Star Wars_ Revenge Of The Sith Part 9

This was what he'd been born for: saving people.

The Force brought Obi-Wan's lightsaber to his hand and he clipped it to his friend's belt, then hoisted the limp body over his shoulder and let the Force help him run lightly up the steeply canted floor to Palpatine's side.

"Impressive," Palpatine said, but then he cast a significant gaze up the staircase, which the vector of the artificial gravity had made into a vertical cliff. "But what now?"

Before Anakin could answer, the erratic gravity swung like a pendulum; while they both clung to the railing, the room seemed to roll around them. All the broken chairs and table fragments and hunks of rubble slid toward the opposite side, and now instead of a cliff the staircase had become merely a corrugated stretch of floor.

"People say"-Anakin nodded toward the door to the turbolift lobby-"when the Force closes a hatch, it opens a viewport After you?"

=5=.

GRIEVOUS.

The ARC-170s of Squad Seven had joined the V-wings of Squad Four in swarming the remaining vulture fighters that had screened the immense Trade Federation flagship, Invisible Hand. Clone pilots destroyed droid after droid with machine-like precision of their own. When the last of the vultures had been converted to an expanding globe of superheated gas, the clone fighters peeled away, leaving Invisible Hand exposed to the full fire of Home Fleet Strike Group Five: three Carrack-cla.s.s light cruisers-Integrity, Indomitable, and Perseverance-in support of the Dreadnaught Mas Ramdar.

Strike Group Five had deployed in a triangle around Mas Ramdar, maintaining a higher orbit to pin Invisible Hand deep Coruscant's gravity well. Turbolasers blasted against Invisible Hand's faltering shields, but the flagship was giving as good as it got: Mas Ramdar had sustained so much damage already that it was little more than a target to absorb the Hand's return fire, and Indomitable was only a sh.e.l.l, most of its crew dead or evacuated, being run remotely by its commander and bridge crew; it swung unsteadily through the Hand's vector cone of escape routes to block any attempt to run up toward jump.

As its shields finally failed, Invisible Hand began to roll whirling like a bullet from a rifled slugthrower, trailing spiral jets of crystallizing gas that gushed from multiple hull ruptures. The rolling picked up speed, breaking the targeting locks of the ship's Republic adversaries. Unable to pound the same point again and again, their turbolasers weren't powerful enough to breach the Hand's heavy armor directly; their tracking points became rings that circled the ship, chewing gradually into the hull in tightening garrotes of fire.

On the Hand's bridge, overheated Neimoidians were strapped into their battle stations in full crash webbing. The air reeked of burning metal and the funk of reptilian stress hormones, and the erratically shifting gravity threatened to add a sharper stench: the faces of several of the bridge officers had already paled from healthy gray-green to nauseated pink.

The sole being on the bridge who was not strapped into a chair stalked from one side to the other, floor-length cape draped over shoulders angular as exposed bone. He ignored the jolts of impact and was unaffected by the swirl of unpredictable gravity as he paced the deck with metal-on-metal clanks; he walked on taloned creations of magnetized duranium, jointed to grab and crush like the feet of a Vratixan blood eagle.

His expression could not be read-his face was a mask of bleached ceramic armorplast stylized to evoke a humanoid skull-but the pure venom in the voice that hissed through the mask's electrosonic vocabulator made up for it.

"Either get the gravity generators calibrated or disable them altogether," he snarled at a blue-scanned image of a cringing Neimoidian engineer. "If this continues, you won't live long enough to be killed by the Republic."

"But, but, but sir-it's really up to the repair droids-"

"And because they are droids, it's useless to threaten them. So I am threatening you. Understand?"

He turned away before the stammering engineer could summon a reply. The hand he extended toward the forward viewscreen wore a jointed gauntlet of armorplast fused to its bones of duranium alloy. "Concentrate fire on Indomitable,'' he told the senior gunnery officer. "All batteries at maximum. Fire for effect. Blast that hulk out of s.p.a.ce, and we'll make a hyper-pace jump through its wreckage."

But-the forward towers are already overloading, sir." The officer's voice trembled on the edge of panic. "They'll be at critical failure in less than a minute-"

"Burn them out."

"But sir, once they're gone-"

The rest of the senior gunnery officer's objection was lost in the wetly final crunching sound his face made under the impact of an armorplast fist. That same fist opened, seized the collar of the officer's uniform, and yanked his corpse out of the chair, ripping the crash webbing free along with it.

An expressionless skull-face turned toward the junior gunnery officer. "Congratulations on your promotion. Take your post."

"Y-y-yes, sir." The newly promoted senior gunnery officer's hands shook so badly he could barely unbuckle his crash web, and his face had gone deathly pink. "Do you understand your orders?"

"Y-y-y-"

"Do you have any objections?"

"N-n-n-"

"Very well, then," General Grievous said with flat, impenetrable calm. "Carry on."

This is General Grievous: Durasteel. Ceramic armorplast-plated duranium. Electro-drivers and crystal circuitry.

Within them: the remnants of a living being. He doesn't breathe. He doesn't eat. He cannot laugh, and he does not cry.

A lifetime ago he was an organic sentient being. A lifetime ago he had friends, a family, an occupation; a lifetime ago he had things to love, and things to fear. Now he has none of these. Instead, he has purpose. It's built into him.

He is built to intimidate. The resemblance to a human skeleton melded with limbs styled after the legendary Krath war droids is entirely intentional. It is a face and form born of childhood's infinite nightmares.

He is built to dominate. The ceramic armorplast plates protecting limbs and torso and face can stop a burst from a starfighter's laser cannon. Those indestructible arms are ten times stronger than human, and move with the blurring speed of electronic reflexes.

He is built to eradicate. Those human-sized hands have human-sized fingers for exactly one reason: to hold a lightsaber. Four of them hang inside his cloak.

He has never constructed a lightsaber. He has never bought one, nor has he recovered one that was lost. Each and all, he has taken from the dead hands of Jedi he has killed. Personally.

He has many, many such trophies; the four he carries with him are his particular favorites. One belonged to the interminable K'Kruhk, whom he had bested at Hypori; another to the Viraanntesse Jedi Jmmaar, who'd fallen at Vandos; the other two had been created by Puroth and Nystammall, whom Grievous had slaughtered together on the flame-gra.s.s plains of Tovarskl so that each would know the other's death, as well as their own; these are murders he recalls with so much pleasure that touching these souvenirs with his hands of armorplast and durasteel brings him something resembling joy.

But only resembling.

He remembers joy. He remembers anger, and frustration. He remembers grief and sorrow.

He doesn't actually feel any of them. Not anymore.

He's not designed for it.

White-hot sparks zipped and crackled through the smoke that billowed across the turbolift lobby. Over Anakin's shoulder, the unconscious Jedi Master wheezed faintly. Beside his other shoulder, Palpatine coughed harshly into the sleeve of his robe, held aver his face for protection from caustic combustion products of the overloading circuitry.

"Artoo?" Anakin shook his comlink sharply. The blasted ling had been on the blink ever since Obi-Wan had stepped on : during one of the turbolift fights.

"Artoo, do you copy? I need you to activate-" The smoke was so thick he could barely make out the numerals on the code Mate. "-elevator three-two-two-four. Three-two-two-four, do you copy?"

The comlink emitted a fading fwheep that might have been an acknowledgment, and the doors slid apart, but before Anakin could carry Obi-Wan through, the turbolift pod shot upward and the artificial gravity vector shifted again, throwing him and his partner into a heap next to Palpatine in the lobby's opposite corner.

Palpatine was struggling to rise, still coughing, sounding weak. Anakin let the Force lift Obi-Wan back to his shoulder, then picked himself up. "Perhaps you should stay down, sir," he said to the Chancellor. "The gravity swings are getting worse."

Palpatine nodded. "But, Anakin-"

Anakin looked up. The turbolift doors still stood open. "Wait here, sir."

He opened himself more fully to the Force and in his mind placed himself and Obi-Wan balanced on the edge of the open doorway above. Holding this image, he leapt, and the Force made his intention into reality: his leap carried him and the unconscious Jedi Master precisely to the rim.

The altered gravitic vector had made the turbolift shaft into a horizontal hallway of unlit durasteel, laser-straight, shrinking into darkness. Anakin was familiar with the specs for Trade Federation command cruisers; the angled conning spire was some three hundred meters long. As it stood, they could walk it in two or three minutes. But if the wrong gravity shift were to catch them inside the shaft . . .

He shook his head, grimly calculating the odds. "We'll have to be fast."

He glanced back over his shoulder, down at Palpatine, who still huddled below. "Are you all right, Chancellor? Are you well enough to run?"

The Supreme Chancellor finally rose, patting his robes in a futile attempt to dust them off. "I haven't run since I was a boy on Naboo."

"It's never too late to start getting into shape." Anakin reached through the Force to give Palpatine a little help in clambering up to the open doorway. "There are light shuttles on the hangar deck. We can be there in five minutes."

Once Palpatine was safely within the shaft-hall, Anakin said, "Follow me," and turned to go, but the Chancellor stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Anakin, wait. We need to get to the bridge."

Through an entire shipful of combat droids? Not likely. "The hangar deck's right below-well, beside us, now. It's our best chance."

"But the bridge-Grievous is there." Now Anakin did stop. Grievous. The most prolific slaughterer of Jedi since Durge. In all the excitement, Anakin had entirely forgotten that the bio-droid general was aboard.

"You've defeated Dooku," Palpatine said. "Capture Grievous and you will have dealt a wound from which the Separatists may never recover."

Anakin thought blankly: I could do it.

He had dreamed of capturing Grievous ever since Muunilinst-and now the general was close. So close Anakin could practically smell him . . . and Anakin had never felt so powerful. The Force was with him today in ways more potent than he had ever experienced.

"Think of it, Anakin." Palpatine stood close by his shoulder, opposite to Obi-Wan, so close he needed only to whisper. "You have destroyed their political head. Take their military commander, and you will have practically won the war. Single-handed. Who else could do that, Anakin? Yoda? Mace Windu? They couldn't even capture Dooku. Who would have a chance against Grievous, if not Anakin Skywalker? The Jedi have never faced a crisis like the Clone Wars-but also they have never had a hero like you. You can save them. You can save everyone."

Anakin jerked, startled. He turned a sharp glance toward Palpatine. The way he had said that . . . Like a voice out of his dreams.

"That's-" Anakin tried to laugh; it came out a little shaky. "That's not what Obi-Wan keeps telling me."

"Forget Obi-Wan," Palpatine said. "He has no idea how powerful you truly are. Use your power, Anakin. Save the Republic." Anakin could see it, vivid as a HoloNet feature: arriving at the Senate with Grievous in electrobonds, standing modestly aside as Palpatine announced the end of the war, returning to the Temple, to the Council Chamber, where finally, after all this time, there would be a chair waiting, just for him.

They could hardly refuse him Mastership now, after he had won the war for them . . .

But then Obi-Wan shifted on his shoulder, moaning faintly and Anakin snapped back to reality.

"No," he said. "Sorry, Chancellor. My orders are clear. This is a rescue mission; your safety is my only priority."

"I will never be safe while Grievous lives," Palpatine countered. "Master Ken.o.bi will recover at any moment. Leave him here with me; he can see me safely to the hangar deck. Go for the general."

"I-I would like to, sir, but-"

"I can make it an order, Anakin."

"With respect, sir: no. You can't. My orders come from the Jedi Council, and the Council's orders come from the Senate. You have no direct authority."

The Chancellor's face darkened. "That may change."

Anakin nodded. "And perhaps it should, sir. But until it does, we'll do things my way. Let's go."

"Sir?" The thin voice of the comm officer interrupted Grievous's pacing. "We are being hailed by Integrity, sir. They propose a cease-fire."

Dark yellow eyes squinted through the skull-mask at the tactical displays. A pause in the combat would allow Invisible Hand's turbolaser batteries to cool, and give the engineers a chance to get the gravity generators under control. "Acknowledge receipt of transmission. Stand by to cease fire."

"Standing by, sir." The gunnery officer was still shaking.

"Cease fire."

The lances of energy that had joined the Hand to the Home Fleet Strike Force melted away.

"Further transmission, sir. It's Integrity's commander."

Grievous nodded. "Initiate."

A ghostly image built itself above the bridge's ship-to-ship hologenerator: a young human male of distinctly average height and build, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant commander. The only thing distinctive about his otherwise rather bland features was the calm confidence in his eyes.

"General Grievous," the young man said briskly, "I am Lieutenant Commander Lorth Needa of RSS Integrity. At my request, my superiors have consented to offer you the chance to surrender your ship, sir.''

"Surrender?" Grievous's vocabulator produced a very credable reproduction of a snort. "Preposterous."

"Please give this offer careful deliberation, General, as it will not be repeated. Consider the lives of your crew."

Grievous cast an icy glance around his bridge full of craven Neimoidians. "Why should I?"

The young man did not look surprised, though he did show l trace of sadness. "Is this your reply, then?"

"Not at all." Grievous drew himself up; by straightening the angles of his levered joints, he could add half a meter to his already imposing height. "I have a counteroffer. Maintain your ease-fire, move that hulk Indomitable out of my way, and withdraw to a minimum range of fifty kilometers until this ship achieves hypers.p.a.ce jump."

"If I may use your word, sir: preposterous."

"Tell these superiors of yours that if my demands are not met within ten minutes, I will personally disembowel Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, live on the HoloNet. Am I understood?"

The young officer took this without a blink. "Ah. The Chancellor is aboard your ship, then."

"He is. Your pathetic Jedi so-called heroes have failed. They are dead, and Palpatine remains in my hands."

"Ah," the young officer repeated. "So you will, of course, allow me to speak with him. To, ah, rea.s.sure my superiors that you-are not simply-well, to put it charitably-bluffing?"

"I would not lower myself to lie to the likes of you." Grievous turned to the comm officer. "Patch in Count Dooku."

The comm officer stroked his screen, then shook his head "He's not responding, sir."

Grievous shook his head disgustedly. "Just show the Chancellor, then. Bring up my quarters on the security screen."

The security officer stroked his own screen, and made a choking sound. "Hrm, sir?"

"What are you waiting for? Bring it up!"

He'd gone as pink as the gunner. "Perhaps you should have a look first, sir?"