Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace Page 12

  “… and they blow you up!” the boy finished. “Poof!”

  Jar Jar had been slurping contentedly at his soup, listening with half an ear as he devoured the very tasty broth. He overdid it on hearing this, however, making such a loud noise that he stopped conversation altogether. All eyes turned on him momentarily. He lowered his head in embarrassment and pretended not to see.

  Padmé looked back at Shmi. “I can’t believe slavery is still permitted in the galaxy. The Republic’s antislavery laws should—”

  “The Republic doesn’t exist out here,” Shmi interrupted quickly, her voice hard. “We must survive on our own.”

  There was an awkward silence as Padmé looked away, not knowing what else to say.

  “Have you ever seen a Podrace?” Anakin asked, trying to ease her discomfort.

  Padmé shook her head no. She glanced at Shmi, noting the sudden concern on the woman’s lined face. Jar Jar launched his tongue at a morsel of food nestled deep in a serving bowl at the far end of the table, deftly plucking it out, drawing it in, swallowing it, and smacking his lips in satisfaction. A disapproving look from Qui-Gon quickly silenced him.

  “They have Podracing on Malastare,” the Jedi Master observed. “Very fast, very dangerous.”

  Anakin grinned. “I’m the only human who can do it!” A sharp glance from his mother wiped the grin from his face. “Mom, what? I’m not bragging. It’s true! Watto says he’s never heard of a human doing it.”

  Qui-Gon studied him carefully. “You must have Jedi reflexes if you race Pods.”

  Anakin smiled broadly at the compliment. Jar Jar’s tongue snaked toward the serving bowl in an effort to snare another morsel, but this time Qui-Gon was waiting. His hand moved swiftly, and in a heartbeat he had secured the Gungan’s tongue between his thumb and forefinger. Jar Jar froze, his mouth open, his tongue held fast, his eyes wide.

  “Don’t do that again,” Qui-Gon advised, an edge to his soft voice.

  Jar Jar tried to say something, but it came out an unintelligible mumble. Qui-Gon released the Gungan’s tongue, and it snapped back into place. Jar Jar massaged his billed mouth ruefully.

  Anakin’s young face lifted to the older man’s, and his voice was hesitant. “I … I was wondering something.”

  Qui-Gon nodded for him to continue.

  The boy cleared his throat, screwing up his courage. “You’re a Jedi Knight, aren’t you?”

  There was a long moment of silence as the man and the boy stared at each other. “What makes you think that?” Qui-Gon asked finally.

  Anakin swallowed. “I saw your lightsaber. Only Jedi Knights carry that kind of weapon.”

  Qui-Gon continued to stare at him, then leaned back slowly in his chair and smiled. “Perhaps I killed a Jedi and stole it from him.”

  Anakin shook his head quickly. “I don’t think so. No one can kill a Jedi.”

  Qui-Gon’s smile faded and there was a hint of sadness in his dark eyes. “I wish that were so …”

  “I had a dream I was a Jedi,” the boy said quickly, anxious to talk about it now. “I came back here and freed all the slaves. I dreamed it just the other night, when I was out in the desert.” He paused, his young face expectant. “Have you come to free us?”

  Qui-Gon Jinn shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not …” He trailed off, hesitating.

  “I think you have,” the boy insisted, defiance in his eyes. “Why else would you be here?”

  Shmi was about to say something, to chastise her son for his impudence perhaps, but Qui-Gon spoke first, leaning forward conspiratorially. “I can see there’s no fooling you, Anakin. But you mustn’t let anyone know about us. We’re on our way to Coruscant, the central system in the Republic, on a very important mission. It must be kept secret.”

  Anakin’s eyes widened. “Coruscant? Wow! How did you end up out here in the Outer Rim?”

  “Our ship was damaged,” Padmé answered him. “We’re stranded here until we can repair it.”

  “I can help!” the boy announced quickly, anxious to be of service to them. “I can fix anything!”

  Qui-Gon smiled at his enthusiasm. “I believe you can, but our first task, as you know from our visit to Watto’s shop, is to acquire the parts we need.”

  “Wit nutten ta trade,” Jar Jar pointed out sourly.

  Padmé was looking at Qui-Gon speculatively. “These junk dealers must have a weakness of some kind.”

  “Gambling,” Shmi said at once. She rose and began clearing the table of dishes. “Everything in Mos Espa revolves around betting on those awful Podraces.”

  Qui-Gon rose, walked to the window, and stared out through the thick, diffuse glass at the clouds of windblown sand. “Podracing,” he mused. “Greed can be a powerful ally, if it’s used properly.”

  Anakin leapt to his feet. “I’ve built a racer!” he declared triumphantly. His boy’s face shone with pride. “It’s the fastest ever! There’s a big race day after tomorrow, on Boonta Eve. You could enter my Pod! It’s all but finished—”

  “Anakin, settle down!” his mother said sharply, cutting him short. Her eyes were bright with concern. “Watto won’t let you race!”

  “Watto doesn’t have to know the racer is mine!” the boy replied quickly, his mind working through the problem. He turned back to Qui-Gon. “You could make him think it was yours! You could get him to let me pilot it for you!”

  The Jedi Master had caught the look in Shmi’s eyes. He met her gaze, silently acknowledged her consternation, and waited patiently for her response.

  “I don’t want you to race, Annie,” his mother said quietly. She shook her head to emphasize her words, weariness and concern reflected in her eyes. “It’s awful. I die every time Watto makes you do it. Every time.”

  Anakin bit his lip. “But, Mom, I love it!” He gestured at Qui-Gon. “And they need my help. They’re in trouble. The prize money would more than pay for the parts they need.”

  Jar Jar Binks nodded in support. “We in kinda bad goo.”

  Qui-Gon walked over to Anakin and looked down at him. “Your mother’s right. Let’s drop the matter.” He held the boy’s gaze for a moment, then turned back to his mother. “Do you know of anyone friendly to the Republic who might be able to help us?”

  Shmi stood silent and unmoving as she thought the matter through. She shook her head no.

  “We have to help them, Mom,” Anakin insisted, knowing he was right about this, that he was meant to help the Jedi and his companions. “Remember what you said? You said the biggest problem in the universe is that no one helps anyone.”

  Shmi sighed. “Anakin, don’t—”

  “But you said it, Mom.” The boy refused to back down, his eyes locked on hers.

  Shmi Skywalker made no response this time, her brow furrowed, her body still.

  “I’m sure Qui-Gon doesn’t want to put your son in danger,” Padmé said suddenly, uncomfortable with the confrontation they had brought about between mother and son, trying to ease the tension. “We will find another way …”

  Shmi looked over at the girl and shook her head slowly. “No, Annie’s right. There is no other way. I may not like it, but he can help you.” She paused. “Maybe he was meant to help you.”

  She said it as if coming to a conclusion that had eluded her until now, as if discovering a truth that, while painful, was obvious.

  Anakin’s face lit up. “Is that a yes?” He clapped his hands in glee. “That is a yes!”

  Night blanketed the vast cityscape of Coruscant, cloaking the endless horizon of gleaming spires in deep velvet layers. Lights blazed from windows, bright pinpricks against the black. As far as the eye could see, as far as a being could travel, the city’s buildings jutted from the planet’s surface in needles of steel alloy and reflective glass. Long ago, the city had consumed the planet with its bulk, and now there was only the city, the center of the galaxy, the heartbeat of the Republic’s rule.

  A rule that some were intending to
end once and for all. A rule that some despised.

  Darth Sidious stood high on a balcony overlooking Coruscant, his concealing black robes making him appear as if he were a creature produced by the night. He stood facing the city, his eyes directed at its lights, at the faint movement of its air traffic, disinterested in his apprentice, Darth Maul, who waited to one side.

  His thoughts were of the Sith and of the history of their order.

  The Sith had come into being almost two thousand years ago. They were a cult given over to the dark side of the Force, embracing fully the concept that power denied was power wasted. A rogue Jedi Knight had founded the Sith, a singular dissident in an order of harmonious followers, a rebel who understood from the beginning that the real power of the Force lay not in the light, but in the dark. Failing to gain approval for his beliefs from the Council, he had broken with the order, departing with his knowledge and his skills, swearing in secret that he could bring down those who had dismissed him.

  He was alone at first, but others from the Jedi order who believed as he did and who had followed him in his study of the dark side soon came over. Others were recruited, and soon the ranks of the Sith swelled to more than fifty in number. Disdaining the concepts of cooperation and consensus, relying on the belief that acquisition of power in any form lends strength and yields control, the Sith began to build their cult in opposition to the Jedi. Theirs was not an order created to serve; theirs was an order created to dominate.

  Their war with the Jedi was vengeful and furious and ultimately doomed. The rogue Jedi who had founded the Sith order was its nominal leader, but his ambition excluded any sharing of power. His disciples began to conspire against him and each other almost from the beginning, so that the war they instigated was as much with each other as with the Jedi.

  In the end, the Sith destroyed themselves. They destroyed their leader first, then each other. What few survived the initial bloodbath were quickly dispatched by watchful Jedi. In a matter of only weeks, all of them died.

  All but one.

  Darth Maul shifted impatiently. The younger Sith had not yet learned his Master’s patience; that would come with time and training. It was patience that had saved the Sith order in the end. It was patience that would give them their victory now over the Jedi.

  The Sith who had survived when all of his fellows had died had understood that. He had adopted patience as a virtue when the others had forsaken it. He had adopted cunning, stealth, and subterfuge as the foundation of his way—old Jedi virtues the others had disdained. He stood aside while the Sith tore at each other like kriks and were destroyed. When the carnage was complete, he went into hiding, biding his time, waiting for his chance.

  When it was believed all of the Sith were destroyed, he emerged from his concealment. At first he worked alone, but he was growing old and he was the last of his kind. Eventually, he went out in search of an apprentice. Finding one, he trained him to be a Master in his turn, then to find his own apprentice, and so to carry on their work. But there would only be two at any one time. There would be no repetition of the mistakes of the old order, no struggle between Siths warring for power within the cult. Their common enemy was the Jedi, not each other. It was for their war with the Jedi they must save themselves.

  The Sith who reinvented the order called himself Darth Bane.

  A thousand years had passed since the Sith were believed destroyed, and the time they had waited for had come at last.

  “Tatooine is sparsely populated.” His student’s rough voice broke into his thoughts, and Darth Sidious lifted his eyes to the hologram. “The Hutts rule. The Republic has no presence. If the trace was correct, Master, I will find them quickly and without hindrance.”

  The yellow eyes glimmered with excitement and anticipation in the strange mosaic of Darth Maul’s face as he waited impatiently for a response. Darth Sidious was pleased.

  “Move against the Jedi first,” he advised softly. “You will then have no difficulty taking the Queen back to Naboo, where she will sign the treaty.”

  Darth Maul exhaled sharply. Satisfaction permeated his voice. “At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have our revenge.”

  “You have been well trained, my young apprentice,” Darth Sidious soothed. “The Jedi will be no match for you. It is too late for them to stop us now. Everything is going as planned. The Republic will soon be in my control.”

  In the silence that followed, the Sith Lord could feel a dark heat rise inside his chest and consume him with a furious pleasure.

  In the home of Anakin Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn stood silently at the doorway of the boy’s bedroom and watched him sleep. His mother and Padmé occupied the other bedroom, and Jar Jar Binks was curled up on the kitchen floor in a fetal position, snoring loudly.

  But Qui-Gon could not sleep. It was this boy—this boy! There was something about him. The Jedi Master watched the soft rise and fall of his chest as he lay locked in slumber, unaware of Qui-Gon’s presence. The boy was special, he had told Shmi Skywalker, and she had agreed. She knew it, too. She sensed it as he did. Anakin Skywalker was different.

  Qui-Gon lifted his gaze to a darkened window. The storm had subsided, the wind abated. It was quiet without, the night soft and welcoming in its peace. The Jedi Master thought for a moment on his own life. He knew what they said about him at Council. He was willful, even reckless in his choices. He was strong, but he dissipated his strength on causes that did not merit his attention. But rules were not created solely to govern behavior. Rules were created to provide a road map to understanding the Force. Was it so wrong for him to bend those rules when his conscience whispered to him that he must?

  The Jedi folded his arms over his broad chest. The Force was a complex and difficult concept. The Force was rooted in the balance of all things, and every movement within its flow risked an upsetting of that balance. A Jedi sought to keep the balance in place, to move in concert to its pace and will. But the Force existed on more than one plane, and achieving mastery of its multiple passages was a lifetime’s work. Or more. He knew his own weakness. He was too close to the life Force when he should have been more attentive to the unifying Force. He found himself reaching out to the creatures of the present, to those living in the here and now. He had less regard for the past or the future, to the creatures that had or would occupy those times and spaces.

  It was the life Force that bound him, that gave him heart and mind and spirit.

  So it was he empathized with Anakin Skywalker in ways that other Jedi would discourage, finding in this boy a promise he could not ignore. Obi-Wan would see the boy and Jar Jar in the same light—useless burdens, pointless projects, unnecessary distractions. Obi-Wan was grounded in the need to focus on the larger picture, on the unifying Force. He lacked Qui-Gon’s intuitive nature. He lacked his teacher’s compassion for and interest in all living things. He did not see the same things Qui-Gon saw.

  Qui-Gon sighed. This was not a criticism, only an observation. Who was to say that either of them was the better for how they interpreted the demands of the Force? But it placed them at odds sometimes, and more often than not it was Obi-Wan’s position the Council supported, not Qui-Gon’s. It would be that way again, he knew. Many times.

  But this would not deter him from doing what he believed he must. He would know the truth about Anakin Skywalker. He would discover his place in the Force, both living and unifying. He would learn who this boy was meant to be.

  Minutes later, he was stretched out on the floor, asleep.

  The new day dawned bright and clear, Tatooine’s twin suns blazing down out of a clear blue sky. The sandstorm had moved on to other regions, sweeping the landscape clean of everything but the mountains and rocky outcroppings of the desert and the buildings of Mos Espa. Anakin was up and dressed before his guests stirred awake, eager to get to the shop and advise Watto of his plan for the upcoming Podrace. Qui-Gon warned him not to be too eager in making his suggestion to th
e Toydarian, but to stay calm and let Qui-Gon handle the bargaining. But Anakin was so excited he barely heard what the other was saying. The Jedi Master knew it would be up to him to employ whatever mix of cunning and diplomacy was required to achieve their ends.

  Greed was the operative word in dealing with Watto, of course, the key that would open any door the Toydarian kept locked.

  They walked from the slave quarters through the city to Watto’s shop, Anakin leading the way, Qui-Gon and Padmé close at his heels, Jar Jar and R2-D2 bringing up the rear. The city was awake and bustling early, the shopkeepers and merchants shoveling and sweeping away drifts of sand, reassembling stalls and awnings, and righting carts and damaged fences. Eopies and rontos performed the heavy labor where sleds and droids lacked sufficient muscle. Wagons were already hauling fresh supplies and merchandise from warehouses and storage bins, and the receiving bays of the spaceport were back to welcoming ships from off planet.

  Qui-Gon let Anakin go on ahead to the shop as they drew near, in order to give the boy a chance to approach Watto on the subject of the Podraces first. With the others in tow, the Jedi Master moved to a food stall across the way, persuaded a vendor to part with a handful of gooey dweezels, and bided his time. When the dweezels were consumed, he moved his group across the plaza to the front of Watto’s shop. Jar Jar, already unsettled anew by all the activity, took up a position on a crate near the shop entry, his back to the wall, his eyes darting this way and that in anticipation of something awful befalling him. R2-D2 moved over beside him, beeping softly, trying to reassure him that everything was okay.

  Qui-Gon told Padmé to keep a wary eye on the Gungan. He didn’t want Jar Jar getting into any more trouble. He was starting into the shop when the girl put a hand on his arm.

  “Are you sure about this?” she asked, doubt mirrored clearly in her brown eyes. “Trusting our fate to a boy we hardly know?” She wrinkled her smooth brow. “The Queen would not approve.”

  Qui-Gon met her gaze squarely. “The Queen does not need to know.”