of the way. But Anakin had no desire to argue with Ferus again. He didn't
care about him enough to argue.
He had more important things to do - like check out the Podracers.
Anakin told himself that someone on the Jedi teams needed to do so.
Logically, he was the best candidate. He was the only one who had raced,
and he was sure to know some of the beings involved. He hadn't raced since
he was eight years old, six and a half years ago. But the racers tended to
keep racing, if they weren't killed.
Of course, Obi-Wan hadn't asked him to check out the Podracers. But he
had left him free to choose what he wanted to see. Anakin assured himself
that he wasn't disobeying Obi-Wan by going.
Still, he didn't want to advertise his plans to his fellow Padawans.
He could trust Tru, but Ferus was another matter. It would be just like
Ferus to make a big deal of it.
"I'll catch up with you later," he told Ferus and Tru. "I have
something I need to check out first."
Disappointment clouded Tru's silvery eyes. "Oh?"
Anakin knew that Tru had been looking forward to spending time with
him, too. When you made friends among the Jedi, you treasured the times you
were together because they could be rare.
Ferus gave him a glance that was more pointed. "Obi-Wan asked you to
do something?"
Anakin could not lie. Not even to Ferus. He pretended he had not heard
him over the noise of the crowd. He turned to go, and Tru leaned over and
spoke softly in his ear. "Transit Red, end of the line."
So Tru did know where he was headed.
"You're a good friend," Anakin said as he dashed off before Ferus
could say anything more.
Eusebus had converted its largest air taxis to a free transit system.
He found Transit Red and hopped aboard. He didn't mind missing the opening
rituals, which no doubt would be filled with parading teams and boring
speeches. The real fun was taking place elsewhere
At the last stop on Transit Red, the buildings ended abruptly. There
was no gradual thinning of structures. An apartment block ended, the road
narrowed, and the horizon was before him. There appeared to be nothing in
sight but bare hills.
Now what? Anakin wondered as he descended from the air taxi and looked
from right to left.
He closed his eyes and summoned the Force. He felt it rise from the
red dust and bound off the hills back at him. And then he felt the Living
Force as a wave that gathered momentum and broke over him in a shower of
light.
There.
He took off toward the hills to his left. Well, if this mission was
supposed to teach him about the Living Force, he doubted there was much to
learn. Sometimes he thought he was in better touch with the Living Force
than his Master. Obi-Wan lived in his head. His emotions were reserved.
Anakin often had no idea what his Master felt or thought. Sometimes he
seemed to respond to the beings they met on their travels simply as ways to
get something accomplished. A scrappy pilot with hair-raising stories of
smuggling tech parts through the Outer Rim systems was just a means to get
from the Manda spaceport to Circarpous Major. A tavern owner who kept pet
dinkos was a contact to discover the location of a possible weapons cache.
A young brother and sister bounty-hunting team was taken along just to
provide an answer to the mystery of who was behind a Jedi's kidnapping.
It wasn't that Obi-Wan lacked compassion, Anakin mused. It was just
that there was a little more distance between him and other living beings.
Qui-Gon had not been able to pass along his connection to the Living Force
to his Padawan, Anakin felt.
Anakin treasured his Master. But sometimes he wondered what it would
have been like to have Qui-Gon as a Master instead. Would Qui-Gon have
shared his feelings more easily? Anakin had felt a connection to Qui-Gon
from the start. It had taken more time with Obi-Wan. It was still taking
time.
He reached the hills, which were covered with thorny green bushes and
small, squat trees. Anakin followed the hillside until he spotted scorch
marks, then an abandoned hydrospanner. He was close.
He strode forward ten meters, pushed aside a dense covering of leaves,
and found the cave opening. He walked inside, already feeling the presence
of living beings. The cave opened out as he walked. There were two security
guards, but they were unaware of Anakin's silent tread. Soon the ceiling
soared a hundred meters over his head.
He heard the clang of metal. The muffled sound of shouts and curses.
The whine and sputter of engines being tuned and tweaked. The roar of
powerful turbines. Someone whistling off-tune and someone else shouting at
him to stop or he'd shove an oily rag down his slimy throat.
Anakin smiled. It sounded like home.
The cave opened out and he saw a makeshift pit hangar set up ahead.
Podracers were parked haphazardly while beings of every size and
description and varying degrees of oil-soaked clothing worked on them. Pit
droids scuttled about, hauling huge lubricant hoses and tugging power cell
chargers.
He stopped at the edge and watched for a moment. Hydrospanners clanged
and macrofusers flew. Someone yelled for a fusioncutter. Some of the
Podracer pilots sat on elaborate folding chairs, sipping grog or tea and
keeping a watchful eye on their mechanics. Other pilots, not yet rich
enough to have someone else to tweak their engines, worked steadily and
with enormous concentration. The smallest mistake could cause a Podracer to
turn a fraction too sluggishly, resulting in a spectacular crash.
Anakin recognized Aldar Beedo, a Glymphid he had raced against several
times. He was surprised Beedo was still alive, let alone racing. Beedo had
never been particularly skillful, but he'd been cunning and fearless and
willing to cheat, and that had made him more successful at Podracing than
he had any right to be. Anakin would have thought he'd have crashed or been
run out of the Podraces by this time. Then again, there wasn't much
policing of Podracing. Race officials attempted to keep some sort of
control, but Podracers schemed to get away with as much as they could.
Anakin noticed a Podracer mechanic nearby. He could only see a pair of
short legs sticking out from underneath while another mechanic stood near
the console, pushing buttons in what appeared to be a random fashion. The
two mechanics were Aleenas. He recognized their three-toed feet and bluish
scaly skin. The Podracer looked familiar. It had been re-painted and
buffed, but he was sure he recognized it. He took a couple of steps closer.
"Doby, hand me that hydrospanner, will you? I've almost got this
fused. Then we can start her up again."
A hydrospanner twirled through the air, nearly taking off the tip of
Anakin's nose. A hand reached up from underneath the Podracer and caught
it.
"Go ahead and use it, but I'm telling you, Deland, it's not the joint,
" the mechanic at the console said. "No chance, never ever. If the engine
&
nbsp; overheats during gear switches, it's got to be a sensor problem."
"But the sensor doesn't show a problem, blope-head."
"That's the problem, bantha-breath. If you'd just let me finish
checking out the sensor suite..."
"I've been doing this longer than you have, baby brother, so slap your
flapping lips shut."
"You're only fourteen months older..."
"Fourteen and a half. And I'm the pilot. You're the mechanic."
"My point exact - "
"Got it!" A face stained with grease appeared in a pair of grimy
welding goggles. Deland sprang to his feet in one motion. "Let's fire her
up."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Anakin said.
Doby and Deland peered at him from behind their goggles.
"And we should listen to you because?" Deland asked.
Anakin took a step closer. "Because if your engine is overheating
during gear changes, the problem could be in the current filter. Have you
used an impulse detector?" The words flowed easily, like a native language
he had not spoken in years but would never forget.
"Not that it's your business, but yes," Doby said. "It didn't show
anything wrong."
"Then it's definitely the current filter," Anakin said. "It's clogged.
"
"Slap it shut, you son of a durkii," Deland warned his brother. "This
guy could be working for another Podracer. He's just trying to spook us."
Doby leaned toward his brother and said in a whisper, "Haven't you
noticed? He's a Jedi."
"He's a fraud and a fake," Deland hissed. "Sebulba probably hired him.
"
Anakin felt a rush of heat that made his face flame. Back on Tatooine,
Sebulba the Dug had tried to cheat his way to victory in the Boonta Eve
race and nearly killed Anakin in the process. They had always sparred,
though Sebulba had never taken him seriously enough to worry about him.
Until the race on Boonta Eve, when he'd beaten him in an extremely close
race. "Sebulba is still racing?"
"Everybody knows that," Deland said. "Now I know you're lying. Doby,
fire up that engine!"
"You're going to blow out the intake valves on the turbines," Anakin
warned.
In answer, Deland reached over and flipped on the engine. Anakin had
already stepped out of the way. Aloud explosion blew Deland back onto the
ground. Doby was almost blasted by a roar of fire from the left turbine.
Anakin reached over and shut off the engine.
"I'll be a Kowakian monkey-lizard!" Doby cried. "You were right!"
Deland picked himself up and dusted off his leggings. "Lucky guess."
"Are you two related to Ratts Tyerell?" Anakin asked curiously. "I
think I recognize this Podracer."
Doby nodded proudly. "He was our father. He died in the great Boonta
Eve Classic six years ago. Did you know him?"
"I raced against him in that race," Anakin said. "He was one of the
fastest. Incredibly quick reflexes." "Not quick enough," Doby said
sorrowfully.
"Lying again," Deland said to Anakin. "No human can be a Podracer."
"One was," Doby said. "A human child. A slave. He won his freedom, and
after the race he disappeared. His name was - "
"Anakin Skywalker," Anakin supplied. "Pleased to meet you."
"Now you're a Jedi?" Doby asked in disbelief. "And you were a slave?"
"It's a strange galaxy," Anakin said with a grin.
"Totally true," Doby agreed.
"Don't want to interrupt this getting-to-know-you gush, but we have a
job to do," Deland said gruffly.
"I'll help you if you want," Anakin said spontaneously. He'd love to
get his hands on a Podracer engine again, but he knew Obi-Wan would
certainly disapprove.
"What's in it for you?" Deland asked suspiciously.
"Who cares?" Doby asked. "He beat Sebulba, Deland! Now we have to." He
turned to Anakin. "After our father died, we had no money, so our uncle
sold our sister into slavery. Djulla's master is now Sebulba. We have to
get her out of his clutches! We bet our Podracer that we'd win. Sebulba bet
Djulla's freedom. This time, though, he's not racing. His son Hekula is."
"I'm sorry that your sister is a slave," Anakin said. "Do you know
Shmi, my mother? She's a slave, too. Or she was, when I saw her last."
Doby shook his head. "Mos Espa is full of beings. We don't know them
all."
Anakin blinked as tears filled his eyes, surprising him. For a moment,
Shmi had seemed so close. But she was as far away as she always was. He
turned away quickly, his gaze roaming around the makeshift hangar. He
didn't see Sebulba. But he did see something familiar - his old Podracer.
Could it be?
"Whose Podracer is that?" he asked, pointing it out.
"Hekula's," Deland said, giving it a glance.
Yes, it was definitely Anakin's old Podracer, a customized Radon-
Ulzer. It had been painted and retooled, but he would recognize it
anywhere. He knew Qui-Gon had sold the Podracer, but not to whom. Sebulba
must have bought it. Anakin burned at the thought of Sebulba owning the
Podracer he had built and maintained so lovingly.
A tall young Dug suddenly moved into Anakin's field of vision. "What
are you looking at, spy?" he shouted.
"What I look at is not your concern," Anakin shot back.
"When it's my Podracer it is," the Dug hissed back. "Spy!"
"It's Hekula," Doby warned Anakin in a whisper. "Be careful."
Anakin looked at Sebulba's son carefully. He felt the dark side of the
Force shimmer off him. He had taken after his father, that was clear.
A movement caught his eye. Another Dug had scuttled across the
distance toward him.
Anakin found himself face-to-face with his old enemy, Sebulba.
CHAPTER FIVE
Anakin's fingers itched for his lightsaber. The last time Sebulba had
threatened him, he'd been just a child and untrained. Now he could dispatch
Sebulba before the Dug could manage to blink.
But he saw immediately that Sebulba didn't recognize him. His gaze was
hostile, but the hostility wasn't personal. He had no idea that Anakin was
the young slave boy who had humiliated him in a race years before.
Anakin smiled again.
The smile infuriated Sebulba. "What are you smiling at? And how dare
you bully my son!"
"He's wasn't bullying me, Father," Hekula whined in Huttese. "I am
bullying him!"
"You were doing a very poor job of it," Anakin answered in Huttese.
"But that doesn't surprise me."
"How dare you!" Sebulba roared. "Prepare to die!"
Deland quickly moved between them. "Who's talking about dying?" he
said in a jovial tone. "Let's save that for the Podrace. Right, Hekula? I'd
worry about crashing more than spies, if I were you. I've seen you race!"
Hekula's long head thrust toward Deland. "You'll choke on my dust, son
of a Raft!"
Sebulba was more clever than his son. He grinned craftily and shot a
look at Djulla, who was standing by Hekula's Podracer, preparing a snack
for the two Dugs. "I hope you're alive to see your sister wipe the floor
under our feet," he hissed. "For the next fifty years!"
Anakin and De
land both tensed, ready to strike. In Sebulba's taunt
Anakin heard every cruelty he and his mother had ever endured.
Doby grabbed the hems of Anakin's and Deland's tunics. "Just let them
go," he murmured. "We'll win the race. That is our better best revenge."
Anakin saw Deland's hand clench and unclench. His own fingertips
burned to slip his lightsaber from its sheath.
"Let's leave the cowards to their play," Sebulba sneered. He and
Hekula slithered off, their footfalls clattering on the stony ground.
Deland wiped his oily hands with a rag viciously, as though wiping
away the memory of Sebulba's taunt. "We've got to beat them. We've got to."
"He's fast," Doby said, watching Hekula and Sebulba return to their
entourage. A look of pain crossed his face as Djulla handed Hekula a cup of
juma juice and Hekula spat it out while shouting an insult. "He's just as
cruel and dangerous as his father. Maybe more so, because he takes more
chances."
Temptation loomed before Anakin. He could help Doby and Deland beat
Hekula. He knew it. It was not part of his mission here. But Obi-Wan had
allowed him to have free time. What better way to use it than free a slave