"Um, Twilight?" timidly asked Fluttershy, gesturing slightly to left as the landspeeder carried the trio of ponies (and one rabbit) speedily towards Twilight's home. "Do you see that scary cloud of black smoke?"

"Oh yeah, but what's so scary about it?" Twilight contemplated just ignoring it. Anymore time spent away from Uncle Oaten's moisture farm meant more punishment to her, as far as she was concerned.

"Well, um…" Fluttershy hesitantly spoke, "Smoke like that usually means fire, and, um, somepony could be hurt…" Her voice trailed off as if she was trying hard not to think about what she just said.

"I agree; we should go over and make sure nopony's injured." Celestia interrupted Twilight's protest.

"Fine," is what Twilight wanted to say, but as they got closer the sheer amount of smoke coming from beyond the slight rise caused her sarcasm to give way to concern. She let out a gasp of surprise as they cleared it; before them lay a shallow canyon littered with the twisted and burnt forms of ponies and machinery. Strewn about the carnage were several large, tracked vehicles that Twilight recognized as hay transports.

Twilight brought the speeder to a complete stop, and everypony jumped out into the sand and began to survey the destruction. Before long, several depressions in the sand caught Twilight's attention. Trotting a bit faster, she came up to them and looked for a moment before calling back to her companions.

"Looks like a group of sandponies did it. I found their hoofprints…" Twilight spotted a shaft of a metal axe sticking out of the sand. She levitated it out of the ground with her magic, "…and one of their weapons." Dropping the axe, she shook her head in confusion. "This doesn't make any sense: sandponies have been known to raid caravans before, but I've never heard of them completely wrecking one like this."

Celestia passed by, looking at the ruined trucks. "That's because they didn't," she casually declared.

Twilight was almost dumbfounded. "Huh?"

"But we, and anypony else I imagine, are meant to think so."

"Huh?"

"Come here," Celestia said giving a patient smile, "While these are indeed sandpony tracks, do you notice anything strange about them?" Twilight looked intently at the tracks, searching for something she missed before, but came up empty. "Whoever left these was traveling side by side; Sandponies always canter in single file, to hide their numbers."

Leaving Twilight to gape at the revelation, Celestia turned back to the hay trucks. She peeked into one of them, before quickly pulling her snout back. "Sandponies would also take care not to burn all of the hay in here," she mangaged to cough. Clearing her throat, she continued, "And here: see where the doors and treads have been shot off their mountings? Nopony on Tolfetooine has shown this kind of precision firepower before; I'd be surprised if anypony here had the kinds of weapons required." Celestia started to scan the horizon, searching for a potential threat. "Only imperial stormponies are so well equipped," she finally said heavily, causing Fluttershy to shrink back even more than usual.

"Ugh, stormponies. Could this day get any worse?" Twilight muttered. She saw another depression in the sand, shallower and wider than the hoofprints she'd found earlier. It was also far longer too, she thought, continuing both ways into the distance. One way lead out to a familiar looking mesa, the other lead back to…home.

"Celestia!" she shouted, "This looks like my landspeeder's wake from when we came looking for Angel." She looked up to see Celestia come as close to jumping in surprise as she'd ever come. "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were right here."

"That's quite alright, Twilight, please continue." Celestia said as she regained her composure.

"Well, the ponies that attacked this convoy seemed to be following the wake left by my landspeeder's engines. That means…" Twilight stopped talking as she realized the full implications of what she was about to say. A look of horror appeared as she continued, "T-That means…they could've…followed…it…home." She shot off towards the landspeeder.

"Twilight, wait! It's too dangerous! Stop!" Celestia called out after Twilight.

Twilight heard nothing more than the pounding of her own heart as she threw the accelerator to full. In a small explosion of sand and dust, she had left Celestia, Fluttershy, and Angel standing alone, amidst the smoldering wreck of the convoy.

---

The smoke that Twilight saw as she pulled up to the homestead poured from holes in the ground. Holes that had been her home, the only one she'd ever known. She leaped out of the landspeeder and galloped for the front door. Again and again she tried enter, again and again she was repelled by heat and smoke, coughing and choking.

Weakly she found herself stumbling towards the garage, eyes watering. It too was burning, but there was another landspeeder that they could've escaped in.

"Uncle Oaten…Aunt Mareu!" It was hard to see in the eye-stinging haze, but Twilight saw two smoking shapes inside. She angrily wiped the tears from her eyes and squinted harder. The shapes almost looked like…

No.

Twilight ran back to the landspeeder, but only made it halfway before collapsing in tears. It was all she could do to lay flat on her belly, and bury her face in the sand so she wouldn't have to look anymore.

---

A solid screen filled with stars filled one wall of the vast chamber. Even this tiny portion of the galaxy was an impressive display when exhibited in such a fashion. Nightmare Moon entered the room to stand beside Octavia and Blueblood, who was sufficiently intimidated by the Dark Mare's presence into taking one step away.

"The final checkout is complete," came a voice from the intercom, "All systems are operational."

"Wonderful!" cried Blueblood, "Where shall we take our new battlestation?"

Nightmare Moon appeared not to have heard as he mumbled, half to himself, "She has a surprising amount of control. Her resistance to interrogation is considerable." She rubbed an ear with one hoof as she looked down at Octavia. "It may be sometime before I can extract any useful information from her."

"I've always found your methods rather…quaint." Octavia smirked back.

"They are effective," Nightmare argued, before wincing at the memory, "usually."

"Then perhaps we need a change of tactics," Octavia mused, "Such stubbornness may be worked around by applying the threats to ponies other than the one being interrogated."

"…I'm listening." Nightmare Moon scowled at everything in the room.

"I think, it is time we demonstrated the full power of this Great and Powerful Sphere," Octavia began. She turned and stalked over to Blueblood, who tried his best not to back down before her advance. "Set our course for Aldermare."

---

There was a shrill whine as a orb of light, shining as if a third sun had dropped down to the windswept surface, appeared near the still smoking farmhouse. The orb expanded to reveal Celestia, Fluttershy, and Angel, the latter two looking shocked at the state of their new surroundings.

"It's been awhile since I've had to use that spell," Celestia muttered before calling back to her companions, "I see her landspeeder; Twilight should be nearby."

"O-ok," Fluttershy replied as she took to the air to look for the purple mare. Angel hopped directly for the landspeeder; the sand here didn't agree with his paws, he had decided. He peered out over the sand dunes towards the house, not knowing exactly what to look for, but he had to try. He knew that Fluttershy would blame herself for the unfortunate events that had befallen her new friend; deep down, he also knew it was more of his fault. If he hadn't convinced Fluttershy to accept her assistance, the deaths here could've been avoided after all. The first thing he was going to do, Angel decided, was to make an effort to remember that mare's name; second, he was going to give her a hug as an apology for all of the trouble that they- no, he had caused.

He looked back towards the house and spotted something in the sand: something vaguely pony shaped. Thinking that this was the pony they were looking for, he hopped off of his perch and towards the shape. Fluttershy and Celestia both saw him go at the same time and landed just behind him as he brushed off a thin layer of sand. Revealed was a dark purple tail.

"Oh Twilight," Celestia spoke, grabbing the appendage and giving a gentle tug, "this is no time to bury your head in the sand." She managed to pull Twilight out of her sand blanket, but not out of her sorrow; the lavender unicorn continued to stare straight ahead.

"I share your sadness," Celestia continued, "There was nothing you could've done. If you had stayed here, you'd be dead too. And your new friends would be in the hooves of the Empire." Twilight murmured something into the sand at this, but didn't care if she was understood. Celestia made to speak again, but stopped as she saw Angel slowly walk up to Twilight and put his paws around her in the best hug he could manage in that position.

"I'm sorry Twilight; I feel awful, just awful," Fluttershy said as she joined Angel to give Twilight a hug, "Nopony should have to go through what you have today, nopony." Twilight sat up at her touch.

"Celestia," she finally said, staring straight ahead, "I'll take you to the spaceport at Morab Eisley. I want to go with you- to Aldermare. I want to learn the Magic of Friendship and be a Knight of Harmony…like mom. I want…" She found that she couldn't continue.

Celestia put a hoof on Twilight's shoulder as the other two let go. "I'll do my best to see that you get what you want. But are you sure you want to go to Morab Eisley? There is no greater hive of scum and villainy around after all."

Twilight rose to her hooves, her previous face replaced by one of determination. "I'm ready for anything," she declared as she walked over to the landspeeder, "This day can't possibly get any worse."

---

Author's Notes:

All characters from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic are all owned by Hasbro, Inc.

Original story Star Wars: A New Hope by George Lucas

In the novelization, this chapter is long: it continues all of the way through the cantina until just before Greedo shows up.