T-101's artificial consciousness re-initiated for the first time since he was blown to pieces in The Crucible facility on Mustafar, and he found himself, still in pieces, being pilfered by a band of thieving Jawas as Choree Kie negotiated with an aged Toydarian junk dealer for the parts needed to properly reassemble the droid.  His consciousness winked out again until he "awoke" to find himself partially reassembled inside a nightmarish stockade of pathetic droids, the bowels of a Jawa sandcrawler.  The Jawas retrofitted him with the cortical annex of a protocol droid to replace his own burned-out part, suddenly gifting him with the ability to speak in tongues.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the desert, the members of Lonely Bantha's tribe of Tusken Raiders dragged Lonely Bantha's wife Jah-Lee-Lah out of her hut intent on tethering her to a rack in the desert to die for her failure to birth a child who could commune with the spirits enough to take up the mantle of shaman.  As they did, Lonely Bantha ordered his son A'bn to bury his straw doll and handed the small child a gaderiffii that was taller and heavier than the boy could wield.  As the tribesmen pulled Jah-Lee-Lah toward the rack, Ismail interposed, ignited her lightsaber and cut the rack in two, stultifying all onlookers.  The silence was broken by a warning shriek of a Tusken scout, who directed the attention of all those in the camp to a great sandcrawler approaching over a distant dune.  The Tuskens mounted their banthas and charged toward their prey, ramming the sandcrawler with their mounts' enormous horns, causing it to list in the sand.  Supercharging his power pack by siphoning some energy from a nearby Power Droid, T-101 destroyed his restraining bolt, and escaped through a refuse chute that jettisoned him into the sand.  Ismail called upon the force to topple the sandcrawler just as T-101 crawled to safety, and the Tuskens tore the thing apart, scavenging it for parts with little resistance from the helpless Jawas.

 

As the rest of the sandpeople busied themselves with collecting the spoils of war, Lonely Bantha explained to Ismail, with the aid of T-101's newfound ability to translate in perfect Tusken, that if she proved herself to the tribe by withstanding a series of "tribulations" in the desert, the sandpeople would have no choice but to accept her as the "Spirit Goddess of the Sands" and concede to her demands regarding sparing Jah-Lee-Lah's life.  Ismail meditated on the issue with Hattori, and agreed, for reasons she could not herself fathom, to endure the tribulations to spare the life of Lonely Bantha's mate.  They set off to the Jundland Wastes where Ismail endured the First Tribulation, disrobing beneath the "High Heat of the Sinking Suns," the scorching, post-meridian sunrays of Tatooine's binary stars.  With the aid of the Force, Ismail withstood what would have immolated a lesser being, and when the temperature started to cool, she saw a vision of a Tusken in white muslin and wrappings atop a white bantha, whom Lonely Bantha referred to as "Wabá."  Though T-101 could see neither the White Rider nor his mount, he was able to translate the name to mean "Pestilence."  As the rider approached, chills, fever, and weakness began to overcome Ismail.  Calling upon the Force, she fortified her spirit and her body, and the maladies passed.  So did the White Rider, lumbering by her and disappearing silently over the dunes.

 

Lonely Bantha led Ismail and T-101 to the next trial, into the Valley of Death.  From an escarpment, he directed their attention to a band of black-clad outlaws sitting around an extinguished fire pit, dining on the roasted remains of some unidentifiable desert beast.  When Ismail and T-101 turned their attention back to their guide, he was gone, but his barking howl could be heard echoing off the canyons in every direction.  The outlaws quikly rose to their feet, alarmed by the Tusken war cry, and drew their blasters, scanning the canyon walls for its source.  They spotted Ismail, who calmly descended as T-101 drew a bead with his targeting computer on the outlaw who appeared to be their leader.  The bandleader welcomed Ismail into their camp, offering her food, even as his three female companions drew their blasters on her.  Ismail approached casually, but clearly meaning business with her extinguished lightsaber in hand.  She sat with the outlaws, and the leader, Morn Selachian, explained to her with a disarming charm his foreboding vision of "Pell-Mell," an imminent, apocalyptic uprising by the sandpeople against the colonists of Tatooine that he predicted would wipe out all inhabitants of the planet in a bloody crusade, leaving for his outlaw-band-in-hiding the spoils of war.  Ismail noted that the Hutts would not relinquish their holdings so easily, and the very mention of the sluggish gangsters aroused the suspicions of Morn's witchy companions, Shrilly Mormf, Sultry Sandi Teaks and Disi-Ann Kabala.  Going for their guns, they drew anew on Ismail, but before they could loose a blast, T-101, from his lofty position, shot Morn in the chest, felling him. Ismail availed herself of the diversion and effected a mysterious escape.  As she climbed up the rock face to rejoin with T-101, she found herself halted by a rider in russet-colored Tusken robes atop a great, red bantha.  Further up the cliff, Lonely Bantha reappeared next to T-101, whispering in the droid's auditory receptor that the Red Rider was none other than "Harb," whom Ismail would have to defeat in combat.  Again, though the droid could not see the rider or his mount, he recognized the word as the Tusken term for "war," and laid down suppression fire to aid his companion.  Using T-101's diversionary blaster shots and Harb's own great red bantha as cover, Ismail launched a sneak attack against the Red Rider, dodging the blows of his twin gaderiffii and finally felling him with her saber.  Ismail had overcome the Second Tribulation, just as a hunger rattled her stomach; the sun sank low; and the howl of a great, ravenous Krayt Dragon approached from the distance!