Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. Disney does.
Author's Digression: This is the first of the Shatterpoint series, where I explore short moments that could alter the course of the prequel trilogy. I love the way so many writers have explored various ways in which Anakin may not have turned into Vader, and there are so many moment in the thirteen years covered by the prequels and TCW that could trigger a change. I decided to try my hand at a few. Enjoy.
I Come to Free Slaves
"You! You swindled me. You knew the boy was a-going to win. Somehow you knew it. I lost everything."
The Toydarian looked both furious and miserable. Qui-Gon was unmoved.
"Whenever you gamble my friend, eventually you'll lose." The junk dealer glared at him petulantly. Qui-Gon sighed and moved away, gazing over the now-emptied stands. "Bring the parts to the main hanger. I'll come by your shop later and you can release the boy."
"You can't have him." The reply was as sullen as it was expected. "It wasn't a fair bet."
The Jedi turned coldly. "Would you like to discuss it with the Hutts?"
There was no honor amongst slavers, but there was law. The Hutts ruthlessly enforced kajidic. Reneging on a debt could be worthy of a death sentence. Especially if the owed was an outworlder who spelled trouble for the clan. The Jedi were the biggest "trouble" for the Hutts in the known galaxy. If Qui-Gon were to kill Watto now, Gardulla wouldn't so much as bat an eye.
And Watto knew it.
"I'm sure they could settle this."
The Toydarian waved a defeated hand. "Take him."
888
Qui-Gon approached the shop slowly, the Living Force nudging him almost uncomfortably. He settled on the eopie he was riding and closed his eyes, searching the currents poking him. Not for the first time, he thought he might almost be willing to endure the painful curse of Mace Windu's shatterpoint visions for the clarity they would grant.
The Force surged at the thought, crystallizing around him, confirming what the Jedi suspected. This was a shatterpoint. An important one. Though it twisted around Anakin, it wasn't just about the boy. There was a step yet untaken here, a moment he had missed. He couldn't see it, but it rippled down the future in flashes of agony and death and disturbance…and a vast, unfathomable emptiness.
"I love you, Mom," the choked voice of a young man fractured across the Force, the grief in it immediate, striking. Qui-Gon felt a sudden cold freeze his spine.
Shmi. Watto had been insistent about not freeing her before, and Qui-Gon had counseled himself that Jedi did not draw on the unarmed, even when provoked.
"I did not come to free slaves."
But perhaps he should have. What were the Jedi doing, exclusively following the directions of the Republic and allowing this corruption, this oppression, to flourish in the galaxy? Could Watto (or any of Tatooine's many slave masters) be considered unarmed when they carried detonators for sentient beings in their belts?
"Justice, of all things, is most important. A knight seeks to bring peace, to restore balance," he remembered Yoda's lessons. "Beautiful speech you are all learning, but a lightsaber each has, yes? Because justice is the cause we serve above others. Where a tyrant flourishes, cut down they must be. Requires a 'saber, this sometimes does."
Jedi surrendered their homes in infancy so that they could belong to all peoples, to defend those who could not defend themselves wherever there was need. Regardless of birth or species, wealth or station. A Jedi belonged to the Force, dedicated themselves to assisting all life to flourish.
He could hardly regard life on Tatooine as 'flourishing'. And aside from a Shadow or two, no Jedi had been stationed here for as long as Qui-Gon could recall.
Because the Republic had a truce with the Hutts. A sprawling system of clans that enslaved entire worlds. The treaty kept them on the fringes of Republic space, preventing their pirates from penetrating too deeply past the Outer Rim.
"The Republic doesn't exist out here." Shmi Skywalker's assessment had carried no shade of blame. No whisper of laying fault at his door, but Qui-Gon felt it keenly enough.
"We have allowed ourselves to become embroiled in politics. The attack dogs of the Senate. It is the chancellor and their committees that dictate Jedi priorities now, not the will of the Force. There is a sickness amongst our fellows, Padawan." The bass voice of his estranged master echoed sadly in his memory. "Something is deeply wrong with the Order. I fear it will ultimately be our undoing."
Now Dooku stood accounted among the Lost, his differences with the Order so irreconcilable he had surrendered his place as a master and a council member to retreat to his homeworld and take up the mantle of rulership. Though Qui-Gon was still uncertain of much about his old teacher, it struck him suddenly that Seranno's Count had not been entirely wrong.
"I did not come to free slaves."
Yes, the Jedi changed his mind savagely as the Force washed over him with approval, I did. At least these two, and hopefully the Force grants me the chance to free many more.
His dismounted, his boots thudding as they struck the ground and he strode into Watto's shop. The Toydarian glared at him before gesturing to the countertop where a slim controller lay.
"The boy's remote," he muttered.
Qui-Gon didn't so much as glance at it as he crooked his fingers. A second remote slid swiftly from Watto's belt and joined the first, sailing into his hand. "I'm taking his mother as well," he declared, secreting the two in a pouch.
Watto rounded on him, snarling. "I told you, no pod is worth two slaves!"
The snap-hiss of Qui-Gon's lightsaber filled the workshop, the green blade casting cold light over piles of wares. "Is your life?" he asked mildly.
"You – you can't threaten me!" the junk dealer blustered, but he was already backing away from the 'saber held in a defensive position. "There is a treaty! Jedi have rules!"
"We do," the master agreed, keeping his voice deliberately calm as Watto's panic flooded the Force. "One of them is that we do not condone slavery."
"This is not your fancy Republic!" the Toydarian spat. "You cannot just do whatever you want here!"
"The Jedi do not belong to the Republic. I am no slave, hindered by masters from making my own decision." Qui-Gon had not moved, but the lightsaber remained lit. "As a Jedi Master and servant of the Force, I deem your practices to be unlawful and unjust. It ends today. Shmi Skywalker and her son are free."
"Your Order will hear from the Hutts," Watto vowed, wings buzzing furiously as he kept himself away from the ignited blade. "They will not allow this travesty."
Qui-Gon disengaged his lightsaber and smiled wolfishly. The now-former slave owner froze, prey examined by a predator in the light of those suddenly ruthless hazel eyes.
"I'm counting on it. I shall look forward to hearing from your masters."
888
"He has been freed. You both have," Qui-Gon said quietly as Anakin rattled around his room. Shmi's dark eyes were huge as she raised them to the Jedi's.
"Both of us?" she breathed. He fished the remotes from his pocket and handed them to her.
"These are yours. Do with them what you wish."
She took them with steady hands, gave them a long look, turning them over as if she could not quite believe she was holding them, then set them carefully on her kitchen table before turning to face him once more. "Are we to go with you? Is Anakin to become a Jedi?"
Qui-Gon sighed. The boy's power radiated from him, a brilliance that shone in the Force without his conscious effort. But he was also already nearly ten years old. He had the right to choose, and so did his mother. "We did not meet by accident. I believe it was the will of the Force that I should find you both. He has the potential to become a great Jedi. However…he is your son. As well as being his own person. And you are both free now to decide your own paths."
"He will want to go with you," she replied with certainty. "Am I welcome as well?"
This was the sticking point. While Qui-Gon could not imagine that Padmé would be so ungracious as to deny the newly-freed woman a place on her royal yacht to take her away from this place she had suffered so much, the Jedi High Council would never accept her in the Temple as an active part of Anakin's life.
"Jedi are taught to surrender attachment. Most Force sensitive children are discovered before the age of three, thus we don't remember our birth families." A shadow fell on her face and he felt her recoil at the thought. "Children are always given to the Temple with the consent of their parents. The life of a Jedi is a difficult, but honorable, one," he reassured her. "But that is why you and Anakin have a choice. I have not bartered for your freedom simply to snatch it back from you. You are free, Shmi Skywalker, and you need not bow to anyone. Least of all the floundering Jedi your son's bravery and generosity has saved."
"Regardless of what tomorrow brings, you are welcome aboard our ship," Padmé announced decisively as she entered with Anakin, bag slung over his shoulder. "If you do not wish to go to Coruscant, we will ensure you safe passage to whatever world you wish."
At this, Shmi and her son shared a smile, both broad, radiant smiles, and they felt the shadows of indecision momentarily disperse. There would be questions, the difficulty of making a new life, the uncertainty of a future she was allowed to chart…but for now, they were grateful for the chance and excited for the possibilities, the Force singing around them.
888
As Qui-Gon settled into meditation that evening on the repaired yacht—
—that thing, what was that thing that had attacked him, a Zabrak with a red lightsaber, yellow eyes rimmed in fire, and a scorching touch on the Force—
—the Living Force soothed him with its quiet logic that the (Sith? Dark Jedi?) was far from here, no further steps to be taken until they reached Coruscant. He breathed deeply, focusing instead on the pleasant presences of his Padawan and their allies. The lights of the queen, her handmaidens and her guards glowed faintly in his meditative state. Shmi Skywalker's stronger light pulsed near the engines of the vessel (her strength was not so much as to have been trained as a Knight, but what an Educator she would have made), and his apprentice's calm, clear presence chimed in time with Qui-Gon's own, not so much a single point as a river of lanterns, thoughts glittering as they flitted along their bond.
And Anakin. A blazing nova filling the ship, so intensely alive and so endlessly connected to all living things, it almost hurt to look at him, to feel that astonishing focal point, to know it was contained by the flesh of a ten year old.
The Force swirled in lazy eddies around him, trickles of time flickering in and out of focus like glowbugs on a hazy evening.
"I love you, Mom." That haunting, choked farewell had disappeared.
"Always in motion, the future." One of Yoda's earliest lessons to the crechélings. And it was true. One could not prophecy-proof the future, no matter one's gifts, no matter how hard one tried. Tonight, however, Qui-Gon could feel that the door to that awful moment had closed. Other doors would open. Some would doubtless lead to much pain and suffering.
But he had successfully latched one, and both he and the Force quietly rejoiced.
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A/N: My headcanon for after this moment is that Padmé realizes what an incredible woman Shmi Skywalker is and invites her to join her entourage as queen and then senator as they fight for humanitarian causes. Anakin grows up in the Temple knowing his mother is happy and appreciated, and they have infrequent meetings when Shmi's work with Padmé brings her to Coruscant. When Anakin and Padmé marry, Shmi is the only one they tell. Palpatine does his best, but cannot uproot the devotion Anakin feels to his mother or to his master and brother Obi-Wan, who has been welcomed by Shmi as part of the family.
Thanks for reading!