Part 24 (1/2)

”Dooku!” young Skywalker said, as if his tone of voice should suffice to send s.h.i.+vers down the backbones of his opponents. ”Show yourself!”

Rooms distant, Dooku merely spread his hands in a gesture of greeting, and aimed his words at the holoprojector's microphone.

”Stand not amazed, young Jedi. Is this not the way you had your first glimpse of Lord Sidious?”

Instead of replying, Ken.o.bi touched Skywalker on the arm, and the two of them began to scan the hall, no doubt in an attempt to locate him through the Force.

”You won't find me, Jedi - - ”

”We know you're here, Dooku,” Ken.o.bi said suddenly - - and with irksome audio distortion. ”We can sense you.”

Dooku sighed in disappointment. They weren't hearing him. Worse, the video feed was also becoming hopelessly corrupted. More through the Force than the holocam feed he saw them moving toward the very doorway he had taken to reach the control room.

Exceptional, he thought. Despite his mastery of the Quey'tek technique for hiding oneself in the Force, they had located him! Ah, well then, time to entertain them, in observance of Sidious's wishes.

Plucking his comlink from his belt, Dooku's right thumb leapt across the small touch pad. Heralded by the sound of metallic footfalls, fifty infantry droids crowded into the archive hall through two opposing doorways, perpendicular to the one through which the Jedi had entered.

”- - beginning to... things almost as much... I hate sand,” Skywalker was saying to his former mentor as he raised his lightsaber over one shoulder.

Ken.o.bi spread his legs and brought his blade directly in front of him.

”Then... sweep up.”

Touched by their camaraderie, Dooku smiled to himself. Darth Sidious had his work cut out for him if he ever expected to turn Skywalker to the dark side.

He thumbed a final comlink key. And with that, the droids leveled their blaster rifles at the Jedi and opened fire.

Yoda surrendered himself to the current of the Force. Sometimes, when the current was swift and steadfast, he could see through the eyes of his fellow Jedi, almost as if they were the Temple's remote sensors. And sometimes when the current was especially forceful, when it surged as if descending from great heights, he could hear the voice of Qui-Gon Jinn, as clearly as if he were still alive.

Master Yoda, he might say, we still have much to learn. The Force remains a code only partially deciphered. But another key has been found. We will become stronger than we have ever been...

Today was not one of those days. Today the current was interrupted by eddies and whirlpools, hydraulic traps whose roar overpowered the voices Yoda sought to hear. Today the current was not pellucid, but muddied by red soil eroded from distant sh.o.r.es, treacherous with obstacles, tainted.

Though he was scarcely aware of it, his eyelids were squeezed tight, his eyeb.a.l.l.s dancing beneath as if incapable of focusing on any one thing.

He had an image of himself drawing aside a veil only to find another, and another beyond that. The dark side frustrated his every effort to see clearly. The experience was still something new to him. Even though he'd had centuries to grow accustomed to foreboding, he had lived far longer without it. The dark side never completely disappeared - - it scratched at the surface like an insect crawling across a transparisteel panel - - and he had been able to sense its incremental increases in strength when the Jedi erred, or when the Republic erred, and soon the two were hand in hand.

Drawn into the mistakes of the Republic, the Jedi had been. But knowingly, and sometimes with full complicity. Allowed the dark side to take root, the Jedi had. Allowed arrogance to infect the Order, the Jedi had. A priority, holding on to power had become. Inflated by their own conquests, the Jedi became.

Some Jedi believed that Yoda wasn't aware of these things, or that he hadn't done enough to stem the tide of the dark side. Some believed that the Council had acted improperly or, worse, ineptly. What they failed to understand was that, once rooted, the growth of the dark side was inexorable, and could only be reversed by the one born to restore balance.

Yoda was not that one. Aged, experienced, diplomatic, informative, brilliant with a lightsaber... Yes, all of these things. And not unacquainted with the power of the dark side.

For that reason he understood just how dangerous this new Sith Lord was.

He hadn't had a sense of that danger until he had fought Dooku on Geonosis. Then he understood. In self-exile for a thousand years, the Sith had not merely been waiting for an appropriate time to reemerge and exact revenge, but for the birth of one strong enough to embrace the dark side fully and become its dedicated instrument.

This was Sidious: powerful enough to hide in plain sight. Powerful enough to instruct his apprentice, Dooku, to expose him, and still remain hidden from the Jedi. And as arrogant as the Jedi. Convinced that his way was the one and only way. Did he know about Skywalker? Surely he did. What better way to ensure total victory than by killing or corrupting the Chosen One? Even if not that One, someone so strong in midi-chlorians...

Someone birthed by the Force itself, Qui-Gon would have said - - never a doubt that Anakin's mother might have been lying.

The boy had no father. None I choose to remember. None I would honor with that t.i.tle.

The Sith were aware of Skywalker. How would he react when they tried finally to ensnare him?

Yoda's eyes snapped open. A disturbance in the Force - - of such magnitude that he had been hurled from the current. At his thought command, the window shutters in his quarters opened, and he gazed out on Coruscant, over the plain of The Works and beyond.

Something was wrong with the sky. Behind gathered clouds turned red and gold by noxious smoke: a lightstorm. Pulsing light, brighter than the waning rays of Coruscant's sun. Movement, as well; outside Coruscant's busy envelope, not seen but sensed.

An attack.

The Sith Lord's response to his being chased? Was it possible?

He perceived Mace running down corridors in the Temple; then turned as Mace rushed through the doorway.

At the same instant, a flaming Republic s.h.i.+p streaked past the Temple's crowning spires and crashed violently in the heart of The Works.

”Tiin, Koon, Ki-Adi-Mundi, and some of the others are on their way up the well,” Mace said. ”I sent Sta.s.s Allie to a.s.sist Shaak Ti in guarding Chancellor Palpatine.”

Yoda nodded sagely.

”Well trained the Supreme Chancellor's Red Guards are. But display due concern for his safety, the Jedi must.”

”Reports from naval command are garbled,” Mace continued. ”It's clear that the attack caught the home fleet by surprise. Groups of Separatist s.h.i.+ps managed to penetrate the envelope before the fleet had time to engage. Now, by all accounts, our vessels are holding the line.”

Yoda adopted an expression that mixed anger and bafflement.

”Monitoring hypers.p.a.ce reversion points, our commanders weren't?”

Mace's eyes narrowed.

”The Separatist fleet jumped from the Deep Core.”

”Secret, those routes were. Known to us and few others.” Yoda looked at Mace. ”Unrestricted access to the archives, Dooku had. Access enough to erase all mentions of Kamino. Access enough to learn of explorations in the Deep Core.”

Mace went to the window wall and stared at the sky.

”Dooku isn't leading this attack. Obi-Wan confirmed that he is on Tythe.”

”Revealed, the importance of Tythe is. To draw into the Outer Rim additional Jedi.”

”Maybe Palpatine will heed the Council's warnings next time.”

”Improbable. But as you say: perhaps.”