Legacy IV
Chapter 7
Well before dawn, Obi-Wan was graced with a nocturnal visitor.
Of the stealth assassin variety.
Sadly for the advanced model recon hunter-killer independent AI model droid, he was not only on guard, but positively spoiling for the long-anticipated fight. Sitting meditation lotus for seven hours while waiting for one's back-stabbing host to send in a villain to dispatch one is, perhaps, all in a routine day's job for a Jedi Knight (foolish enough to attempt diplomatic bargaining in the far Rims) but that does not make it any less wearisome. Jedi do engage in other activities besides contemplating their own navels while waiting for the obligatory murder attempt; in this case, the Jedi in question hadn't enjoyed a decent sparring match in days.
His saber practically screamed with joy as the sapphire blade leapt from its hilt, tracing an elaborate calligraphic flourish in the dark, musty air of the guest chamber. The intruder – which had obviously been outfitted with a master code-key to all the suites – leapt through the door and sprang into impressively acrobatic action, reticulated limbs carrying it in a weird dervish-dance around the room's perimeter, small but deadly blaster arm spewing a hailstorm of double-impulse disruptor bolts at its intended target.
The space was far too cramped for Ataru, and Makashi seemed too… sedate .. for such a gymnastic opponent, so Obi-Wan instantly shifted into a classic Soresu defensive pattern, deflecting the barrage of lethal energy packets into walls, ceiling and floor, his 'saber howling in delight as it spun in a tight and blinding tracery about his body. Plaster showered down, bits of stone and tile exploded in all directions, one of the window grates was reduced to smoking slag, a roof girder was exposed, the fresco was annihilated, the synthsilk pillows caught on fire and sent billows of soft feathers whirling in the over-heated air.
Grinning, the young Jedi rolled under the next attack, blocked two more shots, ducked a third, and neatly carved off his assailant's weapon arm.
The droid walloped him squarely in the jaw with its free left, sending him tumbling backward over the rolling trundle platform, saber clattering into a corner. The grotesque bundle of limbs was atop him in an instant, now sporting a built-in shiv edged in ominous acrid yellow. Its first strike missed by a millimeter, sinking into the wooden edge of the sleep-platform just shy of its foe's neck. Two solid kicks and a Force-push sent it skittering across the dais; Obi-Wan summoned his weapon back into his hand – and twisted hard to avoid the colwar-leap of the assassin droid as it recovered. They circled, passed, feinted and reversed – and then –
The automated killer lunged in again, going for the jugular, and ended up taking the 'saber pommel square in its single optic receiver. Its narrow, cylindrical head spun, shorted out, and was swiftly separated from its torso by a backhanded shoto –technique sai cha.
Sometimes he liked to mix things up a bit, just for the sake of style.
"Match point," he announced, airily, prodding the inert scraps with the toe of one boot. Temple rumor spoke of droids with "second brains" that would activate after the main processor was fried… but this model did not seem to be so superfluously endowed.
Of course, that was the end of his opulent guest accommodations, too. The fresco was a ruinous mess, the air was scorched and reeked of toxic effluvia, and some of the violet plush cushions were still smoldering wrecks. He rubbed at his bruised jaw, scooted the sole intact cushion into the adjoining corridor, and spent the remainder of the night meditating in peace.
At firstdawn, the shrill squeal of newborn life shattered the desert silence; a dozen Jawa crones huddled close about the mother and her impossibly fragile, squirming babe, effectively closing Torbb out of the circle.
The tall woman breathed out and scooted back against the bulkhead, topknot brushing the cabin's roof. Beneath them, around them, the sandcrawler's mass shuddered and groaned, laboring not to bring forth life but merely to gather enough impetus to move up the vast dune ahead. The giant vehicle's occupants chattered and scuttled about, momentarily forgetting their visitor in the excitement.
But not for long. Once the creaking mass had lumbered painstakingly to the crest of the next barren hill, the women folk of the tribe again surrounded their Jedi guest, this time pressing a heavily swathed bundle into her arms, their tiny gloved hands prodding and petting as they deposited the warm knot of winding cloths and tiny limbs in her keeping.
A continuous babble of instructions and entreaties followed, one she could not hope to interpret without the Force's aid.
"Peace, sisters, peace," she implored the chattering coterie, projecting a generous degree of suggestion into her voice. Some of the frantic yammering died down, allowing a few brief impressions – no more than images, hints of distant memory, vague emotion – to settle in the Force's choppy currents like silt sinking to a riverbed's murky bottom.
The child- a knot of swaddling no larger than a hoverball from the Temple crèche playroom – fit within one of Torbb's broad hands. She looked into the miniscule Jawa's glittering eyes and frowned in consternation.
It would appear she was the honorary godmother of this unlikely scion of the desert, expected to sponsor the child in some traditional naming ritual. The baby merely hiccupped and wailed for nourishment, prompting one of the most shriveled of the attendants to whisk her out of the towering Knight's incompetent grasp.
The crawler throbbed and chugged beneath her; the Jawa women subsided into content muttering; the Force eddied and swirled auspiciously, encouraging her to linger, and learn.
She knelt within the monstrous vehicle's belly and waited, as the ruddier of the two suns clambered its lethargic way into Tattooine's heat-scoured skies.
Just after second dawn, Mos Espa was abuzz with gossip and speculation.
Boonta Eve loomed near – and that meant a festival, a blessed hiatus from work and the dreary struggle for existence. True, the holiday as such had little meaning to most natives, being the anniversary celebration of an ancient Hutt victory over the Parliament of Moralan; nor had most of them any idea whom Boonta the Hutt might have been nor what his accomplishment. But any day on which business ceased, drink flowed in the streets, and the quotidian pastime of gambling was temporarily exalted to the status of a sacred rite was a day on which any citizen of Mos Espa was proud to be a Tatooinian.
And this year there was news. Watto the junk dealer had finally gone off his head and made a last minute entry to the Boonta Eve Classic, the annual podracing event that drew a hundred thousand spectators from every forgotten nook and cranny of the Rim territories. Not only illegal inside Republic boundaries, the sport had the additional appeal of being dangerous, cutthroat, and virtually un-refereed. The little Toydarian had publicly fronted the money to enter some hacked-together scrap heap (probably manufactured from spare parts that wandered through his shady dealership, though nobody could say how a functioning podracer might be engendered from such useless trash) – and then had doubled the occasion for scandal and mockery by announcing that his slave boy would pilot the rockety contraption against the best contenders in the wide and ruthless racing world.
His human slave boy. It was a well known fact that humans were totally incapable of podracing - it simply required reflexes far past their natural limits.
Which argument was made loudly and emphatically by Kitster ChanChani Benai, much to Anakin Skywalker's vexation.
"Don't be stupid," the dark-haired lad insisted. "You can't do it. No human can do it."
But Anakin was not one to be intimidated by anything as abstract as statistics or generalities. "Well, maybe I'm the only human who can," he retorted, bottom lip protruding stubbornly. "I'v e taken it out a few times past the Rift for a trial lap. It's easy."
"Yeah, maybe in the open like that. But we're talking about a race. You're bugsquat."
But the new celebrity would hear none of it. "I'm gonna finish and I'm gonna win," he asserted.
Kitster was a kind soul, and cynical enough at nine years old to suspect foul play. "I dunno what you did to make him so mad, but Watto just wants to see you killed. You should run away."
His best friend scowled. "Like that's happening." They were both slaves; Kitster, however, entertained vague hopes of his pirate father returning someday to rescue him . Anakin, being both fatherless and impatient, was determined to take matters into his own hands.
"Besides, I don't need to run away. I don't run away from anything. This race is gonna make me rich. I'm gonna buy me and mom out of slavery, and maybe you too! And whoever else I can afford. How many slaves do you think the prize money is worth?"
His enthusiasm kindled a rare light of hope in the other boy's dark eyes – but the ember was swiftly extinguished by pragmatism. "Who says you're getting any prize money? Even if you were the champion – by some miracle- Watto would just keep all the cash. You're a slave… he gets whatever you win."
The bitter truth fell through Anakin's interior heaven like a burning meteor, one that left an aching crater of resentment in its wake. Some things are too obvious to be noticed; others too awful to be mentioned. In this case, Kitster's observation was both at once, and precipitated the only possible reaction an almost-nine year old slave boy might be expected to make.
They were rolling in the dusty gutter of the marketplace when their angry tussle was overshadowed by an impressive, dark-robed figure. A moment later, an invisible hand seemed to part the madly scuffling opponents, holding them effortlessly at bay as they panted and strained to renew hostilities.
"What's this about?" a smooth, mellow voice inquired – with just enough authority to discourage any flippant response. Both boys looked up and up into the face of the intruder, and gasped.
"Uh," Kitster stammered.
"Mister Qui-Gon sir!" Anakin exclaimed, instantly deflating.
The tall Jedi squatted down between the two irate boys. "We've not been introduced," he addressed the dark-haired lad.
Keeping his gaze down, as befitted a slave, Kitster mumbled his name and squirmed on the spot. "Please don't tell my master," he begged.
Qui-Gon's brows rose. "Suppose you explain the dispute to me, then."
Anakin jumped into the fray both feet forward. "He says humans can't podrace," he snorted, reverting to the earliest offense committed against his sensibilities.
"We can't! " the other boy scoffed. "You know it's true!"
"I bet you've seen podracing, Mister Qui-Gon sir. Ever see a human pilot a pod?"
The Jedi master considered. "No, I've not. At least not on Malastare."
Anakin was livid with envy. "Awwww! You've seen the Circus Morticus races?"
"I have. Very fast. Very dangerous."
"Dangerous," Kitster repeated, sagaciously.
Anakin stuck his tongue out.
"However," Qui-Gon continued, standing, and laying a hand on either boy's shoulder, "Not worth breaking a friendship over."
Chastised, the pair shook hands – spit and slap style, according to Huttese custom – and grinned sheepishly at one another. Kitster muttered several shame-faced excuses and absented himself as speedily as possible, leaving Anakin alone in the company of his mysterious acquaintance.
"Anakin."
The tow-headed child squinted up at the sun-limned silhouette above him, twisting his mouth to one side in bemusement. "Are you gonna go to the Boonta Eve Classic?" he inquired.
"Should I?"
"Yeah! It'll be wizard, way better than the Circus on Malastare, even! I'm gonna race and win. You should come and see it!"
Qui-Gon' s craggy features contracted in a small frown. "Watto has entered you into the race?"
Anakin's chest swelled with pride. "Yup. I'm the only human and the youngest pilot ever to fly in a sanctioned event. Rugged, huh?" A second, and disconcerting, thought inserted itself between dreams of glory and technical musings. "But don't tell Mom, okay?"
The tall man steered his small companion into the shade of the nearest vendor's awning. "Deception is not the Jedi way."
"Really?" Anakin's snub nose wrinkled in confusion. "Cause maybe you should tell your other friend that. The one who came before."
"Obi-Wan, you mean?"
"Yeah him. 'Cause he ripped ol' Watto off like a wily Jawa trader, only better, It was kinda wizard, actually."
Qui-Gon's mouth thinned, into a wry grimace. "I daresay it was. "
"Can I show you my racing pod?" Anakin enthused. "It's the Fastest Ever Built. I made it myself from spare parts and stuff. What I really want to build is a protocol unit to help mom but there's never any cybernetics parts to spare and I can't find a manual to download for free. Droids are wizard – I bet I could make the best one ever, too! Do you know a lot about droids, Mister Qui-Gon sir? They don't let 'em in the race 'cause it's for sentients only and you know what? They don't let 'em in the cantinas either but I can't figure out why not. Hey! You know what – "
The tall man stemmed the tide with one raised hand, his memory flashing back on another bright and garrulous youngling, one whose prattle revolved not about droids and racing machines but around the cultural customs of Vetruvia and the laborious history of the Teth dynastic succession.
"Anakin," he said, solemnly. "" I need to speak to you. About something very, very important."