Anakin walked out onto the landing ramp, his eyes eagerly sweeping the platform. Star pilots chatted in small groups, children dashed past parents' reaching fingers, air taxis unloaded passengers who lunged for their luggage — Wookiees and Babbs and everything in between. Everyone seemed in a terrific hurry to get somewhere. And the Games had not yet begun!

"Are you picking up anything about the mission ahead?" Obi-Wan asked him curiously. His Master often asked the question as soon as they stepped foot on a planet. Sometimes he even asked it before they landed, if he sensed that Anakin was swept by intuitions about the mission to come.

Anakin reached out to the Force. Sometimes it felt so easy. The Force was there, right within his grasp, and he could fold it around himself as easily as slipping into his travel cloak.

"I don't feel darkness here," he said. "I feel tremendous energy. It is not all good, but it isn't dark. It's just. "

"Life," Obi-Wan finished. "Emotion, expectation, hope, worry, excitement."

"It feels more intense," Anakin said slowly as they walked through the crowd.

"Because it is," Obi-Wan said. "We are all packed into one small city, waiting for a big event." He paused to consult a coordinates kiosk. "We will be staying in the official Games quarters, but let's explore a bit first."

They squeezed aboard a crowded turbolift that brought them down from the greeting center to the surface of the planet. They spilled out onto the main boulevard of Eusebus. The streets were crowded with speeders of every kind and description, and the many beings jostled and pushed their way to their destinations. Large overhead signs blinked out directions and routes, such as STADIUM ONE: LEFT ON USIRINE STREET or STADIUM TEN: TAKE AIR TRANSIT GREEN.