by Terry Brooks
She touched his arm, drawing his eyes to meet hers. "Can you help him?"
Qui-Gon was silent for a long time, thinking. He felt an attachment to Anakin Skywalker he could not explain. In the back of his mind, he sensed he was meant to do something for this boy, that it was necessary he try. But all Jedi were identified within the first six months of birth and given over to their training. It was true for him, for Obi-Wan, for everyone he knew or had heard about. There were no exceptions.
Can you help him? He did not know how that was possible.
"I don't know," he told 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 nodded in resignation, but her face revealed, beneath the mask of her acceptance, a glimmer of hope.
As Anakin tightened the wiring on the thruster relays to the left engine, a group of his friends appeared. The older boys were Kitster and Seek, the younger girl was Amee, and the Rodian was Waldo Anakin broke off his efforts to complete the wiring long enough to introduce them to Padme, Jar Jar, and R2-D2.
"Wow, a real astromech droid!" Kitster exclaimed, whistling softly. "How'd you get so lucky?"
Anakin shrugged. "That isn't the half of it," he declared, puffing up a bit. "I'm entered in the Boonta tomorrow."
Kitster made a face and pushed back his mop of dark hair. "What? With this? "
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"That piece of junk has never even been off the ground," Wald said, nudging Arnee. "This is such a joke, Annie."
"You've been working on that thing for years," Arnee observed, her small, delicate features twisting in disapproval. She shook her blond head. "It's never going to run."
Anakin started to say something in defense of himself, then decided against it. Better to let them think whatever they wanted for now. He would show them.
"Corne on, let's go play ball," Seek suggested, already turning away, a hint of boredom in his voice. "Keep it up, Annie, and you're gonna be bug squash."
Seek, Wald, and Arnee hurried off, laughing back at him. But Kitster was his best friend and knew better than to doubt Anakin when he said he was going to do something. So Kitster stayed behind, ignoring the others. "What do they know?" he said quietly.
Anakin gave him a grin of appreciation. Then he noticed Jar Jar fiddling with the left engine's energy binder plate, the power source that locked the engines together and kept them in sync, and the grin disappeared.
"Hey! Jar Jar!" he shouted in warning. "Stay away from those energy binders!"
The Gungan, bent close to the protruding plate, looked up guiltily. "Who, me?"
Anakin put his hands on his hips. "If your hand gets caught in the beam, it will go numb for hours."
Jar Jar screwed up his face, then put his hands behind his back and stuck his billed face back down by the plate. Almost instantly an electric current arced from the plate to his mouth, causing him to yelp and jump back in shocked surprise. Both
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hands clamped over his mouth as he stood staring at the boy in disbelief.
"1st numm! 1st numm!" Jar Jar mumbled, 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 moved close to him, watching silently, his dark face intense. "You don't even know if this thing will run, Annie," he observed with a frown.
Anakin didn't look up. "It will."
Qui-Gon Jinn appeared at his shoulder. "I think it's about time we found out." He handed 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 twitched in a mix of embarrassment and amusement.
Anakin knew the value of a power pack. How the J edi had managed to secure one from under Watto's nose, he had no idea and no interest in finding out. "Yes, sir!" he beamed.
He jumped into the cockpit, fitted the power pack into its sleeve in the control panel, and set the activator to the ON position. Then he pulled on his old, dented racing helmet and gloves. As he did so, Jar Jar, who had been fiddling around at the back of one of the engines, managed to get his hand caught in the afterburner. The Gungan began leaping up and down in terror, his mouth still numb from the shock he had received from the energy binders, his bill flapping to no discernible purpose. Padme caught sight of him at the last minute-his arms wind^milling frantically-and yanked him free an instant before the engines ignited.
Flame exploded from the afterburners, and a huge roar rose from the Radon - Ulzers, building steadily in pitch until Anakin
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eased off on the thrusters, then settling back into a throaty rumble. Cheers rose from the spectators, and Anakin waved his hand in response.
On the porch of their home, Shmi Skywalker watched wordlessly, her eyes distant and sad.
Twilight brought a blaze of gold and crimson in the wake of Tatooine's departing suns, a splash of color that filled the horizon in a long, graceful sweep. Night climbed after, darkening the sky, bringing out the stars like scattered shards of crystal. In the deepening black, the land was silent and watchful.
A gleam of bright metal caught the last of the fading suns' rays, and a small transport sped out of the Dune Sea toward Mos Espa. Shovel-nosed and knife-edged, its wings swept back and its vertical stabilizers crimped inward top to bottom, it hugged the landscape as it climbed promontories and descended valleys, searching. Dark and immutable, it had the look of a predator, of a hunter at work.
Beyond the Dune Sea, following the failing light, the craft settled swiftly on the broad plateau of a mesa that gave a long^range view of the land in all directions. Wild banthas scattered with its approach, tossing their hairy heads and massive horns, trumpeting their disapproval. The transport came to rest and its engines shut down. It sat there in silence, waiting.
Then the aft hatchway slid open, metal stairs lowered, and Darth Maul appeared. The Sith Lord had discarded his black robes and wore loose-fitting desert garb, a collared coat belted at the waist, his lightsaber hanging within easy reach. His stunted horns, fully exposed now with his hood removed, formed a wicked crown above his strange red-and-black-colored face. Ignoring the banthas, he walked to the edge of the mesa, produced
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a pair of low-light electrobinoculars, and began to scan the horizon in all directions.
Desert sand and rocks, he was thinking. Wasteland. But a city there, and another there. And there, a third.
He took the electro binoculars from his eyes. The lights of the cities were clearly visible against the growing dark. If there were others, they were far on the other side of the Dune Sea where he had already been, or beyond the horizon much farther still where he would later be required to go.
But the Jedi, he believed, were here.
There was no expression on his mosaic face, but his yellow eyes gleamed expectantly. Soon now. Soon.
He lifted his arm o view the control panel strapped to his forearm, picked out the settings he wished to engage, and punched in the calcqiations required to identify the enemy he was looking for. Jedi Knights would manifest a particularly strong presence in the Force. It took only a minute. He turned back toward his ship. Spherical probe droids floated through the hatchway, one after another. When all were clear, they rocketed away toward the cities he had identified.
Darth Maul watched until they were out of view, the darkness closing quickly now. He smiled faintly. Soon.
Then he walked back to his ship to begin monitoring their response.
Darkness cloaked Mos Espa in deepening layers as night descended. Anakin sat quietly on the balcony rail of his back porch while Qui-Gon st
udied a deep cut in the boy's arm. Anakin had sustained the cut sometime during the afternoon's prep work on the Podracer, and in typical boy fashion, he hadn't even noticed it until now.
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Anakin gave the injury a cursory glance as the Jedi prepared to clean it, then leaned back to look up at the blanket of stars in the sky.
"Sit still, Annie," Qui-Gon instructed.
The boy barely heard him. "There are so many! Do they all have a system of planets?"
"Most of them." Qui-Gon produced a clean piece of cloth.
"Has anyone been to all of them?"
Qui-Gon laughed. "Not likely."
Anakin nodded, still looking up. "I want to be the first one then, the first to see them all-ouch!"
Qui-Gon wiped a smear of blood from the boy's arm, then applied some antiseptic. "There, good as new."
"Annie! Bedtime!" Shmi called out from inside. -
Qui-Gon produced a comlink chip and wiped a sample of Anakin's blood onto its surface. The boy leaned forward interest^edly. "What are you doing?"
The Jedi barely looked up. "Checking your blood for infections."
Anakin frowned. "I've never seen-"
"Annie!" his mother called again, more insistent this time. "I'm not going to tell you again!"
"Go on," Qui-Gon urged, gesturing toward the doorway. "You have a big day tomorrow." He tucked the cloth into his tunic. "Good night."
Anakin hesitated, his eyes fixed on the Jedi Master, intense and questioning. Then he turned and darted off into his home. Qui-Gon waited a moment, making sure he was alone, then slipped the chip with the boy's blood sample into a relay slot in the comlink and called Obi-Wan aboard the Queen's transport.
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"Yes, Master?" his protege responded alert in spite of the lateness of the hour.
"I'm transmitting a blood sample," Qui-Gon advised, glancing about guardedly as he spoke. "Run a midi-chlorian test on it."
He sent the blood readings through the comlink to Obi-Wan and stood waiting in the silence. He could feel the beating of his heart, quick and excited. If he was right about this...
"Master," Obi-Wan interrupted his musings. "There must be something wrong with the sample."
Qui-Gon took a slow, deep breath and exhaled softly. "What do the readings say, Obi-Wan?"
"They say the midi-chlorian count is twenty thousand." The younger Jedi's voice tightened. "No one has a count that high. Not even Master Yoda."
No one. Qui-Gon stood staring out into the night, staggered by the immensity of his discovery. Then he let his gaze wander back toward the hovel where the boy was sleeping, and stiffened.
Shmi Skywalker stood just inside the doorway, staring at him. Their eyes met, and for just an instant it felt to the Jedi Master as if the future had been revealed to him in its entirety. Then Shmi turned away, embarrassed, and disappeared back into her home.
Qui-Gon paused a moment, then remembered the open comlink. "Good night, Obi-Wan," he said softly, and clicked the transmitter off.
Midnight approached. Anakin Skywalker, unable to sleep, had slipped out of his bed and gone down into the backyard to complete a final check of the racer, of its controls, its wiring, its relays, its power source-everything he could think of. Now he stood
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staring at it, trying. to determine what he might have missed, what he might have overlooked. He could afford no mistakes. He must make certain he had done all that he could.
So that he would win tomorrow's race.
Because he must.
He must.
He watched R2 - D2 scuttle around the racer, applying paint in broad strokes to its polished metal body, aidedy a light pro^jecting from a receptacle mounted over his visual sensors and a steady stream of advice from C- 3PO. The boy had activated the latter earlier on the advice of Padme. Many hands make light work, she had intoned solemnly, then grinned. C-3PO wasn't much with his hands, but his vocoder was certainly tireless. In any case, R2-D2 seemed to like having him around, exchanging beeps and chirps with his protocol counterpart as he scuttled about the racer. The little astromech droid worked tirelessly, cheerfully, and willingly. Nothing perturbed him. Anakin envied him. Droids were either well put together or they weren't. Unlike humans, they didn't respond to weariness or disappointment or fear...
He chased the thought away quickly and looked up at the starry sky. After a moment, he sat down, his back against a crate of old parts, his goggles and racing helmet at his side. Idly, he fin^gered the japor carving in his pocket, the one he was working on for Padme. His thoughts drifted. He couldn't explain it exactly, but he knew that tomorrow would change his life. That strange ability to see what others did not, that sometimes gave him insights into what would happen, told him so. His future was coming up on him in a rush, he sensed. It was closing fast, giving him no time to consider, ascending with the certainty of a sunrise.
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What would it bring him? The question teased at the edges of his consciousness, refusing to show itself. Change, but in what form? Qui-Gon and his companions were the bringers of that change, but he did not think even the J edi Knight knew for certain what the end result would be.
Maybe the freedom he had dreamed about for himself and his mother, he thought hopefully. Maybe an escape to a new life for both of them. Anything was possible if he won the Boonta. Anything at all.
That thought was still foremost in his cluttered, weary mind when his eyes closed and he fell asleep.
- -===12 = ==-
Anakin Skywalker dreamed that night, and in his dream he was of a different, but indeterminate age. He was young still, though not so young as now, but old, too. He was cut from stone, and his thoughts were emblazoned with a vision so frightening he could not bring himself to consider it fully, only to leave it just out of reach, simmering over a fire of ambition and hope. He was in a different place and time, in a world he did not recognize, in a landscape he had never seen. It was vague and shadowy in his dream, all flat and rugged at once, changing with the swiftness of a mirage born out ofTatooine's desert flats.
The dream shimmered, and voices reached out to him, soft and distant. He turned toward them, away from a wave of dark movement that suddenly appeared before him, away from the sleep that gave his dream life.
"I hope you're about finished," he heard Padme say.
But Padme was at the head of the dark wave of his dream, and the wave was an army, marching toward him...
R2 - D2 whistled and beeped, and C-3PO chimed in with
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hasty assurances, saying everything was done, all was in readiness, and he stirred again.
A hand touched his cheek, brushing it softly, and the dream faded and was gone. Anakin blinked awake, rubbing at his eyes, yawning and turning over on his side. He was no longer stretched out by the parts crate where he had fallen asleep the night before, but was back in his own bed.
The hand lifted away from his cheek, and Anakin stared up at Padmt, at a face he found so beautiful it brought a tightness to his throat. Yet he stared at her in confusion, for she had been the central figure in his dream, different from now, older, sadder... and something more.
"You were in my dream," he said, swallowing hard to get the words out. "You were leading a huge army into battle."
The girl stared at him in wonder, then smiled. "I hope not. 1 hate fighting." Her voice was merry and light, dismissive in a way that bothered him. "Your mother wants you to get up now. We have to leave soon."
Anakin climbed to his feet, fully awake. He walked to the back door and stood looking out at the anthill complex of the slave quarters, at the bustle of slaves going about their daily work, at the clear, bri
ght early morning sky that promised good weather for the Boonta Eve race. The Podracer hung level before him on its antigrav lifts, freshly painted and gleaming in the new day's sunlight. R2 - D2 bustled about with a brush and can of paint, completing the final detailing of the craft. C-3PO, still missing most of his outer skin, his working parts clearly visible, followed along, pointing out missed patches, giving unsolicited opinions and bits of advice.
The sharp wheeze of an eopie brought him around to find Kitster riding toward them on the first of two of the beasts he
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had commandeered to help haul the Podracer to the arena. Kitster's dark face was aglow with expectation, and he waved eagerly at Anakin as he approached.
Anakin waved back, shouting, "Hook 'ern up, Kitster!" He turned back to Padrne. "Where's Qui-Gon?"
The girl gestured. "He left with Jar Jar for the arena. They've gone to find Watto."
Anakin sprinted to his bedroom to wash and dress.
Qui-Gon Jinn strolled through the main hangar of the Mos Espa Podracer arena, glancing at the activity about him with seemingly casual interest. The hangar was a cavernous building that housed Podracers and equipment year round and served as a staging area for vehicles and crews on race days. A handful of racers were already in place on the service pads, dozens of aliens who had found their way to Tatooine from every corner of the galaxy crawling all over the Pods and engines as pit bosses and pilots shouted instructions. The clash and shriek of metal on metal. echoed in an earsplitting din through the hangar's vast chamber, forcing conversations to be held at something approaching a shout.