(Chapter one.)

Don't look down. Ja-ni repeated that over and over to herself as she climbed down the side of the giant starship. There were more than fifty meters of rusty metal between her and the sandy desert floor below. Carefully, Ja-ni reached down to a shallow overhang, looking around for a safe place to move her feet. The harsh wind of Tatooine pulled at her clothes, but Ja-ni held on tightly, slowly moving closer and closer to the solid ground. With every move, Ja-ni prizes clanked inside her satchel. The spare parts she had found aboard the crashed ship would earn her at least one portion of food from Unkar Plutt, the salvage trader. Ja-ni could stretch that to a few days worth of meals. That was how Ja-ni spent everyday on Tatooine. She would wake up early each morning and grab her satchel filled with water and supplies for the day.

Then she would mount her speeder and head out into the vast starship graveyard. Valuable spare parts were scattered across the desert plains if one knew where to look. By the end of the day, she had usually found enough salvage to trade for a portion or two of food. If she was really lucky, she'd find some parts that she could use to repair her speeder or patch up the traps protecting her home. On the best days, she would find old data chips that told stories about the galaxy outside of Tatooine. The dimly glowing words would conjure images of Ja-ni could only dream of. She would close her eyes and try to picture what the beautiful green forests or endless blue oceans on those distant planets looked like. But when she opened her eyes, she was still on Tatooine.

All she saw was the same desert that had strached before her everyday as far back as she remembered. Ja-ni's heavy boots thumped onto the burning sand when she finally reached the base of the ship. It was not the time for dreaming. She needed to carry her salvage back to Nilma Outpost so she could trade it for supper and return home before sunset. She adjusted her googles and rewrapped one of the loose, dingy cloths she used to keep the fierce sun off her arms and legs. Then she set her bag full of salvage on top of her sandboard. Ja-ni had discovered the smooth metal sled as part of a Mon Calamari escape pod a few seasons back. After liberating it from the pod, Ja-ni could use the sled to quickly descend the largest sand dunes. It was practical and a whole lot of fun.

Ja-ni leaped onto the sandboard and rode it down the dune and toward her speeder. A smile threatened to reach her lips as the warm wind rushed past her. The sandboard didn't have the same smooth handling as her speeder, but the lack of control was also part of the thrill. Soon the board skidded to a halt in front of Ja-ni's speeder. She tied her salvage and the board to the speeder and zoomed toward the setting sun of the horizon. As Nilma Outpost slid into view, Ja-ni could already see that the scattered tents and small spaceport were bustling with creatures every shape and size. There was a long line of scavengers at the cleaning table. It had been a good day for many of them. Two Melittos hummed cheerfully as they cleaned off a massive panel from an old Trandoshan slave ship.

The Melittos sightlines faces were turned skyward as they ran their supersensitive cilia across the panel. Even without eyes, the aliens could clean and repair technology as well as any sighted race. Almost all panels circuitry looked like it was in working order. Unkar would surely give them weeks worth of portions for such a find. Ja-ni hopped off her speeder and took a place near the Melittos at the cleaning table. The buzz of the marketplace pushed in around her as scavengers chatted about their finds, swapped tips about newly discovered wrecks, or shared news of explores lost in the Shrinking Field's. Ja-ni was eavesdropping on a particularly interesting conversation about a new Teedo settlement when she saw him. A little boy, no more than seven or eight cycles old, was exiting a nearby ship.

Holding the little boys was a older woman who, from the way she looked at the boy with such love and attention, must have been the boys mother. The boy pointed excitedly at the strange aliens who passed by them. Hi must have had a million questions about the new planet. His mother reached down and playfully ran her hand through the boy's hair. Absentmindedly, Ja-ni mimicked the mothers loving gesture, softly stoking the salvage in her hand. Ja-ni had no memory of her parents. She didn't know why they had taken her to Tatooine, or why they had left her there. For all she knew, they were long dead. Yet Ja-ni couldn't help hoping that one day a transport would arrive and her parents would walk down the ship's ramp and back into her life. Ja-ni looked down at the power cell she was washing. It had been clean for a good five minutes.

Ja-ni shook off her thoughts and carried her sparkling salvage over to Unkars window. The old Crolutes saggy skin wobbled as he pawed through the spare parts Ja-ni represented. Why the blobfish like brute had chosen to make his home on a dry desert planet, Ja-ni would never know. Nor did she care to find out. Ja-ni tried to keep her conversations with the repulsive junk lord as brief as possible. Leaning forward with a terrifying smile, Unkar made his offer. Today you get... one quarter portion.

A protest immediately leaped to Ja-ni's lips. One quarter portion? Her salvage was worth at least a full portion, if not more! But the thought of arguing with Unkar died almost immediately. Ja-ni needed the food, and there was no one else to trade with at the small outpost. Unkar had seen to that personally. Ja-ni nodded and accepted the small pocket of dried veg meat and polystarch powder. It would have to do.