The Phantom Menace

by Terry Brooks

  "I am afraid I lack the necessary medical training and information to make that determination, Master Anakin," C-3PO advised, cocking his head. "I certainly think you have done everything you possibly could."

  The boy nodded thoughtfully.

  "Master Anakin, we really shouldn't be out here at night," the droid observed after a moment. "This country is quite dangerous. "

  "But we couldn't leave him, could we?"

  "Oh, well, that's a very difficult determination to make." C-3PO pondered the matter.

  "We couldn't take him with us either."

  "Certainly not!"

  The boy sat in silence for a time, watching the Tusken sleep. He watched him for so long, in fact, that it came as something of a surprise when the Tusken finally stirred awake. It happened all at once, and it caught the boy off guard. The Tusken Raider shifted his weight with a lurching movement, exhaled sharply, propped himself up on one arm, looked at himself, then looked at the boy. The boy made no move or sound. The Tusken regarded him intently for a long minute, then slowly eased into a sitting position, his wounded leg stretched out in front of him.

  "Uh, hello," Anakin said, trying out a smile.

  The Tusken Raider made no response.

  "Are you thirsty?" the boy asked.

  No response.

  "I don't think he likes us very much," C-3PO observed.

  Anakin tried a dozen different approaches at conversation, but the Tusken Raider ignored them all. His gaze shifted only once, to where his blaster rifle lay propped against the rocks behind the boy.

  "Say something to him in Tusken," he ordered C-3PO finally.

  The droid did. He spoke at length to the Tusken in his own language, but the man refused to respond. He just kept staring at the boy. Finally, after C- 3PO had gone on for some time, the Tusken glanced at him and barked a single word in response.

  "Gracious!" the droid exclaimed.

  "What did he say?" the boy asked, excited.

  "Why he-he told me to shut up!"

  That was pretty much the end of any attempt at conversation. The boy and the Tusken sat facing each other in silence, their faces caught by the glow of the fire, the desert's darkness all around. Anakin found himself wondering what he would do if the Tusken tried to attack him. It was unlikely, but the man was large and fierce and strong, and if he reached the boy, he could easily overpower him. He could take back his blaster rifle and do with the boy as he chose.

  But somehow Anakin didn't sense that to be the Tusken's intent. The Tusken made no effort to move and gave no indication he had any intention of trying to do so. He just sat there, wrapped in his desert garb, faceless beneath his coverings, locked away with his own thoughts.

  Finally he spoke again. The boy looked quickly at C-3PO. "He wants to know what you are going to do with him, Master Anakin," the droid translated.

  Anakin looked back at the Tusken, confused. "Tell him I'm not going to do anything with him," he said. "I'm just trying to help him get well."

  C-3PO spoke the words in Tusken. The man listened. He made no response. He did not say anything more.

  Anakin realized suddenly that the Tusken was afraid. He could sense it in the way the other spoke, in the way he sat waiting. He was crippled and weaponless. He was at Anakin's mercy. The boy understood the Tusken's fear, but it surprised him anyway. It seemed out of character. The Sand People were supposed to be fearless. Besides, he wasn't afraid of the Tusken. Maybe he should have been, but he wasn't.

  Anakin Skywalker wasn't afraid of anything.

  Was he?

  Staring into the opaque lenses of the goggles that hid the Tusken Raider's eyes, he contemplated the matter. Most times he thought there was nothing that could frighten him. Most times he thought he was brave enough that he would never be afraid. But in that most secret part of himself where he hid the things he would reveal to no one, he knew he was cheating on the truth. He might not ever be afraid for himself, but he was sometimes very afraid for his mother.

  What if something were to happen to her? What if something awful were to happen to her, something he could do nothing to prevent?

  He felt a shiver go down his spine.

  What ifhe were to lose her?

  How brave would he be then, if the person he was closest to in the whole, endless universe was suddenly taken away from him? It would never happen, of course. It couldn't possibly happen.

  But what if it did?

  He stared at the Tusken Raider, and in the deep silence of the night he felt his confidence tremble like a leaf caught in the wind.

  He fell asleep finally, and he dreamed of strange things. The dreams shifted and changed without warning and took on different story lines and meanings as they did so. He was several things in the course of his dreams. Once he was a J edi Knight, fighting against things so dark and insubstantial he could not identify them. Once he was a pilot of a star cruiser, taking the ship into hyperspace, spanning whole star systems on his voyage. Once he was a great and feared commander of an army, and he came back to Tatooine with ships and troops at his command to free the planet's slaves. His mother was waiting for him, smiling, arms outstretched. But when he tried to embrace her, she vanished.

  There were Sand People in his dreams, too. They appeared near the end, a handful of them, standing before him with their blaster rifles and long gaffi sticks lifted and held ready. They regarded him in silence, as if wondering what they should do with him.

  He awoke then, jarred from his sleep by an unmistakable sense of danger. He jerked upright and stared about in confusion and fear. The glow unit had burned down to nothing. In the faint, silvery brightening of predawn, he found himself con^fronted by the dark, faceless shapes of the Sand People of his dreams.

  Anakin swallowed hard. Motionless figures against the hori^zon's dim glow, the Tusken Raiders encircled him completely. The boy thought to break and run, but realized at once how foolish that would be. He was helpless. All he could do was wait and set.. what they intended.

  A guttural muttering rose from their midst, and heads turned to look. Through a gap in the ranks, Anakin could just make out a figure being lifted and carried away. It was the Raider he had; rescued, speaking to his people. The other Raiders hesitated, then slowly backed away.

  I In seconds, they were gone.

  Sunlight began to crest the dark bulk of the Mospic, and C-3PO was speaking to him in a rush of words that tumbled over one another, the skeletal metal arms jerking this way and that.

  "Master Anakin, they've gone! Oh, we're lucky to be alive! Thank goodness they didn't hurt you!"

  Anakin climbed to his feet. There were Tusken Raider footprints everywhere. He glanced about quickly. The speeder and the draids obtained from the J awas sat undisturbed beneath the overhang. The Tusken blaster rifle was gone.

  "Master Anakin, what should we do?" C-3PO wailed in dismay.

  Anakin looked around at the empty canyon floor, at the high ragged walls of the cliff face, and at the brightening sky where the stars were fading away. He listened to the deep silence and felt impossibly alone and vulnerable.

  "We should go home," he whispered, and moved swiftly to make it happen.

  - ====,7=======-

  Nute Gunray stood in silence at the center of the palace throne room in the Naboo capital city ofTheed and listened patiently as Governor Sio Bibble protested the Trade Federation presence. Rune Haako stood at his side. Both wore their Federation robes of office and inscrutable expressions. Two dozen battle droids held the Naboo occupants of the room at gunpoint. The city had fallen shortly after sunrise. There had been little resistance; the Naboo were a peaceful people. The Trade Federation invasion had come as a surprise, and the droid army was inside the gates of the city before any substantial defense could be mounted. What few weapons there were had been confis^cated and the Naboo removed to detention camps. Battle droids were combing the city even now to put an end to any lingering resistance.

  Gunray resisted a
smile. Apparently the Queen had believed right up to the end that negotiations would prevail and the Senate would provide the people ofNaboo with protection.

  "It is bad enough, Viceroy, that you dare to disrupt transmissions between the Queen and Senator Palpatine while he is attempting to argue our cause before the Republic Senate, bad enough that you pretend that this blockade is a lawful action, but landing an entire army on our planet and occupying our cities is too outrageous for words."

  Sio Bibble was a tall, balding man with a sharply pointed beard and an even sharper tongue. He held the floor just at the moment, but Gunraywas getting tired of listening to him. He glanced at the other captives. Captain Panaka, the Queen's head of security, and four of the Queen's personal guards stood to one side, stripped of their weapons and helpless. Panaka was stone-faced and hard- eyed as he watched the Neimoidians. He was a big, powerfully built man with a dark, smooth face and quick eyes. The Neimoidian did not like the way those eyes were fixed on him.

  The Queen sat upon her throne, surrounded by her handmaidens. She was serene and aloof, detached from everything, as if what was taking place had no effect on her, could not touch her in any way. She wore black, her white-painted face in sharp contrast to the black feathered headdress that wrapped and framed it. A gold chain lay across her regal brow and the red beauty mark split her lower lip. She was considered beautiful, Gunray had been told, but he had no sense of human beauty and by Neimoidian standards she was simply colorless and small-featured.

  What interested him was her youth. She was barely out of girlhood, certainly not a full-grown woman, and yet the people of Naboo had chosen her as their Queen. This wasn't one of those monarchies where blood determined right of rule and dy^nasties prevailed. The Naboo chose the wisest among them as their ruler by popular acclaim, and Queen Amidala governed at the sufferance of her people. Why they would choose someone so young and naive was a mystery to him. From his point of view it certainly hadn't served them well in this instance.

  Governor Sio Bibble's voice echoed through the cavernous chamber, rising to the high, vaulted ceiling, bouncing off the smooth, sunlit walls. Theed was an opulent, prosperous city and the throne room reflected its history of success.

  "Viceroy, I ask you point-blank." Sio Bibble was concluding his oration. "How do you intend to explain this invasion to the Senate?"

  The Neimoidian's flat, reptilian countenance managed a small flicker of humor. "The Naboo and the Trade Federation will forge a treaty that will legitimize our occupation of Theed. I have been assured that such a treaty, once produced, will be quickly ratified by the Senate."

  "A treaty?" the governor exclaimed in astonishment. "In the face of this completely unlawful action?"

  Arnidala rose from her throne and stepped forward, surrounded by her cloaked and hooded handmaidens. Her eyes were sharp with anger. "I will not cooperate."

  Nute Gunray exchanged a quick glance with Rune Haako. "Now, now, Your Highness," he purred. "Don't be too hasty with your pronouncements. You are not going to like what we have in store for your people. In time, their suffering will persuade you to see our point of view."

  He turned away. "Enough talk." He beckoned. "Commander?" Battle droid OOM-9 stepped forward, narrow metal snout lowering slightly in response. "Process them," the viceroy ordered.

  OOM-9 signaled for one of his sergeants to take over, metallic voice directing that the prisoners be taken to Camp Four. The battle droids herded the Queen, her handmaidens, Governor Bibble, Captain Panaka, and the Naboo guards from the room.

  Nute Gunray's slit reddish orange eyes followed them out, then shifted back to Haako and the room. He felt a deep sense of satisfaction take hold. Everything was going exactly as it should.

  The sergeant and a dozen battle droids moved the prisoners along the polished stone halls of the Theed palace and outside to where a series of terraced steps led downward through statuary and buttress work to a broad plaza. The plaza was filled with Federation tanks and battle droids and was empty of Naboo citizens. The tanks were squat, shovel-nosed vehicles with their main cannon mounted on a turret above and behind the cockpit and smaller blasters set low and to either side. They had the look of foraging beetles as they edged about the plaza's perimeter.

  Beyond, the buildings of Theed stretched away toward the horizon, a vast sprawl of high stone walls, gilded domes, peaked towers, and sculpted archways. Sunlight bathed the glean1ing edifices, their architecture in counterpoint to the lush greenness of the planet. The rush of waterfalls and bubble of fountains formed a soft, distant backdrop to the strange silence created by the absence of the populace.

  The prisoners were taken across the plaza past the Trade Federation machines of war. No one spoke. Even Governor Bibble had gone silent, his gray- bearded head lowered in dark contemplation. They departed the plaza and turned down a broad avenue that led to the outskirts of the city and the newly constructed Trade Federation detention camps. STAPs hummed overhead, shadows flitting off the walls of the buildings, metal shells gleaming as they darted away.

  The droids had just turned their prisoners down a quiet byway when their sergeant, who was leading the procession, brought them to an abrupt halt.

  Two men stood direcdy in their way, both wearing loose robes over belted tunics, the taller with his hair worn long, the shorter with his cut to a thin braided pigtail. Their arms hung loosely at their sides, but they did not have the look of men who were unprepared.

  For a moment, each group stared at the other in silence. Then the narrow face of a Gungan peeked out from behind the two robed figures, eyes wide and frightened.

  Qui-Gon Jinn stepped forward. "Are you Queen Arnidala of the Naboo?" he asked the young woman in the feathered headdress.

  The Queen hesitated. "Who are you?"

  "Ambassadors from the supreme chancellor." The Jedi Master inclined his head slighdy. "We seek an audience with you, Your Highness."

  The droid sergeant suddenly seemed to remember where he was and what he was doing. He gestured to his soldiers. "Clear them away!"

  Four of the batde droids moved to obey. They were just shifting their weapons into firing position when the Jedi activated their lightsabers and cut them apart. As the shattered droids collapsed, the J edi moved quickly to dispatch the others. Laser bolts were blocked, weapons were knocked aside, and the remaining droids were reduced to scrap metal.

  The sergeant turned to flee, but Qui-Gon brought up his hand, holding the droid fast with the power of the Force. In seconds, the sergeant lay in a ruined heap with his command.

  Quickly, the Naboo soldiers moved to recover the fallen weapons. The Jedi Knights flicked off their lightsabers and motioned everyone out of the open street and into the shelter of an alley between two buildings. Jar Jar Binks followed, muttering in wonder at the cold efficiency with which the Jedi had dispatched their enemies.

  Qui-Gon faced the Queen. "Your Highness, I am Qui-Gon Jinn and my companion is Obi-Wan Kenobi. We are Jedi Knights as well as ambassadors for the supreme chancellor."

  "Your negotiations seem to have failed, Ambassador," Sio Bibble observed with a snort.

  "The negotiations never took place." Qui-Gon kept his eyes directed toward the Queen. Her painted face showed nothing. "Your Highness," he continued, "we must make contact with the Republic."

  "We can't," Captain Panaka volunteered, stepping forward. "They've knocked out all our communications."

  An alarm was being given from somewhere close, and there was the sound of running. Qui-Gon glanced toward the street where the battle droids lay. "Do you have transports?"

  The Naboo captain nodded, quick to see what the Je-di intended. "In the main hangar. This way."

  He led the little group to the end of the alleyway, where they crossed to other passageways and backstreets, encountering no one. They moved quickly and silently through the growing sound of alarms and the wicked buzz of STAPs. To their credit, the Naboo did not resist Qui-Gon's leadership nor question his a
ppearance. With Panaka and his men newly armed, the Naboo Queen and her companions had a sense of being in control of their own destiny once more and seemed more than ready to take a chance on their rescuers.

  It did not take them long to reach their destination. A series of connected buildings dominated one end of a broad causeway, each one domed and cavernous, the central structures warded by arched entrances and low, flat-walled outbuildings. Battle droids were stationed everywhere, weapons held at the ready, but Captain Panaka was able to find an unguarded approach down a narrow corridor between adjoining buildings.

  At a side door to the main hangar, Panaka brought the group to a halt. After a quick glance over his shoulder for droids, he un^locked and nudged open the hangar door. With Qui-Gon Jinn pressed close, he peered inside. A handful of Naboo ships were grouped at the center of the hangar, sleek gleaming transports, their noses pointed toward a wide opening in the far wall. Battle droids guarded each, positioned across the entire floor of the hangar to cut off any unseen approach.

  Panaka pointed to a long, low ship on the far side of the hangar with swept-back wings and powerful Headon-5 engines. "The Queen's personal transport, " he whispered to the Jedi Master.

  Qui-Gon nodded. A J-type 327 Nubian. In the distance, the alarms continued to sound their steady wail. "That one will do," he said.

  Panaka scanned the hangar interior. "The battle droids. There are too many of them."

  The Jedi eased back from the door. "That won't be a problem." He faced the Queen. "Your Highness. Under the circumstances, I suggest you come to Coruscant with us."

  The young woman shook her head, the feathers on her headdress rustling softly. Her white-painted face was calm and Iher gaze steady. "Thank you, Ambassador, but my place is here with my people."