Navigating Mos Espa while floating six inches off the ground turned out to be more challenging than he had anticipated. For one thing, his translucent form drew stares from every being he passed. Jawas chittered excitedly and pointed gnarled fingers at him. Rodians stumbled backward, their large eyes wide with shock. A particularly jumpy Twi'lek actually fainted, his head-tails going rigid as he toppled over into a fruit stand.
"Great," Cass muttered, trying to make himself less visible by ducking behind a moisture vaporator. "I'm supposed to be subtle, and I'm floating around like the Ghost of Comics Past."
He needed to be more careful. Fortunately, the winding streets of Mos Espa provided plenty of cover, narrow alleyways, market stalls, and adobe archways that he could slip through without being seen. He moved through the city like a phantom, following his memories of the films and his own illustrated layouts to navigate toward his destination.
The sounds hit him first: the buzz of speeder bikes weaving through traffic, alien chatter in a dozen languages, and the rhythmic clanking of machinery. Then came the smells, a mixture of mechanical lubricants, ozone from welding equipment, and the distinctive metallic scent of droid parts mixing with cooking food and fuel fumes.
Finally, he heard it: the sound of a small repulsorlift engine being fine-tuned, accompanied by the cheerful humming of someone who loved their work.
He peered around the corner of the building and felt his heart skip several beats. There it was, exactly as he'd drawn it a hundred times: the cluttered workshop with its high ceiling, tool-covered workbenches, and towering piles of salvaged starship parts. The air inside shimmered with heat from active machinery, and tools clinked against metal surfaces in a symphony of creative chaos.
And there, kneeling beside a sleek podracer that gleamed with fresh modifications, was a small figure with sandy blonde hair and an expression of intense concentration.
Anakin Skywalker. Currently nine years old and completely absorbed in adjusting his podracer's guidance system.
"No way," he whispered, his spirit form crackling with excitement. "It's really him. It's actually Anakin."
The boy looked exactly as portrayed in the films, but there was something more real about him, a sense of presence and potential that no movie could fully capture. Even at this age, the Force swirled around him like a visible aura, bright and pure but tinged with shadows that spoke of futures both wonderful and terrible.
Anakin was working on his podracer with the focused intensity of someone who understood machines on an intuitive level. His small hands moved with surprising confidence as he adjusted circuits and tightened connections, occasionally muttering to himself in that mixture of excitement and frustration that the artist recognized from his own years of creative struggle.
"The binding plates are still loose on the left engine," the boy said to himself, reaching for a hydrospanner with barely contained eagerness. "And the fuel mixture needs to be richer for tomorrow's race..." His young face scrunched in concentration as he made minute adjustments, clearly envisioning how each change would affect performance.
Huh? Tomorrow's race? His mind raced as he processed this information. In the films, Anakin had participated in the Boonta Eve Classic, the big podrace that Qui-Gon had wagered on to win the parts they needed to repair their ship. But this didn't look like the setup for that race. The podracer was different, for one thing, sleeker, less patched-together than the one Anakin had used in the movie.
"Wait a minute," he said to himself. "If this is a different race..."
A shadow fell across the workshop entrance, and he quickly ducked behind a pile of scrap metal as Watto himself flew into view. The Toydarian's wings buzzed with mechanical precision as he hovered near his young slave, his trunk-like nose twitching with what looked like annoyance mixed with calculation.
"Anakin!" Watto called out in Huttese, his voice carrying that familiar gravelly tone that spoke of years spent haggling in dusty marketplaces. "You spend too much time on that podracer! There are customers waiting, and customers mean wealth!"
"Almost finished, Watto," Anakin replied without looking up from his work, his hands never pausing in their delicate adjustments. "Just need to calibrate the stabilizers and"
"You always say 'almost finished,'" Watto grumbled, switching to accented Basic while his wings beat faster with irritation. "Tomorrow is race day, yes? You think you can win this time? Or will you embarrass me again in front of my betting partners?"
Anakin finally looked up, and the older spirit was struck by the intensity in those young blue eyes, the same eyes that would one day burn yellow with Sith rage, but for now still bright with hope and determination.
"I'm going to win," Anakin said with the absolute confidence of youth, but there was something else there too, a desperation that spoke of consequences beyond just losing a race. "I've made some improvements to the steering system, and I figured out how to boost the power output without overheating the engines. Sebulba won't know what hit him."
Watto laughed, a sound like gravel in a blender, but his multifaceted eyes showed a flicker of genuine interest. "You said that last week, and Sebulba still beat you. That Dug knows how to cheat better than you know how to race. Maybe you should learn his tricks instead of playing fair."
Last week. Pieces of a puzzle clicked into place in his mind. This wasn't the Boonta Eve Classic, this was a local race, probably one of the weekly competitions that helped establish rankings for the bigger events. And Anakin had lost to Sebulba, which meant the boy was still building his reputation, still proving himself worthy of the major races.
"This is a week before the Jedi arrive," he whispered, his excitement growing. "A week before Qui-Gon and Queen Amidala land on Tatooine. I'm here early. I have time to prepare."
He needed more information, though. And for that, he would need to get closer to the inhabitants of this world without floating around like an obvious specter.
He floated through the winding streets of Mos Espa, his mind racing with possibilities. That's when he spotted the perfect opportunity.
Outside a small cantina called the Dewback's Rest, a Rodian was sitting alone at a corner table, nursing what looked like a blue milk cocktail and staring morosely into the middle distance. The alien's large, multifaceted eyes had the glassy look of someone who'd been drinking for several hours, and his movements were sluggish and uncoordinated. Even from a distance, the spirit could sense the being's dulled mental state.
"Perfect," he muttered. "Nobody's going to notice if a drunk Rodian acts a little strange."
He'd never possessed anyone before heck, a day ago he'd been a normal human being with a normal human body and normal human problems like paying rent and avoiding telemarketers. But somehow, the process felt instinctive, as if it were part of whatever cosmic upgrade the vessel had given him during his time at the Stellar Forge.
He approached the Rodian slowly, extending his consciousness like a tentative handshake. The alien's mental defenses were practically nonexistent, dulled by alcohol and whatever personal troubles had driven him to day-drinking in a desert cantina. The being's surface thoughts were a jumbled mess of financial worries and romantic regrets, nothing that would interfere with what he needed to do.
Easy does it, he thought, gently sliding his awareness into the Rodian's mind. Just a temporary roommate situation...
The moment of contact was like jumping into ice-cold water while simultaneously being struck by lightning. Suddenly, he was experiencing the world through compound eyes that saw in spectrums he didn't know existed. The Rodian's body felt wrong, too tall, too thin, with joints that bent in directions human anatomy wasn't designed for. And the sensory input was overwhelming: he could smell things with supernatural clarity, hear conversations from three tables away, and taste the emotional resonance of every being in the cantina.
"Gah!" he tried to say, but what came out was a series of clicks and whistles in the Rodian language. "How do I? Oh, wait..."
He focused on thinking in Basic, drawing on his host's language centers, and suddenly the words came out properly, albeit with a pronounced Rodian accent that made him sound like he was speaking through a vocoder.
"Holy shit," he whispered, his new voice trembling with disbelief. Fragments of the Rodian's memories were flooding through his consciousness like water through a broken dam. He could see flashes of the alien's life: a failed shipping business on Rodia, a lover who'd left him for a smuggler, debts piling up like asteroid debris. But it wasn't just memories, he could feel the Rodian's current thoughts, dulled and sluggish though they were.
"I can read his thoughts," he breathed, flexing his new fingers in amazement. "I'm not just wearing him like a suit, I'm actually inside his head." The realization hit him like a hyperdrive malfunction. This wasn't just possession; this was complete mental integration. He could navigate through the Rodian's neural pathways like browsing a holonet database, accessing everything from childhood fears to muscle memory.
What the hell did that vessel do to me?
"Okay," he said to himself, flexing his new fingers and marveling at their dexterity. "This is definitely going to take some getting used to."
The side effects of the possession were immediate and uncomfortable. On top of that, the Rodian's body chemistry was completely different from human physiology. What felt like mild intoxication to his host was hitting him like a freight speeder made of fermented bantha milk.
A nearby Twi'lek patron gave him a strange look, and he realized he'd been speaking to himself while sitting alone at a table. Great. Now he looked like a crazy drunk Rodian instead of just a regular drunk Rodian.
He tried to access his host's memories more directly, searching for information about local events. What he found was a treasure trove of gossip, rumors, and speculation that painted a vivid picture of life on Tatooine in the week before everything changed.
The local podracing circuit was buzzing with excitement about the upcoming Boonta Eve Classic. Sebulba was the clear favorite, having won the last three major races through a combination of genuine skill and strategic cheating that the judges either couldn't prove or chose to ignore for the sake of entertainment value. Young Anakin Skywalker was considered a promising up-and-comer, but most bookmakers gave him long odds due to his age and recent string of near-misses.
More importantly, there had been no sign of any Jedi ships. No unusual Imperial activity beyond the standard harassment of moisture farmers and the occasional smuggler sweep. The Trade Federation's blockade of Naboo was still a distant political crisis that most Outer Rim inhabitants barely cared about.
He had a week before Qui-Gon Jinn would arrive on Tatooine, and he needed to use that time wisely."Information," he said aloud, testing the word as it rolled off his host's vocal cords with that distinctive Rodian accent. "Knowledge is power, and I have fifty years worth of it."
But knowledge was only useful if you could apply it effectively. Cass took inventory of what he could do so far: First, he could float, no need to walk anywhere like some primitive ground-pounder. Second, he could apparently occupy the body of any species connected to the Force, though that was still just a theory based on his successful possession of this particular drunk Rodian. And third, he had four specific mission objectives, one of which involved securing the freedom of Shmi Skywalker right here on Tatooine.
That last point got him thinking. His official mission was to protect Qui-Gon, prevent Palpatine's influence, ensure Shmi's freedom, and kill Darth Maul. But what about Anakin himself? The boy was the linchpin of everything, the Chosen One whose fall would plunge the galaxy into darkness. Surely freeing him from slavery would be just as important as freeing his mother?
Cass felt the familiar mental connection with the ship, that strange telepathic link that had developed between them.
"Hey ship," he thought, projecting his mental voice across the void. "If you're listening, I have a question. Did the entity who gave us these missions have any objection if we also secure freedom for Anakin from slavery? It seems like a logical extension of the Shmi Skywalker objective."
The ship's response came immediately, crackling through their mental connection with typical mechanical efficiency. "Yes, it wouldn't affect anything negatively. But you should focus on our primary missions rather than taking on additional risks. You know the kid is a source of problems, are you sure the investment you make today will actually pay dividends? Or are you just setting yourself up for a spectacular failure?"
Cass felt his borrowed Rodian blood pressure spike again, though this time it was from frustration rather than anger. The ship's cold, calculating approach to what he saw as a deeply human tragedy was infuriating.
"It's not that I'm only seeing Anakin's freedom as a business transaction," he replied, his mental voice carrying more heat than he'd intended. "Look, Anakin is just a kid today, but he's literally half of Star Wars. If we can secure his loyalty and guidance now, our future missions would become exponentially easier. We're talking about the Chosen One here, the most powerful Force user in galactic history."
"So you don't believe in the Jedi Knights' abilities of guiding him," the ship observed with what sounded suspiciously like amusement. "You want to babysit both mother and child yourself instead of trusting them to the galaxy's premier peacekeeping organization. How delightfully arrogant of you."
Cass leaned back in his chair, his host's compound eyes staring up at the cantina's smoke-stained ceiling as he marshaled his arguments. This wasn't just about strategy, this was about everything he'd learned from fifty years of studying this universe and its failures.
"It's not arrogance, it's pattern recognition," he said finally. "I really don't have any confidence in the Jedi Knights' ability to handle Anakin properly. Think about it: they were supposedly in their prime during the Republic era, with thousands of Knights spread across the galaxy, and they still couldn't prevent Palpatine's rise or the Clone Wars. One person,literally ONE, used mind games and political manipulation to destroy their thousand-year legacy."
The ship was silent for a moment, processing this information with what Cass hoped was growing understanding rather than growing mockery.
"Continue," it said simply.
Cass felt his passion building as he delved deeper into the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker, a story he'd retold and reimagined countless times in his comics, but never with this level of personal investment.
"The reason Anakin became Darth Vader wasn't because he was inherently evil, it was because the Jedi failed him at every crucial moment. The kid suffered more than any person should have to endure. He lived as a slave for nine years, watching his mother work herself to exhaustion while they both dreamed of freedom they couldn't afford."
His mental voice grew more intense as he continued, drawing on decades of character analysis and storytelling expertise.
"Even after his so-called 'freedom,' the Jedi subjected him to emotional suppression and institutional hypocrisy. They told him to care about the galaxy but forbade him from loving Padmé, the one person who made him feel truly human. They preached about compassion while showing him none. Mace Windu distrusted him even after he saved countless lives and proved his loyalty over and over again."
"You're getting worked up over fictional characters," the ship pointed out, though its tone lacked its usual cutting edge.
"They're not fictional here!" Cass shot back. "That's the whole point! In this reality, Anakin is a real nine-year-old boy who's going to suffer through all of that unless we change things. The Jedi Order became arrogant and politicized, they got so entangled in bureaucracy, politics, and war that they lost sight of their core mission. They became everything they originally stood against."
The ship's presence in his mind seemed to shift, becoming more attentive and less dismissive.
"Okay, okay," it said, and for the first time since they'd met, it sounded genuinely convinced rather than merely humoring him. "These reasons are sufficient to justify keeping the child under our supervision. But how exactly do you plan to accomplish this? You can't just walk up to Watto and offer to buy two slaves with money you don't have. And even if you could free them, what then? How do you plan to train a Force-sensitive child without the resources of the Jedi Order?"
Cass smiled with his host's rubbery lips, feeling a surge of confidence that he hadn't experienced since his comic book heyday. This was what he'd been born for, not just telling stories, but living them, changing them, making them better.
"Just watch me," he replied, his mental voice carrying the weight of fifty years of creative problem-solving and narrative expertise. "I'll show you that choosing me was the greatest achievement you've ever accomplished."