Jedi Quest 0: Path to Truth (star wars)

by Jude Watson

  Jedi Quest 0: Path to Truth

  ( Star Wars , Star Wars: Jedi Quest - 1 )

  Jude Watson

  CHOSEN TO RISE.

  DESTINED TO FALL.

  Anakin Skywalker is no longer a boy, but not yet a man. Almost thirteen, he has begun to travel on the path that will lead him to glory…and infamy.

  In the mysterious caves of Ilum, Anakin must create his lightsaber after confronting the demons of his past — and his future. Once the lightsaber is completed, Anakin joins his Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, on a mission that will cut to the heart of his fear, anger, and power.

  When Anakin was a young slave on Tatooine, everyone lived in terror of a creature named Krayn, who kidnapped slaves for his own profit — and killed anyone who got in his way. Now Krayn's evil has grown to a dangerous degree, threatening peace and safe passage throughout the galaxy.

  Anakin and Obi-Wan must stop Krayn. But can Obi-Wan also stop Anakin from seeking vengeance against an old enemy?

  The path to truth is a clear one.

  Anakin's path is not.

  Path to Truth

  Prologue

  No one on Tatooine could remember a day this fine. The two suns shone, but their rays did not blister the skin. The wind blew, but it was a gentle wind that did not bring choking dust and sand. The normally brutal climate had loosened its grip. Most of the moisture farmers, smugglers, and slaves of Tatooine didn't have the time or energy to look up from their hard lives to notice it.

  Seven-year-old Anakin Skywalker did. When his mother, Shmi, opened the windows at dawn, the two of them stood breathing in the fresh air with wonder. For the first time in a long while, Anakin considered himself lucky. Today the weather was good, and he had his first afternoon off.

  Day after day he was cooped up in Watto's junk shop. He was a slave, but it wasn't the worst job he could imagine. He learned about hyperspace engines and power converters and droid motivators. He could assemble a reactivate switch blindfolded. The only trouble was, he had to work for the Toydarian Watto, whose temper and greed constantly surprised Anakin, growing worse by the day.

  Anakin crammed his breakfast in his mouth as he hurried through the crowded streets of Mos Espa toward Watto's shop. He broke into a run, sliding easily between two careening eopies. Today Watto had to make a journey to Anchorhead. He had heard of a spectacular crash between two sand skimmers and a space frigate, and he was anxious to be first to bid for the parts.

  The trip placed Watto in a bind, for his excitement at the thought of striking a deal battled with his irritation at closing the store for a day.

  All week the air had been full of the angry buzzing of Watto's wings and his muttered comments about how life was unfair to hardworking beings like him.

  Watto couldn't bear to lose money, even for a day, but he didn't trust Anakin to run the shop. Neither could he bear to give his slave a day off.

  So Watto had left Anakin a long list of chores to do, a list long enough to guarantee that Anakin would be in the closed shop from sunrise to sundown.

  What Watto didn't count on was that Anakin had friends to help him.

  Not living beings — everyone he knew his age was a slave, too. Anakin considered droids his friends, and he knew that with their help he could get his chores done in half the time.

  As soon as he reached the shop, he programmed the droids and got to work. Many of the droids were old models or half fixed, but he managed to keep them going. By midday, the chores were done.

  Anakin picked up the pack Shmi had filled with meat pies and fruit that morning. He hurried all the way back to where he lived, breathing deep lungfuls of air as he ran. His friend Amee was a house slave for a rich Toong couple. They gave her one afternoon off a month. This was it.

  Amee waited outside on the steps of her dwelling in the crowded, layered stack of hovels in Mos Espa. Her chestnut hair was worn in a braided crown around her head. She had woven some yellow flowers through her braids. It added to the holiday feeling of this day. Her thin face, usually so serious, looked almost pretty as she smiled.

  "I've never been on a picnic," she said. "Mother says she used to go on them when she was a girl." Amee's mother, Hala, opened the door and smiled at Anakin. Her job was to work on transmitter parts at home. "I'm glad you'll both get to enjoy the day. Don't go far."

  "I know just the spot," Anakin told her.

  Amee followed him through the crowded lanes and streets of Mos Espa.

  There were even more beings packed in the streets today. Amee and Anakin had learned how to move through the streets almost invisibly, avoiding the fierce tempers of the spacers and smugglers.

  Anakin knew exactly where they should share their picnic, even though he'd never been on one, either. He had found the spot weeks before while searching for junked parts on the outskirts of the spaceport.

  Tatooine's hills were sandy and barren, but nestled among them Anakin had discovered a small canyon. There, he found a tree with flickering green-gold leaves. He had never seen the species before, and it was the first time he had seen such a color in a natural form. Tatooine was a land of variations of beige and tan.

  The tree was scrawny and struggled to survive, but when you sat underneath it and closed your eyes, you could hear the rustle of dry leaves. On a day like today, with the air so fresh, you could almost pretend you were on a beautiful green planet.

  "It's perfect," Amee breathed.

  They feasted on Shmi's meat pies and Hala's turnovers. They drank sweet juice and planned their futures, which always included Anakin liberating all the slaves on Tatooine. The sun slid lower in the sky.

  Suddenly, the afternoon was over.

  "I guess we'd better get back," Anakin said reluctantly.

  "I hate being a slave," Amee said. She shoved the food wrappings into her pack with unusual force.

  There wasn't any reply Anakin could make. They all hated being slaves.

  Anakin vowed that someday Shmi would live a soft, pleasant life, filled with leisure and good things to eat, just like this day. He would see to it.

  He and Amee slogged through the sandy hills and down into the streets of Mos Espa. To their surprise, the streets were now almost empty, the food stalls shuttered.

  "What's going on?" Anakin wondered. "It's like there's a sandstorm coming, but the air is so clear."

  As they got closer to their homes, their unease increased. On the outskirts, they saw shattered entrances and wreckage in the street. They passed a man crying into his hands. Sobs shook his thin shoulders.

  Anakin and Amee exchanged a wordless glance. The fear that always hummed under the surface of their lives sparked and became a living current. Something was very wrong.

  A woman ran by them, her eyes streaming tears. "Elza!" she screamed.

  "Elza!"

  "Elza Monimi," Amee said, panic beginning to shade her voice. "He's our neighbor. What's happening?"

  They began to run. Every other house seemed to be damaged. Beings mingled in the streets, asking one another for news of daughters, sons, mothers, whole families. They heard a whispered name, a name repeated over and over in tones of dread and horror.

  Anakin stopped a neighbor, Titi Chronelle. "What happened?"

  "Slave raid," Titi told him. "Pirates. Led by Krayn. With blasters and restraining devices. They have transmitters that override our own. They can steal whoever they want. Many were taken." Titi spoke in short bursts, as if he could not manage a whole sentence.

  Anakin felt his own breath leave him. "My mother?" Titi looked at him sadly before rushing on. "I don't know."

  Without another word, Amee took off toward her own dwelling. Anakin ran,
his heart bursting, his legs pumping. He charged into his home. He looked around wildly.

  Everything seemed the same. But where was Shmi?

  Then he saw her in the corner. Her knees were drawn up against her chest, her head buried. As he started toward her, she jerked her head up.

  For a moment, he saw sheer terror in her face. Shock paralyzed him. He had never seen his mother afraid. For him, she was the image of calm strength. She held all the terrors of life at bay for him.

  As she took in his expression, the wild look in her eyes instantly disappeared. The warm light he knew so well came back. She held out her arms to him, and he rushed to her.

  "I didn't know where you were," she said.

  He felt her strong arms surround him and buried his face in the familiar scent of her clothes. She rocked him gently.

  "You're shaking," she said. "Hush, Annie. We're both safe."

  Somehow he knew that the terror he'd seen on her face was not just because she could not find him. It was because of what she had seen. Of what had almost happened to her.

  But that fear, the fear that his mother could disappear, that she could be hurt or killed, that she could be at the mercy of her own terror, was just too great for him to face. He pushed the thought of her anguished face away and breathed in her warmth, felt the strength and gentleness of her hands soothing him. Instantly, the shaking stopped. He told himself he had not seen her vulnerability. His mother could not be vanquished. She could not be taken. She could not be hurt. The core of her was strength.

  She could keep them both safe. That was his reality. Somehow Anakin knew that if he acknowledged Shmi's fear he would close the door on his own childhood. He wasn't ready to do that. He was seven years old. He needed her too much.

  Outside, they heard voices. A deep voice calling, trying to override a high, frightened one.

  "Amee! Come back!"

  "Where's my mother?"

  Anakin looked up. "It's Amee."

  Shmi's grip on him tightened. "Hala was taken by the slave raiders."

  He looked into her face. The terror was gone, but sadness was there now, deep sadness and compassion, and also something else, something remote that he could not decipher. As though she knew something he did not, and would not tell him — he did not want or need to know.

  "It is a terrible thing to be a slave on Tatooine, Annie," Shmi whispered. "But it could be far, far worse for us."

  She pushed his hair off his forehead. The remote look left her eyes.

  "But you are safe," she said in a firm voice. "We are together. Now, come.

  Let us do what we can to comfort Amee and her father."

  Anakin rose. He stood on the threshold of his dwelling for a moment, watching Shmi cross to console Amee and her father. Owners were now walking among the milling beings, checking on the slaves. Anakin saw Hala's owner, Yor Millto. Millto was checking off something on a datapad.

  "A nuisance, to lose Hala," he said to his assistant. "This will cost me. But she wasn't highly skilled. Easy to replace."

  Anakin's gaze went to Amee. Her face was buried in Shmi's robes, and her thin shoulders shook with her wracking sobs. Hala's husband sat nearby, his face in his hands.

  Easy to replace…

  Pain tore through Anakin, pain he did not want to face.

  He made a vow. He knew he had an extraordinary memory. Organization and learning came easily to him. He would use that power to sear this memory into his mind and heart. When he needed this, he would recall every detail — the exact shade of blue of the sky, the heartbreaking quality of Amee's uncontrollable sobs.

  There was only one thing he would train his mind not to recall, one thing he never wanted to see again, even in memory — the terror he had glimpsed on his mother's face.

  Chapter 1

  Six years later…

  Obi-Wan Kenobi squinted through the viewscreen of the small, sleek craft, a transport on loan from the Senate. Mist swirled around and below him. He could not see a landing site.

  "Anything?" Anakin asked. With zero visibility, his Padawan was using instruments to pilot the transport. That, and his sure connection to the Force. At only thirteen years of age, Anakin was already an expert pilot, even better than Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan would be the first to admit it.

  "Not yet. The mist will clear in a moment." He hoped. He knew that the craggy peaks of the ice mountains were close. The trick was to find a landing site.

  "And then will you tell me why we're here?" Anakin asked.

  "All in good time." Obi-Wan noted that the mist was beginning to thin.

  Patches of a lighter gray streaked through the clouds. Suddenly, as the craft lowered, the icy peaks appeared, looming out of the clouds, a flash of silver against a sea of gray.

  Obi-Wan consulted the coordinates for his destination, then searched the crags for a likely landing spot. All he could see around him was the blinding white of ice and snow. He knew that the seemingly sheer mountainsides concealed ledges and hidden caves. Sheets of ice made for treacherous possibilities.

  At last he spotted a ledge that was protected from the wind. It was clear of snow and he saw only isolated patches of ice. It would be a tight fit, and there was always the danger the craft would slide on the ice straight off the ledge, but he knew his Padawan could do it "There," he told Anakin, and gave the coordinates. The boy looked at him, surprised. "Really?"

  "You can do it."

  "I know I can do it," Anakin said. "I'm just wondering why you want me to."

  "Because it's an easy climb to our destination from there."

  Anakin flipped switches to begin the landing procedures. "And I know better than to ask what that is."

  Obi-Wan sat back and watched in admiration as, with cool nerves and a steady hand, Anakin expertly maneuvered the ship into the tight space. He set the ship down as gently as if their landing pad were a nest of kroyie eggs. There would be just enough room to activate the hatch and clamber out.

  Anakin looked out the viewscreen at the sheer icy cliffs surrounding them. "Can you tell me what this planet is, at least?"

  "Ilum," Obi-Wan answered, watching his Padawan's expression carefully.

  The name brought a spark of recognition to Anakin's face. His bright eyes flashed. Still, he kept his tone guarded. "I see."

  "We are not here on a mission," Obi-Wan continued. "It is a quest. It is here that you will gather the crystals to fashion your own lightsaber."

  Anakin's sober face cracked with the grin that Obi-Wan had come to look forward to seeing, a smile that radiated pleasure and hope.

  "Thank you for this honor," he said.

  "You are ready," Obi-Wan replied.

  "The Council thinks so?" Anakin asked.

  It was a shrewd question. As a matter of fact, the Council was divided on Anakin Skywalker's readiness to take on the full rights of a Jedi. There were those who thought he had come to Jedi training too late. They worried about the anger and fear that he pushed away deep inside him. They worried about his early life as a slave, about his fierce ties to the mother who had let him go.

  Yoda and Mace Windu were among those who were cautious, and who had given Obi-Wan many uneasy moments. He respected their viewpoint too much to discount it completely.

  But his promise to his former Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, was more important. Qui-Gon had been dead for four years now, but he was such a vivid presence in Obi-Wan's life that he considered their bond just as strong. Taking on Anakin as his Padawan was not only a vow to his beloved former Master, but also the right thing to do.

  In the end, Obi-Wan had to trust his own instincts. Yoda and Mace Windu must trust them, too. He had lobbied hard in order to bring his Padawan here, and finally, the Council could not oppose him.

  He hoped his decision was the right one. In his short time at the Temple, Anakin's progress had been astonishing. By everything that was measurable, he exceeded expectations. He was at the top of his class in lightsaber training, piloting, memory skills,
and the most important goal of all — connection to the Force.

  Yet it was exactly his quick progress that gave Obi-Wan pause. Things came too easily to him. There was a danger of recklessness and arrogance inherent in his power. Anakin had a tendency to take matters into his own hands. He could be impetuous and make his own way, disregarding advice.

  Just as Obi-Wan once did. Just as Qui-Gon once did. That was what Obi- Wan always came back to. He had made grave mistakes at Anakin's age. He wanted to allow Anakin the freedom to do the same.

  They pulled on their winter survival gear, fastening thermal coats over their tunics and pulling gloves over their hands. They lowered goggles over their eyes. The temperatures on Ilum were numbingly cold. Blizzards struck without warning. Ice formations had treacherous sharp edges.