Star Wars - The Clone Wars 01

  "It's okay. Keep your head down. And his." Anakin gestured to the droid. "Artoo, get over there with her."

  "Sorry, Skyguy," Ahsoka called. "I ran instead of sticking with you."

  "Rotta's got to stay alive. You did right, Snips." Callous as it seemed, Anakin was also relieved that he didn't have an alert, panic-stricken Huttlet screaming blue murder as the laser rounds tore up the ground around him. "Getting shot when you don't have to isn't heroic, it's dumb."

  Rex, skidding to a crouch beside him, slammed his hand down on top of Anakin's raised head. Laser rounds punched a shower of brick dust and rubble out of the wall above them. "Yes, sir, it is. Keep your kriffing head down."

  "I can sense rounds coming, Rex."

  "Okay, then do it to humor me."

  It was gestures like that-real concern, however abruptly worded-that made Anakin feel he could tackle anything. He relished the heady comradeship born in desperate situations. Even cornered and outgunned like this, he knew someone was watching his back-not because he was the Chosen One or an officer, but because the soldier next to him was a comrade. And Anakin would do the same for him.

  It wasn't quite the serene acceptance that Kenobi had tried to instill in him, but Qui-Gon Jinn would have understood.

  "So what's it to be, sir?" Rex asked. His voice was almost drowned out by the hammer of laserfire. "Stall them until General Kenobi gets here, or slug it out?"

  "You know what they say about discretion and valor. Can we land a larty?" Sometimes Anakin longed for a helmet like his clone troopers', something that would give him hard data. Right then he needed to see real-time sensor information. "Can we get Ahsoka off this rock with the Huttlet?"

  "Negative, sir. Even if the larty isn't pounded to pieces when it sets down, not even Hawk could guarantee getting past the Sep ships in one piece, and he couldn't outrun them. We're stuck."

  "Okay, then we dig in. Fall back and hold the monastery. Just concentrate on keeping that Hutt alive."

  "Got it, sir." Rex fell silent for a moment, head lowered as if talking on another circuit. Anakin saw troopers dart back through the gates just before something smashed into the wooden supports and left them splintered and smoking. "They could turn this whole plateau to molten slag from the air if they wanted to."

  "Not if they want the Hutt alive."

  "Okay, a picture is forming now ..."

  "If Dooku set this up, then he needs to be the one to hand Rotta back to Jabba."

  "What I wouldn't give for air cover."

  "Twice in a row. Next time-we pack a squadron of Delta intercepters."

  Rex froze for a moment as if listening, then trained his rifle on the massive gates that had stood untouched for centuries.

  "Here they come," he said. "Coric, Hez-covering fire. A-tee, get to that gate and block those tinnies. Everyone else-inside, now!"

  "That means you, Ahsoka!" Anakin yelled. But when he glanced over his shoulder, she was already running for the doors, clutching the pack to her chest, with R2-D2 at her heels like a herding akk dog.

  "Steady, boys ...," Rex whispered. "Make every round count."

  The first of the battle droids pushed through the remains of the gate as the last AT-TE plodded toward them, laying down suppressing fire. The front rank was cut down into a flurry of metal shredded so thoroughly that for a moment it hung in the air like decoy chaff. Anakin crouched with his lightsaber held horizontally over his head in a backhand grip and backed toward the main monastery doors. Troopers ran past him, vanishing into the passage.

  "How many men still out there, Captain?"

  Rex paused to reload. The AT-TE pounded at a target beyond the gate that Anakin couldn't see. "Nobody outside the walls. Courtyard-the A-tee, Coric's squad, and Hez's squad."

  "Okay, pull them out now."

  "The A-tee can't walk through doors, sir. The crew will have to dismount."

  And they'd be cut down the moment they opened the hatches. Anakin struggled with that same sense of comradeship that had so buoyed him up minutes earlier.

  No. I will not slam the doors on my men.

  Officers were supposed to accept those losses. But Anakin wouldn't, not as long as he had a lightsaber in his hands. "Then I'll cover them."

  He didn't wait for Rex's answer. He sprang to his feet and raced forward, batting away droid blasterfire and trusting his Force senses to steer him between the strafing runs of the vulture fighters. He was almost at the feet of the AT-TE, wondering if Rex was giving them an order to dismount or if he'd have to hammer on the belly hatch, when a pack of spider droids scuttled into the courtyard and opened fire on the armored walker.

  The walker took multiple hits as Anakin lunged forward to get to the belly hatch. The next round caught it in one of the forward turrets, and the explosion threw Anakin flat. As he struggled to his feet, he could see the smoke and flames belching from two hatches. The walker tottered, then collapsed on its front legs before crashing onto its side.

  The belly hatch flew open. Anakin let instinct take over and he was instantly between the stricken AT-TE and the advancing droids, using the fallen vehicle for cover while he deflected small cannon rounds. From the corner of his eye, he saw four white shapes stagger clear, two of them dragging another man. Five. The turret gunner was vaporized. That left one of the crew. Flames now licked from the hatch.

  "Sir..."

  "Run. I'll hold them. Anyone alive inside?" Dumb question, but I need to know.

  "Negative, sir."

  "Get going. Count of three."

  Anakin bobbed up from behind the walker and was greeted by a hail of blasterfire.

  "Three!" he yelled, swinging at the bolts.

  The men sprinted for the door, plunging into the acrid black smoke that now filled the courtyard. It was some kind of cover for a few seconds. Anakin saw the droids, hampered by their own debris, and his eyes went to the blazing carcass of the AT-TE.

  Just do it.

  Adrenaline fueled him. He sent the wreckage skidding across the ground with a massive Force push. The kinetic force of the impact and the sheet of flame released when it slammed into the droid ranks had the effect of a bomb going off. Then another explosion-the walker's magazine, probably-sent a fireball soaring into the air.

  Anakin found he wanted to wade in and cut down whatever was still standing when the flame died, but common sense told him to get out. He ran full tilt for the monastery door, leaping over debris, masonry, and downed droids. The door, a solid portcullis, still hung open. Rex stood outside with his rifle aimed past Anakin. They'd never lock the door down before the droids reached them if they didn't start closing it right now.

  Anakin bellowed at the top of his voice. "Rex, get inside! Seal the door!"

  "With respect, sir, no."

  Rex let loose with a couple of anti-armor rounds that skimmed to Anakin's left. Their distinctive hussbhh-ump sound as they passed him was swallowed by a blast that kicked him forward.

  The sound of running metal feet hammered behind him. He didn't dare turn and look. "I said shut the kriffing door."

  Rex stood motionless for a moment; then-as if he'd been counting-he spun around and fired a round into the controls just inside the door. The heavy slab fell.

  It wasn't a controlled closure.

  Anakin focused on the gap. Nothing else existed.

  The last thing he saw before he dropped onto his right ankle to skid the last few meters was Rex ducking under the falling door almost alongside him. For a split second, Anakin looked up and was sure the door was going to slice clean through his skull.

  It crashed down behind him, close enough and hard enough to blow his hair over his eyes. The passage was plunged into darkness.

  Nothing moved; Anakin looked at his clenched fist and breathed a silent sigh of relief that he'd shut off the lightsaber in it instinctively. The silence was broken only by the clacking of armor plates in the darkness, and then the faint sounds of droids massing on the other side of the door.
Helmet spot lamps began lighting up like a cautious sunrise.

  So I got you into this. So I'll get you out. Anakin rose to his feet, gearing up to deploy the men for a last-ditch defensive action.

  "Sir," said one of the troopers, "I think I left my lunchbox outside. Want to go and collect it for me?"

  The remnant of Torrent Company burst out laughing, and so did Anakin. It was that moment of life-or-death desperation that flipped instantly into the black humor of sheer relief at finding your lungs were still working.

  "Rex, how many casualties?" Anakin asked. Ahead, he could see R2-D2's array of lights and panels winking in the gloom. "How many medics made it?"

  "Forty-two men remaining, sir, three medic-trained. Six walking wounded, one seriously injured and immobile."

  The last point was visibly obvious. Three troopers clustered around the injured AT-TE crewman, whose armor plates and helmet had been placed to one side while they tried to stabilize him with hemostats and a plasma line.

  Three-quarters of my men dead. For a Hutt. "Okay, you know what to do, Captain. We'll hole up in the least accessible cell we can find and if they get past you, then they'll still have to get past me and Ahsoka. And Artoo."

  "Understood, sir."

  There were some things clone troopers did that made Anakin realize that their relentless training from infancy was both like his and also utterly alien. At a single gesture from Rex, no audible command given, the troopers split into groups. One party began stripping anything that was removable from walls and alcoves, and stacking it against the door. Another group laid ordnance out on the floor and seemed to be assembling booby traps; three men ran down the passage and started setting up a first-aid position. One trooper pressed a thin wire into the gaps between the flagstones from one side of the passage to the other. Others-it took Anakin a few moments to work it out, but they were wiring themselves, packing ordnance into their backpacks.

  No droid was getting through except over their dead bodies, and maybe not even then. The message was clear.

  Anakin said nothing, but walked among the troopers, tapping his palm against the hand of every man he could reach. Some returned the gesture. Nothing needed saying. Rex was last; Anakin clapped his hand on the captain's backplate as he passed, and Rex just gave him a deceptively relaxed pat on the shoulder in return. Anakin jogged down the passage, collecting Ahsoka and R2-D2 on the way, and headed into the bowels of the monastery.

  It wasn't like this in the holovids. Anakin wasn't sure how he would ever describe it to Padme, or if he'd want to. I haven't even thought about her since the battle started. He felt briefly guilty about that. And, unbidden, another little voice nagged in his head: Yoda still won't give you any genuine praise if you save the day, you know . . .

  But that was the other Anakin's voice. Now the resentment against everyone who wouldn't let him have his head, the pendulum that swung between seeing Kenobi as the big brother he needed and the older sibling who just held him back, was silenced. Something in him switched on-his older, battle-hardened self.

  The innermost sanctum had been a Hutt throne room, judging by the overblown decor. What it had been before-Anakin couldn't guess.

  But now it was sanctuary. He shut the doors, and prepared for a siege.

  ELEVEN

  I haven't heard from Dooku. What's he doing with Jabba's son? I hear worrying rumors from my spies on Tatooine. But then there are always rumors.

  Ziro the Hutt, to a trusted aide

  * * *

  COURTYARD, TETH MONASTERY

  The ranks of battle droids parted, and Asajj Ventress walked slowly through their line to pause at the entrance to the monastery.

  White armor jutted from the rubble. The Jedi were running out of slaves to take the blaster bolts for them.

  "Skywalker!" Ventress suspected he wouldn't hear, but she wanted to say it anyway. "You've got nowhere to run. Just choose how fast you want to die."

  The battle droid commander trotted up to her. "They've barricaded themselves in. The door controls have been destroyed, and we heard activity behind it that suggest the Republic troops are reinforcing it."

  "Then get them out."

  "Permission to use explosives for rapid entry, ma'am."

  Ventress took a few steps back, hands on hips, twin lightsabers swinging from her belt. She didn't have forever, but neither did the Jedi. The baby slug-Hutts were hard to kill even if you tried, but this wasn't the time to find out that she was wrong.

  "Denied. Use cutters. Take no chances around the Huttlet-I don't want a scratch on him, do you hear? No explosives unless you confirm he's not in the blast area. Got it?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  She withdrew to a meter-high wall that had managed to survive the assault and leaped onto it to survey the progress. Droids ferried cutting equipment to the doors. When they began lasering the surface, smoke curled off the ancient panels-was it metal, composite, or some ultra-hard wood?-and the droids seemed agitated.

  Whatever it was made from, it was going to take some time to breach.

  "We could demand a surrender and offer them terms, ma'am," said the droid commander.

  "A waste of time," Ventress said. "They won't accept. This is the Grand Army-and the Five-oh-first, at that, Skywalker's own men. Every indication we have is that they're not just good little loyal clones, they're personally loyal to him. If he orders them to die for him, they will. Fools. I hope for their sakes that they realize what the Jedi are before they die in the proverbial ditch to save their miserable skins."

  "That's a negative, then, ma'am."

  Droids weren't capable of sarcasm. Ventress went back to watching the progress of the cutting tools. "Skywalker got a message out to the Republic. We'll have armed company sooner or later. Stay alert. I want vultures and spider droids patrolling the whole complex."

  "Copy that."

  Ventress didn't like heroism. She didn't disrespect heroes; she just knew that sacrifice was seldom rewarded, and always exploited. Narec's heroic efforts for the people of Rattatak hadn't meant a thing to Mace Windu. It was the Jedi Master who had abandoned Narec-her mentor, her only friend-to die.

  I wish you hadn't told me that, Dooku. But we all need a focus.

  Narec had been expendable, just like those clones behind that door. There was no point thinking too hard about their plight, though. It would weaken her resolve. There was only one outcome if you tried to help a mistreated akk dog; it would still rip out your well-meaning, sympathetic throat, because its master had made it dangerous and it knew no other response.

  She waited, locking and unlocking the hilts of her twin lightsabers.

  * * *

  ABANDONED THRONE ROOM, TETH MONASTERY

  R2-D2 always had the air of a droid with a mission, driven by something Anakin couldn't detect even when he overhauled him. As soon as R2-D2 oriented himself in the vault, he made a straight line for an alcove and plugged himself into a computer hub.

  The terminal flickered to life. R2-D2 whistled happily to himself as he sliced through security interfaces.

  "I refuse to believe a place like this hasn't got plenty of alternative exits," Anakin said, peering over the droid's dome to look at the screen. "If it didn't have any to start with, I bet the Hutt who moved in added a few. Right, Artoo?"

  R2-D2 bleeped in agreement. Ahsoka laid the backpack down on the floor and examined Rotta.

  "He's asleep," she said. "Or unconscious."

  Anakin checked the Huttlet, too. "He's breathing. That can only be good."

  "But he's burning up." Ahsoka had no fear of slime, it seemed. She put her hand flat on Rotta's head. "Kids can run fevers, have fits, and then be right as rain in an hour. Well, human children can. Can't they?"

  "Where'd you learn that?"

  "Same way you learned Huttese, probably. Jedi pick up stuff."

  Anakin wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or defensive, but he suspected the latter. "You're doing all anyone can, Snips. Don't be
at yourself up."

  "If anything happens to him, it'll be my fault."

  "No it won't. What are you trying to prove, anyway?"

  "That I'm not too young to be your Padawan."

  "Oh, that? Have I sent you back to the Temple yet? No. Have I stopped you fighting? No. So I must think you're old enough."

  Ahsoka didn't reply. But she managed a smile and went on fussing over Rotta. He really did look bad, even for a Hutt. His eyes weren't completely shut, even though he wasn't responding to anything, and Anakin could see a hint of the glistening membrane under his eyelids. The smell-he'd forgotten it. The last few hours had been so numbing that the stench had just ceased to register on him.

  "Got anything, Artoo?"

  The droid burbled to himself for a while, then let out a long, low whistle. He was slicing as fast as he could, he said.

  "Okay, I'll be patient." Anakin rummaged in the small satchel attached to his belt. "Snips, when did you last drink some fluid? Come to that, when did our fragrant little precious?" He held out his water flask. "Come on. Dehydration makes you confused, and then it kills you."

  He should have known better by now. Ahsoka reached out, took the flask with a grimly determined smile-she would not let the side down by showing discomfort-and then dribbled a little of the water into Rotta's mouth.

  There was no way Anakin was placing that flask near his own mouth again, if he could help it. Ahsoka moistened the baby's lips again. An oversized slimy tongue darted out and Rotta slurped.

  "Oh, that's good! Good boy! Come on, stinky, drink some more for Mama ..."

  "I don't think Hutts have mothers ..." Anakin watched, listening for trouble outside and trying to sense the degree of danger at the front door. There was something malevolent and dark lurking at a distance; it didn't feel like Dooku, though. Anakin would place it eventually. "If you're not careful, he'll bond with you."

  "Do they do that?" Ahsoka took a swig from the bottle without wiping the neck. Anakin's stomach rolled a little. Maybe if you snacked on rodents, Hutt dribble didn't seem so offensive. She wrinkled her nose, though. "I don't want to confuse the poor little guy."