"Fire."
They did.
Kenobi, his dragonmount, and all five of the destroyer droids he'd been fighting vanished in a fireball that for an instant outshone Utapau's sun.
Visual polarizers in Cody's helmet cut the glare by 78 percent; his vision cleared in plenty of time to see shreds of dragon-mount and twisted hunks of droid raining into the ocean mouth at the bottom of the sinkhole.
Cody scowled and keyed his comlink. "Looks like the lizard took the worst of it. Deploy the seekers. All of them."
He stared down into the boil of the ocean mouth.
"I want to see the body."
C-3PO paused in the midst of dusting the Tarka-Null original on its display pedestal near his mistress's bedroom view wall, and used the electrostatic tissue to briefly polish his own photoreceptors. The astromech in the green Jedi starfighter docking with the veranda below—could that be R2-D2?
Well, this should be interesting.
Senator Amidala had spent the better part of these predawn hours simply staring over the city, toward the plume of smoke that rose from the Jedi Temple; now, at last, she might get some answers.
He might, too. R2-D2 was far from the sort of sparkling conversationalist with whom C-3PO preferred to associate, but the little astromech had a positive gift for jacking himself into the motherboards of the most volatile situations...
The cockpit popped open, and inevitably the Jedi within was revealed to be Anakin Skywalker. In watching Master Anakin climb down from the starfighter's cockpit, 3PO's photoreceptors captured data that unexpectedly activated his threat-aversion subroutines. "Oh," he said faintly, clutching at his power core. "Oh, I don't like the looks of this at all..."
He dropped the electrostatic tissue and shuffled as quickly as he could to the bedroom door. "My lady," he called to Senator Amidala, where she stood by the broad window. "On the veranda. A Jedi starfighter," he forced out. "Has docked, my lady."
She blinked, then rushed toward the bedroom door.
C-3PO shuffled along behind her and slipped out through the open door, making a wide circle around the humans, who were engaged in one of those inexplicable embraces they seemed so fond of.
Reaching the starfighter, he said, "Artoo, are you all right?
What is going on?"
The astromech squeaked and beeped; C-3PO's autotranslator interpreted: NOBODY TELLS ME ANYTHING.
"Of course not. You don't keep up your end of the conversation."
A whirring squeal: SOMETHING'S WRONG. THE FACTORS DON'T BALANCE.
"You can't possibly be more confused than I am."
YOU'RE RIGHT. NOBODY CAN BE MORE CONFUSED THAN YOU ARE.
"Oh, very funny. Hush now—what was that?" The Senator was sitting now, leaning distractedly on one of the tasteful, elegant bistro tables that dotted the veranda, while Master Anakin stood above her. "I think—he's saying something about a rebellion—that the Jedi have tried to overthrow the Republic! And—oh, my goodness. Mace Windu has tried to assassinate Chancellor Palpatine! Can he be serious?"
I DON'T KNOW. ANAKIN DOESN'T TALK TO ME ANYMORE.
C-3PO shook his cranial assembly helplessly. "How can Master Windu be an assassin? He has such impeccable manners."
LIKE I TOLD YOU: THE FACTORS DON'T ADD UP.
"I've been hearing the most awful rumors—they're saying the government is going to banish us—banish droids, can you imagine?"
DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU HEAR.
"Shh. Not so loud!"
I'M ONLY SAYING THAT WE DON'T KNOW THE TRUTH.
"Of course we don't." C-3PO sighed. "And we likely never will."
"What about Obi-Wan?"
She looked stricken. Pale and terrified.
It made him love her more.
He shook his head. "Many of the Jedi have been killed."
"But..." She stared out at the rivers of traffic crosshatching the sky. "Are you sure? It seems so... unbelievable..."
"I was there, Padme. It's all true."
"But... but how could Obi-Wan be involved in something like that?"
He said, "We may never know."
"Outlawed...," she murmured. "What happens now?"
"All Jedi are required to surrender themselves immediately," he said. "Those who resist... are being dealt with."
"Anakin—they're your family—"
"They're traitors. You're my family. You and the baby."
"How can all of them be traitors—?"
"They're not the only ones. There were Senators in this as well."
Now, finally, she looked at him, and fear shone from her eyes.
He smiled.
"Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to you."
"To me?"
"You need to distance yourself from your... friends... in the Senate, Padme. It's very important to avoid even the appearance of disloyalty."
"Anakin—you sound like you're threatening me..."
"This is a dangerous time," he said. "We are all judged by the company we keep."
"But—I've opposed the war, I opposed Palpatine's emergency powers—I publicly called him a threat to democracy!"
"That's all behind us now."
"What is? What I've done? Or democracy?"
"Padme—"
Her chin came up, and her eyes hardened. "Am I under suspicion?"
"Palpatine and I have discussed you already. You're in the clear, so long as you avoid... inappropriate associations."
"How am I in the clear?''
"Because you're with me. Because I say you are." She stared at him as if she'd never seen him before. "You told him."
"He knew."
"Anakin—"
"There's no more need for secrets, Padme. Don't you see? I'm not a Jedi anymore. There aren't any Jedi. There's just me." He reached for her hand. She let him take it. "And you, and our child."
"Then we can go, can't we?" Her hard stare melted to naked appeal. "We can leave this planet. Go somewhere we can be together—somewhere safe."
"We'll be together here,''' he said. "You are safe. I have made you safe."
"Safe," she echoed bitterly, pulling her hand away. "As long as Palpatine doesn't change his mind."
The hand she had pulled from his grasp was trembling.
"The Separatist leadership is in hiding on Mustafar. I'm on my way to deal with them right now."
"Deal with them?" The corners of her mouth drew down. "Like the Jedi are being dealt with?"
"This is an important mission. I'm going to end the war."
She looked away. "You're going alone?"
"Have faith, my love," he said.
She shook her head helplessly, and a pair of tears spilled from her eyes. He touched them with his mechanical hand; the fingertips of his black glove glistened in the dawn.
Two liquid gems, indescribably precious—because they were his. He had earned them. As he had earned her; as he had earned the child she bore.
He had paid for them with innocent blood.
"I love you," he said. "This won't take long. Wait for me."
Fresh tears streamed onto her ivory cheeks, and she threw herself into his arms. "Always, Anakin. Forever. Come back to me, my love—my life. Come back to me."
He smiled down on her. "You say that like I'm already gone."
Icy salt water shocked Obi-Wan back to full consciousness. He hung in absolute blackness; there was no telling how far underwater he might be, nor even which direction might be up. His lungs were choked, half full of water, but he didn't panic or even particularly worry; mostly, he was vaguely pleased to discover that even in his semiconscious fall, he'd managed to hang on to his lightsaber.
He clipped it back to his belt by feel, and—using only a minor exercise of Jedi discipline to suppress convulsive coughing—he contracted his diaphragm, forcing as much water from his lungs as he could. He took from his equipment belt his rebreather, and a small compressed-air canister intended for use in an emergency, when the breathabl
e environment was not adequate to sustain his life.
Obi-Wan was fairly certain that his current situation qualified as an emergency.
He remembered...
Boga's wrenching leap, twisting in the air, the shock of impacts, multiple detonations blasting both of them farther and farther out from the sinkhole wall...
Using her massive body to shield Obi-Wan from his own troops.
Boga had known, somehow... the dragonmount had known what Obi-Wan had been incapable of even suspecting, and without hesitation she'd given her life to save her rider.
I suppose that makes me more than her rider, Obi-Wan thought as he discarded the canister and got his rebreather snugged into place. I suppose that makes me her friend. It certainly made her mine.
He let grief take him for a moment; grief not for the death of a noble beast, but for how little time Obi-Wan had had to appreciate the gift of his friend's service.
But even grief is an attachment, and Obi-Wan let it flow out of his life.
Good-bye, my friend.
He didn't try to swim; he seemed to be hanging motionless, suspended in infinite night. He relaxed, regulated his breathing, and let the water take him whither it would.
C-3PO barely had time to wish his little friend good luck and remind him to stay alert as Master Anakin brushed past him and climbed into the starfighter's cockpit, then fired the engine and blasted off, taking R2-D2 goodness knows where—probably to some preposterously horrible alien planet and into a perfectly ridiculous amount of danger—with never a thought how his loyal droid might feel about being dragged across the galaxy without so much as a by-your-leave...
Really, what bad happened to that young man's manners? He turned to Senator Amidala and saw that she was crying.
"Is there anything I can do, my lady?"
She didn't even turn his way. "No, thank you, Threepio."
"A snack, perhaps?"
She shook her head.
"A glass of water?"
"No."
All he could do was stand there. "I feel so helpless..."
She nodded, looking away again, up at the fading spark of her husband's starfighter.
"I know, Threepio," she said. "We all do."
In the underground shiplift beneath the Senate Office Building, Bail Organa was scowling as he boarded Tantive IV. When Captain Antilles met him at the top of the landing ramp, Bail nodded backward at the scarlet-clad figures posted around the accessways. "Since when do Redrobes guard Senate ships?"
Antilles shook his head. "I don't know, sir. I have a feeling there are some Senators whom Palpatine doesn't want leaving the planet."
Bail nodded. "Thank the Force I'm not one of them. Yet. Did you get the beacon?"
"Yes, sir. No one even tried to stop us. The clones at Chance Palp seemed confused—like they're not quite sure who's in charge."
"That'll change soon. Too soon. We'll all know who's in charge," Bail said grimly. "Prepare to raise ship."
"Back to Alderaan, sir?"
Bail shook his head. "Kashyyyk. There's no way to know if any Jedi have lived through this—but if I had to bet on one, my money'd be on Yoda."
Some undefinable time later, Obi-Wan felt his head and shoulders breach the surface of the lightless ocean. He unclipped his lightsaber and raised it over his head. In its blue glow he could see that he had come up in a large grotto; holding the lightsaber high, he tucked away his rebreather and sidestroked across the current to a rock outcropping that was rugged enough to offer handholds. He pulled himself out of the water.
The walls of the grotto above the waterline were pocked with openings; after inspecting the mouths of several caves, Obi-Wan came upon one where he felt a faint breath of moving air. It had a distinctly unpleasant smell—it reminded him more than a bit of the dragonmount pen—but when he doused his lightsaber for a moment and listened very closely, he could hear a faint rumble that might have been distant wheels and repulsorlifts passing over sandstone—and what was that? An air horn? Or possibly a very disturbed dragon... at any rate, this seemed to be the appropriate path.
He had walked only a few hundred meters before the gloom ahead of him was pierced by the white glare of high-intensity searchlights. He let his blade shrink away and pressed himself into a deep, narrow crack as a pair of seeker droids floated past. Apparently Cody hadn't given up yet.
Their searchlights illuminated—and, apparently, awakened— some sort of immense amphibian cousin of a dragonmount; it blinked sleepily at them as it lifted its slickly glistening starfighter-sized head.
Oh, Obi-Wan thought. That explains the smell. He breathed into the Force a suggestion that these small bobbing spheroids of circuitry and durasteel were actually, contrary to smell and appearance, some unexpected variety of immortally delicious confection sent down from the heavens by the kindly gods of Huge Slimy Cave-Monsters.
The Huge Slimy Cave-Monster in question promptly opened jaws that could engulf a bantha and snapped one of the seekers from the air, chewing it to slivers with every evidence of satisfaction. The second seeker emitted a startled and thoroughly alarmed wheeepwheepwheep and shot away into the darkness, with the creature in hot pursuit.
Reigniting his lightsaber and moving cautiously back out into the cavern, Obi-Wan came upon a nest of what must have been infant Huge Slimy Cave-Monsters; picking his way around it as they lunged and snapped and squalled at him, he reflected absently that people who thought all babies were cute should really get out more.
Obi-Wan walked, and occasionally climbed or slid or had to leap, and walked some more.
Soon the darkness in the cavern gave way to the pale glow of Utapaun traffic lighting, and Obi-Wan found himself standing in a smallish side tunnel off a major thoroughfare. This was clearly little traveled, though; the sandy dust on its floor was so thick it was practically a beach. In fact, he could clearly see the tracks of the last vehicle to pass this way.
Broad parallel tracks pocked with divots: a blade-wheeler.
And beside them stretched long splay-clawed prints of a running dragon.
Obi-Wan blinked in mild astonishment. He had never entirely grown accustomed to the way the Force always came through for him—but neither was he reluctant to accept its gifts. Frowning thoughtfully, he followed the tracks a short distance around a curve, until the tunnel gave way to the small landing platform.
Grievous's starfighter was still there. As were the remains of Grievous.
Apparently not even the local rock-vultures could stomach him.
Tantive IV swept through the Kashyyyk system on silent running; this was still a combat zone. Captain Antilles wouldn't even risk standard scans, because they could so easily be detected and backtraced by Separatist forces.
And the Separatists weren't the only ones Antilles was worried about.
"There's the signal again, sir. Whoops. Wait, I'll get it back." Antilles fiddled some more with the controls on the beacon. "Blasted thing," he muttered. "What, you can't calibrate it without using the Force?"
Bail stared through the forward view wall. Kashyyyk was only a tiny green disk two hundred thousand kilometers away. "Do you have a vector?"
"Roughly, sir. It seems to be on an orbital tangent, headed outsystem."
"I think we can risk a scan. Tight beam."
"Very well, sir."
Antilles gave the necessary orders, and moments later the scan tech reported that the object they'd picked up seemed to be some sort of escape pod. "It's not a Republic model, sir—wait, here comes the database—"
The scan tech frowned at his screen. "It's... Wookiee, sir. That doesn't make any sense. Why would a Wookiee escape pod be outbound from Kashyyyk?"
"Interesting." Bail didn't yet allow himself to hope. "Lifesigns?"
"Yes—well, maybe... this reading doesn't make any..." The scan tech could only shrug. "I'm not sure, sir. Whatever it is, it's no Wookiee, that's for sure..."
For the first time all day, Bail Organa allowed h
imself to smile. "Captain Antilles?"
The captain saluted crisply. "On our way, sir."
Obi-Wan took General Grievous's starfighter screaming out of the atmosphere so fast he popped the gravity well and made jump before the Vigilance could even scramble its fighters. He reverted to realspace well beyond the system, kicked the starfighter to a new vector, and jumped again. A few more jumps of random direction and duration left him deep in interstellar space.
"You know," he said to himself, "integral hyperspace capability is rather useful in a starfighter; why don't we have it yet?"
While the starfighter's nav system whirred and chunked its way through recalculating his position, he punched codes to gang his Jedi comlink into the starfighter's system.
Instead of a holoscan, the comlink generated an audio signal—an accelerating series of beeps.
Obi-Wan knew that signal. Every Jedi did. It was the recall code.
It was being broadcast on every channel by every HoloNet repeater. It was supposed to mean that the war was over. It was supposed to mean that the Council had ordered all Jedi to return to the Temple immediately.
Obi-Wan suspected it actually meant what had happened on Utapau was far from an isolated incident.
He keyed the comlink for audio. He took a deep breath.
"Emergency Code Nine Thirteen," he said, and waited.
The starfighter's comm system cycled through every response frequency.
He waited some more.
"Emergency Code Nine Thirteen. This is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Repeat: Emergency Code Nine Thirteen. Are there any Jedi out there?"
He waited. His heart thumped heavily. "Any Jedi, please respond. This is Obi-Wan Kenobi declaring a Nine Thirteen Emergency."
He tried to ignore the small, still voice inside his head that whispered he might just be the only one out here.
He might just be the only one, period.
He started punching coordinates for a single jump that would bring him close enough to pick up a signal directly from Coruscant when a burst of fuzz came over his comlink. A quick glance confirmed the frequency: a Jedi channel.
"Please repeat," Obi-Wan said. "I'm locking onto your signal. Please repeat."
The fuzz became a spray of blue laser, which gradually resolved into a fuzzy figure of a tall, slim human with dark hair and an elegant goatee. "Master Kenobi? Are you all right? Have you been wounded?"
Revenge of the Sith Page 31
