Revenge of the Sith

by Matthew Stover

  "Fine," he muttered. "Let's try this from a little closer.'' Boga gained steadily. Grievous's vehicle had the edge in raw speed, but Boga could out-turn it and could make instant leaps at astonishing angles; the dragonmount also had an uncanny instinct for where the general might be heading, as well as a seemingly infinite knowledge of useful shortcuts through side tunnels, along sheer walls, and over chasms studded with locked-down wind turbines. Grievous tried once to block Obi-Wan's pursuit by screeching out onto a huge pod that held a whole bank of wind turbines and knocking the blade-brakes off them with quick blows of the electrostaff, letting the razor-edged blades spin freely in the constant gale, but Obi-Wan merely brought Boga alongside the turbines and stuck his lightsaber into their whirl. Sliced-free chunks of carboceramic blade shrieked through the air and shattered on the stone on all sides, and with a curse Grievous kicked his vehicle into motion again.

  The wheeler roared into a tunnel that seemed to lead straight into the rock of the plateau. The tunnel was jammed with groundcars and dragonmounts and wheelers and jetsters and all manner of other vehicles and every kind of beast that might bear or draw the vast numbers of Utapauns and Utai fleeing the battle. Grievous blasted right into them, blade-wheel chewing through groundcars and splashing the tunnel walls with chunks of shredded lizard; Boga raced along the walls above the traffic sometimes even galloping on the ceiling with claws gouging chunks from the rock.

  With a burst of sustained effort that strangled her honnnking to thin gasps for air, Boga finally pulled alongside Grievous. Obi-Wan leaned forward, stretching out with his lightsaber, barely able to reach the wheeler's back curve, and carved away an arc of the wheeler's blade-tread, making the vehicle buck and skid; Grievous answered with a thrust of his electrostaff that crackled lightning against Boga's extended neck. The great beast jerked sideways, honking fearfully and whipping her head as though the burn was a biting creature she could shake off her flank.

  "One more leap, Boga!" Obi-Wan shouted, pressing himself along the dragonmount's shoulder. "Bring me even with him!"

  The dragonmount complied without hesitation, and when Grievous thrust again, Obi-Wan's free hand flashed out and seized the staff below its discharge blade, holding it clear of Boga's vulnerable flesh. Grievous yanked on the staff, nearly pulling Obi-Wan out of the saddle, then jabbed it back at him, discharge blade sparking in his face—

  With a sigh, Obi-Wan realized he needed both hands.

  He dropped his lightsaber.

  As his deactivated handgrip skittered and bounced along the tunnel behind him, he reflected that it was just as well Anakin wasn't there after all; he'd have never heard the end of it.

  He got his other hand on the staff just as Grievous jerked the wheeler sideways, half laying it down to angle for a small side tunnel just ahead. Obi-Wan hung on grimly. Through the Force he could feel Boga's exhaustion, the buildup of anaerobic breakdown products turning the dragonmount's mighty legs to cloth. An open archway showed daylight ahead. Boga barely made the turn, and they raced side by side along the empty darkened way, joined by the spark-spitting rod of the electrostaff.

  As they cleared the archway to a small, concealed landing deck deep in a private sinkhole, Obi-Wan leapt from the saddle, yanking on the staff to swing both his boots hard into the side of Grievous's duranium skull. The wheeler's internal gyros screamed at the sudden impact and shift of balance. Their shrieks cycled up to bursts of smoke and fragments of metal as their catastrophic failure sent the wheeler tumbling in a white-hot cascade of sparks. Dropping the staff, Obi-Wan leapt again, the Force lifting him free of the crash.

  Grievous's electronic reflexes sent him out of the pilot's chair in the opposite direction.

  The wheeler flipped over the edge of the landing deck and into the shadowy abyss of the sinkhole. It trailed smoke all the way down to a distant, delayed, and very final crash.

  The electrostaff had rolled away, coming to rest against the landing jack of a small Techno Union starfighter that stood on the deck a few meters behind Obi-Wan. Behind Grievous, the archway back into the tunnel system was filled with a panting, exhausted, but still dangerously angry dragonmount. Obi-Wan looked at Grievous. Grievous looked at Obi-Wan.

  There was no longer any need for words between them. Obi-Wan simply stood, centered in the Force, waiting for Grievous to make his move.

  A concealed compartment in the general's right thigh sprang open, and a mechanical arm delivered a slim hold-out blaster to his hand. He brought it up and fired so fast that his arm blurred to invisiblity.

  Obi-Wan... reached.

  The electrostaff flipped into the air between them, one dis­charge blade catching the bolt. The impact sent the staff whirling—

  Right into Obi-Wan's hand.

  There came one instant's pause, while they looked into each other's eyes and shared an intimate understanding that their relationship had reached its end.

  Obi-Wan charged.

  Grievous backed away, unleashing a stream of blaster bolts as fast as his half a forefinger could pull the trigger.

  Obi-Wan spun the staff, catching every bolt, not even slowing down, and when he reached Grievous he slapped the blaster out of his hand with a crack of the staff that sent blue lightning scaling up the general's arm.

  His following strike was a stiff stab into Grievous's jointed stomach armor that sent the general staggering back. Obi-Wan hit him again in the same place, denting the armorplast plate, cracking the joint where it met the larger, thicker plates of his chest as Grievous flailed for balance, but when he spun the staff for his next strike the general's flailing arm flailed itself against the middle of the staff and his other hand found it as well and he seized it, yanking himself upright against Obi-Wan's grip, his metal skull-face coming within a centimeter of the Jedi Master's nose.

  He snarled, "Do you think I am foolish enough to arm my bodyguards with weapons that can actually hurt me?"

  Instead of waiting for an answer he spun, heaving Obi-Wan right off the deck with effortless strength, whipping up him over his head to slam him to the deck with killing power; Obi-Wan could only let go of the staff and allow the Force to angle his fall into a stumbling roll. Grievous sprang after him, swinging the electrostaff and slamming it across Obi-Wan's flank before the Jedi Master could recover his balance. The impact sent Obi-Wan tumbling sideways and the electroburst discharge set his robe on fire. Grievous stayed right with him, attacking before Obi-Wan could even realize exactly what was happening, attacking faster than thought—

  But Obi-Wan didn't need to think. The Force was with him, and he knew.

  When Grievous spun the staff overhand, discharge blade sizzling down at Obi-Wan's head for the killing blow, Obi-Wan went to the inside.

  He met Grievous chest-to-chest, his upraised hand blocking the general's wrist; Grievous snarled something incoherent and bore down on the Jedi Master's block with all his weight, driving the blade closer and closer to Obi-Wan's face—

  But Obi-Wan's arm had the Force to give it strength, and the general's arm only had the innate crystalline intermolecular structure of duranium alloy.

  Grievous's forearm bent like a cheap spoon.

  While the general stared in disbelief at his mangled arm, Obi-Wan had been working the fingers of his free hand around the lower edge of Grievous's dented, joint-loose stomach plate. Grievous looked down. "What?"

  Obi-Wan slammed the elbow of his blocking arm into the general's clavicle while he yanked as hard as he could on the stomach plate, and it ripped free in his hand. Behind it hung a translucent sac of synthskin containing a tangle of green and gray organs.

  The true body of the alien inside the droid. Grievous howled and dropped the staff to seize Obi-Wan with his three remaining arms. He lifted the Jedi Master over his head again and hurled him tumbling over the landing deck toward the precipice above the gloom-shrouded drop. Reaching into the Force, Obi-Wan was able to connect with the stone itself as if he were anchored to it with a cab
le tether; instead of hurtling over the edge he slammed down onto the rock hard enough to crush all breath from his lungs.

  Grievous picked up the staff again and charged.

  Obi-Wan still couldn't breathe. He had no hope of rising to meet the general's attack.

  All he could do was extend a hand.

  As the bio-droid loomed over him, electrostaff raised for the kill, the hold-out blaster flipped from the deck into Obi-Wan's palm, and with no hesitation, no second thoughts, not even the faintest pause to savor his victory, he pulled the trigger.

  The bolt ripped into the synthskin sac.

  Grievous's guts exploded in a foul-smelling shower the color of a dead swamp. Energy chained up his spine and a mist of vaporized brain burst out both sides of his skull and sent his face spinning off the precipice.

  The electrostaff hit the deck, followed shortly by the general's knees.

  Then by what was left of his head.

  Obi-Wan lay on his back, staring at the circle of cloudless sky above the sinkhole while he gasped air back into into his spasming lungs. He barely managed to roll over far enough to smother the flames on his robe, then fell back. And simply enjoyed being alive.

  Much too short a time later—long before he was actually ready to get up—a shadow fell across him, accompanied by the smell of overheated lizard and an admonitory honnnk.

  "Yes, Boga, you're right," Obi-Wan agreed reluctantly. Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to his feet. He picked up the electrostaff, and paused for one last glance at the remains of the bio-droid general.

  "So..." He summoned a condemnation among the most offensive in his vocabulary. "... uncivilized."

  He triggered his comlink, and directed Cody to report to Jedi Command on Coruscant that Grievous had been destroyed. "Will do, General," said the tiny holoscan of the clone commander. "And congratulations. I knew you could do it."

  Apparently everyone did, Obi-Wan thought, except Grievous, and me...

  "General? We do still have a little problem out here. About ten thousand heavily armed little problems, actually." "On my way. Kenobi out." Obi-Wan sighed and clambered painfully onto the dragonmount's saddle.

  "All right, girl," he said. "Let's go win that battle, too."

  As has been said, the textbook example of a Jedi trap is the one that was set on Utapau, for Obi-Wan Kenobi. It worked perfectly.

  The final element essential to the creation of a truly effective Jedi trap is a certain coldness of mind—a detachment, if you will, from any desire for a particular outcome.

  The best way to arrange matters is to create a win-win situation.

  For example, one might use as one's proxy a creature that not only is expendable, but would eventually have to be killed anyway. Thus, if one's proxy fails and is destroyed, it's no loss—in fact, the targeted Jedi has actually done one a favor, by taking care of a bit of dirty work one would otherwise have to do oneself.

  And the final stroke of perfection is to organize the Jedi trap so that by walking into it at all, the Jedi has already lost.

  That is to say, a Jedi trap works best when one's true goal is merely to make sure that the Jedi in question spends some hours or days off somewhere on the far side of the galaxy. So that he won't be around to interfere with one's real plans.

  So that by the time he can return, it will be already too late.

  =16=

  REVELATION

  Mace Windu stood in the darkened comm center of Jedi Command, facing a life-sized holoscan of Yoda, projected from a concealed Wookiee comm center in the heart of a wroshyr tree on Kashyyyk.

  "Minutes ago," Mace said, "we received confirmation from Utapau: Kenobi was successful. Grievous is dead."

  "Time it is to execute our plan."

  "I will personally deliver the news of Grievous's death." Mace flexed his hands. "It will be up to the Chancellor to cede his emergency powers back over to the Senate."

  "Forget not the existence of Sidious. Anticipate your action, he may. Masters will be necessary, if the Lord of the Sith you must face."

  "I have chosen four of our best. Master Tiin, Master Kolar, and Master Fisto are all here, in the Temple. They are preparing already."

  "What about Skywalker? The chosen one."

  "Too much of a risk," Mace replied. "I am the fourth."

  With a slow purse of the lips and an even slower nod, Yoda said, "On watch you have been too long, my Padawan. Rest you must."

  "I will, Master. When the Republic is safe once more." Mace straightened. "We are waiting only for your vote."

  "Very well, then. Have my vote, you do. May the Force be with you."

  "And with you, Master."

  But he spoke to empty air; the holoscan had already flickered to nonexistence.

  Mace lowered his head and stood in the darkness and the silence.

  The door of the comm center shot open, spilling yellow glare into the gloom and limning the silhouette of a man half collapsed against the frame.

  "Master..." The voice was a hoarse half whisper. "Master Windu... ?"

  "Skywalker?" Mace was at his side in an instant. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

  Anakin took Mace's arm in a grip of desperate strength, and used it like a crutch to haul himself upright.

  "Obi-Wan...," he said faintly. "I need to talk to Obi-Wan—"

  "Obi-Wan is operational on Utapau; he has destroyed General Grievous. We are leaving now to tell the Chancellor, and to see to it that he steps down as he has promised—"

  "Steps—steps down—" Anakin's voice had a sharply bitter edge. "You have no idea..."

  "Anakin? What's wrong?"

  "Listen to me—you have to listen to me—" Anakin sagged against him, shaking; Mace wrapped his arms around the young Jedi and guided him into the nearest chair. "You can't—please, Master Windu, give me your word, promise me it'll be an arrest, promise you're not going to hurt him—"

  "Skywalker—Anakin. You must try to answer. Have you been attacked? Are you injured? You have to tell me what's wrong!"

  Anakin collapsed forward, face into his hands.

  Mace reached into the Force, opening the eye of his special gift of perception—

  What he found there froze his blood.

  The tangled web of fault lines in the Force he had seen connecting Anakin to Obi-Wan and to Palpatine was no more; in their place was a single spider-knot that sang with power enough to crack the planet. Anakin Skywalker no longer had shatter-points. He was a shatterpoint. The shatterpoint. Everything depended on him. Everything.

  Mace said slowly, with the same sort of deliberate care he would use in examining an unknown type of bomb that might have the power to destroy the universe itself, "Anakin, look at me."

  Skywalker raised his head.

  "Are you hurt? Do you need—"

  Mace frowned. Anakin's eyes were raw, and red, and his face looked swollen. For a long time he didn't know if Anakin would answer, if he could answer, if he could even speak at all; the young Jedi seemed to be struggling with something inside himself, as though he fought desperately against the birth of a monster hatching within his chest.

  But in the Force, there was no as though; there was no seemed to be. In the Force, Mace could feel the monster inside Anakin Skywalker, a real monster, too real, one that was eating him alive from the inside out. Fear.

  This was the wound Anakin had taken. This was the hurt that had him shaking and stammering and too weak to stand. Some black fear had hatched like fever wasps inside the young Knight's brain, and it was killing him.

  Finally, after what seemed forever, Anakin opened his blood-raw eyes.

  "Master Windu..." He spoke slowly, painfully, as though each word ripped away a raw hunk of his own flesh. "I have... bad news."

  Mace stared at him.

  "Bad news?" he repeated blankly.

  What news could be bad enough to make a Jedi like Anakin Skywalker collapse? What news could make Anakin Skywalker look like the stars had gone out?
Then, in nine simple words, Anakin told him.

  This is the moment that defines Mace Windu.

  Not his countless victories in battle, nor the numberless battles his diplomacy has avoided. Not his penetrating intellect, or his talents with the Force, or his unmatched skills with the lightsaber. Not his dedication to the Jedi Order, or his devotion to the Republic that he serves.

  But this.

  Right here.

  Right now.

  Because Mace, too, has an attachment. Mace has a secret love.

  Mace Windu loves the Republic.

  Many of his students quote him to students of their own: "Jedi do not fight for peace. That's only a slogan, and is as misleading as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only civilization creates peace."

  For Mace Windu, for all his life, for all the lives of a thousand years of Jedi before him, true civilization has had only one true name: the Republic.

  He has given his life in the service of his love. He has taken lives in its service, and lost the lives of innocents. He has seen beings that he cares for maimed, and killed, and sometimes worse: sometimes so broken by the horror of the struggle that their only answer was to commit horrors greater still.

  And because of that love now, here, in this instant, Anakin Skywalker has nine words for him that shred his heart, burn its pieces, and feed him its smoking ashes.

  Palpatine is Sidious. The Chancellor is the Sith Lord.

  He doesn't even hear the words, not really; their true meaning is too large for his mind gather in all at once.

  They mean that all he's done, and all that has been done to him—