Part 29 (2/2)

Anakin started to speak, then cut himself off and began again. ”You should keep me fighting. You shouldn't give me time to think.”

Obi-Wan rested his hands on Anakin's shoulders. ”Calm yourself.”

Anakin shrugged him off, a new fire in his eyes. ”You're my best friend.

Tell me what I should do. Forget for a moment that you're wearing the robes of a Jedi and tell me what I should do!”

Stung by the gravity in Anakin's voice, Obi-Wan fell silent for a moment, then said: ”The Force is our ally, Anakin. When we're mindful of the Force, our actions are in accord with the will of the Force. Tythe wasn't a wrong choice. It's simply that we're ignorant of its import in the greater scheme.”

Anakin lowered his head in sadness. ”You're right, Master. My mind isn't as fast as my lightsaber.” He stared at his artificial limb. ”My heart isn't as impervious to pain as my right hand.”

Obi-Wan felt as if someone had knotted his insides. He had failed his apprentice and closest friend. Anakin was suffering, and the only balm he offered were Jedi plat.i.tudes. His body heaved a stuttering breath. He had his mouth open to speak when the crew chief interrupted.

”General Skywalker, something has your astromech very fl.u.s.tered.”

Obi-Wan and Anakin swung to Anakin's starfighter.

”Artoo?” Anakin said in a concerned tone. The astromech tooted, shrilled, chittered.

”Does he understand droid?” the crew chief asked Obi-Wan as Anakin hurried past him.

”That droid,” Obi-Wan said. Anakin began to scale the c.o.c.kpit ladder.

”What is it, Artoo? What's wrong?”

The droid whistled and zithered. Throwing himself into open c.o.c.kpit, Anakin toggled switches. Obi-Wan had just reached the base of the ladder when he heard Palpatine's voice issuing through the c.o.c.kpit annunciators.

”Anakin, if you are receiving this message, then I have urgent need of your help...”

The crew chief's comlink toned. Obi-Wan glanced from the crew chief to Anakin and back again. ”What is it?” he asked in a rush.

”Tight-beam comm from Coruscant,” the crew said. He listened for another moment, then added, in obvious disbelief: ”Sir, the Separatists have invaded!”

Obi-Wan gaped at him. Above him, Anakin lifted his face to the high ceiling and let out a sustained snarl. Glaring down at Obi-Wan, he said: ”Why does fate target the people who are most important to me?”

”Crew chief!” Anakin cut him off. ”Refuel and rearm our starfighters at once!”

53.

Grievous had a good lead on them. Seated in the copilot's seat of a Republic cruiser, Mace accepted that the shuttle couldn't be intercepted before it left Coruscant's envelope. And perhaps not before it was in the protective embrace of the Separatist fleet. Regardless, the hot scrambled starfighters were giving all they had to the chase. Having access to high-clearance codes, Grievous could have plotted a proprietary launch vector for the shuttle. But by doing so he would have put the shuttle at risk of arrest by disabling fire or tractor beam. Instead, he had elected to avail himself of the protection afforded by stars.h.i.+p traffic in one of the outbound autonavigation trunks. Police, governmental, and emergency vessels were permitted to use free-travel lanes that paralleled the trunks, but even with that advantage, Mace and Kit's cruiser was still several kilometers behind the rising shuttle. Below, vast areas of darkness stained the usual circuit board perfection of night-side Coruscant. That the vessels surrounding it were compelled by orbital tractor beam arrays to adhere to standard launch velocities benefited the shuttle. The tri-wing benefited even more from the fact that Grievous was almost as adept at handling a s.h.i.+p as he was a lightsaber. Each time flights of starfighters attempted to hem him in, Grievous would lead them on spiraling chases through the thick traffic, inserting the shuttle between s.h.i.+ps, initiating collisions, resorting to firing the shuttle's meager weapons when necessary. Recalled from the battle outside the well, Agen Kolar, Saesee Tiin, and Pablo-Jill had come closest to incapacitating the shuttle, but, twice now, Grievous had managed to evade them by bringing the shuttle's laser cannons to bear on cargo pods and strewing local s.p.a.ce with debris. Even when the three Jedi had gotten near enough to launch disabling runs, the shuttle's s.h.i.+elding and armor had absorbed the bursts. With the pursuit closing rapidly on the rim of the gravity well, the Jedi pilots were executing maneuvers they had been reluctant to employ deeper in the atmosphere.

Weaving among the vessels, the starfighters fired on the shuttle at every opportunity, scorching its wings and tail, as the s.h.i.+eld generator became overtaxed. Grievous was unable to match them maneuver for maneuver, but his response to the attacks was to target any innocent in his sights, ultimately forcing the Jedi to fall back once again. Punching through Coruscant's sheath of gases, the autonavigation trunk branched like the crown of a shade tree. Thrusters flared as endangered s.h.i.+ps slued and rolled onto vectors meant to distance them from the fray. With local s.p.a.ce crosshatched with plasma trails and brilliant with explosions, escape was scarcely an option.

Even so, many s.h.i.+ps were attempting to follow the curve of the gravity well toward Coruscant's bright side, while others veered for the safety of Coruscant's moons, and still others sped for the nearest jump points.

Except for the shuttle, which accelerated straight for Grievous 's flags.h.i.+p. Calling full power from the cruiser, Kit Fisto joined the three Jedi starfighters in a flat-out race for the shuttle. By then, too, several Republic frigates and corvettes were diverting from the princ.i.p.al battle to a.s.sist in the interception.

Despite his earlier misgivings, Mace thought for a moment that they might succeed. Then he watched in disquiet as five hundred droid fighters - - gus.h.i.+ng from the great curving arms of a Trade Federation battles.h.i.+p - - swarmed forward to safeguard the shuttle in its flight to freedom.

Three among a crowd several hundred strong standing in the Nicandra Plaza, Padme, Bail, and Mon Mothma watched the late-breaking news report on the Emba.s.sy Mall's HoloNet monitor. When word of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's capture had first been rumored, then verified, all anyone in the crowd could ask was, How, in three short years, had it come to this?

The armies of chaos were parked in stationary orbit above Coruscant, and the beloved leader of the Galactic Republic seized. For so many, what had been an abstraction was stark reality, playing out overhead, for all of Coruscant and half the galaxy to watch. Now that time had pa.s.sed, however, Padme had begun to notice a change in the crowd. Though a climactic battle was raging as near as the night sky's frightening fireworks, most Coruscanti preferred to keep their gaze fixed on the real-time images of battle. That way, it was almost like watching an exciting HoloNet drama. Would the starfighters be able to overtake the shuttle in which Palpatine was being held captive by a cyborg monster?

Might the shuttle or the flags.h.i.+p that was its destination explode? What would become of the Republic should the Supreme Chancellor be killed, or Coruscant occupied by tens of thousands of battle droids? Would the Jedi and their clone army fly to the rescue? When Padme could take no more of the 3-D images or the remarks of the audience, she wended her way to the perimeter of the crowd to take hold of a handrail at the plaza's edge, and to lift her eyes to the strobing sky. Anakin, she said to herself, as if she could reach him with a thought.

Anakin.

Tears coursed down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. Her sadness was personal now, not for Palpatine, though his abduction hollowed her. She wept for a future she and Anakin might have had. For the family they might have been. More than ever she wished that she hadn't been a featured player in the events that had shaped the war, but merely one of the crowd. Come home to me before it's too late. Her gaze lowered, she caught sight of C-3PO, parting company with a silver protocol droid that disappeared into the crowd.

”What was that about, Threepio?” she asked as he approached. ”A most curious encounter, Mistress,” C-3PO said. ”I think that s.h.i.+ny droid fancies himself something of a seer.”

Padme looked at him askance. ”In what way, Threepio?”

”In essence, he told me to flee while it was still possible. He said that dark times are coming, and that the line that separates good and bad will become blurred. That what seems good now will prove evil; and that what seems evil, will prove good.”

Sensing there was more, Padme waited. C-3PO's photoreceptors locked on Padme. ”He said further that I should accept a memory wipe if it is ever offered to me, because the only alternative will be to live in fear and confusion for the rest of my days.”

54.

Slapped by fire, the tri-winged shuttle fairly crawled toward the docking bay of the Invisible Hand. Grievous held to his treacherous course, even while contingency plans formed in his mind. Wings of Trade Federation droid fighters had burned a path for the shuttle through areas of intense combat, but the vulnerable little s.h.i.+p was not yet in the clear. Many of Grievous's impa.s.sioned pursuers were so busy defending themselves that they no longer represented a threat, but three starfighters had managed to stay with the shuttle, and were continuing to harry it with surgical fire. The spiraling chase up the gravity well and the twisting transit to the cruiser had left the s.h.i.+p battered. The sublight engine was whining in protest, the ray s.h.i.+eld dangerously diminished, the minimal weapons depleted. Uncertain as to where Grievous had stashed Palpatine, the pilots of the trio of starfighters were being careful with their bolts, but every hit was inflicting further damage to the stabilizers and s.h.i.+eld generator.

Plasma fire from the Invisible Hand's point-defense weapons had only prompted them to close ranks with the shuttle, using it in the same way Grievous was using Palpatine - - as a kind of screen. The mechanical voice of a control droid aboard the cruiser issued from the shuttle's c.o.c.kpit speakers.

”General, do you wish us to deploy tri-fighters against the starfighters?

”Negative,” Grievous said. ”Save them for when we actually need them.

Continue cannon fire.”

”General, our computations suggest that continued close-range fire could subject the shuttle to fratricide.”

Grievous didn't doubt it. As it was, the hull was blistering with each salvo from the cruiser. ”Ready the forward tractor beam,” he said after a moment. ”Fire a disabling burst at all four of us. Then utilize the beam to ensnare what remains of the shuttle and draw it into the docking bay - - even if that means dragging a starfighter in, as well. Have battle droids standing by.”

”Yes, General.”

Grievous swiveled his seat toward Palpatine, who was strapped into an acceleration couch between two MagnaGuards.

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