“Welcome to my humble and last remaining strongpoint,” Slayke boomed in greeting as he bounded to his feet. His officers stood around silently, staring at the two Jedi and their three companions. Slayke narrowed his eyes at the companions but said only, “Let me introduce my staff.” He introduced each officer, who bowed slightly to the visitors.
“I presume, sir, that you are the—” Slayke hesitated for just a brief instant, but that hesitation spoke volumes to Nejaa Halcyon. “—inestimable General Halcyon?” He extended his hand. At his full height, with his broad chest and shoulders and shock of flaming red hair, Slayke was an imposing figure.
“The same, Captain,” Halcyon answered. They shook. As they made physical contact each looked into the other’s eyes, two wary rivals sizing each other up. Anakin tried to keep his own expression neutral; he realized he was very much the junior partner in the triumvirate Halcyon was about to propose, and he knew instinctively that silence right now was the best asset he could bring to this situation.
“What do you have that I can steal from you this time?” Slayke asked, a wry, challenging expression on his face.
Halcyon ignored the question. “This is my deputy, Commander Skywalker.”
“We’ve met.” Slayke bowed slightly. “And those two strapping lads over there?” he asked, indicating the two guards Halcyon had brought along.
“Corporal Raders and Private Vick, my confidential advisers on military affairs,” Halcyon answered.
Slayke nodded. “It’s a smart commander who listens to the voices from the ranks. I’m beginning to like your style.” The two guards stood self-consciously among Slayke’s officers.
“I see you’ve dragged him along, too,” Slayke sneered, nodding at Grudo, who was trying to remain inconspicuous at the rear of the crowd.
“Grudo goes where I go—that’s the way it’s going to be,” Anakin answered at once.
“My, my, this sprout certainly has a mind of his own.” Slayke chuckled. “I like soldiers who have minds of their own—they’re much harder to steal than, say, someone’s starship.” He laughed enormously.
Again, Halcyon refused to acknowledge the jibe. “Can we talk in private?” He nodded at the officers standing about.
“No. Whatever we have to say, my officers can hear. I don’t keep vital information from my troops.” Slayke motioned to a sergeant standing nearby to clear off a field table. “Excuse the disarray, but, ah, we moved in here on rather short notice, and my cleaning staff hasn’t had a chance to tidy things up.” He grinned. “The detritus of battle,” he said, gesturing around the room, “which includes my troops and me, I’m afraid. But you and your army are unbloodied, vigorous, straining against the traces, eager for battle! Take your seats and I’ll tell you a thing or two about the battle we’ve fought here.”
Halcyon and Anakin joined Slayke at the table.
“I’m sorry that I don’t have refreshments for my honored guests,” he told them, “but we’re fresh out of ale and cakes. Now…” He rubbed his big hands together. “I have devised several maneuvers that I’m confident, with the timely arrival of your troops, I can use to successfully assault the enemy’s positions on the plateau. Please observe the schematic of the terrain on that screen. What I propose we do is—”
“Excuse me, Captain,” Halcyon interrupted. “I’m very anxious to hear your battle plan, but first there’s something we’ve got to get straight.”
Slayke pretended surprise. “Please proceed, Nejaa—you don’t mind if I call you Nejaa, do you?” he asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm. The command post, crowded as it was, had gone utterly quiet, the silence broken only by the static-laden voices of Slayke’s unit commanders making their reports, the muted background music common to military command centers.
“You can call me what you like, as long as you mean sir. I was sent here by the Senate to take command of this operation, and take command I will. You will place your remaining troops under me. While I value your opinion and look forward to hearing your advice, I’ll make the final decisions on any plans for the employment of this army, is that clear?”
Anakin realized instantly that Halcyon had taken the wrong approach with Slayke, but held his tongue. There was more going on here than the mere execution of orders.
Slayke leaned back in his chair and puffed out his cheeks. “Well, that’s a mighty big speech from a guy”—he leaned forward across the table—“who can’t even keep his pocket from being picked.” He grinned evilly.
Halcyon still refused to be drawn in. “Captain, I have the authority of the Senate—”
“Tell them to kiss my sweet toes,” Slayke retorted.
“—I have a fleet in orbit and I have an army of fresh troops—”
“Blasted faceless clones,” Slayke spat. “Look around you! This is an army—these are soldiers, battle-hardened veterans who’ve withstood the worst the enemy has thrown at them and still have fight in them! You think your clones can match spirit like that? Ha!” He placed his hands behind his head. A susurration of agreement swept through Slayke’s assembled staff officers. “And, I might add, you took your sweet time getting here!”
“Captain.” Anakin leaned forward so he could speak confidentially. “You would never have survived that final attack. I’d say you owe us, not the other way around.”
“Oh, ho, ho, the nursery speaks!” Slayke roared. Several of his staff snickered. “General Halcyon, maybe you’d like your Plooriod Bodkin back? I’ll trade her for your own flagship. Now that I’ve bloodied the enemy’s nose, I think I need a vessel fitting a man of my considerable skill, don’t you agree?” He roared with laughter and pounded the frail table with a massive fist.
“My flagship was scuttled and most of her crew killed when we broke the cordon and restored communications, Captain,” Halcyon answered, his voice flat and hard.
“Yes? And while you were taking your time getting here, we were fighting and I lost thousands of good troops! Do you think any of us care in the least about your flagship’s crew?” Slayke’s face had flushed with anger. “We didn’t have the ‘Force’ to help us, either. I suppose you called on it to extricate yourself?” He sneered.
“Yes, and this.” With one smooth motion made so fast nobody—not even Anakin—saw it coming, Halcyon drew his lightsaber and activated it. The onlookers gasped at the sight of the brilliant blade of pure energy.
Slayke’s eyes narrowed and his body tensed, but he didn’t move or even show any degree of surprise. “Any more tricks?” he asked in a normal voice.
Halcyon deactivated the lightsaber and hooked it back onto his belt. “I rather like these things,” he said pleasantly, patting the weapon affectionately. “They come in handy when you’re outnumbered a hundred to one. You were saying?” He smiled engagingly.
Slayke laughed. “I have to admit, I’m coming to admire your style!”
At that point Anakin lost his patience with the verbal sparring. “We don’t have much time to get organized,” he interrupted. “Let’s get on with our strategy session. What happened on Bpfassh was then; this is now. Let’s put that behind us and concentrate on the job at hand.” He paused, letting them see the dark fury in his eyes. Both Halcyon and Slayke stared at him.
“Well…” Slayke leaned back and regarded Anakin for a moment. “Yessir!” He gave a casual salute.
Halcyon cleared his throat. “He’s right, Slayke,” he said. “We’ve got to cooperate—” Halcyon’s personal comlink interrupted him. “This must be something important. Excuse me, please.”
It was the fleet communications officer. “Sir, I have just received, well, the most, um, interesting transmission from the Senatorial Communications Center on Coruscant. I believe you must see it at once, sir.”
The room went completely silent. Slayke raised an eyebrow.
“Can you tell me what it’s about?” Halcyon asked. “I’m in a conference now in Captain Slayke’s command post.”
The communicati
ons officer paused. “General, I think you should see it and, well, you’ll see what I mean. Do you have a HoloNet transceiver available at your current location?”
Halcyon looked up at Slayke, who said, “Right in there,” gesturing toward a partitioned-off corner of his command post.
“Yes I do,” he said into his comlink. He turned to Slayke. “What are your codes?”
Slayke held out his hand for Halcyon’s comlink. After a second’s hesitation, the Jedi handed it over. Slayke spoke quietly into the comlink, then returned it and said, “We’d better go take a look.”
They reached the HoloNet transceiver just in time to see Reija Momen’s image flash on the monitor.
“I am Reija Momen, director of the Intergalactic Communications Center on Praesitlyn. My staff and I are being held prisoner by an armed Separatist force. The commander of that force demands you order the troops now opposing him to withdraw from Praesitlyn immediately. For every hour you delay issuing that order, one of my staff will be executed, ending with me. I beg you, for the sake of my people, Attack! Attack! Attack!”
The last attack echoed through the totally silent room. Slayke swore under his breath, then ordered, “Play it again!”
“Gutsy woman,” Halcyon said with admiration. “She’s asking us to attack even though it means her life and the lives of her people. That’s like calling in a laser cannon barrage on your own position to save it from being overrun.”
“No kidding,” Slayke agreed. “So she’s the one we came here to rescue.”
Anakin couldn’t utter a word. There was something—else—about that woman.
Halcyon looked at his second in command. “Anakin?”
Anakin stood with his fists clenched, the muscles in his jaw working. The monitor was blank now, but he continued to glare at it as if Momen’s image were still there.
“Anakin?” Halcyon asked.
Someone behind them was cursing in the most foul terms. Someone else said something softly and the curses stopped.
“Anakin?” Halcyon clamped a hand on Anakin’s shoulder and shook it.
“What?” Anakin blinked, as though returning from someplace different.
“Anakin, it’s over.”
“Y-yes. I—it’s just…” Anakin shook his head again and took a breath. “That woman, she reminds me of—well, I don’t know…”
Slayke stood. “Listen up, everyone,” he announced in a voice so loud several officers started. “Listen up,” he repeated in a softer tone. “If our comrades who died here fighting these Separatists could see what that woman has done, they would know—” His voice cracked. “—they would know their lives were not sacrificed in vain.” He paused and took a breath. “If we ever needed a cause to keep us going, we have it now!”
He walked over to Halcyon and offered him his hand, then extended it to Anakin and shook warmly. “I put myself and what’s left of my army completely at your disposal. What are my orders?”
20
One of the many hardships of being in an army during wartime, aside from the possibility of getting killed, is lack of sleep. In wartime, the commander who waits to make a decision usually doesn’t live until tomorrow. All military movements and operations seem to occur during the night—and to last all night—and anyone who can sleep on the eve of an attack is either a veteran or so tired he just doesn’t care anymore. Of course, the constant pumping of adrenaline into the soldier’s system will keep him active, but sooner or later exhaustion sets in.
The strategy session that started at strongpoint Judlie continued for hours. Eventually they moved to Halcyon’s command post, which was bigger, better equipped, and offered refreshments that Slayke’s depleted supplies could not afford.
Drawing up a battle plan is no easy task. It has to be both detailed and concise, but at the same time flexible enough to accommodate the instant changes required by a fluid battlefield situation. Halycon’s operations officer was given the task, under Anakin’s supervision, of writing the plan. Each staff specialist in Halcyon’s army was given a portion of the plan, an “annex” to execute: the personnel chief, operations chief, chief surgeon, intelligence chief, ordnance chief, the artillery, infantry, armor, and air commanders, and last but hardly least, quartermaster and transportation—none other than old Mess Boulanger. Each portion of the plan would be integrated into the whole. Time was short, however, and nobody could quite agree on the best course of action.
After several hours it finally got down to two basic approaches.
“Frontal assaults are out of the question,” Slayke roared. “You ought to know that an attacking force incurs casualties at a rate of at least three to one against a fortified position. That’s what he’s hoping for, so he can cut us down to size!”
“I know, I know,” Halcyon replied. “I’m just advising a feint at his center while a strong force swings around one of his flanks. Grab him in the center of his line, hold him fast, make him think that’s our main axis of attack, and hit him around the flank and come down on his rear.”
“How about a vertical envelopment?” Anakin suggested. “We have the transports. We could land a force in his rear and attack from there, while our main force advances on the center of his line.”
Slayke cocked an eyebrow. “What do you think?” he asked Halcyon.
“I don’t know,” the Jedi Master replied cautiously. “What’s his anti-aircraft capability?”
“We’ve made an assessment,” his intelligence officer responded. “We sent remotely piloted vehicles over his lines an hour ago in anticipation of this question, sir. We sent several—none came back. But they transmitted enough information for us to determine that his antiair defenses are particularly dense. We spotted quad laser cannons, as well as ion cannons that they must have off-loaded from their ships and installed as air defense weapons. We estimate at least thirty-five percent casualties just going in, sir—and even higher casualties coming back out.”
“Prohibitive,” Slayke said softly. “I’m sorry, Anakin, vertical envelopment won’t work. I think the only viable tactic is to swing around one of his flanks.” Which had been Halcyon’s opinion from the beginning.
“Don’t forget, he can reinforce every part of his line on a very short axis, while we’ll have a much longer way to go to move troops and supplies, especially if we’re successful in getting around one of his flanks,” Anakin pointed out.
Slayke nodded approvingly. “The young Jedi is becoming a strategist.”
Halcyon smiled. “Anakin is a man of many surprising talents.”
Slayke laughed. “Anakin, you just may have a future in this trade.”
“Then we’ll follow the plan to attack the center simultaneously with a strong force swinging around his flank,” Halcyon said. “But first we’ve got to know how strong his positions are.”
“I have just the man,” Slayke said. “Omin, front and center! Sergeant L’Loxx is one of the best recon men in the business. He’ll probe their lines and find any weaknesses there might be.”
The sergeant approached the officers and came to attention. Halcyon stood and shook his hand. “It’s nearly midnight, Sergeant L’Loxx. Can you complete a reconnaissance of the enemy line by dawn?”
“I can’t do the whole line in the same night, sir,” the sergeant answered, “but yessir, I’ll reconnoiter wherever you want and be back here well before dawn. I can be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“Let’s send three probes, then—center, left, and right. But I think we should send clone commandos,” Anakin said.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I’m the best there is for this job, only I can’t do the whole line myself. Give me whatever sector you want and I’ll get the information you need.”
“Very well. Sergeant, you take the right flank.” Aside, Halcyon told Anakin, “You select commandos to do the center and left flank.” Then back to L’Loxx: “The former strongpoint Izable will be your jumping-off place, and that’ll be where you’ll come
back through our lines. How many troopers will you need?”
“Just me, sir.”
“Only yourself?” Halcyon looked at Slayke, who shrugged. “What if something happens, Sergeant? How will we get your report?”
“Nothing will happen to me.”
“I’d like to go with him,” Grudo said, stepping up beside where Anakin was sitting.
“Ridiculous!” Slayke snorted.
“A Rodian should be good on patrol, sir,” Sergeant L’Loxx said. “They’re experts at getting into places where they aren’t wanted—and getting back out again.”
Anakin nodded. “Grudo’s in, then.”
“We want to go, too,” someone said. It was one of the guards from the Neelian, Corporal Ram Raders.
Halcyon stood up quickly. “What is this? I send out one man on a recon, and half my army wants to go along. We may as well mount the assault right now without any idea what’s out there. No, and that’s final.” He sat down.
“Please, sir,” Raders pleaded. “That’s the sort of thing we’re good at. Besides, all we’re doing here is standing around. We can be a great help to the sergeant.”
“I’ll take them,” Sergeant L’Loxx said. “If I’m not satisfied with how they move, I’ll leave them at Izable. But that’s it. Four’s maybe too many as it is.”
“Very well,” Halcyon said. “Anakin, coordinate all this with the clone commandos. All of you meet back here in fifteen minutes for a briefing.”
Anakin turned to the operations officer. “Would you start writing up the operation order? I want to talk to Grudo privately for a moment.” He excused himself and went outside with the Rodian. They sat down on some ration boxes in the dark. “I don’t want you to go out there, Grudo, but if your mind is set on it, then I won’t stop you.”
“I’ll be all right,” Grudo replied.
Anakin didn’t speak for a while, not sure what he wanted to say. “Are you married?” he asked at last.
Grudo hooted a laugh. “Many times.”
“Did you love your wives?”
Star Wars: Jedi Trial Page 17
