Star Wars - The Clone Wars 01

by Karen Traviss

This has to be done.

  Don't stop to. think: it'll get you killed.

  Anakin shook off the doubt, but it scared him more than death. He charged past Rex into the next rank of droids, almost choking on smoke and flying dust. The thing within swept him along the way it had when he wiped out the Tusken village for his mother's murder, a strangely cold frenzy, equally consuming, equally animal in its intensity.

  He went on killing. Somehow it didn't matter that those who fell before his lightsaber this time were droids. It was all the same to him. He leaped from octuptarra to octuptarra, driving his blade deep into each droid's sphere as he went. He felt that he could keep going for eternity, never running out of this...

  Not rage. Not rage.

  Whatever it was, he had to let it out.

  The droids were crushed against one another, unable to maneuver. Clones pressed in on them, firing point-blank into their weak points. Shrapnel flew, peppering noisily against clone armor.

  "Anakin!" Obi-Wan yelled. He whirled his lightsaber around his head and took out two battle droids in one sweep, cut in half at the waist joint. "Come on!"

  Anakin suddenly ran out of droids. The cacophony of battle noise stopped. He was now face-to-face with Kenobi, and they were standing on a carpet of dismembered and shattered droids. A sudden silence descended on the battlefield, the kind that left Anakin's ears ringing.

  "Are you okay, Anakin?" Kenobi was staring into his face as if he'd seen something.

  Anakin took a deep, steadying breath. For a moment, Tuskens, Blood Carvers, and enemy droids were all gone. "Yes, Master." He turned to check how many of his men were wounded. "Rex? Let's evac as many as we can while we..."

  But it was just a lull in the storm. The sound carried from farther up the road, that chunk-chunk-chunk again.

  Another wave of droids.

  "We're going to need reinforcements, fast," Anakin said.

  Kenobi looked up as if he expected a ship to appear on demand. "I still can't get a comlink signal through to the admiral. Must be atmospheric conditions."

  "Let's get these guys out, anyway," Rex said wearily. A trooper was calling for a medic; two men picked their way through the droid debris to a fallen man Anakin could see only as a tangle of limbs. There were at least a dozen troopers down. "Come on-I said, let's get these guys clear! Move it!"

  The clones had been heavily outnumbered, but they were human-agile, motivated, and smart. The droids were just machines. They fell victim to their sheer numbers and inflexibility in every sense. Stick them in a tight spot, and they couldn't avoid one another's arc of fire, or even move. They had no room to fight the way they were programmed to. They couldn't use a rifle as a club like Rex would, or drop a grenade into a hatch and jump clear like Sergeant Coric, or care enough about their brothers' lives to fight like crazy men, or even think. They were machines. Just dumb machines.

  I just destroyed machines. I didn't kill.

  Anakin felt as if he were sobering up after a drinking spree, but he'd never been drunk. The moment left him disoriented and embarrassed in a way he didn't understand. He shook himself out of it. More droids were coming, and there were wounded men to evacuate. He rushed to check the casualties with Kenobi and Rex, helping those he could, moving those he couldn't. Chunk-chunk-chunk.

  "Patience, clankers," Rex muttered, hauling a trooper by his shoulders into the shelter of a doorway. Anakin took the man's legs. "I'll get back to you soon."

  And then the metallic marching stopped. Anakin strained to listen; the close explosions must have affected his hearing. But he wasn't imagining it. He could see them now, a line of metal statues seeming to wait for orders.

  The droid advance had ground to a halt.

  "Let's hope that doesn't mean they're moving long-range artillery into position," Kenobi said. He wiped the back of his glove across his mouth, smearing dust and droid oil across his beard. The wretched things scattered debris and fluids for meters when hit. "We can't take much more of this."

  Anakin heard it even before he felt it. It was a very distinctive sound, pure music. He looked up at the same moment Rex did, and what he saw was possibly even more wonderful than it sounded. It was so arresting that he almost missed the droids up ahead doing a sudden, crisp about-turn and marching away again.

  An armed Republic shuttle banked above the street and veered off toward the plaza.

  "That's more like it," Rex said. His shoulders sagged slightly, a blend of relief and fatigue. "They don't like the odds now."

  Anakin turned to Kenobi, trying to look unmoved. He wanted to cheer. But it wasn't a very Jedi thing to do. "They're pulling back, Master. Looks like the reinforcements have made them see sense. Come on, Rex, let's give them a proper welcome."

  "Where's the cruiser?" Rex asked, tapping his finger against the side of his helmet as if having comm problems. "I'm not picking up anything within landing range."

  "It'll be here," Kenobi said, exuding energy. As always, he seemed-felt-invigorated by a fight. Anakin wondered if he had those frenzied killing moments too. Kenobi hooked his lightsaber to his belt and jogged toward the plaza, where they'd set up a landing area. "Time for reinforcements, supplies, and perhaps my new Padawan."

  Anakin's stomach sank a little. Dead weight. It distracted him from his brush with darkness-not darkness, no-and he seized it. A change of problem really was as good as a rest. "This isn't the time or the place to train a Padawan, Master. They're a liability."

  "Oh, I don't know." Kenobi picked up speed. He broke into a steady run and pulled ahead. "You weren't. Most of the time, anyway . . ."

  "Most?"

  "The best way to learn is on the job, after all. You should ask Master Yoda for your own Padawan, Anakin. You have a lot to teach. I really think you should."

  "No, thanks." Anakin glanced at Rex and raised an eyebrow to Kenobi's back. The captain shrugged. "I'll teach when I think I've got experience worth passing on. And a learner would slow me down. We don't have the luxury of time at the moment."

  Anakin could have sworn Rex was amused. He couldn't see his face behind that T-shaped visor, but he noticed a slight dip of the chin and felt his mood in the Force. Then the man gave him a discreet thumbs-up.

  Anakin winked. Thanks, Rex.

  The gunship touched down between two cannon emplacements, and the ramp went down. But no fresh clone troopers disembarked, or even supply droids steering fully-laden repulsors and ammunition crates.

  A little female Togruta stepped onto the plaza instead. A tiny girl. A child.

  Kenobi stood transfixed. "What's that youngling doing here? Where's the ship? Where's Hunter!"

  The little Togruta drew herself up to her full height-which wasn't saying much-and craned her neck to look up at Kenobi. "Master Yoda was worried that you hadn't reported in, and he couldn't reach you, so he sent me with a message."

  "Sent you?" Kenobi said. "So where's the cruiser? Where are our reinforcements? Our support?"

  "The ship dropped me off. Master Yoda wants you to return to the Temple right away. There's an emergency."

  "Funny, we've got one of those too, in case you hadn't noticed." Anakin gestured over his shoulder at the palls of smoke still rising into the air. He didn't dare look at Rex in case the dismay rising in his throat was contagious. After the blissful relief of the droid retreat, the realization that they were still under siege slapped him back hard. There was no end in sight, no resupply, no comm to Padme to let her know he was fine. "Are you telling me they never got our signals asking for help?"

  "I don't think they did. Perhaps we can relay a message via the cruiser that brought me."

  "And who are you?"

  "I'm Padawan Ahsoka Tano," she said.

  "Ah, my new apprentice." Kenobi gave her a polite bow, as if grateful to salvage at least something from the situation. "Nothing like being thrown in at the deep end."

  Ahsoka looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, then smiled as if she'd nailed it on with grim de
termination just to keep their spirits up.

  "No, Master, I'm not your assigned Padawan." She turned to Anakin and bowed. "I'm yours, Master Skywalker."

  THREE

  Stand by to break orbit-Separatist vessels incoming. Sorry, General Kenobi, but we're under fire-you're on your own.

  ADMIRAL YULAREN, withdrawing Jedi cruiser Resolute from Christophsis orbit

  * * *

  THRONE ROOM OF JABBA'S PALACE, TATOOINE

  It was never a good idea to show weakness in front of the hired help.

  Once they realized that you could suffer just like them, they got ideas above their station, and the last thing Jabba needed right now was to lose his iron grip on his empire. He was permanence, stability, the unspoken law on Tatooine. Fretting was out of the question.

  Jabba kept his despair and fears for Rotta hidden behind a barrier of contemptuous anger. He worked hard at the act of lounging on his dais, snacking on gorogs from a jar of brine even though he'd lost his appetite.

  "The slicers, Lord Jabba." A tech droid and his human associate-hackers for hire-were ushered in by a Gamorrean guard to stand in front of the throne. "Master Gaib and Tee-Kay-Oh."

  Jabba waited the requisite number of beats before paying them visible attention. He swallowed a gorog headfirst with slow care, slurping the legs as they slipped over his lips, something that always seemed to repel other species. It appeared to work on the one called Gaib. His eyes widened for a telling fraction of a second. At least he didn't look away.

  "Report," Jabba said casually. He clutched at every shred of information. He couldn't pass a minute without trying to imagine where Rotta was at that moment, whether he was afraid, or hungry-or even still alive. Did humans understand this? Did they realize that when you lived for a thousand years, when your child was you, the product of your genes alone and not something you could carelessly re-create over and over like their fast-breeding species, that your child was the entire future? He doubted it. They were such temporary things, humans. They only understood today. "You've found something."

  It wasn't a question. It was a command. Gaib nudged the droid. "Tee-Kay, show Lord Jabba . . ."

  "Air-traffic-control records," TK-0 said. He had a polished dome like an R2 unit. A small cylinder extended from the rim to project a holochart onto the inlaid tiles, where a star system magnified, resolving into a sun and a circling planet; one highlighted itself with a pulsing red glow. "Comlink-relay records. Medical-databank accesses. Correlating all that-which took some processing, I might add-leads us to the planet Teth."

  Jabba had expected some lengthier explanation. He'd paid for it. "You deduce that from what, exactly?"

  "Ships leaving Tatooine at the estimated time," Gaib cut in. "We . . . acquired the outgoing comlink records on all the main HoloNet nodes within a day's flight time. What pinned it down was checking access requests to the Galactic All-Species Self-Help Database." He paused, looking as if he were measuring his next sentence to see if it was long enough to hang him. "We hacked the access logs on that, too. It's a Republic-health resource. Tee-Kay examined all the requests for information on Hutt health and illnesses."

  "We rarely sicken," Jabba said slowly.

  "Well, we never said the Hutt file was an extensive one ..."

  Their line of inquiry was troubling Jabba. "Why would you even look there? Why a database for the sick?"

  "How many beings know how to take care of a Hutt baby?" Gaib said. "Except a Hutt, and no Hutt would cross you, right? So the first thing you do if you kidnap a baby is worry about keeping it alive and well. You need to check what's normal if they start-well, doing whatever Hutt babies do. Crying. Being sick."

  Jabba could only think the worst. Hutts weren't prone to every passing bug and infection. Most poisons didn't work on them. Something was badly wrong; he didn't have to work hard on his anger act now. "You have reason to think my son is ill?"

  TK-0 carried on, unperturbed. "Someone on a ship outbound from Tatooine accessed the GASSH Database to download information on Hutt childhood illnesses, and that ship landed on Teth."

  Jabba summoned TC-70, his interpreter droid. "Dispatch the bounty hunters to Teth immediately. And pay these two." He leaned forward slowly and fixed Gaib first, then TK-0, with slow-blinking eyes. "I'll keep you. Make yourselves available whenever I call, and you get a handsome retainer."

  "What if we're busy?" TK-0 asked.

  "Then you get a decent funeral ... or scrapyard of your choice."

  "You'd be amazed how fast our customer-response times can be," said Gaib, physically turning TK-0 toward the doors with both hands. "Pleasure doing business with you, Lord Jabba."

  Jabba didn't even see them go. He'd closed his eyes for a moment, every dread passing through his imagination. The scum that had taken Rotta might have botched the kidnap. They'd harmed where. And he could still hear his own appalled voice, his own shame.

  What have we done?

  It was a massacre; and the Jedi had carried it out, pawns of the corrupt Galidraan governor, who had set up the Mandalorian army for his own agenda. Looking back on it, Dooku saw it was the tipping point that had changed his life. It was the moment he had started to think.

  I believed my Masters. I didn't think for myself. They didn't question, either; they took the governor at his word. They just believed. And we killed people. We killed them on the say-so of a criminal.

  If you were going to take lives, go to war, then there was no benefit of the doubt to be given, no other's word to take. Dooku trusted only proof now.

  What have I done?

  You came to your senses.

  But I'm setting up the Jedi now. That makes me as degenerate as they are.

  Think of it as using their own complacency against them. Turning their own weapon on them. Poetic justice. Whatever it takes. They won't say sorry and step down simply because you point out the error of the Republic's ways, will they?

  He had these arguments with himself more than ever lately.

  The snow had melted; the dead were buried. But he couldn't erase Jango Fett's face, the face of a man back from the living death of a slavery that Dooku had delivered him into, etched with all the bitter lines of surviving only to have his moment of justice. It was always the last image to leave Dooku. It wasn't just that the millions of troops cloned from Fett made forgetting it impossible. It was that Fett hadn't lived to see the downfall of the Jedi. Fett's motive for sharing-aiding-Dooku's ambition hadn't been greed, he realized, but the same understanding that the Jedi Order was a destructive, destabilizing cabal.

  The Jedi had killed Fett in the end. But most of him seemed to have died at Galidraan anyway, and only his insatiable hunger for justice had kept that formidable body moving.

  We'll have our day, Fett.

  Dooku opened the comlink again, this time to the monastery on Teth. It was time for the next stage of the operation.

  "Ventress," he said. "Ventress, is the Huttlet all right? Bring me up to speed."

  FOUR

  You have to know the provenance of information to evaluate it. In other words, who wants you to know this? Who doesn't? And why? If you come by sensitive information too easily, it might be planted.

  So if you check out Teth, go carefully.

  INTELLIGENCE OFFICER LIEUTENENT KOM'RK, N-6, Special Operations Brigade, Grand Army of the Republic

  * * *

  OBSERVATION POST, CRYSTAL CITY, CHRISTOPHSIS

  Anakin knew he had to grit his teeth and take a certain amount of Jedi Council bureaucracy, but there was a war on. And there was every chance that they'd die here.

  He didn't have time for a Padawan.

  He also didn't want to kick up a stink in front of Rex. There was nothing more demoralizing for troops than a commanding officer who didn't look solidly in control. If his clone troopers could take any onslaught without murmur, then he had to do even better.

  It was what officers did. It was expected of him.

  The abando
ned skyscraper was a useful observation point. When visibility was good, they could see for thirty klicks in every direction. Smoke hanging in the air had cut that down dramatically, but it was still an excellent vantage point, and went some way to making up for the lack of air cover and forward air control. He could direct long-range artillery from here.

  We need reinforcements. Ground troops, a fighter squadron, an armored battalion, too.

  Ahsoka stood on a rail to look out from the top of the abandoned skyscraper as if she were sightseeing. She wasn't tall enough to peer over unaided. Anakin grabbed her by the belt and pulled her back down.

  "This isn't a training exercise, youngling," he snapped. "The Seps use live rounds. They're awkward that way."

  "I know what I'm doing." Ahsoka readjusted her belt. "Why don't you send a couple of squads to infiltrate the..."

  "Skyline yourself like that again and you'll get your head shot off, Jedi or not."

  Rex had his head turned toward the droid positions. He might have been watching, or he might not; there was no way to tell. Anakin envied him his helmet at times like this. Rex didn't have to grit his teeth. He could just switch off his links and retreat into a private world. He could vent his spleen as much he wished, and nobody would be any the wiser.

  The clones did that. He knew.

  "I thought you said you'd never have a Padawan, sir ...," Rex said at last.

  "Someone must have fouled up the flimsi." As soon as the battalion was relieved, Anakin would pack Ahsoka off to the Temple again. "I don't have a Padawan. I can't have a Padawan. There's normally at least some discussion about this kind of thing first."

  Ahsoka stepped in front of him. "I'm still here, Skyguy. Stop talking about me as if I'm not."

  "Skyguy." Rex took off his helmet and laughed. "Skyguy . . ."

  Anakin wasn't in the mood. He fixed Ahsoka with a don't-mess-with-me look. "What did you call me? Look, don't get snippy with me, youngling. You're not even old enough to be a Padawan."

  "I'm not a youngling," she said. "I'm fourteen."

  Rex kept a straight face. "I'm ten," he said, "but I'm tall for my age."

  "Anyway, Master Yoda thinks I'm old enough."