Only those of us who have been slaves can really taste freedom

[Lilla Syrin]

“Next to fallen Jedis, slavers are the most feared denizens of the galaxy — and they’re also some of its lowest scum!”


In the city of Mos Espa, the twin suns of Tatooine cut through a darkened doorway of an unassuming building. Externally there was nothing to differentiate it from any of the others that lined the street. Nothing outwardly evident at least.

Because reputation was not visible to the naked eye.

This special academy had become Lilla’s new home. A young girl could survive on the streets of Mos Espa for only so long based upon her wits alone.

Her memory indicated she had been on the planet for six seasons since she had been found by the Jawas. Her previous owners marked the date of her purchase as some sort of a birthday. It was her one rest day of the year. Lilla presumed that made them feel magnanimous in some obscure way. She did not care less – but found the practise useful, if only to mark the passing of time. Her time. They estimated she was four when they bought her. Which made her almost eight when she ran away.

That was six years ago.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

She spent the first eighteen months living off scraps and sleeping in hovels where the owners expected no payment – given her tender age. But as she grew (both metaphorically and physically), all that changed.

Lodgings cost credits and she was not skilled enough to make a living from scavenging. Which meant she was taking ever increasing risks to stay alive.

Which was when she made a decision that she could now reflect changed her life. If that was for the better, only time would tell. Because she saw what she surmised was an elderly woman (to a ten-year-old anyone older than twenty was ancient) and therefore an easy mark.

Sometimes, an easy prey is just that – ripe for the picking. But Lilla learned an important life lesson that day. Sometimes an easy prey is an illusion – and it is you that is the quarry. And your overconfidence makes you especially easy.

A trained eye would have spotted the signs. But in Lilla’s defence, it would require a proficient observer. Perhaps one trained by the very woman that stood before Lilla now.

It was over in a flash. A quick dart of Lilla’s hand for a purse that appeared to be more in than out of the woman’s pocket, as her target chatted to the street peddler that was attempting to sell the woman a rug. Lilla didn’t see it coming. The moment her fingers touched the purse, a vice-like grip held them firm and the woman spun to face her – Lilla’s digits still clasped tighter than a Bantha’s eyelids in a sandstorm.

Lilla tried to wrestle her hand free but to no avail.

“Now, what do we have here?” the woman said, her voice as soft as velvet. “Or rather, who do we have here? Your name girl?”

Lilla shrugged. She had no given name as far as she knew and her previous owners had simply given her a number to identify her. “I don’t have one.”

If the woman was surprised, she hid it well. The merest hint of a raised eyebrow was all she offered before she smiled – her grip still intact. Staring into Lilla’s eyes, as if searching for an answer that the young girl was withholding or unaware of she finally released her hold.

“Lilla. Yes, Lilla. From now on you shall be known thus.”

 

[Lilla Syrin]

The next three years were truly the making of her. The woman had been stalking her and when she was convinced Lilla was the one, had offered her empty purse as bait to catch the young girl. Her reasons became clear very quickly. She ran an academy. Its graduates ended up all over the galaxy.

Some married into rich families. Others joined one of the the assassin’s guilds. What was clear to Lilla after she left – but not before – was that those that departed were just as much a slave as she’d been when the Jawas found her.

There was always a fee involved – and however luxurious and well decorated the prison – it was still a cage. The marriages were arranged and typically the girl had a function over and above those of a wife. Typically they were required to spy. Or seduce. And divorce was never an option.

And those that joined one of the guilds did so not as a free person, but indebted. It would take years to pay for their freedom – decades even.

Of course, back then Lilla didn’t see any of this. All she could see was a soft bed. And running hot water. And three square meals a day. And then there was the training...

 

[Lilla Syrin]

The luxuries were Lilla’s focus for the first couple of weeks but, like most people, you quickly became accustomed to your surroundings and they ceased to be special very quickly.

But the training was something else. Lilla had received no schooling. Her training was to repair moisture vaporators or various bits of machinery. But here she received constant lessons. History, geography, languages, mathematics, literature, astrophysics. And there were practical elements to the teaching too. Dancing, musical instruments, piloting and even riding were part of the curriculum.

But what she loved most was the training in hand-to-hand combat. She also learned about poisons – but had less time for that. She was initially surprised she was not taught any battle skills – the use of a blaster or a blade. But the governess explained that the purpose of the academy was to train them
not to attract attention.

“Such crude weapons are not for women who will be traveling in political circles,” she remembered being told.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

One day Lilla was summoned. The day was as hot as an oven outside and even with the air conditioning indoors, it was still very warm.

Lilla glided into the room and was surprised to see the governess seated and a stranger in the room. Sweat was beading on his forehead and Lilla took an instant dislike to him. He was tall and cruel-looking, with lips turned down in a permanent sneer. His long hair was mostly the colour of night, with streaks of red thrown in. He wore his hair back in a warrior’s ponytail.

His muscular arms were covered with tattoos of fearsome beasts with more teeth than brain cells Lilla surmised. He wore a long black tunic, tied at the waist with an ostentatious red belt. The belt sported a heavy blaster on one side, a long dagger on the other – with red jewels adorning the hilt.

He looked at Lilla with disapproving eyes, and did not say a word as the governess pointed out Lilla’s finer selling points. Lilla kept her hands folded neatly in front of her, and her lilac eyes stared at the floor. It was how they had been trained to stand when a guest visited.

“She is one of my best students ever,” the governess said in that silky voice feigned to put a client at ease. “Skilled in all of the ways of a social mistress. She’s well read, up to date on political matters and knows how to put someone at ease.”

“She’ll make a fine wife for you.”

Lilla could not help it. Her head snapped up and she glanced from the man to the governess, looking for some sign that this was a test…or a joke. Sadly this display of fear made the man’s smile broaden and Lilla knew she had judged his cruelty accurately.

“Yes, yes,” the man said impatiently, scowling down at Pala. “But I will have no need for conversation.”

“It is said that you train assassins.”

Please don’t buy me, she thought, hoping the man would pass her by.

“She’s afraid of me,” the man said, studying Lilla. “Terrified even.”

“Perhaps,” the governess agreed. “You are, after all, one of the most feared warriors in the galaxy. Maybe you should look again at some of the older girls, some who have more courage.”

Lilla’s hopes raised.

The warrior smiled cruelly. “No, I like it when my slaves are afraid of me. It is a sign of intelligence.” He stepped forward and lifted Lilla’s chin. He stared for a long moment and her heart pounded involuntarily.

“I’ll pick her up in the morning, the day after tomorrow.”

 

[Lilla Syrin]

The governess clapped her hands as a signal for Lilla to go to her room. The girl did so quickly, then sat on her bed, considering her options.

Many thoughts flashed through her head – fighting each other for supremacy. She wanted to hatch a plan. She wanted to feel sorry for herself. She wanted to be angry. She wondered how she could be so naïve as to believe the status quo would last forever.

Most girls left before they were eighteen. Many left around the age of sixteen. She was, if her calculations about her age were correct, the youngest to be sold – but her years on this planet were immaterial. The salient point was the transaction.

Running away was not an option. High value slaves would have bomb transmitters hidden beneath their skin. If they tried to escape, it would mean the end of their lives. Given the investment in her, she was sure she would be fitted with such a device.

She also wondered what bothered her most. The fact that she was still a slave, or the circumstance that she was scared of the warrior.

All she knew is that she had just over a day to figure out a plan. Running away was an option. To jump on the first ship as a stowaway. Except she had no confidence she could escape the governess’ reach. She trained spies, bounty hunters and assassins after all. And, in an odd paradox, she didn’t want the governess to be out of pocket. She’d invested in Lilla. Time, money and extreme effort were expended and a likely decent pay-off was looming. Lilla felt guilty at the thought that she might cost the governess a significant amount of credits.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

With Lilla’s training, a day was a long time. She allowed the thought processes that had been ingrained in her to kick in – to permit the subconscious actions to guide her.

It took her only an hour to find where the warrior was. An up-market cantina that had private rooms. Well…it was fancy by Mos Espa standards.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

Lilla scoped the cantina quickly and decided her best approach was not to engage the man directly, but to seek an alternative route to freedom.

So she returned to the academy and attended classes as usual the following day. She was sure a solution would present itself.

They’d been learning various subtle means of sabotaging droids. Lilla was sitting at a table with a droid’s positronic sensor array in her hand. She set the array down carefully, along with a spanner.

The governess wandered across to where Lilla was working. “Escape,” she said, leaving the word hanging for a while. Lilla was acutely aware that the other girls had now stopped working and were keen to hear what conversation unfolded.

“You know the punishment for such a crime,” the governess said. “Death.”

She said it as she let her glance rest on Lilla.

Lilla groaned inwardly. The governess clearly knew what she had planned.

“It is a just punishment,” the governess continued. “And as I’ve told you a thousand times, ‘Punishment for a crime is a price that only the stupid are forced to pay.’ If smart girls – my girls – commit a crime, they should never get caught!”

The girls all began chattering innocently. Crimes were committed in Mos Espa every day, and the governess almost always took time to discuss them in her classes. If the crime went well, she would talk about why the plot had succeeded. If the crime went wrong, she’d criticise the performance and analyse why it had failed.

“So,” she said, with an air of theoretical indifference, “Let’s imagine for a moment that one of you needed to escape. What would you do?”

The girls all looked at one another. It was a topic only discussed between slaves in private.

“I’d stow away on the first ship out of here.”

“Hmmm…” The Governess shook her head. “That’s not very practical when you have a transmitter hidden in you. All your owner has to do is push a button, and ...”

“I’m afraid,” the governess said, “That the slave who decides to run is as good as dead. It would be a shame if it were one of you. After all, here at the academy, we have a high reputation to uphold. We have a tradition to maintain.”

Reputation. That’s it! Lilla immediately understood that the governess knew what she planned, and as soon as the rest of the galaxy found out, it would tarnish her reputation. One of her girls, one of the slaves she was training as a spy, was stupid enough to try to escape and get blown up in the process.

That would hurt the academy. It would cost the governess sales, hurt the school’s reputation for decades to come. It might even ruin her financially.

But if that same slave managed to escape…the school’s reputation would be enhanced. Lilla could almost imagine the things that would be said. “Did you hear about that slave girl from the academy? She just disappeared. The governess sure knows how to train them!”

The governess would lose a fortune if Lilla died. And she’d make a fortune if she escaped.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

But even if the governess wanted Lila to escape, she couldn’t help. She’d get in too much trouble if anyone found out and her reputation would take an even greater downturn.

So Lilla knew she had to do it on her own. She had to figure out how to get out of this contract.

And once she was free, she could never let herself be caught again.

She pretended to work on the positronic sensor array, and thought frantically. Aware she wasn’t having any success sitting in the classroom, she feigned a headache and asked to be excused to get some fresh air.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

She raced from the academy and ran into a ronto that was passing the door – ridden by a Weequay that no doubt had a salvager’s hoard he wanted to sell to a junk-dealer. Lilla then dodged up the streets through an obstacle course of eopies, droids, beings, and vehicles.

Mos Espa was a crowded city of buildings the colour of sand. Most of the buildings were shaped like domes, to withstand the sometimes-deadly desert winds.

She walked through a narrow alley where the blistering suns of Tatooine did not reach. Here she stopped and thought – the answer coming to her unbidden. It was funny how the brain worked that way.

“I know,” she said softly, under her breath. “I can make a signal jammer. It’ll stop anyone finding me and block the detonation signal.”

All she needed was a transmitter and a computer chip to randomly send out signals at high power, effectively masking any signals that the slaver’s transmitter sent.

She knew most of what she needed was available at the academy and she also knew where to find the rest. Her shopping list led her to the market, where dead animals hung in tempting displays and restaurant patrons sat beneath awnings to eat. People from a hundred worlds crowded the streets outside the spaceport.

She grabbed what she needed – the academy students were given a small weekly allowance and with nothing to spend it on, Lilla had saved enough for the parts she needed.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

Lilla returned to the academy and set to work. The technology of signal jammers was simple. Mostly pirates used them to jam communications when they attacked their victims. Those kinds of jammers were huge.

But Lilla needed something small, something she could wear around her neck. So she made a little signal jammer and put it on a thin cord. A piece of carved Krayt Dragon bone over the top made it look like a simple necklace. Of course there was no way to test her creation. Not until she would rely on it to save her life.

 

[Lilla Syrin]

Eopies milled through the crowd, looking for things to eat. Battered droids ambled about, displaying themselves for any who bothered to look. Lilla presumed her training was sufficient to ensure that it would be them, and not her that garnered any attention.

###​

Once inside the Academy doors, the warrior studied the decor. It was all very feminine – fine painted silks decorating the walls, a pleasant perfume in the air.

“Gone you say?” Given his apparent anger at the situation, his voice was relatively calm. Perhaps it was because no money had exchanged hands and – if he could keep secret the fact the girl had run – his reputation was not tarnished. “Never mind. Just kill her.”

The governess went to a desk and pulled out a portable slave tracker – a small electronic notebook. She punched some buttons and called up an image of Lilla. The image was old, showing the girl as she would have looked when she first arrived.

With the image on the display screen, the governess pushed a button.

A map should have appeared, with a red glowing dot to show where the slave was hiding. Instead, all that came up was a screen image scrambled by static.

The governess did her best to supress a smile. But she was also aware that it was one thing to craft a jammer to hide, and quite another to block the incoming detonation command.

The governess pushed another button. She held her breath for a moment afterward, as if listening for a distant explosion. In truth, the governess had no idea if the small bomb implanted in the girl’s body had detonated. But as far as the outside world was concerned, it didn’t matter.

“Shall we agree that the girl never existed?” The governess smiled as she spoke.

The warrior nodded, slowly. It was a mutually beneficial outcome. The governess would not lose face for having a slave girl escape and the warrior would never have to admit that he failed to secure the services of a mere slave. “What girl?” he responded, with more of a sneer than a smile.

“Indeed,” the governess said, clapping her hands. “Now, I have an excellent girl for you, and under the circumstances, I can cut you a very special deal.”

 

[Lilla Syrin]

Just after sunset on Tatooine, Mos Espa reached its busiest peak, as people came out of the buildings into the cool night air.
Lilla had no idea if the jammer had worked – or if the button had even been pressed. But as minutes morphed into hours and then into days, she became a little more at ease. But her training was such that she would never entirely be at rest. Not until the bomb was removed and she was sure the warrior and governess were dead.

She toyed with the idea of killing the warrior herself. But she decided it may attract too much attention to herself and the governess. Inadvertently, the latter had set her free and she owed her enough gratitude not to flag or flaunt her escape.