Trigger Warning: This chapter deals with slavery and contains some more graphic descriptions of sickness and injuries. Reader discretion advised.

Chapter 72 - A Knight's Code

As Another memory Holo formed around them, Anakin was beginning to feel confident. That feeling when you get a great plan, right before things explode and Obi-Wan breaks his near lifelong aversion to swearing.

Then Anakin saw where he was, and he felt sick. They were crouched amongst slaves. Men and women, or their holos, cried out in agony as heavy chains kept them in place. A rash from an unknown disease spread, untreated, down one woman's neck, and to her belly below her garments. A large white pustule was near breaking on her neck. Another man coughed uncontrollably until blood came up.

"We have to hide." Inteli Lobot said.

"B-but they're crying. Why do they treat these people so badly?" Emotive Lobot protested.

Anakin had to shake himself not to sink to a dark place in his mind. The place where he imagined every bad thing that could've happened if Qui-Gon had not gambled to win him his freedom. "Yeah. Alright go. Stay with him and hide wherever you can. If you get caught, act like the slaves. You're both older than the Lobot here. Hopefully they won't recognize you and it won't crash the system."

"In that case, you'll find the other me up a level with my father." Intelli Lobot shared. "If you are to do this, he needs to leave my father's side, and get off at the next station where there will be another door."

"Okay," Anakin said.

"He's the most stubborn of all of us. Good luck." Said Emotive Lobot.

Anakin didn't know how to interpret that, so he just nodded, then he turned. If he could've kept his eyes glued shut he would have, but the Force wasn't as effective at sensing these Holos. He reminded himself that the Slaves, atleast of Tatooine, were now free, and he swore to look into doing more for other places the next chance he got.


By the time Anakin exited the Slave hold, he had the basics for a single handed mission against the Spice Mines of Kessel planned out in his head. Obi-Wan would probably call it crazy, but then he'd just challenge his old Master to think of a better plan. 'Then fuse a little of my improvisations to it, and Boom, we'd have a plan.'

"My arm doesn't hurt anymore," said a young teen, maybe fourteen years old. "Can we go back to work dad?"

"In a minute, son. Just let me have a conversation with the doctor here." Anakin recognized the slaver captain from the first memories he saw.

Youngling Lobot sighed, and Anakin could feel him roll his eyes.

Anakin entered the room slowly, because he did not know how this Lobot would react to him. The room was white and remarkably cleaner than the lower slave's hold. There were bottles of medicine, locked in a cabinet in the back and Anakin couldn't help but think that they must have a cure for whatever was making the slaves below so sick.

"Hello Lobot. My name is Anakin."

"I'm not allowed to talk to you. It's against the rules." Lobot folded his arms.

"That's right, but now you are alone, and I've already dealt with the Prison Keeper program keeping you locked in here. I'd like to help you get out. Join up with your other parts."

"I like this place. Everyone here obeys the rules."

This time Anakin sighed. "But you're on a Slave ship!" Anakin bit his tongue to keep himself from shouting any more at the youngling. "Slavery is illegal by the laws of the old Republic. This is still republic time, is it not. I've met your older self. You're at least Thirty five, but closer to Forty, I think."

"Thirty Eight." Lobot answered. "I was Twenty when the Empire came to power." Seeing the teen say this made Anakin blink.

"Twenty, yes. Therefore this ship is breaking the law…"

"No!" Lobot broke him off. "Slavery is defined as the selling or buying of Sentient Lifeforms. The passengers of this trip were helped off of a colony that was nearing collapse. They boarded voluntarily. It won't be until we arrive in Zygerria that they will be sold, thus breaking the law. And this RAM file doesn't last that long. Therefore I am not breaking any laws here, and neither is my father."

Anakin rubbed his hands down his face. 'At least when Leia went through this phase I had Padme and Obi-Wan to back me up.'

"What about their living conditions? If you brought up passing out some of these medicines out to the passengers below, will daddy dearest agree?"

Lobot huffed and looked down. "Neglecting a Sentient life form of needed medical care is illegal under the sentient rights bill. But I don't want to join the others. They never obey the rules. You standing here is evidence of that," he whined.

Anakin smirked. "I am a Jedi Master. There is a whole code of rules that I must obey. However, given that you are only in here because some hacker sees fit to use your body for their own evil purposes, I think it is within my rights to break you out of here.

"Anakin, you're not Anakin Skywalker, by any chance?" Lobot asked.

"Well, Yes. Yes I am." Anakin nodded proudly.

Lobot stared off into space, as his eyes went back and forth tracking information not visible to the human eye. "Formerly known as Hero with no Fear. Traitor to the former Republic. It might be the effect of relying on imperial media, but the information in my databases suggests you are even worse than my other halves at following orders."

Anakin huffed and sighed.

"This all has a rather easy solution to it." Lobot walked up to the locked cabinet with the medicines. "Now to remove medicines and distribute them without a Medical Licence is illegal. But these are not medicines. They are holographic bottles." Lobot used a wire under the desk to pick the lock and emptied the cabinet of its contents.

Anakin was somehow distracted from arguing this plan by how much he'd like to see the boy distribute medicine to the slaves below.


Anakin followed Lobot into the slave's hold. "It's just us. It's okay to appear," he called out.

The order loving Lobot beside him rolled his eyes. "Let me guess, you left them down here with explicit orders to stay hidden until your return. Figures. The smart one probably found some numbers to crunch. And the emotional one is probably chasing a Sriluurian Butterfly."

"Whatever, just do what you have to do."

Lobot walked up to the first obviously sick slave and handed him a blue pill. The man who had been in a coughing fit before stood holding the pill in his hand. Lobot stepped back and after a moment, protested by saying, "Well, go ahead. Take the medicine."

Anakin just stood there casually with his arms folded. "See a problem with their detainment yet?"

The slave moved his hand closer to his mouth by a matter of inches, and was stopped by the chains around his wrists.

"Oh," said Lobot. "I'm not allowed to unchain any of the passengers. Here wait." Lobot ran to get a cup of water and then he placed the pill directly into the slave's mouth. Holding the cup to his lips, he commanded him, "Swallow."

"Oh yes, that solves everything." Anakin mocked. "What about him?" Anakin pointed to another man without looking at him too closely.

"Okay, ummmm" Lobot began to evaluate his next patient. "He has wounds on his back. I could give him an antibiotic to prevent infection."

"Those are whip marks. Your daddy and his men's idea of discipline."

"For an open wound I could give a painkiller, but I don't have anything like Bacta, if that is what you're interpreting."

Anakin's stare at the boy grew in intensity until he sighed that he had enough. He turned around and pulled his robe off his shoulders. Then he pulled up the shirt he wore underneath to show his back.

"I'm not interpreting anything. I know that his back feels like he's had shards of glass carve out a piece of him, because that's how it felt for me. I was a slave too, before I became a Jedi." Anakin let his shirt fall down and pulled his robe back over his shoulders.

Lobot's mouth was open in a mixture of shock and horror. Anakin looked down. Only three people had ever seen those scars: His mother, who'd originally tended to his wounds, Obi-Wan, who had a similar look of shock-horror afterwards, and his wife, who's loving touch he could still feel tracing them gently down his back.

"No one deserves this," Lobot said. Then he whined. "Why couldn't you have just let it be? They told you this isn't the only option, didn't they? The Other me's. A system reset could easily have restored Lobot and Bespin to normal. My last moments would have been spent in peace. But this, no! This breaks so many laws that this entire RAM file is illicit."

"So, are you coming?" Anakin bit his lip. He couldn't be sure, but it sounded like a win to him.

In an unenthusiastic voice, Lobot answered, "Yes."

"Good. We have to get off at the next station. When is this ship landing?"

"It isn't."

"Huh?" Anakin turned to question.

"It isn't supposed to stop anywhere. In the original timeline I broke them all out and sabotaged the engine so my father would have to land. It was the last time I ever saw him. And before you suggest anything, NO. I broke several rules doing it the first time. Not again." Lobot folded his arms.

Anakin took a deep breath. "Look, you know my record with the Jedi wasn't the best. I admit I wasn't always the best at following the code. And I kinda treated orders more like suggestions. But that's because I had my own code. In my code, it is wrong to let another suffer when you can do something about it. Rules that get in the way of that, like your father's against taking off their chains, or messing with the ship's engines are invalid."

Lobot squinted up at him for a few seconds. "You're right. That does solve the dilemma."


A hastily planned break out and a few well placed explosions later, and Anakin was standing with Lobot as he watched those no longer to be slaves exit through the safety hatch under the ship and into an unknown world.

"Lo. Lobot, where are you?" The captain called his son.

Lobot took a deep breath beside him. "This is it." He whispered as he stood there frozen looking at the man. Then he turned and walked away, through the same door the slaves had used and into a busy public hangar.

Anakin looked up at a billboard above them and read, 'Bespin.' He understood then why two of the three Lobots had been ready to sacrifice themselves to do the reset. 'It's a good thing it's not necessary anymore.'

Then he looked down and noticed the other two Lobots were standing beside a door. "Over there is the way out of here. Come on."


Hello,

This chapter started very much without a plan, but I like how it turned out, and I hope you do too. I did have to have Anakin confront some difficult things in this chapter.

Lobot's backstory is not exactly Canon anymore. In Legends, his dad was a slaver, but it was some pirates who captured them and put an end to it. I decided I wanted a slightly different story, so I made Lobot free the slaves.

Next chapter I don't really know what'll happen. I expect I'll be combining the Lobots and then getting them to kick out the hacker. I expect we'll be going back out to the real-world then too, but no promises until it's written. See you then.