102 Chapter 92

It had been ten years since Renn had set foot on Tatooine, and the desert world was exactly as he remembered it. Still hot and sandy.

Renn and the others had left Coruscant for Tatooine soon after they had found out about the message from Seela's parents.

They had let Anakin know that they would be leaving, and he responded by letting them know that he too would be leaving as well, and defiantly would not be travelling under cover with a certain endangered senator to an undisclosed location, most likely Naboo.

Anakin had seemed a little put off by Renn guessing where he was going with the senator immediately but had quickly recovered and just smiled bashfully as he left.

"So, how's it feel being back?" Opal asked Seela as they walked down the main street of Mos Espa.

"A bit weird I guess, and a bit different… but the last time we were here we were kids, and we were running away from a crime scene." Seela said, remembering the last time they had been to Mos Espa.

"…And Shae was unconscious, wasn't she." Opal said grinning at the Mandalorian girl walking behind them and glaring at anyone suspicious.

"Inaccurate, it was a tactical blackout. I was recovering my strength so I could rip someone apart with my bare hands." Shae grumbled as she fiddled with a vibro-knife hidden beneath the poncho she was wearing to obscure her Beskar armour.

"Suuure." Opal said slowly and Seela giggled as Shae began muttering angrily.

Renn grinned but kept a wary eye on his surroundings. Like the others he couldn't help but remember the last time they were on Tatooine, and his head was on a constant swivel searching for danger.

Unlike Shae Renn wasn't wearing his armour, it wasn't exactly uncommon to see Mandalorians roaming the galaxy and so Shae's beskar armour minus her helmet didn't raise much attention especially as it was covered by her poncho.

But Renn's armour was far more unique and so he had decided not to wear it in favour of moving unseen through the streets of Mos Espa.

"Do you remember where we need to go?" Renn asked Seela, as none of them had been to her childhood home, which she herself had fled from when she was only a small child, and so didn't actually know where they were going.

"I think so…" Seela said trailing off in thought, "it should be around here somewhere."

"Hi there!" An exited voice shouted, and a small figure jumped out in front of the Renn and the girls nearly causing them to jump in surprise.

"I couldn't help but notice you guys seem lost. Need some help?" The small figure, a young Twi'lek girl who looked no older than six years old, smiled towards them.

The small girl was dressed in clothes so dirty and old they seemed little better than rags and had smears of grime across her face. But despite her appearance her smile and the gleam in her eyes was that of a businessman about to rob someone blind.

"Really?" Renn said smiling at the girl who for some reason that he couldn't figure out reminded him of Seela. "And how can you help us?"

The girl puffed out her chest proudly and gave them a smug grin.

"You're in luck as you just so happen to have found Mos Espa's best, and only, tour guide!" She said with a wide smile, and Renn could hear Opal giggling at the small girl's antics.

"Impressive," Renn nodded at the girl, who mirrored him and nodded too, "but what makes you think we need a guide?"

The girl tilted her head and gave them a strange look as though the answer was obvious.

"Come on, you guys are obviously new in town," She said rolling her eyes, "So you obviously need someone smart and helpful like me to show you around, before you get taken advantage by someone more sinister."

"That seems fair," Renn said and saw a momentary flash of surprise on the girls face and guessed that she'd never got this far in her sales pitch before. "So how much will this tour cost?"

"Ah!" The girl exclaimed and struck a thoughtful pose before holding up a finger to Renn, "Ten credits."

"Hmm, seems a bit expensive… could you do it cheaper?" Renn said smiling but the girls face instantly dropped into a stoney expression.

"Twelve credits. Each." She said sternly, "I don't negotiate with hagglers."

Now both Opal and Shae were laughing now as Renn, and the small girl began engaging in a battle of wills.

"Okay… you win," Renn said finally breaking eye contact with the victorious child, with a look of mock defeat on his face to complete the small bit of theatre he had been preforming to amuse both the girls and the child.

Renn then input the credits he wanted to transfer into a credit chip and passed the chip over to the girl.

The girl accepted the credit chip with a smile on her face but stopped and stared in astonishment when she looked at the amount displayed on it.

"Something wrong?" Renn asked and gave the girl a knowing smile.

He'd just handed the girl ten times the amount of credits she'd asked for, and the young Twi'lek was now looking between the credit chip and Renn in amazement.

"Nope," The girl finally said, a brilliant smile plastered across her face, "I'm Dia by the way, and if you follow me, we can begin the tour!"

-

"And now we come to the best part of Mos Espa, the galaxy renowned spare parts store, known far and wide for it's fair prices and charismatic owner!" Dia said happily as she strode in front of Renn and the others.

She'd just led them down a series of narrow alleys and was now staring proudly at the end of one that led to a dead end.

At the end of the alley was a pair of small crates that had been placed in front of the end wall like a shop counter. And a small banner that looked like it had been pulled out of a rubbish bin was displayed above the crates, the words 'Dia's spare parts store' scrawled messily across it.

"I thought you said you were a tour guide?" Renn asked looking quizzically at the small 'shop' when suddenly Dia disappeared in a blur of motion.

Seconds later she reappeared once again stood in front of the small shop, the banner to which now sported the words 'and tourist information centre' hastily scribbled bellow it.

"What do you mean?" Dia panted breathlessly but tilted her head and tried to act like she had no idea what Renn was talking about, causing Opal to start laughing again.

"Nothing," Renn sighed, "So how's the spare parts business going for you?"

"You know Amazing! I mean err, pretty good… sort of. Could be better… it's a bit… quiet." Dia said and seemed to go through a spectrum of emotions in the span of several seconds.

"But it's all going to a good cause, my assistant!" She said excitedly and leapt over the crates before pushing something out from a hidden alcove behind them.

Dia returned moments later with a battered looking astromech droid, around a similar height to the small girl.

The astromech was made from a patchwork of different parts, it's head and torso looking similar to that of an R2 series droid. But it's legs and wheels were mismatched, belonging to different models.

The retractable tools that covered astromechs were also all in a slightly strange arrangement and composition, not looking like they belonged to any known design popular in the galaxy.

Several panels were missing from the droid as well, exposing its wires and circuits, and there was evidence that someone, most likely Dia, had had to clean and scrape out dust and sand from the droids wiring.

"This is my assistant. Mr. Wires," Dia said proudly as she patted the dirt covered droid on the back, which beeped slowly and fondly at the girl.

"Cool, where'd you find him then?" Opal asked as she crouched down to examine the astromech.

Seela followed Opal's lead and crouched next to her, Dia, and the droid, but kept quiet. She had been glancing occasionally at Dia with a thoughtful expression on her face, but she had kept mostly silent in the girl's presence.

Renn didn't know if it was something about Dia or if Seela was just nervous about the coming confrontation with her parents but either way something was bothering her, and he rested a comforting hand on her shoulder in support.

"I didn't find him. I made him myself!" Dia practically preened with a mixture of pride and smugness at the attention her droid was getting.

"No way!" Opal clapped her hands in praise, "That's so impressive."

"I know," Dia said grinning, "I made him from spare parts that I… found, scavenged, or bought. He's amazing, he manages the shop really well and he's really good at chasing off the more…err… sinister costumers."

Renn smiled at the girl impressed. His friend Anakin had built a droid himself as a child and Renn had always thought that that had been very impressive, but this girl had done a similar feet at an even younger age.

"Where are your parents?" Seela suddenly asked, staring intently at the young girl.

"Uhm, they're at home," Dia said quietly, and for the first time since they'd met her the girl stopped looking cheerful.

Mr. Wires the astromech then beeped softly from next to her and nudged his metal body against her side, seemingly trying to be comforting.

Seela stared at the Dia still thinking about something and hummed softly in consideration.

"OH!" Dia shouted slightly panicked as Mr. Wires beeped a reminder about something to her.

"Sorry, lost track of time! That concludes our tour of Mos Espa, any further questions or if you want to buy anything form the best store in the city, please direct your attention to my fantastic assistant. Bye!"

And after waving happily to Renn and the others Dia sprinted away, leaving them with the patchwork astromech that seemed to want to follow her, but remained dutifully were it had been told to stay.

-

It hadn't taken Renn and the others long after their brief distraction with Dia to find the street that Seela's parents lived on.

After they had asked Mr. Wires for directions of course. The droid had seemed oddly insistent they hurry to the address when it had learned of it, but Renn had just assumed it hadn't wanted strangers hanging around in its alley for too long without Dia present.

And so, they had left the droid where it was and gone off in search of Seela's parents.

But as they had got closer and closer to their address it became increasingly clear that they didn't really have a plan to deal with what came next.

Opal and Shae seemed to be leaning towards solutions that involved flamethrowers, or maybe some acid, or acid flamethrowers, and Renn had to admit that he sort of agreed with them.

Seela's parents had done nothing but cause her pain and that didn't look like it was ever going to change. And Renn wanted to try and prevent anything from causing any pain or hurt from threating Seela, or Opal, or Shae.

But they had all agreed to let Seela handle things, and no matter how much they might have wanted to kill Seela's parents for what they had done, it was up to Seela.

And Seela had been very quiet about what she was going to do.

She was still silent as they walked up to the door of a rough looking house in part of the one of the poorer areas of Mos Espa.

Seela stood glaring at the door in front of her and Renn didn't know if she was psyching herself up to knock on it or kick it in.

He was just about to ask if she was okay when they heard a muffled shout of anger through the door.

The shout was followed by a loud slapping sound and then a cry of pain. A child's cry of pain.

Seela beat everyone else to it by milliseconds and sent a violent shockwave of the force slamming into the cheap wooden door in front of her, which promptly exploded into a shower of splinters that were sent hurtling into the house.

She then strode into her childhood home, Renn close behind her, to see her family.

Her father was sat on a beat-up old sofa, a half-finished container of some unidentifiable alcoholic beverage in his hand and several empty ones littered at his feet.

A look of what appeared to be shock was plastered across her father's face, although it was heard to tell from how drunk he was.

Her mother was stood in the centre of the room, one hand raised high in the air waiting to deliver another slap and was glaring in front of her.

And hunched over before and trying to make herself look small in front of Seela's mother, was a small Twi'lek girl.

A small Twi'lek girl who was clutching a hand to her cheek in pain, tears already welling up and running down her normally smiling face.

A small girl that Renn realised was Seela's sister. And the resemblance she shared with Seela, and Seela's earlier curiosity towards the girl suddenly made sense.

Even Mr. Wires's insistence that they hurry to get to their destination now made sense. The droid had obviously wanted them to protect the girl from her parents.

To protect Seela's sister, Dia.