Chapter 12: Space for Change
Having to watch Anakin embrace his mother one last time had been heart wrenching, even if it had less finality to it than what Zarya remembered of the movies. Still, Shmi would need some time to gather the rest of the money necessary to gain her freedom, since Watto was already mad enough after losing one of his slaves. Letting go of her will need a lot of convincing (the monetary kind, most likely).
At least this time around, Anakin will have less to worry about when it comes to his mother's freedom, and he was convinced he will see her again someday. All that didn't make it any easier for him to be separated from the one person he knew and loved his whole life, though. She would know.
Not the time to think about your own family—
Where are they? Do they miss—
Do they remember m—
Nope, not thinking about that right now, unless you want to bawl your eyes out.
She had more important things to think about right now. Because amidst all the excitement of the last few days and the goodbyes, of course, of course she had forgotten about the red skinned mad man. But as she, Anakin and Qui-Gon could see the gleaming Nubian ship in the distance, a feeling of dread settled over them, making them hurry their pace without hesitation at the urging of the Jedi.
Soon enough, the children were running as fast as they could, trying to keep up with his longer strides and Zarya (damn her tiny stature!) tripped a few times on the uneven terrain trying to keep her hand linked with Anakin's. Seeing her struggle and beginning to tire himself, Anakin tried to slow things down, a bit confused at the rush despite his own uneasiness.
"Qui-Gon, sir, wait! We can't keep up!"
"Drop, now!"
While the boy didn't expect this answer, Zarya had to give him credit for how fast he fell to the ground, a second after her. Feeling their clothes and bags being jostled by the speeder that raced above them wasn't a sensation she enjoyed, especially since she only heard it a moment before it reached them, the sound of the rising wind hiding its own roar.
"Run to the ship and tell them to take off!" yelled Qui-Gon as he engaged the other force user in combat.
They both would've loved to see the sword fight going on in front of them, but his urgency and their fear drove them to run faster than before, leaving him to distract the zabrak. With her forearm over her eyes to shield them from the flying sand, she didn't notice they had made it to destination until they were running up the lowered ramp that led inside the silver ship. Anakin, far from shy, didn't waste a moment to relay the message given to them when he saw the people, including Padmé, rushing in.
"Qui-Gon said to take off, now! He's fighting someone outside!"
Without missing a beat, Padmé and the captain escorted Anakin to the cockpit to tell the pilot, leaving a handmaiden behind while Zarya sat on the floor, tired from running. She threw a reassurance to Anakin through their link when he grew worried upon realizing she didn't follow and tried to answer the handmaiden tending to her.
"I'm sorry but you'll have to move away from the ramp," she was saying. "It isn't safe to stand so close to it while flying."
Zarya nodded tiredly, still trying to catch her breath. The older girl helped her stand up, taking on most of her weight and guided her to stand closer to the sliding doors leading further in the ship while the ship lurched when it took off the ground.
It only took a minute before Qui-Gon appeared on the ramp, having jumped up from bellow, and the latch slid down behind him just as he fell to the ground in exhaustion next to R2-D2, whom she only just noticed. Before she or the handmaiden could make a move, the sliding doors right next to them opened to show who could only be Obi-Wan, with his short red hair, longer thin braid and his sand colored robes. He was followed closely by Anakin as they barreled into the room.
"Are you alright?"
"I think so," the Jedi answered his padawan when he knelt next to him.
Anakin only stopped to take her hand and bring her closer to the two men who continued conversing, knowing she tended to wander away when she didn't feel like talking to anyone, a habit that only grew since the Jedi entered their lives. She let him, if only because she knew he worried about her, and she didn't know where else she would go anyway.
"…well-trained in the Jedi arts." Qui-Gon was explaining just as they, too, kneeled next to him. "My guess is it was after the queen."
"What are we gonna do about it?" asked Anakin, a hint of fear leaking through.
"If he comes after you or me, running away is probably the way to go," Zarya answered him drily, ignoring the annoyance he directed towards her. Qui-Gon, chuckling, drew their attention back to him.
"You would be right Zarya, and your friend better do the same, should it come to it. In the meantime, we can only be patient."
Yup, just waiting for him to come back and kill you this time. You didn't fight him five minutes and you're already half-dead, old man.
Anakin, without looking at her, discreetly poked her for her thoughts. Her eyebrows raised slightly at this, she hadn't expected him to hear her. If they weren't careful, their bond won't leave them any kind of privacy at this pace.
Unaware of the silent communication between the two youngest in the room, or maybe just ignoring it for now, Qui-Gon introduced them to his padawan.
"Zarya and Anakin Skywalker, meet Obi-Wan Kenobi."
"Hello."
In contrast to Zarya's humble greeting, Anakin was less successful in containing his excitement, to the Jedi's shared amusement. "Hi! You're a Jedi too? That's awesome!"
As she watched the two shake hands after Obi-Wan shook hers, she couldn't help but watch the two boys smiling to each other. If they knew what the future had in store for them…
No. She can't think like that. She's at the very start of what she only knew as a story, and anything could change as long as she was here.
Everything could change.
(( ))
The first thing Zarya loved about being in space, it was the cold. After living for almost three years in a desert (as far as she could remember anyway), she was more than happy to leave its unforgiving environment behind and head to a more agreeable one, which for her, can be anything from comfortably warm and freezing cold at this point. Winter was her favorite season and she missed it, dammit.
The first thing she disliked about space, is how freaking huge it was. In theory, she'd always known this. But as she watched the planet on which she lived on all her life, (this life anyway), she couldn't help but feel very… insignificant, seeing how big it was and how black stretched for eternity all around them.
To her amusement, and irritation, it was the complete opposite for Anakin. He immediately disliked the cold, his body unused to trying to keep him warm since it was always so hot in the desert. As for space itself, he looked in wonder at all the stars surrounding them, amazement and some kind of determination in his eyes. She remembers how he always said he'd be the first to visit all the stars, and as unlikely as that was, if anyone could do it she knew it would be him.
Hyperspace was another beast of its own. Watching the stars stretching, swirling and passing them by at such a high speed was as fascinating as it was terrifying. She had to drag a mesmerized Ani away from the cockpit when she became too uneasy from all the scenarios of 'things that could go wrong' in her head, and he only complied from feeling her discomfort and his own fatigue.
Since, like Jar-Jar, they were not expected when the ship was taken for this trip, the two kids had settled in a corner of some kind of lounge area in the ship to sleep, with tables and supplies spread around them in the small room. Anakin immediately glued himself to her side, leeching the warmth she emitted. None of them were ready for sleep though, him tinkering with metal pieces and she trying to calm her racing mind.
From what she could remember and with a bit of help from the conversations she overheard, they were heading to Coruscant to try and receive help from the senate to liberate the queen's planet, Naboo. However, this whole trip was useless. From a cinematic point of view, it's the rise of Palpatine as chancellor, since he managed to manipulate the young queen into 'dethroning', or whatever, the current chancellor in a desperate attempt to tip the balance in Naboo's favor. Not only would this whole process take too long, even in the movie Padmé lost patience with the whole thing and went to free her people herself.
From Zarya's current point of view, going to Coruscant was a waste of time, and they could just skip to heading back to Naboo right now, which would probably change nothing in the grand scheme of things. Naboo would be free earlier, and Palpatine will without a doubt find another opportunity for his promotion to leader of the galaxy anyhow.
Now that all this was clear… how does a child convince two Jedi's, a queen and her entourage of all this without spilling all the beans of why she has said knowledge or appear crazy?
She sighed heavily.
"Wow, whatever you're thinking of, I doubt I want any part of it."
She rolled her head towards her grinning best friend, scowling at him.
"Thanks. Ya know, normally people ask 'what're you thinking about?' and try to lighten the person's burden."
"Yeah, but I already know that its about this thing you never want to talk about anyway, so what's the point?" he said, his smile losing its genuine lightheartedness.
Right. It's hard to hide stuff from someone who has direct access to your head, and while she's succeeded for now, he can still sense that she's hiding something. Anyone could see it, really, since she was so much more advanced than others her age.
"I'm sorry, Anakin," she finally said. "It's just, I was thinking, from what I know of politics, it will be way too long to get help from Coruscant. Going straight to Naboo seems way more effective than waiting for days for politicians to come to a decision."
He hummed thoughtfully, still tinkering. "Right, plus there are already two Jedi with us, and I'm sure there are soldiers already on Naboo, right?"
"Exactly!" If you count gungans as soldiers anyway. Was there any other army? She couldn't recall.
"Maybe we could tell the queen? She'll agree, right?"
Zarya scoffed lightly at this. "Right. Those people are all about politics and going by the book, I doubt she'll agree until she sees for herself how long it would take to get more help."
This time, it was his turn to sigh as he understood her plight. He didn't say anything more about it though, instead choosing to hand her the round object he had been working on this whole time. She frowned at it, not recognizing it.
"What's that?"
"Your broken comlink. Not so broken now though, it should be working again."
Her jaw dropped in surprise. Eyes wide, she held the small device carefully, inspecting its new shape. The previous frame had been more square and bigger, she could hardly believe it was the same one Novi found for them.
"You mean—"
"You can call your friends now. At least, as soon as they are in range, you'll probably have to be on the same planet or very near for it to work. I set it to make a beeping noise when it detects the others—"
He barely finished talking when she suddenly tackled him to the ground, thanking him profusely.
"It's nothing, I told you I would fix it," he talked over her, laughing. "I'm only sorry I didn't do it sooner. Maybe your friends were still on Tatooine?"
"No, they left that planet long before us. It would have been too dangerous for them to stay anyway."
"It wasn't dangerous for you?" he asked, watching her hand as it strayed to the back of her head.
He knew the whole story about her life on Tatooine, the whole slave to be and controlling chip, just like she knew about his bleak childhood, the beatings, every gritty detail. As more and more time passes, they could keep less and less secrets from each other.
She still wasn't sure how she felt about that.
"I was being careful," she brushed his worry away, quickly changing the subject. "Speaking of friends, which friend is this for, I wonder?" She held up the pendant she sneaked from his pocket, giggling at the blush rapidly spreading on his face.
"None of your business, that's who!" he took the necklace back, punching her lightly on the shoulder for mocking him. Her laughter only grew.
"I'm pretty sure it's a crush I can feel coming from you, towards a certain angel, maybe?"
"Shut up! How do you even know about that!"
"We really have to work on closing that bond of ours when we can, we're starting to hear each other's thoughts on top of everything else."
Anakin pouted. "Probably."
(( ))
Zarya woke up a few hours later, slightly disorientated before she remembered the last day. She was laying down on the ground with an orange blanket over her, feeling no discomfort, to her surprise, from having slept on the hard ground. Advantages of being so young? Either way, she wasn't going to complain.
She could hear beeping sounds, laughter and not-so-quiet whispers a few feet from her, and she quickly identified the one laughing by feeling his amusement flow through her, bringing forth a smile on her own lips. She stood up slowly, blinking heavily and looked at the culprits.
Jar Jar was doing most of the talking, asking questions in a failed attempt at whispering to Anakin, who was studying R2-D2. Said droid was beeping at the young boy, most likely answering the questions about the mechanics inside him himself, which Anakin easily translated for the gungan. Although… by the laughter coming from Anakin, the answers were far from the truth, yet he didn't bother correcting them.
"So yousa sayin yousa can fly inta space, fixen the ship and battle enemy ships at de same time? By shootin lasers from yousa eyes?"
More beeps from R2.
"That's right! He did it just the other day before you came to Tatooine, that's why he's called a hero, now." Anakin laughed when R2 beeped some more. "The others didn't want to say all the details cuz' they didn't want to frighten anyone with his awesomeness."
"Wowie! Yousa very strong for a astrodroïd!"
"You don't know the half of it," mumbled Zarya sleepily.
"Zarya, you're awake!" Anakin exclaimed.
"Thanks to you, yes I am."
"Sorry," he grinned, not really apologetic. "We were just going to eat, if you're hungry. Also, the pilots wanted to let everyone know we'll arrive tomorrow at destination."
"Tomorrow? I thought there was a few more days to Coruscant?"
He grinned at her innocently, but she wasn't fooled by it. For some reason, he was feeling very smug for a nine years old child. "We're not going to Coruscant, we're going to Naboo. The queen changed her mind last night."
Zarya stared at him, eyes wide and unblinking. "You changed her mind?"
"Nope!" The way he was balancing from the tip of his toes to the sole of his feet, hands behind his back, didn't fool her either. "I talked to Padmé when she came by, you were already asleep. She seemed pretty worried, so I told her your idea! She didn't look convinced, but I think she discussed it with the queen anyway, and now we're going with it!"
"…Just like that?"
"Yup!"
She finally blinked. "Huh."
"You don't seem happy," he pointed out, grin faltering. "Isn't it what you were hoping for?"
She thought about it for a minute. Was it what she wanted? By going to Naboo earlier than expected, a lot could be different. The details were fuzzy, but her main concern right now was Darth Maul.
Tomorrow or a few days from now probably won't change much when it comes to saving Naboo, or at least she hoped so. There were already droids on the planet, everything was in place, waiting for them to make the next move. The only unknown was the Sith Qui-Gon had to fight only yesterday.
Would he even be there, or did he go back on Coruscant? If he was there, will the fight end the same way, or not? Could she avoid Qui-Gon's fate?
How can speeding things up by a few days change things in the long run?
"I guess we'll see," Zarya decided to answer, hand in her pocket where her comlink sat innocently.
If things go wrong, she thought, I have another option for myself anyway.
(
Changes are coming! What will be different now that they won't go to Coruscant before Naboo?
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Until next time!
-Maginary
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