Slave

I roll my eyes at my brother. How will he podrace in this hunk of junk?

"Hey bantha brains, you forgot to connect the laser drive to the engine."

"Shut up womp rat! I know what I'm doing." He follows my advice anyway.

"Sure you do." I retort sarcastically.

"Just because Watto likes you best doesn't mean that you're smarter than everyone else."

"Shut up!"

"Aww. Little baby Ratha's all sad."

"I'm not a baby I'm seven!"

"Ani stop winding your sister up."

"Sorry mother."

"It's okay. Come on you two, in the house. There's a storm coming." The two of us run inside our small homestead together, eagerly following our mother.

We both sit in the main room of the house and I start playing with my plastic podracer toy. Mum is stood over the stove cooking something that smells bad and Ani is sat at the window watching the storm. Eventually mum serves dinner and Ani makes a disgruntled face at the mush on the plate.

"What is this stuff? Yuck!"

"Food. That's all that matters. Eat it." Mother's voice is strained and unhappy.

"I like it." I lie to make her feel better and she gives me a tired smile. After finishing dinner Anakin continues to watch the raging storm outside and I brush through the tangled mess on my head before proceeding to play with the brush. Mother falls asleep curled up on the two man sofa.

When it gets late Ani puts a blanket over mother before taking me to bed.

"It's okay. When I turn 10 I'll be able to free us all somehow." I smile and fall asleep, dreaming of freedom.

The next day...

"Come on you two. You'll be late!"

"I don't wanna go!" Anakin moans. I'm fully dressed of course but my lazy brother is still in his underwear.

"Come on bantha breath lets move!" I shout. Mother comes in to find me sat on my bedmat grumpily.

"Ratha go to Watto and tell him that Ani will be there soon." I agree and run down to the shop. Watto is just arriving.

"At least the reliable one is here. Where is your brother?"

"Still getting dressed. He'll be here soon though."

"Good. Why don't you start us off by getting that expensive new hyperdrive cleaned up and making sure it works?"

"Yes sir!"

Anakin has to speak Huttese in front of Watto because he broke a really expensive part once so he has to speak Watto's first language until he's 15. It's my stupid brother's fault for gambling with him. I arrive at the hyperdrive and begin by opening the side. One of the main parts has been manually disconnected so I reconnect it. At least the thing works now. Then I polish it slowly.

When it gets to about midday Watto walks out with a strange, tall man with a weird beard. He's wearing some robes that must be drowning in sweat by now.

"Ah yes and this is my personal favourite slave. She gets things done and she's just fixed this brand new hyperdrive herself." I bow and the man returns the gesture.

"What is your name young one?"

"Ratha."

"Was that your brother back in there?"

"Yeah but he doesn't know what he's talking about half the time. So you need a hyperdrive?"

"I certainly do. What type is this one?"

"A Nabooian one. It had been disconnected at the reactor but I fixed that. Everything else is in mint condition."

"You know a lot about mechanics."

"I learned most of it from Anakin. Then he got busy with other stuff." He nods, deep in thought. Watto clears is throat.

"So are you going to buy?" Then they start talking about money so I go back into the shop and start cleaning the shelves. Anakin is sat on the counter talking to a girl. I'll admit she's pretty but she looks about 14. Way out of his league. I roll my eyes at him. His pick-up lines are so tacky. A Gungan is messing about with one of the droids and Ani isn't doing anything about it.

"Hey! Stop that!" I chastise the Gungan who sticks his tongue out at me. I grab the tongue and rub a bit of rusted metal on it.

"Moyee moyee! Rude!"

"It's also rude to mess about with things that don't belong to you! Especially when you can't pay it off."

"Mesa sorry. Mesa just nosy."

"It's okay. My sister gets overprotective." That's when the man walks in looking rather disappointed.

"Lets go." Anakin watches the girl leave and I silently carry on cleaning. Watto grumbles something in Huttese but I don't know what he's saying. Anakin responds in a defensive tone, Watto probably just swore at the group that just left. He does that a lot. After Ani does his work we head for home. On our way back we find the man, girl, Gungan and astromech droid from earlier. Ani breaks up a fight between the Gungan and Sebulba.

"And you've brought your cowardly little sister. I'm guessing she needs to hold your hand or something."

"Leave her alone. She just doesn't talk to scum like you!" Sebulba flicks Anakin on the nose. "Hi! Your buddy here was about to be turned into orange goo. He picked a fight with a Dug. An especially dangerous Dug called Sebulba." I smile at them unsurely. I'm always quiet around strangers.

"Nosir, nosir. Mesa hate crunchen. Dat's da last ting mesa wanten." I roll my eyes at the naive Gungan.

"What are your names?" I ask quietly. The man steps forwards.

"I am Qui-Gon Ginn. This is Padme Naberrie, this is Jar-Jar Binks and this is R2-D2."

"My name is Anakin Skywalker. This is my womp rat brained sister Ratha." I punch his arm and he grabs his new injury, glaring at me.

"Well thank you nonetheless my young friend. You did us a service by saving my friend here." I like this guy. Anakin clearly does too.

"Fear attracts the fearful. He was trying to overcome his fear by squashing you. Be less afraid." I subtly shake my head at Ani's attempts

"And that works for you?" She teases him.

"In a sense." On the way home we stop at Jira's stall. Ani hands her three coins and I give him one of mine to buy something for himself. She tells us that there's a storm coming.

"There seem to be more storms now than before."

"My dear it's storm season. Then again this is only the third one you'll remember."

"Hey you guys should stay with us for a while. The storm is dangerous and I'm sure mum wouldn't mind."

What is my brother thinking?