Coruscant because the Jedi Council was trying to de-cide on his future employments, but he was too polite to ask. What really mattered to Anakin, though, was that Halcyon seemed to like and have confidence in him, and now that might be about to pay off.
He sensed Halcyon’s approach and turned to greet him at the same moment that Halcyon said, “A credit for your thoughts.” Both men smiled.
Halcyon draped an arm across Anakin’s shoulders. “My young friend,” he announced, “I have come with news.”
“Yes?” Outwardly Anakin maintained an icy-cool demeanor, but inwardly his heart raced.
Halcyon, though, could sense the surge of anticipation in the young Jedi and he smiled more broadly. “The Jedi Council is sending us on a mission. I’ve been given a chance to prove myself—no, don’t deny it, Anakin, that’s what this assignment is, a trial—and I’ve asked for you to be my second in command. The Council agreed.”
Anakin felt a very slight twinge of disappointment. Halcyon, not the Jedi Council itself, had asked for his services. But… the Council had agreed, so… “What is the mission, Master?”
“Are you familiar with the Intergalactic Communications Center on Praesitlyn, in the Sluis sector?”
“Not really. I know it’s a vital communications hub, but I don’t know much more than that.”
“It’s been seized by a Separatist force. We’re assuming the garrison has been defeated, but the enemy force is being opposed by a friendly armada that was tracking the invasion fleet and has broken through the cor-don around Praesitlyn. They are now heavily engaged with the Separatist ground force. We are going to relieve that army, if it can be done.” He paused. “We’re not sure how big the Separatist force is, but it’s very powerful; taking it on will not be an easy job.”
“Who’s in command of the intervening force on Praesitlyn?”
Halcyon smiled weakly. “Zozridor Slayke.”
Anakin looked up sharply. “You mean—?”
“Yes, the same—my nemesis.” Halcyon’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “But we are going there to retake Praesitlyn, Anakin. If Slayke’s still alive and able to fight by the time we get there, well, he’ll be so glad to see us I don’t think I’ll have any problem working with him.”
Neither said anything for a long moment. The water splashed merrily into the pool; Anakin didn’t notice the occasional droplets of moisture that fell from an overhanging branch down the back of his neck. “Master, what, precisely, will be my role as your second?”
“We’ll have an army of twenty thousand clones. We’ll form it into two divisions. I’ll hold overall command, as well as command of one division, and you’ll command the other. If anything happens to me, you will then command the entire fleet. You can do it, Anakin—that’s why I picked you.” He paused and nudged a glob of mud with the toe of his boot. “Our force includes supporting arms and combat-support units, so besides the clone infantry force, we’ll have small contingents from all over the Republic as integral parts of our army. We’ll have to do most of our planning on the way.”
“When do we leave?”
“Soon, very soon.”
“So, what’s our first step?” Anakin asked. “Our first step? Well, first you and I are going to meet someone very special.”
No society is without its underworld. With more than a trillion inhabitants, Coruscant, the gem of the galaxy, the hub of the Republic, had its bottom feeders deep beneath its soaring spires. Coruscant was like a vast ocean: while luxurious liners full of happy partyers plowed the waves on the surface, hideous denizens, strangers to light, lurked in the murky depths far below. It was into this world that Jedi Master Nejaa Halcyon took Anakin.
The Golden Slug, a run-down flophouse with a sleazy bar in the lobby, was the only spot of activity on a dead-end side street just off a main underground thoroughfare. Piles of garbage littered the gutter; one flickering sign—the other lights weren’t working— provided dim and intermittent illumination. The farther end of the street beyond the Golden Slug was enveloped in pitch darkness.
“What are we doing here?” Anakin whispered as he carefully threaded his way through the garbage. A sudden barrage of guttural shouting and the noise of something being smashed came dully from inside the Golden Slug, and a tall, reptilian creature burst from the hotel lobby and skittered past. Wondering what in the galaxy could scare a Barabel, Anakin reached for his lightsaber.
“Easy does it, Anakin,” Halcyon murmured, putting a restraining hand on the Padawan’s forearm.
The sign above the Golden Slug’s doorway sputtered. GOL en S UG it announced, two of the letters long since broken in some drunken melee.
“I don’t think we’ll have any trouble,” Halcyon went on, “there’s no need to have a weapon in hand. But be ready—just in case.”
Anakin glanced toward the end of the street where he sensed something lurking. Then he reached out into the Force to scan the hotel lobby. “Well,” he whispered, “there aren’t any Force-sensitives in there, so lead on.”
The lobby was a shambles. Most of the furniture that was still intact was unoccupied, except for something snoring loudly on one of the couches. An overhead fan stirred the stale air lazily. A bored clerk, a character with a huge set of ears and a long proboscis, glanced up at the two Jedi, squeaked an exclamation, and disappeared underneath the counter. Several patrons sat at the bar on one side of the lobby. The floor there was littered with debris, the remains of a destroyed table and chairs—and something that looked suspiciously like an arm or a leg freshly separated from its owner.
An unprepossessing figure hunched alone at one end of the bar. Three other barflies sat at the opposite end, as far from the figure as they could get, studiously ignoring its presence.
“Grudo!” Halcyon shouted.
The lobby went deadly silent. Even the fan slowly whirring above them seemed to stop its lazy perambulations. The bartender dropped the glass he was pretending to clean and ducked behind the bar.
The hunched figure turned slowly, stepped to its feet, and moved toward them. Anakin blinked. It had bumpy green skin and bulging, multifaceted eyes; a stubby pair of antennae protruded from its head. Numerous sheathed knives hung from two bandoliers crossing its chest, and more knives rested uneasily in scabbards on its belt. A pair of blasters sat in holsters on its belt. Anakin thought he could make out other tools of the bounty hunter’s trade poking out here and there. The dim light glinted wetly off the knives where their metal was visible, as if they had recently been used. This being was the meanest-looking Rodian Anakin had ever seen—and he headed straight toward them. Anakin reached again for his lightsaber, but Halcyon held him back with a steadying arm; the Rodian’s hands were empty.
As soon as he got within reach, the bounty hunter lurched forward and grabbed Halcyon around the waist and danced him around in a macabre circle.
“Halcyon!” he hooted. “It’s good to see you, old friend!” He stopped dancing, and the two embraced warmly.
“This is Grudo,” Halcyon told Anakin as soon as he was able to disentangle himself. “Grudo, this young Jedi is Anakin Skywalker. Say hello, Anakin.”
Anakin smiled crookedly and said, “Hello.”
The Rodian released Halcyon and stood at attention. “Jedi Anakin Skywalker, Sergeant Grudo reporting,” he said in an impeccable Basic that contrasted sharply with his appearance. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.”
“Sergeant?” Anakin asked, bemused by the Rodian’s clipped tones. “I didn’t know bounty hunters had ranks.”
The barflies, who had been studiously ignoring the trio, turned their heads for a quick glance, then returned their attention to their drinks. Even the bartender peeked out from hiding when Grudo hooted in raucous laughter.
“Come,” Grudo commanded, and led them to the bar; the barflies huddled inconspicuously over their drinks. “Barkeep! Come out from wherever you’re hiding—I want to buy a drink for my friends!”
; The bartender, a nervous, sallow-faced human, edged up from his hiding place. Looking like he was ready to drop back down to safety at any moment, he poured a dirty yellow fluid out of a bottle containing some kind of root into glasses that looked none too clean. Grudo raised his glass in a toast. Halcyon and Anakin followed suit.
“Aaarrggh! Whew!” Halcyon gasped. Grudo patted him hard between the shoulder blades. “Strong stuff!” the Jedi Master wheezed, thumping his chest with a fist.
Anakin sipped cautiously at his drink. The liquid burned its way past his lips, over his tongue, down his throat, and into the depths of his stomach, where it exploded in a ball of blazing fire. He choked. “Good!” he rasped. “Very good! Thank you—Grudo.”
Grudo laughed at Anakin’s feeble attempt to hide his discomfort. “There’s nothing good about the taste of that drink,” he said. “It’s supposed to incapacitate Gamorreans, Trandoshans, Wookiees, and other large species, so Rodian bounty hunters can take them into custody without getting hurt.”
The Rodian was smaller than a normal human male, but Anakin remembered the Barabel who had run screaming out to the street and looked pointedly toward the shambles in the lobby. “I don’t feel in the least incapacitated, Grudo. Are you sure you need to tranquilize a large person to capture him?”
Grudo laughed and slapped him on the back. “Maybe. If I was a bounty hunter.”
“If you’re not a bounty hunter, what are you doing on Coruscant? I thought the only people your world allowed to leave home were bounty hunters.”
Grudo raised a suction-cup-tipped finger in front of his pendulous snout, so much like a human raising a shushing finger to pursed lips that Anakin had to laugh. “If I don’t tell, you can’t tell,” the Rodian whispered conspiratorily. Then he turned to Halcyon. “I’m glad to see you again, Halcyon. And happy enough to meet Jedi Skywalker, as well.”
“And I was very glad when I heard you were still here, Grudo. Though I’m surprised that you haven’t found another job.”
Grudo shrugged. “Unfortunately true. Which is hard to imagine in time of war. But… you know the bounty hunter reputation.” He shook his head. “Makes it hard for an honest Rodian to find work as a soldier. Do you have a job for me, Nejaa?”
“Possibly.”
“There’s trouble on Praesitlyn, I hear.”
The two Jedi glanced at each other in surprise.
“How do you know that?” Anakin demanded.
Grudo shrugged noncommitally. “Word gets around.”
Halcyon sighed. “Well, if they know about our mission here, the Separatists know, too, or they will soon.” He gave his drink a suspicious look and pushed the dirty glass aside, then said to Anakin, “Grudo isn’t a bounty hunter, he’s an old soldier. He’s been in more battles and on more campaigns than most regular soldiers. He’s led troops in battle his whole life. I want him to come with us. He’ll be a good addition to our team, especially when it comes to directing small-unit operations.” He turned to Grudo. “Will you come with us?”
“So you two are going to be generals on this mission,” Grudo said.
Halcyon flinched and muttered, “Nobody’s supposed to know that.”
Grudo smiled. “You’re going to need a good sergeant major. Especially the whelp here.” He flung a surprisingly strong arm across Anakin’s shoulders, forcing the young Jedi’s nose almost into his glass. “Let’s have one last drink—for old times, and for the future!” He leaned over the bar to peer at the cowering bartender. “Give us a round of the good stuff this time!”
* * *
Chapter 10
Both Lieutenant Erk H’Arman and recon trooper Odie Subu had received survival training and were well aware of the dangers of dehydration. But neither had been prepared for this long walk through the high-desert region, and it proved much more difficult than either had anticipated. It was one thing to fly over it at ten thousand meters or zoom along on speeder patrols with communications and comrades left and right, but walking, without any prior preparation, was another thing entirely. Although they tried to conserve their small supply of water, the heat, the lack of humidity, and the physical exertion that confronted them every step of the way caused them to lose more fluid than they could replace. Also, the burning sun was so intense they almost wished another sandstorm would strike just to provide them some cover. They began to blister, even under their clothes. And that first night, as the daytime heat radiated off into space, they almost froze to death.
By noon on the second day they were in serious trouble. They found a rock outcropping and flopped down in its shade.
“Let’s rest here awhile,” Erk croaked. Odie didn’t bother to reply, but dropped down, raising a cloud of dust. They lay there in the intense heat and panted. Odie’s canteen was long since empty, but neither could remember when or who had sucked the last drops out of it. It was getting hard for them to focus their thoughts on anything.
Dimly, Erk became aware that Odie was saying something. “What?” he rasped, but she didn’t answer immediately. She said something else, several words, but he couldn’t make them out. With effort he rolled over and faced her. “What did you say?”
“Let’s head back home, Tami,” she answered. “It’s time for chow.”
Tami? Oh, yes, wasn’t he one of Odie’s buddies? Erk had difficulty remembering exactly—anyway, he thought it was someone she had mentioned. “Odie…” Erk gasped, but, too exhausted to point out that she was hallucinating, he just rolled over on his back. Odie continued talking to her imaginary comrade.
The heat enveloped them like a scorching blanket despite the shade provided by the rock overhang—and as the minutes dragged by and the sun moved gradually, even that slight protection began to disappear. Once it did, they would fry. But there was nothing they could do about it now. Soon the sun blazed down on them like a raging furnace. The air was so hot it hurt to breathe.
Gradually—everything was happening in slow motion now—Erk became aware that something was blocking the sunlight. He squinted up at it. It was huge. It spread its enormous wings and made a terrible squawking noise. A giant beak filled with razor-sharp teeth fastened onto one of Odie’s legs and bit it off. Dimly, Erk was aware that there was no such creature native to Praesitlyn, but here it was anyway. As it threw back its head to swallow the limb, Erk drew his sidearm with his last remaining strength and fired.
Watching an army preparing to embark on a campaign is one of the most exciting experiences in life, second only to being shot at and missed. Grudo the Rodian had been shot at and missed many times, but even he caught the tempo of the moment as the fleet based on Centax 1 prepared for war.
While the Republic’s available ground forces were limited to the twenty thousand clones now embarking on the waiting ships, fortunately its naval forces were of considerable potency, consisting of many capital ships—enough, Halcyon reasoned, to break through the Separatist fleet he would encounter blockading Praesitlyn. The situation on the planet’s surface would be a different matter, but getting there, he hoped, should at least prove easy.
Halcyon had chosen as his flagship the Centax-class heavy frigate Ranger. Built by the expert shipwrights of Sluis Van and outfitted in the shipyard on Centax 1, the Ranger was a fast and powerful vessel equipped with the latest weaponry and auxiliary systems. It was on this ship that Halcyon held his first council of war as the fleet readied to depart.
“We have deployable ground forces of twenty thousand clones. I will form them into two divisions. I’ll command one, and Anakin the other. As I see it, each division should consist of four brigades of four battalions, each with four infantry companies. This will give us great maneuverability in the attack and—”
Grudo snorted. “I thought you knew better than that, Halcyon. No wonder I beat you so handily that—” He caught Anakin looking at him with intense interest and dropped that line of thought. “Divide your divisions by threes: three brigades, each with three battalions of three companies.
”
“What?” Halcyon asked.
“I think what he means,” Anakin interjected, “is that two up, one back, is not only the standard military formation, but also a more powerful structure. With larger formations you have more combat power. You attack with two brigades or battalions or companies and keep one in reserve. At least, that’s what it looks like in everything I’ve studied.”
Grudo’s laughing hoot warbled with the swinging of his snout as he shook his head side to side. “Age must be getting to you, Halcyon—you’re forgetting things even the youngster knows!”
Halcyon nodded ruefully. “I stand corrected, then. We’ll organize our troops into a triangular formation.
“On to logistics,” he went on quickly. Anakin listened intently.
The next days passed in a whirlwind of activity. The two Jedi and their Rodian comrade soon began to work as a well-oiled team. Grudo followed Anakin everywhere, interjecting advice whenever appropriate, but otherwise not saying much. The clone infantry had been divided among several transports, in order to minimize their losses if a ship was hit, so the trio were kept busy moving among the ships. At night they met in Halcyon’s stateroom to go over the details of the day.
One evening, Halcyon asked Anakin, “Are you familiar with the capabilities of the specialized troopers?” He was referring to the fifty clone commandos aboard the battle cruiser Teyr.
Anakin nodded. Clone commandos were trained to be used for only the most dangerous missions, and as such were bred to possess a larger degree of independent thought and action than ordinary troopers. Equipped with highly advanced armor and weapons, they were capable of fighting successfully on their own, but with a Jedi commander their potential as an attack force was virtually unlimited.
“They’re yours, then,” Halcyon told him. “Take Grudo, go over to the Teyr, and get to know them.”
Surprised and pleased, Anakin wasted no time getting a shuttle to the cruiser.
Earlier, he had taken charge of his division, met with his brigade, battalion, and company commanders, introduced himself to the troopers, inspected them in ranks, and asked probing questions about their armor, equipment, and weapons. Grudo had had him bone up on these things and read the readiness reports the division’s commanders had submitted.
Jedi Trial Page 8
