Evening came unexpectedly and brought with it welcome relief for the tired and exhausted workers. Tatooine has two suns for a reason, and for some unknown reason, today both of them seemed to have gone mad, arguing with each other about who was better. The result of this battle was a suffocating heat that tormented the peaceful population all day long. Only in the evening did the two celestial warriors calm down slightly and give way to the welcome coolness, allowing the workers to finish their day with a sigh of relief. Slavery did not leave much free time, or energy for that matter, but when you are a child, none of that matters much. And children do not think about such nonsense, especially when there are much more interesting things around them. For example, a small, rather old, but thoroughly washed and polished blue and white racing car standing near a small mud hut on the outskirts of Mos-Espa. It was this car that was now being looked at with enthusiasm and impatience by the big blue eyes of a thin girl, no older than ten, who was coming out of the house where she lived with her father, a slave like her now. It had only been a couple of years since the evil Teydorian Watto had bought them from their former owner and taken them from their home planet to this sun-scorched Tatooine. The girl sighed heavily at these thoughts, for she still had not gotten used to being here; everything was still new to her: the heat, the exhausting labour, the harsh, heavy-handed master...This girl had had a very difficult life, but there was also something she loved very much and was afraid of losing. Her dear and beloved father. Her best friend and loyal protector. And now he was entering the courtyard.
"Asoka, baby, are you going to the canyon again?
"Yes, Dad, I'm going to fly a little while the heat is off," smiled the girl, wiping her sweaty face with the edge of her white loose shirt and tucking it back into her trousers.
"All right, sweetheart, go on, but don't be long," the man sighed as he let her go, knowing that arguing with his little girl was useless. He was not yet old, but already a very emaciated slave, his face lined with early wrinkles and his skin burnt and cracked from long and frequent work in the open air. However, he still retained his former attractiveness, and his smile and large blue eyes, just like his daughter's, betrayed his friendly and warm-hearted nature. His name was Sean Tano, and his only wealth was his kind heart and this little girl, who had nimbly jumped into the cart, ready to start the engine.
"Don't worry, Dad," she waved her hand carelessly. "I'll be back for dinner!
"Be careful, sweetheart!" Sean called after her before she took off and headed towards Beggar's Canyon, where her friends were already waiting for her. Racing was Ahsoka's second greatest love. It was what she devoted most of her free time to, and she had even participated in several competitions organised by Jabba the Hutt. Her father was against it and worried about her every time, but unfortunately, it was the only way to make their lives a little better. By the way, another race was planned soon, as Kister, one of her friends, had told her in secret that morning, and Asoka immediately decided that she would participate. She sighed bitterly, imagining her father's expression when she told him about it. However, as soon as she rose a little higher and picked up speed, all her heavy thoughts immediately vanished from her mind. After all, they were together again. The sky, speed, Kar. Best friends. Asoka was a fairly sociable girl and had many friends among other young slaves, but only with these three did she feel truly comfortable, as if they were one, a single organism. Now, flying as high as the kar would allow, Asoka happily accelerated to full speed, joyfully throwing herself into the embrace of the wind, which pleasantly cooled her face, as if in a welcoming kiss. The sky was so close that she wanted to stretch out her arms to touch the clouds, which seemed to be playing a game with each other, moving back and forth across the azure-blue surface. Asoka couldn't resist and stretched out her arms, leaning forward slightly, but all she caught was the air currents, which didn't upset her at all.
"I love you!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. In those moments, Asoka truly loved the whole world and the entire galaxy, even this dusty and grey Tatooine. But now those words were directed only at the sky. Grasping the steering wheel again, Asoka flew like a wave, descending and then rising. Then, finally emboldened, she did a dead loop. Coming out of it, she landed right next to the canyon.
"Oh! Here comes the sky girl!" Kitser jumped out in front of the crowd. "We've been waiting just for you."
This nickname, given to Asoka from the very first days of her arrival on Tatooine, was well deserved, because few people here loved the sky as much as she did. And then, by a strange irony, her eyes were very close to the colour of the sky. Her father often told her that when she was a little girl and he carried her in a cart instead of a pram, Asoka would stare at the sky as if drinking in its colour with her eyes and reaching out to it with her hands.
"What did my mother say about that?" the girl would sometimes ask, having never seen her mother and remembering only her father. But always so kind and open, Sean would fall silent for a long time at these moments and respond with hurtful monosyllables. From this, one could conclude that he did not like to remember the woman who had given him his daughter. Asoka immediately stopped asking questions and changed the subject. Remembering this now, she tried to push these thoughts away, and her friends would not have let her dwell on them for long; they had been waiting too long.
"Well, Asoka, shall we show them what we've got?" said her other friend, Edwin, a skinny, fair-haired boy with strands of hair bleached almost white, with a mischievous smile.
"Easy!" the girl lit up instantly, immediately forgetting her fleeting sadness. "Well, ready to go?"
The children quickly lined up in a straight line and jumped into their cars. They were all different colours: white, black, blue, only the models were the same.
"All right, comrades," Asoka said with feigned seriousness, glancing around the canyon, already anticipating how she would race through it at full speed, competing with the wind burning her face. "Whoever comes in last will have a bucket of weeds for dinner!"
"Asoka, there are no weeds here! Have you forgotten?" said Kister. "Or did you read The Galactic Chronicles again last night, about the planets of the outer ring?"
"Or maybe she's been listening to the travelling merchants again? She's always hanging around them," Edwin chimed in.
"In that case, snack on the dry grass that grows in abundance on the rocks," Asoka replied, not offended in the least. She was used to the fact that on Tatooine, no one was particularly concerned with eloquent speech or refined manners. "One. Two. Three. Off the propeller!" she commanded, and all seven cars sped off from the edge of the canyon. They were all as different as the colours of their vehicles, and in everyday life they didn't get along very well, but everything changed when they gathered in the canyon, which, unfortunately, wasn't every day, as there was usually a lot of work to do. But as soon as they got together, the seven became one, because they all had one thing in common: they loved racing with all their hearts. And now, as soon as they started, the cars began to perform the most intricate manoeuvres in the air, rushing to be the first to land at the finish line, which was marked by a small house on the edge of the canyon. There lived an old and lonely farmer, who was much loved by all these children. It was a small, poor but very cosy house surrounded by a fence made of large rubber rings that had previously been used on a condenser. Asoka was usually the first to fly up to him. The farmer loved her more than the others, often inviting her into his house and telling her many interesting things about different corners of the universe. This time was no exception, and after landing on the sand with a very impressive somersault, Asoka climbed out of the cab and looked intently at her iron friend, who had suffered considerable damage during her arrival. The cab was slightly deformed, there was a very noticeable dent on the driver's door, not to mention at least ten noticeable deep scratches all over the body. The girl sighed heavily, anticipating what Watto would say to her tomorrow when he saw the damaged vehicle. This was already the third car she had crashed, but unlike the previous two, this time she was entirely to blame. However, the damage did not look particularly serious, and she could easily fix it herself, as long as she did it before the owner noticed, otherwise there would be trouble. But now she definitely wouldn't do anything, so she might as well rest a little while she had the time. Especially since the conditions were extremely tempting. After thinking about it for a moment, Asoka approached one of the circles and, with a sigh, sat down on it, pressing her tired back against the warm rubber. This circle was the last one in the fence, and sitting on it, you could look at the canyon behind you and the suns setting one after the other. Already, you could see two bright pink discs slowly floating behind the rocks in the unnaturally blue sky, painting the dull grey sand in all sorts of colours. This made it seem as if you were not on the poor sandy planet of Tatooine, but somewhere out there in the Outer Rim. And if you closed your eyes, very soon, in the middle of the black darkness, a bright dot appeared before your eyes, gradually shrinking as if moving away.
"That's a spaceship," Asoka said quietly. "And my dad and I are in it. We're flying away from here as far as the eye can see. After all, there's nowhere worse than here. These sands seem to have no time or space. Only power.
Flying away from Tatooine was Asoka's greatest dream. She had only one other dream, just as impossible...
"You're here again, blue-eyed girl!" She heard a rough but not angry voice and saw herself as if from the outside — thin, awkward, in a dusty white shirt and matching trousers over broken leather boots. Her hands were cracked and her nails bitten. Her face was completely darkened by the sun. Nothing unusual or memorable. Almost all the slaves here looked like that. That was true, but only until her race became clear. Most of the slaves in Tatooine were humans or Twi'leks. Only Asoka and her father were born Togrutas, and that set them apart from the crowd. The girl turned at the sound and saw a short, grey-haired man dressed in grey trousers and a strange shirt tied with a belt with pockets sewn onto it. He always went barefoot and often kept his right hand on his belt. It was the same lonely farmer who lived in that little house, and now he saw Asoka and, as usual, called her over.
"Hello, Mr. Ben, I finished work early today and broke another cart," she shared with her older friend as they entered his house, which was more like a hut. There was only one room, which contained nothing but a low table, a couple of chairs, and a small cupboard. He slept on a mattress lying against the wall.
"The landlord will be angry again, won't he?" Ben asked sympathetically as he placed a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits in front of the girl.
"He will, I have no doubt. Mr. Slow Wings knows his job," Asoka smiled grimly, anticipating tomorrow's scolding, which she had no doubt would happen even if she repaired the car to a presentable condition.
"Don't worry, kid, he'll yell at you and forget about it, then he'll go to the bar with Sebulba, get drunk, and crawl home on his eyebrows, and you'll all laugh at him," the farmer tried to cheer up the girl, and he succeeded. Asoka was a cheerful child who couldn't hold a grudge for long.
"That's right, Sebulba can get anyone drunk. He even got his own horse drunk once and rode her, and then he seriously made her lift the condenser onto her horns, but she didn't like it and threw him on top of her — Asoka was already laughing loudly, sipping her tea.
"If I catch that Sebulba, I'll put him on the horns myself, so he'll know how to win a race fairly," Ben sighed heavily, knowing all about this cheater.
"I wonder if he would have been very happy if he had seen what happened today?" asked Asoka, remembering the circumstances in which she had dented her car earlier that day. Ben, of course, immediately asked her what she was talking about, and the girl eagerly began to tell him:
"You see, when I was flying through the canyon tonight, I suddenly looked up at the sky and saw the clouds forming a strange pattern, like two hearts intertwined, with the Republic emblem and a lightsaber next to them. How could I not stare at that? I couldn't help myself, and ended up missing a dangerous section of the track, the bottom of my chariot caught on the top of a rock, and I flipped over in the air and started falling into the ditch. It was quite a height, and I fell out of the chariot in mid-air. I thought, 'That's it, I'm going to die, and my comrades can't see anything. I even closed my eyes so as not to look at this miserable death, then waved my arms, unconsciously, I still don't know why, did I really hope to soften the fall? And then it happened, and what? I just couldn't believe it, I was afraid to open my eyes, I thought I was already dead and had merged with the Force. The landing on the sand at the bottom of the ditch was so soft. I opened my eyes, no, I was alive, it seemed, and unharmed, except for a bruise on my knee. I thought, well, since I survived, the punishment is definitely over, but you can see what happened to him.
Ben listened intently, and as Asoka spoke, his face grew more serious. It seemed familiar to him.
"You see, girl," he began when Asoka finished, "the Force spares the best of us and even selects some to serve it, giving them its greatest gift—the ability to feel it. This gives them a great advantage, every time, at the right moment.
"Are you saying...?" Asoka wanted to ask, but she was afraid to believe what she had heard.
"Yes, Ahsoka, I do. It seems very likely that you are one of them. I've noticed it for a long time, but I didn't know how you would react," old Ben confirmed her guess. "And now that you've experienced it for yourself, I know the time has come. Listen to what I have to tell you.
Ahsoka pushed the empty mug away and folded her hands on the table, preparing to learn what had always attracted her, even though she knew she would probably never be able to touch it in the future. But the girl was very much mistaken. Very much so.
***
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