by Lou Anders
Krell turned from the window and faced him. “It’s treason, then.”
Rex aimed both of his blasters at him.
Krell didn’t flinch. “You’re committing mutiny.”
“Explain why you ordered your troops to fight against one another,” Rex said.
“I’m surprised a clone was able to figure that out,” Krell said.
Rex’s aim didn’t waver. “Surrender, General. You’re outnumbered.”
Krell used the Force to shove the men around him, toppling them to the floor. “You dare to attack a Jedi? I will not be undermined by creatures bred in some laboratory!”
Rex’s troops rallied and fired on Krell, but Krell drew his two dual-bladed lightsabers and parried the blasts. Before they could stop him, he leapt through the window.
Rex and his men raced to take the lift to the ground floor.
Dogma met them there. He aimed a blaster at them. “Hold it right there!”
“Lower your weapon,” Rex said, pointing his own two blasters at Dogma in turn.
There was a wild look in Dogma’s eyes. “It’s my duty! You’re all traitors!”
Rex could have fired, but there had been enough of clones shooting clones already. He holstered one of his blasters and took off his helmet. “I used to believe that being a good soldier meant doing as I was told,” Rex said. “That’s how they engineered us. But we’re not droids. We’re not programmed. You have to learn to make your own decisions.”
Dogma hesitated, then lowered his blaster. Two troopers wrestled him to the ground.
“Take him to the brig,” Rex said.
The interruption had cost them valuable time. Krell had escaped into the jungle, leaving a trail of fallen soldiers behind him. They had no choice but to follow him. If Krell made it off-planet—
But Krell had other plans. His laughter boomed from the jungle. “You should have listened to the ARC trooper from the beginning, Captain,” he called out.
Fives.
“He was right. I was using you.” Without warning, Krell dropped on them from above, his lightsabers moving in vicious glowing arcs. Rex’s soldiers fired at him, to no avail.
In seconds, Krell cut down several men and broke another’s back with his bare hands. Rex fought back despair.
Rex’s comlink chimed. “Captain Rex,” a voice said urgently, “this is Tup. Force the general towards me!”
“What? Why?” Rex demanded.
“Trust me, sir!”
It came down to trusting one of his men. It was an easy decision. “Troopers, circle around and lure Krell towards Tup!”
As the troopers herded Krell, Tup jeered, “Hey, ugly, come and get me!”
Krell’s overconfidence doomed him. He lunged toward Tup, only to run afoul of the nearby monstrous vixil plant. Its tentacle grabbed Krell and lifted him into the air, where his limbs flailed wildly. He cut himself free and tumbled to the ground, landing on his back.
Tup fired on him from behind, knocking him out.
The troopers lost no time cuffing him.
Rex was waiting with his men when Krell woke up in the brig. Dogma occupied the cell next to his.
“Why kill your own men, General?” Rex asked.
Krell rose. “Because I can,” he said. “Because you fell for it. Because you’re inferior.”
“But you’re a Jedi!”
Krell laughed. “No longer. A new power is rising. The Jedi will lose this war, and the Republic will be ripped apart from the inside. A new order will rise, and I will rule as part of it.”
Rex couldn’t believe it. “You’re a Separatist!”
“I serve no one’s side, only my own. And soon, my new master.”
“You’re an agent of Dooku.”
“Not yet, but when I get out of here, I will be,” Krell said. “After I’ve succeeded in driving the Republic from Umbara, the Count will reward my actions and make me his new apprentice.”
Dogma burst out, “How could you do this? I followed your orders, and you made me kill my brothers!”
Krell laughed again. “You were the biggest fool of all. I counted on blind loyalty like yours to make my plan succeed.”
Rex had heard enough. “You’re a traitor, General, and you’ll be dealt with as one.”
Krell shook his head. “You never learn. The Umbarans are going to retake this base.” He sat back down. “And when they do, I will be free.”
Krell wasn’t wrong. General Kenobi had captured the capital, but the remaining Umbarans were headed to the base.
After Rex ordered the troops to prepare for the attack, Fives took him aside. “Sir, if the Umbarans free General Krell, he’ll turn over all our intel. He’ll strike a crippling blow to the Republic.”
“We can’t risk the possibility that he might escape. As long as Krell’s alive,” Jesse said, “he’s a threat to all of us.”
“I agree,” Rex said. He knew what he had to do.
Rex returned to the brig with his men and freed Dogma from his cell. Then he pulled out a blaster and stood before Krell. “Turn around and step toward the wall.”
Krell rolled his eyes and did so.
“On your knees,” Rex said.
Jesse hit the controls, and the force field separating Rex from Krell blinked out.
Krell’s laugh sent chills down Rex’s spine. “You’re in a position of power now,” Krell said. “How does it feel?”
“I said, on your knees.”
Krell knelt. “It feels good, doesn’t it? But I can sense your fear. You’re shaking, aren’t you?”
He was.
“What are you waiting for?” Krell taunted. “The Umbarans are getting closer. You can’t do it, can you? Eventually you’ll have to do the right thing and—”
Krell thumped to the floor, shot from behind.
Rex turned to look at Dogma, who had taken Fives’s blaster. “I had to,” Dogma said in a shaken voice. “He betrayed us.”
Dogma, of all people, had done what Rex had not been able to. There was a certain justice to it.
Afterward, Rex observed as troopers escorted Dogma, under arrest, to a gunship. They exchanged quiet nods. Rex appreciated what Dogma had done, even if he had to suffer the consequences.
Fives approached him. “General Kenobi’s battalions have routed the last Umbarans, and we’ve secured all sectors. We did it. We took Umbara.”
Rex gazed beyond him. “What’s the point of all this? Why?”
Fives shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. I don’t think anybody does. But I do know that someday this war is going to end.”
Rex’s disquiet was not so easily dismissed. “Then what? We’re soldiers. What happens to us then?”
Fives had no answer. Together, they watched as the gunship carrying Dogma flew off.
“CAD BANE? BACK ALREADY? AFTER I went to all that trouble to help you bust outta here? Pretty sloppy.”
There was no man in the prison with the guts to talk to me that way.
But there was one kid.
A bounty hunter like me can’t afford to have friends, but this kid was all right. Plus, I owed his father, Jango, a few favors.
“HZUURRKZZ!”
Oh, yeah…Bossk was there, too.
“Boba…Bossk…take a seat,” I said. “I got a story that’ll turn your stomachs worse than that green glop on your plates.”
They sat down across the table from me. A couple small-time crooks at the other end slinked away to find other seats. Smart.
“A story, huh?” asked Boba. “I hope it’s got a happy ending where I get the money you promised for creating that distraction for you.”
“Nope.”
“HRRGKZZZZ,” hissed Bossk.
“Relax,” I said. “You were having so much fun smashing guards together, you should be paying me.”
“HRK HRKK,” snickered Bossk.
“I don’t get it,” Boba said. “You said Moralo Eval was paying you some heavy credits to break him out. We helpe
d you do it. So where’s our cut?”
“Well,” I said, “you remember that punk that snuck out with us?”
“You mean Hardeen? The guy who killed Kenobi?”
“The guy who said he killed Kenobi.”
“But he did kill him. Long-range sniper shot. A couple other Jedi saw him do it. That’s how he wound up in here.”
“Kid, Kenobi ain’t even dead!”
“What? But—”
“Listen, kid, why don’t you two just shut up for a minute and let me tell you what happened?”
Now, if you ask Moralo Eval, he’ll probably tell you something different. I wouldn’t be surprised if that ugly old wheeze bag tried to blame it all on me.
But I’ll tell you what really happened: the true story of the biggest crime ever attempted this side of Kessel.
The breakout was just the beginning. Moralo Eval had much bigger plans. Not good plans, just big ones. He tries to pass himself off as some sort of criminal mastermind, but he’s no Hutt, I can tell you that.
Eval was working for Count Dooku. And Dooku had gotten tired of sending out Separatist droids to fight Republic clones. He was going to try to finally win the Clone Wars by kidnapping the Chancellor of the Republic. Old Palpatine himself.
A job like that pays credits by the freighter load. And Eval had promised me a piece of the action once we got out. That’s where your money was going to come from, kid.
But, like I said, Hardeen showed up and ruined it all.
You remember how he strutted around here: “Look at me, I’m the guy who killed Obi-Wan.”
I didn’t buy it, but Eval did. And we both paid the price.
Eval arranged to have Hardeen brought to our cell for an interview.
“A man like you,” Eval wheezed at him, “there’s bigger game than Jedi…if you got the guts.”
“I’m listening,” grunted Hardeen.
“It’s a brilliant plan, if I do say so,” oozed Eval, “and it involves the Chancellor.”
I didn’t like where this was heading. “If I’m breaking out this goon along with us, it’ll cost you,” I told Eval. “Double my rate.”
“Who you calling a goon?” snarled Hardeen.
“Any imbecile can kill a Jedi with a lousy sniper blast,” I told him. “You want my respect, you do it face to face.”
“Who said I want your respect?” growled Hardeen, sticking his ugly tattooed face way too close to mine.
I locked my eyes on his, looking for that flicker of fear a young punk like him should have when trapped in a cell with me.
I didn’t see it.
And I didn’t like that one bit, either.
“Make that triple my rate,” I said.
I thought that had settled it, but later that day when you two started the riot in the mess hall and we made a break for it, that miserable punk Hardeen tagged along.
“No one invited you!” I snarled at him.
“He killed a Jedi,” wheezed Eval, already out of breath from running down a couple service corridors. “He could be helpful.”
Alarms were blaring, comms were blasting out warnings, and more guards could come stomping in at any second.
“Fine,” I said. “We’re wasting time.”
And that was my mistake. I’d have been better off walking straight back to my cell.
Instead, I led them to the morgue.
“The morgue?” sneered Hardeen. “That’s your brilliant plan?”
“It’s not the first time I’ve broken out of this stink hole,” I said. “In a few minutes, they’ll start dragging the dead bodies out of that riot we started. They’ll put them in coffin pods and tube them down to the crematorium on level four thirteen.”
“What good does that do us?” asked Eval.
“We hitch rides with the stiffs in the coffins. They won’t be expecting any live bodies at the crematorium, so it’ll be an easy escape from there. I’ve got a ship waiting nearby to get us off-planet.”
Turns out there were some complications.
We got out of the caskets, into our ship, and off-planet easy enough.
But it also turns out that when a “Jedi killer” like Hardeen escapes, there are some Jedi who don’t like that so much.
Turns out they’ll chase you from planet to planet doing their stupid Jedi tricks.
Turns out they’re not so different from us bounty hunters when they get mad.
I always heard Jedi were supposed to be in control of their feelings, but the two crazies on our tail sure weren’t in control.
You’re not going to believe this, but it was Skywalker and his little trainee, the one with the horns or whatever those things are. Every time I turn around those two are sticking their noses in my business!
Skywalker wanted revenge on Hardeen so bad, he actually jumped from their ship onto ours and started hacking a hole in it with his lightsaber! I went out there to boot him off, and the other Jedi—the little one with the horns—started ramming their ship into our ship.
Next thing I knew, both ships were crashing into some kind of refinery. There were flames and explosions, and me and Skywalker got hurled off the ship into a pile of pain.
The Jedi staggered to his feet and still wanted to fight. That was fine, because at that point I was in a fighting mood, too. I drew my LL-30s and let him have it. While he was busy deflecting my laser blasts with his lightsaber, I got him wrapped up with my electro-lash. Oldest trick in the book.
Hardeen finally showed up, but instead of killing Skywalker he just knocked him out. Some tough guy.
I moved in to let Skywalker have it at close range. That was when the other Jedi jumped out of their wrecked ship and went nuts. She had two lightsabers and was swinging them around so much I thought she was going to cut off her own horns.
I’m not afraid of nothing, but I do know when it’s smarter to slip out the back door of the cantina. Eval had gotten our ship running again, so I tipped my hat to the little lady and legged it.
It was starting to feel like I was doing an awful lot of work for the amount Eval was paying me.
Eval kept insisting that if I stuck with him, his boss Count Dooku would hire me for that job with the Chancellor. And that was going to be big money. Really big.
But he made the same promise to Hardeen. So no matter how hard I tried to get rid of that slarping womp rat, he stuck with us all the way to Dooku’s place on Serenno.
Dooku’s joint was like a castle, and he was strutting around like he was a king. I wasn’t impressed. Money impresses me, not the fools who have it.
“Moralo Eval,” he boomed, “you’re finally here.”
“Count Dooku, I apologize for my delay,” groveled Eval. He knelt before Dooku and his big armored thugs.
“Your careless delay could have ruined my plan, Eval,” Dooku said with a sneer. Then he turned to me. “I see Cad Bane is with you.” He gave me a regal nod.
I hoped he wasn’t expecting me to kneel like Eval. That’s one thing I won’t do. Another is call some old man “my lord” just because he’s got a long beard and a big house.
“Who is the other one?” he demanded.
“This is Rako Hardeen,” said Eval. “I thought he might be useful for the tournament.”
That was the first time I’d heard anything about a tournament. What I really wanted to hear about was getting paid! “Enough small talk. I want my credits!”
“That makes two of us,” chimed in Hardeen.
“You shall have them,” claimed Dooku, “and perhaps much more, if you would like to enter our friendly little contest.”
“You already owe me for one job, Dooku,” I told him. “Anything else will cost you triple.”
“I assure you,” he said, “if you survive the challenge, the reward will be well worth it.”
“What’s the game?” I asked.
Dooku gestured toward a huge, dark cube with lots of doodads stuck all over it. It looked more like a wrecked sandcrawler than a p
art of the castle.
“Excuse the outward appearance,” said Dooku. “It’s something Eval designed for me. It’s a testing ground…for bounty hunters.”
“A test?” I spat on the floor. “I don’t need to pass no test.”
“Me neither,” said Hardeen. “I passed my test when I plugged Kenobi.”
“Certainly, certainly,” oozed Dooku. “For a normal job that would be more than enough. But, you see, I must have the very best for this mission. It’s more important than you could understand. There must not be a weak link.”
“So I designed the Box to find the weak links,” croaked Eval, “and eliminate them.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Eval got where he is by lying, cheating, and shooting people in the back. Any test he designed would be about as fair as playing sabacc with a Socorrian.
“We’ve assembled a dozen of the best bounty hunters on this side of the galaxy,” continued Eval. “You’ll all go in the Box…and only the best five will come out.”
Well, that didn’t sound so bad. I didn’t care who they rounded up; there aren’t five bounty hunters better than me anywhere.
“Enough gabbing,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I was curious to see who else Eval and Dooku had talked into taking their test. It was an ugly bunch, and Hardeen didn’t do much to make it prettier.
There were a couple old acquaintances, including that Kyuzo Embo. You know him, right? He’s not half bad. Not half as good as me, though.
There were also a couple old enemies and a few small-timers I’d never met.
But the one that stood out was the slime-sucking, knock-kneed hammerhead wearing my hat. Well, it wasn’t my hat, but it looked a lot better than the one I’d picked up on Nal Hutta.
“Nice hat,” I said. “Where did you get it?”
Everybody got real quiet waiting to hear his answer.
He looked me up and down before he answered—by reaching for his blaster.
I drew one of my LL-30s and blasted him before he even got his gun out of its holster.
