Star Wars_ Labyrinth of Evil Part 22

Palpatine adopted a sympathetic expression.

"It's decided. I shall prevail upon the Council to order you back to the Core. No one needs further proof of how intrepid you are, or how committed you are to defeating our enemies."

In time you will learn to trust your feelings; then you will be invincible. Palpatine's advice to him, three years earlier.

"No," Anakin said in a rush. "No. Thank you, sir, but... I'm needed on Tythe. Dooku is there."

I'm sorry, Padme. I'm so, so sorry. I miss you so much - - "Yes," Palpatine was saying. "Dooku is the key to everything just now.

Despite all our victories in the inner systems... Do you suspect he and General Grievous may have some secret strategy?"

"If they do, Obi-Wan and I will defeat them before they can implement it.

"The Republic counts on it."

"Safeguard Coruscant, sir. Safeguard everyone there."

"I will, my boy. And rest a.s.sured that I will call on you if I need you."

Obi-Wan was in the MedStar's docking bay, waiting for the shuttle that would take him to the light cruiser Integrity. His arms were folded across his chest, and his small rucksack was sitting on the deck.

"Did you get through to him?" he asked as Anakin and R2-D2 approached.

"Well, I spoke to him."

"That's what I meant. And?"

Anakin averted his gaze.

"We both decided that my place is here, Master."

He sounded on the verge of tears. Obi-Wan merely nodded.

"For a moment I thought you were going to leave it to me to retake Tythe.

Anakin looked at him.

"I know better than that."

"You don't think I'm capable?" Obi-Wan asked around a forming grin.

"I know you'd be willing to die trying."

"There is no trying - - "

"Yes, there is," Anakin cut him off. "And you're living proof of it."

Obi-Wan smiled, then glanced out the hold's magcon transparency.

"The shuttle's coming."

Anakin's eyes tracked the approaching light.

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

He still wasn't smiling. Obi-Wan closed his hand around Anakin's upper right arm.

"Anakin, let's get Dooku and end this."

Anakin swallowed and nodded.

"If it's meant to be, Master."

36.

With a.s.sistance from the probe droids, the discolored panels at the end of the corridor unlocked and parted. Brown robe swirling behind him and lightsaber in hand, Mace barreled through the doorway, with Shaak Ti and the commandos close behind. By rote the troopers spread out, quickly and efficiently, but also unnecessarily.

"Surprise," Shaak Ti said flatly. "Another corridor."

"Another corridor closer," Mace said, determined to put a good spin on it.

The tunnel the team had followed from the hidden niche had led them through a maze of twists, turns, forks, steep climbs, and sudden drops.

For stretches the dark corridor had been wide enough to contain a speeder; then it grew so narrow that everyone had had to edge through.

For two kilometers, walls, ceiling, and floor were damp from water that had trickled down through Coruscant's layered surface. There, the prints of their prey had disappeared, but the probe droids had managed to pick up the trail farther along. Some of the prints were so recent and well preserved that Dyne had been able to calculate the human's slipper size.

Human.

That much the droids had determined from smudged fingerprints found on the speeder bike's steering grip and cus.h.i.+oned seat. The repulsorlift machine had also provided the droids with fibers, hairs, and other detritus. Slowly, a portrait of Dooku's unknown confederate was being compiled.

His eyes fixed on the display screen of his data processor, Captain Dyne ambled toward Mace and Shaak Ti.

"Master Jedi, our search is about to take us to a whole new level."

Mace looked around the tunnel for signs of a concealed turbolift or staircase.

"Up or down?" Shaak Ti asked, equally bewildered.

Dyne glanced up, blinking at her.

"I didn't mean 'new level' in the literal sense." He indicated the hovering probe droids, which were eager to have the team follow them east. "If the prints lead us far enough, we're going to end up in the subbas.e.m.e.nts of 500 Republica."

Mace tracked the droids as they moved deeper into the corridor. Five Hundred Republica: home to thousands of Coruscant's wealthiest Senators, celebrities, s.h.i.+pping magnates, and media tyc.o.o.ns. And one of them, very possibly a Sith Lord.

37.

There was little the Confederacy or the Republic could add to the damage LiMerge Power had inflicted on Tythe generations earlier. From deep s.p.a.ce, the surface - - glimpsed through a pall of ash-gray clouds - - looked as if it had been licked by a flare from its primary, or had had a brush with an enormous meteor.

But Tythe's scars owed to none of that. The planet had been spared everything but LiMerge itself, whose attempts to exploit Tythe's abundant deposits of natural plasma had invoked a cataclysm of global proportions.

The three drifting hulks that had been Republic cruisers might have been caught up in the cataclysm but were, in fact, casualties of the Separatist attack, which had come swiftly and without quarter. Nimbused by what vacuum had drawn from their interiors, the scorched and lanced trio lazed midway between opposing battle groups of Separatist and Republic vessels.

"Just once I wish we could repay Dooku and Grievous in kind," Anakin said over the tactical net, as Red Squadron dropped from the belly of the Integrity and rocketed toward Tythe.

"The fact that we don't is what keeps us centered in the Force," Obi-Wan said.

Anakin grunted.

"There'll come a time when they'll have to answer to us personally, and it will be the Force that guides our blades."

The two starfighters were flying abreast, almost wingtip-to-wingtip, astromech droids R2-D2 and R4-P17 in their respective sockets. Tythe's rubicund star was at their backs, and the s.h.i.+ps that made up the Separatist flotilla were strung menacingly above the planet's northern hemisphere.

With Tythe's brood of moons cl.u.s.tered in a two-hundred-degree arc, the Separatists had worked quickly to strew mines at several hypers.p.a.ce jump points, leaving the Republic s.h.i.+ps with only a narrow window in which to revert to reals.p.a.ce. Trade Federation, Techno Union, and Commerce Guild capital s.h.i.+ps occupied the apex of that window, deployed from north pole to equator above Tythe's bright side, with wings of droid fighters boiling into s.p.a.ce to the fore of the arrayed vessels. To minimize their profiles, the Republic s.h.i.+ps - - widely dispositioned, like a group of predatory fish - - had their triangular bows pointed toward the planet.

Red and other squadrons were streaking forward, but well short of engaging the vanguard Vultures and tri-fighters.

"Prepare to break hard to starboard," Anakin said over the net to the entire squadron. "Watch your countdown displays. On my mark, ten seconds to break..."

Obi-Wan kept his eyes on the counter at the bottom of the instrument panel's tactical display screen. At the zero mark, he yanked the yoke to one side and peeled away for clear s.p.a.ce. Behind the squadrons of V-wings and Jedi and ARC-170 starfighters, the Republic battle group broke to port, drenching the distant Separatist s.h.i.+ps with furious broadsides.

Blinding payloads of spun plasma hurtled through s.p.a.ce, detonating against the s.h.i.+elds of the enemy vessels, atomizing any droid fighters unlucky enough to have been caught in the way. The Separatist s.h.i.+ps absorbed the first hits without flinching. Vessels that sustained damage began to drift to the rear. Then the battle group responded with an equally ferocious barrage. Turbolasers silenced, the Republic s.h.i.+ps had already broken formation. Small suns flared in their midst and blue energy capered over their s.h.i.+elded hulls. No sooner did the barrage end than the starfighter squadrons regrouped, accelerating in an effort to reach the big enemy s.h.i.+ps before their cannons or s.h.i.+elds could repower.

The droid fighters swooped in to meet them halfway, and the tight formations observed by both sides dissolved into dozens of separate skirmishes. Those Republic starfighters that managed to steal through the chaos drew into tight cl.u.s.ters and continued their fiery advance. The rest became embroiled in swift attacks and evasive maneuvers. Local s.p.a.ce became a scrawl of scarlet lines and white spirals, punctuated by expanding explosions. Craft of both camps came apart, tumbling and spinning from the arena, wingless or in flames.

"They're being shot to pieces," Red Seven said over the net.

"They know their job," Anakin responded.

That job was to buy Red Squadron enough time to skirt the main action and race down Tythe's gravity well. A burst-transmission from survivors of the a.s.sault on the Republic's small base had confirmed Dooku's presence on the surface. But on the possibility that Tythe was a calculated diversion, Palpatine's naval command staff had agreed to committing only a single battle group from the Outer Rim fleet. In the view of those same naval commanders, invasion was senseless; a Base Delta Zero attack, justified. In the end it was decided that saturation bombardment, augmented by limited starfighter engagement, would send Dooku fleeing, in keeping with the Republic's strategy to force the Separatists deeper into the galaxy's spiral arms.

The Jedi had insisted nevertheless that an attempt be made to take Dooku alive. Obi-Wan and Anakin didn't need to be reminded of what had happened only weeks earlier on Cato Neimoidia when they had gone after Viceroy Gunray, but they were not about to forgo a chance to capture the Sith Lord.

Red Squadron's intended insertion point was twenty degrees south of Tythe's north pole, where the Separatist line was most dispersed. With droid fighters still pouring from the curving arms of Trade Federation Lucrehulks, and the recoiling barrels of Commerce Guild cannons filling local s.p.a.ce with storms of unleashed energy, Anakin led the starfighters on a weaving course through the heart of the enemy fleet.

"No signature for Grievous's cruiser," he said to Obi-Wan. "None of the s.h.i.+ps of the Separatist leaders.h.i.+p are here."

Obi-Wan glanced at the wire-frame display of his threat-a.s.sessment screen.

"All the more reason to believe that Dooku was ordered here by Sidious."

"Then where's everyone else?"

Obi-Wan was troubled by the thought, but didn't admit to it.

"Dooku will know," he started to say, when the starfighter's proximity scanners stammered a warning. "Techno Union stars.h.i.+p is veering to intercept us."

"Droid fighters are away and locking on," Red Three added.

Obi-Wan acknowledged.

"Angle s.h.i.+elds. We can outfly them."

"We'll end up too far off course," Anakin said.

"We're almost at the insertion point," Obi-Wan said.

"That stars.h.i.+p isn't just going to move aside. Form up on me. We'll show them how well we improvise."

There was no time to argue the point. Rolling to port, Obi-Wan fell in behind Anakin and fired his thrusters. Trailing behind, Red Squadron accelerated and banked for the narrow-waisted vessel.

"Ready proton torpedoes," Anakin said. "Sow them just above the fuel cells."

Point-defense turbolasers sought the starfighters as they fell on the s.h.i.+p, needling s.p.a.ce with outpourings of gaudy energy. Corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g missiles claimed Red Ten and Red Twelve, both of which disappeared in angry blossoms of fire. Sensing its sudden vulnerability, the huge vessel launched additional droid fighters. In the instant it lowered its s.h.i.+elds to route power to the sublight drives, Red Squadron attacked. Tight on Anakin, the ten remaining starfighters yawed for the waist of the s.h.i.+p, just forward of its cl.u.s.ter of cylindrical fuel cells. Dropping his craft to within one hundred meters of the pinched hull, Anakin began to hug the surface, surging onto a course that would whip Red Squadron through a tight circle around the forward ends of the fuel cells.

"Torpedoes away!" he said at the halfway mark.

Obi-Wan triggered the launchers and watched two torpedoes burn toward the target. Behind him, the rest of Red Squadron did the same. Hits began to score, fire and gas fountaining from breaches in the s.h.i.+p's dark hull.

The disabling run completed, Anakin boosted for Tythe.

"She's finished!"

In single file, Red Squadron followed. Almost instantly the punctured vessel exploded, stunning the fleeing starfighters with a wave of force.

Red Nine disappeared at the edge of the roiling detonation zone, and Red Seven wheeled off into the void with both wings sheared away. Obi-Wan regained control of his craft and once more attached himself to Anakin's six.

"Insertion point in fifteen seconds," Anakin updated. "Dial inertial compensators to maximum. All power to the ablative s.h.i.+elds. Deceleration burn on my mark..."

Obi-Wan clamped his hands on the violently shaking yoke as Red Squadron ripped into Tythe's plundered atmosphere. He thought his teeth might rattle out of his jaws and drop into his lap; eyes and ears might implode from the pressure; chest might cave in and crush his heart. Light flashed behind him; streaked past the c.o.c.kpit. Half a dozen droid fighters were chasing them down the well. Not having to concern themselves with endangering living systems, the Vultures should have been able to descend even more rapidly and more acutely than the starfighters. But as the heat of entry built in the s.h.i.+ps, survival protocols began to kick in, tasking the fighters to adjust the angle of their descents. For some of the droids it was already too late. Single contrails became particle showers as gravity summoned the broken fighters to their doom.