Legacy IV
Chapter 15
The return journey to Mos Espa proved longer than anticipated, their speed and maneuverability significantly hampered by the need to tow Anakin's podracer and its engines behind the swoop, and by Qui-Gon's desire to avoid what few predators he could sense prowling over the open sands. By the time the settlement's humble outskirts were visible, the boy was almost slumped over the handlebars, fast asleep.
The tall master nudged his small companion into wakefulness as they approached the city's far reaches. "Anakin. You'll need to return the 'pod to its hangar…. Where do you stable it?"
"Hhnuuunh?" came the groggy answer. Then, "Oh, uh… this way. Over there…."
By the time they had successfully stowed the illicit racing machine under its tarps in a warehouse adjacent to Watto's backlot, Anakin had perked up sufficiently to re-engage in conversation. He wended his way through the township's eerily silent streets, hand clasped firmly in his much taller guide's. "So how come you never told me Mister Obi-Wan was a Jedi too? 'Cause I didn't think Jedi Knights could be that young and all."
Qui-Gon smiled to himself. "Everyone must start young," he pointed out. "Even Jedi. And Obi-Wan, some might say, was born old, so don't let appearances deceive you."
The boy mulled this over. "I like him," he said, after due and sober consideration.
"Oh? I am glad to hear it. He is a good friend of mine. And a very wise man, though he is still growing into it."
"And," Anakin pointed out, "he was wizard with his laser sword! I've never seen fighting like that! And he almost blitzed that scary guy. Do you think… I mean, you know like how we talked….. do Jedi – do Jedi study sword fighting like that in school? 'Cause maybe that's sorta different than what I thought."
His companion's brows rose. "Ah. Jedi study many things, the art of combat among them. Also diplomacy, cultures, literature and the fine arts, the sciences, astrocartography and navigation, languages, mathematics, history and political theory. But above all, the ways of the universal Force, that which we serve. "
The youngling scratched his nose with his free hand. "Like in boring classes?"
"Some of it," Qui-Gon chuckled. "But much is taught one-on-one. For example, Obi-Wan was my apprentice. Are you familiar with that idea?"
"Is it like a servant?" Anakin tentatively guessed. "…I heard him call you Master," he added, with a faint note of accusation.
"It merely means teacher," the tall man hastened to assure him. "We traveled together for many years, as a team, and in that time I strove to impart to him all that I could of the Force, and of life. This is another way Jedi grow in knowledge and wisdom. In some sense, experience is the only teacher; all that we may do is point the way."'
This profound reflection was met with a wide yawn. "….'kay," Anakin mumbled, too exhausted to absorb anything more.
"I can never thank you enough," Shmi Skywalker murmured, carefully pouring from the dented tea-infuser. "Ani can be so… impulsive. He knows better than to travel in the desert at night… I don't know what he was thinking. You may have saved his life. You… and your friend."
Qui-Gon sipped the weak brew, cautiously formulating his next words. "I do not wish to cause you further alarm, but your son was almost the victim of a kidnapping tonight."
Shmi's hand trembled; she set the battered kettle down. "Tuskens?" she whispered, face blanching.
The indigenous tribe was a byword among Tatooine's more urban settlers, a synonym for murder and rapine. "Sadly," the Jedi master replied, "Something much worse. An… enemy of the Jedi."
A disbelieving shake of the head. "I don't understand."
He reached across the table and laid a hand upon the woman's slender arm, sending a soothing wave of the Force to partially assuage her mounting anxiety. "I think you do. You know that Anakin is… special."
Shmi nodded, mutely.
Qui-Gon released a long breath. "I believe that dark powers may be seeking him, or someone like him. Because of his … unique qualities."
Tears formed in Shmi's limpid, dark eyes. "Can you not protect him?" she implored.
"The only means by which I may guarantee his safety is this: I must take him with me to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. There he would be safe from such adversaries… and if the Council permits it, he could learn some of our ways. Enough, perhaps, to protect himself, in the future."
Shmi swallowed, eyes still glittering. "He would be… a Jedi?"
"The future is always in motion. He has unusual potential, and was surely born to important purpose. Much more than a life of slavery."
The aggrieved mother looked away, bosom rising and falling in steady rhythm. "I might never see him again," she sighed. "But…. I can live, no matter what befalls me, knowing that he is free. "She frowned. "Are you…. what about Watto? He will ask a criminal price."
"I have funds – and the discretion to use them, in such extraordinary circumstances."
Shmi exhaled, a great sigh of relief and acceptance. "I knew that he would leave me someday… but have you spoken to him? He will be afraid, you know – no matter what he says."
A perceptive statement; Anakin appeared uncowed by the prospect of mortal peril, by the undertaking of any task. But he had never been parted from his dam, never imagined fulfilling his wild ambitions and dreams without the anchor and counterweight of her earthy wisdom, her unconditional love. To whisk an eight year old child across the stars, into a wholly foreign environment, would be traumatic enough; compound the difficulty by leaving the youngling's beloved mother in duress…. It was not a viable plan. Shmi would also have to be freed, if only to provide Anakin the barest modicum of security. Fear, fear and anxiety and resentment: virulent, seductive paths to the Dark side, all of them. And the Dark was reaching for this strange boy already, eager to snatch him up before any other principality could.
His mind sped along the avenues of possibility: Shmi had doubtlessly compiled many small, technical skills; she was intelligent and observant; though accustomed to hardship, she had not been abused to the point of debility. It should be possible for her to reintegrate into another society, perhaps not a Coreworld megalopolis, or the sophisticated milieu of Alderaan or Naboo… but… what if the Derridas? – or if Dex knew of -? Or if –
"Master Jinn?"
"Forgive me; there are many details to be considered." He stood, and bowed. "Thank you for the tea. DO not let me keep you from your rest – dawn is mere hours away."
Shmi glanced over one shoulder, into the small alcove sleeping room where Anakin snored away blissfully, wrapped in a tattered knot-weave blanket. Scraps of machinery and circuit insulation littered his packed-earth floor; simple childhood toys and half-stripped cybertronic motherboards adorned the otherwise bare walls. The Force roiled within the small space, a vast nebula of destiny compacted beneath this humblest of roofs.
"Yes, thank you," the lady of the house murmured, smiling ruefully as the tall man took his pensive leave.
The two brash scouts had died as warriors, befitting their rank and calling. Cauterized gashes scarred their pasty flash, now exposed to the sun and wind where the ritual wrappings had been torn away, an obscenity more offensive than mere mutilation of the body. The Watcher circled his latest victims contemplatively, lip curling, head coked to one side. Beneath the obscuring layers of linen and starched therm weave, the Raiders were shriveled, pallid, and repugnant. Sores dotted their limbs and torsos, places where a grain of sand had worked its way beneath the tight layers, abrasions that had grown into festering pits, then scabbed-over craters. The cadavers looked like broken arthropods skinned of their exoskeletons, left to roast upon death's bleak shores.
The Dark lapped and foamed at his heels, sibilant waves licking at the edges of oblivion. He wetted his lips and sucked in a deep breath, tasting the sharp wind. Dawn was coming.
When these two fools were missed, their fellows would come looking. And the desecration here enacted: the slain warriors, the rotting krayt's corpse, crawling with the ravenous forms of scavengers – some already sniffing at the new feast laid out for their pleasure, the beetles already glutting themselves on glazed eyes and worming their way into unprotected, moisture-rich orifices…. When they beheld all this, the wrath of the tribe would flare high, a consuming bonfire.
And when the arrogant settlers arrived on the scene, innocent of the night's predations, there would be yet more blood. The Watcher need not even lift a finger to butcher such unworthy victims. The cycle of warfare, of petty strife, would leave a broad swath of crimson upon the sand, a fourth offering upon this already reeking altar.
And with the wholesale slaughter of innocents – Tuskens, farmers, both, it mattered little – the final bait would be laid, and the last course in this banquet of death served. The Jedi master would come flying to the scene, an angel bent on his mission, a guardian of justice, an old fool led like a bleating lamb to the slaughter. And to that sacrifice there would be but one chosen witness, one who would be irrevocably stained by its hot and bitter outpouring, one wedded to its excoriating memory or to soul-consuming vengeance ever after.
He clawed at the burning wound upon his chest and longed for this next day, for the consummation of his labors. Today, at long last, he would be revealed in his true power. This day, this sacrosanct day beneath hells' leering eyes, he would bring a Jedi to his knees.
And earn the title Darth. Lord of the howling Dark.
The comm connection was fractured, of poor quality and too tenuous to sustain a holographic image. The shuttle's booster was barely strong enough to relay the signal to the nearest hub; Qui-Gon stood on the very outskirts of the settlement and made do with a voice-only transmission to the Temple. He was lucky to achieve that much.
Perhaps he was lucky to achieve that little; he would rather not, for instance, have to see the look on Mace Windu's face as he made his current outrageous request.
"You want a special courier to deliver how much raw aurodium?" the Korun Jedi rumbled, disbelief bleeding through his rich baritone in dripping puddles.
Qui-Gon shifted testily. "Republic credits are worthless this far out. I need to secure the boy's freedom, as speedily as possible."
There followed a significant pause. He could well imagine the frisson currently passing round the Council chamber on Coruscant. "And you ask us to authorize this purchase on the evidence of your word?"
"My judgment, yes." His eyes narrowed, sensing his colleague's dubiety. "There is a significant vergence in the Force here… centering about the boy. Or…"
"Or what, Master Qui-Gon?" old Yoda prompted, impatiently.
The ancient Jedi would only grow more cantankerous were the question evaded. Qui-Gon braced himself. "Obi-Wan encountered him first, and felt the disturbance most strongly. I believe that the vergence may be an effect of their proximity to one another… and to the Sith."
The daring assertion fell and shattered like breaking glass. Silence was his only answer for a long handful of seconds.
"Kenobi was ordered back here days ago," Mace growled. "If you are in contact, relay our strong displeasure to him. Tatooine was not on his reported itinerary."
"The Force leads; we obey," Qui-Gon snapped back.
"Like teacher, like student," the Grand Master snorted. "SIth , say you, Qui-Gon? So sure can you be?"
"The same being he has encountered before. We believe it is hunting the boy."
"You believe a great many things, Qui-GOn," came the vexed reply. Mace's tone was clipped, tension-fraught. "All of them highly improbable. The Sith have been extinct for a thousand years; the prophecy of the Chosen One is obscure and difficult to interpret; both you and your former apprentice are currently operating without the sanction of this Council, far outside Republic boundaries and jurisdiction. Tell me why we should risk the Order's resources on another of your quixotic crusades?"
Qui-Gon fumed, grinding a small rock to dust beneath one boot heel.
And then, against all precedent and expectation, his cause won itself a powerful champion.
"We should risk whatever is required," Yan Dooku's silken voice interjected, "Lest we risk the welfare of the Order itself. Qui-Gon is quite justified. If this Council persists in bureaucratic obduracy , I shall fund the transaction from my private familial trust. …. And if a purported Sith is present on Tatooine, we will send a team of Sentinels to the sector posthaste. He must be apprehended."
Blinking in astonishment, the infamous maverick found himself every bit as stunned and speechless as his contemporaries in the Council chamber megaparsecs away. "….Thank you, my master," he managed to stutter out, uttering the phrase with absolute sincerity for the first time in decades.
"Hhmmph," Master Yoda chuffed.
"Very well," Mace conceded, tightly.
A taut, humorless smile seemed to parenthesize Dooku's next words. "Be mindful, my old friend, and exhort Kenobi to the same. A Sith- if indeed this interloper is such – should not be underestimated."
"As you say," Qui-Gon gravely agreed.
"Then may the Force be with you both."
Author's Note: As the day of destiny approaches for our protagonists, I feel it is time to decide another point of rampant speculation and dispute: the fate of Obi-Wan's luxuriant Jedi mullet. While authorial privilege grants me sole prerogative to lop it or leave it, I am yet mindful that (in the words of the hero himself) ourallegiance is to the Republic, Anakin! To democracy! In the same noble spirit, therefore, it seems fitting to put this burning question To The Vote. All who weigh in by PM or review shall be tallied in the final account. Thus far the ballots have been cast evenly: upon the "Lop It Off" side of the debate we have the openly expressed opinions of Qui-Gon Jinn (1), Bant Eerin (1), and Torbb Bakk'ile (1), while the "Leave It Long" contingent is currently represented by Siri Tachi (3). Those sending in absentee ballots from the netherworld of the Force will not be given special consideration; only Padawan Tachi may cast more than one vote; all responses must be submitted before The End of this present installment. *sharpens virtual barber's shears*