside to see what else was going wrong. Shali, Davy, and Ahsoka were right behind him.

"Well," Davy said anxiously, "it doesn't look like quicksand, from what I can tell."

"No, this is worse," Anakin said, "we could dig our way out of quicksand, the ship is in a sinkhole. If it grows big enough the entire ship will be swallowed up. Why did you land the ship, Davy?! Why?" He wanted to scream and force choke someone, but he knew there was no point.

Davy insisted, "I didn't know this stuff would happen."

Ahsoka stepped forward and said, "Master, maybe we can get Jabba the Hutt's help. We helped him before, maybe he'll return the favor."

"Yeah," he snarked, "because gangsters are well known for their loyalty, especially when talking about the Hutts."

"I don't see any point in getting gangsters involved in our mess," Davy said, "all we need to do is get a message out to Coruscant and then they'll come and pick us up whether or not this ship gets fully sucked into this sinkhole." He stared at it slowly moving downwards. "I suggest we move fast."

Anakin asked, "Do you have any Tatooine credits? Because they don't take republic currency here. In order to get some we'd have to sell something-" he stopped and stared at the ship as an idea came to him.

"What are you thinking?" Ahsoka asked.

"We will ask for Jabba's help," he answered, "we'll sell him this ship turned scrap metal, and then get a new ship from him to get back to Coruscant by ourselves."

Davy asked, "You think that's a better idea than simply sending a message out for some clones to come pick us up?"

"The Hutts aren't going to be interested in having any more republic allies showing up here," Anakin replied, "trust me, he'll want to get rid of us as soon as we show up at his palace."

Shali said, "I trust you, Anakin, I promise I do, but we still have to deal with the ship sinking right before our eyes." She gestured to it anxiously.

"Not for long," he said, "we're going to take it with us."

They all stared at him in disbelief and confusion. "The engines are shot, man," Davy said, shaking his head, "this once brand new ship is now a hunk of space junk and it isn't going anywhere except maybe deeper into this sand." He kicked at it to prove his point.

Anakin said, "It's going to move because we're going to carry it."

"What?!" Ahsoka exclaimed.

"No, we can't!" Shali said, "Are you crazy?"

"How are we supposed to do that!?" Davy asked.

Anakin explained, "We've all had Master Yoda's teachings. He says the size of whatever we're trying to move with the force doesn't matter."

Davy scoffed and said, "Maybe for gifted force users like him, or you being the chosen one and all, but there's no way we're going to be able to lift anything this massive! It has to weight a million tons!"

"There's more than a dozen of us padawans on this ship right now," he said, "if we all work together we should be able to lift it off the ground and carry it to Jabba's palace."

Shali asked, "How far away is that from here? Do you know?"

Anakin surveyed their surroundings and quickly oriented themselves to know where they were. He realized they were not too far from his family's farm, but Jabba's palace was miles away. "About 80 klicks." They all gasped. "Okay, so it's far," he added, "but I know a place we can offload the extra stuff we won't need to help make it lighter. It's not like I want to hand over extra supplies to Jabba anyway."

Inside the ship, everyone gathered around.

"Listen up," Anakin explained, "we are going to have to trade this ship for a new one in order to get off this planet, and in order to do that, we're going to have to use the force to carry it all the way to a notorious gangster's palace-Jabba the Hutt." Everyone murmured to each other in worry. "I know the ship is large, and heavy, but we'll make a detour to a place I know to offload what we can and that should help."

Huron asked, "You really think we can all lift this massive ship off the ground?"

"Yes."

"What about the bombing?" Barris asked, "Someone clearly wanted us dead."

Anakin said, "I'll have one person stay on board to tend to the wounded and investigate the bombing. Everyone else will have to walk outside in this heat and through the sand. Who's the youngest one here?" He glanced around and immediately realized it was Ahsoka.

"I am, Master."

"Stay in here and do what you can to solve this mystery," Anakin ordered, "everyone else, get outside!"

The suns of Tatooine blazed just as hot as Anakin remembered. He had everyone stand around the ship in a massive circle, with him taking the lead and the front. It was still slowly sinking further and further into the sinkhole. He used the force to grab it first, and the 13 one of them took hold of the ship together and ever so slowly managed to lift it up off the ground. Sand poured out of every orifice.

Everyone struggled. The ship was so massive, and so heavy, they all felt its weight pushing down on them into the sand through the force. Working together, they managed to get it up high enough so it could fly over dunes easily.

Together, they slowly marched in the direction Anakin lead them. Everyone had to trust he knew where he was going.

Beru looked up from the water pump one last time to see if there were any others that could be tapped for the afternoon shift. When she did, she saw the massive ship coming up over the horizon through the heat waves. She had never seen a mirage like that before.

"Owen?" she called as she headed back to the home, "Can you come out here and take a look at this and tell me I'm not losing my mind?"

When he stepped outside, he saw it too. A ship larger than he had ever seen before, was slowly floating towards them.

"There's no way that can be good news," he said anxiously, holding his hand out for her, "let's get in the house. Come on, Beru, let's go." They quickly moved inside, unsure of what was to come.

Meanwhile, the jedi slowly made their way across the burning hot desert, Anakin in the lead. Inside, more masters were beginning to wake up after getting blown up, but Ahsoka wasn't any closer to figuring out what happened.

"Master Kenobi," she said, sitting next to his hospital bed, "are you sure no one was out of place before the bomb went off?"

"There were only jedi in the room," he explained, struggling to breathe and holding his torso in pain, "there weren't any strangers or stowaways. There wasn't even a hint of any malice until it was too late."

Ahsoka said, "That means someone on board just tried to kill off as many of their own as possible. But why?"

He said, "You're going to have to start asking questions to everyone else who wasn't in the room. Ahsoka, why are we flying so slow now, and why is it so hot?"

"Davy Stardust crash landed us on Tatooine," she explained, "and the engines are ruined thanks to the ion explosion so everyone's outside and using the force to walk us along the ground to Jabba the Hutt's palace. Anakin thinks we can trade this ship for a working one with him."

"We're on Tatooine?" he repeated, "No wonder Anakin is feeling such anguish right now. I just hope Jabba is in a trading mood."

Ahsoka stood up and said, "I'll ask Anakin about the progress we're making. At this rate it feels like it might take years for us to get there." She left the room.