STAR WARS: TALES FROM THE CLONE WARS

by Various

  She snorted. “Anyone could have done what I have done.”

  “I would disagree.” Halcyon clasped his hands together at his waist. “What we have accomplished here was rather complex.”

  “And, so far, done very well.”

  Aayla spun at the new voice and saw Rostek Horn entering the hero warehouse. “You knew about this place and this scheme?” She looked back over her shoulder at Ylenic. “And you are part of this conspiracy, too?”

  “Don’ forget me, pretty Jedi.” Lorfo flapped down from the rafters. “I played a key role.”

  Aayla sighed and sat on a crate. “I didn’t think gullibility was a trait for which Jedi were valued.”

  “That is not why you were chosen.” Nejaa pointed at the wreckage of the droids. “Your combat skills were vital. Moreover, you are known as a hero of Geonosis. The Separatists watch for the Jedi it knows about, and Geonosis survivors come high on their list. Lorfo was able to spot you, to draw attention to you at Homestar. That’s why Blue’s people were close to you when the shooting started—which it would have done regardless of how you reacted, to keep you occupied while they got me. I had on me a small tracking device, but it failed to work. Had you used it to find me, Lorfo would have betrayed you to Blue as he did, but without guiding you here first. When Ylenic discovered he could not track me with the locator, Lorfo flew up to lead you.”

  She shook her head. “So, Lorfo keeps them looking at us, so they won’t realize you’re not really Tane. We were the misdirection.”

  Ylenic smiled. “More correctly, we all are misdirection. You and I, here, for Blue, yes; but this whole operation as well.”

  Aayla’s lekku twitched and she nodded. “While the Confederacy is looking here for Tane, he’s already off being relocated. And that would mean the files and prototype are flawed.”

  “They are.” Nejaa nodded solemnly. “Not hopelessly, though, just a hasty attempt at sabotage. Techno Union scientists will repair the damage, but Tane is willing to prepare counter-measure products that will render the new droids less than effective. The entire Separatists’ effort to retool factories and produce a new generation of battle droids will be futile.”

  He pointed to the robotic carnage Aayla had left behind. “Those droids and the fact that Dooku is paying for captured Jedi likely will not be enough to sway the Corellian government to throw in with the Galactic Republic. On the other hand, they should be enough to show the other Jedi in this system that the evil of the Clone Wars is at hand. I hope it will free us to act with the rest of the Jedi.”

  Aayla pointed at Halcyon’s jacket. “Blue shot you at point blank range. Why aren’t you dead?”

  Halcyon shrugged. “The Halcyons are weak when it comes to telekinesis. We are good at broadcasting visions, however. Hence, you saw my message. We also have a rare ability. With preparation, we can absorb a fair amount of energy. We have to bleed it off somehow, so I used it to send my lightsaber to you—as I could not normally have done.”

  As he finished speaking, he held up his left forearm and slipped the lightsaber into the sheath hidden there. “Tearing yours away from the Gotal would have been a bit much for me to do and get a blade to you quickly.”

  The Twi’lek looked over at Ylenic. “What did you do to the Gotal?”

  He smiled. “You’ll recall the alley stench was overwhelming?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Gotal pick up on things like the Force through their horns. I simply used the Force to hit them with its version of the stench.”

  Aayla winced. “Neat trick.”

  Ylenic’s smile broadened.

  “So, how much of all this did Master Windu know? I caught no deception from him.”

  The Caamasi opened his hands. “Nejaa is an old friend. When Tane reached Corellia and this plan began to form, Nejaa asked me to act as a liaison between him and the Jedi Council. The Jedi getting Tane and his family to safety are not from Corellia. They are acting under Master Windu’s orders.”

  Nejaa nodded. “Of internal Corellian Jedi politics, he knows about as much as anyone does on Coruscant.”

  Inspector Horn smirked. “That’s likely as much as anyone here knows about it, too.”

  Nejaa shook his head, and Aayla sensed a strong bond of friendship between the two men. “Nothing could send us over to the Confederacy, so the chance of finding something to win us over to the Republic’s fight was one worth taking. You were not told everything, so your reactions would be natural and read true to anyone watching.”

  “I don’t like it, but I understand. There is something else I need to know, however.” Aayla thought for a moment and narrowed her eyes.

  “Your intention is to implant a memory in Blue that he will carry off to his masters, and that will verify that the data and prototype are the real thing?”

  ‘That’s the plan.”

  “That may be the plan, Master Halcyon, but I am willing to bet that Count Dooku will sift through his mind, and things will unravel from there.”

  Ylenic canted his head to the side. “Her point is a good one.”

  Nejaa nodded. “Agreed, but I’m not sure I see a good fix.”

  “Don’t worry.” Aayla boosted herself off the crate. “I know just what will do the job.”

  * * *

  Tendir Blue drifted back to consciousness as Lorfo tugged on his left arm. The man had slumped against the wall in a passageway in the spaceport. The Toydarian’s breath came heavy and sour, his words rushed and full of panic.

  “Get going. Now! She’s still coming after you.”

  Blue shook his head to clear it. He raised a hand to his forehead, where fingertips brushed over the wound from a glancing blaster bolt. What happened? “Who’s coming, Lorfo?”

  “The Jedi!” The winged creature’s eyes grew wide. “The Jedi you didn’t kill.”

  Tendir scrambled to his feet and patted his pockets. He had datacards and the prototype of the chip. Those things he remembered. He added to that the memory of shooting Tane. After that, blackness, nothing—must be amnesia from the bolt.

  He looked around and recognized his surroundings. “This way, to my ship.”

  “I know. I called and it’s pre-flighted.” The Toydarian fluttered in front of him. “You owe me.”

  “Yes, yes, you’ll be paid.”

  “Paid, no. Get me off this rock.”

  Pain throbbed through the man’s head. “What happened?”

  “Everything. There was shooting and lightsabers—and the gold Jedi, he died. Your Gotals, your droids, gone. She is hurt, but you stumbled out. I helped.” The Toydarian’s voice rose to a shriek. ‘There she is!”

  Blue took one glance behind him. He saw her in the tunnel, illuminated by the azure light of her lightsaber. She dragged her left foot, and he could hear her rasping breath. She slumped against the wall but pointed her lightsaber at him.

  “You won’t escape me, Tendir Blue!”

  She gestured with her left hand and Lorfo squealed. His fingers clawed at the shoulder of Blue’s coat, and the man could feel the Jedi tugging at the little Toydarian with the Force. He tried to keep going, but Lorfo’s grasp kept him anchored to the spot.

  “Help me, Blue!”

  “If it’s you she wants. . .” The man smashed a fist down on Lorfo’s hands. “She can have you.”

  Another blow broke his grip, and the Toydarian flew back to slam into the Jedi. Both of them went down in a tumble, and Tendir sprinted forward. He cut through the crowd, knocking people left and right as he ran to his ship. Once inside, he sealed the airlock and lifted off. As he urged his ship forward, he saw the Twi’lek Jedi enter the hangar bay. She gestured at him, and he slewed the ship around, letting his turbine exhaust knock her back into the tunnel.

  With a laugh, Tendril Blue pointed his ship to the stars.

  * * *

  Ylenic helped Aayla up. “You are unhurt?”

  “My pride is wounded,” she said, “but I’ll live.” She b
rushed her backside off and used the Force to call her lightsaber to hand and tucked the weapon inside her jacket again. “I think he believes you’re dead and that he just barely escaped. Dooku can sift his mind all he wants. Amnesia explains the lack of memory of the fight, and his fear will confirm the ‘truth’ of what he says happened here.”

  Nejaa and Inspector Horn came up, with Lorfo hovering behind them. The Corellian Jedi nodded. “And he thinks Lorfo was apprehended by you, so he will not suspect he was really working for us all along. A neat and tidy package.”

  “As it should be, Master.” Aayla smiled. “After all, tying things up that way must be why I was put in charge of this mission, don’t you think?”

  Collected from www.starwars.com/hyperspace

  Death in the Catacombs

  SW INSIDER #79

  By Michael W. Barr

  The alarm sounded one second after the Force had told her something was wrong. She didn’t have to see the output panel of her haz suit to realize they had triggered another trap. “Ambush!” shouted Jedi Knight Jyl Somtay into her comlink. “Evacuate immediately!”

  Behind her, she heard the quick footfalls of clone troopers. Just ahead, through the thick Geonosian dust, she saw a small light, flashing more quickly with each second. Backing out rapidly, she hopped out of the tunnel and shouted at the squad of troopers. “Everyone down!”

  The blast threw them farther out of the cavern’s mouth. They fell to the hard-packed ground as the main force of the explosion, guided by the tunnel, mostly dispersed over them. She waited a few seconds—to gather her breath, she told herself. From somewhere far away, through the ringing in her ears, a voice sounded. “Are you all right, Commander?”

  “I’m fine,” Jyl said slowly, picking herself up and making a futile attempt to dislodge the red dust that seemed to cling to everything. “Any casualt—oh.”

  Through the settling dust, she made out a clone trooper laying flat on the cavern floor beneath a boulder released by the explosion. Its wedge shape with marks of machine tooling on its surface showed that it had been deliberately placed there. A backup in case the explosion failed, she thought. I’ve got to be more careful.

  “Just take it easy,” she said, kneeling by the trooper. “We’re going to get you out of here.” She reached out to the Force and tried to raise the boulder so he could be moved. The rock shuddered slightly, but that was all. She motioned to the rest of the squad, who came and tried to lift the boulder.

  The trooper bit off a moan then coughed harshly. A thin spray of red leaked through the joints of his cracked helmet. ‘Stand away,” she said, reaching for her lightsaber. Depressing the activation button, an eerie turquoise light glowed in the cavern. The hiss of her lightsaber could not drown out the labored breathing of the clone. She started at the top of the boulder, cutting off portions slowly, then more quickly. The troopers raved the severed chunks to the side, until only about half of the boulder remained. “Now,” she said, joining the remaining troopers as they came forward, “go.”

  With both muscle and Jyl’s use of the Force, they managed to lift tie boulder off the trapped clone trooper. Jyl quickly whipped off the trooper’s helmet. “Get that med kit over here—” she began. “It’s too late, Commander,” said one of the other troopers, the breastplate of the trapped clone’s armor had a large depression in it, and his face was still. The other clone troopers removed their helmets one by one and closed their eyes, revealing sad faces identical to that of the slain trooper.

  Later, Jyl Somtay sat cross-legged on the floor of the Arena of Justice, trying to think of those who had died there rather than the absurdity of its name. A faint sheen of light from the 2roid ring illuminated the Arena, but the thirsty sands showed no trace of the blood of the Jedi who had perished there only days ago. It was as if their sacrifice held no more permanence than the curling drifts of dust that wove through the air around her.

  She tried to clear her mind, tried to contact the spirit of her Master, Lura Tranor, one of the many who had paid the fast measure for their cause in this Arena. Coleman Trebor was another; she had been quite fond of the tall Vurk and already missed their conversations.

  I should have been here, she thought. But she had been away when 200 Jedi were sent to Geonosis, her Master among them. She had never had a proper chance to say goodbye.

  But now she was on Geonosis, promoted from Padawan to Jedi Knight after the battle in the Arena between Republic and Separatist forces. Only it was too late to do anything to help her Master.

  “Master?” she said, faintly. But there was no answer.

  There was no point to her meditation, but she kept her eyes closed, not trusting herself to open them.

  “Commander?” came a hushed, insistent voice behind her. “Jedi Somtay?”

  Jyl, finally realizing a clone trooper was talking to her, rose and turned, her long blonde ponytail whipping behind her.

  “Yes, trooper?”

  “Dr. Frayne has sent out a general alert for you. She wants to see you in her laboratory.”

  “Thank you,” said Jyl. Gathering her robes around her, she walked to her Jedi starfighter outside the Arena. She stopped just before leaving, looking back one last time as if seeking something she had missed. She saw nothing but errant gusts of sand whipped about by the hot night wind.

  he rode an orray from her quarters in the abandoned Trade Federation ship to the Central Laboratory. As she dismounted the beast, it drew away from her; it seemed uneasy. Jyl used the Force to draw it to her and calm it.

  She felt the Force flow around her, through her, and she breathed it in. She was at the same moment its servant, its master, and its ally.

  “Easy, boy,” she said, patting the mount’s leathery hide as the orray rumbled. “Nothing to worry about here.”

  As she returned the salutes of the clone troopers guarding the main door, she imagined that Dr. Frayne might use the same tone with her as she had with the orray. The scientist had not seemed pleased to have a Jedi Knight along on what she insisted was a scientific expedition, but the Jedi Council had insisted, and, after a decree came from Chancellor Palpatine’s office, Frayne had grudgingly acquiesced.

  The remaining Geonosians understandably avoided contact with the Republic invaders, so Jyl had still never seen one in person, only holos, As she entered the main lab, she felt more strongly than ever that the diminutive Dr. Frayne, constantly bent over some piece of analytical equipment, peering through a pair of macrogoggles she rarely removed, resembled one of the planet’s natives.

  “Jedi Somtay,” said Dr. Frayne, looking up from a diagnostic reading, “thank you for coming.”

  “Not at all, Dr. Frayne,” replied Jyl, keeping her surprise from her voice. The doctor’s disdain for her seemed to have been a product of her distaste for Jedi Knights multiplied by her contempt for Jyl’s youth. “How goes the search?”

  The old woman sighed. “Not as well as I had hoped, but better than I had expected. Look at this.” She pointed at a holographic diagnostic cutaway of their sector of the planet, much of it threaded with green trails, including Jyl’s recent expedition, with several red specks flickering harshly. “The Senate has been quite clear about the need to make sure Geonosis has no technology left with which its remaining inhabitants can imperil the Republic. But today I recalibrated all scanners to scan for processed metals. Observe the result.” She turned a dial, which caused one of the red lights to flash even more brightly.

  Jyl’s cool gray eyes narrowed in comprehension. “A major source of technology—”

  “With which the Geonosians could be plotting an assault against our occupation,” said Frayne, with a nod.

  “Or another trap,” added Jyl.

  “That possibility exists, of course. Still, I think you will agree it must be examined.”

  “Yes, of course. When do we go?”

  “First,” said Frayne, “I should like to discuss with you the matter of the clone trooper you lost.”<
br />
  “What about him?” said Jyl, coldly.

  “It occurs to me,” said Frayne, “that a stronger helmet may have enabled him to survive.” She handed Jyl a helmet that resembled those worn by the clone troopers, with slight modifications. “This prototype helmet has been reinforced at the structural joins and is much more resilient. I would ask your opinion of it.”

  Flattered by Frayne’s solicitation, Jyl donned the helmet. “It seems comfortable enough. . .” she began.

  Too late, Jyl heeded the insistent presence of the Force, which had tried to pierce her concentration. She tried to jerk the helmet off but was too slow. A stinging gas issued from the helmet’s interior, and she suddenly felt as though an orray had been dropped atop her. Before she could hold her breath, she was out.

  When Jyl awoke, she was dismayed, though not surprised, to find her hands bound behind her and her lightsaber and comlink missing. She glanced at the entrance to the lab and saw the armored forms of the clone troopers lying motionless inside and to one side of the main arch.

  Standing beside Dr. Frayne was a man she had seen working with Frayne’s people. His slightly stooped posture hid the broadness of his shoulders and imbued his simple vest and pants with the weight of a scholar’s robes. He wore a goatee that accented the lines of his face and softened the angularity of his features. She couldn’t distinguish the color of his eyes.

  She looked about the lab. There, on Frayne’s main examination table, were her lightsaber and comlink. If she could just ignore the throbbing in her head and draw the lightsaber to her to sever her bonds. . . . Failing that, she could release the binders telekinetically, but that could be slow going.

  There was time for neither gambit. Dr. Frayne turned to Jyl, smiling as she might at a presumptuous child. She laughed, with a sound like rusty bolts being shaken in a can. “Really, Commander Somtay, you are far too naive to be a Jedi Knight, to suspect that helmet might have been tampered. I present my colleague, Naj Pandoor.”