Chapter 20: A New Alliance

Upon the return to Rotta's palace, Han and Chewbacca remained at the entrance of the throne room with R2-D2 to get to work making C-3PO whole again. The golden-plated droid was more concerned about Artoo and his organic companions and he had been thanking Luke most pleasantly on the way back for ensuring the safety of the group. While Han and Chewbacca worked to reassemble Threepio, Luke and Leia went into the throne room directly with Moff Gideon, who was just coming back to consciousness. Rotta's protocol droid GL-22 greeted the two Jedi, saying, "Welcome, Master Jedi. Great Rotta's bounty hunters have brought the Imperial intruders to the holding cells in preparation for your fleet to deliver them to justice."

"Yes," Luke replied with a nod before addressing Rotta himself. "And here's the one who led their attempt to take control of Tatooine. He is the chief officer commanding the operations from the First Order's outpost if I'm reading his rank plaque correctly."

The young Hutt glared at Moff Gideon while gulping down a particularly reluctant gorg before he rumbled, "Hee uba doth bu D'emperiolo kung nai kachu tytung bu bona?!"*

Moff Gideon gave Rotta a look as though he were in control of all of Tatooine and its inhabitants settled and tribal, and he said, "A new power is rising, mighty Rotta. The Empire is dead, but the First Order will see it restored. A pity that you chose to accept help from the Republic's Jedi lapdogs."

Rotta only scowled and snapped, "Furs'oda sleemo! Bu Gainlei hatkocanh neu uba bahiy bimhee!"*

GL-22 spoke next. "With the New Republic's permission, this First Order agent will be dealt with by the Hutt family on Nal Hutta as his actions have threatened the Republic and the Hutt clan by proxy."

"We will see what Chancellor Mothma has to say on it," Leia said, knowing that Mon Mothma had instructed all agents of the First Order to be tried on Coruscant. She only hoped that it wouldn't come to a new and needless quarrel. But she pushed that thought aside and said, "Hopefully now that we have aided in freeing Tatooine from the First Order's incursion, you will allow the New Republic to use your trade routes to prevent them from assailing the Outer Rim further should it come to war, and hostilities between our parties can come to an end."

Rotta gave a laugh of amusement at Leia's bluntness and replied with an unmistakable smile, "Tah bargon doth baplamkadi."*

"Rotta agrees. A treaty is in order," chimed GL-22.

"D'Republika doth cahcata bai hhomota mah lumpa see bmola,"* the young Hutt added.

Once again, GL-22 translated, "The New Republic's forces are free to move through Rotta's territory. The Hutt Council will deliberate on the following details in the foreseeable future."

Luke and Leia shared a smile amongst themselves, knowing from what they had seen that Rotta was bound to keep his word. If both parties stuck to their sides of this bargain, at least some measure of peace would expand to an area of the galaxy that needed it more. Luke said to Rotta with an assuring expression, "You won't regret this, Rotta."

Thousands of lightyears from Tatooine, in an area of the Unknown Regions of the galaxy, Supreme Leader Snoke and Koloth Ren were mere parsecs from home base when they received a regrettable transmission from one First Order officer; Luke Skywalker and his companions had thwarted the takeover of Tatooine and established a treaty with Rotta the Hutt, and Moff Gideon was to remain a prisoner of the Hutt clan while the rest were to be taken to Coruscant for trial. Before the officer could finish, Supreme Leader Snoke shut off the transmission in disgust. He should have sent the fleet to Tatooine and ended the New Republic's meddling as it was happening, he thought. It was an opportunity he had wasted, and now some of his best agents were in the custody of the Jedi Order.

"They'll clean all pockets of our takeover from Tatooine with days!" he growled.

"And with Luke Skywalker in command, the Jedi will be permitted to raise arms against us, Master," Koloth said, shaking his head gravely. "Our fight to reclaim the galaxy has become a far greater challenge."

"We can allow the Jedi this one victory, my friend," purred Snoke. "But the engines of this war will turn in our favor. One day soon, we will have our revenge on this New Republic for their fawning notions of a free galaxy. All worlds will bow to the First Order and eat whatever scraps we allow from our hands, else they will not eat at all."

Back on Tatooine, Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca stood outside of Rotta the Hutt's palace as the transport from the New Republic fleet finally glided down from the heavens. It had been several hours since Luke and Leia had gone over the negotiations with Rotta and Chancellor Mothma and dawn was rising on the planet's western hemisphere. As soon as the ship had landed and extended its hangar, Ferren Barr and Tor Solaris were the first to exit. They escorted the First Order agents aboard the ship and then had it sent up as the Jedi and the New Republic fleet were planning to remain on Tatooine to clean out the remaining pockets of the First Order's trespass.

The next individual to emerge from the transport ship was Ahsoka. Swept up in a fever of gladness that she had not felt since she was a member of the old Jedi Order, she ran to Leia and embraced her like a sister. Leia was taken aback slightly, but welcomed Ahsoka's embrace and returned it warmly.

"I wasn't sure you would make it through this," the Togruta Jedi said to her.

"I was afraid of that myself," replied Leia. "But I have made it through, and so has Luke."

"Hey, don't forget Chewie and me. We were the ones keeping the bunker under wraps," piped Han, coming over to hold Leia's hand. With a chuckle, Leia kissed Han, mentally thinking that if this was a scoundrel's true colors, then she had found the most scurvy scoundrel to love in all the galaxy. Then she turned to Luke and noticed that her brother was wearing a mixture of sorrow and nostalgia on his face.

"Luke?" she wondered.

Luke turned to his sister and said, "There's just one more thing I must do before we take a little shore leave."

He went to Moff Gideon's speeder bike and climbed aboard, and before anyone could ask where he was headed, Luke was speeding away from Rotta's palace and across the Dune Sea. When Ahsoka wondered what Luke was up to, Leia only said, "I sense that he has some unfinished business he needs to handle before anything else happens."

…

It was barely sunrise when Luke finally exited the Dune Sea and found himself on the familiar grounds of the Jundland Wastes. This time, he made sure to keep a safe distance from any areas where he was certain that unfamiliar Tusken Raiders would be lying in wait to ambush poor travelers across the flatlands. It wasn't long before Luke found himself traveling over the miles of sodium calcite that composed the Great Chott salt flat, which he had flown over in his T-16 skyhopper uncounted times in his teenage years, which now seemed like millennia ago to him.

Eventually, Luke slowed his speeder down as a familiar sight came into his view; a bubble-like hovel of stone with an archway entrance at its front and back, its external surface scoured by the sands and sporting burnt brown splotches as if it had been stained with cooking oils. To the left of the structure, a circular pit some thirty feet was visible. Luke couldn't help but feel that an operating moisture vaporator was in that pit, and he knew at once that he had come to his old homestead.

Luke shut off the speeder and dismounted from it, and then saw what he had come for. Two rectangular slabs of dull gray stone stood side by side, weathered by the wind and caked with sand and gravel. As Luke drew near, a pang of sorrow plunged through him harder than any lightsaber. He drew near enough to the stones and knelt before them, and he knew at once who was buried here: Owen and Beru Lars, his uncle and aunt, the only family he had ever known until he discovered his siblinghood with Leia and for a time, had seen his father's true face.

"Hi, Uncle Owen," said Luke to the stone bearing his uncle's name, his voice choking with tears. "It's been nearly a decade since I last saw you and Aunt Beru. I suppose that you'd be rather disappointed that I ended up becoming a Jedi like my father did, or maybe not since the Empire's been gone for five years and counting. Either way, I only hope you can forgive me for looking to the stars too often and not always minding what I was doing here."

He turned the stone marking his aunt Beru's grave and said, "Thank you for being the light I needed in my life, Aunt Beru. If it hadn't been for your uplifting words, I probably would never have left Tatooine, and the Empire would still be running the galaxy ragged to this day. I miss you and Uncle Owen more than you know, and wherever you are in the universe, I have no doubt that you and Uncle Owen are finally happy."

Luke sat where he was for a moment, silently uttering fervent words of mourning for his aunt and uncle and hoping that their passing into the Force had been peaceful. While he was doing so, a sound that he never expected to hear in this place floated delightfully through his ears: laughter. The ringing announcement of joy was punctuated by two small and happy voices coming from within the hovel, and Luke turned to see two little girls no older than five years with dark hair dressed in simple desert garb hastily ascending the stairs, their hands gently grasped by their mother. The woman was fair and dark-haired, and Luke guessed from the fullness of her figure that she was soon to have another child. The Jedi Master then noticed the object of the family's attention rapidly approaching the moisture farm- a man in a desert coat and cargo pants riding a homemade speeder bike who had to be the father.

The man pulled his speeder to a stop, and as he dismounted, Luke recognized his face at a glance. The stranger was Laze "Fixer" Loneozner, one of his childhood friends who ran Tosche Station, which meant that the young woman was Fixer's girlfriend Camie Marstrap, now undoubtedly his wife. He remained where he was and watched as Fixer's two daughters ran to their father and were lifted up giggling in their father's arms before he came to Camie, kissing her softly and then placing his hands in hers.

Luke watched Fixer lead Camie inside the hovel while their two daughters trailed behind, and then he came out again to unload the goods that he had brought back, likely from trading parts in Mos Eisley, Luke wagered. He remained kneeling before the headstones of his aunt and uncle's graves for a few moments longer, then rose up to return to his speeder. That's when he heard Fixer's voice again.

"Fixing to purchase water from the Loneozner moisture farm, stranger?" called Fixer. "It's a good bargain these days. Three truguts for a liter."

Luke grinned at his old friend and replied, "You wouldn't charge such a high price to an old friend, would you, Fixer?"

Fixer glanced at Luke and noticed the cut of his Jedi garments, and he could just see Luke's lightsaber on his belt hook. He was shocked to see that the mysterious young man before him was no farmer or smuggler or anyone often seen on Tatooine these days but a Jedi, whose kind had not been spoken of in that region of Tatooine since some of the local hecklers would joke and jest about the mysterious old hermit they called "Old Ben" Kenobi. However, he let his eyes linger on Luke's face for a moment until he recognized the old spark in Luke's crystal-blue eyes; the spark of an adventurous youth, now tempered by great knowledge and the understanding of responsibility.

"Luke?" Fixer then pieced the puzzle together and said with a laugh, "You are Luke! By Boonta, you've sprouted bigger wings than sand-surfing ever got me!"

Luke laughed in response, shaking Fixer's hand and greeting him with a smile. Then after the pleasantries were completed, Luke was warmly led into his old home and reintroduced to Camie, who also had not seen him for a long time. Then as Fixer called for his two daughters to come in for dinner, Luke contacted Leia, Han, and Chewbacca and told them where he was. This would be an exquisite opportunity to show Leia and his friends one facet of his life that he had not had the opportunity to share even when they came to Tatooine to rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt.

Perhaps coming here to stop the First Order's preparations for war is doing me a favor, thought Luke as he looked out of one of the hovel's windows and out over the desert landscape of his homeworld as the suns began to crest the horizon, bringing a new day to the low-lying desert plan and putting the concern of the First Order's threat off from Luke's mind for the foreseeable day to come.

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed my fanfiction rewrite of Episode VII, folks! And don't you worry, 'cause this is just the beginning! My next plan for Star Wars fan fiction will be a rewrite of Episode VIII, and conclude with the greatest victory Luke and his friends had since the downfall of the evil Empire!

Huttese to Basic Translations

- So you are the Imperial scum causing all the trouble?!
- First Order slime! The Council will see you locked away!
- The bargain is acceptable.
- The New Republic is free to move through my area of space.