DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN STAR WARS
Anakin Skywalker stood in a long, single-file line in an abandoned maintenance tunnel leading to the Wicko district garbage pit. With an impatient sigh, he hoisted his flimsy and tightly folded race wings by their leather harness and propped the broad rudder on the strap of his flight sandal. Then he leaned the wings against the wall of the tunnel, and, tongue between his lips, applied the small glowing blade of a pocket welder, like a tiny lightsaber, to a crack in the left lateral brace. Repairs finished, he waggled the rotator experimentally. Smooth, though old.
Just the week before, he had bought the wings from a former champion with a broken back. Anakin had worked his wonders in record time, so he could fly now in the very competition where the champion had ended his career.
Anakin enjoyed the wrenching twist and bone-popping jerk of the race wings in flight. He savored the speed and the extreme difficulty as some savor the beauty of the night sky, difficult enough to see on Coruscant, with its eternal planet-spanning city-glow. He craved the competition and even felt a thrill at the nervous stink of the contestants, scum and riffraff all.
But above all, he loved winning.
The garbage pit race was illegal, of course. The authorities on Coruscant tried to maintain the image of a staid and respectable metropolitan planet, capital of the Republic, center of law and civilization for tens of thousands of stellar systems. The truth was far otherwise, if one knew where to look, and Anakin instinctively knew where to look.
He had, after all, been born and raised on Tatooine.
Though he loved the Jedi training, stuffing himself into such tight philosophical garments was not easy. Anakin had suspected from the very beginning that on a world where a thousand species and races met to palaver, there would be places of great fun.
The tunnel master in charge of the race was a Naplousean, little more than a tangle of stringlike tissues with three legs and a knotted nubbin of glittering wet eyes. "First flight is away," it hissed as it walked in quick, graceful twirls down the narrow, smooth-walled tunnel. The Naplousean spoke Basic, except when it was angry, and then it simply smelled bad. "Wings! Up!" it ordered.
Anakin hefted his wings over one shoulder with a professionally timed series of grunts, one-two-three, slipped his arms through the straps, and cinched the harness he had cut down to fit the frame of a twelve-year-old human boy.
The Naplousean examined each of the contestants with many critical eyes. When it came to Anakin, it slipped a thin, dry ribbon of tissue between his ribs and the straps and tugged with a strength that nearly pulled the boy over.
"Who you?" the tunnel master coughed.
"Anakin Skywalker," the boy said. He never lied, and he never worried about being punished.
"You way bold," the tunnel master observed. "What mother and father say, we bring back dead boy?" "They'll raise another," Anakin answered, hoping to sound tough and capable, but not really caring what opinion the tunnel master held so long as it let him race.
"I know racers," the Naplousean said, its knot of eyes fighting each other for a better view. "You no racer!"
Anakin kept a respectful silence and focused on the circle of murky blue light ahead, growing larger as the line shortened.
"Ha!" the Naplousean barked, though it was impossible for its kind to actually laugh. It twirled back down the line, poking, tugging, and issuing more pronouncements of doom, all the while followed by an adoring little swarm of cam droids.
A small, tight voice spoke behind Anakin. "You've raced here before."
Anakin had been aware of the Noghri in line behind him for some time. There were only a few hundred on all of Coruscant, and they had joined the Republic less than a century before. They were an impressive-looking people: steel-gray-skinned bipeds who were heavily muscled as well as sinewy and possessed great agility which was only enhanced by their faster-than-normal reflexes.
"Twice," Anakin said. "And you?"
"Twice," the Noghri said amiably, then blinked and looked up. Across the Noghri 's narrow face, his nose spread into two fleshy flaps like a split shield, half hiding his wide, lipless mouth. The ornately tattooed nose flaps functioned both as a sensor of smell, and, it was rumoured, an acute detector of emotions. "The tunnel master is correct. You are too young." He spoke perfect Basic, as if he had been brought up in the best schools on Coruscant.
Anakin smiled and tried to shrug. The weight of the race wings made this gesture moot. "You will probably die down there," the Noghri added, eyes aloof. "Thanks for the support," Anakin said, his face coloring. He did not mind a professional opinion, such as that registered by the tunnel master, but he hated being ragged, and he especially hated an opponent trying to psych him out.
Fear, hatred, anger… The old trio Anakin fought every day of his life, though he revealed his deepest emotions to only one man: Obi-Wan Kenobi, his master in the Jedi Temple.
The Noghri stooped slightly on his three-jointed legs. "You smell like a slave," he said softly, for Anakin's ears alone.
It was all Anakin could do to keep from throwing off his wings and going for the Noghri 's long throat. He swallowed his emotions down into a private cold place and stored them with the other dark things left over from Tatooine. The Noghri was on target with his insult, which stiffened Anakin's anger and made it harder to control himself. Both he and his mother, Shmi, had been slaves to the supercilious junk dealer, Watto. When the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn had won him from Watto, they had had to leave Shmi behind… something Anakin thought about every day of his life.
"You four next!" the tunnel master hissed, breezing by with its midsection whirled out like ribbons on a child's spinner.
-.-.-
Mace Windu strode down a narrow side hall in the main dormitory of the Jedi Temple, lost in thought, his arms tucked into his long sleeves, and was nearly bowled over by a trim young Jedi who dashed from a doorway. Mace stepped aside deftly, just in time, but stuck out an elbow and deliberately clipped the younger Jedi, who spun about.
"Pardon me, Master," Obi-Wan Kenobi apologized, bowing quickly. "Clumsy of me."
"No harm," Mace Windu said. "Though you should have known I was here."
"Yes. The elbow. A correction. I'm appreciative." Obi-Wan was, in fact, embarrassed, but there was no time to explain things.
"In a hurry?"
"A great hurry," Obi-Wan said.
"The chosen one is not in his quarters?" Mace's tone carried both respect and irony, a combination at which he was particularly adept.
"I know where he's gone, Master Windu. I found his tools, his workbench."
"Not just building droids we don't need?"
"No, Master," Obi-Wan said.
"About the boy—" Mace Windu began.
"Master, when there is time."
"Of course," Mace said. "Find him. Then we shall speak… and I want him there to listen." "Of course, Master!" Obi-Wan did not disguise his haste. Few could hide concern or intent from Mace Windu.
Mace smiled. "He will bring you wisdom!" he called out as ObiWan ran down the hall toward the turbolift and the Temple's sky transport exit.
Obi-Wan was not in the least irritated by the jibe. He quite agreed. Wisdom, or insanity. It was ridiculous for a Jedi to always be chasing after a troublesome Padawan. But Anakin was no ordinary Padawan. He had been bequeathed to Obi-Wan by Obi-Wan's own beloved Master, Qui-Gon Jinn.
Yoda had put the situation to Obi-Wan with some style a few months back, as they squatted over a glowing charcoal fire and cooked shoo bread and wurr in his small, low-ceilinged quarters. Yoda had been about to leave Coruscant on business that did not concern Obi-Wan. He had ended a long, contemplative silence by saying, "A very interesting problem you face, and so we all face, Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Obi-Wan, ever the polite one, had tilted his head as if he were not acquainted with any particular problem.
"The chosen one Qui-Gon gave to us all, not proven, full of fear, and yours to save. And if you do not save him…"
Yoda had said nothing more to Obi-Wan about Anakin thereafter. His words echoed in Obi-Wan's thoughts as he took an express taxi to the outskirts of the Senate District. Travel time—mere minutes, with wrenching twists and turns through hundreds of slower, cheaper lanes and levels of traffic. Obi-Wan was concerned it would not be nearly fast enough.
It wasn't. Not quite.
-.-.-
The pit spread before Anakin as he stepped out on the apron below the tunnel. The three other contestants in this flight jostled for a view. The Noghri was particularly rough with Anakin, who had hoped to save all his energy for the flight.
"Loca Kung." Anakin cursed to himself. Luckily for him, the Noghri did not seem to understand Huttese as well as English.
The pit was two kilometers wide and three deep from the top of the last accelerator shield to the dark bottom. This old maintenance tunnel overlooked the second accelerator shield. Squinting up, Anakin saw the bottom of the first shield, a huge concave roof cut through with an orderly pattern of hundreds of holes, like an overturned colander in Shmi's kitchen on Tatooine. Each hole in this colander, however, was ten meters wide. Hundreds of shafts of sunlight dropped from the ports to pierce the gloom, acting like sundials to tell the time in the open world, high above the tunnel.
It was well past meridian.
And almost time to die.
Anakin watched the flickering jump light on the tunnel ceiling with focused concentration, lips tight, eyes wide, a little dew of sweat on his cheeks. The pit atmosphere smelled like a bad shop generator, thick with ozone and the burnt-rubber odor of gun discharge.
The tunnel master twirled up to the exit to encourage the next team.
"Glory and destiny!" the Naplousean enthused, and slapped Anakin across the brace between his wings.
Anakin stayed focused, trying to sense where the currents would be at this level, where the little vortices of lift and plunge would accumulate as they formed and rotated between the shields. Ozone would always be in highest concentration in the areas where the winds would be strongest and most dangerous, but carried the racers fastest.
However, today, his senses seemed to be strangely clouded, not responding. He frowned, annoyed. This had last happened a month ago. "I must be too tired," he thought. After all, he was still getting used to his training.
Anakin's fellow racers took their places in the tunnel's exit, jockeying for the best position on the apron. The Noghri gave Anakin a jab with his elbow. Anakin pushed it aside and kept his focus.
The Naplousean tunnel master lifted its ribbon-limb, the tip curling and uncurling in anticipation.
Anakin braced himself, but the Naplousean made a thick whickering noise—its way of cursing—and ordered the contestants to hold. A flying maintenance droid was making a sweep of this level. From where they waited, the droid appeared as a flyspeck, a tiny dot buzzing its way around the wide gray circumference of the pit, issuing little musical tones between the roar and swoosh of canisters. It then moved up, to clean the space between the tunnel and the cave.
Managers could be bribed, but droids could not. The race had to wait.
It was just then, that he felt something, a flash of emotions, a disturbance in the force. It was over so quickly that he thought he had imagined it, but he knew it was there.
He shifted forward, looking around. There seemed to be nothing. Maybe he was just detecting his own bottled-up frustration and anger, or maybe he was just too tired.
"Longer for you to live," the Noghri whispered.
-.-.-
Obi-Wan, against all his personal inclinations, had made it his duty to know the ins and outs of anything having to do with illegal racing, anywhere within a hundred kilometers of the Jedi Temple. Anakin Skywalker, his charge, his responsibility, was one of the best Padawans in the Temple—easily fulfilling the promise sensed by Qui-Gon Jinn—but as if to compensate for this promise, to bring a kind of balance to the boy's lopsided brace of abilities, Anakin had an equal brace of faults.
His quest for speed and victory was easily the most aggravating and dangerous. Qui-Gon Jinn had perhaps encouraged this in the boy by allowing him to race for his own freedom, three years before, on Tatooine.
But Qui-Gon Jinn could not justify his actions now.
There were two garbage pits inside Anakin's radius of potential mischief, and one was infamous for its competition pit dives. Obi-Wan searched for guidance from the Force. It was never too difficult to sense Anakin's presence. He chose the nearest pit and climbed a setof maintenance stairs to the upper citizen-observation walkway at the top.
Obi-Wan ran along the balustrade, empty at this hour of the day—the middle of the afternoon bureaucrat work period. He paid little attention to the roaring whine of the canisters as they soared through the air into space. Sonic booms rang out every few seconds, quite loud on the balustrade, but damped by sloping barriers before they reached the outlying buildings. He was looking for the right turbolift to take him to the lower levels, to the abandoned feed chambers and maintenance tunnels where the races would be staged.
He found it soon enough, reaching the ground floor.
The long curved corridor circumnavigating the pit was filled with old machinery, rusting and filthy hulks stored centuries ago by long-dead pit maintenance crews: old launch sleds, empty canisters big enough to stand up in, and the tarnished plasteel tracks that had once guided them down to the loading tunnels.
It was in this jumble that Obi-Wan found a thriving trade in race paraphernalia.
"Flight starting soon!" cried a little lump of a boy even younger than Anakin. The boy had obviously come from offworld, born on a high-gravity planet, strong, stout, fearless, and almost unbelievably grimy.
"Wagers here for the Greeter? Fifty-to-one max, go home rich!"
"I'm looking for a young human racer," Obi-Wan said, bending down before the boy. "Sandy brown hair cut short, slender, older than you."
"You bet on him?" the stout boy asked, face wrinkled in speculation
"I'll wager, but first I want to have a look at him," Obi-Wan said. He waved his hand slightly, like a magician. "To observe his racing points."
The stout boy watched the hand, but no scarf appeared. He smirked. "Come to the Greeter," the boy said. "He'll tell you what you want to know. Hurry! The race starts in seconds!"
Obi-Wan was sure he could sense Anakin somewhere near, on this level. And he could also sense that the boy was preparing for something strenuous, and that there was fear in him.
That was when Obi-Wan sensed it.
The disturbance in the force. With a shock, he recognized it as something he had only felt before twice in his life.
-.-.-
Anakin forced his body down, sensing that the race was about to start. Suddenly, he detected a tremor above him. Instinct, as well as a slight movement of the Noghri at the corner of his eye, made him spring forward.
Just in time, as part of the ceiling caved in, crushing the stunned Naplousean. On top, he heard blaster fire, and swearing even he was impressed at. He could feel a dark force presence. "Another Sith?" he marveled to himself.
"Impressive, child," the Noghri snarled, before throwing a punch at Anakin.
Anakin, hampered by the bulk of the wings, could not move fast enough to completely avoid the thrust. Luckily, he twisted just in time so the Noghri's fist slammed into his wings. The force of the impact made him stagger backwards, but the Noghri's fist did not seem to fare well hitting metal. The reptilian bastard grimaced slightly, and missed his second punch.
Anakin had a brief respite, but he knew he would not win in hand-to-hand combat with the Noghri, Jedi or not. And, that was not counting the unknown attacker upstairs.
He had no choice.
He kicked away from the tunnel, skidded down the sloping apron, and spread the race wings to their full width.
Without hesitating, the Noghri followed.
-.-.-
Obi-Wan burst through the entrance to the first floor, and saw bodies littering the ground.
He could feel Anakin through the gaping hole on the ground.
Unfortunately, he could feel someone else.
"Master Bulq," he exclaimed, looking at the Weequay Jedi Master with surprise.
Master Sora Bulq, however, shook his head darkly, and ignited his lightsaber. To his surprise and horror, Obi-Wan saw that it was red.
Master Sora Bulq, who had mastered every single form of lightsaber combat known to Jedi, had turned to the dark great trepidation, Obi-Wan ignited his lightsaber. He calmed himself, and readied for battle, despite the bad gut feeling he had.
-.-.-
Anakin's confusion and pain quickly re-formed into a clarity he had not experienced in many years—three years, to be precise, since his final Podrace on Tatooine, when he had last been so close to death.
I t took him almost three seconds to roll to a proper position, feet angled slightly down, wings folded by his side, head tilted back against the brace. Like diving into an immense pool. Then, slowly, the wings seemed to spread without his conscious volition. The motors coughed and sputtered to a sharp, well-tuned whine, like the skirling of two large insects. He felt the sensors twirling just beyond his fingertips, perceived the faint vibrating signal in the palms of both hands that a gradient field was available.
He looked up, searching for the gradient field. Instead, he saw the high lights of the ceiling, shining brightly. Gods, you could hardly see anything beyond pure white light up there.
In this time of desperation, that gave him an idea. But he had to work fast.
-.-.-
The Noghri emerged out of the tunnel, in pursuit of the boy. He could smell the boy, he was close, somewhere ahead, he expected.
He heard a noise up above, electricity crackling. He looked up for the source, and was temporarily blinded.
So he never saw the boy coming down from above the tunnel he had just exited from
The jet fire tore at his eyes, and he screamed in pain and agony, lashing out. With satisfaction, he felt one of the blows connect, and the boy cry out with pain. He lunged at the boy, grabbing him by the shirt, determined to kill him, the boy screamed and then a sharp pain lanced through his body and then he could feel no more.
Anakin swallowed his fear, picking up his droid part still crackling with electricity.
He had levitated the droid part above the Noghri, before surprising the hulk. Good thing he always bought several droid parts around to tinker with, if not... he shuddered.
But he was even more surprised at how he used the dark side, and to kill with it. He had just reached out for help and pulled with his frustration and was so easy, but he had done something perhaps irreparable. He shook his head, clearing his mind. "First, I have to get out," he told himself. He ran in the direction out of the tunnels, but not before he stopped right in his tracks, thinking that he detected something.
-.-.-
The left side of the tunnel wall in front of him morphed into a humanoid in a cloak, making Anakin jump backwards, partly out of instinct and partly out of fear.
"It seems that they were right to call you the chosen one. I doubt any other padawan would have detected my concealed force signature, even in such close proximity, neither would they be able to take out a fully-grown Noghri." the humanoid rasped.
"Who are you?" Anakin said defiantly, despite the churning feeling in his stomach.
"They call me Darth Tyranus," the humanoid chuckled, "at least, my master does, and he has sent me, as well as a few others to kill you. However, I see that you have taken care of all the rest nicely."
Anakin, not seeing anything funny at all, felt his blood run cold.
An oppressive silence seemed to hang in the air, besides the sounds of lightsabers clashing above. Dimly, Anakin was aware that the humanoid was studying him thoughtfully. Suddenly, he felt his bottled-up resentment over months, years threatening to spill out. With difficulty, he managed to control his emotions, but realized that he could not quite manage that.
"Let me out of here, Sith," he commanded quietly despite his raging mind, breaking the silence.
"You have a lot of it, don't you?" the Sith replied silently.
"What?"
"Anger, resentment, frustration. You ought to let it out." the Sith said indifferently.
Anakin spat at his feet.
However, the Sith did not seem to mind.
"That's what I'm talking about. Now boy, we Sith are what you need. The Jedi, they ask you to bury your emotions, and forget to love and forget to hate. And those fools, they will never teach you true power. They have no power, relying on the senate, content to let the galaxy slide into chaos. They are a bunch of spineless, corrupt..."
"STOP!" Anakin shouted suddenly.
The Sith walked closer, and as Anakin backed out into the light he could see it's mouth. The evil thing was now smiling.
"How touching..." it hissed. "I value bravery as well... but bravery can kill too."
Anakin paused. It was true, some of what the Sith said, but it would mean turning into a monster. Like the monster that had killed Master Qui-Gon. In the blink of an eye, he made up his mind.
"NEVER!"
"A pity, then." the voice whispered, and he felt himself lifted up. Screaming, he let out everything he had, feeling the humanoid stumble backwards, releasing him and his hood fall back, revealing a long face with white hair and a trimmed white beard.
The last scene that he saw was the anger in Darth Tyranus's eyes.
It satisfied him.
-.-.-
Obi-Wan fell with a cry, at the same time aware that Anakin was again in great danger. Immediately he realized that it might have been a fatal mistake. He closed his eyes, expecting to feel no more any moment, but what he heard was the sound of scattering feet.
Ex Jedi Master Sora Bulq was running.
Obi-wan blinked in surprised relief, yet he found that he could barely stand his ground, as it was.
There was a clashing and a yell around the corner, followed by the swift pattering of feet.
Mace Windu and Yoda, leading a group of senior Jedi, burst into Obi-wan's vision. It was only then when Obi-wan, senses usually so attuned, felt their encompassing force presences. Even in a state of exhaustion over a gruelling fight, he couldn't help but chastise himself in losing out to the Jedi Traitor.
Mace opened his mouth to say something, looking concerned-
then all of them felt it, a wave of pain, agony, and frustration rolling across the force.
Yoda frowned.
Windu looked intrigued.
Obi-wan saw black.
A/N: The story diverges from Author Greg Bear's "Rogue planet" tale in the expanded universe. In the original story, Anakin wins the race, and the assassins and fallen jedi don't exist. Original book itself is a great read, definitely recommend it.
To repeat my disclaimer, in no way do I own Star Wars. This is just an avenue for me to vent, and show my "creativity".