by Various
“What are you talking about?” Doriana asked, frowning. “Weren’t you listening back there? You can’t fight in here.” Roshton swiveled his head to look at him. “I thought you just said that to get Binalie off our backs.”
“Absolutely not,” Doriana said. “My position was exactly as stated. We can’t allow the techs to fall into Separatist hands—they know too much about our technology. But neither can we allow the plant to be damaged.”
“So what you’re saying is that I should move out into the open?” Roshton demanded bluntly. “That I should stand there and watch my troops get slaughtered just to buy Binalie time to evac the techs?”
“I’m sorry,” Doriana said in a low, sincere voice. “I know that puts you in an impossible position. But I’m afraid we have no choice.”
“We blasted well do have a choice,” Roshton snapped. “And if you think. . .” He paused. “What? All right, put him on.”
“What is it?” Doriana asked.
“Your Jedi’s arrived, along with Binalie’s son,” Roshton said briefly. “Master Torles? Yes, this is Roshton.”
For perhaps half a minute he listened, his forehead wrinkled in concentration. Then, surprisingly, he smiled. “Understood,” he said. “We’ll give it a try. Lieutenant?”
“I’m on it, sir,” the clone trooper said.
Roshton turned back to Doriana. “Maybe we do have a choice,” he said. “Defense line, configure for inverse hailstorm; target on my command. And get these doors open.”
With a ponderous rumble, the heavy doors began to slide slowly to the sides. “Time to get to cover, Doriana,” Roshton said, gesturing to the side. “This way.”
A few seconds later they were crouched behind a large cargo truck parked along the side wall. “What’s going on?” Doriana asked, trying to keep his sudden misgivings out of his voice. This was suddenly not going the way he’d planned. “Won’t this open us up to a full-scale assault?”
“It might,” Roshton agreed. “Or it might let us come up with a different ending for this game.”
That sounded distinctly ominous. “Is this what the Jedi said to do?” Doriana probed carefully.
“No, this part was my idea,” Roshton said. “Master Torles simply reminded me of another of our objectives.” He craned his neck.
“There they go.”
Doriana eased an eye around the truck’s push plate. Outside, the C-9979’s heavy clamshell deployment doors were swinging open, the foot ramp starting to slide down toward the ground. In the relative darkness behind the doors, he could see the slightly bulbous nose and blaster cannon of a MTT armored droid transport waiting in the landing pedestal. “Stand by,” Roshton ordered calmly. “Target is starboard laser capacitor.”
Doriana frowned; but before he could ask, the MTT gave a brief snort of cooling system ground vents and began to slide forward toward the ramp.
“Fire,” Roshton said calmly.
And with a thunder of weaponry that echoed deafeningly through the huge room, the clone troopers opened fire.
Doriana squinted into the glare as the hundreds of energy weapons focused their fury on the thick armor behind the MTT’s leftmost blaster cannon ball turret, wincing at the noise and the waves of heat that rolled over him. The MTT’s armor was incredibly thick, he knew, but the transport’s designers could never have anticipated a situation where so much firepower would be focused on such a small spot. The sun-bright glare around the power capacitor began to diffuse outward as the casehardened metal alloy vaporized into superheated plasma. . .
And barely two seconds into the assault, the Republic weapons burned through the armor to the high-energy capacitor behind it. The entire left front of the MTT vanished in a gigantic fireball that writhed its way upward to billow across the leading edge of the C-9979’s forward wing. A series of smaller blasts erupted from behind the first as secondary systems went up in a chain reaction. A few seconds later, with an earsplitting scream, the repulsorlifts disintegrated, and the blackened shell that had once been a fully loaded MTT collapsed onto the ramp.
Completely blocking the vehicles waiting behind it.
“That’s it!” Roshton shouted over the pandemonium, a savage grin on his face. “All units withdraw!” He grabbed Doriana’s arm.
“Come on, Doriana.”
They didn’t stop running until they were two assembly areas into the plant and the noise outside had faded to a dull roar.
“Clever,” Doriana said, breathing hard as Roshton slowed them down to a fast jog. “You block the exit ramp, and they’re stymied until they can clear out the wreckage. But what exactly did it gain you?”
“Options, of course,” Roshton told him, glancing back over his shoulder. Doriana looked, too, to see the clone troopers following in an orderly retreat. “Before we did that, there would have been no way to retreat without bringing the battle into the plant, which you had forbidden us to do. We would have had to stand and die.”
He gestured ahead of them with his blaster. “Now, we should have time to get through that tunnel of Binalie’s and go to ground.” Doriana felt his lip twist. Nine hundred clone troopers, ready and waiting to harass the Separatist army. This was not how it was supposed to have gone. “So what exactly did Torles tell you?”
Roshton threw him a smile. “You’ll see. Come on, and save your breath for running.”
They stood on the hill at the edge of the Binalie estate: Torles, Binalie himself, Doriana, and Commander Roshton, the latter now disguised in civilian clothing. “So that’s it, is it?” Binalie asked.
“For now, yes,” Torles told him, gazing across the grassy strip that lay between them and Spaarti Creations as the pinks and yellows of sunset began to fade from the western sky.
And the shadows from the smoldering hulks of half a dozen AAT battle tanks stretched across the forbidden grassland. “My compliments to your gunners,” he added.
“It wasn’t hard,” Roshton said grimly. “Standard Trade Federation attack procedure always includes throwing a cordon around the target zone. All we had to do was set our ambush and make sure we dropped the ones in the place that would irritate the Cranscoc the most.”
“Yes,” Torles murmured, feeling a twinge of guilt. It had been his idea, and it had been necessary. But he still didn’t much like the fact that he’d deliberately caused distress and discomfort to sentient beings. Especially sentient beings who had nothing to do with the chaos now swirling around them.
“I just hope it works,” Doriana murmured.
“It will,” Torles assured him. “The twillers aren’t even going to be able to relax until those hulks are removed, let alone retool the plant for anything the Separatists want to build in there.”
Roshton grunted. “Let’s hope they don’t figure it out until our reinforcements get here,” he said. “Then we’ll see how good they are.”
“As long as you don’t destroy the plant in the process,” Binalie warned.
“We’ll do what we can,” Roshton promised. “But that’s up to the Separatists now.”
Torles felt his throat tighten, the fading light in the sky mirroring his own darkening mood. Because even if Spaarti survived, the thing he’d feared for so long had already happened.
The war had come to Cartao.
PART TWO: HERO’S RISE
Coming to a midair halt above the kilometer-wide grassy strip separating the Spaarti Creations manufacturing plant from the northern edge of the Binalie family estate, the heavy cargo lifters began lowering their magnetic grapples. Kinman Doriana couldn’t see the ground beneath them from his position—the estate’s hills were blocking his view—but he could guess that they were hovering over the last of the shattered war machines that had ended up there in the aftermath of the Separatists’ assault on the plant two days earlier.
At least, Doriana thought unkindly, the Neimoidians commanding the occupying droid army had learned not to simply drive cleanup vehicles onto that forbidden stretch of gra
ssland. Glancing around to make sure the copse of trees he was standing in wasn’t under observation, he pulled out his holoprojector and keyed in the contact code.
The connecting light blinked on as the device linked first to the local comlink central switching office, then to his personal ship and its special HoloNet node, then across the vast expanse of the Republic to one of the dozen HoloNet nodes on Coruscant, and finally to the private desk of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine himself. Doriana watched the lifters as he waited, wondering if Palpatine would be there or out at yet another meeting.
The image of the most recognized face in the galaxy appeared in the air above the holoprojector. “Master Doriana,” Palpatine said, nodding to his advisor. “You have good news?”
“Just the opposite, I’m afraid,” Doriana admitted. “The Separatists are still holding Spaarti Creations, and they seem to have finally figured out that vehicles or people on the plant’s southern border upset the Cranscoc twillers inside. They’re clearing the last of the debris off the grassland now, and my guess is that by tonight they’ll be able to get the plant retooled for whatever it is they want to build in there.”
“Not a pleasant thought,” Palpatine said gravely. “Are you familiar with the D-90 project?”
“No,” Doriana said. “Is it one of ours?”
Palpatine’s lip twisted. “Hardly. It’s an experimental combat droid, reputed to be as tough as the Trade Federation’s D-60 assault droid, but more versatile.”
“I see,” Doriana said. The D-60 was a hulking, man-and-a-half-size version of the super battle droids the Trade Federation had debuted at the Battle of Geonosis. “How much more versatile?”
“Considerably,” Palpatine said. “They’ll be coordinated in small teams instead of entire army blocks so that they can be used as commando units as well as simple battlefield shock troops.”
“An unpleasant thought, indeed,” Doriana said. So, the Separatists finally had a new weapon on the plotting board. About time. “You think they’ve come here to begin production?”
“That’s what our Intelligence people believe,” Palpatine said. “Personally, I suspect there are still some system flaws and that they hope to use Spaarti to test and finalize the design. What’s the current military situation?”
“For the moment, basically stalemated,” Doriana told him. “Commander Roshton and his clone troopers have gone to ground, some of them here on Lord Binalie’s estate, the rest dispersed elsewhere. They’ve been harassing the droids wherever possible, but the Separatists have mostly been staying inside where we can’t get at them without risking damage to the plant.”
“Which neither we nor they want,” Palpatine said. “What about the techs?”
“Binalie has a secret safe room—basically a shielded sub-sub-basement—that connects with the tunnel to the plant,” Doriana said. “The techs are hidden down there.”
“Communications?”
“The Separatists are still blocking the local comm system and the HoloNet node,” Doriana told him. “But Roshton’s reconfigured their comlinks somehow to get around it. They’ll be able to move quickly if they get the chance.”
“Then they shall have it,” Palpatine said. “A Republic light cruiser is on its way with the necessary firepower to destroy the control ship orbiting above you. Once the droid army is helpless, I trust Commander Roshton won’t have any trouble with the Neimoidian overseers and their techs.”
“I’m sure he won’t,” Doriana agreed. “When can we expect this ship?”
“Possibly as early as tonight,” Palpatine said. “Possibly not for another three days. It depends on how much resistance they run into along the way.”
“Understood,” Doriana assured him. “Thank you, Chancellor. We’ll look forward to their arrival.”
Palpatine gave him a tired smile. The war, Doriana knew, was weighing heavily on him. “Keep me informed.”
The image vanished. Doriana broke the connection from his end and looked back at the lifters. They had the blackened hulk of the last ruined war machine in the air now and were towing it back toward the plant.
Planning to dump it elsewhere on the extensive Spaarti grounds, no doubt. Why the alien Cranscoc insisted that this particular stretch of land—and only this particular stretch—be kept unsullied not even Lord Binalie knew. Doriana watched until the lifters and their burden had vanished behind the jutting roof of the Spaarti plant, then keyed a different code into his holoprojector. He’d done his official job, reporting the situation to the man whose office paid him.
Now it was time to do the same for the man who gave him his orders. As usual, it took longer for the holoprojector to make this connection. Doriana cultivated his patience, gazing idly at the sky as he wondered what the Neimoidians were doing inside the plant. Now that the south lawn was clear, they would certainly try tonight to get the Cranscoc twillers to retool the plant. The only question was, which direction would that retooling take? To create the D-90 prototypes, as Palpatine thought? Or were they up to something else? In the distance, he could hear the hum of repulsorlifts. . .
And suddenly, four small transports appeared over the hills between him and Spaarti Creations, a squadron of STAPs flying defensive screening around them, everything moving with the urgency of pilots who knew there were snipers in the area. The whole crowd shot past nearly overhead, then angled downward, the transports abruptly splitting formation and swinging into position on the four sides of the Binalie mansion a kilometer away. With the kind of precision only remote-controlled droids could achieve, all four dropped simultaneously to the ground. And from the hatches poured military-straight lines of battle droids.
“Report.”
With a start, Doriana jerked his attention back to his holoprojector. The hooded image of Darth Sidious hovered over the small projection platform, his expression unreadable. “Your pardon, Lord Sidious,” Doriana apologized hastily. “My attention was distracted.”
To his relief, Sidious merely smiled thinly. “The Neimoidians have finally made a move?”
“Of a sort, yes,” Doriana said, daring to split his attention between his master’s image and the activity going on around the mansion below. The battle droids had been joined on the lawn now by a handful of the hulking D-60 assault droids and a pair of droidekas. Most of them settled into a defensive cordon around the mansion, but four of the assault droids were waiting instead just outside the transport nearest the mansion’s front door. As he watched, two Neimoidians emerged from the hatch into the protective square of the assault droids and scuttled across the lawn toward the door.
“It looks like they’ve decided to have a talk with Lord Binalie,” he told Sidious. “Will talking be of any use to them?” Doriana shrugged as the group vanished inside.
“Binalie certainly can’t get the plant up and running any faster,” he said. “Maybe they want him to act as interpreter with the Cranscoc. . . he seems to understand that skin-coloration language of theirs. More likely they’re seeking a hostage.”
“Possibly,” Doriana nodded. “That could be useful, providing Roshton is willing to play along.”
“You will make it your business to see that he does,” Sidious said bluntly. “That goes for that Jedi, Torles, as well. I don’t want either of them making trouble until the Republic task force arrives.”
Doriana blinked. “You knew about that?”
Another thin smile. “Did you think you were my only source of information, Doriana?”
“Of course not, my lord,” Doriana said hastily. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a touch of disappointment. He’d rather hoped to deliver that particular tidbit of news himself.
“But information is useful only when someone is in position to exploit it,” Sidious continued. “And we cannot allow either the Republic or Separatist forces to damage Spaarti Creations.”
“I understand, my lord,” Doriana said.
“Good,” Sidious said. “Then carry out your orders.” The i
mage vanished. Doriana put the holoprojector away. The droids had finished forming their cordon around the mansion, the assault droids holding down the building’s corners and entrances while the droidekas rolled watchfully around the perimeter. It didn’t look like anyone was going to be getting in or out any time soon.
His eyes drifted across the grounds, wondering how Lord Binalie’s employees were reacting to the sudden invasion. But the only person he could see was a quarter of the way around the mansion to the east: a gardener on his knees beside one of the sculpted bushes. Apparently the more observant workers had reacted by hustling themselves out of sight. The gardener looked up, mopping his forehead with a gloved hand. . .
And Doriana stiffened. That was no gardener.
It was Commander Roshton.
Hissing a curse under his breath, Doriana headed off toward Roshton, walking as quickly as he could without drawing undue attention from the droids, Darth Sidious’s warning echoing through his mind. Roshton, the idiot, was going to ruin everything.
“No,” Lord Pilester Binalie said firmly. “I’m going to simply sit by and let those monsters take up residence in my plant.”
“I understand your frustration,” Jafer Torles soothed. “But I’m sure they’re not doing any damage in there. They could have destroyed Spaarti from orbit if that was what they’d wanted.”
“I know what they want: the same thing Doriana and the Republic want,” Binalie growled. “The point is that the longer this silly dance goes on, the greater the chance someone will eventually get careless. When that happens, it’ll be the end of Spaarti Creations.”
“But the Republic’s going to send help, aren’t they?” Binalie’s twelve- year-old son Corf spoke up from his chair at the other corner of the desk.
“Probably,” Binalie told the boy grimly. “But I’m starting to think that more soldiers are the last thing we want.”
Torles frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said,” Binalie growled. “The Republic and Separatists are like a pair of dokriks fighting over a bone. What does it matter which of them is in charge when the plant gets destroyed?”
