Chapter 7
Night blankets the vast cityscape of Coruscant, cloaking the endless horizon of gleaming spires in deep velvet layers. Lights blazes from windows, bright pinpricks against the black. As far as the eye could see, as far as a being could travel the city's buildings jutted from the planet's surface in needles of steel alloy and reflective glass. Long ago, the city consumed the planet with its bulk, and now there is only the city, the center of the galaxy, the heartbeat of the Republic's rule.
A rule that some are intending to end once and for all. A rule that some despise.
Darth Sidious stands high on a balcony overlooking Coruscant, his concealing black robes making him appear as if he is a creature produced by the night. He stands facing the city, his eyes direct at its lights, at the faint movement of its air traffic, and disinterest in his apprentice, Darth Maul, who waits to one side.
His thoughts are of the Sith and of the history of their order.
The Sith have come into being almost over twenty thousand years ago. They are a cult given over to the dark side of the Force, embracing fully the concept that power denied was power wasted. A rogue Jedi Knight founded the Sith, a singular dissident in an order of harmonious followers, a rebel who understood from the beginning that the real power of the Force lay not in the light, but in the dark. Failing to gain approval for his beliefs from the Council, he broke from the order, departing with his knowledge and his skills, swearing in secret that he could bring down those who dismissed him.
He was alone at first, but others from the Jedi Order who believed as he did and who followed him in his study of the dark side soon came over. Others were recruited, and soon the ranks of the Sith swelled to than fifty in number. Disdaining the concepts of cooperation and consensus, relying on the belief that acquisition of power in any form lends strength and yields control, the Sith began to build their cult in opposition to the Jedi. Theirs was not an order created to serve; theirs was an order created to dominate.
Their war with the Jedi was vengeful and furious and ultimately doomed. The rogue Jedi who founded the Sith Order was its nominal leader, but his ambition excluded any sharing of power. His disciples began to conspire against him and each other almost from the beginning so that the war they instigated was as much with each other as with the Jedi.
In the end, the Sith destroyed themselves. They destroyed their leader first, then each other. What few survived the initial bloodbath were quickly dispatched by watchful Jedi. In a matter of only weeks, all of them died.
All but one.
Darth Maul shifts impatiently. The younger Sith has not yet learned his Master's patience; that would come with time and training. It is patience that saved the Sith Order in the end. It is patience that would give them their victory now over the Jedi.
The Sith who survived when all of his fellows had died understood that. He adopted patience as a virtue when the others had forsaken it. He adopted cunning, stealth, and subterfuge as the foundation of his way-old Jedi virtues the others had disdained. He stood aside while the Sith tore at each other like kriks and were destroyed. When the carnage was complete, he went into hiding, biding his time, waiting for his chance.
When it was believed all of the Sith were destroyed, he emerged from his concealment. At first, he worked alone, but he was growing old and he was the last of his kind. Eventually, he went out in search of an apprentice. Finding one, he trained him to be a Master in his turn, then to find his own apprentice, and so to carry on their work. But there would only be two at any one time. There would be no repetition of the mistakes of the old order, no struggle between Siths warring for power within the cult. Their common enemy was the Jedi, not each other. It was for their war with the Jedi they must save themselves. The Sith who reinvented the order called himself Darth Bane. A thousand years had passed since the Sith were believed destroyed, and the time they had waited for had come at last.
"Tatooine is sparsely populated." His student's rough voice breaks into his thoughts, and Darth Sidious lifts his eyes to the hologram. "The Hutts rule. The Republic has no presence. If the trace was correct, Master, I will find them quickly and without hindrance." The golden eyes glimmer with excitement and anticipation in the strange mosaic of Darth Maul's face as he waits impatiently for a response.
Darth Sidious is pleased.
"Move against the Jedi first," he advises softly. "You will then have no difficulty taking the Queen back to Naboo, where she will sign the treaty. Do not concern yourself with this mysterious enemy."
Darth Maul exhales sharply. Satisfaction permeates his voice. "At last, we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last, we will have our revenge."
"You have been well trained, my young apprentice," Darth Sidious soothes. "The Jedi will be no match for you. It is too late for them to stop us now. Everything is going as planned. The Republic will soon be in my control."
In the silence that follows, the Sith Lord can feel a dark heat rise inside him and consume him with furious pleasure.
In the home of Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn stands silently at the doorway of the boy's bedroom and watches him sleep. His apprentice sleeps on the sofa. His mother and the handmaiden occupy the other bedroom, and Jar Jar Binks is curled up on the kitchen floor in a fetal position, snoring loudly. But Qui-Gon cannot sleep. It is this boy - this boy! There is something about him.
The Jedi Master watches the soft rise and fall of his chest as he lay in slumber, unaware of Qui-Gon's presence. The boy is special, he tells Shmi Skywalker, and she agrees. She knows it, too.
She senses it as he did.
Anakin Skywalker is different.
Qui-Gon lifts his gaze to a darkened window. The storm subsides, and the wind abates. It is quiet without, the night soft and welcoming in its peace. The Jedi Master thinks for a moment about his own life. He knows what they said about him. He is willful, even reckless in his choices. He is strong, but he dissipates his strength on causes that do not merit his attention. But rules are not created solely to govern behavior. Rules are created to provide a road map to understanding the Force.
Is it so wrong for him to bend those rules when his conscience whispers to him that he must? The Jedi folds his arms over his broad chest. The Force is a complex and difficult concept. The Force is rooted in the balance of all things, and every movement within its flow risks upsetting that balance. A Jedi sought to keep the balance in place, to move in concert with its pace and will. But the Force exists on more than one plane, and achieving mastery of its multiple passages was a lifetime's work. Or more.
He knows his own weakness. He is too close to the life Force when he should be more attentive to the unifying Force. He finds himself reaching out to the creatures of the present, to those living in the here and now. He has less regard for the past or the future, for the creatures that had or would occupy those times and spaces. It is the life force that bound him, that gave him heart, mind, and spirit. So, it is he who empathizes with Anakin Skywalker in ways that other Jedi would discourage, finding in this boy a promise he cannot ignore. Obi-Wan probably sees the boy and Jar Jar in the same light - useless burdens, pointless projects, unnecessary distractions. Obi-Wan is grounded in the need to focus on the larger picture, on the unifying Force. He lacks Qui-Gon's intuitive nature. He lacks his teacher's compassion for and interest in all living things. He does not see the same things Qui-Gon saw.
Qui-Gon sighs. This is not a criticism, only an observation. Who is to say that either of them was the better for how they interpret the demands of the Force? But it places them at odds sometimes, and more often than not it is Obi-Wan's position the Council supports, not Qui-Gon's. It will be that way again, he knows. Many times. But this will not deter him from doing what he believes he must. He would know the truth about Anakin Skywalker. He would discover his place in the Force, both living and unifying. He would learn who this boy was meant to be. Minutes later, he is stretched out on the floor, asleep.
The new day dawns bright and clar, Tatooine's twin suns blazing down out of a clear blue sky. The sandstorm has moved on to other regions, sweeping the landscape clean of everything but the mountains and rocky outcroppings of the desert and the buildings of Mos Espa. Anakin is up and dress before his guests stir awake, eager to get to the shop and advise Watto of his plan for the upcoming Podrace. Qui-Gon warns him not to be too eager in making his suggestion to the Toydarian, but to stay calm and let Qui-Gon handle the bargaining. But Anakin is so excited he could have barely heard what the other was saying.
The Jedi Master knows it will be up to him to employ whatever mix of cunning and diplomacy is required to achieve their ends. Greed is the operative word in dealing with Watto, of course, the key that will open any door the Toydarian kept locked. They walk from the slave quarters through the city to Watto's shop, Anakin leading the way, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Padmé close at his heels, Jar Jar and R2-D2 bringing up the rear. The city is awake and bustling early, the shopkeepers and merchants shoveling and sweeping away drifts of sand, reassembling stalls and awnings, and righting carts and damaged fences. Eopies and rontos perform heavy labor whereas sleds and droids lack sufficient muscle. Wagons are already hauling fresh supplies and merchandise from warehouses and storage bins, and the receiving bays of the spaceport are back to welcoming ships from off-planet.
Qui-Gon lets Anakin go on ahead to the shop as they draw near, to give the boy a chance to approach Watto on the subject of the Podraces first. With the others in tow, the Jedi Master moves to a food stall across the way, persuades a vendor to part with a handful of gooey dweezels, and bides his time. When the dweezels are consumed, he moves his group across the plaza to the front of Watto's shop. Jar Jar, already unsettled anew by all the activity, takes up a position on a crate near the shop entry, his back to the wall, his eyes darting this way and that in anticipation of something awful befalling him. R2-D2 moves over beside him, beeping softly, trying to reassure him that everything was okay.
Qui-Gon tells Padmé to keep a wary eye on the Gungan. He doesn't want Jar Jar getting into any more trouble. He is starting into the shop when the girl puts a hand on his arm.
"Are you sure about this?" she asks, doubt mirrored clearly in her brown eyes. "Trusting our fate to a boy we hardly know?" She wrinkles her smooth brow. "The Queen would not approve."
Qui-Gon meets her gaze squarely. "The Queen does not need to know."
Her eyes blaze defiantly. "Well, I don't approve."
He gives her a questioning look, then turns away wordlessly.
Inside the salvage shop, he finds Watto and Anakin engaging in a heated discussion, the Toydarian hovering centimeters from the boy's face, blue wings a blur of motion, snout curls inward as he gestures sharply and purposely with both hands.
"Patta go bolla!" he shouts in Huttese, chubby body jerking with the force of his words.
The boy blinks but holds his ground. "No batta!"
"Peedunkel!" Watto flits backward and forward, up and down, everything moving at once.
"Banyo, banyo!" Anakin shouts.
Qui-Gon moves out of the shadowed entry and into the light where they can see him. Watto turns away from Anakin at once, toothy mouth working, and flies into Qui-Gon's face in a frenzy of ill-conceal excitement.
"The boy tells me you want to sponsor him in the race tomorrow!" The words explode out of him. "You can't afford parts! How can you afford to enter him in the race? Not on Republic credits, I think!"
He breaks into raucous laughter, but Qui-Gon does not miss the hint of curiosity that gleams in his slit eyes.
"My ship will be the entry fee," the Jedi advises bluntly.
He reaches beneath his poncho and brings out a tiny holoprojector. Clicking on the power source, he projects a hologram of the Queen's transport into the air in front of Watto. The Toydarian flits closer, studying the projection carefully.
"Not bad. Not bad." The wrinkle blue proboscis bobs. "A Nubian."
"It's in good order, except for the parts we need." Qui-Gon gives him another moment, then flick off the holoprojector and tucks it back beneath his poncho.
"But what would the boy ride?" Watto demands irritably. "He smashed up my Pod in the last race. It will take too long to fix it for the Boonta."
Qui-Gon glances at Anakin, who is clearly embarrassed. "Aw, it wasn't my fault, really. Sebulba flashed me with his port vents. I actually saved the Podracer... mostly."
Watto laughs harshly. "That he did! The boy is good, no doubts there!" He shakes his head. "But still..."
"I have acquired a Pod in a game of chance," Qui-Gon interrupts smoothly, drawing the other's attention back to him. "The fastest ever built."
He does not look at Anakin, but he imagines the expression on the boy's face.
"I hope you didn't kill anyone I know for it!" Watto snaps. He burst into a new round of laughter before bringing himself under control again. "So, you supply the Podracer and the entry fee; I supply the boy. We split the winnings fifty-fifty; I think."
"Fifty-fifty!" Obi-Wan exclaims, eyes going wide. "We could build our own pod racer at that point."
"Yes, but who's going to drive it?" Watto mocks. "You?"
"You bet I can. I drove speeders before. We don't have to listen to this."
Qui-Gon places his hand on his shoulder before staring back up, brushing the suggestion aside. "Fifty-fifty? If it's going to be fifty-fifty, I suggest you front the cost of the entry. If we win, you keep all the winnings, minus the cost of the parts I need. If we lose, you keep my ship."
Watto is caught by surprise. He thinks the matter through, hand rubbing at his snout, wings beating the air with a buzzing sound. The offer is too good, and he is suspicious. Out of the corner of his eye, Qui-Gon sees Anakin glance over at him nervously.
"Either way, you win," Qui-Gon points out softly.
Watto pounds his fist into his open palm. "Deal!" He turns to the boy, chuckling. "Your friend makes a foolish bargain, boy! Better teach him what you know about how to deal for goods!"
He is still laughing as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan leave the shop.
The Jedi Master and Padawan collect Padmé, Jar Jar, and R2-D2, and left word for Anakin to join them as soon as Watto will free him up to work on the Podracer. Since Watto is more interested in the upcoming race than in managing the shop, he dismisses the boy at once with instructions to make certain the racer he will be driving is a worthy contender and not some piece of space junk that will cause everyone to laugh at the Toydarian for his foolish decision to enter it in the first place.
As a result, Anakin is home almost before Qui-Gon and the others, eagerly leading them to where his project is concealed in the slave quarter boneyards. The Podracer is shaped like a narrow half-cylinder with a rudder-skid attach to its flat bottom, a cockpit carves into its curved-top, and steering arms attached at its sides. Sleek Radon - Ulzer fighter engines with scoop-air stabilizers tow the Pod at the end of Steel ton cables. The effect is something like seeing a doop bug attached to a pair of banthas.
Working together, the company activates the antigrav lifts and guided the Pod and its enormous engines into the courtyard in the back of Anakin's home. With Padmé, Jar Jar, and R2-D2 lending assistance and encouragement, the boy immediately went to work prepping the Pod for the upcoming race.
While Anakin and his helpers are thus engaged, Qui-Gon mounts the back porch of the Skywalker home and glances around to make certain he is alone with Obi-Wan.
"If all goes well, we will have our hyperdrive generator by tomorrow afternoon and be on our way," he concludes.
Obi-Wan's silence is telling. "What if this plan fails, Master? We could be stuck here for a long time."
Qui-Gon Jinn looks out over the squalor of the slave quarters and the roofs of the buildings of Mos Espa beyond, the sun's bright glare overhead. "A ship without a power supply will not get us anywhere. We have no choice."
Obi-Wan nods grimly and walks out.
"And there is something about this boy," he whispers to himself, leaving the thought unfinished.
Shmi Skywalker appears through the back door and moves over to join him. Together they stand watching the activity in the courtyard below.
"You should be proud of your son," Qui-Gon says after a moment. "He gives without any thought of reward."
Shmi nods, a smile flitting over her worn face. "He knows nothing of greed. Only of dreams. He has..."
"Special powers."
The woman glances at him warily. "Yes."
"He can see things before they happen," the Jedi Master continues. "That's why he appears to have such quick reflexes. It is a Jedi trait."
Her eyes are fixed on him, and he does not miss the glimmer of hope that shone there. "He deserves better than a slave's life," she replies quietly.
Obi-Wan can hardly believe he feels horribly for the woman and her son. For perhaps the first time in... well ever, Obi-Wan wonders: How many people across the galaxy are suffering, wishing that they can grant a better life for their kins?
Qui-Gon keeps his gaze directed out at the courtyard. "The Force is unusually strong with him, that much is clear. Who was his father?"
There is a long pause, long enough for the Jedi Master to realize he asked a question she is not prepared to answer. He gives her time and space to deal with the matter, not pressing her, not making it seem as if it's necessary her to answer at all.
"There is no father," she says finally. She shakes her head slowly. "I carried him, I gave birth to him. I raised him. I can't tell you any more than that."
Obi-Wan, like all of his fellow Jedi, did have a father. But to avoid the complications with attachments, the Jedi Council strides to acquire infants. Still, there are times when Obi-Wan secretly wishes to meet his parents or whatever siblings he may have, but that was when he was younger.
She touches his arm, drawing his eyes to meet hers. "Can you help him?"
Qui-Gon is silent for a long time, thinking. He feels an attachment to Anakin Skywalker he cannot explain. In the back of his mind, he senses he is meant to do something for this boy, that he needed to try, but all Jedi are identified within the first six months of birth and given over to their training. It is true for him, for Obi-Wan, for everyone he knew or had heard about. There are no exceptions.
Can you help him? He did not know how that was possible.
"I don't know," he tells her, keeping his voice gentle, but firm. "I didn't come here to free slaves. Had he been born in the Republic, we would have identified him early, and he might have become a Jedi. He has the way. I'm not sure what I can do for him." She nods in resignation, but her face reveals, beneath the mask of her acceptance, a glimmer of hope.
As Anakin tightens the wiring on the thruster relays to the left engine, a group of his friends appears. The older boys are Kitster and Seek, the older girl is Amee, the younger girl was Melee, and the Rodian is Waldo. Anakin breaks off his efforts to complete the wiring long enough to introduce them to Padmé, Jar Jar, and R2-D2.
"Wow, a real astromech droid!" Kitster exclaims, whistling softly. "How'd you get so lucky?"
Anakin shrugs. "That isn't the half of it," he declared, puffing up a bit. "I'm entered in the Boonta tomorrow."
Kitster makes a face and pushes back his mop of dark hair. "What? With this?"
"That piece of junk has never even been off the ground," Wald says, nudging Amee. "This is such a joke, Annie."
"You've been working on that thing for years," Amee observes, her small, delicate features twisting in disapproval. She shook her blond head.
"It's never going to run." Melee adds.
Obi-Wan can't believe he feels remorse for the boy and approaches as Anakin starts to say something in defense of himself, then decides against it. Better to let them think whatever they want for now. He will show them.
"Hey," Obi-Wan reprimands them before they could taunt Anakin further. "Unless you are all here to help Anakin, leave him be."
"Come on, let's go play ball," Seek suggests, already turning away, a hint of boredom in his voice as he glares up at the Jedi. "Keep it up, Annie, and you're gonna be bug squash."
Obi-Wan scowls slightly. "At least he is entering the race. Not seeing any of you willing to try."
Seek, Wald, Melee, and Amee hurry off, laughing back at him, though there is a hint of fear in their tone and on their faces after what the Jedi just said. But Kitster is his best friend and knows better than to doubt Anakin when he says he is going to do something. So Kitster stays behind, ignoring the others. "What do they know?" he asks quietly.
Anakin gives him a grin of appreciation. Then he notices Jar Jar fiddling with the left engine's energy binder plate, the power source that locks the engines together and kept them in sync, and the grin disappears.
"Hey! Jar Jar!" he shouts in warning. "Stay away from those energy binders!"
The Gungan, bend close to the protruding plate, looks up guiltily. "Who, me?"
Anakin puts his hands on his hips. "If your hand gets caught in the beam, it will go numb for hours."
Jar Jar screws up his face, then puts his hands behind his back and stuck his bill face back down by the plate. Almost instantly an electric current arch from the plate to his mouth, causing him to yelp and jump back in shocked surprise. Both hands clamp over his mouth as he stamd staring at the boy in disbelief.
"Ist numm! Ist numm!" Jar Jar mumbles, his long tongue hanging loosely. "My tongue is fat. Dats my bigo oucho." Anakin shook his head and went back to work on the wiring.
Kitster moves close to him, watching silently, his dark face intense. "You don't even know if this thing will run, Annie," he observes with a frown, though there is a notable concern in his voice.
Anakin didn't look up. "It will."
Qui-Gon Jinn appears at his shoulder. "I think it's about time we found out." He hands the boy a small, bulky cylinder. "Use this power pack. I picked it up earlier in the day. Watto has less need for it than you." One corner of his mouth twitches in a mix of embarrassment and amusement.
Anakin knows the value of a power pack. How the Jedi manages to secure one from under Watto's nose, he has no idea and no interest in finding out. "Yes, sir!" he beams.
He jumps into the cockpit, fits the power pack into its sleeve in the control panel, and sets the activator to the ON position. Then he pulls on his old, dented racing helmet and gloves. As he did so, Jar Jar, who is fiddling around at the back of one of the engines, manages to get his hand caught in the afterburner. The Gungan begins leaping up and down in terror, his mouth still numb from the shock he received from the energy binders, his bill flapping to no discernible purpose. Padmé catches sight of him at the last minute-his arms windmilling frantically-and yanks him free an instant before the engines ignite.
Flame explodes from the afterburners, and a huge roar rose from the Radon - Ulzers, building steadily in pitch until Anakin eases off on the thrusters, then settling back into a throaty rumble. Cheers rise from the spectators, and Anakin waves his hand in response.
"Obi-Wan," Qui-Gon probes. "Return to the ship. There is something about that boy that I need to check. Also, we need to ensure the Queen doesn't do anything reckless.''
He nods. "Yes, Master."
On the porch of their home, Shmi Skywalker watches wordlessly, her eyes distant and sad.
It has taken all day but the overly bearing process is frustrating.
After finishing with the podracer, an exhausted Anakin manages to sneak away from the others and walks outside of the city. He knows his mother will come looking for him eventually especially since she has some of the deepest insecurities Anakin could be hurt on this planet, but he rather spends some time alone.
Anakin kicks some sand that manages to crawl up his feet. He hates sand with an utter passion, but hopefully, very soon, he would not have to worry about the sand ever again. Maybe Qui-Gon sir and Obi-Wan would free him along with his mother and bring them off Tatooine so they wouldn't have to fear the sand.
That thought gives Anakin pause as he comes to a stop and stares at the two suns, both reflecting off both sides of his face.
While Anakin as a slave hardly ever has received any leniency, at the very least Watto had enough courtesy of allowing him to have his own adventures. Sometimes, it would be like this where he wishes to be alone and think about what he can do in the bigger world out there that must extend beyond Coruscant. He always wanted to become a Jedi and finally access the power to be able to save all of the slaves.
Whereas he would love to have such a power, those have been mere dreams, for Tatooine is lawless, it is very unlikely that the Jedi would have ever discovered him. However, it appears as if his dream is coming true and that the Jedi have finally come for the slaves on Tatooine and would save them at long last.
This all feels like a dream.
Another one...
Yet Anakin is certain that it is not just another dream, for this feels too real to be just another dream.
Unless, something dark twists within him. It is to stop him and bring him to justice along with the other slavers and save this planet. He is determined to be a Jedi.
'Anakin Skywalker.'
And as Anakin turns his sight from the direction of the Twin Suns, he is surprised to see a tall figure over him, a scar down his lower eye and hair going down his face, wearing dark robes with a cloak, looking like him. His sudden appearance makes the boy feel the urge to scream, but there is something about this man that makes his presence peaceful.
"Who are you?" The boy asks, able to see the two soft cerulean eyes that match his.
"I am what you could be; someone who is your destiny," the man replies, his voice deeper but also able to send chills down Anakin's spine. "Someone who don't belong to the Jedi. You should set your priories on not allowing yourself to be enslaved by the Jedi." The man responds, sounding blunt like the slavers are but also convincing, laying almost a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "All your life as you looked away…to the future, to the horizon. The Jedi would frown at this and you would only be met with disappointment, but what if you can still be who you strive to be? Your ambitions are not something the Jedi Order would relish to have within their ranks but there is always hope for you, Anakin Skywalker."
"Ho-how do you know that I can be someone?" The boy asks nervously, wetting his lips before grunting. "Kriff it! I don't even know who you are! You can be wasting my time!"
The man smirks. "Perhaps I am."
And when Anakin blinks, the other man is gone but his presence lingers within his mind.