Prologue I
( 36 BBY, Tatooine )
"I have the deal for you, Watto. One worth a fortune in Aurodium/Legends ingots." I was amazed my childish voice had remained so steady as I made the only possible play to change the tire-fire my inherited life was all set to become, but the stern yellow eyes of the imp-like Toydarian/Legends perched on the junk shop's main counter reminded me I had a long way to go in pulling this off.
"You can't even beat Sebulba, but now you claim you can offer me vast riches? Why should I believe this slave-fantasy of yours?" Watto snorted in apparent derision. Unfortunately for the junk dealing pod-racing addict, I'd been watching him like a hawk for three years now.
Meaning I would have caught the minute tensing of muscles as he consciously stilled a reflexive flutter of wings indicative of his interest in my words even if I didn't have the Force to whisper of rising acquisitiveness, pulsing excitement and thready relief.
Watto was presently pretty deeply in debt to Jabba Desilijic Tiure/Legends after several lost bets, so I knew his normally sharp wits and skepticism of deals which sounded too good to be true was being offset by the thought of having everything he owned seized by the gangster's enforcers. Who'd probably beat him half to death just to send a message to Jabba's other local creditors.
"Jawas don't always understand the value of the old things they sometimes dig up. One of them sold me an ancient Sith holocron/Legends for three Wupiupi .
It can teach someone who can use the Force to be like the Jedi, so the Jedi Order will pay at least a million in aurodium ingots so they can lock it away forever. They'll probably go higher, if you threaten to sell it to Jabba" I replied in my most level, confident voice.
I made sure to maintain eye contact and keep my shoulders squared, because Toydarians could smell weakness like hyenas, and they responded to it just as aggressively.
Watto's next question was predictable, as his voice grew much harsher and more threatening. "I can make you explode like a dagon fruit tossed between a pair of energy coils with the touch of a button, and do the same to that mother of yours.
Give me this artifact, and I won't beat you just for wasting my time, then make you watch as I detonate Shmi just to teach you the folly of thinking you can bargain with me like we're equals."
He followed the threat up by leaping forward in a flutter of wings and cuffing me so hard I saw stars and sat down hard with a jarring shock to my tailbone which made my eyes water from the pair of pains. I probably could have dodged the blow, but that would have enraged the junk-dealer and ended the negotiations.
Looking up at him, I abandoned the level, respectful and confidently cajoling tones to reveal the defiance burning in me secretly every minute of every day.
"You can beat me to death, Watto. You can kill my mother in front of my eyes. It won't get you anything but two dead slaves and no profits! A slave doesn't get this lucky in his life twice, so I'm willing to die, and my mother with me, if it means a chance to be free.
Give us our freedom and twenty-five percent to make our way off this ball of sand safely. Half a million Wupiupi is more money than you've ever seen in one place. It's enough to get Jabba's claws out of you forever, buy you a ship of your own to lift your business to another level, and get you a state of the art pod.
You wouldn't have trouble wooing a racer here, then. Someone who could drub Sebulba and make you the king of the circuit. Think of all the trophies, and all of them won in your name."
Watto circled me like a predatory animal. Those big yellow eyes appraising me with all the razor-sharp acuity of one who rose and fell on his ability to assess others and determine how far a mark could be pushed.
I don't know all that he saw in me at that moment, but I could feel his frustration like hot sparks jumping from poorly wired machinery, and sense his hunger for the big score like an abyss which yawned wide in my head. I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
"Freedom for you both and five percent. That's enough to buy passage to anywhere!" His reply was a challenge, but his thick bluish gray lips were quirking upward now. The winged junk-dealer loved bargaining almost as much as he loved gambling on the pod races, and he obviously respected my all-or-nothing stand despite himself.
I can't maintain this indomitable demeanor forever, however. I won't be six years old for another two months!"
"Twenty percent, Cleverest of all Masters. No one will ever find the artifact if I don't retrieve it, and I have my mother's future to think of. What is it you always tell me?" I respond with a question and a small smile of my own.
"Wupiupi in the hand is worth ten times as much as talk. Which you realize this mostly is right now? Ten percent" Watto shot back in the firm voice of a man handing down the price.
Ironically, I wasn't fooled because of the veteran merchant himself. "Fifteen percent, Master. Think of your new ship, pod, shop, and the dozen slaves who can do their time in your admittedly not-terrible service."
Watto snorts as my weak attempt at flattery washes off him like sand off an ambushing Tusken raider, but he's smiling as we move into the final measure of our dance.
"I'll miss you and Shmi around the shop, Ani. Twelve point five percent, and you explain to the Jedi where this artifact came from. No one's going to believe the five-year-old is sacrificing children to nameless horrors."
"Deal" I say, as a wave of relief so powerful it takes everything I've got left to lock my knees washes through me.
I have just enough presence of mind left to insist we shake on the arrangement. We quickly come to a quick-and-dirty arrangement where Watto will deactivate my slave-implant, I'll turn over the Sith Holocron, then Shmi's implant will be deactivated once the Jedi pay.
For the thousandth time I say a prayer of thanksgiving that Watto's too smart to try and sell something like this to anyone but the Jedi. Jedi Shadows are notoriously unforgiving when it comes to those who aid and abet Dark Side adepts. Even out here in the Outer Rim, people know the Order is the only possible buyer for elements of the dark legacy of the Sith.