Yet another Anakin-centered fic
Apr. 14th, 2006 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilThis story takes a different tone than most of my others, carrying hardly a trace of redemptive tones. But I got the idea in my head and it just wouldn't be ignored, so here it is. It takes place in a sort of timeline that matches my enormously overlong "Japor" but it's pretty self-explanatory even if you haven't read that.
(I'm kind of uncertain regarding Watto's dialect, so any recommendations concerning that - or anything else - are welcome.)
Fixing Things
It was that time of day when those with any sense stayed indoors, where there was at least some shelter from the suns’ full blast. A pilot strolled down the street alone, and a pair of Twi’leks murmured to each other at a doorway, but otherwise, Mos Espa was quiet.
Luke looked at the rows of tightly huddled buildings, the doors inevitably caked with sand, the roughly-hewn, sun-bleached walls of stone. “Father could have lived on this very street,” he said quietly.
Leia gazed about, her distaste evident. “Not a very pleasant place for a child to grow up.”
“No, I suppose not,” Luke replied lightly. “But slavery would have been an ugly thing on any planet.”
“That’s true.” Feeling any sort of sympathy for their father was a difficult thing for her still, and Luke could sense her unease as palpably as the hot wind. He laid a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll try that cantina, over there,” he suggested. Leia frowned. It wouldn’t be the first time she had had to descend into a seedy, disreputable place, far beneath her dignity, but that didn’t mean she would enjoy it. Luke nudged her forward. “Come on. I promise it won’t be as bad as Jabba’s palace.”
“Well, that’s a relief, in any case,” Leia responded, and Luke was glad to see a slight smile on her face. “Just don’t ask me to impersonate a bounty hunter.”
“Right.” They came to the entrance and stepped inside. For a few moments they stood while their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. Luke had carefully selected their clothing – sandy, homespun garb that did not blazon their Outlander status.
Odd that he had come to think of himself as an Outlander.
“Now, keep your eyes out for old-timers,” he murmured, as they stepped down to the main floor. Leia smoothed her clothes unconsciously as she peered about the cantina.
Luke looked slowly from one end of the room to the other and frowned slightly. They were mostly young; idle-looking Mos Espans who would rather lounge about with a drink than do their chores. That man in the corner might have something, though – his beard was streaked with gray and he downed his drink with the hard gulp of one who had seen rough things in his life. Luke nudged Leia.
“See him?” She nodded, and they started towards his table.
“I know I’m the diplomat,” Leia whispered, “but maybe you had better start things off. Knowledge of local customs, you know?”
Luke smiled sympathetically. It was a wrench yet for Leia to initiate any talk of Anakin Skywalker.
The old man was sitting with two others, a pair of younger man who were probably his sons. As they realized the newcomers were approaching them, they set their drinks down and looked up expectantly; eyes narrowed, not exactly antagonistic, but neither were they joyfully welcoming.
“Hello,” Luke greeted them genially. The old man grunted, shrugging his shoulders.
“Am I supposed to know you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Luke replied, still smiling. “I’m Luke, this is my sister Leia.” When the man did not offer his own name Luke forged ahead. “We’ve never been to Mos Espa, but some of our family used to live here, many years back. We were hoping to find someone who may have known them.”
“I probably can’t help you then,” the old man said curtly. “I’ve only lived here five years; before that I was a moisture farmer.”
“Near Anchorhead?” Luke wondered.
“No. Other side of Mos Espa.” He glowered. “Harvest got so bad we had to give it up and come to the city.”
“I see.” Disappointed, Luke said, “I’m sorry to have troubled you, sir.” He was ready to leave when one of the sons spoke up.
“If you’re looking for someone old,” he said, grinning, “you might try the Toydarian.” He jerked his head towards a shadowed table in the other far corner.
“Watto the slaver?” his brother chortled. “He barely has enough sanity to see straight.”
“Still,” Luke said, “if he’s been here that long, I’d like to talk to him.”
The old man shrugged again. “Go ahead. Just don’t expect anything he says to make sense.”
As they started over, Leia leaned toward Luke and whispered, “Slaver? There hasn’t been open slavery in the galaxy since the Empire first took control.”
“I know,” Luke whispered back. “But let’s see what he has to say.”
Luke had never met a Toydarian before, though he had some idea of what they looked like. This one was undeniably in bad shape. His wings hung feebly on his back, fluttering now and then in a useless sort of gesture. His teeth were gone, leaving a grotesque set of crooked gums, and his eyes had gone milky. His stubby tongue worked in his mouth as if parched and badly in need of water. A kind of stubby beard gave his face the final touch of unkempt, unhonored age. Luke had never seen anything more pathetic. He could tell Leia was doing her best not to recoil.
“Watto?” he inquired, stooping to speak close to his ears in case the Toydarian’s hearing was disintegrating as well as everything else.
“Eh?” He started, his wings twitching, and turned blindly toward Luke’s voice. “Is that thee, Grafi? Brought my drink, did thee?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Luke began.
“Then go get it!” Watto growled, and folded his short arms angrily.
Luke glanced at Leia. “It might be easer...” She nodded in agreement. He got up and made his way to the bar. “Are you Grafi?”
He was a thin, sallow-skinned Khlordite, who looked Luke up and down before answering, “Yes. Trying to talk to Watto the Slaver, are you?”
Again Luke wondered at the title, but he simply said, “Yes.”
“Can’t promise you much,” Grafi said. He seemed tired but not unfriendly. “Here’s his usual.” He pushed a glass of something toxic-looking toward Luke. “It might mellow him a bit. But be careful. A lot of what he says never really happened.”
“I understand. Thank you.” Luke came back to the table where Leia had carefully seated herself next to Watto. The Toydarian was half-asleep already, but as Luke came he perked up, his snout jerking slightly. Apparently his sense of smell was still working.
“What took thee so long?” he grumbled, taking the drink without a thanks. Some of it slopped down his chin as he drank; he didn’t seem to notice.
“Watto,” Luke said gently, settling down on the other side of him. “I’m not Grafi.”
“What?” Watto slumped back, cradling his drink. “What’s this nonsense, Grafi? I’m tired. Time to sleep, methinks.”
Luke cleared his throat with a rueful look at Leia. She leaned forward toward Watto and told him in a voice that was both gentle and clear, “My name is Leia. This is my brother Luke.”
“Where’s Grafi?” Watto gulped his drink, blinking his eyes groggily.
Luke answered, on sudden inspiration, in Huttese. “We’ve come a long way to talk to you.” Watto straightened a bit, his eyes turning toward Luke as if there were some sight left after all.
“Eh? Outlanders?” he responded in Huttese. “But how does thee speak –”
Luke laid a hand on his wrinkled arm. “I come from the moisture farms. But my father was from Mos Espa.”
“Mos Espa,” Watto muttered. “Mos Espa...had a shop there, methinks. Best in the city. Business was great. Everyone loved me. Best master. Treated my slaves right.”
Leia was looking thoroughly lost, and Luke hastily murmured a translation. Then he turned back and attempted the question he had been skirting while he gathered courage. “Watto –” No use explaining that they were still in Mos Espa. “Did you ever know someone called Anakin?”
Something was working in Watto’s brain. “Anakin? Anakin?” His eyes lit with a glint like a memory.
“Anakin,” Luke said quietly, “was our father.”
Watto might have leapt up if his limbs allowed it. “Ani’s boy?” he breathed.
Leia was startled. “He called him Ani,” she whispered. Luke nodded, his breath catching. Their father’s old, long-forgotten nickname.
“You knew him,” Luke said to Watto with barely contained eagerness.
Watto’s wings seemed to shrug. “Ani’s boy,” he repeated. Luke and Leia waited. “Ani...little boy...ruined...” he rambled in Huttese. “Saved my life and never knew it...”
Luke’s patience was being considerably tested, but he said calmly, “Tell us, Watto. Tells us about Anakin. About Ani.”
Watto looked up sightlessly, drew breath and said, “They call me Watto the Slaver because I have no slaves.”
~~~
It took a long time for anything to reach Tatooine, but eventually even the suns-scorched hermits in the Dune Sea caught word of the new Empire that had claimed every planet from Coruscant to the Outer Rim. No one knew what to think at first. A relief to be done with the war, that was true. Promises of a return to the old glory that had long been smothered by bureaucracy and foolish squabbling – that was an exciting prospect. Perhaps under the Empire the Outer Rim territories would not be ignored so callously as they had while the Republic ruled; perhaps wrongs would be righted and there would finally be justice. Honest people hoped for it, while others who preferred to avoid the notice of the law cringed and hoped to continue being ignored.
But even at the start there was a certain uneasiness to the idea of an Empire. Hadn’t the democracy of the Republic stood for a thousand years? Why had it been abolished; why must they now bow to the will of one man? A wise and great man, perhaps – at least the Imperial visitors always said so – but what about democracy?
Eventually the changes started; the patrols of masked troopers with blasters ready to fire at the least provocation; the new regulations and taxes that were so strangulating it made the old complaints about taxation under Republic rule seem like petty whining. And always with the declaration, “For the glory of the Empire.” After a while mutters rose up – “For the glory of the Emperor, more like,” but never within hearing of the troopers.
And then there was the questioning. They were searching for fugitive Jedi, for the would-be usurpers who had escaped the initial trial and execution. Everyone was suspect. The locals were bewildered. Why would a Jedi flee here? For that matter, why were they fleeing to begin with? Weren’t the Jedi the ones who were supposed to protect the innocent? Instead, it seemed, they had been selfishly planning their own takeover, with the result that there was no one to stand in the way of the Emperor’s rise. With reflections such as these, residents of Tatooine wouldn’t have resisted too heavily in giving up information about hidden Jedi. In fact no one had such information; yet the brutal searching continued.
“You’re lucky, here,” a pilot whispered confidentially, to a curious group of listeners in a junk shop. “In the Core, the search for Jedi is being led by the Emperor’s closest, most ruthless agents. One of them – Vader, he’s called – is no better than a monster, cruel beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. If you heard some of the things he’s done to the Jedi he’s found –” He simply shuddered. “But he can’t be bothered to come all the way to the Outer Rim. Be glad you’ve only got troopers here.”
Word of Vader and his harsh methods spread quickly, until the name was whispered with almost as much fear and revulsion as the Emperor’s. A Jedi had been discovered on a forest world, and Vader burned down all the trees within a 20- kilometer radius until the charred remains of the body and a lightsaber were found. On a small Core planet, in a village that had been secretly harboring, so the rumors said, as many as ten Jedi, men and women were found strangled, their eyes bulging with shock and fright. The bodies of Jedi, so the visitors to Tatooine reported, were put on display in the squares of Coruscant, like twisted mockeries of art. The pilot’s original words were passed on like a refrain. Be glad we’ve only got troopers here.
Yet the fiend called Vader had a reach that extended even to Tatooine, as its inhabitants soon found out. It was on a particularly hot morning that a commanding trooper sent out the message to every shop and home in Mos Espa – all slavers were to report to the podracing arena for an important briefing. They were to bring their slaves with them.
“What could it be, do you think?” wondered the grizzled shopkeeper down the street from Watto as he paced under his low-roofed pavilion. “Better not to go?”
“Nah, thee’d best obey, methinks.” Watto frowned darkly. “They’ll probably buy all your slaves and pay thee handsomely. Just my luck that I’ve long since lost mine.”
“Pay us handsomely!” the shopkeeper snorted. “When has the Empire ever shown generosity?”
“Keep your voice low, friend,” Watto cautioned. “Best not to speak ill. Best to obey, and hope thee escapes with your head.” Still grumbling, the shopkeeper set off for the arena, his slaves in tow.
Watto had no word of him or any other slavers for three days. He wondered, and worried, and could think of nothing to do about it. He was too old and tired for anything but working for his pittance and trying not to starve. He would dearly have liked a slave to help him now, in his old age.
Then, on the third day, a tousle-haired, suns-burned human boy dashed into the city in panic and near-exhaustion, his eyes full of fright and horror. He collapsed in a sidestreet with a tremendous shriek. After such a scene, he quickly gathered a crowd about him, but he could not speak more than an incoherent babble for several minutes. A motherly Twi’lek woman held him, stroking his face until he calmed.
“M-my master,” he stumbled out. “I went with him to the arena..the troopers gathered us all together into two groups, slaves on one side, slavers on the other. Then the trooper in front announced that the Empire had permanently abolished slavery.” His eyes were wide, remembering. “They had some kind of machine to turn off our transmitters – I could feel mine going off, and I knew I was free – but I was scared, because my master gave me food and a place to live and I didn’t know what I would do – so I stayed. The other slaves went away – they looked confused, and a little worried, but still pretty happy – then –”
His face contorted with fear, and he shook his head, his voice trapped somewhere in his throat.
“What happened next?” the Twi’lek asked gently. “It’s all right, you’re safe now.”
“They killed them.” The boy burst into tears. “They killed them all,” he sobbed.
A chilling hush fell over the crowd. Appalled, the Twi’lek repeated, “Killed them!”
He nodded painfully, his filthy face worsened by the tears. “They said – ‘by command of Lord Vader – in recompense for your deeds’ – and they started shooting them. I was hiding behind the stands – I saw everything – some of them tried to escape but there were so many troopers – so many – I wanted to run but I couldn’t stop watching –” He buried his face in the Twi’lek’s clothing and cried until it became a hoarse whimper. No one spoke; no one had anything to say.
Watto hovered at the back of the crowd, dismay welling up in his chest. And he could have been one of them, among the dead now, if it hadn’t been for –
Ani. The boy had saved him in the end, hadn’t he? He had won the race, gained his freedom, nearly ruined Watto – and in so doing made it necessary to sell Shmi when that farmer made such a generous offer – deprived him of his slaves, and saved him.
“My thanks to you, little Ani,” he whispered quietly.
The former slave-boy who had brought word of the massacre died within the week. Apparently the shock of what he had seen and the ordeal of running through the desert for three days had been too much for him. A few people of Mos Espa buried him just outside the city, in an unmarked grave to avoid questions from troopers. Vader’s edict had shaken them, but they dared not speak out.
Over time the Imperial presence in Mos Espa lessened, and some of the bolder Hutts resumed the practice of slavery, though more guarded now. The next time the Empire’s eyes fell on Tatooine, it was in another city, for another reason. But those in Mos Espa never forgot, though they scarcely made mention of the horrible event, until the word came many years later that the Emperor and, more significantly, Vader, were dead.
As for Watto, he gained a bit of dubious fame for surviving the massacre. The slaver who escaped, they called him. The slaver without slaves. As the years went by and he became increasingly doddering and pathetic, it was almost a joke. Watto the slaver, Watto the surviver.
~~~
“Would’ve liked to have thanked him, methinks,” Watto muttered, clutching his glass in an unsteady hand. “A shame, a terrible shame. Must have died with all the other Jedi. Never knew he saved me.”
Luke swallowed something heavy in his throat. He could not reply. Leia had covered her face in her hand.
“What a boy he was.” Watto was rambling out of coherence again, flapping his wings as if imagining they were actually lifting him up. “Had a knack for putting things together. Always wanted to make everything better. Always fixing things.”
(I'm kind of uncertain regarding Watto's dialect, so any recommendations concerning that - or anything else - are welcome.)
Fixing Things
It was that time of day when those with any sense stayed indoors, where there was at least some shelter from the suns’ full blast. A pilot strolled down the street alone, and a pair of Twi’leks murmured to each other at a doorway, but otherwise, Mos Espa was quiet.
Luke looked at the rows of tightly huddled buildings, the doors inevitably caked with sand, the roughly-hewn, sun-bleached walls of stone. “Father could have lived on this very street,” he said quietly.
Leia gazed about, her distaste evident. “Not a very pleasant place for a child to grow up.”
“No, I suppose not,” Luke replied lightly. “But slavery would have been an ugly thing on any planet.”
“That’s true.” Feeling any sort of sympathy for their father was a difficult thing for her still, and Luke could sense her unease as palpably as the hot wind. He laid a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll try that cantina, over there,” he suggested. Leia frowned. It wouldn’t be the first time she had had to descend into a seedy, disreputable place, far beneath her dignity, but that didn’t mean she would enjoy it. Luke nudged her forward. “Come on. I promise it won’t be as bad as Jabba’s palace.”
“Well, that’s a relief, in any case,” Leia responded, and Luke was glad to see a slight smile on her face. “Just don’t ask me to impersonate a bounty hunter.”
“Right.” They came to the entrance and stepped inside. For a few moments they stood while their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. Luke had carefully selected their clothing – sandy, homespun garb that did not blazon their Outlander status.
Odd that he had come to think of himself as an Outlander.
“Now, keep your eyes out for old-timers,” he murmured, as they stepped down to the main floor. Leia smoothed her clothes unconsciously as she peered about the cantina.
Luke looked slowly from one end of the room to the other and frowned slightly. They were mostly young; idle-looking Mos Espans who would rather lounge about with a drink than do their chores. That man in the corner might have something, though – his beard was streaked with gray and he downed his drink with the hard gulp of one who had seen rough things in his life. Luke nudged Leia.
“See him?” She nodded, and they started towards his table.
“I know I’m the diplomat,” Leia whispered, “but maybe you had better start things off. Knowledge of local customs, you know?”
Luke smiled sympathetically. It was a wrench yet for Leia to initiate any talk of Anakin Skywalker.
The old man was sitting with two others, a pair of younger man who were probably his sons. As they realized the newcomers were approaching them, they set their drinks down and looked up expectantly; eyes narrowed, not exactly antagonistic, but neither were they joyfully welcoming.
“Hello,” Luke greeted them genially. The old man grunted, shrugging his shoulders.
“Am I supposed to know you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Luke replied, still smiling. “I’m Luke, this is my sister Leia.” When the man did not offer his own name Luke forged ahead. “We’ve never been to Mos Espa, but some of our family used to live here, many years back. We were hoping to find someone who may have known them.”
“I probably can’t help you then,” the old man said curtly. “I’ve only lived here five years; before that I was a moisture farmer.”
“Near Anchorhead?” Luke wondered.
“No. Other side of Mos Espa.” He glowered. “Harvest got so bad we had to give it up and come to the city.”
“I see.” Disappointed, Luke said, “I’m sorry to have troubled you, sir.” He was ready to leave when one of the sons spoke up.
“If you’re looking for someone old,” he said, grinning, “you might try the Toydarian.” He jerked his head towards a shadowed table in the other far corner.
“Watto the slaver?” his brother chortled. “He barely has enough sanity to see straight.”
“Still,” Luke said, “if he’s been here that long, I’d like to talk to him.”
The old man shrugged again. “Go ahead. Just don’t expect anything he says to make sense.”
As they started over, Leia leaned toward Luke and whispered, “Slaver? There hasn’t been open slavery in the galaxy since the Empire first took control.”
“I know,” Luke whispered back. “But let’s see what he has to say.”
Luke had never met a Toydarian before, though he had some idea of what they looked like. This one was undeniably in bad shape. His wings hung feebly on his back, fluttering now and then in a useless sort of gesture. His teeth were gone, leaving a grotesque set of crooked gums, and his eyes had gone milky. His stubby tongue worked in his mouth as if parched and badly in need of water. A kind of stubby beard gave his face the final touch of unkempt, unhonored age. Luke had never seen anything more pathetic. He could tell Leia was doing her best not to recoil.
“Watto?” he inquired, stooping to speak close to his ears in case the Toydarian’s hearing was disintegrating as well as everything else.
“Eh?” He started, his wings twitching, and turned blindly toward Luke’s voice. “Is that thee, Grafi? Brought my drink, did thee?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Luke began.
“Then go get it!” Watto growled, and folded his short arms angrily.
Luke glanced at Leia. “It might be easer...” She nodded in agreement. He got up and made his way to the bar. “Are you Grafi?”
He was a thin, sallow-skinned Khlordite, who looked Luke up and down before answering, “Yes. Trying to talk to Watto the Slaver, are you?”
Again Luke wondered at the title, but he simply said, “Yes.”
“Can’t promise you much,” Grafi said. He seemed tired but not unfriendly. “Here’s his usual.” He pushed a glass of something toxic-looking toward Luke. “It might mellow him a bit. But be careful. A lot of what he says never really happened.”
“I understand. Thank you.” Luke came back to the table where Leia had carefully seated herself next to Watto. The Toydarian was half-asleep already, but as Luke came he perked up, his snout jerking slightly. Apparently his sense of smell was still working.
“What took thee so long?” he grumbled, taking the drink without a thanks. Some of it slopped down his chin as he drank; he didn’t seem to notice.
“Watto,” Luke said gently, settling down on the other side of him. “I’m not Grafi.”
“What?” Watto slumped back, cradling his drink. “What’s this nonsense, Grafi? I’m tired. Time to sleep, methinks.”
Luke cleared his throat with a rueful look at Leia. She leaned forward toward Watto and told him in a voice that was both gentle and clear, “My name is Leia. This is my brother Luke.”
“Where’s Grafi?” Watto gulped his drink, blinking his eyes groggily.
Luke answered, on sudden inspiration, in Huttese. “We’ve come a long way to talk to you.” Watto straightened a bit, his eyes turning toward Luke as if there were some sight left after all.
“Eh? Outlanders?” he responded in Huttese. “But how does thee speak –”
Luke laid a hand on his wrinkled arm. “I come from the moisture farms. But my father was from Mos Espa.”
“Mos Espa,” Watto muttered. “Mos Espa...had a shop there, methinks. Best in the city. Business was great. Everyone loved me. Best master. Treated my slaves right.”
Leia was looking thoroughly lost, and Luke hastily murmured a translation. Then he turned back and attempted the question he had been skirting while he gathered courage. “Watto –” No use explaining that they were still in Mos Espa. “Did you ever know someone called Anakin?”
Something was working in Watto’s brain. “Anakin? Anakin?” His eyes lit with a glint like a memory.
“Anakin,” Luke said quietly, “was our father.”
Watto might have leapt up if his limbs allowed it. “Ani’s boy?” he breathed.
Leia was startled. “He called him Ani,” she whispered. Luke nodded, his breath catching. Their father’s old, long-forgotten nickname.
“You knew him,” Luke said to Watto with barely contained eagerness.
Watto’s wings seemed to shrug. “Ani’s boy,” he repeated. Luke and Leia waited. “Ani...little boy...ruined...” he rambled in Huttese. “Saved my life and never knew it...”
Luke’s patience was being considerably tested, but he said calmly, “Tell us, Watto. Tells us about Anakin. About Ani.”
Watto looked up sightlessly, drew breath and said, “They call me Watto the Slaver because I have no slaves.”
~~~
It took a long time for anything to reach Tatooine, but eventually even the suns-scorched hermits in the Dune Sea caught word of the new Empire that had claimed every planet from Coruscant to the Outer Rim. No one knew what to think at first. A relief to be done with the war, that was true. Promises of a return to the old glory that had long been smothered by bureaucracy and foolish squabbling – that was an exciting prospect. Perhaps under the Empire the Outer Rim territories would not be ignored so callously as they had while the Republic ruled; perhaps wrongs would be righted and there would finally be justice. Honest people hoped for it, while others who preferred to avoid the notice of the law cringed and hoped to continue being ignored.
But even at the start there was a certain uneasiness to the idea of an Empire. Hadn’t the democracy of the Republic stood for a thousand years? Why had it been abolished; why must they now bow to the will of one man? A wise and great man, perhaps – at least the Imperial visitors always said so – but what about democracy?
Eventually the changes started; the patrols of masked troopers with blasters ready to fire at the least provocation; the new regulations and taxes that were so strangulating it made the old complaints about taxation under Republic rule seem like petty whining. And always with the declaration, “For the glory of the Empire.” After a while mutters rose up – “For the glory of the Emperor, more like,” but never within hearing of the troopers.
And then there was the questioning. They were searching for fugitive Jedi, for the would-be usurpers who had escaped the initial trial and execution. Everyone was suspect. The locals were bewildered. Why would a Jedi flee here? For that matter, why were they fleeing to begin with? Weren’t the Jedi the ones who were supposed to protect the innocent? Instead, it seemed, they had been selfishly planning their own takeover, with the result that there was no one to stand in the way of the Emperor’s rise. With reflections such as these, residents of Tatooine wouldn’t have resisted too heavily in giving up information about hidden Jedi. In fact no one had such information; yet the brutal searching continued.
“You’re lucky, here,” a pilot whispered confidentially, to a curious group of listeners in a junk shop. “In the Core, the search for Jedi is being led by the Emperor’s closest, most ruthless agents. One of them – Vader, he’s called – is no better than a monster, cruel beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. If you heard some of the things he’s done to the Jedi he’s found –” He simply shuddered. “But he can’t be bothered to come all the way to the Outer Rim. Be glad you’ve only got troopers here.”
Word of Vader and his harsh methods spread quickly, until the name was whispered with almost as much fear and revulsion as the Emperor’s. A Jedi had been discovered on a forest world, and Vader burned down all the trees within a 20- kilometer radius until the charred remains of the body and a lightsaber were found. On a small Core planet, in a village that had been secretly harboring, so the rumors said, as many as ten Jedi, men and women were found strangled, their eyes bulging with shock and fright. The bodies of Jedi, so the visitors to Tatooine reported, were put on display in the squares of Coruscant, like twisted mockeries of art. The pilot’s original words were passed on like a refrain. Be glad we’ve only got troopers here.
Yet the fiend called Vader had a reach that extended even to Tatooine, as its inhabitants soon found out. It was on a particularly hot morning that a commanding trooper sent out the message to every shop and home in Mos Espa – all slavers were to report to the podracing arena for an important briefing. They were to bring their slaves with them.
“What could it be, do you think?” wondered the grizzled shopkeeper down the street from Watto as he paced under his low-roofed pavilion. “Better not to go?”
“Nah, thee’d best obey, methinks.” Watto frowned darkly. “They’ll probably buy all your slaves and pay thee handsomely. Just my luck that I’ve long since lost mine.”
“Pay us handsomely!” the shopkeeper snorted. “When has the Empire ever shown generosity?”
“Keep your voice low, friend,” Watto cautioned. “Best not to speak ill. Best to obey, and hope thee escapes with your head.” Still grumbling, the shopkeeper set off for the arena, his slaves in tow.
Watto had no word of him or any other slavers for three days. He wondered, and worried, and could think of nothing to do about it. He was too old and tired for anything but working for his pittance and trying not to starve. He would dearly have liked a slave to help him now, in his old age.
Then, on the third day, a tousle-haired, suns-burned human boy dashed into the city in panic and near-exhaustion, his eyes full of fright and horror. He collapsed in a sidestreet with a tremendous shriek. After such a scene, he quickly gathered a crowd about him, but he could not speak more than an incoherent babble for several minutes. A motherly Twi’lek woman held him, stroking his face until he calmed.
“M-my master,” he stumbled out. “I went with him to the arena..the troopers gathered us all together into two groups, slaves on one side, slavers on the other. Then the trooper in front announced that the Empire had permanently abolished slavery.” His eyes were wide, remembering. “They had some kind of machine to turn off our transmitters – I could feel mine going off, and I knew I was free – but I was scared, because my master gave me food and a place to live and I didn’t know what I would do – so I stayed. The other slaves went away – they looked confused, and a little worried, but still pretty happy – then –”
His face contorted with fear, and he shook his head, his voice trapped somewhere in his throat.
“What happened next?” the Twi’lek asked gently. “It’s all right, you’re safe now.”
“They killed them.” The boy burst into tears. “They killed them all,” he sobbed.
A chilling hush fell over the crowd. Appalled, the Twi’lek repeated, “Killed them!”
He nodded painfully, his filthy face worsened by the tears. “They said – ‘by command of Lord Vader – in recompense for your deeds’ – and they started shooting them. I was hiding behind the stands – I saw everything – some of them tried to escape but there were so many troopers – so many – I wanted to run but I couldn’t stop watching –” He buried his face in the Twi’lek’s clothing and cried until it became a hoarse whimper. No one spoke; no one had anything to say.
Watto hovered at the back of the crowd, dismay welling up in his chest. And he could have been one of them, among the dead now, if it hadn’t been for –
Ani. The boy had saved him in the end, hadn’t he? He had won the race, gained his freedom, nearly ruined Watto – and in so doing made it necessary to sell Shmi when that farmer made such a generous offer – deprived him of his slaves, and saved him.
“My thanks to you, little Ani,” he whispered quietly.
The former slave-boy who had brought word of the massacre died within the week. Apparently the shock of what he had seen and the ordeal of running through the desert for three days had been too much for him. A few people of Mos Espa buried him just outside the city, in an unmarked grave to avoid questions from troopers. Vader’s edict had shaken them, but they dared not speak out.
Over time the Imperial presence in Mos Espa lessened, and some of the bolder Hutts resumed the practice of slavery, though more guarded now. The next time the Empire’s eyes fell on Tatooine, it was in another city, for another reason. But those in Mos Espa never forgot, though they scarcely made mention of the horrible event, until the word came many years later that the Emperor and, more significantly, Vader, were dead.
As for Watto, he gained a bit of dubious fame for surviving the massacre. The slaver who escaped, they called him. The slaver without slaves. As the years went by and he became increasingly doddering and pathetic, it was almost a joke. Watto the slaver, Watto the surviver.
~~~
“Would’ve liked to have thanked him, methinks,” Watto muttered, clutching his glass in an unsteady hand. “A shame, a terrible shame. Must have died with all the other Jedi. Never knew he saved me.”
Luke swallowed something heavy in his throat. He could not reply. Leia had covered her face in her hand.
“What a boy he was.” Watto was rambling out of coherence again, flapping his wings as if imagining they were actually lifting him up. “Had a knack for putting things together. Always wanted to make everything better. Always fixing things.”
