Rex jerked his eyes from hers. Part of him was playing his own game to buy some time, but part of him was disturbed by the way her words somehow struck an unwelcome chord.
Jedi can do this. Seen it done. Mind influence. Only works on the weak-minded, they say. Well, I ain't, and I'm ready for you, sister...
"Rex, Captain, Five-oh-first Legion, number CC-seven-five-six-seven."
Ventress leaned in. Her nose was a hand's breadth from his. His throat felt bruised and raw, but on the inside rather than the outside.
"You will contact Skywalker now. You will tell him you've held the droids. You will ask for his position."
Rex could do that slight defocus and clear his mind. It was just a basic concentration technique for getting him through a tough time, but it convinced Ventress well enough that he was a naive, trusting, suggestible pawn.
And, of course, she didn't know how he normally spoke to his general.
She slackened her grip on him, and he tapped the comlink control on his forearm plate, still apparently in that calm, unresisting state.
"Anakin, come in," he said, putting on his best I'm-not-Rex-at-all voice. "We've held the droids, sir. What is your location?"
THIRTEEN
Republic reinforcements are going to be in Teth orbit shortly, ma'am.
We must make our move.
Battle droid commander, to Asajj Ventress, on detecting a Republic cruiser dropping out of hyperspace
* * *
ABANDONED THRONE ROOM
Anakin tightened the straps on Ahsoka's backpack. Rotta squealed in protest, fixing Anakin with those unsettling yellow eyes that he preferred to avoid.
"Yes, I know it's tight, but you're going to slip out if we have to do any jumping around, aren't you?" Anakin said. "You're a slippery customer. And you'll be even more slimy and slippery when you grow up."
"He doesn't understand," Ahsoka said. "All he knows is that you're being mean to him."
"Yeah." Compassion in a Jedi was essential, but Ahsoka could take it too far. "Now let's get moving. Those droids will be all over us before we know it."
R2-D2 headed for the exit. Ahsoka trotted after him, Anakin defending the rear.
"Don't you remember what it was like to be a kid?"
If only you knew, Snips. "A pain in the neck, you mean?"
"No, being treated as if you're inconvenient, deaf, and stupid by adults who ought to know better."
Ouch. That was a real smack around the head, and Anakin couldn't actually argue with it. It pretty well described his relationship with the Jedi Council. He didn't have a smart answer to fire back, and found himself interrupted by wondering how long it was going to be before this numbness wore off and reality slammed him against the wall, screaming: Why didn't you save Rex? Why can't you save anyone who matters? What's the point of being the Chosen One if you can't save people you care about?
He was in the doorway, checking down the passage behind them, when his comlink crackled.
"Anakin, come in."
Ahsoka stopped dead. "Who's that?"
"Anakin, come in."
Anakin knew the voice, but not the strangely flat, mild tone. It was all he could do not to respond. Rex: Rex is still alive, thank the Force. Anakin wanted to pour out his relief and ask how the rest of the men had fared, and just tell his captain that he was glad he was okay. But something was wrong.
Rex would never call him Anakin.
"We've held the droids, sir."
No, you haven't. I know it. I feel it. I heard it.
"What is your location?"
Ahsoka walked back to Anakin. He hadn't pressed the transmit key, but he put his finger to his lips. Not a word. He strained to hear clues in the background. Rex was clearly not alone, and he was under duress. He was warning them. Anakin wanted badly to tell him he'd understood, and to hang on because he'd rescue him, but he didn't dare, and he hoped Rex knew him well enough to realize that he'd never just ignore him and save his own skin. Anakin closed the link.
"Skyguy, what's going on? That was Rex. He said..."
"I know what he said." Anakin turned her by her shoulder and pushed her gently on her way. "He was warning me that we've got trouble."
"Was that some code? Look, he's alive, and..."
"Rex would never call me Anakin, he never talks like a dumb droid, and he knows perfectly well that I can tell from disturbances in the Force that our guys were slaughtered up there." Anakin didn't have time for this. "He's being held, and I bet I know who's trying to use him as bait."
"Who?"
It had to be one of Dooku's minions, of course. And it wasn't always possible to identify other Force-users simply from the impression they left in the Force, only that they were around, but some-some just announced who they were so clearly that they might as well have stood there in the flesh.
Asajj Ventress.
Anakin knew that raging pain, that absolutely obsessive hatred, a focus so harsh and clean in its dark way that it was like looking into the heart of a diamond.
"Dooku's assassin," he said. "Ventress. I bet she thought she could mind-influence Rex to trap us. Fat chance. You have to have a weak-minded subject, or do it very subtly. Maybe she's getting sloppy in her desperation."
"What do you think she wants?"
Anakin was certain where this was heading now. "She's here to kill the Hutt and blame it on us."
"And kill us, too ..."
Yes, that was a given. "We're here solely to get that Huttlet home. Everything else, Snips, will just be detail in the final report."
As they followed R2-D2's unerring path down the twisting passages that snaked close to the foundations of monastery, Anakin was amending his plan to take account of the changing situation. Plans were just a hope, something to start from and try to follow Until the enemy came along, poured reality on it, and threw the whole thing in the trash.
Call in a larty.
Transfer the Hutt.
Send the larty back to the ship and tell them to stand by with medics.
Go back for Rex. Call for evac.
Extract Rex and other survivors.
Once Rotta was safely on board that LAAT/i gunship, the primary mission would be out of his hands, and he would then have the time to concentrate on his troops.
Should I send Ahsoka back with the Hutt? She'd be safer. Come to that, should I stay with the Hutt at all times, and leave Rex?
No, that wasn't an option. And even if Anakin boarded the LAAT/i with the Hutt, the gunship was as prey to getting shot down as it would be if he hadn't been there. It was down to luck and good piloting in the end.
Wow, these tunnels stink worse than that Huttlet. They must have broken sewage pipes down here.
R2-D2 whistled in his told-you-so way. There was a door at the end of the passage, exactly as on the holoplans. It opened-a little stiffly, but it opened-and an inrush of hot, damp air hit Anakin in the face like a wet washcloth. They were standing on a platform jutting out over a sheer drop. The trees beneath were still hazy with mist. Ahsoka inhaled deeply, and even the sickly Rotta whined with apparent relief at relatively fresh air. As Anakin assessed the approach to the platform, he saw huge insects soaring on thermals, glittering like gems, and they had to have wingspan of three meters or more to be visible from here. He'd warn the gunship about those. They'd make a mess of a drive intake: FOD, they called it, foreign object damage.
Anakin raised his comlink to his mouth. "Skywalker to 501st air support, anyone receiving? I say again, Skywalker here, we require evac and a medic..."
"Skywalker, this is larty three-niner receiving, please give your position."
"Transmitting coordinates now."
"Copy that, sir. On my way. Estimate six standard minutes. Injury?"
"Negative, but the hostage is sick and will require treatment. Better get someone looking through the species pharma database. And look out for FOD-three-meter flying insects."
"Already fried a few of them in t
he drives, sir-they're attracted by the noise and seem to think we're a prospective mate. We've lowered the intake filters to stop them fouling the propulsion units completely."
"Romance really is dead, then. Standing by, three-niner."
Anakin didn't know where the gunship had been standing off, or even if it was the last one left. He wondered what it was like for those pilots to have to listen to the comm chatter, and know they had to wait rather than fly in and extract comrades in trouble.
All for a Hutt.
And they never said a word about how they felt.
"Give me the backpack," he said. "Have a rest while you can. Stay close to the wall-when the larty lands, it kicks up a lot of grit. And we don't know who else is airborne."
Rotta seemed to be twice the weight he was when Anakin had first picked him up. He was still looking rough, even by Hutt standards. Once Anakin slung the pack on his back, though, he didn't have to look at the thing.
And he turned into the wind to take the smell of Hutt away. The stench still took him back to a time and a place he preferred to forget, when he and his mother were the property of a Hutt called Gardulla. They were used to settle a gambling debt, like a table or any other object that didn't matter or have an opinion.
You're not worth Rex's life, slugs. None of you.
Ahsoka, with her hunter's hearing, jerked her head up even before Anakin detected anything. As he concentrated, he heard the distinctive sound of a LAAT/i's drives. He knew now why it had such a galvanizing effect on clone troopers waiting for extraction. Just hearing it, knowing that solid help was close at hand, made Anakin's spirits soar. The gunship appeared suddenly from beneath the platform level and swung its tail one-eighty degrees to set down with its port side hatch open. Its downdraft kicked grit into Anakin's face even this far back. He didn't care. It was the finest sight he'd seen in forever, even covered in bug-spatter and fragments of giant insect wings. Ahsoka shielded her face with one hand.
"Sir!" The winchman leaned out, one hand extended, the other hanging on to his safety line. "Let's get going. We've got Sep craft all over the place."
"Just take the Hutt." Anakin started to slide the pack off his back, feeling stupid for not doing that first so that he had the backpack ready to hand over as soon as the hatch opened. "We're going back for Captain Rex and the others."
The winchman didn't say a word and Anakin couldn't see his expression behind the visor.
Run. That was all he had to do, run the few meters across the landing platform, hand over the Hutt, and run back while the LAAT/i got out as fast as it could.
He saw the winchman whip around to look back into the cabin; he heard the sensors sounding a cockpit alarm.
He was ten strides out from the wall when the shadow fell across the platform, dark and fast, with the whining note of a diving fighter.
The LAAT/i exploded in a ball of flame.
Metal and duraplast fragments flew out from the blast. Anakin was knocked flat and the last he saw of the gunship was a burning, twisted frame teetering on the edge of the platform before plunging into the jungle below. Seconds. Just seconds separated elation from total despair. Black smoke rose in a column high into the air.
"Master!" Ahsoka ran to him. The pack on his back made him struggle to right himself. "Master..."
"The Hutt's okay," he heard himself saying. "Get back. Get under cover."
As he got to his feet, the shadow fell again. It wasn't smoke. It was a vulture droid. It landed right in front of them, barring their path back to the safety of the door, and both of them drew their lightsabers. For a moment Anakin thought it had come to take the Hutt and so wouldn't open fire and risk killing its quarry, but he was wrong, totally wrong.
The thing rotated its wings to become sharp-edged legs, then opened up with laserfire. Anakin darted from side to side, batting away bolts, trying to keep facing the vulture so that Rotta was protected by his body. Ahsoka tried to draw it off. R2-D2 beeped loudly and rumbled forward as if he was going to join in.
"Artoo!" Anakin snapped. The Hutt was slowing him down, but he couldn't stop now and stow it somewhere safe while the vulture waited politely for the match to resume. He tried to calculate if R2-D2 could get close enough to grab Rotta from the backpack and get him to safety. No, I tightened the kriffing straps too much, didn't I? The astromech droid started to roll forward at his master's summons. "No, Artoo, no, get inside! I need you in one piece!"
Ahsoka lunged again and made the vulture spin ninety degrees to face her, but then it seemed to learn her ploy and ignored her, swiveling one cannon to blast at her while its main fire was directed at Anakin. Didn't these piles of junk ever run out of power like the intel said?
But he'd never call them dumb again.
It had worked out how to rush him and get inside the arc of his lightsaber. The vulture darted forward, stabbing at him with the sharp points of wingtips that had become its feet and legs. It forced Anakin back. And he had no choice but to face it. He didn't dare turn his back to it even for a heartbeat. That limited his ability to spin, to somersault, to do things that a Jedi could and a heap of metal couldn't.
So this is how regular beings have to fight.
Fine.
Rotta squealed and grizzled. Anakin was sure he'd thrown up during the savage shaking he was getting, and he couldn't face the idea of winning the fight but ending up killing the hostage. But Rotta was a Hutt, and they were far tougher than any puny human.
"Come on, you useless piece of wreckage ..." Anakin edged backward, knowing exactly where the edge of the platform was without looking, and trying to factor in the shifted center of gravity caused by a backpack full of Hutt. "Show me what you've got."
It did. It ran at him. But as he backed away, it came to a dead halt and started firing, leaving him wrong-footed for a crucial moment. A living opponent could be sensed and gauged in the Force, but a droid ... a really smart one could give a Jedi a serious run for their creds. Anakin fended off the laserfire, spraying ricochets of energy. Then it turned its fourth cannon-the one that had been keeping Ahsoka busy-and started a random firing pattern with all four cannons that Anakin struggled to block.
He was close to beaten. He felt it. He was losing. He reached for one strap, ready to start loosening the pack to throw Rotta to the safety of Ahsoka's arms-she'd catch him easily with that predator's flawless coordination-and throw himself on the vulture.
Ahsoka was suddenly close in, way too close. "Hey, trashcan!" she yelled, and swung her lightsaber.
She wasn't close enough to hit the vulture, but she got its attention, probably because she triggered its complex threat analysis system. For a machine's short moment, it paused. She rolled as she was anticipating its fire.
She rolled too far.
Had she skidded on a pool of Hutt vomit? Her lightsaber went spinning from her hand and she went clear off the edge of the platform.
No, no, no...
"Ahsoka!"
The vulture abandoned its attack on Anakin and clattered toward the point where she'd fallen. Anakin thought it was checking where she'd fallen until he saw it raise one leg in a stabbing motion. By then, he was right behind it, almost on its back. He heard her voice. He saw her fingertips-just her fingertips-clinging to the edge of the permacrete, completely white with the pressure of the grip.
"I'm okay," she gasped. "I'm okay."
No, she wasn't: she was about to lose her arms to a droid and plummet to her death, Jedi or not. Anakin went for the vulture, lightsaber whirling. It swiveled and poured laser fire back at him. In the seconds he distracted it, Ahsoka swung back onto the platform purely on her fingertips, throwing one leg high like a gymnast and pivoting at the hip to hurl her body forward. Then she reached out to bring her lightsaber spinning back into her hand with a Force pull.
Anakin was so close to the vulture now that the sheer light output of its laserfire was almost blinding him as he deflected it with his blade. Then it lurched to one side. He th
ought it was a feint and leaped onto it in that split second, driving his lightsaber deep between its visual sensors, but then he realized it had lost half a leg, and that Ahsoka had sliced through it.
He let himself fall back and landed heavily on his feet just as the vulture lost stability and tipped over the edge of platform.
It didn't have fingers. It couldn't grab and save itself. And its leg was its wing, and so it couldn't even fly again.
It fell, and fell, and fell.
"Oh, that was smart, Snips ..." Anakin heard the sob of exhausted relief in his own voice. He straightened up. Hey, I've still got a Hutt on board. I almost forgot. "I thought I'd lost you for good."
Ahsoka's head-tails had taken on a slightly more vivid striping. Maybe it was the Togruta equivalent of being red in the face. She smiled, not her usual polite smile, but a feral baring of her sharp teeth that was pure triumph at catching her prey.
"I really didn't want to find out if it was true that we Togrutas always land on our feet," she said.
"Good distraction, though."
"Maybe I meant to do it," she said, mock-gravely, "and maybe I didn't."
It took all sorts to be a Jedi. Her way worked fine as far as he was concerned.
But the relief was short-lived. Rotta wailed pitifully in Anakin's ear. Rex and his men-he had to think some had survived-were still held by that fanatic Ventress. He tried not to dwell on what she might be doing to them. Anakin still had a few fights ahead.
He shrugged his shoulders to ease the ache from the backpack and opened his comlink.
"Master Kenobi, can you hear me? Master-are you in range yet?"
The comlink rattled with static. Anakin waited.
* * *
JABBA'S PALACE, TATOOINE
TC-70 almost pushed Dooku along the passage to the throne room.
It was just a brief touch in the small of the back, the subtlest of shepherding movements, but from a protocol droid it was the equivalent of grabbing a guest by the scruff of his neck and dragging him. It warned Dooku of the rage to come when he stood before Jabba.
TC-70 showed all the signs of a droid that had been threatened and made afraid.