Star Wars_ Labyrinth of Evil Part 6

"Dooku is a Sith, Anakin. He may have had his good reasons for leaving the Order, but he is nothing now but a master of deceit. He and Sidious prey on the weak-willed. They deceive themselves into believing that they are infallible."

"But I've seen instances where the Jedi lie to one another. Master Kolar lied about Quinlan Vos going to the dark side. We're lying now, by not sharing our information about Sidious with Chancellor Palpatine. What would Sidious or Dooku have to say about our lies?"

"Don't compare us to them," Obi-Wan said, more harshly than he meant.

"The Jedi are not a cult, Anakin. We don't worship a leadership of elites. We're encouraged to find our paths; to validate through personal experience the value of what we have been taught. We don't offer facile justifications for exterminating a perceived enemy. We're guided by compa.s.sion, and the belief that the Force is greater than the sum of those who open themselves to it."

Anakin grew quiet. "I'm only asking, Master."

Obi-Wan took a calming breath. Too sure of themselves, the Jedi have become, Yoda had once told him. Even the older, more experienced ones...

How might Anakin have fared under Qui-Gon's guidance? he wondered. He was merely Anakin's adoptive mentor, and a flawed mentor in many ways. So eager to live up to the memory of Qui-Gon that he was continually overlooking Anakin's attempts to live up to him.

"Carries on his shoulders the weight of the galaxy, Obi-Wan does," Yoda said, approaching with one of the Intelligence a.n.a.lysts. "Ease your concerns, this news might," he added before Obi-Wan could respond.

The dark-haired, robust-looking a.n.a.lyst Captain Dyne perched himself on the edge of a shipping container. "While we still don't know whether the mechno-chair was left behind deliberately, as some kind of trap, the image of Sidious is authentic. The transmission appears to have been received two days ago, local, but we're going to have trouble tracking its source because it was routed through a system of hyperwave transceivers used by the Confederacy as a subst.i.tute for the HoloNet, and was encrypted using a code developed by the InterGalactic Banking Clan.

We've been working on cracking that code for some time now, and when we do, we might be able to use the chair's hyperwave receiver to eavesdrop on enemy communications."

"Better you feel already, ummm?" Yoda said to Obi-Wan, motioning with his gimer stick.

"The chair bears the stamps of several of the manufacturers affiliated with Dooku," Dyne continued. "The hyperwave receiver is equipped with a type-summoning chip and transponding antenna that are similar to ones we discovered in a mine-laying chameleon droid Master Yoda brought back from Ilum."

"An image of Dooku, the droid contained."

"For the time being we're proceeding on the a.s.sumption that Dooku - - or Sidious, for that matter - - might have developed the chips, and had them installed in transceivers awarded to Gunray and other key members of the Council of Separatists."

"Is the mechno-chair the same one I saw on Naboo?" Obi-Wan asked.

"We think so," Dyne said. "But it has undergone some modifications in the years since. The self-destruct mechanism, for one, along with the self-defense gas." He looked at Obi-Wan. "Your hunch was right about it being the same one the Neimoidians have been using for years, and appears to have originally been developed by a Separatist researcher named Zan Arbor."

"Zan Arbor," Anakin said angrily. "The gas used on the Gungans at Ohma-D'un." He looked at Obi-Wan. "No wonder you were able to sense it!"

Dyne glanced from Anakin to Obi-Wan. "The gas-emitter mechanism is identical to what you find in some of the Techno Union's E-Five-Twenty-Two a.s.sa.s.sin droids."

Obi-Wan stroked his chin in thought. "If Gunray has had the chair for fourteen years, then he could have been using it to contact Sidious during the Naboo crisis. If we could learn who manufactured the chair..."

Yoda laughed. "Ahead of Obi-Wan, the experts are," he said to Anakin. "We know who's responsible for the chair's Neimoidian engravings,"

Dyne explained. "A Xi Charrian whose name I'm not even going to attempt to p.r.o.nounce."

"How do you know?" Anakin asked.

The a.n.a.lyst grinned. "Because he signed his work."

Padme parted company with Bail and the others in the Senate Plaza. She spied Captain Typho waving to her from the landing platform, and hastened toward their waiting speeder. The towering statues that graced the plaza seemed to stare down at her; the building had never seemed so enormous.

The brief meeting with Palpatine had left her fl.u.s.tered - - but for all the wrong reasons. Though her every other thought was of Anakin, she had resolved to put him from her mind for the meeting; to focus on what was expected of her both as a public servant and concerned citizen of the Republic. And yet, despite her best intentions, Palpatine had brought Anakin to the fore. Had Anakin confessed to him? she wondered. Had the Supreme Chancellor learned of their secret ceremony on Naboo, from Anakin or others? A feeling of light-headedness forced her to slow her pace. The heat of the afternoon. The glare. The enormity of recent events...

She could feel Anakin at a great remove. He was thinking of her; she was certain of it. Images of him riffled through her mind. She paused at one that made her smile: their first dinner together on Tatooine. Qui-Gon reprimanding Jar Jar Binks for his uncouth behavior. Anakin sitting beside her. Shmi... Was she sitting opposite her? Wasn't Shmi's gaze fixed on her when Shmi said, referring to Anakin: He was meant to help you. The truth didn't matter. That was the way she remembered it.

15.

Protected by two squadrons of Trade Federation Vulture fighters, Nute Gunray's organic-looking shuttle cut a blazing trail through the void of deep s.p.a.ce, plasma bolts from a dozen Republic V-wings nipping at its upraised tail. The droid fighters were matching the twists and slaloms of the faster enemy ships, and the blaster cannons buried deep in the clefts of their narrow wings were spewing continuous cover fire.

From the bridge of the Trade Federation cruiser the Invisible Hand - - flagship of the Confederacy fleet - - General Grievous observed the whole mad dance. To any other spectator it might appear that the Viceroy was risking his wattled neck, but Grievous knew better. Late to arrive at the rendezvous because of his decision to detour to Cato Neimoidia, Gunray was putting on a show for the general's benefit, attempting to make it seem that he had been chased to the Outer Rim when, in fact, he had undoubtedly allowed his hypers.p.a.ce vectors to be plotted by Republic forces. Where common sense would have dictated using secret routes pioneered by and known only to members of the Trade Federation, the core ship the shuttle had launched from had adhered to standard hyperlanes in jumping from the inner systems.

More to the point, Gunray's vessel was in no real peril. Outnumbered by better than two to one and flying headlong into the vanguard vessels of the Confederacy fleet, it was the pilots of the Republic starfighters who were risking their necks. At another time Grievous might have applauded their bravery by allowing them to escape with their lives, but Gunray's transparent attempts at pretense had exposed the fleet to surveillance, and now the Republic pilots would have to die.

But not immediately. First, Gunray would have to be punished for his blunder; given a foretaste of what awaited him the next time he disobeyed a directive. Grievous turned from the cruiser's forward viewports to the weapons stations, where a pair of rangy droids were monitoring the pursuit. "Gunners, the Republic starfighters are not to leave this sector. Target and destroy their hyperdrive rings. Then you are to target and destroy one squadron of the shuttle's escort Vulture fighters."

"Acquiring targets," one of the droids said. "Firing," the other said.

Grievous swung back to the viewport in time to see the half-dozen hyperdrive rings come apart in short-lived explosions. An instant later, clouds of billowing fire began to erupt to both sides of Gunray's shuttle, and twelve droid fighters vanished from sight. The unexpected explosions wreaked havoc on the rest of the escort, leaving the shuttle vulnerable to strafing runs by the starfighters. With the formation in tatters, the Vultures followed protocol by attempting to regroup, but in so doing left themselves open to precisely placed bolts from the starfighters. A consequence of the Neimoidians' reluctance to augment the droid brains of the fighters with interface capabilities, Grievous noted.

Although they functioned better now than they had five years earlier.

Three more Vulture fighters blew to pieces, this time due to Republic fire. Now the Neimoidian pilots of the shuttle weren't sure what to do.

Attempts to go evasive were sabotaged by the droid ships' attempts to keep the shuttle centered in their shield array. Enemy laser bolts kept finding their marks.

The destruction of the hyperdrive rings had alerted the Republic pilots to the fact that they were well inside the range of the cruiser's weapons, and that they had to make their kill quickly if they hoped to escape. Jinking and weaving among the remaining escort droids, they pressed the attack on the shuttle.

Grievous wondered for a moment if any of the pilots might be Jedi, in which case he would opt to capture rather than kill. The more closely he studied the maneuvers, however, the more certain he grew that the pilots were clones. Skilled fliers nevertheless - - as indeed their Mandalorian template had been - - but they evinced none of the supernatural perception afforded to the Jedi by the Force.

Still, Gunray's shuttle was taking a beating. One of its landing appendages had been amputated, and vapor streamed from its pug tail. The vessel's primitive particle and ray shields were still holding, but they weakened steadily with each direct hit.

The convergence of a few more plasma bolts would overwhelm them. Then the ship the shields protected could be sliced and diced or taken out by a well-placed proton torpedo. Grievous pictured Gunray, Haako, and the others strapped into luxurious acceleration couches, shivering with dread, perhaps sorry for the brief detour to Cato Neimoidia, wondering how a handful of Republic pilots had so easily decimated their squadrons, certainly comlinking the core ship to dispatch reinforcements. The general was almost of a mind to award the Republic pilots their kill, for he and Gunray had been at odds frequently over the past three years. One of the first s.p.a.cefaring species to build a droid army, the Neimoidians had grown accustomed to thinking of their soldiers and workers as thoroughly expendable. Their extraordinary wealth had allowed them to replace whatever they lost, so they had never developed a sense of respect for the machines fashioned for them by Baktoid Armor Workshops, the Xi Char, Colicoids, or others.

From their first acquaintance, Gunray had made the mistake of treating Grievous as just another droid - - even though he had been told that this was not the case. Perhaps Gunray had thought of him as some mindless ent.i.ty, like the reawakened Gen'Dai, Durge; or Dooku's misguided apprentice, Asajj Ventress; or the human bounty hunter called Aurra Sing - - all three of whom had been so driven by personal hatred of the Jedi that they had proved worthless, mere distractions while Grievous went about the real business of war. The att.i.tude of the Neimoidians had changed quickly enough, though, in part because they had been witness to Grievous's capabilities, but more as a result of what had occurred on Geonosis. Had it not been for Grievous, Gunray and the rest might have suffered the same fate as Poggle the Lesser's lieutenant, Sun Fac.

Grievous's actions in the catacombs that day - - with the Geonosians retreating by the thousands from the arena and companies of clone commandos following them in - - had allowed Gunray to escape the planet alive. Sometimes he wondered just how many clones he had killed or wounded that day.

And Jedi, of course - - though none had lived to speak of him. The Jedi corpses that were retrieved bespoke something atrocious that resided in those dark underground pa.s.sages. Perhaps the Jedi believed that a rancor or a reek had shredded the bodies of their Forceful comrades; or perhaps they thought the damage had been done by Geonosian sonic weapons set to maximum power. Either way, they must have wondered what became of the victims' lightsabers. Grievous regretted that he hadn't been able to see the reactions, but he, too, had been forced to flee as Geonosis fell.

The revelation of his existence had had to wait until a handful of hapless Jedi had arrived on the foundry world of Hypori. By then, Grievous had already ama.s.sed a sizable collection of lightsabers, but at Hypori he had been able to add several more, two of which he wore inside his command cloak even now. As trophies they were superior to the pelts of hunted beings he knew some bounty hunters to affect. He admired the precision and care that had gone into the construction of the lightsabers; more, each seemed to retain a faint memory of its wielder.

As a former swordmaster, he could appreciate that each had been handcrafted, rather than turned out in quant.i.ty like blasters or pike weapons. He could respect the Jedi for that, though he had nothing but hatred for them as an Order. Because of the remoteness of their homeworld, his species, the Kaleesh, had had few dealings with the Jedi.

But then war had broken out between the Kaleesh and their planetary neighbors - - a savage, insectile species known as the Huk. Grievous had become infamous during the long conflict: conquering worlds, defeating grand armies, exterminating entire colonies of Huk.

But instead of surrendering, as would have been the honorable course, the Huk had appealed to the Republic to intercede, and the Jedi had arrived on Kalee. In what pa.s.sed for negotiations - - fifty Jedi Knights and Masters ready to loose their lightsabers on Grievous and his army - - the Kaleesh were made to appear the aggressors. The reason was plain: where Kalee had little to offer in the way of trade, the Huk worlds were rich in ore and other resources l.u.s.ted after by the Trade Federation and others. Chastised by the Republic, the Kaleesh foundered. Sanctions and reparations were imposed; traders avoided the planet; Grievous's people starved and perished by the hundreds of thousands.

Ultimately the InterGalactic Banking Clan had come to their rescue, helping with funds, reinstating trade, providing Grievous with a new direction. Years later, the Muuns would come again...

Grievous's eyes tracked the course of the now imperiled shuttle. Count Dooku and his Sith Master would never forgive him if he allowed anything untoward to happen to Gunray. Neimoidians were clever. Their knowledge of secret hyperlanes was unparalleled, and their immense army of infantry and super battle droids were rigged with devices that compelled them to respond princ.i.p.ally to Gunray and his elite. Should the Neimoidian chiefs die, the Confederacy would lose a powerful ally. It was time to spring Gunray from the trap he had fashioned for him.

"Launch tri-fighters to a.s.sist the shuttle," Grievous instructed the gunners. "Target and destroy the Republic starfighters outright."

Deployed from the cruiser, a wing of the new red-eyed droid fighters was soon visible from the bridge viewports. Alerted to the approaching tri-droids, the Republic pilots had sense enough to realize that they were severely outnumbered. Disengaging from the last of the Vulture fighters, they began to make for free s.p.a.ce, the nearest habitable planets, wherever their sublight ion drives could deliver them, since their means of jumping to lightspeed had already been destroyed. Two of the starfighters were slower than the rest to disengage.

Calling for magnification of the shuttle pursuit, Grievous saw that the stragglers were newly minted ARC-170s, copiloted crafts equipped with powerful laser cannons at the tips of their outstretched wings and multiple torpedo launchers. He was eager to see what they were capable of. "Instruct three squadrons of the tri-fighter wing to shield the shuttle and escort it to our docking bay. Set the rest against the fleeing starfighters, except for the ARC-one-seventies. The ARC-one-seventies should be lured into engagement, without disintegration - - even if some of the tri-droids are forced to succ.u.mb to enemy fire."

Grievous sharpened his gaze. The tri-fighters had split into two groups, the larger forming up around Gunray's impaired shuttle and pouncing on the retreating V-wings, while the diverted squadron began to tease the pair of ARC-170s into duels and sallies. What impressed Grievous was how quickly the pilots came to each other's a.s.sistance. Combat camaraderie hadn't been bred into them by the Kaminoan cloners, or been something they had learned from the Jedi. It had come from the Mandalorian bounty hunter. Fett would have denied it, of course, would have insisted that he was out only for himself. But that was not the way of his warrior brethren, and that was not the way of the clone pilots now.

Exaggerating the value of each life, as if the clones were uncontrived humans. Was the Republic so shorthanded it couldn't afford losses?

Something to bear in mind. Something that could be exploited at some point. Without glancing at the bridge gunners, Grievous said: "Finish them off." Then, turning to a droid at the communications suite, he added: "See to it that the Neimoidians are ushered directly to the briefing room. Inform the others that I am on my way."

Still shaken from the ordeal of transiting from the core ship to the Invisible Hand, Nute Gunray sat restively in the cabin s.p.a.ce to which he and Haako been shown immediately on disembarking. He had expected that a few Republic starfighters might pursue the core ship from Cato Neimoidia - - as they no doubt had other Trade Federation vessels launched to equally distant star systems in the Outer Rim. And he had hoped that the appearance of those starfighters would convey the impression that he had been chased from the Neimoidian purse world. But the scenario hadn't unfolded as planned. What should have been a quick, effortless crossing had ended up a flight for life, with the shuttle left seriously damaged and more than a squadron of Vulture fighters destroyed. It was almost beyond explanation until the shuttle pilot confirmed that most of the Vultures had been atomized by fire from the cruiser's turbolaser batteries.

Grievous! Castigating him for arriving late. Gunray would have liked nothing more than to inform Dooku of the general's actions, but he feared that the Sith would stand with Grievous. Every bit as shaken, Rune Haako sat alongside Gunray at the cabin's gleaming table. Other members of the Separatist Council occupied the choice seats: the almost two-dimensionally thin San Hill, Muun chairman of the InterGalactic Banking Clan; the Skakoan foreman of the Techno Union, Wat Tambor, encased in the c.u.mbersome pressure suit that supplied him with methane; the vestigial-winged Geonosian Poggle the Lesser, Archduke of the Stalgasin Hive; the stalk-necked Gossam president of the Commerce Guild, Shu Mai; the cranial-horned Corporate Alliance Magistrate, Pa.s.sel Argente; and former Republic Senators Po Nudo and Tikkes - - Aqualish and Quarren, respectively.

Separate conversations were in progress when the sound of clanging footfalls echoed from the long corridor that led to the briefing room.

Abruptly everyone fell silent, and a moment later General Grievous appeared in the hatchway, the rounded crown of his elongated death mask of a helmet grazing the top of the opening, his high-backed collar of ceramic armorplast reminiscent of a neck brace. Sheathed in metal more suited to a starfighter, his skeletal upper limbs were spread wide, clawlike duranium hands just touching the hatchway frame. His two feet, which also resembled claws, were capable of increasing his height by several centimeters. Legs of sleek alloy bones looked as if they could propel him into orbit. His campaign cloak, slit down one side from left shoulder to floor, was thrown back so that twin pectorals of armor plating were exposed, along with the reverse ribs that began at Grievous's hip girdle and extended upward to his shielded sternum.

Beneath it all, encased in a kind of fluid-filled, forest-green gutsac, were the organs that nurtured the living part of him. Behind helmet holes that rendered his visage at once mournful and fearsome, sallow reptilian eyes fixed Gunray with a gimlet stare. In a synthesized voice, deep and grating, he said: "Welcome aboard, Viceroy. For a moment we feared that you weren't going to arrive."

Gunray felt the gazes of everyone in the cabin fall on him. His distrust of the cyborg was no secret; nor was Grievous's enmity for him. "And I can only a.s.sume that you were very troubled by the prospect, General."

"You must know how important you are to our cause."

"I know it, General. Though I confess to wondering if you do."

"I am your keeper, Viceroy. Your protector." Striding into the cabin, he began to circle the table, stopping directly behind Gunray, towering over him. Peripherally, Gunray saw Haako slouch deeper into his chair, refusing to look either at him or at Grievous, circling his hands in a nervous gesture.

"I have no favorite among you," the general said at last. "I champion all of you. That is why I summoned you here: to ensure your continued protection." No one said a word. "The Republic fools itself believing that they have you on the run, but, in fact, Lord Sidious and Darth Tyra.n.u.s have engineered this, for reasons that will be made clear soon enough. All is proceeding according to plan. However, with your homeworlds fallen to the Republic, your purse and colony worlds throughout the galaxy threatened, you are ordered to remain a group for the foreseeable future. I have been instructed to find a safe harbor for you here, in the Outer Rim."

"What world will accept us now?" equine-faced San Hill asked in a disconsolate voice.

"If none offers, Chairman, then I will take one." Grievous walked to the hatchway, his talons screeching along the deck. "For now, return to your separate vessels. When a world has been selected, I will contact each of you in the usual manner, and provide you with new rendezvous coordinates."

Careful not to betray his sudden misgiving, Gunray traded covert glances with Haako. The "usual manner" meant the mechno-chair inadvertently left behind on Cato Neimoidia.

16.

A patchwork of dull red and pale brown, Charros IV filled the forward viewports of the Republic cruiser. The twin-piloted ship had been an antique twenty years earlier, but its sublight and hyperdrive engines were reliable, and with vessels deployed on so many fronts Obi-Wan and Anakin couldn't be choosy. The cruiser's once emblematic crimson color was obscured under fresh coats of white paint; as a result of the war, laser cannons were carefully tucked astern under the radiator panel wings, and forward, beneath the c.o.c.kpit, in the s.p.a.ce that had once functioned as a salon for pa.s.sengers. Obi-Wan had plotted the three jumps it had taken them to reach the Xi Char world from the Inner Rim, but Anakin had done all the piloting.

"Landing coordinates coming in," Anakin said, eyes fixed on a display screen set into the instrument panel.

Obi-Wan was pleasantly surprised. "That will teach me not to be skeptical. In the past when we've been informed that Intelligence has done the advance work, I've found that to be anything but the case."

Anakin looked at him and laughed.

"Something funny?"

"I was just thinking, Here you are again..."

Obi-Wan sat back in his chair, waiting for the rest of it. "I only mean that, for someone with a reputation for hating s.p.a.ce travel, you've certainly taken part in more than your share of exotic missions. Kamino, Geonosis, Ord Cestus..." Obi-Wan plucked at his beard. "Let's just say that the war has prompted me to take a long view of things."

"Master Qui-Gon would have been proud of you."

"Don't be too sure." Obi-Wan had argued against going to Charros IV.

Dexter Jettster, his Besalisk friend on Coruscant, could probably have furnished the Intelligence a.n.a.lysts with everything they needed to know about Viceroy Gunray's mechno-chair. But Yoda had insisted that Obi-Wan and Anakin attempt to speak personally with the Xi Charrian whose sigil had been discovered on the walking chair. Now Obi-Wan wondered why he had been so averse to making the trip. Compared to the past few months, the mission already felt like a furlough. Anakin was correct about Obi-Wan's having had more than his share of such a.s.signments. But several other Jedi had also doubled as Intelligence operatives during the course of the war.

Aayla Secura and the Caamasi Jedi Ylenic It'kla had taken a Techno Union defector into custody on Corellia; Quinlan Vos had gone undercover to infiltrate Dooku's circle of dark side apprentices... And Supreme Chancellor Palpatine hadn't been told - - or learned since - - about any of the covert operations.

It wasn't that the Jedi Council didn't trust him; it was more a matter of no longer trusting anyone.

"Do you think the Xi Char will talk to us?" Anakin said.

Obi-Wan swiveled to face him. "They've every reason to be accommodating.

After the Battle of Naboo, the Republic refused to do any business with them, for their having supplied the Neimoidians with proscribed weapons.

They've been eager to atone ever since, especially now that their signature designs are being ma.s.s-produced more cheaply by Baktoid Armor and other Confederacy suppliers."

The Xi Char's princ.i.p.al contribution to the Neimoidian a.r.s.enal had been the so-called Variable Geometry Self-Propelled Battle Droid starfighter, a meticulously engineered solid-fuel craft that was capable of configuring itself into three separate modes.

Anakin adopted a thin-lipped expression of wariness. "I hope they won't hold it against us that I destroyed so many of their fighters."

Obi-Wan laughed shortly. "Yes, let's hope your fame hasn't spread this far into the Outer Rim. But in fact, our success hinges almost entirely on whether TeeCee-Sixteen can speak Xi Char as fluently as he claims."

"Master Ken.o.bi, I a.s.sure you that I can speak the tongue almost as well as an indigenous Xi Charrian," the protocol droid chimed in from one of the c.o.c.kpit's rear seats. "My term of service to Viceroy Gunray demanded that I familiarize myself with the trader's tongues used by all the hive species, including the Xi Char, the Geonosians, the Colicoids, and many others. My fluency will ensure complete cooperation on the part of the Xi Char. Although I expect that they will be rather disgusted by my physical appearance."

"Why's that?" Anakin asked.

"Devotion to precision technology forms the basis of Xi Char religious beliefs. They accept as a matter of faith that meticulous work is no different from prayer; indeed, their workshops have more in common with temples than factories. When a Xi Charrian is injured, he goes into self-exile, so that others won't have to look upon his imperfections or deformities. A Xi Char adage has it that 'The deity is in the details.'"

"Wear your flaws proudly, TeeCee," Anakin said, raising and clenching his right hand. "I do, mine."

The cruiser was descending into Charros IV's ice-clouded atmosphere.

Leaning toward the viewport, Obi-Wan gazed down on an arid, almost treeless world. The Xi Char lived on high plateaus, hemmed in by ranges of snowcapped mountains. Expansive black-water lakes dotted the landscape.