his helmet close against the spherical chamber’s ceiling Dedicated servos lowered the helmet over his head and locked it onto his collar’s hermetic seal As his damaged lungs exhaled through his armored suit’s life-support system a deep hiss was emitted from his triangular respiratory vent The upper half of the meditation chamber lifted exposing Vader like a black pistil at the center of a white mechanical flower His seat rotated allowing him to face a wide viewscreen which flicked on to display the image of Admiral Piett on the Executor’s bridge Vader said Status report The Executor is prepared to leave Coruscant’s orbit Piett replied standing at attention in his gray uniform uniform Although his voice was alert his eyes appeared tired from staring at sensor screens and navigational monitors I await your command Set course for the Endor system Vader said As you wish my lord Piett’s image vanished from the viewscreen It was definitely not a dream Vader convinced himself himself without difficulty Dreams are for pathetic life-forms He stared at his own reflection on the surface of the viewscreen I am the nightmare With an imperceptible gesture he reset the viewscreen viewscreen to display the starfield that lay directly before the Executor’s bow As he gazed at the distant stars on
the screen a deeply buried memory pushed its way into his consciousness It was the memory of a wish a wish to visit every star in the galaxy But that wish and the dreams that went with it had belonged to someone else a child who lived a long time ago and was no more Those were the dreams of a boy named Anakin Skywalker
CHAPTER ONE Anakin Skywalker was dreaming In the dream he was an older boy but still years away from manhood He was inside the open cockpit of a small repulsorlift vehicle soaring over rocky terrain at an incredibly high speed Two strong cables were secured to a parallel pair of long engines in front of the vehicle and the gap between the engines was bridged by an arc of crackling energy Anakin had never seen such a strange contraption but somehow he knew how to handle handle it As he pressed against a throttle lever and plunged into a high-walled ravine he realized I’m a pilot He wasn’t alone Several similar vehicles swerved through the ravine in front of him and the noise of their engines echoing off the rocky walls was almost deafening It’s a race With fearless precision Anakin accelerated and whipped past the other vehicles Out of the corners of
his eyes he caught fleeting glimpses of his competition Most were aliens he’d never seen before but they all had alert determined expressions and nimble fingers Anakin had dreamed of other worlds before but never anyplace like this Launching out of the ravine Anakin led the other racers across a wide expanse of desert flats Twin suns blazed in the sky baking the hard sand so that the rising heat shimmered in the air and made distant rock formations formations appear to float above the planetary surface In the distance he sighted an enormous open arena that was ringed by crowded grandstands and dome-topped towers towers He knew the finish line was in that arena Tightening his grip on the controls he thought I’m going to win Suddenly his left engine began to shudder violently jolting the cable that linked the engine to his vehicle Anakin was struggling to maintain control when his right engine let out a loud whine then both engines began to nose toward the ground Anakin squirmed in his cockpit and cried NO It’s all right Ani said his mother’s voice And then Anakin Skywalker woke up The shuddering sensation and loud whine of an engine continued as Anakin opened his eyes He was huddled beside his mother on a hard metal bench in a space freighter’s cargo compartment which was separated separated from the noisy engine room by a crisscross of
