"Are you better now?", Padmé asked carefully as Nuha began to sit up, leaning against Thral. Nuha grunted. "Yes, I'm fine. It's still there, but less intense." "And you said you weren't very force sensitive. That looked pretty sensitive to me."
Nuha gave Padmé a tired smile. "I never sensed something like this before. It was terrifying. There was so much anger, and hatred." Padmé gulped. "That sounds like a sith, doesn't it?" Nuha shrugged.
"A very furious one perhaps." Padmé snorted. "Sith are always very furious. "But there is only one sith, right? Darth Vader.", Thral said. Nuha nodded. "Apart from the Emperor. He appeared out of nowhere two years ago, others might do so too."
"Out of nowhere? Does no one know who he really is?", Thral asked. Nuha shook her head. "We don't even know what species he is, under that mask. Probably human, regarding the Empire's politics, but we can't be sure."
Padmé frowned. "When did he appear again?", she asked. "Two years ago.", Nuha said. "When the Empire rose. Sidious probably just chose another henchman after his latest one died." Padmé cramped and Nuha put a hand on her shoulder.
Thral was visibly confused, but he didn't ask why the mentioning of Sidious' henchman caused Padmé such emotions. "I've seen your face somewhere before.", he said instead. Padmé forced a smile on her lips.
"I'm Padmé. Padmé Naberrie." Nuha raised her brows. "That's not your name." "It's the name I was born with.", Padmé complained. "I'm not a queen anymore." "And yet you keep the name, Padmé Amidala." Thral's eyes widened.
"Right! You're a senator." "I was.", Padmé corrected. "Then the empire took over and I disappeared from public. Most thought I died." Thral nodded. "And you ended up, being a slave. What a biography." Padmé snorted.
"Perhaps, yes. I don't really care about my biography. I assume a less exciting life is also a lot happier." Padmé looked down, playing with the ends of her sleeves. "Exciting stories often have a happy ending.", Nuha reminded her.
"Not all of them.", Padmé whiffed. Her children had been taken from her, and her husband was dead. This wasn't the kind of story that led to a happy ending. Padmé sighed.
She doubted that she would really be happy again, even if they could flee. Not after everything she had lost.
"You two still have a shot. As soon as we're free, you should get a house far away, and just live happily. Far too little people do that these days." Nuha smirked, looking at Thral. "We should.", she said while leaning against his chest.
Padmé felt so many emotions at once. The two reminded her of herself and Anakin so much. She was so happy for them and yet she was tormented by her own memories. "But you have a shot as well, Padmé.", Nuha insisted.
"Your life is very far from over." Padmé shook her head. "I will live on for a while, but I won't be happy. Not really." Nuha frowned. She looked at Thral, apparently imagining what it would be like if he was gone. She shivered.
"We should try, to deactivate that autopilot. If we can make it, we can go wherever we want.", Padmé said. They should be concentrating on the really important things. "They could track the pod, and the collars.", Thral said.
"Would they care?", Padmé asked. "They have so many slaves, and they buy new ones every day. Why would they chase after only three?" Nuha bit around on her lip. "This isn't a ship, it's only an escape pod. We wouldn't get very far."
Padmé raised her brows. "Instead, you just want to go with the slavers?" "Fleeing would be a lot easier if we just waited to land. I'd rather be stuck on some planet, than running out of food and oxygen supply."
Padmé didn't know what she found right. She didn't want to follow the slaver's will, but what Nuha said made sense. What if they wouldn't make it to another planet? They would suffocate before they could starve to death.
"We'll just go wherever they sent us, and we'll see how to get out of there when we're on the surface. It's a lot more rational, and has a lot less to do with suicide.", Thral agreed. Padmé nodded. "Fine.", she said.
"I just hope it's not a huge mistake.", she murmured as they watched how the planet they were flying to approached in the distance.
Ahsoka saw nothing but fire around her. She was hovering over a sea of fire, and even the land looked like it had been dunked with crimson red ink. The fortress was only a little black dot, surrounded by the pure red.
As Ahsoka flew closer and closer, she could tell that the fortress was anything but little. It was huge. Ahsoka was strangely intimidated, by the black building in front of her. She had been glad to finally get off the executor, but this wasn't any better.
At least she wouldn't have to hide anymore. She could make out the landing platform, that was ridiculously large, compared to Ahsoka's transporter. As soon as she had landed. She deleted all data from the board computer.
Then she set the autopilot to the imperial space station, where it would pick up the medicine. Ahsoka left the ship quickly and watched how it took off without her. She turned around, orientating herself.
There was a long and skinny bridge that led from the landing platform to the actual fortress. She began walking along it, watching her step. Right beneath her was a bubbling lava lake. Obi Wan was already waiting for her.
He was waiting for her, at the end of the bridge, finally wearing his jedi robes again. "Finally. I was already worried.", he said as she reached him. Ahsoka stayed silent, staring at the huge gates. Obi Wan followed her gaze.
"Home sweet home.", he murmured before leading the way inside. The insides were just as comfortable as the outsides, like Ahsoka had expected. "The twins are sleeping. Vader hasn't reported back yet", Obi Wan explained.
Ahsoka nodded. "I contacted the jedi.", Obi Wan said. Ahsoka began to cough. "What?! Did you tell them everything?" Obi Wan nodded. "Of course I did. My loyalty belongs to the order."
"The order? You mean the few survivors that are hiding in a hole, to scared to show themselves?" "Careful.", Obi Wan snarled. "If they would travel around freely, they would be murdered by you dear friend."
"You mean like you were?", Ahsoka challenged. Obi Wan stared at her. "Your following him into your doom. Ahsoka please, change your path before it is too late." Ahsoka gave Obi Wan a sour look.
"Stop acting, like you knew everything, Obi Wan. I choose my own path, and I do not plan to seek my doom very soon." "Neither was Anakin.", Obi Wan spat. "You don't notice it happened until it is far too late. Turn while you still can."
Ahsoka shook her head. "I will not leave him behind like you did. You could have helped him." Obi Wan gasped. "He had murdered all the jedi, and the younglings. He had choked his wife, I was doing what I had to do!", he called.
"What you had to do? You mean, cutting of his limbs and then not kill him?" "He was set on fire, I was sure he would die." Ahsoka snorted. "And what kind of mercy is that? Leaving someone unarmed, to burn to death in agony."
"He was dangerous, and he still is!", Obi Wan defended himself. "That's how Anakin killed Count Dooku. Injured and defenceless. Obi Wan began to lose his temper.
"Don't you dare compare me to him. He is a traitor, a murderer. Go ahead and shame me, for trying to stop him." "It wasn't right.", Ahsoka said. "And I'm sure, that you know that it wasn't."
The pod's landing wasn't very gentle. They crashed into a sort of backyard with plenty of garbage stacking everywhere, and the sky being filled with brown dust and smoke. Padmé tried to estimate, what planet this might be. Perhaps the low levels of Coruscant.
She looked up, hoping to maybe see the busy traffic, or the glowing advertisement boards, that would prove her right. But all she could see, were dirty facades, and brown filthy air. Nuha and Thral were climbing out of the pod behind Padmé.
"I'm so tired of asking, where in the galaxy we are.", Nuha murmured. Thral squeezed her hand. "Soon we'll be in charge of that ourselves. We just need to hang in here for a little longer.", he snarled. Padmé looked at her feet.
He was probably right. That's what she had to believe. "Let's just lay low, and stick together.", she said. "Before all, we need to stay alive.", she added. Nuha frowned, but she nodded slowly.
The thought that their lives weren't certain anymore, was uncomfortable for all of them. Padmé had lost almost everything. Her life wasn't going to join that list. She gripped around her neck, where she pulled out the necklace that was still closed under the collar.
She remembered how she first met Anakin. She had been a mere girl of fourteen years. He had asked her if she was an angel. She tried to fight her tears, as all of her memories crashed down at her at once.
The little boy had fascinated her back then. Ten years, she had remembered him as something special. The next time she had seen him, he was a man. He had grown up to be gentle, handsome and loving.
She pushed the memories into the back of her mind while playing around with the carved gift. All that was over. She was a slave and he was dead. There was no way back to the way things had been three years ago. It had been a dream, but finally Padmé had to wake up.
She cramped while following the stream of slaves into the next house. Some slavers, Padmé had never seen before had begun to shock slaves that attempted to leave the backyard and lead the others into a huge storage hall.
It was so big, the slaves didn't even have to squeeze themselves in. The slavers simply stood at the exits making sure no slave got to close. Padmé only dropped to the dirty floor and leaned against the wall. Nuha and Thral came next to her.
Padmé studied the slavers. The only common face was the one of the nautolan. He was holding a holo communicator in his hands, apparently yelling at whoever was shown on it.
Padmé didn't know what exactly had happened, but only that something did not go the way the slavers had planned. Obviously, the slaves hadn't been supposed to be shipped via escape pods.
Maybe this wasn't even where they had been meant to go. The slavers were going through a crisis, that was certain. Padmé didn't manage to feel sorry for them at all, yet she feared that the slaves would have to suffer from this.
Benevolence had never been a trait of slavers, Padmé knew that that wouldn't change if they were pushed in the corner by their own fear. Earlier, she had hoped that the Empire would learn of the human traffic, but now not anymore.
What would it help? Maybe the slavers would destroy the merchandise before it could be discovered. Padmé remembered the imperial that had talked to the nautolan before they had entered the pods. Had that been a traitor? The puzzle didn't add up in Padmé's head.
Vader could see the planet now. Atzerri. The paradise for smugglers and illegal traders. Barely anything was keeping the black market from flourishing there, the government was too weak.
Vader had left his mask in a storage unit in the back of his fighter. His authority wouldn't help him much anyway, the planet was stuffed with criminals who didn't care about society, but only their briefcases.
That was the planet, Padmé had been brought to. A sick feeling spread in him. Someone had dared to touch her, someone had dared to take her against her will. That someone would pay with his life.
Vader speeded his systems up, advancing towards the planet before him. The coordinates the admiral had given him, had to be correct. Vader couldn't really ask him again, if they weren't. He cursed himself for his hotheadedness.
He should have killed the admiral after he had found Padmé. Now, he couldn't make sure that he had been telling the truth. Vader sighed. He decided to not even consider that the coordinates were fake. The admiral had been far too terrified.
There was no way he had the guts to lie. Vader had almost reached the surface. The dirty slums seemed to extend over the whole planet's surface, Vader couldn't make out any vegetation.
He studied the ground beneath him to find a potential landing spot. It took a while before he managed to land without squishing any buildings, or people. He loaded the data from the the disk onto his communicator.
He clipped it next to his two weapons. While he looked around his pathetic surroundings, he cramped, as he imagined what Padmé was going through. There was more than one slave trade he could spot with a single glance.
The years he had spent as a slave still haunted him, there was no way he would allow that the same happened to her.
He pulled his hood over his face. The crowds of filthy lowlifes probably wouldn't care about him being Anakin Skywalker, but he didn't want to take an unnecessary risk. The coordinates the admiral had given him, lead him to a building.
It wasn't a real building, but only some shaggy pieces of tin strapped together, just like everything else around here. There were about fifty slaves, wearing usual slave shock collars.
They were pressing themselves against the walls, away from the filthy customers, that were choosing their new pet. Padmé was nowhere to be seen. Had she already been sold? Vader tried to stay calm.
An Ithorian was taking care of the sales. He was standing behind something that probably was supposed to be a counter and was negotiating with a man. Vader force pushed the man away. He flew across the room and crashed into a wall.
He got up, shaking and stared at the hooded figure that was standing in the middle of the room. Vader lifted his hand and began to choke the Ithorian. His hands wandered up to his neck while he was gasping for air.
Vader lifted him up a little, so that his feet were only stroking the floor. "Where are the rest of your slaves?", Vader asked while slowly walking towards him. He only struggled and gagged. Vader let go of him, and he dropped to the floor.
There had been enough Ithorians on Tatooine, for Vader to understand the Ithorian language. "Who are you?", he asked in his alien tongue while panting. Vader's anger boiled up again.
"Where are the rest of the slaves?", he repeated. The Ithorian lifted his hands, trying to convince Vader not to resume choking him. "There are loads. We keep them separately.", he hurried to say.
"The slaves that have just arrived. They were brought here in escape pods, after there had been complications on the cruiser they were shipped with. Does that ring any bells?" The Ithorian's eyes widened. "How would you know about that?"
Vader lifted his hand once again. "No, no wait! I'll tell you!", the Ithorian whimpered. Vader rolled his eyes under the hood. "They're in a storage hall, not to far from here. I can show you on a map!", the slaver said.
Vader typed some commands into his holo communicator. A map of Atzerri appeared. Vader let it zoom to the area in which they were. The Ithorian raised a shaking finger to point at the hall he was talking about.
"There they are. I swear, none of the new ones are here." Vader memorized how to get there, before choking the Ithorian once again. This time, he did it tighter, and he lifted him higher. The Ithorian's black eyes stared at him full of fear and shock.
"Please!", he managed to say before Vader broke his neck. The Ithorian remained lying on the floor, without the slightest movement. The other criminals didn't dare to move, and stared at Vader in horror.
He gripped his bloodied saber and began cutting them down, one by one. It was a matter of seconds until only the slaves were left. Vader put his weapon away. There was little he despised more than slavery.
Accepting it in measures was one of the hardest things he had do to while following the Emperor. He raised both of his hands, channeling the force through them.
The slaves began squeezing their eyes shut, and holding on to each other, expecting to die the way the Ithorian had done. All of their collars broke simultaneously. Vader left them behind, just like that.
Some were calling after him. Thanking him, or asking who he was. He ignored all of them, marching towards his new target. The hall Padmé was held in.