Dema Royce, Naboonian Trader

The redhead ushers your group into her ship. As Camie and Obi-Wan follow you up the ramp, Rika takes a second to detach C-3PO and R2-D2 from your landspeeder.

"Thanks again." the black-clad woman says, striding purposefully into her ship. She takes the six of you into a cargo bay, and approaches a metallic storage locker. "I'm Dema Royce, I'm a trader, and I need your help, I'm willing to pay for it."

As she punches an authorisation code into a keypad on the locker, you look Dema up and down.

She's a fair-skinned human female, and looks about five years older than you and Camie. Her red hair falls in silken tresses down to her mid-back. She's attractive, with big brown eyes, and curvaceous. You have to admire the expansiveness of her bust and hips. She's just more... womanly than the sleeker Camie and Rika.

"Stop staring at my ass and listen up." Dema chides you as she gets the locker open. Inside are mint condition-looking blasters, thermal detonators, combat meds, everything you could possibly want in a firefight.

Dema turns to look at you.

"Half the raiders were gone before you got here. I work with my sister, Viquelle. She was a few meters out past the ship, trying to get a comm signal, when they attacked. She was unarmed, half of them made off with her on their speeders, the other half tried to blast me and ransack our ship."

You look across at the rest of your crew to see how they're taking this in. Camie is concerned, Ben is listening, taking the information in sagely. Rika, for her part, looks sceptical of the whole thing.

"Look, you can gear up with what we've got in our armoury, and I'll pay you five hundred credits once we've Viqi back here safe."

"I'm sorry, but your story doesn't make any sense." Rika says, stepping forward.

"Excuse me?" Dema shoots back, giving the scavenger a look.

"Who ever heard of Tusken Raiders using speeders? Scratch that, who ever heard of Tuskens within a hundred klicks of Mos Eisley?" Rika wonders. You have to admit, you had been thinking the same yourself.

"Alls I know is what I saw." the trader throws up her hands. "Now are you gonna help me or not?"

"We are." You tell her. After Camie took the lead outside, you feel the urge to take decisive action. "I'm Luke. This is Camie, that's Rika. That's Ben." you point them out in sequence.

"And I," C-3PO chimes in "am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations-"

"Ben? That's you? Sure you wouldn't prefer Master Jedi?" Dema scoffs, looking at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow at that, you can't help but gawp. How did she know?

"I'm Naboonian. Anytime my uncles had a few too many, they'd start whispering, telling us all about the Jedi Knights who saved Queen Amidala's ass from the Trade Federation." Dema recounts, a hand on her hip. "I've heard enough to recognise a lightsaber in action."

"If that were true," Obi-Wan muses, rubbing his beard. "Then securing my services for 500 Imperial credits would be quite the bargain."

Dema rolls her eyes.

"Look, you could be the Emperor himself, I wouldn't say a thing. All I care about is saving Viqi before anything bad happens to her. Are you still in?"

You nod that you are. Relieved, Dema gives your group ten minutes to prepare before hitting the dunes.

You avail yourself of the ship's armoury, taking a couple of detonators and some stims for your belt. There are a few cobalt blue plastoid vests in supply, and you fasten one over your white farming garb. If you were going into yet another blastout, you'd take whatever protection you could get your hands on.

As you refasten your belt, Camie comes in and hugs you from behind.

"Is it me, or do princesses in need of rescuing just fall into our lap?" she laughs, resting her hands suggestively on your belt.

"I like that!" Rika chimes in from across the hold, where she's reassembling and checking her shiny new blaster. "Being included, one of the princesses."

"Hey, it's a rough galaxy." you tell Camie, trying to project a manly swagger. "We're just doing our part, helping out."

"You're such a dweebo, Wormie." Camie titters. "Which Imperial propaganda holo did you swipe that line from?"

You feel your cheeks burn a little, Camie did like to tease sometimes. When she squeezes your crotch with her left hand, that blush only intensifies.

"Ben was looking for you, wants to show you something, before we set off. He's outside." she says, before heading over to get ready with Rika.

"Heya, Princess." Camie laughs, giving the scavenger a kiss hello.

You leave the cargo hold, walking the corridor and making for landing ramp. You admire Dema's ship on the way, wondering what her name is. You haven't seen many ships in your nineteen short and sheltered years, but this is easily the fanciest. Everything is shiny, top-of-the-line and new. You'd have to ask Rika, but you'd imagine this thing'd clear a quarter of a million credits at even the most conservative of junkyards on Tatooine.

Given Dema's planet of origin, and the chromium plating on the exterior, you'd have to guess the freighter was a Theed Hangars model. You weren't aware they'd ever put out any cargo ships, but you'd always found the old, pre Clone Wars designs of their cruisers and fighters elegant and evocative. You'd paid five of your hard earned credits for a couple of battered postcards depicting a wing formation of N-1 starfighters you'd come across in Tosche Station.

As you exit the ship, Obi-Wan waves to you. He's crouched over one of the fallen Tuskens.

"Luke, you should see this." the old Jedi says. Reaching down, Ben pulls away the rough fabric of the dead raider's mask.

Underneath the mask is a human male of about 40, his face wrinkled and weathered, his eyes are blue.

"What the- the raiders aren't human, are they?" you ask, perplexed.

"They are not." the Jedi says. He rips the man's sleeve. On his bare forearm you see a tattoo, the symbol of the Empire. "They'd also be unlikely to bear the sigil of the Galactic Empire."

"So... these guys are humans, Imperials, dressing as Tuskens. Why?" you ask.

Old Ben rises to a standing position, with just a little stiffness.

"Why indeed, young Skywalker?" he asks, smiling enigmatically. "It could be it serves their purpose, whatever that may be, to move and act perceived as another. There is power in such things."

"I'll say! If you hadn't tricked those Tuskens the other day into thinking you were a krayt dragon, me and Camie'd be buried under six feet of sand right now."

"Yes, yes..." Obi-Wan says, downplaying his heroism once again.

"By the way, you've gotta teach me that trick, when you deflected the blaster bolt! I had no idea such a thing was possible! Could come in handy." you say.

"A Jedi Knight is capable of far more powerful feats than that, young Skywalker. We'll get to such things in time. I had intended to begin your instruction in the ways of the **** yesterday, but... but..."

The old hermit trails off, dreamily recalling what the four of you actually got up to. You're right there with him, as you had been in the bandit tent, both lying back in complete ecstasy, Camie on your cock, Rika on his. You idly wonder if all Jedi had been so sex-hungry, before Darth Vader and the Empire killed them off...

"Come, we should regroup with your Miss Royce. The speeder trails our 'Tusken' friends left behind are already beginning to fade. Nothing lasts for long in these wastes..."