That intrigued Dooku. It almost distracted him from the crisis that faced him now, but as the knowledge might come in useful one day, he made a mental note to return to it and gently pry the story out of TC-70. Motivating the reluctant was often Dooku's task. He collected the finer points of the skill.
The doors parted and Dooku walked into the throne chamber, now littered with Jabba's entourage. They sat or stood in silence, looking not at one another but at the floor. It was silent in the way that a kitchen with a sealed steam-pot about to explode on the range was silent. Rage simmered on the dais.
Jabba obviously needed his displeasure to be seen. Dooku had now gained the measure of Hutt power displays.
TC-70 began his preamble. "Glorious Jabba is losing patience, and he demands..."
"Thank you, Tee-see," Dooku said. "I'll address Lord Jabba directly, to better show my respect for his culture and language."
"My son," Jabba spat. "My son is still missing. I demand to know what your useless minions are doing about it. You should execute them and buy better ones. I wouldn't tolerate such incompetence in my servants."
Ventress wouldn't have liked that comparison. Dooku lowered his head slightly. Deferential postures worked wonders.
"My droid army is about to capture Skywalker and rescue your heir. This would have been over by now, but I gave strict instructions that nothing was to be done that would cause the slightest harm or distress to little Lord Rotta. So the operation is being handled delicately. This is not some Republic hostage extraction where the security forces go in with all blasters blazing and end up killing hostages."
That wouldn't be lost on Jabba. The Republic had seen a run of botched hostage rescues lately. And Dooku wasn't lying; a dead Rotta would do him no good now. It had to be handled with care.
Jabba hadn't calmed down, but he hadn't blown his top either. Dooku could still retrieve the situation. "My son looked ill when Skywalker seized him. Is he even still alive? Because if he isn't, then I will..."
"He's alive, Lord Jabba. I have reliable and current intelligence. Skywalker tried to escape from Teth with your son, but he was stopped, with no harm to Rotta. He's now trapped, he has no army, and he has nowhere to run."
Jabba leaned forward a little. "Count Dooku," he said, "you're no fool, and neither am I. Do you think that once I knew my son was on Teth, that I wouldn't monitor the sector? I have my sources. And my sources say that Republic forces are on their way to support Skywalker."
Yes, Dooku should have guessed that much. He affected a tired patience, as if Jabba was stating the obvious.
"Not that I'm complacent, Lord Jabba, but Skywalker and a company of his elite infantry failed to deal with my army. Their fleet, if they have a fleet, will be easily neutralized. I have more firepower in orbit around Teth than the Republic can muster."
"I asked myself a question," said Jabba, changing tack in a worrying way. "I asked why Skywalker would kidnap my child."
"Jedi have a bad habit of seizing children, my lord. They're all taken from their families."
Jabba swept over the point, oblivious. "Why would Skywalker not realize that taking Rotta would only get my cooperation until I had my son back, and that I'd do everything I could to destroy the Jedi, the Republic, and anyone who so much as smiled in their direction? Did he think he could hold him hostage forever?"
Dooku was fascinated by the way beings seldom asked the most obvious questions right away. Jabba was now getting too curious. Dooku had to steer him back to outrage. "You saw the recording, Lord Jabba ... he loathes Hutts, and I suspect pure hatred of your people was as much a factor as underestimating your resolve."
"Yes, and he'll die for his disrespect. But he-or Palpatine-must be insane to think I'm some cringing human who'd cave in to their blackmail without striking back as soon as I could." He reared up slowly, and Dooku had to admit that it was physically intimidating. "I am a kajidic lorda. I have a duty to my people to show that nobody gets away with an outrage like this. If we let such outrages go unpunished, what would happen to our civilization?"
He repeated the word outrage-chomma-and Dooku suddenly realized that the word had a different shade of meaning from what he'd thought. In all his dealings with Hutts, he'd thought a chomma was just a terrible insult to someone. But it was a threat to the social order, and so to the smooth running of Hutt society.
Chomma was a uniquely Huttese crime.
And human crimes had no meaning for Hutts. It was why all Hutts seemed to be criminals to the Republic. There was no common ground on morality. It was yet another area where the Republic thought its rules were the natural and obvious way for the entire galaxy and a million sentient species to behave.
I can use this as another lever.
"They don't understand Hutts," Dooku said. He wasn't so sure that be knew as much as he thought he did, either. "The Republic and the Jedi are very much cozy human organizations, and they think every being reacts as they do. And they're both completely arrogant. It comes from having held easy power for too many centuries."
"I must have Skywalker's head," Jabba said. His tone was suddenly neutral, as if this were some administrative detail rather than a raging threat. "Rotta will use his skull for a toy. Lessons will be learned."
"If my army leaves enough recognizable parts of him, you shall have it." Dooku would have to comm Ventress and see that it happened. "Now, Lord Jabba, while we wait, may we begin negotiating the treaty between the Hutt kajidics and the Confederacy of Independent Systems?"
Jabba took a long draw on his pipe. "I will negotiate nothing until my son is back, alive and unharmed. Humans might not understand Hutts, but Hutts understand humans very well..."
Dooku had set himself up for that, but it was no bad thing. Jabba had to be seen to win-and Dooku had to look at that not as some egocentric personal failing, but as part of what kept Hutt society running: complete confidence in a leader who would never be pushed around by ootmian, outlanders. It wasn't just about loss of face, but about letting Hutts know that the boss of bosses was still in charge, and all was right with their world.
Accepting that would help Dooku deal better with Ziro when the difficult time came.
"As you wish, Lord Jabba," Dooku said, and backed out of the chamber with his head still bowed.
He returned to his ship and commed Ventress. She was slow to respond. When her hologram image appeared in front of him, she was standing with her boots planted firmly at shoulder width, a lightsaber in each fist, and a murderous expression. He guessed that she had stopped in midbattle and rounded on a nearby droid to pick up the comm channel.
"I'd ask how things are progressing," Dooku said. "But I think I can work that out."
"Master, Skywalker is trapped on a landing platform. We're cutting through the door, and then I shall cut through his neck."
"See that you do. Jabba actually wants his head. Literally."
"And you still want the Huttlet alive."
"If there was ever any doubt in your mind, Asajj, I'd be disappointed. Do not fail me. Skywalker is already discredited, so there'll be no help for the Republic from the Hutts, but to get Jabba to the negotiating table, the baby has to be returned intact. Do I make myself clear? Take no risks with him."
"Yes, my lord."
"Call me when you succeed."
Dooku closed the link. He wondered if Skywalker would work out that killing the child would cut the Republic's losses, because then neither side would get Jabba's blessing to use his routes. If he had-would he do it?
Dooku knew Jedi who would turn a blind eye to carelessness even if they wouldn't do the deed themselves. Interestingly, they weren't the disillusioned Jedi who'd now joined him.
He thought of contacting Darth Sidious and bringing him up to date with events, but then decided it would be better not to trouble his Master with detail until he could tell him the task was complete.
It wasn't just Hutt lords who had their image to keep intact.
* * *
&nb
sp; COURTYARD ENTRANCE, TETH MONASTERY
"Sir?"
"I hear you, Coric."
"Just checking you're still with us."
Rex hadn't moved since the mad-eyed Sep female had finished with him. His chance would come, and he'd know when he saw it. He lay where Ventress had finally thrown him, slumped against a wall, working his way through all the comm channels he could access from his helmet systems, then starting again, in case he happened to find one that wasn't being blocked at that moment. As soon as the GAR comm center neutralized a Sep jamming signal, the Seps would rush to change it again. If he kept trying, he might get lucky and find a window.
"I'm fine, Sergeant," he said. He suspected she'd broken his ribs. When he breathed, it hurt enough to make him bite his lip. "I've never hit a woman, but she'll be the first when I get a chance."
"I've never been called a lickspittle Jedi lackey before."
"I rather liked naive cannon fodder myself."
Droids didn't seem to realize that clone helmets were sound-proofed when sealed, so he could chat freely with his men. Maybe droids judged by their own limitations. He'd never worked out why droids needed to talk aloud instead of just silently transmitting machine code to one another, but that probably said more about the beings who built them than the droids. Funny: one side in this war was making droids more like men, and the other was making men more like droids.
"I thought she'd like you, what with the same haircut and everything," Coric said.
"Maybe I should have taken my helmet off and shown her."
"So she's a Jedi of some kind?"
"Sith, or a dark adept. Red lightsaber is a giveaway, apparently."
"What's the difference?"
"Membership subscription, maybe. It all hurts the same, though." Rex was more interested in pragmatic issues. "I'm still not getting any clear comm channels."
"Me neither, sir."
Rex began at the top of the frequency list again, lingering on each for a moment and straining to hear some stable audio before moving on. As he listened, he watched droids clearing a path through the debris from the door. Four others stood nearby in the courtyard itself, making a token effort to guard all that was left of Torrent Company. The scale of Rex's losses was threatening to gnaw away at him if he didn't channel that anger into leveling the score.
The comm frequencies were still white noise and bursts of static.
What use are we going to be to them?
He had a pretty good idea what Ventress was going to do to them, if only to vent her spleen because she couldn't get her hands on a Jedi. Boy, whatever they'd done to her buddy had really bent her out of shape. He'd already made up his mind that he'd rather die fighting than wait for her to kill him slowly, and he wasn't going to let her get his men, either. He'd shoot them himself before he'd let that happen.
The tinnies had taken their weapons, but that wasn't going to stop him. The debris was still littered with DC-15s and sidearms.
They hadn't found his vibroblade, either . . .
Rex bided his time.
He'd been careful not to show any external signs of talking-moving his head, his hands, any of the little unconscious movements people make when they are speaking. He didn't want to alert the droids. He was sure he'd covered every security angle.
And then his wrist comlink bleeped, and the droid nearest to him looked around.
Stang. He hadn't diverted the kriffing thing to his helmet.
"Rex, are you receiving? This is Skywalker."
Yes, the droids had heard. Another turned.
Rex stayed on his internal comm circuit, completely still. "Here we go, gentlemen. Stand by."
The droids weren't exactly fast thinkers. Two were debating their course of action. One clunked over to him and tilted its head down to look at the source of the sound. It peered at his wrist. The comlink crackled with static again.
"Rex, if you can't respond-tap the receiver or something."
The droid leaned a little farther. Rex raised his arm very slowly, the back of his wrist turned outward, and steeled himself to ignore the pain he was going to be in very soon. He heard the swallowing and general sounds of his men getting ready to make a move.
"Want to see how it works, clanker?"
Rex stabbed his fingers over the edge of the droid's breastplate and held it as he drove his other fist under its jawline to send its head cracking upward vertically with its neck, ripping its control cables from their connectors. He didn't even need to give an order.
Each of his five troopers sprang to their feet. Coric snatched the rifle from the crippled droid as it tottered backward; Nax grabbed a lump of masonry and battered another droid until its head caved in. Rex ejected the vibroblade from his forearm plate and jumped onto a droid, tipping it off balance and gouging out its photore-ceptors. As it flailed blindly, he severed all the control cables to its head.
The six clones sprinted across the courtyard and took cover behind a fallen AT-TE. There were enough charged rifles-Deeces and Sep weapons-within easy reach to keep the tinnies at bay for a while. Rex took a single-use painkiller sharp from his belt medpac and injected it into the back of his hand before taking aim. The firefight began.
Tinnies seemed to be okay with standing up and firing. It was all the other business of soldiering-stabbing, strangling, gouging, all the up-close and personal stuff-that left them baffled. They weren't much good on anything other than level terrain, either.
"I enjoyed that," Nax said, almost to himself. "Really got some tension out of my system."
"Well, relax with a few of those," Rex said. Some SBDs had shown up. No heads to batter in or rip off: the spider droids would be along soon, too. Rex indicated the edge of the plateau. They could take their chances in the jungle. "Everyone got their rappel lines primed, just in case?"
"Yes, sir."
It was another option. Meanwhile, they had weapons and personal scores to settle.
"Rex, respond!"
Skywalker hadn't given up on him, then. "Receiving, General. We're pinned down in the courtyard-me and five men ..."
"Need assistance?"
"... and a Hutt-load of tinnies." He squeezed off a few more plasma rounds. The noise of blasterfire was magnified by the courtyard walls. "Make that a Hutt-load minus one."
"I'll take that as a yes, Captain. On our way."
The carcass of the dead AT-TE shook as SBD fire punched into its flank. Nax lay flat and peered into a gaping hole, then reached in. When he pulled out, he had a pair of bolt cutters in one hand.
"Toolbox," he said, making the jaws of the cutter snap open and shut. "Here tinny, here nice tinny ..."
Rex sighted up again, and decided that was another thing that made a human clone a far better soldier than any droid.
They weren't just inventive.
They had brothers they needed to avenge.
"Save a live one for me," he said.
FOURTEEN
War is a vile thing, and it brings out the worst in beings. But it also brings out their best-courage, sacrifice, resourcefulness, tenacity, comradeship, genius, even humor. Would that we could achieve that enlightened state without shedding blood first.
Mentor Peet Sieben, Jal Shey philosopher
* * *
LANDING PLATFORM
Anakin strode back toward the door, working out how best to extract Rex and the troopers from the courtyard.
He'd never get a gunship down in one piece even if any were left. Depending on where the Sep forces were, he might be able to divert the droids, trap them, or just keep them busy until Kenobi arrived.
"Master!" Ahsoka ran after him. "Master, Stinky's still in a bad way. Our mission's to get him back alive, remember?"
"So what are you saying?" Anakin knew anyway. He walked on. "That we leave our men to die?"
"Doesn't the mission come first?"
"Answer the question, Snips. This is a man you know. Whatever happened to covering one another's backs?"
"Whatever happened, Master, to command means being prepared to get troops killed?"
"Okay, I said that, but prepared doesn't mean leaving them before you've exhausted all the options."
"If saving Rex means Stinky dies, doesn't that make the death of every trooper we lost a senseless waste?"
"What if the slug dies anyway?"
Anakin would have swapped every Hutt in the galaxy for one trooper. Ahsoka seemed to be rethinking the position.
"Rex won't thank you for it."
"Okay, Snips, open your comlink and tell him."
"What, me?"
"Yes. Comm Rex and say you've made me change my mind, because you've convinced me that neither he nor his men are important enough to save."
"Master ..."
"If you want to make a tough decision that costs men their lives, you better be prepared to look them in the eye and tell them why."
He bet she wouldn't. He was worried that she would, though, just to prove she was grown-up enough to be his Padawan. And then she'd quote it back at him.
"Besides," he said, "Rex can help us find a ship. Get us out."
"Master, that's not very convincing."
"Okay, I'm not leaving him while we still have a chance of getting the Hutt out and the troopers. He wouldn't abandon me. He wouldn't abandon you. That's what holds an army together. Break that unspoken promise, and we might as well surrender now."
They were fifty meters into the corridor when Artoo whistled a warning. Anakin heard a sound he dreaded: the steady hum of destroyer droids. Movement caught his eye, and he saw two of the things rolling down the corridor toward them, readying cannons. They opened fire and the two Jedi were forced back.
"Only one way to go," Anakin said, blocking laser bolts as he backed away. "Artoo, get ready to bar the door."
They retreated to the landing platform. Just before R2-D2 rolled in to shut the door and lock it, Anakin saw a humanoid form striding in the wake of the Destroyers, a shaven-headed woman. R2-D2 thrust his interface arm into the lock. The door sealed with a hiss.
"It's Ventress," Anakin said. "At least they're sending the management to kill us now."
The door vibrated for a moment. Two hot spots appeared in the metal plate: Anakin took a guess that Ventress had thrust her lightsabers into the door. He watched, and then realized she was cutting with both of them simultaneously, sawing a circle like a workshop laser cutter.
Star Wars - The Clone Wars 01 Page 14
