Star Wars - Episode I Journal - Anakin Skywalker (7 page)

Yoda added that it would also draw out the Queen’s attacker. Despite all my mixed-up feelings, I was now certain that Yoda was speaking of the dark warrior. I was scared for the Queen, but I admit I thought of Padmé first. Since she attended the Queen, her life would also be in danger.

The councilors spoke in serious tones. One of them said the events were moving too fast. They were really worried. Mace Windu told Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to go with the Queen to Naboo. He wanted them to protect the Queen and discover the identity of the dark warrior.

And then I heard a word I had only heard once before. A thing I doubted truly existed.

Until now.

As I’ve said before, all manner of strange and frightening voyagers passed through Tatooine. This included some pretty weird old droids.

One day, about a year before Oui-Gon’s ship landed on Tatooine, I was looking for something in Watto’s junk heap when I came across an old war droid. This unit was
really
ancient. It was covered with rusty armor plating and even had a fuse box—something I’d only heard about.

Being curious about old technologies, I dragged it behind the shop and waited until Watto was gone. Then I hooked it up to a universal power source, just to see what would happen. As I suspected, the unit was frozen. Most of its joints had dried up long ago.

But its electronics were still intact and it seemed to have a working holoprojector. I knew Watto would want a working holoprojector, no matter how old it was. He could always peddle it off to some local mechanic trying to build his own droid.

I was in the middle of testing the projector when a holograph burst on. It showed some sort of ancient battle, but the visual projection was really bad. I was disappointed. Maybe the projector wasn’t worth salvaging after all.

I was just about to give up when the audio came on. It, too, was very poor quality, and mostly static. But I could hear screams and grunts and panicked shouts. Something about the Sith this and the Sith that. I couldn’t really get a handle on what was going on. All I could tell was that whatever these Sith things were, they were very, very bad.

I ran the sequence over and over again, trying to get a look at this Sith thing and figure out what could possibly be so terrible about it.

While the screams of terror chilled me, I was a little bit fascinated and curious. But then the holoprojector stopped working.

I couldn’t get those vague sounds and images out of my mind. On my way home that day I passed some of the cantinas that lined the marketplace. Sitting outside was a deep-space pilot I sometimes saw around. According to my friends, he’d landed on Tatooine with no fuel or money and seemed content to spend the rest of his days sitting in the shade out of the twin suns, telling anyone who would listen stories about his life and travels. He was the one who’d first told me about the angels on the moons of Iego.

The old spacer waved at me, and I went over to chat. I knew he was the real thing because of the Old Republic fighter corps insignia on his tunic. After a few moments I asked him if he’d ever heard of a Sith. To be honest, I expected him to chuckle and shake his head.

Instead, the old spacer turned pale. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. He began looking around with a panicked expression. Where had I heard of them? he wanted to know. Were they back? Were they here on Tatooine?

It took a couple of minutes to explain that I’d simply seen an old holograph. A couple of minutes more passed before he calmed down enough to tell me the story.

He said the Sith had come into being thousands of years ago. They were founded by a rogue Jedi Knight who believed that the real Force lay not in the light, but in the dark. He recruited others and trained them in the art of battle. For a time the Sith Lords had been the most fearsome warriors in the galaxy. Fiercer even than the Jedi. Because unlike the Jedi, the Sith were evil and loved war, not peace.

The good news was that their evil eventually turned inward and they began to battle each other. Soon all but a few had been destroyed, and the Jedi were able to get rid of the rest.

Or so it was said. Some people thought that one Sith Lord had survived in secret. Now and then someone would report seeing him, but none of the rumors had ever been proven.

Until now, here in the Jedi Council chamber. I heard the word Sith spoken again. And learned that this was what Qui-Gon thought the dark warrior was.

If Queen Amidala was being stalked by a Sith Lord, I knew she was
really
in danger! I was so preoccupied with the thought that I barely heard Yoda tell the Jedi Council that my fate as a Jedi would be decided at another time.

Qui-Gon said I would have to stay with him, since I had nowhere else to go. Yoda and the others agreed, but they warned Qui-Gon that while I was to accompany him, I was not to be trained.

When I left the Jedi Council my head was spinning. So much had happened and so many different things had been discussed! I didn’t know what to think. There was the doubt over my future as a Jedi. And Obi-Wan’s obvious displeasure with me. But also the threat to the Queen and the danger Padmé must be facing…

And now I was to go with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to the planet of Naboo, where they would attempt to protect the Queen against the mysterious and evil Sith Lord. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t frightened. But I was also excited to go.

To me, Coruscant had become a place where everyone treated me like a kid. I felt helpless there. I could only hope that it would be different on Naboo.

Coruscant at night is as amazing as it is by day. The whole planet is lit by the lights of its single, sprawling city. I stood on the windy landing platform with Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Artoo-Deetoo. Ever since the Council meeting, the two Jedi had been edgy and uncomfortable with each other. Now, on the platform, their feelings finally came out. I could see the strained looks on their faces as they spoke, but their words were whisked away with the wind.

I wished I could hear what they were saying. Then I remembered how, in the Jedi Temple, they told me to relax and open my mind, and how I’d been able to picture the images from Mace Windu’s viewing screen when I did.

I tried to do the same now. The Jedi were probably skilled at masking their thoughts if they suspected someone was listening. But I doubted they would expect that from me. And so I “listened” and learned that Obi-Wan thought the Council would be right in denying me Jedi training. He said the whole Council sensed that I was dangerous.

Dangerous?
I had to stop myself from arguing. How could Obi-Wan say I was dangerous? He didn’t even
know
me! But that, I realized, was the whole point. Because Obi-Wan didn’t know me, he couldn’t be arguing about me personally. It was the
idea
of me—already nine years old, but with very high midi-chlorians—that he was talking about.

I was very glad when Qui-Gon said that while my fate might be uncertain, I was not dangerous. He reminded Obi-Wan that the Council had not made their final decision.

Then he told the younger Jedi to go on board the Naboo spacecraft. Obi-Wan went up the boarding ramp reluctantly.

I was glad he left because I wanted the chance to tell Qui-Gon what I was thinking. That even though I was eager to go to Naboo, maybe I shouldn’t. Because of the more serious problems they were facing—the Trade Federation blockade and the threat of the Sith Lord—I didn’t want to be in the way.

Qui-Gon assured me that I wouldn’t be a bother. He said he would not go against the Council by training me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t watch him and learn. Above all, I was to stay close to him, because that way I would be safe.

It seemed he was waiting for the Queen and in no rush to board the ship, so I asked him about something else that was bothering me. What were midi-chlorians?

Qui-Gon explained that they were microscopic life-forms that lived in all body cells and communicated with the Force. In a way, the two life-forms depended on each other. The midi-chlorians needed us in order to live and we needed them in order to know the Force. He said it was the midi-chlorians that told us the will of the Force and that when I learned to quiet my mind, I would be able to hear them.

From my experience just a few moments before on the landing platform, I was beginning to have a sense of what he meant. I wanted to ask him more, but we were interrupted by the arrival of an air transport carrying the Queen.

Qui-Gon greeted Amidala, who seemed glad to see him. I overheard the Queen say that she was worried that the Trade Federation wanted to destroy her. The Jedi Knight promised her that wouldn’t happen.

The Queen had a small group with her, but before I could look for Padmé, Jar Jar burst out of the transport and hugged me. All he could talk about was how glad he was to be going home. By the time I managed to get out of his grasp, the Queen and her handmaidens had gone on board.

Later, on the ship, I went looking for Padmé and somehow found myself in the ship’s control center. This was by far the most advanced cockpit I’d ever seen. I wasn’t sure how the pilot, Ric Olié, would feel about me hanging around, but he didn’t mind at all. In fact, he went over all the controls with me.

The strange thing was that while the Nubian ship had many more controls than any ship I’d seen in Watto’s junkyard, the basics were the same. I could identify the thrusters, stabilizers, and repulsors. I don’t think Ric Olié would have been so impressed with my knowledge if he’d known how many junked cockpits I’d sat in.

I didn’t see Padmé until the very end of the flight. We’d entered the Naboo atmosphere and were starting to land. When I came out of the hydrolift, the Queen and her people were in the main hold waiting to disembark.

I saw Padmé. From the way she carried herself, I could see that she was prepared to fight. I sensed that she was as well trained in warfare as in attending to the Queen.

That’s when my dream came back to me. Once again I saw Padmé leading that huge army, and I knew that she could do it.

Padmé seemed surprised to see me. But pleased, too. She told me the Queen had given her my message back on Coruscant. Then she asked what had happened at the Jedi Temple.

I told her the bad news. It appeared that the Council might not allow me to be trained as a Jedi. I could tell she was disappointed. And she looked worried, too. I asked her what was wrong and she said that the Queen had decided that her people had to go to war against the Trade Federation. I told Padmé that I might not be a Jedi, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help.

Padmé smiled at me. It was a sad smile.

The ship landed with a slight jolt. When the hatch opened, I expected to see a landing pad and some sort of city, but I was in for a surprise.

Because all I saw was a swamp.

For a kid who grew up on the dry planet of Tatooine, seeing a lake for the first time was even more amazing than seeing the Queen. I couldn’t believe that there were places where water actually lay on the ground without being instantly evaporated!

I looked around in shock. Here plants could grow wild and out in the open, not in some carefully managed subterranean farm.