Chapter 8 The Escape
Rachel tried to count the days after the Falleen left, but as the number grew, her hope of rescue diminished. She began to wonder if the they really wanted her back. She had caused a lot of problems for them—this would be an easy way to get rid of her. Or maybe the Falleen had been insincere after all, and her ability to use the Force was what was no longer effective.
All she knew for sure was that no one came.
She had been reassigned twice, and there was still no mention of her chain being taken off. What was discussed was some kind of celebration event, and from what she could gather from the Hutts’ conversations and other slaves, it sounded almost like a big gladiator type tournament. It was going to happen in two weeks, and Rachel hoped that she wouldn’t have to go, but almost all the slaves would have to work in some capacity. If she was somehow able to get out of it, she would be left in her cell, and a rescue or escape would be easier if all the Hutts were elsewhere.
But as the day approached, it seemed less and less likely that she would be left behind, and when the day came, she was chained to a Hutt named Drigo sitting nearest to the gladiator’s ring.
The building itself reminded her of something from ancient Roman times, but since the world was covered in jungle, the coliseum was made of a darker rock, and instead of sand, half of the arena was muddy from recent rains. Surrounding the pit in ringed stands were Hutts, humans, and aliens of all kinds watched in eagerness, placing bets, and cheering or booing. From what Rachel could gather though, winning didn’t get the slaves anywhere. While they earned their freedom from the Hutts, she heard that winners went to work in the spice mines on this moon. She didn’t know which would be worse, but, thankfully, she didn’t have to make that decision.
The whole thing was barbaric, in her opinion, and she tried not to watch, but Drigo tugged her chains forward and asked why she wasn’t enjoying it.
“Apologies, Great One,” she said, trying to sound sincere. “I prefer other entertainment.”
It wasn’t a full lie, but she knew that if she told him the truth she could just as easily find herself in the ring being the next victim, and while she knew she might have a chance of winning, she wasn’t sure she was ready for a life working in the mines.
She tried to walk back to where she had been standing, but the Hutt pulled her even closer to the point where she was pressed against his slimy skin, and he ran a cold, wet hand down her cheek, telling her that other entertainment could be arranged if she didn’t start watching.
Clenching her jaw, she told the Hutt she’d watch, and he released his tight grip on her chain.
She shuddered as she stepped away from his massive hulk of a body and tried to make herself watch the fighting.
It was brutal. Some of the slaves didn’t stand a chance against the larger framed, bulkier fighters, and then they would send in creatures, and a group of them would try to fight, and most would die before they brought the beast to its demise.
She almost envied them. With their deaths, they were free from slavery. All around her, she could feel the anger, the fear, the exuberance, and the death. It was too much.
She closed her eyes and tried to meditate the emotions away like she used to, but there was no peace here. At least, not in this theater. So she tried to reach further, beyond the jeering and thunder of hundreds of voices. There was life on this moon. There were trees and plants and animals that lived here. Taking a slow breath, she focused on their life and let it fill her. It was something she hadn’t touched since before Master Ywin took her to Nar Shaddaa. She didn’t even know how long ago that had been.
The life of the planet surrounding the arena filled her, and for the first time in a very long time, she felt at peace, and her body relaxed. Her mind eased into meditation, and she was able to ignore the chaos that surrounded her as she felt at one with the tallest trees surrounding the arena, the smallest birds trying to go about their days, and the planet as it breathed life through the Force.
Until the chain that connected her to Drigo literally pulled her from the peace and back into reality.
“Waki mallya kuna chu chu?” the Hutt boomed as she slammed into his body.
“I’m not doing anything,” she stammered.
But the Hutt didn’t seem to believe her.
“Uba Jedi!”
She could only stare at him, her eyes wide with fear. He could kill her right there if he wanted to, but she didn’t understand how he knew she had been meditating or that she was a Jedi until she looked over her shoulder.
One of the creatures had come up to the edge of the pit and was looking right at her. The fighters in the ring stood in confusion. The beast was trained to attack them, but this one had come over and was peacefully looking at a slave girl who had been standing motionless by the barrier to the pit.
Drigo called for a guard and ordered him to take her to the gladiator pit and force her to fight in the ring. To the death.
When Rachel entered the ring, she felt like an ant as she looked up at the crowd seated around. She had thankfully been given a weapon. They at least wanted to make her death a spectacle instead of an outright execution, but as she looked around at the other slaves, none of them seemed overly eager to fight her. Apparently, whatever she had done to the beast frightened them enough to the point where they didn’t believe she was worth the effort.
So, they resumed fighting each other, and Rachel walked near the edge over to the beast she had somewhat tamed. It reminded her of a rhinoceros in a way, but its skin was red and black, and instead of one horn on its nose, it also had horns jutting out on either side of its jaw.
She reached out a hand, and it snorted at her, so she reached out with the Force as well and sensed its mind. It was frightened. It had been trained its whole life for this and nothing else.
She wondered—if she could sense its intentions and thoughts, could she persuade it to do other things. She had calmed it without even trying. What could she do intentionally?
She looked up at the stands where most of the patrons were still watching the fighting that was going on between the other slaves in the pit, but there weren’t many fighters left, and she knew that once there was only one left, she would have no choice but to fight them. Looking back at the beast, she pictured the stands in her mind. Could it jump?
Immediately, it took off running towards the far wall, pushing right through the group of combatants, and it jumped right over the barrier wall that separated the pit from those who were watching.
The chaos that ensued was almost comical.
Hutts tried to slither and squirm out of the beast’s way, meanwhile the other aliens in the stands were trying to get out of the Hutts’ ways for fear of being crushed under the giant slugs’ weight.
While the beast sought its freedom, Rachel turned back to the fighters that remained in the ring. They had also stopped fighting to watch the hilarity transpire.
With everyone seemingly distracted, Rachel turned in the opposite direction and looked for her own escape. There was a small opening where some of the patrons had started to run toward exits, and she knew that if she trusted the Force, she would be able to jump out of the arena.
She ran and drew on the Force as she felt it surround her, and she jumped clear of the barrier separating the pit from the stands, then jumped up towards the fifth row of seats, then the tenth, then the sixteenth—and felt electricity course through her body bringing her convulsing to the ground hard before she could make it to the top of the coliseum.
She had been so close, but she had forgotten the collar around her neck. She lied there looking up at the sky and hearing the screams of aliens and Hutts echoing through the auditorium.
When she finally managed to sit up, she realized that there had to be some kind of barrier around the coliseum to prevent slaves from doing exactly what she was doing. She turned and saw someone in a dark cloak approaching her at a run, but he didn’t have a slave remote or weapon in his hand. It wasn’t until he was nearly right in front of her that she finally recognized him.
“Master Zev?”
He lowered his hood. “Rachel.” his voice held an odd mix of emotions she had never heard before. “C’mon. We do not have much time.”
“We need to get this off,” she said pointing at the collar around her neck.
He looked at it. “Hold still.”
He took out his lightsaber, and ignited it very briefly, but it cut through the collar, causing a jolt of electricity to shoot through her one last time.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but the collar fell to the ground.
“Let’s go,” Rachel said, brushing it off.
“Master Ywin is waiting with a shuttle,” he said as they ran up the steps towards the top of the auditorium. “We can disappear into the trees and make our way there.”
When they reached the very top, they didn’t hesitate as they jumped towards the closest outstretched tree branch that would hold their weight, and Rachel winced as the bark scraped every inch of exposed skin as she caught the limb, and they carefully made their way towards the center of the large tree where the limb grew to an enormous size.
They jumped down from limb to limb until they landed on the jungle floor among all the bushes and shrubs, and Rachel found herself wishing she had some kind of covering. The leaves and branches scratched at her skin as they ran, but she tried to ignore it as she followed Master Zev deeper into the jungle. Despite the echoes of the gladiator tournament fading away behind her, she couldn’t help turning back every few steps to check for a Hutt in pursuit, but all she could hear were the screeches of birds and the distant roars and rumbles of jungle creatures.
Master Zev slowed to a walk, breathing hard as Rachel caught up to him, feeling where every scratch stung her body, and he seemed to notice and took off his robe and handed it to her.
“I know it won’t help a lot, but hopefully it will help some.”
She took it and wrapped it around herself, feeling the warmth and familiarity of the Jedi robe. It brushed against the scratches that already bled, but it would at least prevent any new ones.
“Where’s the shuttle,” she asked.
“Not far,” he responded, turning to face her and placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I am so sorry, Rachel. I wish we could’ve come sooner.”
She shook her head and brushed his hand off, taking half a step back. “You came. That’s what matters.”
His eyes reflected concern, but he didn’t press the issue as he turned and pointed. “This way.”
They walked for a fair distance before he spoke up again.
“How did you set off the Reek the way you did?”
“Is that what that creature’s called?” she asked.
He chuckled. “You still have a lot to learn, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “There’s still so much that I don’t know.”
“And yet you were able to control the actions of a creature you had never encountered before.”
“I don’t know how I did it initially,” she admitted. “Being here is the first time I’ve been able to feel life again. There were no trees or animals or plants that I could sense where I was being held.”
She could sense sympathy growing in him, which felt odd coming from a Jedi Master.
“When I realized I could feel the planet, I took advantage of it and allowed myself to meditate. I haven’t really been able to since being captured. The next thing I knew, I was being called out for being a Jedi because the—what did you call it?”
“A reek.”
“The reek was standing in front of me and just staring at me instead of fighting like it was supposed to. They forced me to fight.”
“Yes, I saw,” he interrupted. “I was meant to find you here and rescue you, but you did a decent job of rescuing yourself.”
“Not really.”
“You convinced a wild animal to rampage through a crowd and took advantage of that chaos to escape.”
“I was still wearing a slave collar,” Rachel exclaimed. “I couldn’t have escaped even if I wanted to. They probably would have killed me for what I did.”
He was silent for a moment. “I suppose it was good that Master Ywin and I came when we did then.”
They walked the remaining distance to the shuttle in silence. It was tucked under a camouflage tarp, and Master Ywin paced nearby.
As they approached, he stopped and looked up.
“Let’s go,” Master Zev said, grabbing the tarp and pulling. “It won’t be long before they start scrutinizing every shuttle and ship that tries to leave.”
“Agreed,” Master Ywin said, not taking his eyes off Rachel. She wasn’t sure what kind of greeting she expected from her Master, but a lack of greeting wasn’t on the list. She tried to read his eyes, but they were just as stoic as ever as he turned and helped Master Zev pull the tarp off the ship. They all boarded, and Master Ywin prepared the ship for launch.
Rachel sat in the living area of the small shuttle, clutching Master Zev’s robe around herself, trying to get a feel for how her Master was feeling, but his mind was a cold barrier.
When they cleared the planet’s space and entered hyperspace, Master Zev came back and showed her where she could sleep and that they had brought her extra set of robes with them.
And her lightsaber.
She looked at Master Zev questioningly as she picked it up and held it in her hand, feeling its familiar weight and the heartbeat of her crystal.
“When Master Ywin found the Falleen, he still had it,” he explained. “I’ll let you change and rest.”
He walked out, and she spent some time in the refresher washing her cuts and scrapes and trying to wash away what happened. She changed into the fresh robes, grateful for the covering and warmth they provided. She’d hated being exposed so much and for so long. She’d almost forgotten how real clothing felt.
When she lied down on the bed, she tried to process it all. How much time had passed? How long had the Jedi been looking for her? Would the Hutts come looking for her?
She wrapped her arms tightly around herself at that thought. She never wanted to see a Hutt or hear Huttese again as long as she lived. Rolling over, she closed her eyes and wished for a peaceful sleep.