“Without a doubt,” Panaka said, “this droid saved the ship. As well as our lives.”
The Queen smiled at the little droid. “It is to be commended. What is its number?”
The droid beeped. The captain leaned over. Brushing dirt from the droid’s side, he read aloud, “R2-D2, Your Highness.”
“Thank you, Artoo-Detoo,” the Queen said. “You have proven to be very loyal. Padmé!”
The Queen’s favorite handmaiden came forward and bowed.
“Clean this droid up as best you can,” the Queen told her. “It deserves our gratitude.” She turned back to the captain. “Continue, Captain Panaka.”
Panaka glanced toward Qui-Gon and hesitated. Taking advantage of the captain’s uncertainty, Qui-Gon stepped forward and said, “Your Highness, we are heading for a remote planet called Tatooine. It’s a system far beyond the reach of the Trade Federation. We’ll make repairs there, then travel on to Coruscant.”
“Your Highness,” Captain Panaka put in, “Tatooine is very dangerous. It’s controlled by an alliance of gangs called the Hutts. I do not agree with the Jedi on this.”
It’s not the first time someone’s disagreed with my plans, and I doubt it will be the last, Qui-Gon thought, amused. But all he said was, “You must trust my judgment, Your Highness.”
The Queen exchanged a long look with Padmé. Then she nodded. That handmaiden has too much influence on the Queen, Qui-Gon thought. It could mean trouble.
Spaceship no goody place for Gungans, Jar Jar thought as he poked about in the storage cabinets. Every time he touched something, someone shouted at him to leave it alone. And when they didn’t shout, whatever he touched spat springs or sparks or bits of metal, and then they shouted. And he had no job here—no clams to dig or subs to guide.
At the back of the cabinet, he found an oilcan. Maybe he could be useful to somebody after all. He picked it up and bounded into the central area of the ship, where the Queen’s handmaiden was cleaning up Artoo-Detoo. “Hidoe!” he sang out as he came through the door.
The girl jumped and let out a scream. Artoo whistled reproachfully.
“Sorry,” Jar Jar said, embarrassed. “No meanen to scare yousa.”
“That’s all right,” the girl said kindly.
“I scovered oily back dare,” Jar Jar said, holding out the oilcan. “Needen it?”
She smiled and took the can. “Thank you. This little guy is quite a mess.”
“Mesa JaJa Binkssss,” Jar Jar said.
“I’m Padmé,” the girl told him. “I attend Her Highness.” She looked at him curiously. “You’re a Gungan, aren’t you?”
Jar Jar nodded. Most Naboo didn’t like Gungans any more than Gungans liked them, but this girl seemed nice. And she not yelling over little mistakings, like everybody else.
“How did you end up here with us?” Padmé asked.
“My no know,” Jar Jar replied. He thought for a moment. “Mesa day starten pitty okeyday, witda brisky morning munchen. Den boom—” He pantomimed the giant, headlike troop transport. “Getten berry skeered, un grabben dat Jedi, and before mesa knowen it—pow! Mesa here.” With spaceships shooting and more dangerness than core monsters. And hyperdrive going bad, and maybe booming everybody before wesa getting to planet. He shrugged, unable to put it all into words. “Getten berry berry skeered.”
The thing Qui-Gon hadn’t expected about Tatooine was the light.
He had visited other desert planets, so he had expected the heat, and the air so dry that it was painful to breathe too rapidly. He had expected the endless yellow sand, the low hiss of the dawn wind, and the seedy atmosphere of the spaceports. But he had not expected the light.
The twin suns were just far enough apart to erase each other’s shadows, except beneath the largest cliffs. At dawn and sunset, buildings and people cast long, double shades, but during the main part of the day, everything was drenched in light. It was ironic, Qui-Gon thought, that such a light-soaked planet should be home to so many criminals and outcasts.
Ric Olié had set the Naboo Queen’s Royal Starship down on the outskirts of a small spaceport. Mos Espa, the navigation system called it. After some quick consultation, they agreed that Obi-Wan would stay with the ship to guard the Queen, while Qui-Gon went in search of the parts they needed.
The hyperdrive generator had failed completely as they landed. It’s a good thing it didn’t give out between star systems, Qui-Gon thought, looking down at the mess Obi-Wan had just hauled out of the drive compartment. Perhaps that was what had made him so uneasy, these last few hours…but no, he could still feel disquiet in the Force.
He leaned closer, as if to inspect the drive. “Don’t let them send any transmissions while we’re gone,” he said softly to Obi-Wan. “Be wary. I sense a disturbance in the Force.”
“I feel it also, Master,” Obi-Wan said.
Satisfied, Qui-Gon collected Artoo-Detoo and Jar Jar, and started for the city. They were only a few meters from the boarding ramp when someone shouted. Qui-Gon looked back. Captain Panaka and Padmé, the Queen’s handmaiden, walked toward him. He noted with misgiving that Padmé wore rough-spun peasant clothes.
“Her Highness commands you to take her handmaiden with you,” Captain Panaka said as he came up to Qui-Gon. “She wishes for her to observe—”
“No more commands from Her Highness today, Captain,” Qui-Gon interrupted, shaking his head. “This spaceport is not going to be pleasant.”
“I’ve been trained in defense,” Padmé said. “I can take care of myself.”
Qui-Gon eyed her narrowly. This might be the Queen’s command, but he sensed that the original idea had come from this girl. The last thing he needed was a spoiled handmaiden to watch out for, but…“I don’t have time to argue,” he said. “But this is not a good idea.” He gave Padmé a stern look. “Stay close to me.”
The girl nodded, and fell into line next to Artoo-Detoo. Artoo whistled happily at her, and Jar Jar smiled.
The twin suns beat down on the little group as they made their way into the city, but Amidala hardly noticed. Everything was so different from Naboo—the dry air, the endless yellow sand, the lumpy buildings of the spaceport—and the heat was only one more difference to wonder at. It had not been easy to convince Captain Panaka to risk letting her come, but she was already glad she had. As long as everyone thinks I’m plain Padmé, I’m hardly in any more danger than I would be at the ship. And so far, nobody suspects.
Walking on the loose desert sand was tiring. Even in the city, most of the streets were unpaved, though at least the constant traffic on the busier streets had packed the surface down. Artoo-Detoo didn’t seem bothered, but Jar Jar complained bitterly.
Qui-Gon led them to a small open area surrounded by piles of worn-looking equipment and irregular, sand-colored shops. It looked very unpromising to Amidala, but Qui-Gon took a brief look around and nodded. “We’ll try one of the smaller dealers,” he said, and headed for a little shop with a stack of spaceship parts towering behind it.
As they entered, a pudgy blue-gray alien flew up to them, his wings beating so rapidly that all Amidala could see was a blur. He was only about half as tall as Qui-Gon, but he hovered so that his face was at the same level as the Jedi’s.
“Hi chuba da nago?” he said to Qui-Gon.
“I need parts for a J-type 327 Nubian,” Qui-Gon replied in Basic.
“Ah, yes,” the alien said. When he spoke, his trunklike nose moved constantly. “Ah, yes, a Nubian. We have lots of that.” He shouted something out the rear door of the shop, then turned back to Qui-Gon. “What kinds of parts?”
“My droid here has a readout of what I need,” Qui-Gon said, waving at Artoo-Detoo.
A boy ran in through the rear door. He looked about nine years old, with light brown hair. His clothes were rough and ragged. The flying alien spoke to him briefly, then turned to Qui-Gon. “Sooo, let me take thee out back. You’ll find what you need.”
Qui-Gon and Artoo f
ollowed the junk dealer out the back door. Amidala wondered whether she should go with them—Qui-Gon had said to stay close. But Jar Jar clearly planned to stay inside, and somebody ought to keep an eye on him. It was all very well for Qui-Gon to say, “Don’t touch anything,” but Jar Jar was already studying the machines on the shelves with interest. I’ll stay here, for now, she decided.
The boy seated himself on the counter and began to polish a piece of metal. As he worked, he stared at Amidala. His gaze made her uncomfortable; she caught herself wondering whether she had a smudge on her nose, or a leaf stuck in her hair. This is ridiculous, she thought. Forcing a smile, she turned away.
“Are you an angel?”
“What?” Amidala looked back at the boy, startled.
“An angel,” the boy said seriously, his blue eyes fixed on her face. “They live on the moons of Iego, I think. They are the most beautiful creatures in the universe. They’re good and kind, and so pretty they make even the most hardened space pirate cry.”
Amidala was too astonished to answer. Finally, she said, “I’ve never heard of angels.”
The boy studied her, no longer pretending to polish his bits of metal. “You must be one,” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Maybe you just don’t know it.”
At home, in the palace, she would have dismissed the remark as mere flattery. But this boy meant every word; somehow, she was sure of it. He felt like a friend she had known all her life—but I just met him! “You’re a funny little boy,” she said. “How do you know so much?”
“I listen to all the traders and pilots who come through here,” the boy replied. He gave her a sidelong look. “I’m a pilot, you know. Someday I’m going to fly away from this place.”
Amidala couldn’t blame him for wanting to leave the heat and the dryness and the mean-looking creatures in the streets outside. But eyeing his ragged clothes, she wondered whether he had any real chance of achieving his dream. “Um, you’re a pilot?” she asked.
“All my life,” the boy said.
The mental image of a baby in the cockpit of a starfighter made Amidala smile. “Have you been here long?”
“Since I was very little,” the boy replied. “Three, I think. My mom and I were sold to Gardulla the Hutt, but she lost us, betting on the Podraces with Watto. Watto’s a lot better master than Gardulla, I think.”
Sold? Master? Lost us? Amidala felt her smile slip. “You’re…a slave?”
The boy’s head came up, and he stuck out his chin. “I am a person. My name is Anakin.”
“I’m sorry,” Amidala said hastily. “I don’t fully understand. This is a strange world to me.”
A crash made them both jump. Amidala turned to see that Jar Jar had accidentally started up an odd little droid. The droid marched around at random, knocking things over, with Jar Jar clinging to it and shrieking. Oh, and I was going to watch him! Amidala thought.
“Hit the nose!” Anakin shouted. Jar Jar did, and the droid stopped and folded itself together. Amidala sighed in relief, then had to laugh at Jar Jar’s sheepish expression.
Anakin laughed, too, but sobered quickly. He gave her another of his intent stares and said suddenly, “I’m going to marry you.”
Amidala could not help laughing again. A slave boy, marrying the Queen of Naboo? But here she was only Padmé, she reminded herself.
At least Anakin did not seem put out by her involuntary laughter. “I mean it,” he said seriously.
“You are an odd one,” Amidala said. “Why do you say that?”
“I guess because it’s true.”
Something in the boy’s manner made Amidala shiver. He seemed so sure. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t marry you,” Amidala told him. “You’re just a little boy.”
Anakin fixed her with his clear blue eyes. “I won’t always be,” he said simply.
A cold chill ran down Amidala’s back, and she stared at him, unable to think of any response. He sounds…older when he says that. And so positive. What does it mean?
“Here it is!” the junk dealer cried, hovering in front of a pile of dusty parts. “A T-14 hyperdrive generator! Thee in luck. Saying of which, how’s thee going to pay for all this?”
“I have 20,000 Republic dataries,” Qui-Gon told him. Finding the parts so quickly meant that they could install the new hyperdrive and get off planet long before—
“Republic credits?” the junk dealer said indignantly. “Republic credits are no good out here. I need something more real.”
There had to be a hitch, Qui-Gon thought. Luckily, this one was small, and easily dealt with. “I don’t have anything else,” he told the dealer. Waving his hand in the mind-altering gesture all Jedi learned, he nudged the alien’s mind and added, “But credits will do fine.”
“No, they won’t,” the dealer growled, wriggling his nose.
Surprised, Qui-Gon repeated the gesture and nudged harder. “Credits will do fine.”
“No, they won’t,” the dealer said, more loudly than before. “What, you think you’re some kind of Jedi, waving your hand around like that? I’m a Toydarian. Mind tricks don’t work on me. Only money.” He rubbed two clawed fingers together in the universal gesture for cash. “No money, no parts! And no one else has a T-14 hyperdrive, I promise you that!”
He was probably telling the truth. Dealers kept track of one another, and if anyone else had a hyperdrive to sell, this fellow might not have been so stubborn about the credits. Well, perhaps they could trade something from the ship for a new drive. Qui-Gon collected Padmé, Artoo, and Jar Jar, and they left the dealer’s shop.
As soon as he found a quiet spot, Qui-Gon called the ship on his comlink. He explained the problem, then said, “You’re sure there isn’t anything of value left on board?”
Obi-Wan shook his head. “Not enough for you to barter with. Not in the amounts you’re talking about.”
“All right,” Qui-Gon said. “Another solution will present itself. I’ll check back.” He put his comlink away, and started back out onto the main street.
“Noah gain,” Jar Jar said, grabbing his arm. “Wesa be robbed un crunched.”
“Not likely,” Qui-Gon told him. “We have nothing of value.” He sighed. “That’s our problem.” And if we can’t solve it, we’ll be stuck here for a long, long time.
Anakin was still thinking about the strangers when he left Watto’s junk shop and headed for home. They seemed different from the farmers and smugglers who usually did business with Watto. Especially Padmé. She was…even more different than the others. Anakin kicked at the sand. He felt as if he’d known her forever, even longer than all his life. That’s silly, he thought…but it was still the way he felt. And she’d apologized to him for calling him a slave. Nobody had ever done that before. For a while, she made it not matter that I’m a slave. I forgot all about it when I was talking to her. And she’d been so interested in everything he said. Not even his best friends listened like that. Not even his mom.
Maybe they’d come back to Watto’s shop before they left Tatooine. They hadn’t bought anything, but Watto hadn’t been as grouchy as he usually was when he lost a sale. Maybe it was because he knew nobody else had what they wanted. Maybe they’d have to come back before they left the planet.
As he turned onto the market street, Anakin saw one of the strangers ahead of him—the froglike nonhuman one. Sebulba was pushing him around. Anakin swallowed. Sebulba was a Dug, and the biggest bully in Mos Espa. He could use all four arms interchangeably, as long as he left himself one to stand on, so his opponents could never tell where the next blow was coming from. It gave him a big advantage in most fights.
A crowd had gathered to watch. Anakin crushed his fear down until it almost didn’t exist, and shoved his way through the crowd. “Careful, Sebulba,” he said in Huttese. “This one’s very well connected.” If I can get Sebulba to believe that, he’ll leave. Nobody messes with the Hutts.
Sebulba stopped shoving the stranger
with any of his hands and glowered at Anakin instead. “Connected? What do you mean, slave?”
“As in Hutt,” Anakin said, crushing his anger at being called a slave, just as he had crushed his fear. “Big-time outlander, this one. I’d hate to see you diced before we race again.”
“Next time we race, wermo, it will be the end of you,” Sebulba snarled. “If you weren’t a slave, I’d squash you right now.”
“Yeah,” Anakin muttered bitterly as Sebulba turned away. “It’d be a pity if you had to pay for me.”
As the disappointed crowd started to break up, the rest of the strangers arrived. “Hi!” Anakin said to Padmé. “Your buddy here was about to be turned into orange goo. He picked a fight with a Dug.”
“Nosir, nosir,” said the alien that Anakin had rescued. “Mesa hate crunchen. Dat’s da last ting mesa wanten.”
“Nevertheless, the boy is right,” the tall, bearded stranger said. “You were heading for trouble.” He turned to Anakin. “Thank you, my young friend.”
“Mesa doen nutten!” the alien insisted.
“Fear attracts the fearful,” Anakin told him. “He was trying to overcome his fear by squashing you.” The alien stared at him in astonishment. “Be less afraid,” Anakin finished.
The tall man gave him a sharp look. Padmé smiled and said, “And that works for you?”
“To a point,” Anakin said, returning her smile. His own fear had uncoiled and faded away now that the chance of a fight had passed…all but a hard little core. But that fear had been with him since the day he was old enough to understand what being a slave meant. He was used to it, and used to hiding it.
Padmé gave him an understanding smile, and for a moment Anakin wondered whether she had fears that had to be crushed sometimes. Then the tall man gestured, and the group continued down the street. They didn’t seem to mind that Anakin had joined them.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace Page 4