'That piece of junk has never even been off the ground,' Wald said, nudging Annie. 'This is such a joke, Annie.'
'You've been working on that thing for years,' Annie observed, her small, delicate features twisting in disapproval. She shook her blond head. 'It's never going to run.'
Anakin started to say something in defense of himself, then decided against it. Better to let them think whatever they wanted for now. He would show them.
'Come on, let's go play ball,' Seek suggested, already turning away, a hint of boredom in his voice. 'Keep it up, Annie, and you're gonna be bug squash.'
Seek, Wald, and Annie hurried off, laughing back at him. But Kitster was his best friend and knew better than to doubt Anakin when he said he was going to do something. So Kitster stayed behind, ignoring the others. 'What do they know?' he said quietly.
Anakin gave him a grin of appreciation. Then he noticed Jar Jar fiddling with the left engine's energy binder plate, the power source that locked the engines together and kept them in sync, and the grin disappeared.
'Hey! Jar Jar!' he shouted in warning. 'Stay away from those energy binders!'
The Gungan, bent close to the protruding plate, looked up guiltily. 'Who, me?'
Anakin put his hands on his hips. 'If your hand gets caught in the beam, it will go numb for hours.'
Jar Jar screwed up his face, then put his hands behind his back and stuck his billed face back down by the plate. Almost instantly an electric current arced from the plate to his mouth, causing him to yelp and jump back in shocked surprise. Both hands clamped over his mouth as he stood staring at the boy in disbelief.
'Ist numm! Ist numm!' Jar Jar mumbled, his long tongue hanging loosely. 'My tongue is fat. Dats my bigo oucho.' Anakin shook his head and went back to work on the wiring.
Kitster moved close to him, watching silently, his dark face intense. 'You don't even know if this thing will run, Annie,' he observed with a frown.
Anakin didn't look up. 'It will.'
Qui-Gon Jinn appeared at his shoulder. 'I think it's about time we found out.' He handed the boy a small, bulky cylinder. 'Use this power pack. I picked it up earlier in the day. Watto has less need for it than you.' One corner of his mouth twitched in a mix of embarrassment and amusement.
Anakin knew the value of a power pack. How the Jedi had managed to secure one from under Watto's nose, he had no idea and no interest in finding out. 'Yes, sir!' he beamed.
He jumped into the cockpit, fitted the power pack into its sleeve in the control panel, and set the activator to the ON position. Then he pulled on his old, dented racing helmet and gloves. As he did so, Jar Jar, who had been fiddling around at the back of one of the engines, managed to get his hand caught in the afterburner. The Gungan began leaping up and down in terror, his mouth still numb from the shock he had received from the energy binders, his bill flapping to no discernible purpose. Padme caught sight of him at the last minute-his arms windmilling frantically-and yanked him free an instant before the engines ignited.
Flame exploded from the afterburners, and a huge roar rose from the Radon - Ulzers, building steadily in pitch until Anakin eased off on the thrusters, then settling back into a throaty rumble. Cheers rose from the spectators, and Anakin waved his hand in response.
On the porch of their home, Shmi Skywalker watched wordlessly, her eyes distant and sad.
Twilight brought a blaze of gold and crimson in the wake of Tatooine's departing suns, a splash of color that filled the horizon in a long, graceful sweep. Night climbed after, darkening the sky, bringing out the stars like scattered shards of crystal. In the deepening black, the land was silent and watchful.
A gleam of bright metal caught the last of the fading suns' rays, and a small transport sped out of the Dune Sea toward Mos Espa. Shovel-nosed and knife-edged, its wings swept back and its vertical stabilizers crimped inward top to bottom, it hugged the landscape as it climbed promontories and descended valleys, searching. Dark and immutable, it had the look of a predator, of a hunter at work.
Beyond the Dune Sea, following the failing light, the craft settled swiftly on the broad plateau of a mesa that gave a longrange view of the land in all directions. Wild banthas scattered with its approach, tossing their hairy heads and massive horns, trumpeting their disapproval. The transport came to rest and its engines shut down. It sat there in silence, waiting.
Then the aft hatchway slid open, metal stairs lowered, and Darth Maul appeared. The Sith Lord had discarded his black robes and wore loose-fitting desert garb, a collared coat belted at the waist, his lightsaber hanging within easy reach. His stunted horns, fully exposed now with his hood removed, formed a wicked crown above his strange red-and-black-colored face. Ignoring the banthas, he walked to the edge of the mesa, produced a pair of low-light electrobinoculars, and began to scan the horizon in all directions.
Desert sand and rocks, he was thinking. Wasteland. But a city there, and another there. And there, a third.
He took the electro binoculars from his eyes. The lights of the cities were clearly visible against the growing dark. If there were others, they were far on the other side of the Dune Sea where he had already been, or beyond the horizon much farther still where he would later be required to go.
But the Jedi, he believed, were here.
There was no expression on his mosaic face, but his yellow eyes gleamed expectantly. Soon now. Soon.
He lifted his arm o view the control panel strapped to his forearm, picked out the settings he wished to engage, and punched in the calcqiations required to identify the enemy he was looking for. Jedi Knights would manifest a particularly strong presence in the Force. It took only a minute. He turned back toward his ship. Spherical probe droids floated through the hatchway, one after another. When all were clear, they rocketed away toward the cities he had identified.
Darth Maul watched until they were out of view, the darkness closing quickly now. He smiled faintly. Soon.
Then he walked back to his ship to begin monitoring their response.
