Star Wars - Episode I Journal - Anakin Skywalker (10 page)

At that moment I didn’t know what had caused it. I only knew that something terrible was happening nearby.

When the Control Ship blew up, the yellow Naboo starfighters regrouped and headed back to Naboo. I wanted to speak to them via comlink, but my communications were dead. All I could do was limp back to Naboo behind them in my damaged fighter.

A little while later we skidded to a stop inside the palace hangar. A bunch of pilots and ground crew surrounded my fighter. When I opened the cockpit and stood up, their mouths dropped open. I could just about read their minds. How in the world had a kid my age managed to get into the Droid Control Ship and blow it up?

The funny thing was, I was asking myself the same question.

They helped me down from the starfighter and told me the good news. When the ship exploded, all the Trade Federation battle droids on Naboo froze up, and the Queen was able to capture the viceroy. Together, the Gungans and the people of Naboo had won the battle. Their planet was free!

It should have been one of the happiest days of my life.

But just then a grim-faced guard entered the hangar. He’d heard that the Jedi Knights had defeated the Sith Lord. But in the battle, the older Jedi had been killed…

I felt a terrible pang in my heart. Qui-Gon, my hero, my guardian, the one person who really understood… was gone. Suddenly I knew that the terrible, dark feeling I’d had in the starfighter was his death. I’d felt him go.

I closed my eyes and opened my mind, just as I had that night on Coruscant when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon spoke. I could feel something. Qui-Gon was still there somehow. It was a shadow of what I’d felt before, but it was still there.

The funeral took place on the temple steps in the central plaza of Theed. It was sunset and the orange sun was dipping down toward the horizon. A large crowd was there: Queen Amidala and her handmaidens, the Jedi Council and other Jedi Knights who had known Qui-Gon Jinn personally, the troops of the Naboo, and the Gungan forces.

And, of course, Obi-Wan and me.

Qui-Gon’s body was placed on a funeral pyre. We watched in silence as Qui-Gon Jinn disappeared in flames. Then white doves were released.

It was hard for me to watch. In the short time I’d known him, Qui-Gon had been more of a father to me than anyone I’d ever known. I thought back to the day I’d first met him on Tatooine. How we’d gone to my home to get out of the sandstorm. How I’d told him I suspected he was a Jedi Knight because of the lightsaber he carried. How he pretended maybe he’d simply killed a Jedi and taken the lightsaber. How I said no one could kill a Jedi Knight.

And how clearly I remembered that sad moment when he sighed and said, “I wish that were so.”

As if even then he’d suspected…

I used the cuff of my uniform to wipe away tears. I felt Obi-Wan’s hand on my shoulder.

“He is one with the Force, Anakin,” he said softly. “You must let go.”

I looked up into Obi-Wan’s face and was surprised by what I saw. His expression was open and concerned. I could feel his caring as we shared the loss of someone we had both admired so much. With Qui-Gon’s passing, something had changed between us.

I asked him what would happen to me now.

Nothing could have prepared me for Obi-Wan’s answer.

“I am your Master now,” he said, tightening his grip on my shoulder. “You will become a Jedi. I promise.”

Obi-Wan just stuck his head in the doorway and said that we are leaving in five minutes. It’s time for this journal to end.

So much has happened. I will never be the same as I was on Tatooine. It is clear that my life will be different from Kitster’s, different from my mother’s, different from anyone’s that I’ve known before. I have faith in Obi-Wan’s promise: My training will begin soon.

My travels will continue. I will go to planets and have experiences I cannot begin to imagine. I am both frightened and excited.

Wherever the path leads, I am ready.

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