Anakin the Space Pirate 2

by TimeTraveller-1900.

I'm glad mum can't see me right now, Anakin thought to himself as he effortlessly passed through the crowd and picked their pockets, certain he was using what little Qui-Gon had taught him about the Force to keep himself hidden or unnoticed, depending on your point of view and your personal perspective to stop his victims from realising what he was doping and to stop others from taking note of him, and to use his instincts to find the money in the first place.

But at the same time, Anakin knew if his mother had not had the misfortune of being sold into slavery and had been allowed to go on her way, she would likely have gone out to become a thief herself. Survival was a choice. If you were unwilling to do what it took to survive, then you deserved what you got. Anakin had learnt that lesson while he had lived on Tatooine. It was a reality which people like Padme and the Jedi refused to recognise, the galaxy was a dangerous place.

Tatooine had been a world full of slavery, Corellia was a world where only the strongest survived. When he arrived on the planet a few years back, Anakin had learnt his lessons well; he had no money or contacts. All he had were the clothes on his back and the rudimentary lessons on the Force Qui-Gon had given him.

X

When he had arrived on Corellia, using the Force to mask his presence from the crew although a part of him wondered while the ship made a few routine stops along the route carrying plasma and other goods from Naboo if it would have been better to reveal himself so then he could get a berth on the ship, Anakin had no clear idea of what he was going to do.

His Force powers and the rudimentary lessons Qui-Gon had taught him had proven to be a godsend to him. When he had arrived on the planet, he had run for the slums in one of Corellia's cities to avoid the authorities on the planet - he didn't know for sure if the Jedi, determined to make sure the little slave boy with the clouded future they and to a degree Anakin himself had perceived, would be scared enough to chase him, so he had opted to make the job harder; he hoped the Order would realise he was missing on Naboo, and leave him to his own devices and not bother looking for him.

But that was no guarantee; Anakin knew from long experience as a slave boy that some slave masters would want to keep their property, going to great lengths to do so.

But Qui-Gon's little lessons which he had given during their brief time while the Jedi Master was stranded on Tatooine with Padme and the others while they waited for the pod race to be won had paid off; granted, the lessons the Jedi Master had given them were not the full training of a Jedi apprentice, but thanks to the meditation lessons he had managed to find a reasonably good place to live on Corellia until he had a better plan in his head.

That first night on Corellia, was hard for the young former slave boy and Jedi apprentice hopeful. Corellia was a complete contrast to Tatooine.

There was no sun blazing overhead. The air was choked by the pollution from the various industries which choked the planet beyond the advanced technology available throughout the whole galaxy. That first night was hard for Anakin; while he had discovered a place to live and sleep, he had done so while the place was freezing and it had been raining. Anakin had no experience of rain; his only experience of water had come from the time he had seen the waterfalls and lakes on the planet of Naboo, so it was a new experience for him.

The rain had soaked through his Tatooine clothes instantly; they were designed to help his skin breathe in the hot airless desert world, they weren't very good for protecting him from the other elements. But as he had been starving on the streets, Anakin had thought he had heard Qui-Gon's voice in his head, telling him to meditate. And so he had done, for the father figure the older kindhearted Jedi Master even if he resented the other man for not being able to fight off that scary man with the horns, and the double-bladed lightsaber.

In his meditation, Anakin focused on the best places he could look for finding food. And he had found it in a small backstreet cantina. On that first night, desperate and hungry and thirsty, he had used the Force to bypass the security system. Once he had eaten his fill, a part of his mind drifted as he tried to work out why Qui-Gon's voice would encourage him to steal, although he hadn't technically done it, Anakin realised if he wanted to survive, then he would have to do whatever it took to survive. It was a choice, and it was one he wanted to say yes to, each time.

He did want to live.

He did want to survive, and that meant crossing lines some people would just never cross. And by people, he meant people like Padme. Once he had finished eating, Anakin was urged to meditate once more, and he began hearing the Force. On the streets of Corellia, people - ordinary people, both the good and the bad, the life on the planet, the water in the seas, the plants, and the stars, all of them were blended together and Anakin felt it all. In sessions like those, Anakin gained a greater understanding and appreciation of the universe than most Jedi Masters would ever experience in a lifetime.

As he meditated on that first night, Anakin wondered how he was going to survive, and from the Force, he learnt of how he could pick the pockets of many people, but at the same time Anakin wanted knowledge of his potential future, but the Force was unbearably quiet about it.

Within a week, Anakin had begun picking pockets while he had grown to use the Force to mask his presence and even use it to misdirect everyone around him into thinking he wasn't there. As he amassed riches, Anakin changed his clothes, buying clothes to keep him warm while he had begun buying food and water, but a lot of his time was spent exploring the city.

One of his favourite places was a large park which was a long way from the city's industrial works. He went there to meditate, especially if he wanted to meditate in a place where there was more Light to the Force; while he was no Jedi, Anakin had come to discover the key differences between the Light and the Dark sides of the Force, and while some aspects of the Dark Side did intrigue him, Anakin wanted to keep as far from it as possible. It was perhaps the best way of avoiding those possible destinies the Jedi were so scared of, at the same time he did have to admit if he learnt more about the Dark Side, he would have a better idea of some of its abilities so he didn't fall into it by accident.

Qui-Gon told him the Dark Side was easier and more seductive and once someone turned to the Dark Side, it would consume them and even cause their very souls and bodies to decay. Scary, but at the same time, Anakin wanted to discover ways he could avoid it, at all costs.

X

In the few years he had been living on Corellia, Anakin had been planning on living here as long as he could while he became the best criminal. And so he had joined a group of criminals that he had discovered about thanks to his meditations. His inner pockets loaded down with credit chips, Anakin flashed them to the kid guarding/watching the door.

"Go on in, Skywalker," the kid said.

Anakin said nothing. The kid was okay, but he was a quiet and withdrawn sort. As he walked into the hall, his nostrils caught the scent of cooking. He knew they would likely be eating soup.

Luminae Maya'Tor, the Twi'lek woman who ran the gang, lit up at the sight of him. Dressed in a tight dress which hugged her body like a glove, the Twi'lek was the last person you would expect to be in charge of a gang, but she was. If you looked past her style, you would see the woman was extremely shrewd and dangerous. And he knew that despite the tightness of her clothes, Luminae was not defenceless.

Far from it, in fact.

In the last few years, Anakin had quickly become a favourite simply because of his uncanny ability to slip in, pick the pocket, and get out. "Ah, Skywalker," she giggled. "How was it?"

"Hi, Luminae," Anakin greeted before he dumped the chips on the table. The Twi'lek's eyes widened comically, but a bright happy grin lit up her face even as her eyes flashed with greed. But Anakin didn't hold that against her. Luminae and Anakin both had some things in common. The Twi'lek had once been a slave of her own, but where Anakin had come out of his own time as a slave reasonably better off, Luminae had not. She had been sold as a child to a cruel brothel. The irony was it was on a Republic world in one of the seedier corners, and not somewhere on the Outer Rim, which meant those laws Padme had loved to talk about didn't apply anywhere in the galaxy. And they never would. The worst was the authorities knew, but they did not give a damn. Slavery was a constant in the galaxy. He knew that it brought in a huge amount of profit. The Republic senators could preach and pass on law after law to restrict or ban the practice. It would make no difference further down the line. Someone would find loopholes and exploit people.

But Anakin had no idea how the woman had gotten freed, but she had somehow and she had somehow ended up on Corellia. Whenever Anakin looked at her, he knew that underneath that cheery, friendly facade was a core as hard as durasteel. She had learnt how to survive and she had taken those lessons at heart, but she was also compassionate. She had spent so long seeing other children like herself, frightened and confused, be thrown into a life of slavery and pain, torn from their families and forced to grow up and forget about them, she had not wanted anyone to go through the same thing.

That was why she had begun taking children in and forming a gang of pickpockets, and while Anakin did not have a clue exactly how Luminae had come to become a thief, the Force had pointed her out to him, and he was pleased by that.

"My Gods! How did you get so many, Anakin?" Luminae asked as she took the chips and counted them all.

"Luck," Anakin replied, knowing better than to mind trick her into believing otherwise. She might not be Force-sensitive herself but she was not weak-minded.

But Luminae was in no mood to be fobbed off. "No, seriously Anakin, how did you do it?"

Anakin had to think it through. "Just a gift, I guess. I just did my best to use crowded streets and I slipped close to a mark, and then I pinched their chips."

Okay, it was a lame explanation, but it seemed to work. Luminae just nodded, giving him a suspicious look which made him wonder if she knew enough about Force sensitivity to tell the difference. But she seemed happy to let it go.

"Okay, Anakin, I won't pry," she smiled, "just being curious."

Anakin didn't believe her. He didn't need the divine nature of the Force to tell him she had no intention of not continuing to ask him about his secrets. In a few more years, he doubted it would make any more difference. "Are we going through with that job tonight?" He asked in a low voice.

Smile now gone as the conversation became more serious, Luminae nodded, "Yes. All the arrangements have been made."

Luminae had been setting up a burglary in one of the betting shops in the city for months now, and she had been training the best thieves she had in her group in how to break in. It was constant training, and Anakin had come to enjoy it. Anakin was aware Luminae had wanted to break into the place because it would have enough money to move them to somewhere much better and she wanted them to have enough to live on for a better half of a year, but Anakin was able to read between the lines.

He knew she wanted the money to teach them how to score big.

"Great," he said.

X

Luminae had spent months looking for a way of breaking into the betting shop which ran bets on so many different sports, legal and illegal, and it wasn't until Anakin had pointed out they couldn't break in through the front door or through one of the windows as there were speeders passing by, and if they stole a speeder and landed it on the rooftop there would be security sensors which would go off. It hadn't taken long for them to prove the rooftop was covered in a security mesh, which would trap them.

Anakin had taken the plans for the building and he hadn't been able to find any way in until he had looked beneath the surface of the very ground. He had discovered there was a maze of ancient maglev subway tunnels, used many years before, and eventually forgotten. One of the main subway tunnels ran very close to the betting shop building, but a maintenance corridor was the key; it branched away from the subway tunnel and it had a shaft that led upwards into the building itself.

Luminae and Anakin both went and scouted the place out, and they discovered that the betting shop had been let out as a space for the building, and the shaft and the tunnels beneath had been left untouched. From what they'd found, the building proprietors didn't know of the history and they'd placed a security system in place without knowing of the subway tunnel.

Truthfully Anakin didn't understand why it had been closed in the first place. The tunnels were still okay and the maglev guideways and track would only need a little work, and with how busy the planet was, a subway would be a perfect place to get people moving around the city. Oh well, their loss.

X

Slowly Luminae lifted the manhole cover over the maintenance tunnel shaft and shone a torch for a few minutes before she slowly clambered out of the hatchway, followed by Anakin, Jyn, and several other thieves of the gang. Luminae went to the security system with the small droid she was carrying in her backpack and weighed her down as they passed through the musty tunnels.

For a few minutes, the droid worked on deactivating the security mechanisms, bypassing any of the traps discovered in Luminae's research. Outwardly many people underestimated the Twi'lek woman, but she had common sense and imagination, and she had learnt from dozens of criminals and she had passed her skills of hacking, electronics, and other tricks to her apprentices, as Anakin referred to the kids in her care.

It might be close to what the Jedi used to describe their own padawans, but Anakin liked to think Luminae was teaching her apprentices to survive in the real world.

With the droid's help, the group of thieves were able to bypass the security systems and they quickly got to the small safe where the credit chips were used by the betting shop to collect the profits. Luminae and the others opened the safe after ten minutes of hacking into the security firewalls before the safe was opened.

Once the group of thieves had the money, they left. They reset the systems before they left, which included the security cameras and programmed them to reactivate within another ten minutes. With a bit of luck, the law enforcement agencies in the city wouldn't discover what happened.

Heist over, the gang of thieves went out and celebrated.

But their luck and their good fortunes would not last forever.

X

A few nights later, Anakin was again picking pockets; he had passed through a crowd without being seen, and he had gone into a theatre where he opened himself up to the Force before he helped himself to the money from the pockets of the people enjoying the wonder of the productions. Once he had finished, he had decided to help himself to the food available, and he had allowed himself to the cash reader, and he spent a few minutes hacking his way into the system, and he downloaded it on the chip which Luminae had given to him. It was an unknown chip, so it could not be tracked down.

Anakin returned to the hideout, but the moment he approached he quickened his pace. Something was wrong. He could sense it within the Force.

When he got in, he found the place was a den of gore.

All of his friends were dead. Their bodies were pockmarked with blaster wounds. Judging from where they were lying and how they'd been left, Anakin guessed they had been taken by surprise. Anakin walked slowly through the hideout, looking sadly at the corpses of the kids; this morning he had been sitting and laughing with them as he normally did, and now they were dead. Never again would he hear their laughs, go out with them. He had lived with these kids for years, and now they were gone. Their lives were snuffed out, all their dreams…gone.

Anakin took a deep breath and he looked around until he found Luminae's body, and he rushed to the Twi'lek woman. She was still alive, but Anakin could feel her life force just leaving, leaking out of the wounds in her body.

"Luminae, can you hear me?" Anakin whispered, holding her weak hand with his own, and he concentrated on pushing the Force into her body to see if she could survive this although he knew she was going to die. But even in death, the Twi'lek was still trying to hold on, but Anakin guessed it was going to be a futile battle.

Luminae's eyes opened, her eyelids fluttering weakly. "Anakin-?" She gasped, moaning in pain.

"What happened?"

"I-I don't know, it all happened so fast," the Twi'lek's eyes glazed over, whether in pain or simply because she needed the moment she was being given to thinking about what happened, he didn't know, "We were just watching a Holonet movie, just relaxing….and then, there was a flash grenade that went off before they came in."

"Who?" Anakin demanded, his anger boiling within him as he considered tapping into the Dark Side to find out who had killed his friends. The spark of the anger he was feeling felt so good….. it called to him, demanding action.

"I don't know, Anakin. I was shot so many times until my whole body went numb and everything became….so dark, so unfocused that I couldn't see. I can barely see you now," Luminae suddenly coughed. The sound made Anakin flinch harshly.

"Luminae, stay with me, please," Anakin begged her.

"No, I know I'm going to die. I have pushed myself to live for so long, surviving against the odds. I never…told you….how I got out…. I killed my slave master. He…was cruel, and each day…we had to learn…only the strongest survived. I….never….knew that…..when I was….so young. But an older….girl told me. He…pushed….pushed so kriffing hard, so I killed….him. I….lashed out…in a….rage, when he….threatened….to rape me. After…I killed…him, I….took his chip control…device and….shut it down. I…got the charge….out of my body later. And I escaped," Luminae gasped, Anakin felt her hand weakening. She was not going to last much longer, and he knew it. "When….I met you….heard your…story, I…was….jealous, at first. But….you are meant…for so much more….that's why I…worked so hard to…give you…the best. Anakin….come closer, please," she begged.

Anakin didn't have any choice. He leaned over her.

Luminae's eyes were totally glazed over now. She did not have long left. "Don't try to….find out….who's behind this….Anakin. Promise…. me…. Going after them will do no….good. It…won't….bring us….back. Death is a part…of life….you….have to move on. Besides….you….might…never…find out….who it is, but if…you do….I am scared…you will turn….to the Dark Side."

Anakin hissed. "What?"

Luminae smirked weakly. "I am…not a Force…sensitive. But….I saw….the signs in you. I checked. And I….know….if you lose….it…..you will lose yourself. Don't go….looking for our killers. Anakin, get away…from Corellia. You are meant for greater things. Goodbye, I love you."

With that, Luminae died, leaving Anakin looking down sadly at her cooling corpse. Tears trickled down his face, and Anakin pulled away and lowered his head in sorrow as he looked at the bodies of his friends, and his family. While the darker part of his mind urged him, goaded him to find and take revenge, Anakin remembered Luminae's last words about the Dark Side, and he knew she was right. He would be dishonouring her memory, and he was not going to do that.

But she was right. He had to leave Corellia, and he would. He had the money to do it, and he was going to use it.

Author's Note - Anakin's time on Corellia is not entirely finished, not quite yet. I've still got something in mind for the next one before he moves on.