Windu leaned back in his seat. "It'll be a sorry day for the Republic when we divert resources to helping criminal scum."
"Harsh words, my friend. But I'm sure he speaks highly of you, too ..."
"Chancellor, Jabba probably knows who's done this-no doubt some other gangster he's crossed." Windu's tone wasn't exactly serene. "He's never shied from kidnapping as a tactic himself. Why would he ask us? And why should we divert Jedi to a basic police task when there's a war to fight?"
"Because it's right, Master Windu." Palpatine had no real need to leap to the moral high ground, but it amused him to do it and labor the point. Such blind spots, Jedi. This is how I shall remember you when you're long gone-unable to see what was right before your eyes, from me to your own duty. "A child is missing. If it were a human child, would we be having this conversation? Does the parent's lifestyle have any bearing on the child's plight? Or do Hutt parents not feel the same grief that we do?"
"Would we be having this conversation," Windu said, not rising to the bait, "if the human child's father was the head of Black Sun?"
"We would, if he could deliver this." Palpatine sat down and activated a holochart. It hovered above his desk, a complex web of lines and clusters of light representing the major points of the known galaxy. He tapped the control to remove layers of detail, and entire star systems and planets winked out of existence-so
The threads were hyperspace routes. And they were all controlled by the Hutts.
Windu looked like a granite monument to disapproval. Eventually, he tilted his head slightly to one side. "I still feel uneasy. There'll be more to this than a simple ransom demand or a settling of scores. I sense it."
Palpatine allowed himself a sad smile, with just the right blend of I-share-your-concern and you-know-I'm-right. "You might not like doing deals with the Hutt, Master Windu, but these are trying times, and we can't be too exacting in our qualification requirements for allies. As long as they help more than they hinder, that has to be good enough for us. This Hutt has control of the hyperspace access we need to move troops and materiel to the Outer Rim, and we have the expertise to find the unfindable. Mutual advantage."
"I still say there's more going on here than a simple kidnapping. It's a sting of some kind, knowing Jabba." "I didn't realize you were that well acquainted." "Based on his track record ..."
"Then you need to put as many Jedi on this case as you can . . . based on his track record."
"Chancellor, that's impossible. We're at overstretch. I have no Jedi to spare."
"And our troops will be spread even more thinly if we can't reach the Outer Rim and keep a resupply chain functioning."
"I'm inclined to agree with the Chancellor," said Unduli. She'd been totally silent until then. "Regardless of the reasons for this kidnapping, we have to negotiate with Jabba, and this would give us an excellent bargaining position."
"A win-win, as you might call it," Palpatine said quietly, in almost a whisper. "Save a child, and save our army."
Windu was silent again for a few moments, then spread his hands in reluctant concession. "Kenobi and Skywalker have just taken Christophsis. The planet's largely secured, so if anyone can be redeployed, it's them."
"Very well, send them," said Palpatine. "I'll contact Lord Jabba and reassure him."
The Jedi stood and bowed their heads politely, almost synchronized. Palpatine returned the nod and watched them file out of his office. In a few moments, he'd open a comlink to Jabba and set the wheels in motion.
Lord Jabba, you have our sympathies. You must be beside yourself with worry.
Windu had a point, even if he didn't know it. "Why would Jabba expose his weakness like that so conveniently? Dooku would have to exercise appropriate caution. We'll put our best people on it, Lord Jabba . . ."
Jabba's plea saved time in the plan to take one more potential ally away from the Jedi, once they were suitably incriminated, of course. In the longer run, it was also one of the finely balanced thrusts and counterthrusts that would keep the war in an uneasy balance until everything was in position, until the Jedi were in just the right state of vulnerability, and Palpatine could choose to end the war-and with it the Jedi Order itself.
Fascinating, how they didn't jump into action when they heard the child is missing. He really is: Dooku's made sure of it. Jabba might be corrupt, but the child . . . he's still an innocent. Fascinating . . . how the social acceptability of the parent affects the willingness to aid the child.
They were very selective, these Jedi, about where they focused their legendary compassion.
Palpatine hoped nothing went wrong and that the Huttlet was returned unharmed when he'd served his purpose. Rotta was, after all, another very long-term potential ally in his plan.
But if anything happened to the poor thing-ah, here he was, falling into the platitude trap of being a politician, lies repeated so often that they eventually persuaded even the speaker that he meant what he said, and had done no wrong.
There were always innocent casualties of war, but war still had to be fought. And Jabba would be even more firmly in the anti-Republic camp if anything happened to his son.
Fascinating and . . . yes, still strange occasionally to play both sides of this game as if I want each to win.
Palpatine opened the comlink on his desk. "I want to speak to Lord Jabba," he said. "This is the Chancellor of the Republic."
* * *
FORWARD AID STATION, CRYSTAL CITY, CHRISTOPHSIS
"Steady with the polish, sir," said the squad sergeant, checking the fluid level on a hemostatic hypospray. "If you shine it up any more, we'll have to put a camo net over you."
Clone Captain Rex paused in midsweep, razor held between thumb and forefinger as he shaved his mirror-smooth scalp, and ran his other palm over his head to test for missed stubble. Hair was just annoying under a helmet. And regrowth itched. Shaving was now both a necessity and a diversion in quieter moments, a comforting ritual.
Rex went on dragging the razor across his head in precise, slightly overlapping strips, one boot resting on his helmet as it lay on the ground. "Use me for signaling. Should be able to see me from orbit."
"You missed a patch, sir. Going for the tufted look?"
"Maybe a topknot." Rex allowed himself a smile, then pocketed the razor. "Or a fancy braid like those Weequay pirates."
It was the first chance he'd had to sit back and take a breather for days, and his head buzzed with fatigue. The armies of Separatist droids here had been reduced to scrap and a few pockets of resistance; Christophsis had finally fallen to the Republic. In the shelter of a colonnaded doorway that was doubling as a first-aid station, he took out his datapad to check the casualty reports coming in, conscious of an injured trooper sitting on an upturned crate while the sergeant-Coric-tended to the man's shrapnel injury. Plastoid armor was said to be the best credits could buy; Rex staked his life on it. But it had to have joints, gaps, and seals-and they were always vulnerable. The trooper had taken a spray of jagged fragments as razor-sharp and as lethal as flechettes. Some had penetrated the gap between back plate and shoulder. "How you doing, Ged?" Rex asked.
"Grateful it's just my shoulder, sir," said the trooper, not looking around. "At least I can still sit down."
Yes, it wasn't bad kit. Could have been better, like the fancy ARC trooper rig he'd seen, but it did the job. The relatively short list of names and ID numbers on his 'pad was testament to that.
Light casualties for a battle. Doesn't feel like that, though.
"Running low on bacta, sir," Coric said. There was a metallic tinkle as he dropped bloodstained fragments into a plastoid container. "Okay on analgesics for the time being."
Rex did a quick mental calculation of how long it would take the cruiser Hunter to reach the supply base, load up, and return. "They've sent the ship for replenishment. It'll be back in..."
Rex heard his helmet sensors blipping before he felt the blast. He snatched it up and lowered it into
place just as something crashed into the street behind them.
Whoomp-whoomp. A massive explosion shook the ground, then another.
"Incoming!" a voice yelled over the clatter of raining debris. Yeah, we noticed. Thanks.
Rex grabbed his rifle and sprinted for the street. He didn't look back at Coric or the injured trooper. The two Jedi generals-Kenobi and Skywalker-were already in the open, dodging blasterfire. When Rex got level with them, he could see a wall of droids, rank upon rank, marching toward them in that weird synchrony. It wasn't the same as a well-drilled army of human beings. The precision was cold, unthinking, inexorable, as if the tinnies would keep marching right on over you and crush everything in their path. It was the SBDs, the super battle droids, that really got to him.
He sighted up and aimed.
It was the way they ran with their firing arms extended. And they had no visible heads. Any tinny could kill you, but at least the regular droids looked vaguely human.
Do they think? Do they feel? Do I care?
No.
Us or them.
Rex squeezed off a few rounds, smashing into the front rank. It wouldn't do more than slow them down. It never did. The game was all about numbers, and the droids had them. Clone troopers, roused from brief sleep or caught while gulping down dry rations, took up defensive positions.
Clone Commander Cody sprinted to Kenobi's side. "Where the stang did they come from?"
General Kenobi didn't seem too pleased with his young general. "I told you they caved in too fast," he said, swinging his lightsaber in an arc to deflect a volley of blaster bolts. It was hard to hear him over the blasterfire. "Some victory, Anakin ..."
"I wasn't the one who decided to send the ship for supplies ..." Skywalker stood his ground, lightsaber grasped two-handed. "Master."
"Neither of us is perfect, then, and let that be our lesson-second wave incoming, men. Stand to."
Anakin swung around. "Platoon, on me!" he barked, tapping the top of his head in the signal to form up. Skywalker even sounded like a soldier. He was an easy general to follow. "Rex, see that building? The energy sphere? Best position, I think."
Rex flicked the macrobinocular setting on his helmet to get a close-up view. "You want to go around behind."
"It's risky, but we can make it." "Okay, let's go for it, sir."
Chunk-chunk-chunk. The battle droids marched like a single machine. Rex hated that noise. It just would not stop.
Droids relied on numbers and keeping coming, and coming, and coming. Rapid reaction wasn't their strong suit. They also preferred a nice level battlefield and wide open spaces. Rex signaled to the platoon, indicating that they should melt back into the deserted streets and alleyways of Crystal City, then transmitted the coordinates of the objective via his helmet comlink. A chart of the streets leading to the energy sphere appeared in the head-up display in every trooper's helmet. Rex didn't really need to use hand signals with that level of communications tech, but it was an instinctive thing to do-and if the HUD systems went down, they all had to fall back on good old-fashioned, nondigital soldiering.
Coric grabbed his medical field kit. The FAS moved with the front line.
General Skywalker darted for the entrance to a deserted office block, Rex at his heels, to pick through the rubble and passages of the city and make their way back behind the droid lines. The route ran parallel to the main street. Kenobi, Cody, and a company of troopers returned the heavy fire raining down on them from the advancing droids; Rex couldn't see it, but he could hear it, and feel the shocks under his boots. Plumes of gray smoke bloomed into the air.
Keep 'em occupied, Cody . . .
Rex scrambled over a shattered fountain that was still gushing water from a broken conduit. This must have been a nice place to live, once; Rex tried to cast his mind back to just a few days earlier, when Crystal City had been a landscape that seemed carved out of glittering gems. The civilian population had already fled by the time ground troops had landed.
It felt like a lifetime ago, and he'd still not seen a live Christophsian. Plenty of dead ones, though. Plenty of them. His nightvision filter kicked in as he ran down a sloping passage into darkness and shapes resolved in the green-lit image, a chaos of shattered transparisteel, permacrete, and cables.
A light winked on a console torn from the wall; he hadn't realized there was still a functioning power supply in this complex. Not a booby trap. No HUD sensor warning. Just a light. Rex ran on. Skywalker's robes flapped, blotting out the faint lights beyond like a black cloud.
Rex glanced at the HUD icons set to one side of the main display to check for stragglers, counting the transponder blips and ID numbers of the platoon. Sergeant Coric was right behind him-and the injured trooper. He must have been tanked up on painkillers. The trooper's bodysuit had lost some integrity, too. Rex hoped he didn't get into a situation where he needed it to be airtight.
"You could sit this one out, Ged," Rex said. "I get lonely, sir."
"We'll keep you company, then ..."
It took maybe ten minutes to skirt around the droid lines, staying close to the canyon-like walls and covering as much ground as possible under cover to avoid aerial detection.
Skywalker leaped ahead-it would have been very handy to bound clear over obstacles like that, Rex thought-and was already on the roof of the energy sphere building by the time Rex pushed through the doors.
They edged to the parapet around the sphere. Troopers positioned themselves and sighted up, snapping anti-armor attachments onto their rifles. On the ground floor, the rest of the platoon hid in the lobby, ready to give the droids a street-level surprise from the rear.
Skywalker seemed to be sizing up for a jump. Two stories beneath them, three octuptarra droids marched forward in that three-legged staccato gait, each one a sphere supported by thin arching legs, spitting a stream of cannon fire.
"What's the plan, then, sir?" Ged asked, as if he didn't know. There was one surefire way to take a droid like that. But their narrow profile and relatively small spherical bodies made them a hard target to hit.
The general seemed to be focused on one of the droids. "Follow me."
"Right you are, sir ..."
Rex secured his rappel line on the edge of the roof and signaled to the men behind. Skywalker didn't need anything fancy like that. He just jumped.
* * *
STREET LEVEL, CRYSTAL CITY
Anakin landed on the back of the octuptarra droid just hard enough to balance on the flat section on top of its spherical body without tipping both of them over.
And the droid couldn't do a thing about it.
It spun and flailed as he rammed his lightsaber deep into its top panel. One of its comrades swiveled its cannon and fired. Anakin batted the bolts away with his lightsaber as Rex and the rest of the clone troopers opened fire and took down the two remaining octuptarras, running over the wreckage to engage the rear rank of battle droids, which had now realized they were facing a rearguard action as well.
Anakin knew he wasn't actually thinking at this point. An odd moment of mental separation left him able to run on some buried instinct at the same time as part of him took a step back and observed it all, both fascinated and appalled. His body had bypassed his higher brain functions, moving him around the battlefield without his consent. He was aware of the position of every droid, every clone trooper, but not consciously; he could see Kenobi's blue lightsaber blade, flashing intermittently through a smoky forest of battle droids. The noise was deafening-screaming, ripping metal, explosions so loud that they felt like a punch high in the chest-but he wasn't sure he was hearing or even listening. It was ... a kind of blindness where he could still somehow see.
Images flared and vanished in front of him like flash-frames. He was swinging his lightsaber into a group of Tusken Raiders. You killed my mother. Now it's your turn. It was a memory; he'd done exactly that. For a split second, he wasn't sure if he was looking at droids or Sand People. He simply s
pun around the droid lines, swinging and slashing, buoyed up on a wave of reflexes. Metal fragments flashed past his face. Some veered away at angles, deflected not by his lightsaber but an instinctive and unthinking Force push. One moment he was rising explosively from a squat into the looming shadow of an SBD, thrusting his lightsaber through its chest, the next he was leaping onto the back of a battle droid and ripping off its head with a Force-assisted stranglehold.
And he could still glimpse Tuskens he didn't want to see, solid ghosts, running for cover in the forest of falling droids as white armored troopers charged, fired, and even vibrobladed them. He sprinted after one: but Rex now stood right in front of him, smashing the butt of his DC-15 rifle hard down on a battle droid's fragile neck as it lay struggling to get up. Rex was almost casual. The clone hammered the droid right-handed as he reached into his belt pouch with his left hand to grab a reload. He barely paused as he snapped the new energy pack into its housing and started firing again. Another droid turned on him-perhaps to aid its fallen comrade, perhaps not-and got a faceful of blasterfire.
Anakin struggled to shut out the memory of the Tusken Raiders. They vanished. But in the melee he saw a tall gold figure with long black claws; a Blood Carver called Ke Daiv. He'd killed him, too, years ago.
It's not darkness.
I'm not dark.
This isn't anger...
It was okay; they'd always told him so. He was fighting to save his men, and if he did terrible things out of compassion, out of love, then he wasn't turning to the dark side. That was the Jedi way.
For my mother. For my men. For Padme.
His body carried on anyway. He swung his blade through metal bodies as easily as if he were cutting grass. Rex and the clone troopers fought as hard as he did, as pumped with adrenaline as he was, too desperate to feel their own natural fear-and yet at that moment they felt unlike him in the Force, devoid only of that singular crazed frenzy, that throat-closing . . . rage.
I'm not turning dark.
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