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Anakin already knew that the death rate among slaves was high.
Children and the elders were especially vulnerable. From what he could see, many were dying by degrees.
Security was constant. The slaves were guarded by patrolling natives of Nar Shaddaa as well as droids. Escape was impossible. Even if one could manage to elude the guards and security devices, there would be nowhere to hide. The native citizens of Nar Shaddaa benefited from the slave trade. If they dissented, they were either threatened or bought off with huge bribes.
The spaceports of this moon world were tightly controlled by Krayn. There was no way to break out and nowhere to go.
The whole operation ran incredibly smoothly, Anakin thought in disgust. Greed did not make Krayn sloppy.
Anakin had been assigned to gravsled duty. It was his job to transport the cut spice up to the processing levels. It was tedious, filthy work, much of it spent breathing in the dirt and dust from the caverns as he loaded the gravsled. Anakin was not aware of the fact that his job was considered lucky until he accidentally almost ran down a processing worker.
The slave, a female Twi'lek, had stepped back un-expectedly from her position at the loading dock, right into the path of his gravsled. Only Anakin's excellent reflexes prevented him from ramming her.
She whirled, her long head tails almost slapping Anakin in the face.
"Watch where you're going, schutta."
Anakin didn't know what a schutta was, but he knew when he was being insulted. "You're the one who stepped back," he pointed out. It was close to the end of a long day, and his mind and muscles were strained to the limit.
She advanced on him angrily, her blue skin flushed to a deeper hue.
"Don't tangle with me, soft boy. Your privileges don't count around here."
"Quiet!" A slave on the assembly line warned them in a hiss. "Guard droid."
Anakin saw a droid with an electrojabber wheeling down the aisle at a quick pace. A red beam shot out from the guard's chest and circled. This was how the droids kept track of each slave.
"It's looking for me," the Twi'lek said. "We can't leave the line, even for a moment." Her defiance was gone, and she sounded scared.
The slaves on the line immediately closed up so that the space where the Twi'lek had stood was gone. Anakin reached out and grabbed her arm.
"Hop on."
She did as he said, and he reversed the gravsled and took off down another aisle.
"Crouch down underneath those bins," he murmured. "I'll look busy until it goes away."
"We all look alike to those droids," the Twi'lek muttered. "If I can slip back in place before it starts a head count, I might get away with this. Otherwise it's a prod or two with the electrojabber."
"Don't worry." Anakin gritted his teeth. On his first day, he had seen such an assault, on a slave too exhausted to work quickly. The guard droids were programmed to be especially vicious. They did not use "a prod or two,"
but employed the jabber until the victim was stu
Anakin sped down the narrow lanes, occasionally stopping to unload a bin of spice so that he wouldn't look suspicious. He didn't want to leave the floor. The head count could begin at anytime, and he needed to be able to sneak the Twi'lek back in. Soon he would be in trouble himself. He was allowed a strict amount of time for his rounds.
He circled around the processing floor and returned to where he had a good vantage point. The guard droid was begi
He heard a soft moan from behind him. "I'm dead."
"No, you're not." Anakin was not yet adept at moving objects with his mind. Yet he knew the Force was around him, even here. He drew it up from the scarred ground below, from the living energy of the beings around him, from the toxic sky. The Force bound all the slaves together, and they were part of one another and the rest of the galaxy, no matter how isolated they might feel. He struggled to block out everything but the pure quality of the Force. Slowly, he felt the Force grow around him, and he gathered it in and then sent it out to a pile of unprocessed spice sitting on the end of the worker line. One block of spice trembled, then another. Anakin held out a hand, feeling the Force move through him. The pile tumbled over, along with a stack of durasteel bins.
The guard droid immediately wheeled about. "Violation! Violation!"
"Go!" Anakin hissed.
The Twi'lek paused for one instant. Her eyes met his, and he saw a kind of forgiveness there. "My name is Mazie." Offering her name was a kind of apology, a gesture of friendship, he knew.
"Anakin."
She scooted out of the gravsled. The other slaves bunched up, shielding her for the few seconds it took her to slip back in line.
Anakin turned the gravsled. The guard droid could blame no one for the accident, since no one had been near. It circled, aiming its red laser light randomly, but the slaves continued to work. After a few seconds it went back to the head count. Mazie was safe.
Anakin was grateful for the hard physical training he'd been put through at the Temple. The slaves were rationed two scanty meals a day. He felt constant hunger like a beast inside him. He was not yet at Obi-Wan's level, capable of forgetting about food for long periods of time. He had to use meditation to allow his hunger to exist without weakening him.
As he parked his gravsled at the end of the day and headed for the lift tubes with the other slaves, he felt a deep weariness in his bones. He knew it had to do with a weariness of spirit as well.
Obi-Wan was looking for him. That he knew. He was also confident that his Master would find him. But how long would it take? How much of him would be chipped away before it happened? Swallowing rage and fear did not fill up his empty belly, but it made him worry about losing his Jedi detachment.
He kept his eyes on the slave in front of him as they trudged to their quarters. A rain was falling, and it tasted bitter and metallic on Anakin's lips. He felt it soak his hair and unisuit.
Suddenly he felt a surge in the Force. Startled and hopeful, he lifted his head. Was his Master near? He searched the platforms high above. The factories and slave quarters were on the surface of Nar Shaddaa, but the city was built above. He did not see his Master. Instead, he saw Krayn.
The pirate stood on a platform a hundred meters high. Standing next to him was a nervous human man who Anakin did not know. Siri stood on Krayn's other side. Strange, but Siri's gaze seemed to focus right in on Anakin. He felt the Force gather, and he did not understand it. Did he have a co