As we divided into two groups, Qui-Gon took me aside and whispered that once we got inside the hangar, I should find a safe place to hide and stay there. I wanted to help him, but I had to follow his orders.
We waited while the other group of Naboo guards snuck across the central plaza. Padmé sent them a signal and the guards began to fire on the droids.
Instantly, the Trade Federation battle droids and tanks in the main plaza returned fire. Meanwhile Padmé’s group rushed into the hangar. About a dozen bright yellow Naboo starfighters were inside. There were more droid guards in there and they started firing.
My ears were ringing with explosions and sirens as a battle began for control of the Naboo fighters.
Following Qui-Gon’s orders, I ran under a fighter and hid there. The air sizzled with blaster bolts and lasers being shot back and forth. I couldn’t take my eyes off Padmé. She led her troops well and fought bravely, ducking laser blasts and taking out droids with her blaster.
A laser blast blew a hole in the floor just inches away from me. So close I felt its scorching heat. A shiver ran through me. If that blast had hit me, I’d be nothing more than a few chunks of charred flesh. Feeling light-headed, I backed deeper into my hiding place.
The fight continued with the Jedi Knights, Naboo guards, and pilots. They were pushing the Trade Federation droids back! Padmé gave the signal for the Naboo pilots and R2 units to get into the fighters. The next thing I knew, a Naboo pilot jumped into the fighter I was hiding under. He yelled at me to find a new place to hide, and before I knew it, the fighter was lifting off. I was in the middle of the hangar, totally unprotected!
With random laser blasts still rocketing over my head, I searched for a new place to hide.
I heard a whistle and turned to see the droid Artoo-Detoo in an unmanned fighter. He looked safe in the starfighter. In the middle of the battle, with no place else to go, it sounded like a good idea. I climbed in.
By now lots of Naboo starfighters were zooming out of the hangar. Out in the central plaza, a Trade Federation tank wheeled around and fired.
Ka-boom! I winced as a starfighter burst into flames and crashed. Luckily, the others managed to take off unharmed.
Having freed the starfighters, Padmé, the Jedi, and the Naboo guards turned toward the palace. The next part of the mission was to capture the viceroy. As they started out of the hangar, I began to climb out of the starfighter I’d been hiding in.
Suddenly Qui-Gon saw me and shouted that I was to stay inside the cockpit. I tried to argue with him, but he insisted that it was the safest place for me. I can’t say I was happy about it, but I did as I was told.
I watched as the rest of the group headed for the doors leading out of the hangar. Suddenly they froze. In the doorway, blocking their path, stood the Sith Lord!
Thirteenth Entry
The Battle
His yellow eyes were intense, his red-and-black face terrifying. Padmé and the Naboo guards quickly backed away. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan threw off their capes and ignited their lightsabers. For a split second I wondered how any warrior could fight off two Jedi. But then the dark warrior lit his saber. Both ends glowed ominously. His lightsaber was double-sided!
They started to fight. The fury of their battle was like nothing I’d ever seen. The Sith Lord could spring twenty meters in the air and do a flip while still fighting both Jedi. I was so amazed that I didn’t even notice the other battle brewing behind us. Artoo whistled and I turned just in time to see three new Trade Federation droids roll into the hangar behind us. At first they looked like shiny metal wheels. But they quickly unfolded into heavily armed battle droids.
Padmé and the Naboo guards were trapped. The Sith Lord was fighting Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon at one end of the hangar and the destroyer droids were firing from the other end.
It looked bad. I knew I had to help and started hitting switches. Suddenly the starfighter lurched up and began to rise!
I steered the fighter toward the destroyer droids. I was going to get those three-legged death machines. All I had to do was find the trigger for the laser guns.
I stared down at the banks of brightly lit switches and buttons. Which one? Which one?
Oops! I pushed a button, but instead of firing lasers, the starfighter bucked. I must have tripped a stabilizer.
Meanwhile, the destroyer droids were moving in on Padmé and her team.
I tried another button.
Zap! Boom!
The nose lasers fired and a destroyer droid burst into smoke and flame.
All right! Artoo let out a whistle-cheer and I blasted another droid, and then another.
With the droids out of the way, Padmé and the Naboo guards hurried into the palace. Meanwhile, the Sith Lord and the Jedi were locked in deadly combat.
Wham! My starfighter took a shot and heeled over. I jumped around. More droids had entered the hangar.
And now they were firing at me!
Suddenly we were in a storm of explosions. Artoo-Detoo was beeping at me like crazy. Of course I wanted the fighter’s shield up! I just wasn’t sure which…
Whoa! I hit a switch and we went from zero to sixty in a nanosecond. Artoo didn’t have to tell me I’d accidentally flicked on the afterburners. I could feel it!
The good news was that I managed to steer the starfighter out of the hangar without crashing into any walls.
The bad news was that we were now rocketing upward and I still didn’t know how to pilot a fighter!
We shot out of the city and over a vast grassy plain. Below us the Gungans and the Trade Federation battle droids were fighting fiercely. The plain was littered with shattered droids and wounded Gungans and kaadu. Lasers and energy balls were rocketing back and forth. The air was filled with explosions and smoke.
Artoo kept beeping at me, something about the autopilot searching for other ships. But I couldn’t see any.
Something was bothering him about those other ships. I told him if he didn’t like where the autopilot was taking us, he should try to override the system.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bright explosion. There were ships out there! Naboo starfighters were battling Trade Federation fighters that had been sent out to protect the ship controlling the droid armies below.
In fact, the autopilot was steering us straight toward the enemy!
For a moment, I froze with disbelief. Equal parts of fear and excitement shot through me. What was I doing? A slave kid from Tatooine sitting at the controls of a lightspeed-fast starfighter hurtling toward an enemy battleship? If only Kitster could see this!
Out of nowhere a laser blast rocked my starfighter. I screamed at Artoo to get us off autopilot and he beeped back he just had. I grabbed the controls and swung the starfighter. It went left! Artoo had done it!
He beeped again, reminding me I had to go back. But I told him, no way. Qui-Gon had insisted I stay in this cockpit and that was exactly what I intended to do.
A Trade Federation fighter made the mistake of crossing into the airspace ahead of us. I got on his tail and had him in my sights. Blasting that guy out of the sky was going to be a cinch.
I just needed to know where the trigger for the fighter’s laser cannon was!
Artoo beeped and I did what he told me to do.
The starfighter shot forward with a jolt. Instead of firing on the enemy fighter, I shot right past him. Now he was on my tail!
“Darn it, Artoo!” I yelled.
Artoo beeped a meek apology. The Trade Federation fighter now had us in his sights.
And that wasn’t the worst of it. The really bad news was that we were headed straight for the Droid Control Ship!
I put the Naboo starfighter into a spin. And not a moment too soon. A laser blast from the fighter behind us shot over our left wing, barely missing us!
But we were still headed straight for the Control Ship. I yelled at Artoo that the only way out of this mess was the same way we’d gotten into it.
> He beeped back and I hit a button, hoping this time it really was the starfighters reverse thrusters.
It was! With a jolt, the starfighter slowed down. Now it was the Trade Federation fighter’s turn to shoot past us.
Ka-boom! It crashed into the Control Ship.
I swung the starfighter around and stole a glance at the rest of the Naboo craft. They were taking shots at the Control Ship, but nothing was getting through the deflector shield.
This was bad. Unless they disabled that ship, the Gungan troops on the ground would be slaughtered. Artoo beeped again. Another Trade Federation fighter was on our tail!
Once again we were being chased back toward the Control Ship. I guess Artoo didn’t approve of the way I was handling the starfighter because he kept beeping that this wasn’t the same as Podracing.
As if I couldn’t figure that out on my own!
Thwank! Something hit us from behind! It must have been a shot from the Trade Federation fighter. Artoo screeched as smoky sparks flew and lights flickered in the cockpit. Our starfighter went into an uncontrollable spin.
We were going to crash into the Control Ship!
By the time I got control of the starfighter, it was too late to avoid the giant ship. I had no choice but to steer toward the only open space ahead: a huge open hangar.
Suddenly we were inside the hangar, inside the Trade Federation Control Ship, still going much too fast. I was busy dodging transports, fighters, and other ships on the hangar deck.
Jamming my hand down on the reverse thrusters, I managed to stall the engines and bring the starfighter to a stop just before we hit the hangar wall.
For a second, everything was silent. Artoo gave me a low, worried whistle. Here we were dead center in the middle of enemy territory! I tried to restart the engines, but the whole instrument panel went red with warning lights.
I knew I must’ve blown something during the emergency landing. Or we’d just plain overheated.
But now we were surrounded by Trade Federation battle droids.
Not knowing what else to do, I ducked down in the cockpit. A battle droid captain came forward. He demanded to know who the pilot of our starfighter was. Artoo whistled back that he was the pilot. The battle droid appeared confused and asked to see identification.
Just then the lights on the cockpit control panel went from red to green!
I jumped up in the pilot’s seat and flicked on the ignition. The starfighter powered up instantly.
The battle droid captain saw me in the cockpit and ordered that I come out or they’d shoot.
I answered by switching on the fighter’s deflector shield. We started to rise and I swung the fighter around, knocking over the battle droid captain. The other droids were firing, but their shots were all deflected by the shield.
I aimed and fired at the droids. But I pressed the wrong button and set off two torpedoes!
The fighter recoiled as the torpedoes launched. With a jolt I realized it was too much and too close. My torpedoes missed the droids and shot down a hallway. I had a feeling once those torpedoes made contact, things were going to get very, very messy.
It was definitely time to say good-bye.
I swung the starfighter around and hit the thrusters. Unfortunately the hangar was full of droids by now and I had to knock a lot of them over. The funny thing was, it was just like Podracing!
KA-BOOM! As we reached the mouth of the hangar, a huge explosion erupted behind us.
Whoosh! The force of the blast pushed our starfighter right out of the hangar. I twisted around in my seat and watched as the Control Ship disappeared inside a huge ball of yellow and orange flame. Giant chunks of red-hot burning debris were shooting out into space in all directions.
We’d done it! We’d disabled the Trade Federation’s Droid Control Ship!
Gripping the fighter’s controls, I expected to feel a surge of happiness as I steered the starfighter away. But I was suddenly overcome by a dark wave of pain and sadness.
At that moment I didn’t know what had caused it. I only knew that something terrible was happening nearby.
Fourteenth Entry
A Bitter Triumph
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.”
Time to Go
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 fr
ightened and excited.
Wherever the path leads, I am ready.
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Star Wars - Episode I Journal - Anakin Skywalker Page 6
