To this good place, a family had come, from a populous, wealthy world in the Core. A mother, a father, a son, and a daughter. They acquired two claims next to each other, an hour’s speeder ride from Ogden’s Hope—longer if you ran into a rust storm. They built themselves a place to live, with the help of their droids. The first version was just a rough, ugly structure of permacrete, nothing more than a shelter from the sun and wind, but in time it had become theirs. More rooms, more windows, a greenhouse, a second story, decoration, all the little touches that transformed housing into home. They dug into the soil, looking for whatever treasures might be beneath their feet.

The family could have used their droids to do most of the work—but that was not why they had come to Elphrona, and so they all did their part. The children studied with their droid tutors and grew taller every day. The parents worked, and planned, and believed they had made the right decision for themselves and their family.

Until one early morning, the mother, whose name was Erika, looked up from a delving droid she was repairing to see a strange cloud not far from their home. It was odd, unlike anything she had ever seen. For one thing, it hugged the ground like a fogbank. But Elphrona was a dry world. There was water, but it circulated deep below the surface in underground rivers and channels. Rain was a once-per-decade event. So, fog…no. It couldn’t be.

Even beyond that, this cloud looked odd…it had a sheen to it, like a metallic blue. Like a storm cloud, really, though she hadn’t seen one of those since she left her homeworld some years back. And it seemed to be moving with direction, or purpose. Toward them.

“Ottoh,” she called to her husband, who was not far away, spreading feed for their small herd of steelees. The long-legged beasts were clustering around the trough, their excitement at getting their morning meal obvious. “What do you suppose that is?”

Ottoh turned to look. He froze. Unlike his wife, he kept up with galactic affairs—he had not entirely cut himself off from the news of the Republic. And so he had heard stories, and he knew what it meant when a storm came creeping toward your home, or business, or family.

“Get Bee,” he said, dropping the sack of feed he was holding. “I’ll find Ronn. We need to get in the house and seal it up. Now.”

Erika didn’t ask questions. She didn’t hesitate. They were many kilometers from help, and even a good world in the Outer Rim Territories was full of danger. She called for her daughter and ran to the house.

“Ronn!” Ottoh shouted, not taking his eyes off the cloud. “Get in the house right now!”