He broke free suddenly and bolted away, quick as the wind. Numa called his name and reached out for her twin, but he ignored her and continued to run, off to who knew where. Numa chased after him, but that only seemed to make her brother determined to sprint faster.

She lost sight of him when he went through a crowd, and searched desperately, her eyes raking the crowd for the green-brown blur that would be Homki, for she could never her brother was more green or tan, since neither color stood out more than the other.

Numa thought she saw Homki's tooka doll on the ground, but it was just a leaf. Figures, she thought. There was no way her brother would lose track of his tooka doll. Homki never went anywhere without it. He'd carted it around practically his whole life, and it didn't seem like he would be stopping anytime soon. Numa pushed the thoughts from her head and continued through the crowd, although there was no sign of Homki.

Only when she fought her way out of the throngs of massive amounts of legs- since Numa, being only six, was much shorter than all the grown up pedestrians around her- did she see her brother. Homki was boarding a starship, without a thought about how he was almost defiantly unwelcome on board. The fact that there was a space ship here on Ryloth was weird enough, since there were almost no visitors on this planet. The only people she had met in her life that weren't Twi'leks the heroes that had rescued the planet and its citizens from rule under robots*. There had been the many identical white-armored men, and the bearded human with the glowing sword**. That was also the only time she had seen a spaceship.

Ryloth still stayed more or less in contact with other planets, but nobody really went into or out of Ryloth. Sure, everybody had small transports to travel across the ground, but there was no need for larger crafts. That's why nobody Numa knew owned a ship, and Numa knew a lot of people. Homki, although he had met as many people as Numa had, didn't seem to enjoy being in their company. If left alone, he would keep to himself. The only person Homki chose to interact with, and enjoyed spending time with, was Numa herself. Although there were times, like now, where he'd ignore her too.

The ramp to the ship closed with Homki still on board and whoever was piloting the ship took off, no doubt oblivious to the extra passenger. Numa watched helplessly as her brother was whisked away from her, and her face dampened with tears. It was just like when the bad robots (battle droids, although Numa didn't know they were called that) had taken everyone hostage- everyone but Numa that is. She had felt like she'd never see him again then, and she felt like she'd never see him again now.

Although she was almost ashamed to admit it, Numa would trade everyone else on her planet for Homki in a heartbeat. That's how much she loved her twin, even if he was a bit...different. She loved his voice, although she rarely heard it and she almost never could understand what he was saying. His eyes, which Numa was pretty sure had never locked with her own, were exactly the shade of blue that Numa's skin was. That was the only resemblance Homki had to Numa.

Last time, when the droids had taken over, those white armored men and the bearded man had saved the day. She wished they could save the day now, but she doubted it. They probably wouldn't come all the way to Ryloth for this. They had come before to help an entire planet, but would they come to help save one little boy. Numa wasn't sure, but it wouldn't hurt to ask... she turned and sprinted rapidly home.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano headed towards the landing platform where their ship to Ryloth was waiting. The mission briefing the Jedi Council gave them had been almost comically short and vague ("Missing, a little boy is. Find him, you must." Yoda had told them.) The only other information they had was the boy's name (Homki), who his family was, and that he was supposed to be on Ryloth, but wasn't. The fact he wasn't on Ryloth was fairly useless information since that was what the word missing implied.

"I don't see why they think three Jedi are needed just to find a missing child." Ahsoka was saying. "Not all missions are as easy as they sound." Obi-Wan pointed out. Anakin put in "Rescuing Stinky sounded easy, and that mission turned out to be a lot more than what we expected." Ahsoka realized the logic in that. This mission sounded very similar to when they had to rescue Rotta the huttlet, a.k.a Stinky.

They reached the landing platform, and were slightly surprised to see Captain Rex and Waxer waiting for them outside the ship. "We were told we'd accompany you, sir." Rex told Anakin. It was strange: Waxer's commander was Commander Cody, not Captain Rex. So why were those two coming, rather than people who had worked together many times? Well, orders were orders, thought Rex as he and Waxer followed the Jedi onto the ship. Nobody said anything as the ship lifted in the air and blasted off towards Ryloth.