by Terry Brooks
Padmé appeared and bent down to kiss Anakin’s cheek. Her dark eyes were intense. “You carry all our hopes,” she said quietly.
Anakin’s lower lip jutted out. “I won’t let you down.”
She gave him a long stare, then moved away. As she did so, Sebulba sidled up to him, his wizened, whiskery face angling close.
“You won’t walk away from this one, slave scum,” he wheezed softly, grinning. “You’re bantha poodoo.”
Anakin stood his ground, giving the Dug a stony look. “Don’t count on it, slime face.”
Qui-Gon was approaching, and Sebulba backed away toward his own racer, malevolence mirrored in his flat stare. Horns blared, and a new roar rose from the crowd. Jabba the Hutt oozed to the lip of the royal box, his thick arms lifting.
“Kaa bazza kundee da tam hdruddal” he growled. “Let the challenge begin!”
The roar of the crowd began to build even further. Qui-Gon helped Anakin climb into his Pod. The boy settled himself in place in the seat, securing his straps, fitting his old, battered racing helmet over his head and bringing down his goggles.
“Are you all set, Annie?” the Jedi Master asked calmly. The boy nodded, eyes intense, steady. Qui-Gon held his gaze. “Remember, concentrate on the moment. Feel, don’t think. Trust your instincts.”
He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and smiled. “May the Force be with you, Annie.”
Then he backed away, and Anakin Skywalker was alone.
Qui-Gon moved quickly through the crowd to the viewing platform where Shmi, Padmé, and Jar Jar waited. He glanced back only once at Anakin and found the boy calmly fitting his goggles in place. The Jedi Master nodded to himself. The boy would do all right.
He mounted the viewing platform with Jar Jar and the women just as it began to lift into position for the race. Shmi gave him a worried, questioning look.
“He’s fine,” Qui-Gon assured her, touching her shoulder.
Padmé shook her head doubtfully. “You Jedi are far too reckless,” she said quietly. “The Queen—”
“The Queen trusts my judgment, young handmaiden,” Qui-Gon interrupted smoothly, directing his words only to her. “Perhaps you should, too.”
She glared at him. “You assume too much.”
The viewing platform locked into place, and all eyes turned toward the racers. Energy binders were engaged, powerful electromagnetic currents arcing between coaxial plates, locking the twin engines of each Podracer together as a single unit. Now the engines themselves began to turn over, their booming coughs and rumbles mingling with and then overwhelming the roar of the crowd. Flag bearers and pit crews moved hastily aside, clearing the start line beneath the arch that marked the beginning and end of the race. Overhead, a red light held the racers in place. Anticipating the green, the pilots gunned their engines, the massive casings shaking with the force of the power they generated, the cables that bound them to the Pods and their drivers straining to break free.
Standing next to Qui-Gon, Jar Jar Binks covered his eyes in dismay. “Me no watch. Dis gonna be messy!”
Though he could not bring himself to say so, the Jedi Master was inclined to agree. Steady; Anakin Skywalker; he thought to himself. Concentrate.
Then the light over the starting line flashed bright green, and the race was under way.
When the starting light turned green, Anakin Skywalker jammed the twin thruster bars to the extreme forward position, sending maximum power to the Radon-Ulzers. The big rocket engines bucked, roared like a caged beast, and promptly died.
The boy froze. All around him, racers shot from the start in a cacophony of sound and a flashing of bright metal. Sand fountained in the wake of their passing, clouding the air in a whirlwind of grit. In seconds, the boy was alone, save for Ben Quadinaros’s Quadra-Pod, which sat stalled at the starting line in mirror image of his own.
Anakin’s mind raced desperately. He’d fed in too much fuel from a dead start. The reworked engines couldn’t handle all that power at once if the racer wasn’t already moving. He yanked back on the thruster bars, returning them to the neutral position. Ratcheting back the switches to the feeder dump, he cleared the lines, then sealed them anew. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the ignition buttons. The starters cranked over and caught, and the big Radon-Ulzers roared to life with a booming cough. He fed in fuel more cautiously this time, impatience flooding through him, then slid the thruster bars forward smoothly. The engines shot ahead, dragging the Pod and the boy after them, exploding out of the start.
Anakin gave chase with single-minded determination, not bothering with anything but the dots in the distance that marked the location of the other racers. He tore across the flats, the whine of the Pod’s engines growing steadily sharper, the land beneath fading to a wash of heat and light. The course was flat and open in the beginning, and he pushed the thruster bars forward some more. He was accelerating so quickly that everything about him turned swiftly to a sun-drenched blur.
Ahead, the first set of rock formations rose up against the horizon. Anakin could see the other Podracers now, bright metal shapes whipping across the flats, engines throwing off fire and smoke. He closed on them quickly, the Radon-Ulzers screaming. In an open stretch, he knew, there were no other engines that could match them.
A flush of white-hot excitement burned through him as he caught the trailing Podracers.
He hauled back on the thruster bars as he came up on them, giving himself space to maneuver. He went by two as if they were standing still, angling his way left and then right, threading the needle of space they had left between them. When he was clear, he fed power to the engines anew, and the g-force slammed him back against his padded seat. He caught multilimbed Gasgano next. Easing up to the Troiken’s snub-nosed Podracer, he got ready to pass. Arch Canyon loomed ahead, and he wanted to be clear of the others when he navigated through the ravine. Maneuvering cautiously, he prepared to overtake on the right. But Gasgano saw him, and quickly moved to cut him off. Anakin waited, then angled left for another try. Again, Gasgano cut him off. Back and forth they slid above the desert floor like a krayt dragon chasing a womp rat.
A cliff drop off a low mesa appeared as a ragged line on the horizon. Anakin slowed, giving Gasgano the impression he was preparing for a drop shift. The wiry pilot, glancing back quickly to make certain where the boy was, held his position until he reached the mesa edge, then took the drop first. The moment he did so, Anakin jammed the thruster bars all the way forward, and his racer accelerated with such speed that it rocketed right over the top of Gasgano before the other could do anything to prevent it.
The dark crease of the canyon loomed ahead, and Anakin threaded the eye of its needle opening with a seamstress’s skill, racing into the cool shadows beyond. The Radon-Ulzers hummed anxiously, the energy binders keeping them in sync, the Steelton cables drawing on the racing Pod with just the right amount of give through the wicked turns. Anakin worked the thruster bars with small, precise movements, envisioning the course in his mind—each twist, each deviation, each rise and drop. Everything was clear and certain to him. Everything was revealed.
He shot through the canyon and back out onto the open flats. Ahead, beyond a dozen others, Mawhonic and Sebulba fought for the lead. The Dug’s distinctive X-shaped engines lifted and rose, maneuvering for position. But Mawhonic’s slender racer was slowly gliding away.
Then Sebulba accelerated and swung violently left, careening toward the other pilot. Mawhonic reacted instinctively, swinging left as well—and directly into a massive rock formation. Mawhonic disappeared in a huge ball of flame and black smoke.
Next it was Xelbree challenging, trying to sneak past Sebulba from above, much as Anakin had done with Gasgano. But the Dug sensed his presence and rose to block his passage. Xelbree slid left, drawing alongside, holding fast. Sebulba seemed to lose ground, to give way slightly. But when Xelbree was next to him, the Dug triggered a side vent in his left exhaust. Fire spewed laterally into Xelbree�
�s engine, cutting apart the metal housing as if it were made of flimsiplast. Xelbree tried frantically to move away, but he was too slow. Fuel caught and ignited. The damaged engine exploded, and the remaining engine and its Pod flew off into a cliff face and shattered.
Without slowing, Sebulba sped away from the wreckage, alone at the head of the pack.
In the arena stands and from viewing platforms scattered throughout the course, the crowd watched the progress of the race on handheld viewscreens as pictures of the racers were transmitted from droid observation holocams. From a monitoring tower, a two-headed announcer who bantered incessantly with himself reported on the leaders. Qui-Gon studied a screen with Padmé and Shmi, but there was neither mention nor sight of Anakin. The announcer’s twin voices rose and fell in measured cadence, filling the air with their inflection, building in pitch to stir the already frenzied crowd.
Qui-Gon stared out into the flats, searching for movement. On his right, Jar Jar bickered with a skinny, sour-faced alien named Fanta, trying to peer over his shoulder, besieging him with questions, trying to make friends in the mistaken belief that because they looked vaguely alike, the Poldt would reciprocate his overtures. It wasn’t working out. Fanta wanted nothing to do with Jar Jar and kept his back turned to the Gungan, deliberately hiding the screen from view. Jar Jar was growing impatient.
Qui-Gon shifted his gaze. In the crew pits, R2-D2, C-3PO, and Kitster waited in solitary isolation.
In a private box somewhat in back of and lower than Jabba’s, Watto laughed and joked with his friends. The Toydarian flitted this way and that, catching glimpses of the race on various viewscreens, rubbing his hands together anxiously. He caught sight of Qui-Gon and gestured rudely, his meaning clear.
Below, at the start line, Ben Quadinaros still struggled to ignite the engines of his Quadra-Pod.
Qui-Gon closed his eyes and blocked everything away, sounds and movements alike, becoming one with the Force, disappearing into its flow, searching for Anakin. He stayed lost within himself as the roar of the crowd lifted anew, and the sound of rocket engines rose out of the distance. At the edge of the horizon, a clump of dark specks hove into view.
On the starting line, Ben Quadinaros finally managed to start the engines of his racer, all four bulbous monsters roaring to life, vibrating wildly within their casings. Engines and Pod lurched as Quadinaros locked in the thrusters. But in the next instant the energy binders collapsed under the strain, the connecting cables snapped, and the engines shot off in four separate directions, exploding against stone walls, rock formations, and low dune banks. The crowd gasped in shock, shielding eyes and covering ears as the Pod and Ben Quadinaros collapsed to the racetrack in a useless heap.
Almost simultaneously Sebulba’s racer screamed past the arena, shooting under the finish arch, and rocketing off on the start of the second lap. Two other racers followed, their engines roaring loudly as they whipped past, their colorful metal bodies agleam in the midday suns.
There was no sign of Anakin.
Qui-Gon kept his eyes closed, searching within his consciousness. Beside him, Shmi and Padmé exchanged worried glances. Jar Jar still hung on Fanta, pounding him on the back now in excitement as the other grimaced and tried to move away.
Three more racers tore past, the sound of their engines dying into silence as they faded from view. A fourth, Ody Mandrell, turned into the pits, the engines of his Pod shaking and smoking as he screeched to a stop. Pit droids rushed to service the racer, swarming over the engines. Ody stood up in the cockpit, a big, squat, reptilian Er’Kit, arms gesturing. But when the engines ignited anew, DUM-4, a pit droid, was standing at the left intake, and the engine sucked it inside, chewed it up, and spit it out the exhaust in a mangled heap.
The crowd went back to their viewscreens, intent on the race.
Then R2-D2, standing with Kitster and C-3PO at the edge of their station, gave an excited beep.
Qui-Gon’s eyes snapped open. “Here he comes!” he exclaimed quickly.
Anakin Skywalker exploded out of the midday glare, the big Radon-Ulzers howling in fury.
Amid the cheers and shouts of his companions and the crowd, Qui-Gon Jinn just smiled. Anakin had begun to overtake the pack.
At the beginning of the second lap, Anakin was in sixth place. As the race progressed, he was slowly disappearing into the workings of his racer, becoming one with its engines, feeling the strain and tug on each rivet and screw. Wind whipped by him in a screaming rush, locking him away in its white noise. There was only himself and the machine, all speed and response. It was the way racing affected him, melding his body with the Pod and engines until he was a part of both. Moment by moment, the symbiosis deepened, joining them, giving him insights and understandings that transcended his senses and knowledge, projecting him past the present and into a place others could not reach.
Approaching Arch Canyon, he bore down on the leaders, young face intense. Skimming the flats, he whipped past Aldar Beedo and sideslipped Clegg Holdfast. To one side, a fast-closing Ody Mandrell banked too hard over a sandy rise and caught his engine in the sand. Ody’s racer cartwheeled in a spectacular twisting of engines and Pod and exploded apart.
Anakin was only four racers back from Sebulba and could see the Dug’s craft clearly in the distance.
Everything happened quickly after that.
The racers whipped through Arch Canyon and out the other side in a ragged line, with Anakin narrowing the gap between himself and the others. Tusken Raiders, hiding in the rocks of the cliffs that formed the corner of Tusken Turn, got lucky and hit Teemto Pagalies. Teemto’s racer simply exploded and was gone. Anakin flew through the vaporized wreckage in pursuit of the others. He passed Elan Mak and Habba Kee in a rush. Ahead, Mars Guo was closing on Sebulba, wary of the Dug, keeping down and away, trying to sneak past. Anakin drew nearer to both, leapfrogging sand dunes in a long depression, easing slowly up on Mars Guo.
Suddenly Sebulba reached out of his Pod’s cockpit and released a ragged bit of metal directly into Mars Guo’s left engine intake. Metal clashed violently against metal, and the damaged engine began to spew smoke and fire. Mars tried to hold the machine steady, but the failing engine bucked and lost power, causing the Pod to veer sharply into Anakin. The racers collided in a shriek of metal, and a leading edge of Mars Guo’s vertical stabilizer snagged the Steelton line to Anakin’s left engine and released the binding.
Instantly Anakin’s Pod began to swing violently at the end of its single remaining line, whipsawing back and forth. The Radon-Ulzers continued to act in concert, locked together by the energy binders, but the racer was out of control. Anakin worked the stabilizer pedals with his feet, fighting to hold the Pod steady as it swung like a pendulum. The unhooked line snapped viciously in the wake of the engine’s exhaust, threatening to tangle or snag on an outcropping and drag the racer down. Anakin groped along the floor of his cockpit, searching for the magnetic retriever. When he found it, he flicked on the power button and extended the retriever out to the left side, trying to make contact with the loose line. The effort forced him to pull back on the thruster bars to cut power, and he fell behind Sebulba once more. Elan Mak, Habba Kee, and now Obitoki as well swept by him, giving chase to the Dug.
Anakin glanced frantically over his shoulder. The bulk of the pack was closing on him once more.
After a dozen tries, he finally focused his concentration sufficiently to snag the loose engine line with the retriever and maneuver it back to its hook. Sweat and grit coated his face, and his jacket sleeve was ripped. Casting down the retriever, he jammed the thruster bars forward once more. Stabilized at the ends of the Steelton lines, the Pod held steady now as the Radon-Ulzers bucked, and the racer accelerated after the leaders.
Anakin caught Elan Mak first and slid around him easily. He was closing on Habba Kee when Obitoki tried to pass Sebulba. The Dug waited until his rival had pulled alongside, then used the same tactic he had employed against Xelbree. Opening a smal
l side vent in the left exhaust, he sent a gush of fire into the housing of Obitoki’s right engine. Fuel in the lines caught fire and exploded, and Obitoki’s racer dived nose first into the desert, sending a wide spray of grit everywhere.
Habba Kee flew into it just ahead of Anakin, low and tight to the ground. Momentarily blinded, he swerved the wrong way and caught a piece of one of Obitoki’s engines where it jutted from the sand. Engines and Pod tangled and crashed in a wild explosion. Anakin followed Habba Kee into the smoke and grit, blinded as well. A piece of steaming metal flew at him out of the haze, careening off his right engine housing and barely missing his head. But the boy was seeing with more than his eyes, sensing with his mind, calm and steady within himself. He could feel the danger waiting, and he worked the thruster bars smoothly, sliding past the wreckage.
Then he was in the clear again and bearing down on Sebulba.
He caught the Dug as they screamed past the arena and under the finish arch for the start of the third and final lap.
In his mind, Anakin could see Qui-Gon and Jar Jar watching him; Kitster, standing in the crew pits, his friend cheering wildly, and R2-D2 and C-3PO, the former beeping, the latter nattering back at him in response; Padmé, her beautiful face framed with worry; and his mother, her eyes filled with terror. He could see them all, as if he were standing among them, standing outside himself, watching the race …
He blocked their faces away, banished the images from his thoughts, and focused everything on Sebulba.
They were speeding out of Arch Canyon when Sebulba decided to put an end to Anakin once and for all. The Dug knew where all the droid observation cams were situated. He knew the angles of placement and how to avoid giving himself away. Swinging his racer close to Anakin’s, he opened the side vent on his exhaust and tried to scorch the boy’s engine housing as he had done with Xelbree and Obitoki. But Anakin had fallen victim to that particular trick once before and was looking for it this time. He shifted just above the cutting flame and out of reach. When Sebulba tried to follow, Anakin dropped down again—but too far, momentarily losing control. His racer veered from the course right into a line of warning signs, sending them flying in all directions. Desperate to recover, he lifted the nose of his craft skyward, jammed his thruster bars forward, and accelerated. The Radon-Ulzers boomed, his racer gave a frightening lurch, and he leapfrogged right over Sebulba to take the lead.