JEDI HoloNet

“So what’s a Togruta doing on the Smuggler’s Moon?”

That’s the golden question, isn’t it? Togrutas were supposed to be hunters on a wild planet- not cooped up in the lowest inhabitable levels of Nar Shaddaa. Aqua could remember her father being asked that often growing up. She was born on Nar Shaddaa far from the grasslands of Shili and the cries of the Akul. Her parents were the descendants of slave workers kidnapped and brought to the moon for less than pleasant work. Even hundreds of generations later, they still lived in these conditions. 

Somewhere along the timeline, her ancestors lost touch with their roots for the most part. Years of slavery and servitude seemingly chipping away at their cultural identity as survival in the harsh new enviroment became more prominent. However, small vestiges of their home and culture remained in their day to day life. These were small things, like bumping one’s forehead into the forehead of another to show affection and what not. The most prominent relic of Aqua’s family’s culture was the headpiece that her grandmother gave her before passing when the girl was very young. It was an ancient and worn strap of leather, with any decorative Akul teeth that would have once adorned it now gone.

Her family lived in very poor conditions as slaves. They were crammed into small apartments with other families of poor workers with it not being odd for up to twenty individuals expected to share and take turns utilizing the tiny space. As the lowest class in Nar Shaddaa, they rarely had enough to eat provided to them. Aqua herself was malnourished for much of her childhood if not all of it. Disliking the idea of her parents not having enough to eat when they worked their harsh hours and labor, Aqua would often pretend not to be hungry in order for them to have her portions and not feel as if they should give her their rations.

Furthermore, as young as four, the girl stopped living in the small cramp home. She fell in with a local group of children who would travel around the streets, gathering things needed to survive and stealing the things they couldn’t find in the trash. As such, from a young age, Aqua was assisting in picking pockets or acting as a distraction while the older kids mugged people. As she got a bit older, the girl and the small gang of children she was part of also acted as informants for local gangs. After all, they saw a lot of things in the back alleys they lived in and most people didn’t notice them. 

Life was harsh in the undercity, but Aqua thrived as much as she could. The girl would often help younger kids figure stuff out and give them the food she herself got. She had to grow up fast as the older kids who once took care of her would often vanish, die or lose limbs. It wasn’t unusual for kids to just go missing. Furthermore, if one was caught pickpocketing or stealing, losing an arm or being killed wasn’t odd depending on who caught you. Still, Aqua and the other kids continued their ways. A lot of them had families who couldn’t survive without whatever meager amounts of credits or food they were able to steal.

Aqua herself often gave food or credits to her parents. She would visit them weekly before going back to the streets with the other kids. Aqua herself lived in a small vent in an abandoned building for the most part, enjoying the small space due to how discreet and safe it appeared to be. As she got older, the girl took more responsibilities in her little gang of street children. A couple of her younger cousins even joined the group. She would start helping defend their stashes when other kids or adults tried getting to them. When she was around six or so, Aqua started coming along with the much older kids when they would go to hot wire swoops or speeders left unattended. She acted as a look out and would assist at times.

As she got older, Aqua got a reputation for her ability to lose people when being chased. Whether it was due to some strange sixth sense or her montrals was never known. She was always just quick enough to avoid being caught. And when someone did manage to grab her, she had the fangs to tear herself free. This led to her often being chosen to go to the gang’s based to relay the information they had for them in exchange for food, medicine or other necessities. As such, many of the gang members of her district became aware of her. 

Small groups of street children like Aqua’s group were prime recruitment grounds for the actual larger gangs and cartels of her district. It wasn’t odd for older kids to become gang members and come visit them or back them up occasionally. A leader of one of the larger gangs that directly worked under a cartel in the district became interested in Aqua. He would often personally invite her to ask her about things she saw in the back alleys with her friends. Impressed with the girl, he began to teach her how to speak and write proper Huttese whenever he saw her, clearly wanting to bring her into the fold as a protege of sorts. 

Several of the kids in Aqua’s group began to get jealous of her relationship with one of the more influential leaders in the district. As a result, they began to steal things from her stashes and they even started purposely messing up during pickpockets to direct attention onto Aqua. This all ended with Aqua being jumped out of the group and left beaten and alone. She went back to living alone in her vent. She continued to live like this for a week or so as she licked her wounds before needing food and forcing herself to leave to try and find someone to eat.

On that unfortunate, or perhaps fortunate day, she found someone wearing robes. It was a Jedi. She had only heard stories about them- but one thing was for sure. Their weird sabers were worth a lot of credits. The man who taught her formal Huttese had one that he liked to show off to others. If she could grab it off his waist, then she’d be set for life. The girl managed to grab the saber as she passed him unnoticed, but he sensed her as she was getting away. He chased her through the streets until her finally grabbed her in a back alley. Aqua, terrified, turned and bit out a large chunk of his arm. However, the man kept his grip on her and retrieved his saber.

That would have been it if he hadn’t sensed something in Aqua. She had evaded him far too well for some untrained street urchin. Suspecting something, he took her with him back to his ship despite her protests. He told her she could either come with him or be brought to the local security force. Terrified of the corrupt security force, Aqua went with him. There he was able to confirm that Aqua was force sensitive. The jedi had been on Nar Shaddaa searching for a lead in a black market case, and he certainly hadn’t expected to find a force sensitive child.

He would go and speak with her parents, who were thrilled by the chance to have their daughter escape the violence, slavery and gangs of the Smuggler’s Moon. However, Aqua didn’t really want to go. She had friends on Nar Shaddaa, even if not many, and she didn’t want to leave the district her parents were in. This would come to a head when in an attempt to get her to leave, her father and mother told her cruel things to make her believe they hated her so she would go with the Jedi. Aqua would run off and then return later in an attempt to speak with her parents again. 

What she saw was the Jedi giving her parents credits to buy their own freedom and live a better life in the upper levels. However, she misconstrued the situation and the words stated. To her, it looked like her parents had sold her to the Jedi. Shocked and in defeat, Aqua would leave with the Jedi, feeling dejected and betrayed by her parents. She would be taken to the Rannon Enclave, currently on Alzoc III.