Whispers of Menace
A Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Alternate Universe
Chapter Nine:
Preparing for the Race and Interesting Information
Bright and early the next morning, we returned to Watto's shop, careful to allow Ani time to cajole the Toydarian into acquiescence as much as he could. As we stood outside, I could just make out the cadence of Huttese, and my almost-Padawan pulsed with his desire for things to go right. They were probably having a rather heated discussion, and I dreaded the possibility of the junk dealer deciding that his 'possession' needed to be disciplined. After all, his actions could be considered 'uppity behavior' for a slave.
"Are you sure about this?" The gentle hand on my elbow brought an abrupt halt to my worried pacing. Padmé was concerned, and well within her rights to question the plan.
"About the podrace part, yes." I glanced at the shop's closed door. "About letting him talk to Watto by himself first, no. If that creature lays one unkind finger on him…" The statement hung there, unfinished. I wasn't actually certain what I would do if the situation arose, but that greedy blue fiend in there definitely wouldn't like it.
"If you're sure," she murmured. Then the door burst open, and Watto fluttered out, Anakin trailing him like a recalcitrant nek.
"The boy tells me you wanna sponsor him inna da big race. You can't afford da parts. How can you do this? Not on Republic credits, I think." He laughed as though he'd punched a big hole in our plans.
"My ship will be the entry fee," the other Jedi replied, as calm as ever. He opened his hand, revealing a portable holoprojector with an exterior rendering of the cruiser slowly rotating above it.
He had such large hands—I blinked, feeling something like mental whiplash. Where in the nine Corellian hells had that thought come from?
"Not bad, not bad. A Nubian," the Toydarian mused. I rolled my eyes. We'd told him as much yesterday.
"It's in good order, except for the parts we need." The round unit vanished beneath the dingy gray poncho.
"But what would da boy ride? He smashed up my pod in da last race. It would take some time to fix it."
"It wasn't my fault, really," Ani supplied, wide eyes focused on Padmé. I sent a wave of reassurance to the corner of my mind where our growing bond had taken up residence. "Sebulba flashed me with his vent ports. I actually saved the pod… mostly."
"That you did!" Watto laughed. "Da boy is good, no doubts there."
"I have… acquired… a pod in a game of chance. 'The fastest ever built,' I'm told," Qui-Gon replied, repeating a comment I'd made during the very light meal after we'd woken.
I knew what I was talking about, too. Aside from my mechanical skills, I'd been watching podraces with my friend Dex—who was not a Jedi, thanks very much—for a couple of years, now. He'd been the one to introduce me to the sport during one of my long inactive periods at the Great Temple. We'd had some rousing discussions about the actual and potential capabilities of various designs.
"I hope you didn't kill anyone I know for it." The laugh was decidedly malicious this time. "So, you supply da pod and da entry fee, I supply da boy. We split da winnings fifty-fifty, I think."
"Fifty-fifty?!" I was a bit surprised by my outburst, even as I walked up and poked a finger into the fat little fraud's chest. "If it's going to be fifty-fifty, then I suggest you front the cash for the entry. If we win, you keep the money and give us the parts we need. If we lose, you keep the ship." Melodramatically, I folded my arms and turned my back on him. "Either way, you win," I added with a sniff.
"Mmm, deal!" Watto sounded frustrated, his greed thwarted. I didn't even look as the flapping of his wings retreated toward the shop. "[Your friends are foolish ones, me thinks!]" he told Anakin before going inside.
~Who's the more foolish?~ I thought, putting an arm around my little buddy as we headed back toward the slave quarters. ~The swindler, or the fool who gets swindled?~ And as the day progressed, I grew more and more certain that we were the swindlers.
"Back off, you!" I told Jar Jar for the umpteenth time, jabbing at his chest with a big hydrospanner. "Don't even touch her!" Seeing him move out of the corner of my eye a few minutes later, I pointed the heavy tool at him again without turning. "I'm watching you!"
"Almost done," Ani sighed as we rested in a patch of shade at midday. "Just gotta make sure she'll fire, and then we can clean her up and make her look good."
"I know Sebulba cheats," I said after a moment. His surprised expression made me grin. "Hey, I watch whenever a broadcast gets as far Coreward as Coruscant! I know he's a filthy sleemo son-of-a-bantha, but the camera angles are never good enough for me to see what tricks he pulls. You mentioned his vent ports…" And I'd helped rig up a shield generator to protect the engines. "But what else? Hey, I gotta protect my pal, right?" With my arm around his shoulders, the kid mustered up a little smile.
"Well, he's got loose parts that he throws into intakes."
"Which we can tweak the shields to handle." And they were completely legal… not that much wasn't, at least in podracing.
"Bashes other pods around, but you'd have noticed that." I nodded. "And I think he goes around and messes with things before the race starts, sometimes." He gave me a troubled look. "When he's mad at another pilot, or their sponsor, or a crew member, something always happens to take them out of the race."
"Hey." I put a hand under his chin, tilting his face up so that our eyes met. "He won't get close enough to touch this beauty of yours. And you're gonna beat him so soundly tomorrow that he won't be able to show his ugly mug in an arena ever again."
"But what about after you guys leave?" The blond's voice was small and terrified. "What if he comes after me, or Mom?"
"Don't you worry about that, okay? You let me and Qui-Gon take care of it. All you need to do is make sure he gets a nice big poodoo pie at the end of the race." He blinked a drowsy assent, then snuggled into my side and quickly fell asleep. Qui-Gon appeared, looking down from the rooftop on the other side of the courtyard, and I beckoned to him.
"Something wrong?" he whispered when he came near, careful not to wake the boy. Swift as a striking rock-snake, I grabbed the collar of his poncho and pulled him toward me, our noses nearly touching.
"He comes with us tomorrow," I hissed. "I don't care what you have to do; either Watto lets them go, or I'll crisp the transmitters." ~If I can do it without harming either of them,~ I added to myself, knowing that I'd need to free Shmi as well if it came to that. "Do what you can for his mother, too. I've got a backup plan for her, but I want you to try to get them both. Got it?" He blinked, looking a bit shocked at the vehemence in my voice, and nodded. I let him go. "Good."
The sidelong glance of respect that I got as he left felt kinda nice, actually.
Anakin managed to get a nice nap in after that, though his mom checked on us at one point. Her smile when she caught my eye was terribly relieved.
Once my young friend woke back up, we returned to tinkering with small adjustments. A darker-complected boy arrived to a warm greeting, and once he'd been introduced as Kitster Banai, a friend, Ani was ready to fire the pod's engines for the first time. They roared to life with beautiful blue flames ringing the exhaust ports, their tips edged with orange. Both boys cheered loudly, and once he'd shut the engines down, the blond threw himself at me for a big hug.
"We're gonna do it!"
"You betcha," I agreed. Artoo whistled and beeped.
"Artoo-Deetoo has offered to paint the pod for you, Master Anakin," Threepio translated. "All that he claims he needs is a design and the paint."
"Wizard!" Anakin dashed inside, and came back out a little slower, carrying three containers and what I suspected was a drawing. He held the sheet out for the astromech to see as he set the containers down, pointing at different sections as he chattered away. After a few minutes, he left the droid to the task, leaning against me. Kitster realized he had to go, but promised to bring a pair of eopies in the morning to tow the pod to the track.
"There's still a few hours of daylight left," I commented. "Do you want to work on that cooling unit?"
"That's right! Jira has some pretty bad issues during the dry season." And he'd been correct about the unit; it had gotten some very rough handling along the line, but the majority of it was still intact. We finished the repairs just as the first sun dipped below the horizon, and then it was time for dinner. After, Qui-Gon 'cleaned up' a small cut Ani had gotten, and I suspected that he would have Obi-Wan check my small friend's midi-chlorian count back on the cruiser.
I sat up with Shmi after the others had gone to sleep, both of us watching Artoo add a few finishing touches to the parade banner that matched the pod. She sighed, then looked at me.
"You'll be taking him away with you, I suppose."
"Yes; it's why I was brought here. Not that I don't want to," I added quickly. "I just… I never thought I'd get the chance to have a Padawan of my own."
"A what?"
"It's the Jedi term for a student or apprentice, the closest most of us get to having a younger sibling or offspring, most of the time." I glanced at her. "There are special cases, of course, for those whose species are dying out, but… Masters and Padawans are a Jedi's family."
"You wouldn't have had one?"
"It's not that I haven't wanted to, but the High Council—our leaders, the elders of the Order, so to speak—they don't really like me that much. I'm too 'wild,' too much of a maverick in their eyes, for them to ever allow me to mold one of their younglings." Her alarmed expression spoke volumes. "They won't be able to keep me from training Ani. The decision was never in their hands."
"What do you mean?"
"I… perceive the Force a bit differently than most, more as a being with thoughts and plans than the energy field all Jedi are taught about. It told me to join Master Jinn and his Padawan on their mission, and to come to Mos Espa after we landed here. It chose to form the training bond between me and Anakin, and the Council cannot refute Its demonstrated will or break that bond, no matter how much they might want to."
"Destiny."
"Mm, yes." A more comfortable silence stretched between us.
"Will I ever see him again?" she finally asked.
"It's not like the Council could really stop us," I replied with a wry chuckle. "I'll make sure he writes regularly, at the very least." I paused, feeling the Force whisper to me. "He'll be a great Jedi; he'll do you and his father proud."
"He has no father."
"I… I'm sorry for your loss." It was the only way I knew to express what I felt for a man I would never meet.
"No, you misunderstand me." Shmi stood and walked to the window, leaning against the sill as she looked at the stars. "I'm not simple-minded; I know all too well how things go between a woman and a man." She turned to me, pain in her eyes. "I was less than half his age when the slavers took me from my family. So young that I don't remember anything but my own name and that our family was called 'those who walk the skies.' I was so very proud of that. And then…" She choked back sudden tears. "I was turned into a pleasure slave, not that I ever took any pleasure from it. And the being who owned me, who rented me out to others, oh, he was a canny one." Bitterness crept into her voice. "I compared with the other girls, once. Never was one of us assigned to someone of our own species, or of a species fertile with our own. None of us had ever seen a pregnant woman, though we knew what pregnancy was. Then we realized that was what was wrong with me."
Horrified by what she'd revealed to me, I stood and tugged gently, turning her toward me and then holding her when she began to weep. Never mind that what she was saying technically couldn't happen; with the Force, anything was possible. And even beyond that knowledge, I could sense very clearly that her words were truth.
"I believe you," I whispered, stroking her hair.
"He's the only family I have."
"And I would never take him from you completely." Shmi's emotions began to settle again, and I gave her the time she needed.
"I was dumped, like garbage, when they realized that bearing Ani had changed my body in ways that made me no longer 'pleasing.'" It took a long time for those words to come. "But they couldn't get him out of my sight, no matter how hard they tried." I squeezed gently, reminding her wordlessly that it was in the past, that 'they' had failed. "They tried to kill him a dozen times, at least, before he was a month old. Tried to snap his neck, cut his throat, beat him—" Her throat seized up in remembered panic. "But their blows just slid off him, the blades wouldn't pierce his skin, his spine bent and sprang back instead of breaking."
"Do you realize what that means?" She shook her head, uncomprehending. I knew I was barely skimming the surface, but even that little knowledge was more precious than Corusca gems. "Anakin is a gift from the Force, in every sense of the phrase. For losing your kin, the abuse you survived; he is the beginning of a new family and a new life for you. I've been the Order's black nerf, have been forced to sit on my hands so often; Anakin is the proof of what I've been telling the Council for years, that their denial of emotion and attachment is a mistake." Then I shook my head. "And he's more than that, for many others, though I don't know why."
Shmi chuckled wetly, wiping her nose and then trying to clean up my tunics. I let her, knowing that the domestic task was helping to settle her nerves.
"When we came here, I heard some of the family names of those who'd been here a long time, and I chose to call myself and Anakin 'Skywalkers,' both to honor my family and to fit in a bit. I wish I remembered the word and not just its meaning, but…"
"I understand." Every member of my clan who'd been in the Order had used the surname 'Ti,' even if they had originally had another due to a parent or grandparent's marriage. Once the careworn woman had regained her control, I brought up my only remaining concern.
"He's supposed to be worrying about getting enough sleep tonight and a good breakfast in the morning so he can be in top shape for tomorrow's race, but you know what he's agonizing over?" She shook her head. "He's worried about Sebulba coming after you once he's left with us. Is there someone you can turn to, if we cannot free you ourselves?"
"Certainly not Watto," Shmi replied after a moment of thought. "But there's a man, a moisture farmer named Cliegg Lars, who tries to come by whenever he's in town. He said he's started saving up so that he can free me, but on his income that would take years."
"We'll see about that," I told her. "Go on, now, get some rest yourself; Ani's not the only one with a big day tomorrow." Once she had gone to her own cubbyhole of a room, I pulled the pouch of ingots from my bag and smiled.
I definitely had a plan.