Halcyon 🪐⋆｡°✩ Paul Arteides ✩⋆｡°🪐 / A Star Wars Story

14.

The sun was setting on another day and the rescue party were yet to locate the Fremen. 

Despite their experienced guide, the Jedi and the 501st had spent over a week in the desert. They had come across several rock formations and had hoped that their arrival would trigger the appearance of a tribe or two. 

But their presence never alerted anything other than a hungry sandworm. They hadn't seen any Indigenous Fremen, and they still hadn't found a trace of Sidra in the sand.

'Are you sure you know what you're doing?' Anakin had asked on the third day of no Fremen, but he received no acknowledgement.

There was doubt that Luvis even knew the desert. He could feel when a worm was nearby or when a sandstorm was forming in the dunes. He made sure to get the clones and Jedi to shelter in rock formations, and knew where to rest safely. 

But Luvis' claims to knowing the wild tribes were becoming transparent. Even Obi-wan, who had never once questioned the man's direction, was wondering if Luvis had been working with the Harkonnen for too long. 

'We will rest for the day,' Luvis announced, eyeing the nearly sunken sun. 'Tomorrow will be better.'

A clone let out a scoff and Ahsoka gave a half-hearted glare in their reaction. She was losing hope and the days of sweating through the desert had dwindled her motivation. Ahsoka missed her friend and worried that maybe she had been lost to the brutal Fremen. It would explain why they hadn't found even one of the Indigenous people, as they could be hiding from Imperial revenge.

In a series of huffs and mumbles, the group went to follow Luvis towards the closest formation. But despite their sporadic sandwalking, the grain hummed beneath their boots.

The Jedi stopped. While the clones looked to each other with pinched eyebrows, Ahsoka didn't need to look down to see the sand's movement. She knew what a sandworm rising to the surface looked like. She also knew that she didn't want to find her boots sinking into the mouth that would open underneath her.

'Is that... a sandworm?' Obi-wan dared to ask, worry clouding his eyes. But instead of deepening their fears and sending them into a spring, Luvis turned to the off-worlders with relaxed shoulders.

'Yes, but he is not coming for us.'

Anakin went to call the orders to run, because to him, it appeared that Luvis had lost his mind. He stood with a smile ghosting his beard-covered lips while a sandworm rumbled nearby. Anakin refused to lose men and his Padawan just because they believed someone could ever manoeuvre through the Arrakis' desert.

But his attention was drawn to the dune in the distance. Heading away from the horizon, was the worm with its nose buried in the sand. It parted the desert with its exposed back and left a path in its wide wake.

Luvis didn't have to point out why he was unbothered by the worm's arrival. Even though they were small, figures could be seen on the back of the beast. While leaning back on one leg, a single Fremen appeared to be steering the sandworm while a group of crouched dots rode behind them. 

'It's her!' Ahsoka cried over the dulled rumble. 'It's Sidra! I can sense her signature!'

Overjoyed, Ahsoka slipped down the slope of the dune. The soft sand carried her and masked the disturbance, but the sandworm would not steer in her direction. It was being led by the Fremen pulling at its skin plate, and it dove through another dune without changing course.

'They... they ride the worms?' a clone pipped up and Anakin looked to him once, before turning to Luvis.

'You were hoping that a worm would show up, weren't you? A week of no Fremen, so you were waiting for one of them to show us the way.'