Elderan culture vastly differed from that of most of the galaxy. For one, the predominantly reptilian nation rejected an alliance with the Galactic Republic; hence their segregation from the Naboo, a human civilization based in the northwest city of Theed. They shunned the ongoing homogenization of the galaxy and the standards that came with it. They used only technology that was developed in their own cities, the best of which were their somewhat crude blasters, electrified chains, and energy shields. They entirely forbade the use of droids, as artificial intelligence existed against the will of the Old Gods. A legend told of how Tailok, God of Consciousness, once single-handedly eradicated a hidden society of assassin droids as punishment for their emulation of his gift.
Three major cities composed the war-fueled monarchy known as the Independent Elder States: Shazlok, Kedz, and the capital, Halford. With the combined presence of these cities, the Elders reigned dominant over the forest-ridden center region of Naboo. Their location between Theed and the gungan capital, Otoh Gunga, made it difficult for the Naboo to trade with Gunga as Elder patrols intercepted trade routes frequently; a vital advantage for the Elders in their war against the amphibian people.
Halford became the central hub for the Elder States after their conflict with the Naboo over three-hundred years ago. Then Queen Lexrada escaped to the Elderan military base when the ancient city-state of Tailos fell to the alliance between Naboo and the Republic, along with her husband, King Karzak. Stout, durasteel walls connected by colossal towers guarded the fortified complex. Dark blue and yellow war banners sporting the Elder emblem enfolded the complex's war-torn outer walls. A giant steel gate surrounded the city entrance, often flanked by at least four armed guards. The wide metal path on the other side of the gate led to the central Trade Quarters of the renowned City of War. Droves of citizens packed the streets daily, most of whom flocked to the bustling stone auction houses and banks that made up the marketplace.
The familiar metallic aroma of the city engulfed Jin's senses and throttled his mind into the distant memory of an arduous childhood. His focus wavered as Colonel Sarth led him and the other slaves to their new post. They waded through a dense swarm of merchants advertising their wares to the public. Cacophonies of shouting people became so deafening, they nearly smothered the sounds of the Elder soldiers popping to attention at the sight of their towering commander, General Kazith. A gaping scar ran from the bottom of Kazith's mouth to the edge of his scaly chin. He plodded his enormous feet across the steel plate steps that sat on the rigid grasslands of the city. Stopping just short of the end of the group of slaves, he shifted his hulking body toward a small squad of gungans.
With a roaring cadence, he directed the group, "You four, followJakzal. You're needed at the factory." He waved his long, clawed hands from left to right dismissively as the group flocked to the Corporal. Kazith ordered several more of the slaves to various tasks before addressing the remaining group. "The rest of you can enjoy an evening of respite," he declared with a healthy dose of sarcasm. "I need you all well rested and up early tomorrow. Lot of extra hands needed on the farms for a while. Gonna be a busy harvest, I imagine." The grave tone in his voice clashed with his deceptively benign and garrulous instructions.
Colonel Sarth guided the gungan company to their district of the city, flanked by hooded slavers. They traversed a cracked wooden bridge across a filthy bog onto a fissured cobblestone road. A large steel gate divided the Labor District from the rest of Halford. The path beyond the gate led to rows of flimsy huts comprising splintered wooden walls roofed by long sheets of scrap metal. A select few slavers patrolled the district while those remaining took their positions at the gate.
Jin-Jeri was home. It was a home assigned against his will, but a home regardless. As he made his way to the mud-speckled cobblestone steps that preceded his hut, a panicked gungan man with long, thin, and red whiskers protracting from his wet lip frantically gripped Jin's shoulders. The man sobbed incoherently for a moment before mustering just enough courage to speak.
"Mesa man, mesa don't supposin' yousa got a little girl about this tall with yousa?" He bent one knee toward the ground and lowered his palm to show a particular height. Jin lowered his head shamefully and swayed it from side to side. The man's sobbing escalated before a long, moist, muscular arm met his shoulder. It was Miera approaching from behind Jin.
"What does she look like?" she asked. The man's shriveled face rose to meet her gaze in a hopeful sorrow.
"Shesahas," he began before breaking into a storm of tears. Miera gently stroked the man's shoulder while he regained composure. "Shesahas dark purple skin and yellow-green eyes." He aimed his head toward the ground in contemplation. "Shesahas a doll. Yeah, a wooden doll of anuna!" Excitement shrouded his expression as he put his hands together to mimic the round shape of anuna. "Shesahad it whenwesawas taken!" He reverted to his sorrowful stance from before. "Mesa think shesa ran away. Mesa hope shesa okay."
"You won't have to hope for long," replied Miera. She brisked past the other two and wandered into her own dilapidated hut across the road. The sobbing man limped along the road aimlessly, leaving Jin to consider his plight before entering his hut.
The walls inside were no smoother than their exterior. A flat brown rug laid over the muddy ground under a hammock which Jin hopped into without hesitation. As his weight settled into the thin grimy cloth, he rattled the adjacent nightstand, tumbling a raw metal cup onto the rug. Jin slumped into his hammock and drifted out of consciousness.
Shortly after the Gungan embraced his slumber, a thundering bang thrashed him back to reality. He braced his body inward and prepared to jump out of his bed while he scanned the room. He noticed the open door of his hut that he was positive he closed. As he assessed his surroundings, a tall orange figure materialized from a shaded corner of the room. It was a familiar-looking gungan man.
"Sothisis how you act when you've reunited with your long-lost family?" he asked with contempt in his youthful speech. "Lazing your day away like nothing matters?"
"Excuse me," Jin protested, springing from his hammock into a vertical position, "Who the hell are you exactly?" The two prideful young men stared fiery holes into each other's eyes.
"I'm the one who's gonna teach you a lesson in respect, boy," threatened the intruder who spat on the mud in front of him. Jin reeled back to a half-baked fighting stance while the man relentlessly scowled.Who did I piss off this time,Jin coyly wondered.Passing the thought, he jogged his memory and recognized the man from their parade from Lianorm. His stance faltered slightly, and the man belted out into hysterical laughter.
"Tensen," he mumbled in the middle of a cackle, "I'm Tensen." Jin squinted with intrigue, now only maintaining a partial defensive stance. The invader stepped closer to Jin and extended his lanky orange arms outward. "I'm your big brother, man!" Tensen exclaimed, using his intense body language to request a hug.
"Don't play games with me," Jin warned, pulling back into a full stance.
"Woah, who's playin'? snidely replied Tensen as he flinched. "You don't know me because you're too young, Jin. But believe me, wearefamily." Jin considered the suggestion.
"You know my name somehow," he acknowledged, "But if we're brothers, then surely you know our moth-"
"Tha-Tha!" The older adult interrupted with a confident holler. Jin-Jeri finally relinquished his stance. He sensed the words were true and basked in the presence of a brother he'd never met. He stood stoic for a moment, before briefly leaning into Tensen's embrace. The two parted and Jin dragged a chair from the corner of the room and signaled his brother to take a seat while he picked up the metal cup from the ground, placed it on the stand, and thrashed back into his hammock. He contemplated the revelation or a short while. He deduced that if this was indeed his brother, then the man his mother castigated must have been his father.
"I didn't know I had a brother," he confessed. "Mother only mentioned that my father wasn't at the village when the slavers came." Tensen dipped his head and stared a somber beam into the rug beneath him.
"If I know our mother," reasoned the older sibling, "Losing a child was far too much for her to even think about, let alone mention." He leaned back and placed his right leg over his left with a whimsical smile on his faded orange bill. "It probably didn't help that I wasn't such a wonderful son to her either." He shrugged his shoulders and bounced from the rickety chair to his feet, as if the significance of his disclosure evaporated the second the words escaped his lips. "Speaking of Father," he added, "He'll want to meet you. You should be ready for that." He snickered. "He's frightened of this place. Doesn't know what's gonna happen to us."
"And what about you?" chimed Jin, examining a fresh burn scar on his brother's bicep. "You don't seem too worried." Tensen slanted his head down and back and acknowledged his brother's question.
"Worried? No. I have no reason to worry. I'll be a good little boy for now." His tone shifted to a more sinister degree. "I'm just biding my time. Waiting for the perfect opportunity." He leaned his head close to Jin's and diminished his cadence to a simple whisper. "We'reGungans. I haven't forgotten that. I hope you haven't."
"I haven't," Jin-Jeri affirmed. He didn't need to inquire further as he understood his brother's intention. He'd witnessed that fire many times in his life. Whenever a new batch of slaves arrived, one or two inevitably clung to the freedom they so desperately wanted back. He'd also seen that fire snuffed out too many times and dreaded the same fate for his newfound brother. Escape was on Jin's mind most every minute of every day. He knew that patience was the key, however, as coordinating such a bold action for him and his family required a specific, not to mention unlikely, set of circumstances.
Tensen ambled to the front door of Jin's hut and placed one hand on the wall beside. He twisted his body to face his brother once more.
"I almost forgot," he noted, "The slavers told me to bunk with you, so you'd better make some room, little brother." He swiftly escaped the hut as Jin tumbled from his hammock and smashed his bill against the thick mud below.
"Hey!" He interjected, storming out of the hut into the humid breeze of the Labor District. Truth be told, it was very rare for a hut in the district to house only one slave, and Jin's fortune appeared to run dry. Jin thought to follow his brother before he became distracted by the visual of a focused Miera, covered in dirt, hurrying across the path with a hefty stride. She held a shovel in her hands. He started forward to greet her, then halted when he heard a voice calling to him.
"My boy!" cried the disembodied voice in a butchered Basic dialect. "My boy, it's reallyyou!" Jin span around to meet the longing gaze of a stubby, purple-skinned, older man with short whiskers. "Jeri, my boy, I'm here now," the wrinkled gungan proclaimed.
"Jin-Jeri," the young man corrected. "Are you my father?" The man's face brightened.
"Yes," he confirmed, "My name is Binku Balkan. You share that name. You are my son." his knees buckled momentarily and tears swelled from his shriveled eye stalks. "I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you, my boy." They clutched each other closely for a short bit and bonded on their recent union. After indulging in light small talk, Jin-Jeri felt compelled to ask of a matter that weighed heavily on his mind.
"Why weren't you and Tensen at the village the day the Elders captured our tribe?" The query took Binku aback and his expression grew serious.
"I took your brother hunting, Jeri," informed Binku. "We were in search of supper for that night." Jin contemplated the validity of the explanation, but ultimately accepted Binku's word.
Jin accompanied his father through the cobblestone trail to a hut accommodating Tha-Tha and Simass. Tensen and Simass dwelled inside and gossipped together while their mother sat against the wall outside and observed the setting sun. A wave of discontentment washed over her rubbery, wrinkled face when Binku locked eyes with her. Instead, she looked upon her son standing next to the man with a glowing welcome emanating from her eyes. Jin sat with his mother while Binku conceded any notion of reconnecting with his wife and convened with his children inside.
"A lot is changing, Mother," said Jin, resting his hand on Tha-Tha's crossed knee. "I'm not sure I know how to handle it."
"You mean Tensen and your father?" guessed Tha-Tha.
"Among other things,"the tired, young man answered with an anxious sigh. Tha-Tha closed her eyes and entered a near tranquil state of mind. She gripped the hand of her youngest child resting on her knee and guided it to her chest, placing her other hand on his chest in unison.
"My son," the old woman explained, "Change is inevitable. It will always come, no matter how much you dread it. Only how you adapt to change is within your control. But just as I feel your heart beating against my palm, you will feel the path you must take. Trust in yourself as I trust in you." Jin repositioned his hand behind his mother's head and bowed his own head next to hers. The message struck a cord with the young man. He acknowledged the wisdom behind the words, though he sensed his path forward would not be so simple.
As the surrounding light grew darker, cries of concern swept the street. Two Elder slavers strode down the trail interrogating everybody they passed regarding something Jin found difficult to make out. As the unrest amplified, many gungans came out of their homes to investigate the noise, including Binku, Simass, and Tensen. A small gungan boy trotted past Jin, who called for his attention.
"Hey, kid! You know what's going on over there?" The child came to a pause and addressed his elder.
"Dey say Miera go missin'," he answered. "No one knows where."Miera, Jin thought,what's up with her? Tensen spotted his intrigue.
"Your girlfriend?" he remarked sarcastically. Jin scoffed, almost annoyed by the quip.
"I've never spoken to her," he defended. "But I might know where she's going. Mother, tell them you know nothing." Tha-Tha nodded as the Elders drew near. Jin snatched his brother by the shoulder and led him behind the hut where they evaded the approaching slavers. "Earlier, a man came looking for a girl," he divulged to Tensen. "Miera asked him what she looked like."
"You think she went to find her," Tensen reasoned. "I wonder how she got past the gate." He carelessly pondered his own question as he noticed Jin surveying the area with intent. "You're joking, right? You don't actually plan on chasing after her, do you?"
"Of course I do," responded Jin in a matter-of-fact tone.
"You must really like this girl," Tensen wisecracked, to his brother's chagrin.
"I told you," Jin repeated, "I've never spoken to her. But if they're out there, I need to make sure they get back here safely before sunrise." Jin-Jeri's eyes wandered to the street to monitor the passing slavers before facing his brother. "It's like you said. We'reGungans. And we never abandon our own." The remark resonated with Tensen, who grabbed hold of Jin's forearm in a gesture of respect.
"If that's how it is, then I'm coming with you," he announced. "I don't suppose you know how we start?"
"No clue," admitted Jin-Jeri. "I know where she stays. I figured we could check there first."
Tensen quietly snickered. "If this is all some elaborate plot to go through her things, you can tell me." Jin promptly jabbed his elbow into the playful Tensen's side.
The duo snuck around the patrolling slavers and headed into the hut Jin remembered Miera set foot in. They carefully investigated the room inside to not alert the slavers just on the other side of the thin wooden walls. As Jin paced through the hut, he wandered onto a thin red blanket next to a half-filled bucket of water. His leg caved into the blanket, driving his other knee to the hardened dirt, and knocking over the bucket. The noise cautioned a slaver to investigate, but Simass, who was mischievously following her brothers, distracted the slaver with trivial banter, to the relief of the siblings.
Jin rose to his feet and swiped the blanket from its place on the ground, revealing a damp tunnel that extended beyond the walls of the hut. The brothers nodded in agreement and jumped into the tunnel, one after the other. They crawled forward through the pitch-black underpass. Tensen became gradually anxious about the lack of light to direct them.
"By any chance, are you carrying a match?" he prodded.
"Wouldn't do much anyway," hypothesized Jin. "Space is too tight, and the mud is too wet."
"Spookyanddark, then," Tensen accepted.
The moist, muddy burrow led them past the city walls to the untempered wild of the Naboo forests. Jin-Jeri planted his lanky hands on the mud-caked hill external from the tunnel and hoisted himself up. Tensen duplicated the motion. A herd of round, green nunas lounging by the hole scattered as the brothers made their way out. Jin detected a caved-in print in front of him, resembling a foot with three large toes. The print was one of many leading to a cluster of trees.
"Gungan footprints," he deduced, with a nod of acknowledgement from Tensen. The two vigilantly tracked the footprints, which steered them in the forest's direction. The nightfall made it difficult to see the prints, forcing them to tread carefully. Tall, yellow-green grassy plains covered in stones of all sizes and tiny, brown bear-like mammals darting through in packs made up their environment. The tender ground beneath them caved with each effortless step toward the damp forest. As they grew closer to the trees, smaller three-toed footprints scattered across the larger ones, indicative of the little girl Miera was searching for.
A small camp containing four large leather tents and a recently snuffed, smoking campfire appeared in their view. As they trekked forward past the trees on the outskirts of the camp, a long toad-like hand yanked Jin-Jeri by the shoulder behind the giant perlote tree. Tensen doubled back to the tree in a panic to be graced by Miera holding his brother in a headlock.
"What are you two idiots doing here?" she interrogated while curling her lip. Jin hung to the arms firmly gripped under his head, pushing down.
"We'd love to tell you if you let go of my neck," pled the gasping young man. Miera released her hold, and Jin plopped to the ground, wheezing and catching his breath.
"Talk," the heavy-built woman insisted.
"Funny," Tensen ribbed. "We come all this way to help this ingrate and she tries to kill you. I'm not sure what you see in her, little brother." Jin, still boosting himself up by a knee, burst into wheezing laughter as a confused Miera relaxed her posture.
"Keep it down," she ordered to the duo. "And what do you mean you came here to help me?"
"We used your tunnel," Jin confessed. "Tracked you here. I figured if you were looking for that girl, we could help."
Miera sneered in an obvious pretense. "Well, thanks, but I don't need any help. I've already found her." She extended her stringy finger to point at the camp. "She's in one of those tents."
"What are you waiting for?" Tensen snidely asked.
"There's a slaver with a guard somewhere around here," answered Miera. "They saw her in the woods before she hid in the tent. Now that they know she's here, getting rid of them is tricky." Jin assessed the predicament carefully.
"Well, sounds like you need a plan," a frustrated Tensen quipped. "Jin over here has you covered on that. After all, he planned us right into this mess." Tensen's passive-aggressive tone to his brother elicited a slight smirk from Miera.
"The only thing I know is we need to take that girl back alive," a determined Jin insisted. "If we can distract them somehow, we can slip in and out unnoticed. Good thing there are three of us now." Jin locked eyes with Miera in a concerned expression. "The Elders are looking for you back home."
"Let them look," assured the confident young woman, "I'll worry about that when we have the girl."
Just then, a robed Elder slaver gripping their oppressive chain trotted into the camp, shadowed by another equipped with standard-issue military armor and an E23 blaster rifle.
"No more time!" a panicked Miera shouted as she barreled through her companions after the Elders.
"Wait!" cried Jin, regaining his balance and trailing the woman. Miera charged forward with a purpose. The Elder soldier aimed his blaster directly at Miera's head. As he pulled the trigger, however, his firearm jutted away from its target, leaving the confused soldier distracted. An approaching Miera batted her stocky arm across the soldier's exposed face, launching him onto his back, with the rifle landing at the tent's entrance next to them. She turned her attention to the large scaled slaver, who already had her chain ready and caught Miera in a moment of vulnerability, wrapping the chain around her throat. Electricity surged through the screaming woman's veins as she collapsed to the ground.
Jin sprinted around to the slaver's left flank. Stalking from behind, Tensen, holding a medium-sized rock in his dominant hand, pitched the jagged stone at the back of the slaver's knee. The slaver winced in pain as Jin tackled her from behind, sending the now deactivated chain forward, close to the downed soldier. The Elder heaved Jin over her shoulders, bowling him into Miera. She attempted to flee, but Jin latched onto her ankle. The soldier, having made it to his feet, seized the chain and lashed it across Jin-Jeri's back. The Gungan yelped in agony and relinquished his grip, allowing the slaver to boot him in the face. Miera knocked the soldier onto his back with a sweeping kick, but before she could capitalize, he retaliated by flogging the electrified chain across her chest repeatedly until she relented.
Tensen snuck behind the Elder slaver, who continued punishing Jin with vicious punts to his midsection. The older brother lept onto theslaver'sback and haphazardly placed his arms around her neck to choke her out. The large reptilian easily disposed of the untrained slave by hurling him into the same tent partially housing the blaster. The distraction was enough for a still-reeling Jin to spring up and propel his foot forward into the slaver's jaw, temporarily incapacitating her. Reeling his chain back, the defiant Miera again challenged the kneeled soldier before he attacked Jin by driving her hefty foot into the side of the man's helmet again and again. The dazed soldier withdrew and hobbled behind thetentaway from the conflict.
Jin grasped the collar of the slaver's cloth robe. He wound his fist back, but the slaver surprised him with a clubbing blow to his bruised stomach, and he plummeted back into the dirt. The Elder, regaining her composure, returned to her feet and plodded to the impaired gungan man. She picked him up by the straps of his tunic and firmly wrapped her giant scaled hands around his throat. Jin desperately tried to breathe but couldn't loosen the grip despite his best attempt.
As life steadily left Jin-Jeri's face, a vertical Miera positioned herself behind the slaver, who failed to notice. She skillfully gripped her arm around the slaver's neck into her own chokehold. The Elder released Jin and scrambled to free herself from the burly gungan woman. First she stomped on Miera's toes, then tried to elbow her gut, but could not summon the strength to liberate herself from the hold.
After a seemingly endless minute of struggling, the Elder slaver succumbed to the stranglehold, and her body became limp. Miera released her grip, and the lifeless reptile collapsed into the grassy soil. The woman latched onto the wrist of Jin, still favoring his neck with his other hand, and hoisted him to his feet. The two took a moment to catch their breath, then Miera filed into the tent. Inside sat a focused Tensen who relaxed the E23 blaster he had aimed in front of him. Beside the man was a trembling young gungan girl with dark red wooden beads lining her ragged cloth shirt.
"Careful with that!" Miera demanded.
"Relax," protested the troubled Tensen. "I was making sure our visitors weren't of the undesirable variety. Speaking of which, where are they?"
"I dealt with one," Miera assured, "Your brother is outside looking for the other." Jin soon entered with a frightened expression emanating from his greenish eyes.
"He's not here," he informed distressingly. "He fled into the woods, and I think he has the slaver's chain with him." Miera placed her hand on his shoulder in a somewhat lazy effort to console his anxiety.
"Luckily we have something better," said Tensen, displaying the rifle in his hands. He lept to his feet and handed the firearm to his brother stock first. As Jin grabbed hold, he noticed a name carved into the stock.Slax, he read to himself.
"This is bad," he lamented, pulling the blaster into his arms.
"It isn't bad enough that an Elder guard who knows our faces is loose in the woods?" Miera chimed curiously.
"It's worse," replied Jin, "I know an ornery Sergeant who would love nothing more than to see me dead that's very fond of this guard. I think his name is Gratha."
"Well, isn't that a delightful little wrinkle to add to our situation," Tensen commented, caressing the child's head next to him. "Don't worry, miss, we'll get you home somehow." The girl plopped her tiny head onto Tensen's thigh and clung onto him.
"We have to find him before he gets back to Halford," declared Miera. Jin looked down at his newly gained blaster before meeting the woman's gaze.
"I know," he agreed, "Tensen, stay here with the girl. Miera, hide the body and look after these two. I've got this." Miera nodded and headed outside to dispose of her fallen opponent.
"You sure, Jin?" asked a concerned Tensen. "I don't like you going in there alone."
"Trust me," Jin persisted, glancing at the little girl glued to his side. "It's better this way. Youkeep an eye onher." Jin understood the peril he would soon face. The dark, secluded forest was the perfect spot for the Elder to ambush him, even with a blaster. However, the Gungan knew his limited options. If Gratha made it back to the city, surely all four of them would die at the hands of the Elders. The soldier's capture was Jin's only hope for his rescue mission becoming a success.