Chapter 46: Manumission

I pitied the boy, Anakin’s, mother. They were well off by slave standards, to be sure. They had excess food, water, space, their own place, a degree of freedom outside of their work, and a relatively benign master. Still, they were slaves. Their excess, their entire buffer from their master cutting their food and water rations either as punishment or to cut costs after losing a bet or coming off worse from a business deal, we went through all of it.

A week worth of food and water to a woman and boy acclimated to the climate, used to scarcity, gone in a single meal for their five visitors. Binks especially needed more water in the desert climate, as his race was adapted to amphibious areas. Why the idiot left the ship I did not know.

Plus, we were definitely crowding them. Two bedrooms, kitchen, and living, all quite small were enough room for a single woman and her son, but less so for an extra five adults. And Shmi, Anakin’s mother, was definitely aware of how vulnerable she and her son were. We were obviously wealthy off-worlders, and Qui-Gon, Jon and I were physically powerful to boot. We could have done anything we wanted to those two.

But despite all of that, despite her incredibly shitty life – after all, unlike Anakin, Shmi was not born to slavery, did not entirely take that as the natural way of things – she was a genuinely good person. She cared deeply for her son, but also cared about people in general. She was charitable and optimistic.

It was interesting watching her, and how she interacted with us. Anakin had noticed Qui-Gon’s lightsaber at the shop, correctly assumed he was a Jedi, and incorrectly assumed that he was on Tatooine to free the slaves. Shmi had a flash of hope, which Qui-Gon crushed when he explained that he wasn’t there to free the slaves, but rather running escort. But even still she wanted to help us. She didn’t let her disappointment turn to bitterness.

And I respected that. Respected her. She was, in many ways, a better person than I. I was pissed off by Qui-Gon and Amidala. Was it really so much to free a pair of slaves? Qui-Gon was a senior Jedi master; according to his Padawan Kenobi, he was a candidate for their high council. He probably had access to discretionary funds sufficient to buy the entire planet, let alone a single boy and mother who had possibly saved his life. Amidala certainly did, as queen of Naboo.

But Qui-Gon was afflicted by that peculiar disease endemic to Jedi, that idea that all that happens was the Force’s will. I found it difficult to differentiate in practice from “inshallah,” that expression guaranteed to drive any western engineer who ever worked within the Arab world up the fucking wall. Or perhaps he had become so capable of divorcing himself from his experiences that he couldn’t differentiate how Anakin and Shmi’s suffering was any different than that shared by the hundreds of thousands of slaves on Tatooine, the billions or even trillions throughout the galaxy. And since he couldn’t save all of them, he chose to save none.

Either way, it was a dick move, and Qui-Gon only became interested in Anakin after he found that the boy was powerful in the Force, though the boy was apparently too old to train. Which, just, such a pedo statement! Seriously, fucking Jedi cultists and their baby fetishes. Besides, I had figured out how to sense Force potential using my magical senses, and Anakin was potentially seriously powerful. Significantly more so than Qui-Gon, for example, and Jinn supposedly had a high-councilor level Force connection.

As for Amidala, that idiot got a message from home that was doubtless designed to lead our enemy to our doorstep by tracking the message router information. And she, fool that she was, opened it, saw the whining face of one of her governors, and descended into a pity-party. Honestly, she was like one of those idiot criminals back on Earth who got caught after answering a call from their girlfriend and getting tracked by that.

With any luck though Amidala and co. would get their ship functioning quickly and out-run her pursuers. It didn’t matter much to me, as I had no intent to continue with them.

Unlike those two, I did intend to help Shmi. For her and her son’s assistance and charity in hosting us, I would have repaid them a hundred-fold. For her character, I’d do better. Anakin, Amidala and Binks, tired by the activity, stress and environment had all gone to bed, leaving Qui-Gon, Jon, Shmi and I awake. Qui-Gon was off in the corner, looking at something on his datapad, while the rest of us were gathered around the table with a pot of tea.

After a long stretch of silence, I spoke up. “What is it that you want, Shmi?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“If you could make a wish, what would it be?” I clarified.

She was visibly hopeful, and almost glowing with it to my emotional senses. “For Anakin to be free,” she said.

I nodded slowly. “Just that? Not for revenge, on those that put you into slavery? On your masters since then? Not for your own freedom?”

She shook her head. “No. If Anakin were free, could leave Tatooine, could have a good life… that would be enough,” she whispered.

“Alright,” I said. “Tomorrow, he’ll be free.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

I shrugged. “One good turn deserves another.”

“But, all we did was give you a single meal, leave you a patch of floor to sleep on… I, just, I don’t -” she stammered.

I smiled. “And that represented a significant portion of your wealth, no? You’re both good people, and were willing to sacrifice your hard-won excess for a pack of off-world strangers. Well, this stranger appreciates that.”

She left her chair, kneeling in front of me. “Thank you, thank you,” she wept.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Please, get up,” I said, uncomfortable with the excess emotion. After she had gotten up, sat back in her chair, and calmed down a bit, I continued. “But a boy should have his mother, so I’ll be freeing you both. And offering you a job; leaving you here on this crime-ridden rock, or abandoning you to fend for yourselves in the wider galaxy would hardly be right.”

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She was gaping at me, stunned. I clapped her on the shoulder, and gave a tight-lipped smile. “Anyways, I’m going to turn in for the night,” I said, then left for the alcove we’d earlier decided was going to be my sleeping nook.

Best way to avoid uncomfortably emotional moments? Walk away!

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Of course, I didn’t actually need to sleep. I was meditating, figuring out exactly how my shield to protect me from being noticed or influenced by the Force was going to work. See, it wasn’t enough to become transparent to the Force if everything I interacted with was still within the Force’s purview. The Force may still be able to manipulate me, and individual Jedi and Sith would definitely notice the shadow I cast, possibly finding me as the common linking element.

One idea I thought about was to try and throw up a massive smokescreen. Blind the Force not to me, but in general over as wide an area as I could manage. But I was hesitant to do so. The galaxy was in the far-future, with highly advanced technology. The lack of a Von Neuman AI army, hegemonizing swarm, grey-goo nanite plague, tyrranid-inspired bioweapon infestation, or other such disaster was possibly the result of the Force. The fact that a bare ten thousand Jedi held together a Republic with over ten billion times their number of citizens was surely attributable to the Force.

I had no desire to watch the galaxy drown under a tide of the fires of war and bloodshed, and doubted it would last a decade if the Force were suddenly blinded in a major way. So, I needed a different solution. Instead of blinding everyone, I just needed to make myself extremely illusive.

At its core, my spell was meant to make me totally transparent to the Force. I did not exist, thus could have no future or past. The next layer out, the spell would blend the effects of my passage into the background of the Force, a chameleon-like neutrality. The last layer added false futures for myself, starting from what was my actual Force presence (as if none of those spells were cast at all), but warping it like a mirror-funhouse at the carnival. The longer term something tried to model me, the worse reality and precognition would diverge.

There were two really great effects from this. First, as far as the Force itself was concerned (if that was, in fact, a mechanism that it used), I wasn’t there, and it should no longer drag me into its messes, or those of its favored children: the various Forceful Jedi, Sith, and other such adepts. Second, as far as other Force users were concerned, I was one of those rare individuals whose ever-shifting decision making and reprioritizing meant that it was difficult to judge my future.

Magically, the spell was based strongly on Blue, for thought and perception, with aspects of Green and White to blend me into the background. Red, chaotic and unpredictable, helped give variability to my false Force presence layer, while its aspects of freedom helped divorce myself from the skein of Fate and Destiny in the first place. Best yet, the spell should be generally effective against any fate, destiny, or other semi or fully precognitive manipulation.

I just had to wait to be away from those meddlesome Jedi, and I’d be able to put the spell into place. Otherwise they could be jarred by my transition.

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The next day dawned bright and sunny, as was pretty much always the case on Tatooine. Jon, Shmi, Anakin and I went off to Watto’s so that I could buy them, while Qui-Gon led Amidala and Binks there to pick up their parts.

“Ah, here for your parts, yes?” the green-blue buzzing creature asked. “Right this way, right this way. They’re already loaded on this repulsor-lift.” He motioned to a chunk of angular metal casing and wiring.

“They may be,” I said, gesturing at Qui-Gon and his annoying followers, “but I’m here for some other business.”

“Oh, and what would that be?” Watto replied, a gleam of greed in his eyes. “Did your friends tell you about my fine collection?”

I gave the jumbled mess of used droids, parts, and simple junk a sweeping glance, unimpressed. “No, I intend to purchase Shmi and Anakin.”

His face instantly shuttered. “They’re not for sale,” he said, his voice flat.

I grinned charmingly. “Everything is for sale, my friend. It just depends on the price.”

His wings buzzed with agitation. “Fine. A million peggats.”

I quirked my eyebrows. He was massively overcharging. Shmi and Anakin were class two slaves, those with technical skills. Shmi, a middle-aged human female, was worth at most ten thousand credits, and that was still easily twice as much as I’d expect to pay. Anakin as a child was worth half that, though his special skills as a podracer pilot might drive that up. Both of them combined should certainly have been under twenty thousand credits, with a more reasonable estimate being about eight thousand.

At forty-ish credits to the peggat, that was between two hundred and five hundred peggats. A million peggats was more than a thousand times their value.

My eyes hardened. “I just want the two slaves, Watto. Not everything you own, and even then I wouldn’t pay a million peggat for it, not even if you threw in your life.”

He snarled. “Threatening me? Get out of my shop.”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “Master Jinn,” I said, turning to Qui-Gon. “We are not in the Republic, and so you have no ability to enforce Republic law, correct?”

He nodded, slowly. “That is right.”

“And, given the fact that this individual is holding slaves under threat of death, this constitutes exigent circumstances, does it not?” As I had everyone’s attention, Jon slid into the alien’s blind spot.

“It does,” Qui-Gon agreed.

“Still, perhaps you shouldn’t see this. Why don’t you take everyone and wait outside.”

He was a bit worried, and Amidala and Binks were far more so. Shmi and Anakin were as well, but less so at the prospect of violence than of not being freed.

“Morons,” hissed Watto. “You think you punks are the first to try and rip me off? Gua-“ he began to shout before Jon lunged forward, grabbing the great flying asshole by the throat and shutting him up before he could call for help.

“Off you go, we’ll just be a second,” I said, waving the others out and sealing the door behind them. I walked over to where Jon was holding Watto, grabbed his arm, and broke it.

“Aaahhhhhh!” screamed the intractable slave-owner.

I slapped him across the face a few times, not too hard, just to refocus him. “What’s the price, Watto?”

“E chu ta! You’re dead, you wermo. As soon as Jabba hears about this, you’re dead!” he spat.

I sighed, reached over to the hand on the broken arm and began to squeeze. I could tear apart steel like it was play-dough; his hand gave no resistance. I slowly increased the pressure as he grimaced, then cried out to the soft pops of damage to those fragile bones. “OK, OK!” he cried as his hand was on the verge of being crushed. “They’re yours, just let me transfer the codes!”

I could practically smell the deception oozing off of him. I walked over to one of the inactive droids, and tore its arm off, then starting smashing it until it was a ruin. Then I turned back to Watto.

“Hey, shit-head,” I said. “My friend here is just as strong as I am. You going to bet that he can’t tear your throat out before he gets hit when you activate your defenses?”

He slumped a bit. “Fine! Fine,” he snarled. But his aura was still full of deception.

I brought up a document on my pad, then sent it to his. “Here’s the agreement,” I said. “A hundred peggats for both. This way, if something unfortunate happens, like you forgetting to give us the right code, or having some backup that kills them anyways, I can tell Jabba about how you reneged on our deal. And Watto, that million peggats? I’ll put that on your head as a bounty if you try and run.”

At that, the fight went out of him. Soon enough, we’d made the transfer.

“Good. Watto, next time you have a customer? Try not to be such a fucking asshole. You’re in retail, after all.”