by Jude Watson
Star Wars
Jedi Quest
Path to Truth
by Jude Watson
source: IRC
uploaded: 09.I.2006
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 breat
h 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.
I
t 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