Force Destiny

Tatooine

Rey never thought she would dislike a planet as much as she disliked Jakku. She was wrong. Tattooine was another harsh, desert world, but it wasn't like barren Jakku, sand as far as the eye could see. Sand was abundant on Tatooine as well, but, unlike Jakku, the places they could have hidden Sidious were endless. There were small villages of indigenous species, but there were larger cities as well. There were even palaces, but they looked abandoned as far as she could tell. The large canyons made it difficult to see far distances or detect smaller settlements. If that wasn't enough, the planet had a strange magnetic field that made sensing energy in the Force difficult. In short, she had no idea where to start to find the Lars moisture farm.

Rey set the TIE fighter down in Mos Eisley, the largest city she could find. It was clearly home to many unsavory characters, and Rey left Gee-Bee in the ship with orders to blast anyone who approached with the onboard cannons. She wondered what would happen to these lawless cities now that the Hutt empire and their lucrative slavery business was gone. Would the people of Tatooine finally take their cities back? Would this desert world finally find the peace and order that Ben had imagined?

Pulling the hood of her cloak over her head, she walked into the local cantina, hoping they could point her in the correct direction before nightfall. It was difficult to estimate with the binary suns—what is it with Luke and planets with twin suns?—but she presumed that she only had a few hours of daylight left.

The cantina owner was nothing like the friendly Abednedo on Bespin. He was large and muscular with black, oily skin and rows of serrated teeth in his wide mouth. Judging by the lack of a neck, she presumed he was a Herglic. She had met one on Jakku once and wasn't impressed. The moment she'd wandered inside, the owner had eyed her up and down, and she had a feeling this one wouldn't impress her much, either.

It was clear from the steep slope of his eyebrows that he had decided he didn't like Rey as well. His eyes focused on her hip, and she presumed he did not like the lightsaber that was clipped there. Rey had found that most of the individuals she had come across in the short time she had spent in the town did not like her weapon. "Your kind not welcome here," he said in broken Basic, his hand on his blaster.

"I did not come here for trouble, only information," she answered. The other patrons of the bar had taken notice of their exchange as soon as she spoke. Her fingers itched to wrap around the hilt of her weapon. "I am looking for a moisture farm."

Something indecipherable passed over the man's face, but his hand moved from his weapon. He resumed mixing the alcoholic concoction he had abandoned when she entered. His eyes, however, never left hers. "Let me guess. Lars homestead?"

"Is that the only moisture farm?"

"No." She waited for him to say more, but he busied himself finishing the order for another customer. The cup looked tiny in his hand as he stirred the mixture. After he slid the cup across to the waiting H'nemthe, he pressed his palms against the counter, holding Rey's gaze in a challenge as he spoke again in broken Basic. "Not only moisture farm, but last time unwelcome outsider here, he ask about Lars homestead."

Every answer he gave Rey only resulted in more questions. Who was the male who had come to the very same cantina? Did he have Sidious, or was he looking for the man that did? Had he received the information he had come for? "What did you say to him?"

"Same thing I say to you. Get hell out of my cantina."

Rey pulled the Force around her and waved her fingers to aid her suggestion as she gently touched the Herglic's mind. "You will tell me where to find the Lars homestead."

"I will tell you where to find the Lars homestead," he repeated mechanically. His eyes were glazed, not as if he were looking through her, but as if he were entirely unseeing. "Head northwest to outskirts of Jundland Wastes, between Northern Dune Sea and Western Dune Sea. On Great Chott salt flat. Can't miss tall moisture evaporators. Follow evaporators to pourstone dome at edge of crater. Like I told other guy, not much left after fire. Been abandoned since last war."