Clone Wars Gambit: Siege Part 3

With a small effort Durd smothered his delight. Yes, yes, Barer, I have you now. Self-preservation was a great motivator.

"A mere technicality, Colonel. Argat is dead. I executed him myself, with Count Dooku's blessing. You are in charge now. Therefore you are responsible. "

"Dead?" Barev's throat convulsed in a swallow. "It was my understanding Argat had been recalled. "

Now he let himself smile. "Yes. That's right. Recalled to his deity-isn't that how you humans put it?"

Instead of answering, Barev turned and walked to the office window. Beyond it the secured compound enclosure was crowded with vigilantly patrolling battle droids.

14."Things could be worse, " said Barev, his hands loosely clasped behind his narrow back. "Doctor Fhernan is uncompromised. The Project is secure. As for the Jedi... well, really, General Durd-how much damage can two men do?"

He felt his lips thin in a snarl. "You are a fool if you underestimate them, Colonel. I want them found, is that clear? I cannot have my Project further disrupted. Count Dooku is waiting, and he is not a patient man. "

Colonel Barev's shoulders tightened. "You needn't concern yourself. General-or involve Count Dooku. The Jedi are on borrowed time.

"How do you intend to find them?"

Barev turned away from the window. "Scout droids are already deployed. As soon as the Jedi are sighted and their exact location is calibrated they will be overwhelmed by our forces. "

It seemed a sound enough plan. "Don't send humans against them, " Durd said, raising a warning finger. "Droids only. Jedi can't sense droids. You must exploit their weaknesses. They don't have many, so you can't afford to miss even one. "

Barev's mouth pinched at the corners. "General, I am an experienced soldier. Your advice is-appreciated-but unnecessary, I a.s.sure you. "

A strong sense of self-preservation and pride. This Barev would be easy to control. "You're offended, Colonel?" he said, feigning regret. "I'm sorry. That wasn't my intent. I'm merely trying to save you from Count Dooku's wrath. If he ordered me to kill you, I'd be obliged to obey. And after Colonel Argat... " He pretended to s.h.i.+ver. "Well. It would be a great pity. "

Eyes watchful and frightened. Colonel Barev snapped to attention. "Do not concern yourself about the Jedi, General Durd. They are dealt with. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Indeed there is. Colonel, " he said, lacing his fingers over his middle. "Thanks to..." He smiled. "...Colonel Argat, this facility is fatally compromised. For all I know the Jedi are lying low somewhere close by, intending to return and sabotage my work. And should they elude your forces they might well succeed. I want the stage-two facility prepared for immediate occupation. Doctor Fhernan and I must be able to move in there no later than midday tomorrow. "

"Midday, " said Barev, his voice tight. "Yes, General. "

"And Colonel?" he added, just as Barev reached the office door. "I meant it when I said I didn't want to be faced with the task of-recalling you. So for both our sakes I think that what has happened on Lanteeb should be kept quiet. We can contain this situation without distressing Count Dooku. Agreed?"

Colonel Barev stared at him in silence. Droid patrols challenging one another's ident.i.ties was the only sound for quite some time. And then the human nodded. "Agreed. "

As soon as he was alone again, Durd made his way upstairs to Dr. Fhernan's criminally generous accommodation. He nearly fell over six droid patrols on the way. Another ten droids guarded the corridor outside the doctor's room. Five more were stationed inside it.

The woman got off her chair and looked at him with dull hatred as he closed the door behind him. "I want to see the rest of my family and friends, " she said flatly. "I want to know they're all right. "

If she hated him it was nothing to what he felt for her. Striking his prisoner to her knees, Durd heard her sharp grunt of pain and felt warm pleasure blossom.

"Don't test me. Doctor, " he said, standing over her. "Not after what you've done. "

Red human blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Weak tears filled her eyes. "What happens now?"

He bared his gums at her. "Now we finish our Project. But not here. We leave this facility tomorrow. Pack up the lab. "

"Where are we going?"

"Why should you care?" he said, and kicked her in the ribs. Carefully. Bruises, not breakage. That was the goal. "All you need to know is that the Jedi will never find you. They'll be dead soon. And if you don't do exactly what I say, when I say it, they won't be the only ones. " He nodded at the holodisplay on the table, which was playing a continuous loop of her friend Samsam's execution. The droids guarding her were under orders to make sure she didn't touch it, or walk away, or close her eyes. "You understand?"

15.Her gaze s.h.i.+fted to the little figure in yellow as it plummeted into the lake. "Yes. "

Bending, he captured her ugly human face between his fingers and pressed and pressed until the bones beneath her flesh threatened to give way. "Good. "

Struck speechless, Bail Organa stared at the man he'd called his friend for nearly fifteen years.

I must he hearing things. He cannot have said what I think he just said. Because Tryn Netzl might be the walking, talking embodiment of an absentminded professor, but he's not an idiot.

"I'm sorry, " he said at last. "You've done what?"

Swathed throat to mid-thigh in his stained and patched lucky blue lab coat, his pale hair pulled back from his predatory face in a braid, Tryn didn't look up from carefully tipping a small capful of dark blue crystals into a gla.s.s beaker.

"Hmm? Oh. I've successfully created a sample of the bioweapon. " He nodded at the lab's gla.s.s-fronted safe hutch, a stone's throw distant at the other end of his bench. "It's in there. "

And indeed, through the hutch's security-s.h.i.+elded transparisteel door Bail could see a lidded container three-quarters full of some greenish, noxious-looking substance. Before he could stop himself he'd taken an alarmed sideways step.

"Tryn..."

Surprised, Tryn finally looked at him. "What?"

Am I slipping? Did I not make myself clear? "You created the filthy stuff? I thought you were supposed to be finding a way to kill it!"

Tryn shrugged. "Can't kill what I don't have, Bail. "

Funny. He'd forgotten how pragmatically indifferent his friend could be. He's a scientist, remember? He wors.h.i.+ps at the altar of objectivity. "I know that, but..."

"But what? Bail... " Tryn put down the gla.s.s beaker. "Look. How's this for an idea? I'll refrain from telling you how to get legislation pa.s.sed in the Senate and you can hold off telling me how to he a biochemist. Sound fair?"

Nothing about this current crisis was fair. p.r.i.c.kling with unease, Bail started to pace around the impressive Jedi Temple laboratory Yoda had offered to his friend for as long as it was needed.

"Shelve the flippancy, Doctor Netzl, " he snapped. "I'm not in the mood. I've just spent half a day cooped up with the most self-interested, self-righteous, self-everythinged senators it has ever been my misfortune to know. I'm hungry, I'm tired, and if I have to hear one more piece of bad news I'm going to..."

"This isn't bad news. Bail, " said Tryn, watching him closely. "It's good news. The toxin's formula is proven. I've got a solid place to start from now. "

"Proven?" Halting on the far side of the lab, Bail felt his belly turn over in a queasy roll. "You mean you've tested it? Here?" What was he thinking? "Tryn, we already know the filthy stuff works!"

"No, we were told it works. Now we have firsthand proof. There's a difference. "

"You tested it. " Pacing again, he fought the furious urge to smash something. "Tryn, this is the Jedi Temple. Up there..." He jabbed a pointed finger at the ceiling. "-is the Jedi Council. You cannot endanger them by..."

"Hey!" Now it was Tryn's turn to snap with temper. "Don't tell me what I can and can't do in my own lab. This place is the best facility I've ever worked in. Trust me, I'm the only sentient at risk. "

Which was simply one more reason for him to feel sick. "I don't care how secure this lab is, what you're doing is too dangerous. "

Tryn stared at him. "That's not your call. "

16."Excuse me, but I think it is. As head of the Republic's Security Committee I..."

"Bail, all due respect, but you don't know what you're talking about, " Tryn said. "I did what I had to do, with Master Yoda's full knowledge and approval. And now that I know this bioweapon inside out I can get to work on creating an antidote. Something broad enough to cross the species barrier and bind up the active toxins while they're still in a victim's bloodstream. "

That brought Bail up short. "You mean that?" he said, his heart pounding his ribs. "You can really do this?"

"Well-I'm not making any promises, " Tryn said, pulling a face. "But I wouldn't have left my students halfway through the semester if I didn't think I could help. "

"Of course you wouldn't. I'm not suggesting-you're brilliant, I didn't mean to..." Tangled, Bail stopped talking and started pacing again. A tension headache was brewing behind his tired eyes. "Sorry. Like I said, it's been a long day and it's not over yet. "

Tryn came around to the front of his bench and hitched himself onto it. His bright orange trousers rode up his skinny ankles, revealing mismatched socks of fluorescent green and pink. His lab clogs were crimson. So were his eyes. Well. Today they were crimson.

Yesterday they'd been violet. Tomorrow, who knew? Tryn was a man of changeable disposition.

"Bail?" he said, gentle now, his temper abandoned. "I've never heard you sound this scared. What aren't you telling me? What's happened now?"

Nothing had happened, and that was the problem. There'd been no word from Obi-Wan or Anakin since they alerted Yoda that they were going back to Lok Durd's compound. And in this situation no news was not good news. No news was very bad.

"You don't have to say, " Tryn added. "But as it stands, I'm the next best thing you've got to a captive audience. "

Bail hesitated. Tryn Netzl had been Witness at his marriage. Had put him and Breha with the best fertility doctor in the Republic and matched him drink for drink after every one of Breha's five miscarriages. Tryn had let him weep without saying a word when their last hope for a child was exhausted. There was nothing he could not entrust to this man.

But I need him focused. So pull yourself together, Organa. If he's worried about you, he can't do his fob. And if he can't do his job...

"You're right, I am worried about something, " he said, because he would never lie to Tryn. "But it'll keep. What can you tell me about this bioweapon?"

Tryn frowned. "It makes me ashamed I was ever proud to call Bant'ena Fhernan a colleague. "

There was a second bench in the lab, piled high with flimsies and hard-copy biochemistry texts and at least a score of datareaders. Bail leaned one hip against it and folded his arms.

"She's under duress, Tryn. "

"I don't care. What she's created is a perversion of science. She's betrayed herself and her calling. "

"There are those who say every weapon created is a perversion of science, " he pointed out. "And that using those weapons is a betrayal of life. I seem to recall you making a few heated points in favor of that argument, once or twice. "

Tryn scowled. "I don't like war. I don't like killing. "

"I don't either, " he said, after a moment. "But since we last sat down face-to-face, my friend, I've killed. It was in self-defense, and in defense of others, but even so... " Remembering the desperate battle on that secret s.p.a.ce station, a confrontation he often relived in his dreams. Bail shook his head. "I can't even tell you how many. There wasn't time to stop and count. And while I'm coming clean, I suppose I should also confess that I voted for the creation of the Republic's clone army-now, that's science taken to extraordinary lengths-and two days ago I approved the diversion of funds from a refugee crisis program to the discretionary account used to make up the shortfall in payments for clone replacements. "

"I don't-I can't see..." Tryn wrapped his long braid around his fingers and pulled hard, a familiar nervous habit. "Stung, Bail. Why would you tell me that?"

17."I guess because... " He sighed. "How do we know what we'd do if we were forced to watch someone we loved die because we didn't do as we were told?"

Tryn stared at the floor, uncomfortable. "I'd like to think I'd have the guts to stay strong, no matter the pressure-or the punishment. "

"Yes, well, we'd all like to think that, " he said drily. "But in these past months I've learned a lot of things, Tryn. Most of them unpleasant. "

"Yeah, I'm getting that, " Tryn said, his dark red eyes somber. He looked around the magnificently equipped lab. "I mean, you and the Jedi? Brand-new best friends? Have to tell you, Bail, I didn't see that coming. "

"Neither did I, " he admitted. "Oh, and I was right, by the way. The Jedi aren't always comfortable but you can trust them. And I promise you that without them our Republic would be in tatters by now. As it is, even with them..." Abruptly overwhelmed, Bail dragged a hand down his face. "Things are bad, Tryn. With no way of knowing where or when the Seps will strike, if we don't have a reliable antidote to this bioweapon then they'll win. And that means the end of the Republic. So I need you to make this happen. "

"No, Bail!" Tryn protested. "I told you, I can't promise you anything. I might despise Bant'ena Fhernan for a gutless coward but she's still a genius. This-this thing she's invented-this monstrosity of a weapon..."

His friend's abrupt distress was worrying. "Tryn, you can do this. You're the best biochemist I know. "

Tryn glowered at him. "You're a nidziga, Organa. I'm the only biochemist you know. "

Bail tried to smile but failed, abysmally. "Tryn. Seriously. Whatever you need, no matter what it costs. Tell me and I'll get it for you.

No questions asked. "

"You've changed, " Tryn said after a taut silence. "I can see it now. "

As if I didn't know that. "Not for the worse, I hope. "

Tryn bit the end of his braid: another old, familiar habit. The one he turned to when he was particularly upset. "I hope so, too. "

"I have to go, " Bail said, glancing at his wrist chrono. "There's a late Senate session tonight that I need to prepare for. "

"Look, " Tryn said, hunched inside his lucky blue lab coat. "I'll do my best for you, Bail. If the work needs fresh blood, I'll even open my own veins. But you need to tell the little green guy and whoever else you answer to-this might not happen. You have to understand that. You have to prepare. "

For what? Annihilation? Sickened, Bail nodded. "I will. But I believe in you, Tryn. I believe you can make it happen. "

Tryn rapped his knuckles on the bench once, and got back to work.

CHAPTER THREE.

Despite the late hour and his continuing obligations, Bail didn't leave the Temple for the Senate straightaway. Instead he made the long and convoluted journey from its lowest levels up to the giddy heights of the Jedi Council Chamber, where Yoda had arranged to meet with him.

"I take it there's still no word, Master?"

Standing before the panoramic window, watching a distant, impressive Republic Cruiser heading for the GAR docks, Yoda shook his head. "Correct you are, Senator. "

"And what does that mean?"

Yoda glanced over his shoulder. "Delayed they have been. Dead they are not. "

Not dead... not dead... Bail swallowed. "You're sure?"

18."Clouded is the Force with dark side menace, but know that much I do. Obi-Wan and Anakin live. "