Chapter Text
Chapter One
Now, Coruscant
“A request from the Senate, you bring?” Yoda asked Adi Gallia. His face was somber, reflecting the tense atmosphere of the Council Chambers. Many requests had come from the Senate as of late. Some were more palatable than other.
“Yes Master,” Adi said with a bow before taking her seat. “They have requested we send a Jedi to Tatooine to negotiate the reopening of hyperspace lanes and export of valuable resources. News is scarce, but they believe there is a revolt. There is a rumor Jabba the Hutt was murdered. The rebels apparently have control of the space ports and have shut down travel on and off planet, rendering access to important hyperspace lanes impossible. Outgoing comms are being blocked. The Hutt family has been trying to contact Gardulla but their communications are unanswered.”
“Valuable resources? Are we importing sand now?” Ki-Adi asked incredulously.
“Chromite would be the official answer,” Plo Koon said. His mask was as expressionless as ever, but his tone conveyed his clear distate, “but more likely the most out-spoken Senators are actually concerned with spice.”
The room fell silent. The Order had proposed many plans of action to the Senate to quell the prolific spice trade. They were regularly shut down, or allowed to continue with barely half of the requested resources. There was too much money in spice and too many Senators benefitting from the trade or addicted themselves.
It was Mace Windu who finally broke the silence.
“There is a shatterpoint here. We must tread carefully.” He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair as he thought. “We cannot ignore the Senate’s request. The question is who to send.”
“Knight Kenobi, skilled at negotiation he is,” Yoda said.
There were nods around the room. Since his knighting, Obi-Wan Kenobi had been able to broker more treaties and peace negotiations than any other Jedi. He had proven capable of remaining impartial even in difficult circumstances.
“How does that affect the shatterpoint, Mace?” Depa asked.
He closed his eyes, brows furrowed. The rest of the council was quiet as Mace communed with the Force. It was rare that he saw shatterpoints around their decisions. Such an occasion was not to be taken lightly.
“I cannot tell,” Mace said finally. “It’s complex, and large. I fear we won’t know the consequences of our decision here until they’ve happened.”
“Most of the Senators think highly of Obi-Wan,” Adi offered. “They would be pleased with his assignment to the task. And I believe we can trust Obi-Wan to go into the situation with a clear mind.”
In other words, they could trust him to not take sides right away. Many of the older Jedi who had prior experience with the Hutt family would struggle to remain impassive – or even peaceful - with them involved.
“Are we decided then? Knight Kenobi will be sent to Tatooine to negotiate the re-opening of hyperspace lanes and resumption of exports?”
A chorus of ayes filled the room.
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“Tatooine?” Quinlan’s voice was crackly as it came through the comm unit, but his disbelief was clear. “Why are they sending you to that dustball?”
Obi-Wan sighed and picked through his robes. He refused to forego his layered robes, but he had been warned about the extreme heat of the planet. Currently he was trying to find the lightest under-layers he could. At least the long sleeves and hood would protect his fair skin from the sun.
“There is civil unrest. The Senate is concerned with the closing of hyperspace lanes and disruption of their export of chromite. It is apparently important to the production of transparisteel.” Privately, Obi-Wan thought that the production of transparisteel could probably continue at a good pace with the resources of the five other planets who were prominent miners of the ore. He admitted to not being an expert in, or particularly caring about, the metal industry though.
“Chromite,” Quinlan scoffed. “Tatooine is maybe in the top ten suppliers of it on a good year. They are a renowned producer of spice, though. Spice from Tatooine is supposedly more addictive than other strains. The cartels love it.”
Spice. Obi-Wan scowled. He hated the stuff. He’d watched too many sentients lose control of their impulses and spiral out of control on it. It had been useful on missions, occasionally. Especially when he was still a padawan and his master largely relied on tricking and swindling people to get out of tight situations. There was no one easier to beat in sabacc than an addict who’d gone just a hair too long since their last hit.
His bag was nearly full now. He considered the contents, and found a second container of solar-screen in the fresher to pack. The council hadn’t been able to give an estimated timeline of how long this mission might take, and he didn’t want to run out. The last time he came back from a mission with sunburns he’d been lectured for ages in the Halls of Healing.
“Regardless, the Senate predicts economic unrest if shipping to and from Tatooine does not resume soon,” Obi-Wan said evenly. “It is not my mandate to judge if that shipping is ethical or not.”
Quinlan barked a laugh. “Just what have they told you about Tatooine? About these… rebels?”
Obi-Wan sat on his bed and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling as he recalled the mission briefing.
“The working class has become disillusioned with their situation and their requests for better wages going unheard. A faction has become violent and bombed Jabba’s palace. They had the element of surprise and were able to take control of the major space ports and build a communications blocker,” he recites. The briefing had been sparse on details. It matched what little he’d seen on the holonews, but something about it struck him the wrong way.
“The working class? That’s a fun euphemism for the lowest caste on Tatooine,” Quinlan’s voice was getting scratchier over the connection. Obi-Wan knew he was deep in the Outer Rim right now – although unfortunately across the galaxy from Tatooine. “Obi-Wan, you need to know –”
Whatever Obi-Wan needed to know would have to be revealed later, because the connection chose that moment to fail completely.
Obi-Wan surveyed his rooms a final time. Bant had agreed to care for his few plants while he was gone. The cleaning droid was programmed to vacuum and dust once a week. Everything was in order – and with any luck he’d be back in just a few weeks.
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Then, Tatooine
“No!” Anakin cried, clinging to his mother. “I’m not going!”
Watto pulled on his arm. “You’ve had twelve years with your mother, and that’s more than most kids get. Say goodbye and come along.”
“Ani,” Shmi knelt and tried to calm her son, “I hate it too, Ani. But at the markets you’re more likely to find someone looking for a skilled mechanic. If we must be separated this is the safest way. Not to someone whose interest catches on you in the street, or to a gambler who will get rid of you as quickly as possible.”
Her dark eyes were filled with tears. Anakin cried harder. It was a waste of precious water, but he didn’t care right now. His chest felt tight, heart pounding faster and faster. A strange tingling filled his mouth.
“You heard her boy. I can’t keep you both. This way you’ll be less likely to end up in a brothel, because don’t think I won’t be getting offers soon. Best to go now. I’ll get a good price either way.”
Anakin thought that Watto did actually believe he was acting in Anakin’s best interest. The Toydarian wasn’t lying – some customers had let their eyes linger on him too long recently. He had sent them along so far, but his gambling debts continued to grow.
That didn’t change that what would actually be best was freeing Anakin and his mother.
Watto grunted and yanked on Anakin’s arm.
Not thinking, vision clouded by tears, Anakin whipped around and bit. As his teeth sunk into leathery skin he felt odd – something dropped from his mouth and his teeth felt like they were pulsing. His mouth filled with an acrid taste.
Watto convulsed violently, his arm ripping out of Anakin’s bite. He fell to the dusty floor, wings no longer capable of holding him aloft. His eyes rolled back in his head and arms, legs, and even wings twitched rapidly. The fit lasted for a few long minutes.
Shmi grabbed Anakin and pulled him back, out of reach of the flailing Toydarian. They watched until the fit subsided and Watto lay unmoving on the sandy floor. Hesitantly, Shmi crept forward.
She reached out, checking for a pulse. When nothing fluttered under her touch she shuddered.
“We have to hide this. His absence in the gambling dens will be noticed after a few days,” Shmi said. Her face was drawn and pale. “We need to make it look like he freed us and fled. Krayt knows he had enough debts to run from.”
Anakin sidled up to his mother. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t want him to separate us.”
Shmi wrapped him in a hug, tucking his head into her shoulder and blocking his view of the body. “I know you didn’t mean to Ani, it was an accident. We will have to figure out what happened later though. Taking care of this is more important right now.”
He nodded solemnly and drew back from her embrace. “I can find our detonators and papers. There is a box in his office, I think it’s fingerprint coded.”
“Bring it out back,” Shmi told him. She grabbed Watto under his armpits and started to drag the body towards the entrance to the scrap yard behind the shop.
Anakin searched the office, trying to block out the scrape scrape thud of Watto being drug across the floor, bumping into the junk that overflowed into the walkway occasionally. Just like the store, the office was a mess. Receipts piled up in odd corners and bills were shoved into cubbies ad hoc. He found what he was looking for at the very top of the desk. He had to climb onto the oversize furniture to reach it, knocking off papers and loose change as he went.
The box was small. Smaller than Anakin thought something so important should be. Inside it were two detonators laying on a couple folded papers. Certificates of ownership. The urge to tear them up was nearly overpowering, but he knew his mother was right. They had to make their cover-up convincing.
Anakin had seen what happened to a slave that killed their owner before. He would rather blow himself up with the detonator than go through that.
Carefully, he climbed down with the box and brought it out back.
Shmi had wrapped the body up in a tarp that was usually used for covering exposed engines when a sandstorm came through. She was clearing a path to get out one of the landspeeders.
“We’ll take it out to the desert and dump him on the edge of the wastes. It won’t take long for the desert to destroy everything. We’ll find some scrap on the way back. Make it look like a routine scavenging trip.”
Anakin nodded quietly. It seemed like a good plan. It wasn’t unusual for Watto to send one of them out to scavenge, or even both if he thought there was a fresh space wreck to pick apart.
“Disarm the detonators,” Shmi told Anakin. She took papers from him and dug through her pockets for a pen. “Luckily he was too lazy to do his own paperwork. I’ve been forging his signature for ages.”
Anakin found his smallest toolkit and started carefully taking apart the detonators. They were simple devices, really, but he still felt like his heart and jumped up his throat. Not even podracing was as anxiety-inducing as taking apart the device that could literally explode him and his mom.
Once he had the emitter chips exposed he carefully ran them through the shop’s frequency disruptor. Usually they used it on ships that came into Watto’s possession through dubious means, wiping the tracking units on them so previous owners wouldn’t come calling. It didn’t destroy microchips, but rendered them unable to emit signals.
To be completely safe, they’d still need to find and disarm the bombs implanted somewhere in their bodies. It wasn’t impossible for a slaver to recode another detonator to their implants.
Shmi had forged the transfers of ownership and carefully put them back in the office by the time Anakin was done.
“Alright Ani, help me get him in the rear storage. Just a little bit more work and we’ll be free.”
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Shmi had driven them to the edge of the Jundland Wastes. They were well over an hour’s travel from Mos Espa, and that in the landspeeder Anakin had modified to be faster after one trip where he was almost caught by Tusken Raiders.
They found a cliff that overlooked the Wastes. There were some small signs of plant life around: a couple black melon husks and small prickly leaves. Anywhere there was plant life there were sure to be animals that would consume a body. Even a family of womp rats could get rid of a being the size of a Toydarian in just a couple of days. With any luck though a krayt dragon – greater or lesser – would find him tonight.
Shmi unrolled the tarp and pushed the body over the cliff. Anakin watched as it rolled and bounced down the jagged terrain. The suns had gone down but not all of moons were fully risen yet. The desert was shadowy now, and Watto’s body disappeared quickly in the dark.
Anakin blinked back tears. He wasn’t sad, not like he’d been when Kitster’s mom had been killed by one of her owner’s clients, but he felt sick to his stomach. He had killed someone. He had killed Watto.
None of the hero’s in the stories his mom told him at night were killers.
The acrid taste was back in his mouth and he tried to swallow it down. It hit his roiling stomach and he gagged, nausea forcing him to throw whatever it was back up.
As he fell to his knees, retching into the sand, Shmi collapsed next to him and rubbed his back soothingly.
“Look at me baby,” she said softly. One hand came up to his cheek, gently turning his head towards her.
Anakin went willingly. He rested his cheek in her palm even as her other hand came up and pulled his upper lip up.
“Vexis,” she whispered. Anakin felt her gently press on a tooth with one finger. It felt odd though, not like his normal teeth. It gave slightly under the pressure, like when he had a loose tooth ready to come out. Except when she withdrew he could feel it smoothly glide back into place.
“What’s wrong with me?” Anakin trembled slightly. Whatever had come from him had killed Watto. Would it have killed him if he hadn’t vomited? Was his mom in danger from touching him?
Shmi picked him up and carried him back to the speeder. “On my home world we had a serpent god. Some called him Vexis.” She paused as Anakin took his seat next to her in the speeder.
“Vexis has blessed you,” she said, pressing a kiss to the middle of Anakin’s forehead. “He has given you a gift to protect yourself with. We had stories of the god-touched - it is time I share them with you.”
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Anakin had heard that things were different on other planets; planets in the Core, the Inner and Mid-Rims. Other planets had governments. There was a democratically elected Galactic Senate.
Shmi had had to explain the concept of democracy to him, and Anakin still wasn’t sure that he understood it. He knew that there were planets on which slavery didn’t exist, but the idea that everyone was allowed to vote seemed too far-fetched.
Still, even if only some people could vote that would be more than they had on Tatooine. On Tatooine there were only the Hutts.
They could be called a government. They made the rules and laws certainly. They collected taxes. As far as Anakin understood though, governments - even the ones called monarchies - were supposed to use the taxes to help upkeep public spaces. Things like roads, schools, and a justice system.
Tatooine had a justice system of a sort. The Hutt enforcers. When Jabba was displeased with someone he sent the enforcers and they killed the being or put them into slavery. The enforcers also collected taxes.
They were here now. Shmi and Anakin had prepared for this. They knew when taxes were collected in this area, and they knew what Watto had usually paid. They’d gathered a little extra, hoping to earn enough favor for the collectors to overlook Watto’s absence.
“Where’s the bug?” a Weequay male asked roughly. His gaze wandered disinterestedly over the merchandise.
“Watto left to take care of some debts,” Shmi said smoothly. Her words could be interpreted loosely – left could easily be a euphemism for murdered. It wasn’t unusual when someone proved unable to pay their debts, especially if it was to a spacer. Watto was known to gamble with those passing through Tatooine. Likely in hopes that they would leave before finding him if he lost and couldn’t pay up.
“Left you running the shop?” The Weequay’s gaze was a little sharper now. Anakin wished they had been sent two Gamorreans, instead of a Weequay with a Gamorrean along as muscle. The pig-lizards were easy to convince.
Shmi hesitated and dropped her gaze, pretending sadness at her owner’s loss. “It was very sudden, he freed us on the condition we continue the business for when he comes back.”
Reasonable, if they could convince the Weequay of their loyalty. Slavers liked to believe their slaves were loyal to them, like a prize massif. Plus, if Watto had left behind slaves he would have been guaranteed to lose both them and the shop when they were sold to pay his taxes and someone else took the business over.
The Hutts thankfully weren’t concerned with property ownership in their towns as long as the taxes were paid.
“We have the taxes ready, sir. We would like to keep everything in good order for his return.” With a slight bow, Shmi held out a battered box full of money. Anakin tried to look sad from where he stood behind Shmi. He suspected he maybe just looked ill instead, but neither Weequay or Gamorreans tended to be very good at interpreting human facial expressions.
The Weequay took the box and counted it quickly. He looked satisfied enough, and shoved the box at the Gamorrean who took it obediently.
He stopped in the doorway as they left. “Jabba doesn’t care who runs a shop here as long as the taxes continue to be paid.”
A boon and a threat. They would be left alone, but if they couldn’t pay they were sure to end up in the slave market again.
__________________
Cliegg Lars was not a complicated man. He owned a moisture farm outside of Mos Espa. He had a son who he hoped would take over the farm one day. And – most importantly to Anakin – he was interested in Anakin’s mom.
About a year after that day Cliegg had come in to their shop with a broken condenser unit from one of his vaporators. He had stayed to chat with Shmi while Anakin worked on it, claiming that none of Mos Espa’s entertainment interested him.
That had been a point in his favor when he returned some weeks later with a droid that could have been repaired at home by even the most clueless farmer. The gift of a jug of water had been an even better point.
A few weeks after that when Cliegg showed up in his perfectly well running landspeeder and asked if they could diagnose the “strange sound” it was making, and then asked Shmi to get lunch with him, Anakin told his mom to go and that he would mind the shop.
The strange sound was a bolt that had been dropped in the engine compartment. It wasn’t even a bolt from the landspeeder. Anakin thought about docking Cliegg a point for lack of creativity, but when his mom came back smiling and laughing, he decided that he could award a point for persistence.
“Cliegg seems nice,” Anakin said that evening. They were in the small quarters below the shop, which they’d taken over after it became public knowledge that Watto had freed them, and the general consensus was that he wasn’t returning.
Shmi glanced at Anakin over her shoulder from where she was stirring vegetables over the kitchen fire. She raised an eyebrow at him, silently asking why he was bringing this topic up.
“Do you like him? He really likes you,” Anakin said bluntly. “I think you should date him.”
“Oh? Why do you think that?” Shmi asked with a laugh. “Other men have liked me and you never seem to care for them.”
Anakin frowned. His mother was teasing him - she knew why he disliked the men that usually showed interest in her. They were sleemos.
“He’s kind, and he makes you laugh, and he’s making up the stupidest reasons to come to the shop and see you.”
Shmi laughed. “What do you think he’ll come up with next? Will his droid need a language reset?”
Anakin groaned. “That’s why you need to make a move, Mom! What if he actually breaks something?”
“I suppose a salvage trip near his farm could be arranged,” Shmi conceded.
__________________
Ever since that day Anakin had been changing. He needed food less frequently – a blessing in his mind, though his mother worried when he only ate once or twice a week – and had developed a keen ability to see other beings in the dark.
There were smatterings of scales on his body now, a dull gold that nearly blended in with his skin, splashed over his shoulders and hips.
He usually kept them well covered. Especially on days like today, when he was running errands for his mother and had to run around the busy streets of Mos Espa. To be unique on Tatooine was never a good thing. He was free now, but it would only take a word from one of the Hutts for that to change. And they were known collectors of unique beings.
In the hustle and bustle of the market he was shopping in, something snagged on his shirt and pulled the shoulder down. The desert suns reflected off of his scales before he could right his clothing.
A hand came from behind and grabbed him, spinning him to face a leering Zygerrian.
“What have we here?” The man’s voice was like oil, slippery and viscous. His garb revealed him as a trader for the Zygerrian royalty immediately. “Something pretty?”
Anakin shuddered and tried to pull free. At thirteen he was already stronger than many humans on Tatooine, but his strength paled in comparison to an adult Zygerrian male.
“Let go of me,” he said, trying to stay calm. “I’m a free man. I have the papers to prove it.”
The Zygerrian shrugged and pulled Anakin’s shirt down further. More scales were revealed and the man’s grin widened. “That is easily changed. Especially for something as young and interesting as you. If Jabba doesn’t want you for his menagerie my queen will most certainly be interested. She loves to collect pretty boys.”
The man was pulling Anakin along now. They were headed towards the slave markets. Undoubtedly the Zygerrian had been conducting business there already. If one of Jabba’s higher ranking thugs was present, he may not even have to drag Anakin to the palace to get permission to re-chip him.
“Let me go!” Anakin yelled, giving up any pretense of calmness. He struggled viciously in the Zygerrian’s grip, twisting and digging his heels into the sand. The man turned and raised an arm, preparing to hit Anakin across the face.
Anakin struck. He bit into the arm that was holding him, fangs unfolding and digging deep into skin. Fur filled his mouth but he ignored it, biting down harder. He could taste the acrid venom that pulsed into the flesh under his teeth.
He came to his senses quickly and released his jaw. Backing away from the Zygerrian, Anakin watched with a cautious eye. The man was stumbling, but still on his feet.
Maybe Anakin would be lucky this time, and the Zygerrian would just be sick enough for Anakin to make his leave.
As soon as he had the thought the Zygerrian started spasming. He fell to the ground violently, limbs lashing out uncontrollably and eyes rolling back in his head.
Anakin fled without a backwards glance.