Dual suns tore through the pitifully thin atmosphere of Hok leaving waves of dancing heat wherever they landed. As far as the eye could see a flat sea of desert sand stretched, baking away in eternal blistering silence. Two tiny dust devils lazily circled each other until a slight shift of the wind suddenly seemed to change their minds and they drifted off in separate directions.

The only shade to be found in this vast expanse, perhaps on the whole planet, was underneath what might have been the rustiest amalgamation of spare parts to travel through interstellar space. The ship was an ancient looking YG-series light freighter, or at least had been when she first rolled off the line roughly two hundred years ago. Along the way she had managed to pick up numerous modifications including advanced battle armor plating from a pirate marauder, the sensor array from an imperial scout ship, scavenged power coils, and an extra communications relay from a crashed pleasure cruiser. Both the power coils and communications relay still functioned perfectly but were very badly scorched from what must have been a rather unpleasant encounter with a planetary atmosphere and then, the planet itself.

The ship's port docking hatch contained a rarely working single gun battery from a Ghtroc 440 that had been haphazardly welded in place. Though not at all pretty and debatably useful, the gun battery was a marked improvement over the starboard docking hatch. There the pressure seals were so worn that even when a successful connection was made with another ship the escaping air screeched and whistled with more ferocity, and much less tonality, than a swarm of mating Turkak flies.

Of her three main thruster engines, only two would spool up with any regularity, and only one was reliable enough to get you out of a tight spot. But for the adventurer on a budget, one was all you needed, if not all you could afford to keep running. Her hyperdrive was her one shining attribute, and the thing that kept her flying and not in some junk heap in the outer rim. Clocking in as class 0.5, it was extremely fast, much faster than the original class 4 hyperdrive that had slogged her through the void in the past.

Salvaged at great personal risk from the wreckage of a highly experimental Imperial cruiser, it was vastly over-qualified for the job of moving the comparably small YG across the emptiness of the galaxy. Just getting the manifolds to power up without frying the whole power grid had taken over a month of frustration, multiple near electrocutions, and innumerable careful adjustments. Even now, with every jump the threat of overload reared its ugly head. Designed to move a much larger vessel, the potential for more speed output from the drive existed, but really only if you were willing to arrive in significantly more pieces than those you began the jump with.

Emblazoned on her upper hull, just above the bridge, in deep crimson paint that ran almost the width of the ship was the name 'Remnant'. Although worn through years of exposure to the elements of half the galaxy, the letters were still stark in contrast to the dull grey of the armor plating and clearly visible.

In the distance, as if coalescing from the very heat of the horizon itself, a land speeder appeared. Moving fast and with a purpose it cut a perfectly straight line for the Remnant. A column of dust rose like an angry storm cloud where the speeder passed, hanging in the air momentarily before being shredded horizontally by the gusting cross winds.

With a hiss of steam and a huge groan that causing the landing struts of the Remnant shake the cargo bay floor creaked downward to form a ramp that served as the ship's main entrance. Slowly down the still descending ramp came the Remnant's lone pilot, covered head to toe in a billowing grey hooded cloak. A ragged gust of wind clutched at the cloak's hem, flinging it sideways with unexpected strength, revealing a thin and lanky figure clad beneath in brown leather. Under the hood, two sharp eyes stared intently at the rapidly approaching speeder.

No longer just a dot on the horizon, the speeder could now be seen clearly as it churned the desert sand into a frenzy. Turning only at the last second and braking wildly, the carriage came to a shuddering halt a few paces away from the ship. The trailing dust clouds filled the air, further hazing the already dingy sky. The Remnant's pilot stepped slowly away from the ramp and walked forward to stand at the edge of the shade as the deafening whine of the engines slowly faded away.

The speeder's driver hopped lightly to the ground waving the dust away with a gloved hand, his other hand resting on the butt of a holstered blaster.

"You alone?" he grumbled looking warily around, his voice like the sound of rocks being crushed together.

"Are you Phrix?" The pilot replied calmly.

"A female!" derided the speeder's rearmost occupant as he climbed ponderously down from his perch. A small chuckle shook his fat rolls as he stared at the hooded figure. "Come now little lady, why hide beneath all those clothes on a beautiful day like today?" he waved a flabby arm vaguely at the horizon.

Standing at least seven feet tall, and hugely fat, he was a mountain of a man. Atop his head he wore a shapeless bag that could scarcely be called a hat. No shirt covered his chest, which was crisscrossed with a dazzling myriad of decorative scars. Loose pants and a pair of worn boots completed his ensemble. The pilot's eye caught the shape of a concealed blaster pistol on the left side of the giant's waistline.

"Where's your boss, little one?" The giant man said, a finger digging mindlessly in his bellybutton. "He's the one who should be here tending to such important matters, not an errand girl."

"I am the boss." She said slowly and carefully, watching sidelong as the driver and another man spread out around her. 'I knew this was a trap.' she thought to herself. 'Why is it that nothing can be simple?' Her back muscles began to tense up, but she took a deep breath and eased them again as she exhaled.

Ever since she'd begun this journey five months ago, it had seemed like everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. The Remnant had been purring along for well over a year without any major issues. Yet not a week out and she had blown an injector nozzle, lost the ventral exhaust cover flap, bent the long distance transmitting antennae, and finally burned out the life support control computer. That last one had been touch and go for a while.

Without the computer to regulate the life support she had been relegated to manually connecting the cycle wires to control air flow and temperature inside the ship. The only problem was that these wires were located very inconveniently under the deck plating between the main engine compartment and the fuel storage pods. By the time she had limped into the nearest space port on Ploo IV she had nearly suffocated, frozen, died of heat stroke, and just about everything between at least a dozen times.

"Where's the money?" the driver growled at her. By now he was almost at the foot of the Remnant's ramp, peeking up into the shadowed darkness.

"Here." She said, producing a small container from beneath the folds of her cloak seemingly from thin air. The greed in the eyes of the giant was clearly visible as he unconsciously rubbed both hands on his stomach.

"Check it Gorth." The big man pointed a meaty finger at the container. The speeder's third and final occupant, a shifty man with overly long fingers and sharp cheekbones, glanced hesitantly at the pilot. Shuffling his feet he warily approached with hand outstretched.

"Where is the information?" she said, pulling the container back at the last second from the shifty man's grasp.

"Money first, then information." The giant sing-songed and gestured quickly again to the shifty man.

After a pause she placed the container in the man's upturned palm. He snatched it backward in a manic motion, fumbling with the latch for a moment before flicking the lid open. The glint of gold sparkled off of three neat rows of coins. With a surprising amount of speed for his size the big man bowled over the shifty man, grasping the container as he did so. His eyes glittered, an almost perfect reflection of the coins, unaware and uncaring that the smaller man was now picking himself up from the ground, a thick layer of desert sand and dust covering his ragged clothing.

After a long moment had passed, the big man finally looked up from the gold. Not at the pilot though, but at the Remnant. A sneer trickled across his face.

"That pile of junk is practically worthless." He inclined his head slightly. "That actually flew here?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"My information please." She said, a trace of impatience creeping into her voice.

Snapping closed the container with one hand while smoothly sliding the hidden blaster from his waistline the big man said flatly, "I think not." It was a strangely fluid movement. After an ominous pause he continued, "Let's have a look at you. Hopefully you'll fetch a better price than your pile of spare parts." He motioned slightly toward the ship with his weapon.

She felt the barrel of a blaster press against the back of her head. The speeder's driver had completed his circling maneuver and was now standing directly behind her.

"Arms up, love." He growled. "Nice and slowly. Don't wanna have to crack you o'er the head." The driver leaned forward and took in a deep breath at the hooded pilot's neck. "Unless you like that kind o' thing." He guffawed. "We'll have plenty o' time to find that out soon enough won't we!"

He reached up with his free hand and yanked the hood down, swinging around in front of her to pull off her cloth mask, the blaster barrel never leaving her head. The big man broke into a gap-toothed grin as he saw her face.

Ahsoka Tano squinted in the sudden sunlight. She stood, unmoving while her eyes adjusted. "I'll ask you one last time, give me the information we agreed on." She said, staring past the blaster barrel when she could see again, squarely into the fat man's eyes.

He hesitated for a moment, unsure why his quarry was not whimpering and begging for freedom as had happened countless times in the past. "You've got guts, girl. I'll give you that." He said, the moment passing, his smug superiority returning.

"Gorth! Get up there and see if there is anything of value in that trash heap!" He never took his eyes off of his new prize.

Ahsoka shifted her weight to her back foot, slowly bringing her hands just out from her sides.

"Don't even think about it, love." The driver croaked, his finger half pulling his blaster's trigger. "It'd be a real shame to mar that purdy face o' yours." He reached out a gloved hand to roughly grab her jaw.

Turning her face slightly to the right, he paused for a moment. "I don't know, Phrix. I might wanna keep this un' for myself. Or at least check to make sure the goods is worthwhile." There was no mirth in the smile he showed her.

He released her jaw, but slowly slid his hand down her neck to the clasp that held her cloak in place. With a sharp tug, the strap gave way. For the first time his eyes dropped from her face to leer at the newly revealed flesh. He reached out his gloved hand to further investigate, but a strange thing happened. He vaguely heard a snap and the thrum of electricity, but what held his attention more was his hand, or more accurately the lack of it. It was simply not where it was supposed to be, where it had always been, there at the end of his arm. Instead, it now lay in the sand at his feet, palm up, an utterly and entirely foreign object. His world collapsed violently into a dark tunnel where all he could see was his disembodied hand in the sand. From far off he heard frantic screaming, and the sound rapid of blaster fire.

It wasn't until what seemed an eternity later, when a stray shot clipped him in the leg that he finally snapped out of his stupor. Grinding his teeth in pain, strangely from his leg and not his arm where he felt nothing, he looked up. Around him was utter chaos. Gorth lay unconscious, face down in the sand, a trail of blood seeping from one ear. Phrix was in full retreat, trying unsuccessfully to hide behind the speeder while blindly firing his blaster.

Coming to his senses, the driver leveled the blaster in his remaining hand, aiming directly for the back of the bitch that had just stolen his hand. It was only then, after he had impotently pulled the trigger a dozen times, that he noticed that half of his blaster was missing, sheered completely off. A slow realization dawned on him. They were supposed to be gone, an extinct breed wiped out by the 'New Galactic Empire' and its supreme leader.

With a scream of both pain and anger, the driver ripped a hidden dagger from his belt and made a mad dash toward the Jedi who now had Phrix quivering in a heap, sitting in the sand with his back against the speeder. He launched himself headlong at her intending to bury the dagger over and over into her neck and shoulders, exacting revenge for the loss of his hand. But just as he thrust the dagger forward for the kill she was gone, somersaulting effortlessly into the air. Suddenly off balance, he stumbled, fighting to stay on his feet.

Ahsoka twisted neatly in the air, planting both feet squarely in the drivers back, propelling him helplessly head first into the speeder. The clang his head made as it left a dent in the door was surprisingly satisfying. The driver slumped into unconsciousness, his head now lolling in Phrix's lap. She alit softly on the desert sand, arms outstretched, a softly humming green lightsaber in her right hand, an angry buzzing red one in her left. Both snapped closed, leaving a notable silence in their absence. She stood upright and visibly eased her shoulders once again. Carefully and purposefully she hung the now quiet lightsabers on her belt, one on each hip. With an easy gate, she strode over to Phrix, who not surprisingly no longer oozed smugness or strength of any kind.

"We were just having a bit of fun, no harm meant." He stuttered, all pretense of superiority gone. Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes. "Mort wasn't going to do nothing to you. He was just playin'." Through his blubbering he laid a sausage hand on Mort's unconscious head.

"Enough!" Ahsoka said. "Just give me what we agreed on and I might just honor our arrangement."

With lightning speed the sobbing abruptly halted and the greed crept back into Phrix's eyes. He reached a shaking hand into his pocket and produced a data chip. "It's all here." He said, his eyes straying to the container with the gold coins now sitting askew in the sand a few paces away. Without taking her eyes off of Phrix, Ahsoka slowly reached out her right arm toward the container. It flew sharply to her outstretched hand. Absently she looked down at it, as if noticing it for the first time. Suddenly the data chip in Phrix's hand snapped over Ahsoka's left hand. A smirk appeared briefly on her face before seriousness abruptly replaced it. She looked up at him, cold steel in her sharp blue eyes.

"I think not." She said, the smirk reappearing.

With a swirl of her cloak, she spun around and strode with ease to the ramp of the Remnant. At the base, she paused for a moment and flicked the case open with one hand. Placing the data chip into a pocket she clasped one row of the gleaming gold coins.

"For services rendered." She said tersely. "Minus the cost for cleaning up."

A shower of coins rained down into the sand as the ramp creaked and groaned its way back upwards.

The Remnant rose stoically above the endless desert, its thrusters churning up the sand below in a blaze of fire and smoke. As it disappeared into the beige sky a lone, plump figure could be seen far below searching for golden coins in the equally golden sand.