Zerranah Stozlag: A Star Wars Story

Episode IV: Escapade

[Few months later]

Months passed, Zerranah continued with her life as a slave. The pale green skinned Nautolan suffered more than anyone could ever imagine. Days on end she hoped to escape from the clutches of the Hutts. It was during this time that something interesting happened.

One day, she was dancing for Jabba and a few other people when suddenly she realised that she could levitate things with her hands if she tried a little. "What is happening?" She mumbled in a confused tone, thinking that it was probably just a dizzy eye.

"Woah woah this girl knows magic!" A few people claimed, while a few yelled that she was a Jedi. She didn't understand any of them.

"What's a Jedi?" She asked, only to get a bunch of credits thrown at her. That night, after everyone was gone she started to think what was actually happening to her.

She could suddenly lift a pebble, then with a little try she moved a table. "Am I dying?" She thought. "Maybe it's just because of the innumerable lashes on my body."

Sighing to herself, she sat down on the stone floor, closing her eyes. She'd always felt different even when she was a kid. She sensed the death of her parents, and she understood things that normally anybody couldn't.

"Jedi...magic... Jedi... levitating." She kept mumbling to herself, trying to find out answers, answers about herself, about what she actually was.

"What am I?"

"Am I dying?"

"What is a Jedi?"

She didn't know how long it was until her senses returned. She was in a cell when she woke up, no longer tied up and wearing explicit outfits.

"What's happening?"

Nobody answered, only an ugly looking Gamorrean guard slid a plate of slimy looking soup through the cracks in the wall.

"Ah well... you probably don't even understand what I am saying." She slammed her hands against the thick bars of the cell, hoping to get out somehow.

She was growing restless. How in the world did she land up in a cell? Last thing she remembered was that she was dancing for Jabba. "Did I do something?"

Picking up the plate from the floor she looked at it, feeling like throwing up after seeing the food inside it. "You call that soup?"

"That just looks like a bantha threw up." She put it away and sat down on the floor again.

Closing her eyes. Last time it didn't work. Would it this time? She wondered.

"Show me. Show me a way to get out of here."

Suddenly, a voice echoed through her mind. A voice that would later change her life.

"A Jedi...destined you are, to become. Trust, in the force you must."

"What...who?" Before she could go further, the voice faded away and her eyes opened. Looking around her she realised there was no one.

"Trust...in the Force?" She mumbled the same words again and again. "The Force..." She wondered who it was that she heard in her mind.

Now, getting up, she looked at the bars in front of her. "Force.... hmmm."

Zerranah wasn't sure if this would work, but the unknown voice told her that she will be a Jedi one day. With absolutely no idea what a Jedi is, and what even is the Force, she raised her hand in front of her, closing her eyes as she focussed on the bars in front of her.

A few moments passed, but there was nothing. She began to try again.

"surrounding you, the force is. Feel it."

The voice spoke to her again.

This time, she did exactly what he said. She felt the force around her. It was like a strange energy.

"Try, you must not. Do it, yes...do it you must." The voice echoed back to her everytime she closed her eyes.

Going like this for nearly half an hour, she finally felt the bars bending in front of her. She clenched her fingers as it came off like a broom stick.

"Woah... what...the fuck?" She couldn't believe what she actually just did.

"I opened the cell! I did it!"

She quickly took the advantage of this opportunity and ran out through the opening in the bars and rushed out to the exit.

But outside, guards were waiting for her as if they knew she would try to escape.

"Get her!"

The Gamorrean guards and a few others ran after the Nautolan as she ran towards the market.

The slave masters began to encircle her as she tripped over a rock and fell.

The guards arrived with whips and shackles, as the lashes began to hit against her skin like lightsaber slashes.

[Moments later]

A ship landed few yards away from the chaos, as a certain Mandalorian walked out of the vessel.

The guards shackled Zerranah and was about to take her away back to the Hutt Palace. Her clothes half gone from the beating up, bleeding from her back and mouth.

"What seems to be the problem here?" The Mandalorian bounty hunter walked over to the site of the incident as his eyes fell on the girl.

"You bastards! You're beating up a girl in public?"

"That is none of your business. She's a slave of Jabba The Hutt." The guards roared back at the Mandalorian.

"Typical for a Hutt. Leave the girl and go away peacefully." One of his blasters came out from the holster, aiming it at the guards as he walked ahead.

"What... what is, what is happening?" She couldn't understand why this Mandalorian was trying to help her. Or maybe he was just another person trying to buy her.

"Can't you people hear? I said...let her go!!" His blasters roared, the guards falling dead on the ground beside her.

She started crawling away from him, clearly afraid of the Mandalorian. Her trust in people went away a long time ago.

"It's alright. You're free." He walked over to her, unshackling her hands and legs as he looked at the wounds.

"My God... you're in a bad condition."

"Why do you care? You're gonna treat me like these people too..."

"I would have killed you by now if I had that intention. You're coming with me kid." He grabbed Zerranah and lifted her up in his arms, carrying her to his ship.

And Thus Zerranah was saved, freed from her curse by an unknown Mandalorian. Her life began to truly change after her escape from the wretched planet.

The ship took off, their destination: Mandalore. During the course of the journey the Mandalorian nursed her wounds and took care of her.

"What's your name kid." He asked. "I realised we hadn't introduced."

"Zerranah Varsin..." She replied in a low voice, sitting on a berth in her quarters on the ship.

"It is a beautiful name."

"What's yours?" She smiled softly, staring at the other's helmet.

"Tannerr Stozlag. I am a Mandalorian." He replied with a smile, offering her a glass of water and food.