by Timothy Zahn
“Yes.” Thrawn gestured to Anakin’s clothing. “What about you and your uniform?”
“The Jedi don’t have uniforms,” Anakin said, looking down at his own outfit. “Neither do the Separatists, really—their soldiers are battle droids, ours are armored clones. Though our navy officers and crewers have uniforms. Anyway, you’re right. I should probably change into something that looks more local.”
“And less like the garb of a warrior.”
Anakin frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Your sleeves are cut to allow exaggerated movements of your arms,” Thrawn said. “Likewise, the long tunic, which appears as if it would impede your movement, also allows freedom of motion. Of equal importance is the fact that in combat its swirling motion will distract an opponent’s eyes.”
“Interesting,” Anakin said, looking at his clothing with new eyes. He’d always known how easy it was to fight in the outfit, but he’d never focused on the individual details before. “I’ll see if I can find something that works as well.”
“Yet does not appear as a warrior’s garb.”
“Right,” Anakin said drily. “Tricky, though—form and function, and all that.” He gestured. “If the coordinates are right, we should hit the base four hours into full night. We’ll find some landing clothes, then run through the plan again. They’re bound to ask questions, and I want to make sure we’ve got answers.”
* * *
—
“No, I’m not Captain Boroklif,” Anakin explained for the third time, putting some strained patience into his voice. A glance out the cockpit canopy showed that the two vulture droids that had flown up as escort were still holding their distance. That was something, at least. “Captain Boroklif is, let’s say, indisposed.”
“I need to speak to him,” the voice at the other end insisted. A Serennian accent, if Anakin was hearing it right: someone from Count Dooku’s home planet of Serenno. Could the duke be some friend or associate Dooku had set up to run things for him?
“Captain Boroklif isn’t here,” Anakin growled. “There was trouble at Black Spire. Boroklif and his crew weren’t in any condition to fly. Do I have to draw you a picture?”
“Are you saying they’re dead? All of them?”
“I don’t know,” Anakin said, “because we didn’t stick around to see the end. But I can tell you that your boys were definitely losing.”
There was a pause. “Why are you here?”
“Because we’ve got your cargo,” Anakin said. “I figured you’d want that. Provided you can pay.”
Another pause, longer this time. “You can land in the courtyard,” the other said. “Feeding you the coordinates.”
“What about the shield?” Anakin asked, eyeing the sensor display. “Or do you want me to just fly in under the edge?”
“Don’t be smart,” the other growled. “I’ll open it when you need it open. Not before. Once you’re down, you’ll leave the ship—all of you—and wait at the foot of the ramp for your escort. Unarmed. If we see any weapons, we’ll kill you.”
“Yeah, yeah, got it,” Anakin said. “See you.”
He keyed off the comm. “You get the coordinates?” he asked Thrawn.
“Yes,” the Chiss said, gazing thoughtfully at the ground display. “Do Separatist shields in fact end before ground level?”
“Many shields do,” Anakin said. “When you run them all the way to the ground the people inside start running out of breathable air. Unless they’re just ray shields, of course, in which case that doesn’t matter. But ray shields will let in missiles and torpedoes, so they’re not nearly as useful.”
“Ah,” Thrawn said. “I also note that factories don’t typically have courtyards.”
“That’s probably just what they call their landing area,” Anakin said. “Having it inside puts the ships under the shield’s protection.”
“It also requires the shield to be opened for each landing and lift,” Thrawn pointed out. “That leaves the base vulnerable. A better design would be for the landing area to be outside the base, so the shield would only need to be contracted to the factory’s walls to permit travel.”
“So the place was originally built as something else,” Anakin concluded. “Not a huge revelation. It’s always easier to repurpose someone else’s building than put up your own.”
“Indeed,” Thrawn said. “But once again we come to the question of why here?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Anakin said. “Let’s do this.”
Anakin had been right: The base did indeed look like it had begun life as something else.
What that something was, though, wasn’t nearly so obvious.
“That type of square structure is common to fortresses,” Thrawn said as Anakin settled them onto their final vector. “The large courtyard can serve as protected storage for air vehicles.”
Anakin nodded. The courtyard was currently unoccupied, but it was big enough to hold four freighters the Larkrer’s size or a bunch of smaller craft. At the base’s corners were vertical vulture droid anchors, also currently empty. Each of the structure’s rectangular sides was about five hundred meters long and a hundred meters thick and probably three stories tall. Plenty of room in all of that for a factory, a major research facility, or a sizable droid army. “Could be from a pre-shield era.”
“The walls are too low for most ancient fortresses,” Thrawn pointed out. “Is that the shield generator in the center?”
“Yes,” Anakin said, eyeing the squat lumpy shadow sitting on a permacrete foundation in the center of the courtyard. “Looks like something from the KR series. The Separatists like those.”
“Amazingly compact,” Thrawn said. “The power supply will be underground?”
“Probably,” Anakin said. “But if you’re thinking about knocking it out, don’t bother. Unless you’ve got a fleet standing by, that wouldn’t gain us anything.”
“Sadly, I have no fleet,” Thrawn murmured.
“Didn’t think so,” Anakin said. “Doesn’t matter. If Padmé’s in there, we’re getting her out.” He pointed ahead out the viewport. “Looks like that’s where they want us to land. See the four droids with lights standing in a rectangle?”
“Yes,” Thrawn said. “The defined space looks barely adequate for a ship this size.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Anakin said with a tight smile. “I guess they want to see how good a pilot I am. Let’s show them.”
Years of warfare had taught him how to use the Force to focus on flying, maneuvering, and landing a wide range of spacecraft sizes and styles. Not just Republic and Separatist, but independent designs as well. The Larkrer was no exception, and he managed to set it down perfectly in the space that had been allotted him.
He was shutting the engines down when the courtyard abruptly blazed with light.
“I see they have lighting after all,” Thrawn said calmly.
“So they do,” Anakin said, squinting out the viewport. The illumination was coming from a set of six floodlights spaced out along the top of the eastern courtyard wall, the one the Larkrer was currently facing. He leaned forward and looked left and right, confirming that there were no such lights on the north and south walls, while from the shadows it was clear that there weren’t any on the west wall behind them, either. Above them, the vulture droids that had escorted them in dipped briefly into the light and then headed back out on patrol. “Probably just for unexpected visitors and other special occasions.”
“A dangerously poor design,” Thrawn said. “Lighting from a single direction creates shadowed regions that can be exploited.”
“Which is exactly what we’re going to do,” Anakin said. “If we’re lucky, the lighting controls will be out here where we can get to them, so keep an eye out for them. Let’s get outside before they get ner
vous.”
A minute later he, Thrawn, and R2-D2 gathered together at the foot of the ramp.
Under the dead eyes of two full squads of B1 battle droids, their E-5 blaster rifles trained on the newcomers.
“Interesting design,” Thrawn murmured. “Small and only moderately armored, but narrow and therefore difficult to target.”
“They’re the workhorses of the Separatist army,” Anakin murmured back. “But don’t get comfortable—they’ve also got droids that are bigger, better armed, and way better armored. Speaking of which, there are two of them now. And, I’m guessing, our host.”
A pair of B2 super battle droids were clomping across the courtyard, a tall, slender human striding along between them. With the lights streaming down from behind him the man’s features and insignia were impossible to make out.
But streaming behind him was a distinctive cloak, a Serennian symbol of nobility.
The same kind of cloak Count Dooku wore.
“To our left,” Thrawn murmured. “Note the vehicle in the corner.”
“Later,” Anakin murmured back tensely, stretching out to the Force. If that was Dooku, this whole thing was about to fall apart.
In fact, it probably already had. With the light squarely in Anakin’s face, there was no way the Serennian hadn’t already identified him.
Still, there was no hint of warning from the Force. Nor had the approaching figure so much as broken step. Not Dooku, then?
“Note the vehicle in the corner,” Thrawn repeated.
Reluctantly, Anakin sent a sideways glance in that direction. Tucked into the northwest corner of the courtyard, attended by another battle droid squad, was a small speeder truck, dark and grimy, with an open-topped rear section. A local vehicle, most likely. A pair of similarly grimy men were standing outside its loading ramp, talking to a man and a woman wearing the same distinctive Serennian cloaks.
“An atmospheric craft,” Thrawn said. “I believe—”
“Yeah, later,” Anakin cut in, shifting his attention back to the approaching figure and the two B2s. The human’s face was still in shadow, but as he approached he looked less and less like Dooku. He and his escort stopped five meters away—
“Well?” he demanded.
Anakin felt a flicker of relief. It wasn’t Dooku’s voice. “Well, what?” he countered.
On the other hand, it was the voice of the traffic controller he’d talked with earlier. Someone expendable in case the visitors proved to be dangerous? “We got your cargo. You got our money?”
“We’re a long way yet from talking money,” the Serennian said coolly. “Let’s start with who you are.” His eyes shifted to R2-D2. “And why you’re traveling with a Republic astromech droid.”
“Is that what that is?” Anakin said, looking down at R2-D2. It was a ridiculous comment, of course—astromech droids were way too ubiquitous for a random unit to be instantly connected to the Republic. The Serennian was obviously seeing if he could spark a reaction. “That means it’s worth more, right?”
“You assume we’re buying,” the Serennian said. “What makes you think we’re not simply taking?”
“Because we got more than just merchandise,” Anakin said. “We also got information.” He lowered his voice. “Like how we got this droid in the first place. But we’ll only talk to someone who can hand over some real money.”
“How about you tell me all about it,” the Serennian offered, “and I don’t have you shot right here and now?”
“Sorry, but this isn’t the kind of stuff you give a hired hand,” Anakin scoffed. “Don’t bother to deny it—I know you’re the flunky who vectored us in.”
“Ah, but even flunkies here have authority,” the Serennian said calmly. He lifted a hand—
Abruptly, the B2 droids snapped their wrist blasters up into firing position.
“You can speak, or you can die,” he continued. “Your choice.”
Anakin looked at Thrawn. “What do you think?”
“Courage is a virtue,” Thrawn said. “Foolishness is not.”
“I guess.” Anakin turned back to the Serennian. “Fine. Let’s start with the woman.”
The Serennian seemed to draw back a little. “What woman?”
“You know what woman,” Anakin said. “The one your people caught snooping around your ship at Black Spire and killed.”
“Ah,” the other murmured. “Yes. Her. What about her?”
“Well, for starters, she wasn’t alone,” Anakin said. “She had a whole team with her.” He nodded back at the Larkrer. “Which is how we got hold of your ship. Captain Boroklif wasn’t going to be using it anymore.”
“I see.” The Serennian gestured toward R2-D2. “Was that hers?”
“I don’t know,” Anakin said. “We found it…okay, here’s how it went down. We got to the ship, found a guy trying to unlock the helm, chased him away. We didn’t know he’d left the droid till we hit lightspeed. And then…” He hesitated, as if reluctant to say the rest.
“The ship’s course was preset,” Thrawn put in. “It was locked in. We had no choice but to come here.”
“Who did that?” the Serennian asked.
“I assume Boroklif did before they got him,” Anakin said. “So we figured, as long as we couldn’t go anywhere else, we’d deliver the cargo and maybe you’d unlock it or wipe the whole computer and start over.”
“I see,” the Serennian said thoughtfully. “An interesting story. I trust you appreciate the fact that you now have nothing left to bargain with?”
“Yeah, well, that’s the thing,” Anakin said. “See, we told you the course was preset. What we didn’t tell you was that there was another preset layered underneath it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about both sides were playing the same game,” Anakin said patiently. “See, Boroklif put this course into the computer, like I said. But he put it on top of another course the woman had already laid in. I guess she was setting it to fly to wherever her gang has their base; you know, just in case they had to leave in a hurry. I figure Boroklif found it and couldn’t erase it, so he just laid his course on top of it. I don’t know—gets kind of confusing.”
“Don’t worry, I’m following it,” the Serennian said drily.
“Good, ’cause it’s pretty tangled,” Anakin said. “Anyway, the other guy—the guy we caught messing with it—I guess he was part of her group and was trying to change it back when we threw him off.”
“And he had this droid with him,” the Serennian said, his voice dark. “What makes you think he was one of her robber gang?”
“Well…” Anakin looked at Thrawn and shrugged. “Who else could he have been?”
“Lugging an astromech droid behind him?”
“Yeah, that doesn’t seem right,” Anakin said, screwing up his face as if trying to sort it all out. “Well…they were trying to steal your cargo. Maybe he stole the droid from someone else.”
“Perhaps,” the Serennian said. “Was there anything else?”
“Yeah, one more thing.” Anakin pointed at the B2s, whose wrist blasters were still pointed at him and Thrawn. “I figured you’d want to know where she was sending the ship. Brix here—this is Brix,” he added, nodding to Thrawn, “—Brix thought you might not want to pay us, or might even shoot us. So we…well, we kind of locked down the computer.”
“Locked it how?”
“Used a two-stage encryption passcode,” Anakin said. “I’ve got one stage, Brix has the other. You need both of us to get in before you can even start scrubbing off the preset to see the course she put underneath.”
“I see.” For a long moment, the Serennian looked back and forth between them. Anakin stretched out to the Force, mentally urging him to spot the flaw in their scheme. If he didn’t, they wou
ld have to nudge him.
And then, there it was: a flicker of sudden understanding. If R2-D2 had been present during the encoding, he might have a visual record of the encryption. If the Separatists could pull that out of his memory, the two ship thieves would once again have nothing to bargain with.
“You’ve certainly thought things through,” the Serennian said, clearly trying to sound chagrinned. “I suppose we’d best go inside and discuss what this information is worth.” He waved casually at R2-D2. “We’ll bring the droid. He may know more about the thieves.”
“Long as we get paid, he’s all yours,” Anakin said. “Lead on.”
The Serennian made a dismissive gesture to the B2s, who obediently lowered their arms and blasters. “You, too,” he added to the squad of battle droids, still holding their blasters on Anakin and Thrawn. “Go help Palter with the shipment.”
“Should we check out the freighter?” the lead droid asked.
“Team Four will do that,” the Serennian said. “Wait with Palter until Team Three gets the workers here, then help them make sure they get everything unloaded and stacked right.”
“Roger roger,” the lead droid said. They turned in unison and headed off across the courtyard toward the dusty vehicle in the corner. The Serennian watched them a moment, then turned and started walking toward a door in the southeast corner of the courtyard, his cloak billowing behind him.
Anakin followed, R2-D2 rolling at his side, Thrawn a couple of paces behind them. The two B2s waited until the newcomers had passed between them, then fell into guard positions on either side.
There was the sound of footsteps behind Anakin as Thrawn closed the gap between them. “Beside the door,” the Chiss murmured. “A set of switches. Armored conduits lead upward along the walls to the lights.”
Anakin gave a microscopic nod in acknowledgment. So not only had the base been built inside an existing building, but the Separatists’ retrofitting had been a quick job, simply fastening the security lights to what was already there instead of installing something more permanent.
