"The medicine, it's working!" Ahsoka announced happily. "His fever broke. He's on the mend."

  "Great," Anakin replied sarcastically. Standing on his chair, he accepted the wrench R2 offered him with a smile of thanks. "Keeping him alive wasn't as easy as you'd hoped, was it?"

  "Easy? No. Nothing about this was easy." Then she asked, "Do you think Rex and Master Obi-Wan made it out okay?"

  "If I know my old Master, he has things well in hand," Anakin replied confidently. "Now help me with this. I want the primary systems repaired by the time we reach Tatooine."

His light tone brought a smile back to her face. She dug a tool from the box and handed it to him.

  "You're from Tatooine, right? So for you, this trip is like going home!"

Home was hardly the word he would use to describe that dust ball. He remembered the burning sun that made your head swim. He remembered the course, endless sand. He remembered his bondage that use to feel so normal before he tasted freedom. Most of all, he remembered the last time he returned home. He could hear the cry of the Tusken Raiders, he could see what he did. Yet, he still did not regret what he had done because he also remembered what they did. They killed his mother. 

  "Yeah. Home."

Once they exited out of hyperspace, the Twilight mostly put back together, Anakin glared at the planet with twin suns that took everything away from him.

  "I was hoping I would never have to lay eyes on this dust ball again." 

  "Okaaay. What happened?" Ahsoka inquired curiously. 

  "I don't want to talk about it. Ready R2? Snips? Stinky?"

R2-D2 twittered in confirmation as Ahsoka tightened her restraints. She glanced back at the quiet Huttlet.

  "He's fed and sleeping."

  "Okay, this is it, Snips, watch the scanner for anything isn't supposed to be there."

His faithful Astromech chirped an inquiry. 

  "No, R2. I want the cannon operational first. Leave the rear deflector shields for later."

  "No, rear shields, Master Skywalker? That's awful risky."

  "A strong attack eliminates the need for defense, Snips."

Just when he finished speaking, the scanners Ahsoka was instructed to watch crackled a warning. The Togruta beat the screen with an orange fist once to clear the scattered image and pushed a button twice to stop the broken alarm.

  "Attack ships closing," she reported worriedly. 

As he increased their speed, red laser fire flew past them. Then the Twilight shook violently. They were hit. 

  "Ahsoka, stand by. I need to do a little maneuvering."

If Obi-Wan was here, he would have a snarky response to throw right back at that. 

  To his droid, he continued, "Set the approach vector and make ready to land." Then to the Padawan, "Ahsoka, activate the guns!"

  "All the guns are locked in the forward position!"

  "R2, see if you can unlock those guns!" 

With the alarms whirring, two MagnaGuards (according to the scanners) on their tail, and Tatooine too far for comfort, Anakin's stress levels were rising. The whole ship was high strung. Rotta seemed to feel it as he squirmed in his sleep. 

Then one of the enemy fighters made the fatal mistake of passing them and attacking them from their front, the direction their cannons were locked. Anakin instantly smashed the trigger button, sending the fighter into a ball of fire. 

  "Wow, good shooting!" Ahsoka praised. "One down, one to go!" 

If only it was that easy. He hated denting Ahsoka's faith in him to save them. Taking out the first MagnaGuard had taken a lot of trust in the Force as this crate's ability to aim and fire was disastrous. And the other MagnaGuard was no where to be seen. 

Laserfire smacked into the Twilight's stern. There it is. 

  "Hang on. I think we lost a maneuvering thruster as well."

As the fighter rolled, Ahsoka unclasped her restraints and dove to catch Rotta as he rolled with the ship. R2 had neglected to lock down and was now sliding to the other side of the cockpit, his task only mostly completed. Rotta screamed in Ahsoka's arms, adding to the mayhem.

  "Great! You woke the baby!"

  "I'm a little busy here!" The ship shuddered again and Anakin veered to the right. "Looks like we needed those rear deflectors after all." He hated admitting that he made a fatal miscalculation. 

  "I told you sooooo!" Her final word trailed off as Anakin's three passengers slid to one side of the ship. 

  "R2, turn those guns around! R2, sometime before we plummet in flames would be good..."

  "Why... can't you be a... tiny, little... mouse droid," Ahsoka grunted. Anakin guessed that she was pushing the heavy Astromech back to the socket plug and leveled out for her. A second later, the enemy fighter behind them exploded. 

  "Nice shot, R2. You've been holding out on me."

Although they were no longer being pursued, the Twilight's speed did not decrease. Tatooine was growing closer much too fast and the cockpit was starting to heat up, and not because of the planet's two suns. 

  "Strap in, Snips. Sorry I got you into this." She was too young to die now. And he promised to fix her situation after the returned Rotta home, if they both survived. Rotta may survive the crash. Hutts didn't have bones and were mostly made of muscle. R2 could get him home. 

Comm silence wasn't a priority now. Anakin's fingers flew over the controls that haven't been fried yet, hoping to reach his Master and friend, just in case this was his–and Ahsoka's–last. 

  "Master, this is Anakin. Do you copy? I'm making a crash landing on Tatooine. Jabba's son is still alive, hostiles in pursuit, and–"

He lost the frequency on reentry. He had gotten out enough intel to let Obi-Wan Kenobi know that their mission was so close to success and probably will succeed. 

  "Brace for impact. This is going to hurt a bit."

The Twilight was on fire now and he could smell the smoke. He could almost count the grains of sand as the ground rushed to meet them. Anakin looked around to find that R2 had locked down and Ahsoka was shielding Rotta with her own body. Skywalker twisted the steering in his death grip, hoping to ease the collision. The best he could do was hit a large dune. 

He didn't remember if he hit his head, blacked out, or just closed his eyes as they fluttered open again. Everything hurt. He lifted his head off of the dashboard and shook it to clear the dizziness. 

  "Ahsoka, you okay?"

  "I'm fine, Skyguy," was the weary response. "What about you?"

  "I'm okay. How's Rotta?"

  "Alive. He doesn't seem hurt. Just shocked into silence."

  Good, he thought. With some difficulty, he freed himself from the twisted wreckage then pulled Ahsoka out. R2-D2 was all right, aside from new scratches. 

Anakin retrieved the backpack while Ahsoka stepped out into the blinding sunlight with the Huttlet in her arms.

  "Welcome home, Stinky," she told him, smiling and shading her blue eyes from the sun. Anakin and R2 joined them. He was once used to this heat, but now he could already feel the sweat beading his neck. "Wow, feel that heat. How far do we have to go?"

  "Jabba's Palace is on the far side of the Dune Sea. We've got a few hours' walk ahead. Not a great idea in the heat."

  "Should we wait until it gets dark?"

  "I don't think we can afford a delay, Snips. We'd better hurry if we are to get there by morning."

The young Jedi Knight kneeled down so Ahsoka could slip the Huttlet into the pack comfortably. Ahsoka attached a few water bottles to her belt with whatever water they had left and flipped her hood back over her headtails, this time for the purpose of protection from the suns' powerful rays instead of hiding abuse. R2-D2 took a bit more convincing to follow the Jedi.

  "Come on, R2. It's just endless tracks of gritty, abrasive sand. I'll... someone will clean your servos later."

Reluctantly, the Astromech powered his rocket boosters and landed behind them. 

They left three pairs of tracks in the sand in their wake. A gust of wind would come later and blow them away. Only the remains of a ship left any indication that two Jedi on an important mission was there, and it was soon to be torn apart by the eager Jawas who watched the Republic's hope walk away under the burning twin suns.