Part 28 (2/2)

”Lost him, sir,” the gunner shouted. ”He's not anywhere on the tactical screen.”

”The s.h.i.+p could have gone down,” Kit suggested.

Mace's brow furrowed. ”I don't think so. Something's wrong about this.”

Overhead, missiles roared from the launchers and an explosion boomed and echoed from the surround of buildings. Black smoke and debris swept past the doorway, and the gunner whooped. ”We got him, sir! He's trailing fire, and surface-bound!”

Mace and Kit leaned out the doorway in time to see the gunboat tip to one side, then begin a rapid downward spiral. ”Stay with him, pilot!” Mace yelled.

Coiling into a city chasm east of the Senate, the craft clipped the edge of a skydock and started to come apart. The pilot of the guns.h.i.+p jinked to avoid airborne wreckage, but managed to remain in the wake of the doomed s.h.i.+p. The collision with the skydock had added an end-over-end flip to the gunboat's spiral, and now the craft was simply falling like a stone, straight down toward brightly illuminated Uscru Boulevard, which was blessedly free of traffic. Fires sputtering out, it hit the surface nose-first, cratering the street and shattering windows in buildings to all sides. Maintaining a safe distance from the crash site, the guns.h.i.+p pilot engaged the repulsorlift engines and hovered to a landing at the frayed edge of the impact crater.

Mace, Kit, and a dozen commandos jumped to the hot ground to secure the area. Crowds of startled onlookers formed almost immediately, and the sirens of emergency vehicles began to wail in the distance. Lightsabers ignited, Mace and Kit strode along the perimeter of the shallow well, alert to the slightest movements. The crumpled s.h.i.+p had been torn open from bow to stern along one side, and they had clear views into every cabin s.p.a.ce. Neither Grievous nor any of his elite guards were anywhere to be found. Only battle droids: slagged, mangled, twisted into peculiar shapes.

”I can accept that Grievous might have fallen from the mag-lev,” Mace said, ”but not that he would have included only two of his elite on a mission like this.”

Kit gazed at the wedge of night sky. ”There could be a second a.s.sault craft.”

”Pilot!” Mace called toward the guns.h.i.+p. ”Comlink the Supreme Chancellor's bunker, and arrange for us to be cleared through the s.h.i.+eld.”

Grievous and six MagnaGuards cut a b.l.o.o.d.y swath through the broad corridors that led ultimately to Palpatine's sanctuary. Republic soldiers - - cloned and otherwise - - fell to Grievous's lightsabers and the deadly staffs of his elite. Behind them, the firefight at the landing platform was raging. If nothing else, Grievous told himself, the clash would tie up two of the Jedi and dozens of troopers. Thus far, things were still on target - - if not proceeding according to plan.

At Palpatine's apartment, Grievous had managed to fool everyone by placing the gunboat on display, then clandestinely transferring himself and his combat droids into the Republic guns.h.i.+p Lord Tyra.n.u.s had promised would be waiting for them. He had been forced to improvise when Palpatine's protectors had opted to follow an alternate route to the bunker, and he had enjoyed chasing the mag-lev - - if not the brief duel on the roof of the train car. Tyra.n.u.s had warned him about Mace Windu's prowess with a blade, and now he understood. His literal ”misstep” had shamed him, and he was grateful that the two MagnaGuards that had fought at his side had not survived to bear witness to it.

Had he not managed at the last instant to grab hold of the mag-lev rail and be retrieved by the borrowed guns.h.i.+p, all the efforts the Banking Clan had undertaken to have him rebuilt would have been for nothing. But as it happened he was now about to give the Separatists more than their credits' worth. Perhaps a means to proclaim themselves victors of the war.

Grievous and five remaining droids completed their march to the bunker, deflecting the fire of three troopers guarding the entrance, then decapitating them. Hexagonal, the st.u.r.dy portal was impervious to blaster bolts, radiation, or electromagnetic pulse. Grievous was well aware that his lightsabers were capable of burning through the door.

While doing so would have heightened the drama of his entry, he did the next best thing. He used the code Tyra.n.u.s had provided.

”Under no circ.u.mstances are you to harm the Chancellor,” he exhorted his elite, while layers of the thick hatch were retracting. The astonishment registered by Palpatine and his quartet of Jedi Knights a.s.sured Grievous that he could not have made a more dramatic entry. A large desk dominated the circular room, and banks of communications consoles formed the circ.u.mference. Centered in the curved wall opposite the entrance was a second door.

Posing for effect in the polygonal opening, Grievous granted his opponents a moment to activate their lightsabers, force pikes, and other weapons. Also for effect, he deflected the initial flurry of blaster bolts with his clawed hands, before drawing two of his lightsabers. His brazenness summoned the Jedi to him in a flash, but he knew in the first moments of contest that he had nothing to worry about. Compared to Mace Windu, the four were mere novices, whose lightsaber techniques were some of the earliest Grievous had mastered.

Behind him rushed his elite droids, with a single purpose in mind: to tear into the guards and soldiers arrayed in a defensive semicircle in front of Palpatine. Tall, elegant looking, dramatic in their red robes and face-masked cowls, the Supreme Chancellor's protectors were well trained and fought with pa.s.sion. Their fists and feet were fast and powerful, and their force pikes sliced and jabbed through the near-impervious armor of the droids. But they were no real match for fearless war machines, programmed to kill by any means possible.

Perhaps if Palpatine had been intelligent enough to have surrounded himself with real Jedi - - Jedi of the caliber of Windu and the tentacle-headed Kit Fisto - - the engagement might have gone differently. Fencing with his four adversaries - - for that's all the fight amounted to - - Grievous saw six of the soldiers and three of the Red Guards jolted to spasming deaths by the MagnaGuards' double-tipped scepters. One of his elite had gone down, as well, but even though blinded and savagely slashed by the guards' staffs, the droid was continuing to fight.

And those elite still on their feet had altered their combat stances and offensive moves to adapt to the guards' defensive strategies. Grievous enjoyed going against so many Jedi simultaneously. If time wasn't of the essence, he might have protracted the fight. Feinting with the blade in his right hand, he removed the head of one Jedi with the blade in his left.

Distracted when his right foot inadvertently booted the rolling head of his comrade, the Ithorian dropped his guard momentarily, and received as penalty a thrust to the heart that dropped him to his knees before he pitched forward. Stepping back to absorb what had happened, the two remaining Jedi came at Grievous in concert, twirling and leaping about as if putting on some sort of crowd-pleasing martial arts demonstration. For practice, Grievous called two more blades from his belt, grasping them in his feet even as the antigrav repulsors built into his legs were lifting him from the floor, making him every bit as agile as the Force did the Jedi.

With his four blades to the Jedi's two, the duel had come full circle.

Whirling, he severed the blade hand of the Talz, then his opposing foot, then took his l ife, as well. Mists of blood formed in the air, swirled about by the ventilators.

The fourth he intimidated into retreat by wheeling all four blades, transforming himself into a veritable chopping machine. Fear blossomed in the Twi'lek Jedi's dark eyes as she backed away. He had her on the run, poor thing. But he awarded her some measure of dignity by allowing her to land glancing blows on his forearms and shoulders. The burns did little more than add a new odor to the room.

Emboldened, she pressed her attack, but was fast exhausting herself from the effort of trying to amputate one of his limbs - - to hurt him in some fas.h.i.+on.

And all for what? Grievous asked himself. The timid old man backed to the bunker's rear wall? The would-be champion of democracy, who had loosed his clone army against the merchants and builders and traders who opposed his rule - - his Republic? Best to put the Jedi out of her misery, Grievous thought.

Which he did with a single blade to the heart - - for it would have been cruel to do otherwise. Elsewhere his three surviving elites were doing well against five Red Guards. With time counting down, he waded into the thick of the action. Sensing him, one guard feinted a rotation to the left, then pivoted to the right with his force pike raised at face level.

A move Grievous could appreciate, although he was no longer in the s.p.a.ce through which the weapon sliced. Using two blades, he nipped the guard's cowled head from his torso.

The next he speared from behind in both kidneys. Opening the backs of another's thighs, he moved on, disemboweling the fourth. The last guard was already dead by the time he reached him. With a gesture, Grievous instructed his elite to secure the bunker's hexagonal door. Then, deactivating his lightsabers, he turned to Palpatine.

”Now, Chancellor,” he announced, ”you're coming with us.”

Palpatine neither cowered nor protested. He merely said: ”You will be a true loss to the forces you represent.” The remark took Grievous by surprise. Was this praise?

”Four Jedi Knights, all these soldiers and guards,” Palpatine went on, gesturing broadly. ”Why not wait until Shaak Ti and Sta.s.s Allie arrive.”

He c.o.c.ked his head to one side. ”I think I hear them coming. They are Masters, after all.”

Grievous didn't respond immediately. Was Palpatine trying to trick him?

”I might at any other time,” he said finally. ”But a s.h.i.+p awaits us that will take you from Coruscant - - and from your cherished Republic, as well.”

Palpatine mocked him with a sneer. ”Do you actually believe that this plan will succeed?”

Grievous returned the look. ”You're more defiant than I was led to believe, Chancellor. But, yes, the plan will succeed - - and to your deficit. I would gladly kill you now but for my orders.”

”So you take orders,” Palpatine said, moving with deliberate lethargy.

”Which of us, then, is the lesser?” Before Grievous could reply, he added: ”My death won't end this war, General.”

Grievous had wondered about that. Understandably, Lord Sidious had his plan, but did he actually believe that Palpatine's death would prompt the Jedi to lay down their lightsabers? Thrown into turmoil by the Chancellor's death, could the Senate order the Jedi to stand down? After years of warfare, would the Republic suddenly capitulate? The sound of rapid footfalls roused him, and he gestured to the bunker's rear door.

”Move,” he told Palpatine. The MagnaGuards stepped forward to make certain that Palpatine obeyed. Grievous hurried to the bunker's communication console. The stud switch and control pad for the emergency beacon were precisely where Tyra.n.u.s said they would be. After entering the code Tyra.n.u.s had provided, Grievous pressed his alloy hand to the switch. Palpatine watched him from the doorway.

”That will call many Jedi down on you, General - - some of whom you may regret having summoned.”

Grievous glared at him. ”Only if they fail to challenge me.”

51.

Word of the firefight on the landing platform reached Mace and Kit in the guns.h.i.+p while they were returning to Sah'c. It hadn't taken long to piece together what had happened: the Separatists had managed to hijack a Republic guns.h.i.+p and infiltrate the bunker complex s.h.i.+eld by timing their arrival to coincide with that of the s.h.i.+p carrying Palpatine, Shaak Ti, and the others.

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