Chapter Text
The deep-sea mines are dark and they’re damp, and Obi-Wan trembles at night on his bunk, because he’s scared. The Temple was light, it was hope and promise, and Obi-Wan wasn’t good enough, they sent him away, but this place is bad. He isn’t good, but he isn’t bad.
Is he?
Was Master Jinn right? He isn’t Jedi material. Does that mean this what he deserves?
Like the other slaves, Obi-Wan has an explosive collar fixed around his throat. Unlike the others, his has something special built into it.
He’s grateful now for the Force suppressor. There are days, and nights, where his own emotions threaten to overwhelm him. He isn’t sure he would still be alive if he could feel everyone’s despair.
He tracks the days with small cuts on his inner left thigh. He knows Master Jinn is on Bandomeer for a mission. It probably has something to do with the man who took Obi-Wan and stuck him in the mine. If Obi-Wan is patient, if he keeps his head down, and stays alive, Master Jinn will come for him.
#
One day, there is a rumble, as if the planet itself is shaking. The water trembles. The walls quake. Stone and dust fall.
Even the overseers are scared.
#
There is a fight. The overseers die and new ones take their place. They talk about a change in regime, about a brat and a Jedi, and Obi-Wan allows himself to hope.
He carefully carves another three days onto his leg before he realizes what the overseers mean. The bad man, Xanatos, he is dead, and the Jedi, having done his duty, is gone.
Obi-Wan is still here.
He weeps that night, silently, in his bunk. He is tired the next day, but it doesn’t matter. He is whipped when he is slow, but he is whipped when he isn’t.
He starts a new tally, on his right thigh, now.
Days since Master Jinn didn’t come for him.
#
Obi-Wan is in line for first meal when his world changes.
Ten Weequay are suddenly in the room. With several precise shots, they kill the two overseers. Obi-Wan isn’t the only one who flinches as the overseers hit the ground. There are only two beings to keep all the slaves in line, but they don’t need numbers, because the overseers control the explosive collars.
The overseers fall and no one explodes.
Obi-Wan breathes in and then out. The Weequay fan out. Two of them post guard and keep Obi-Wan and the other slaves in the mess hall.
“You!” Says one of the Weequay, who wears a long, billowing coat, and a pair of unstylish goggles. They point at Sashmir. “Do you know where the ionite is? The stuff you’ve already mined.”
Sashmir nods slowly. She was kind to Obi-Wan when he first arrived. They’re on different shifts and in different sleep-rooms now, but she smiles when she sees him in passing. The Weequay gestures for her to come with them.
Obi-Wan takes a step forward because the overseers are gone, but these people have blasters and blades, and just because they killed the overseers doesn’t mean they’re safe.
The two Weequay standing guard aim their blasters at Obi-Wan, and he freezes in place.
“It’s alright,” Sashmir says, and Obi-Wan isn’t sure who she’s talking to, whether it’s him or the Weequay.
“Where are my manners?” the Weequay in the red coat says. “I am the great Hondo Ohnaka, and this is my band of merry pirates.”
“So you’re here to steal the ionite,” Obi-Wan says.
“Yes.” Hondo beams as if Obi-Wan should be proud of him.
“What about us?” Obi-Wan asks. “Are you stealing us too?”
“Ah.” Hondo clears his throat, as if in his exuberance for chaos and ionite, he forgot that there were people here. “A pirate never turns down a profit, that’s what Mama Ohnaka taught me. I’m sure there are many people looking to be reunited with their loved ones.” Hondo’s smile returns as he sweeps his arms out to gesture to the slaves huddled in the mess. “And we are happy to broker this reunion. For the right price, of course.”
“Of course,” Sashmir says. She gives Obi-Wan a warning look. It’s one he’s seen plenty of times before. Be quiet, Obi-Wan. Hold your counsel, initiate. And then Sashmir stares down the pirate leader. “A gesture of goodwill before we help you. Remove our collars.”
“Collars?” Hondo seems to notice the clunky, ugly collars for the first time. “Are those explosive?”
“Yes.” Sashmir’s tone is clipped.
There’s some muttering amongst the Weequay, but they produce a variety of tools and create a queue to start removing the collars. Once Sashmir’s is off, she leaves with Hondo. Obi-Wan wants to follow, but he can’t because he’s at the back of the line. He watches her disappear around a corner and hopes she’ll make it back.
When it’s his turn, Obi-Wan stands very still as the Weequay works on his collar. He knows the moment it’s unlocked, because the Force rushes him. It’s feast after a long famine. He’s out of practice with shielding, and he has no defense against the onslaught.
He stumbles backward and windmills his arms to try and keep his balance. There is death here, pain etched into the damp walls, but there is life too. The room is bursting with life, with people, and they’re full of complicated emotions. It’s too much, and Obi-Wan claps his hands over his ears as if he can hold all the sensations at bay.
It doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work, and he hurts, and he doesn’t know how to make it stop.
Darkness rushes up at him, and he knows Jedi are supposed to stay in the light, but dark means quiet, it means peace, and he meets the darkness with open arms.
#
Obi-Wan wakes up.
He wakes up on a narrow cot with a thin mattress under him and a heavy blanket over him. He isn’t on the mining platform.
The Force is loud, a buzzing in his head as it tries to tell him everything. Noise and headcounts and impressions and emotions and—
Obi-Wan grits his teeth. It’s been a long time, but he knows how to filter. He takes a deep breath. And then another. Around him, the world grows quieter.
He looks first with his eyes. He’s on bed in a small room. There is a single door. There is another bed opposite him. There is a matching blanket, pulled back, and the thin mattress pad is rumpled.
Obi-Wan shares this room with someone else. He touches the mattress pad. It’s cool to the touch which means his roommate left a while ago.
Obi-Wan closes his eyes. He feels the hum of…starship engines?
He’s very far from the mines, then.
He thinks back. It was a normal day. First meal.
Pirates.
The door slides open, and Obi-Wan pulls his blanket up to his chin. It’s only Sashmir who enters. Her hair is clean and pulled back, out of her face. Her face is clean too. She smiles at Obi-Wan, and it reaches all the way to her eyes.
“You’re awake,” she says. She has a tray in her hands, and she sets it on the small table between their beds. There is a bowl of thin broth and a cup of thick liquid. “You gave us quite the scare, little one.”
Little one.
He didn’t have a name in the mines. He isn’t sure he should give one now. Sashmir calls him little one. Brave one. Scared one. She has a dozen names for him and none of them are his. He looks at her neck. There are red marks where the collar once rested.
“Are we safe?” he asks.
“Safer,” she answers. “Can you try and eat? There’s soup and there’s protein paste.”
Obi-Wan’s stomach growls, and he’s painfully aware of how empty it is. He sits up. Sashmir has to help him. She spoons broth and protein paste in alternating mouthfuls. After Obi-Wan eats, Sashmir helps him wash. He’s in his clothes from the mines, and they’re dirty and grimy, but he’s glad no one changed him when he was unconscious.
After he’s clean, Sashmir helps him into new clothes. Even such minor tasks sap a lot of his energy, and he leans on her as she escorts him back to their room.
“What happens now?” Obi-Wan asks as Sashmir tucks his blanket around him.
“Now, we go home.”
#
Sashmir isn’t quite right. The pirates don’t want to spend the time, or money, going planet-to-planet with their sentient cargo. The slaves, or former slaves, Obi-Wan corrects, none of them are special. It isn’t worth ransoming with their planets directly.
The pirates take them to Alderaan.
“They’re a soft touch,” Hondo says, in answer to a question Obi-Wan didn’t ask. Hondo scoffs as if being soft is as great a crime as being weak. “But they will pay and then they will do the work of reuniting everyone with their families.”
“What if we don’t have family?” Obi-Wan asks.
Hondo looks over at him. His eyes look funny through the goggles, but Obi-Wan doesn’t laugh. “They’ll run your ident and find your family.”
Obi-Wan doesn’t want anyone to run his ident. They’ll find out he’s from the Temple, and one of two things will happen. He’ll be seen as valuable and sold again. Or, the Temple will pick him up and then send him to a different AgriCorps outpost.
Or, maybe they won’t come at all.
Obi-Wan touches his thigh, where thin scars mark the Jedi’s neglect. He doesn’t want to be sold again. He doesn’t want to be returned to the Jedi or left by them again. He was sheltered at the Temple, but he’s seen the truth of the galaxy now. He wants to be able to protect himself, and the Jedi won’t let him. They think he’s too angry. Too dangerous.
He wants to be dangerous.
Obi-Wan studies Hondo. He’s in his customary red coat. His brown pants tuck into knee-high boots. He wears a blaster on each hip, and Obi-Wan knows he’s proficient with them.
“How much does Alderaan pay per head?” Obi-Wan asks.
“A thousand credits,” Hondo answers. And then he squints at Obi-Wan. “Why?”
“I don’t want to go to Alderaan,” Obi-Wan says. “A thousand credits, plus room-and-board. You teach me to be a pirate, and I’ll pay off my ransom.”
Hondo slaps his thigh and laughs. Two others join in. It’s Hondo who stops laughing first. He squints at Obi-Wan again. “You’re serious.”
“Yes.” Obi-Wan says. He can see that Hondo doesn’t want to take on the responsibility of a child so Obi-Wan risks telling him the partial truth. “The people who were supposed to protect me, didn’t. I don’t want to go back to them.”
“Piracy is a dangerous business,” Hondo warns.
“But you’ll teach me to defend myself.” Obi-Wan fixes Hondo with his most stubborn, determined look. “My name is Ben. I don’t have a home for Alderaan to find. I want to be a pirate like you.”
Hondo takes a moment to consider this. “Every great pirate must have a protégé. Why become great if you don’t pass on your legacy? Welcome to the Ohnaka Gang.”
Ben smiles.
#
At first, the list of what Ben owes grows and grows, and he’s afraid the number will become too big for him to ever pay it back. He’s nearly fourteen after an entire year on Bandomeer. Hondo and the others train him, but they don’t allow him on their raids. And if he isn’t raiding, he isn’t making money, only incurring more debt.
He learns, of course. He learns to play sabacc with a face carved in stone. He learns to fake his expressions, to make up tells in order to throw the competition off. He learns to cheat and how to tell if others are cheating. He learns how to use a variety of weapons from blasters to vibroblades to electrostaves and a dozen things in between.
He also learns how to cook. There isn’t much to do when he’s left on the ship. He practices his Force skills, because he wants to keep them sharp, but he also learns other things. Cooking. Cleaning. Droid and ship repair.
He doesn’t count the days on his skin anymore. He doesn’t need to. He isn’t waiting for anything or anyone. He’s learning, he’s growing, and there’s an entire galaxy out there, waiting for him to write his future on.
#
Ben isn’t allowed on raids, but he is allowed off the ship. He practices his sabacc against people he doesn’t live with. He learns a few other games, because diversity is important. He tries the local cuisine wherever they go, and he tries to do a bit of sightseeing.
The galaxy is big, and there is ugliness in it, but there is also beauty.
Ben has a light touch, and it means he often walks through the streets and ends up with some credits in his pocket or a trinket or two he can pawn on the next planet. His income is enough to keep him entertained, but it doesn’t chip away at his ransom number.
He never asked what would happen if Hondo decided Ben would never be able to pay it off. Would he be sold somewhere? In case that’s the plan, Ben doesn’t breathe a word about his Force powers. If he’s ever a slave again, he won’t be in a Force suppressant. He’ll free himself. He’ll free the others. And then he’ll change his name and find a quiet place to hide out.
Hondo and the others are on a job. Ben, once again, is stuck on the ship.
Well…they said he couldn’t come on the job. They never said he had to stay on the ship. Implied, yes, but Ben’s a pirate. He can bend the rules.
Ben has a short-range blaster on one hip and a mid-range blaster on his other. He has a knife in each boot and a garrote wire coiled on his belt. He exits the ship and goes looking for something to do.
The Force whispers caution, and Ben tucks himself against a hover-sled, out of sight. Two Trandoshans follow a Neimoidian through the hangar.
“It’s all here?” the Neimoidian asks. “We’re paying for both quality and quantity.”
“Would you like to do the inspection yourself?” the Trandoshan on the left asks.
Ben pulls the shadows around him and trails the group into a cargo room. The room is stacked with crates marked with the Trade Federation logo. They all have an official stamp on them. There is blue for agriculture, brown for minerals, even green for medicine. The stamps mean the cargo has already passed inspection and won’t need to be given another thorough sweep, only a spot check.
One of the Trandoshans lifts a tray of iron bars. The Neimoidian peers at what’s underneath, and Ben can feel his pleasure in the Force. “Very good. The cargo ship arrives tomorrow. I want a full guard posted.”
“Of course. We’ll lock up the room and keep a guard outside. No one will get in.”
Ben stays where he is amongst the crates. The doors close behind the three as they leave. As promised, he hears a lock click into place. He’s locked in but, if he understood correctly, he doesn’t have to worry about discovery until tomorrow. That should give him enough time to find a way out.
And also do a bit of exploring.
He opens the crates to see what’s inside, starting with the one the Neimoidian had looked at. There are the iron bars, of course, but beneath it, nestled in padding, are sonic grenades.
Weapons dealing, Ben thinks. He places the iron bars back and closes the crate. The other crates tell a similar story. There is the product they’re supposed to contain on the top and then beneath it are either weapons or, in some cases, droid parts.
Ben munches on a muja fruit he liberated from one of the crates while he thinks. If he were a Jedi, he would collect evidence and then present it to the authorities. But he isn’t a Jedi. If he were a pirate, he would steal as many of the weapons as he could and re-sell them. Hondo would be happy if he did. Ben might even prove himself worthy of being included on jobs.
He helps himself to another snack as he goes through the crates again. He empties out one in its entirety and then begins to fill it with what he plans to take with him. Weapons, yes, but also some of the raw goods that are ostensibly being shipped. One of the crates is full of pomegranates, a fruit that’s worth more than some of the weapons and is much easier to sell.
Ben hesitates when he reaches a crate with medicine inside. If he does this, will others suffer? Underneath the bandages are neat rows of explosives. If these supplies are for someone, they’re not nearly in the quantities they’re expecting. They’re a cover for something nefarious.
No, Ben is doing the right thing.
Or, at the very least, the Force hasn’t suggested he stop.
Ben packs a second crate. He’s tempted to fill a third, but two already strains his ability to sneak them out undetected. Greed will get him killed. He looks longingly at the opened crates and the veritable fortune he has to walk away from. And then he tips his two crates into the garbage chute.
He hops in after them. It’s a long slide down, the walls smooth with no purchase for anyone trying to crawl their way up. Ben slows his descent toward the end with the Force so that he and his crates land softly in the center of the garbage pile.
The pile is soft and it reeks, but Ben moves carefully and only gags a little as he navigates his way out of the room. It’s a simple matter of overriding the lock on the maintenance door and then he’s into a hallway with filtered air.
He has to use the Force to hover his crates behind him and more than once, he has to use the shadows to hide from people wandering the halls. But, after what feels like forever, he makes it back to Hondo’s ship.
He throws his clothes in the laundry and hops in the sonic and when he can still scent traces of rotting food and garbage juice, he heads to the kitchen. A spicy curry solves that problem. He’s pretty sure he loses his sense of smell entirely and that, once it comes back, the entire ship will smell like spices.
He eats his portion and then puts the rest in cold storage for when the rest of the crew returns. He takes the time to meditate and then he goes through his Force skills. Levitation. Object manipulation. His senses. He has a list of skills he practices, just as he practices with his weapons afterward.
His training at the Temple was cut short, but he knows enough to stay in practice. And he’s picked up a few tricks since he’s been on his own. The masters always said through the Force, all things are possible. Ben isn’t sure if all things is right, but many things, certainly. Like hiding in the shadows. And supplementing his physical abilities with the Force.
The next day, Ben watches from the ship as the Trandoshans and the Neimoidian return to the storage room. He holds his breath as they key in the code for the lock. The doors slide open, and the Neimoidian steps through.
There’s a charged moment, and the Trandoshan on the left pulls the Neimoidian out of the room in time to dodge a large explosion. The entire hangar groans, and the ceiling of the storage room collapses, its entire weight damaging what’s left of the product in the storeroom.
Ben, safe inside the ship, watches with glee as the Neimoidian, rather than being grateful for his life being spared, turns on the Trandoshan. All three argue, assigning blame, determining who will have to tell their boss the bad news, who will have to pay for what happened.
The hangar authorities rush in to add more chaos to the mix.
Ben didn’t get to keep everything in the storeroom, but whoever the black-market guns were going to, they won’t use those ones to hurt anyone.
#
Hondo and the others return that afternoon, jubilant and successful.
“It was a walk in the park!” Hondo exclaims. He grabs Ben’s hands and dances around the cargo hold. “Except better, because there was treasure at the end! We had a careful plan and then, if you can believe it, the security ran away! They must have heard a fearsome group of pirates were coming.”
“Or there was a security breach at the hangar,” Soffi says dryly.
“Our ship is fine,” Ben says before anyone can ask the follow-up question. “Minor explosion in a nearby storeroom.”
“Minor?” Soffi asks.
“Storeroom?” Hondo wants to know.
“You had your fun and I had mine.” Ben turns his hands over so he can now grip Hondo’s wrists. He guides the pirate over to where the two crates Ben found are up against the wall. Ben debated withholding some of it, but his room isn’t even his room, and there are no nooks or crannies for him to squirrel anything away.
Hondo pulls his hands away so he can open the first crate. He sifts through it, the produce, the minerals, the cases of medical supplies. And then he opens the second, and he sees the neat rows of blasters. He turns to Ben.
“They won’t know it’s missing,” Ben says. “And they’ll find a few of the blasters in one of the Trandoshan’s room when they search it. They’ll handle it internally.”
Hondo taps Ben’s nose. “You are going to get yourself into trouble.”
“Then take me with you,” Ben says. He gestures to the crates. “This will pay off my ransom and then some. Let me into the crew. For real, this time.”
“I vote he’s in,” Soffi says, coming over to inspect what Ben found.
“This isn’t a democracy,” Hondo says.
“I also vote he’s in,” Meema says.
Hondo crosses his arms and pouts.