Stealth

by Karen Miller

  That was unfortunately true. “We should’ve asked Bant’ena about the compound’s delivery schedule when we had the chance.”

  “No doubt, but let’s keep our minds focused on the present, shall we?”

  Obi-Wan hated making mistakes. “How long do you want to wait, then?”

  “I suggest we play it by ear.”

  “Suits me.”

  There was silence. And then, after a little while, Obi-Wan stirred. “I don’t sense Durd’s presence. Not even that odd, slippery deflection.”

  “Why are you even checking for it?” he said, surprise shading to annoyance. “Unless—what, you think Bant’ena’s lying?”

  “You know the drill, Anakin,” said Obi-Wan, deliberately patient. “Trust but verify. I’m not in the mood to walk into a trap. Are you?”

  “No,” he muttered, and reached out with his feelings. I’m not doubting her, I’m just being careful. “I don’t sense Durd, either. But I can feel Bant’ena. She’s scared. No… terrified.” Her fear made him feel sick.

  Obi-Wan shrugged. “Who can blame her? You think I don’t know what I’m asking of her, Anakin, but I do. And I’m not unsympathetic.”

  That was true. He wasn’t. But he was coldly capable of denying sympathy and compassion if the task at hand required him to be hard. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a far more complicated man than a first glance would suggest.

  “I’m not sensing any hint of trouble. Are you?”

  “No,” said Obi-Wan, after a pause. “But don’t get complacent, Anakin. Fueling ourselves with the Force as we’ve been doing can muddy perception. Take nothing for granted.”

  “Trust me, I wasn’t planning to.”

  “Good, because—”

  “Yeah,” he said, as Obi-Wan’s fingers brushed his arm. “I can hear it. Looks like we’re in luck.”

  Or they would be, if the approaching vehicle was heading for the compound. But it had to be, didn’t it? Where else was there to go around here?

  “Steady,” murmured Obi-Wan, as the first sweep of headlights dazzled the night. “Steady. This might be our only chance.”

  There wasn’t a handily deep-set doorway to hide in this time, so they ducked around the edge of the building and flattened themselves against its rough wall. The truck came closer… closer… turned into the street…

  “Now,” said Obi-Wan, and they made their move.

  Lying prone on the truck’s roof, anchored in place by the Force, Anakin tried to ignore his body’s fresh protests, and their echoes in Obi-Wan prone beside him.

  We’ll be paying for this for weeks, I bet.

  Squinting ahead, he saw the brightly lit compound gates. Felt the buzzing tingle of the laser grids. The truck slowed. Slowed again. Negotiated the first security checkpoint. Crawled forward. Negotiated the second, then entered the compound proper. So now it was just a simple case of repeating their previous fun and games—slip off the truck as soon as it reached the loading dock, wait for the droids to stack the delivered crates on antigrav pallets and float them away, get up to the main building undetected, crawl through its extensive ducting—oh, my aching back—grab Bant’ena… and run.

  He felt another tap on his shoulder and nodded to let Obi-Wan know he was ready. Then he took a deep breath and tensed himself, ready to leap.

  Not quite halfway to the loading dock, the delivery truck stopped. Anakin turned his head and looked at Obi-Wan. For the first time he felt an inkling of something wrong.

  “What were you saying about taking nothing for gr—”

  The night lit up with the power of a thousand suns.

  Training-honed instinct took over. Anakin had his lightsaber out and ignited before his booted feet hit the stalled truck’s roof. So did Obi-Wan. They were targets up here, but at least with height they could see what they were up against.

  Starkly lifted out of shadow, marching clear of the concealment—battle droids. The Sep compound was suddenly full of them. Skinny clankers. Super battle droids. Vultures. Droidekas.

  “Oh no,” Anakin breathed, staring. “Where the stang did they come from?”

  “Where do you think?” said Obi-Wan. He sounded sick with disgust. “They’re a gift from Doctor Fhernan—and General Lok Durd.”

  “No,” Anakin said, abruptly light-headed. “No, she wouldn’t betray us, Obi-Wan. I felt her. I read her. She wouldn’t throw us to—”

  “We can argue about it later,” said Obi-Wan, his voice tight, his presence in the Force alight with a rare fury. “Right now we—” There was a high-pitched humming, and an ominous rattle in the dark. “Jump!” he shouted… and the massed ranks of battle droids opened fire.

  Lightsabers whirling, they leapt to the ground. Leapt back-to-back and began fighting for their lives. It was Geonosis all over again, only this time there was no Padmé to provide blaster cover, no Mace Windu, no Yoda. No clones in their gunships swooping in to save the day.

  Don’t look now, Obi-Wan, but I think we’re in trouble.

  Blasterfire was coming from every direction. They were managing to deflect each volley, they hadn’t been singed or struck yet, but it was only a matter of time before the enemy scored a hit. Even though they’d inflicted some damage they were still brutally outnumbered. Anakin felt the world shift and blur around him as he sank deeper into the Force than he’d ever gone before. It was almost painful. Nearly too much to bear. As hard to endure as Bant’ena’s betrayal.

  Why? Why? How could I not see it?

  “Forget about it, Anakin!” yelled Obi-Wan over the whine and sizzle and crump of the enemy’s attack. “Focus on this! What will the why matter if we’re dead?”

  Good point. Slowly but surely the battle droids were closing in. They had to get out of here. They had to—had to—

  “Obi-Wan, the groundcar! If it’s here—if any kind of groundcar is here—if we can get to it—” Oh, he was crazy. I’m crazy. If I try this I’m going to get both of us killed. But if they stayed they were dead, too, so—Anakin, pick your poison. “If you can hold off these blasted clankers long enough for me to rig the groundcar’s systems, I can fly us out of here!”

  “You can do that?” Obi-Wan shouted, incredulous, almost drowned by the high-pitched buzzing whine of their lightsabers and the booming and shrieking of the droids’ concerted attack. The air stank of heated plasma and burned grass and desperation.

  “Yes!” he shouted back. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Anakin, make up your mind!”

  “Yes! Yes, I can do that!” he said, and risked a look at Obi-Wan. His friend’s face was streaked with sweat, eyes almost blank with a fierce concentration. Beneath the concentration was a dangerously escalating exhaustion. “If we make it to the parking area in one piece can you hold off these barves?”

  “By myself?”

  “Yes!”

  “While you play with a groundcar?”

  “Yes! Obi-Wan, will you try?”

  The droids were meters away now, closing fast. They were moments from death. If they were going to do this—if they were going to try—

  “Oh, why not?” said Obi-Wan, and actually laughed. “I’ve nothing better to do. So what are you waiting for, Master Skywalker? Run!”

  Raggedly Anakin reached for the power to Force-sprint. Heard himself shout in pain, because he’d used too much of himself already. Even the Chosen One had his limits, it seemed. He shouted again then, and heard Obi-Wan’s equally pained cry as they Force-pushed their way through the droids firing at them almost point-blank. He felt another pain, sharper and hotter, sear its way along his ribs and knew he’d been clipped by a blaster bolt. But he could worry about that later.

  First rule of business: Keep us alive.

  Reaching the compound’s roofed parking area they staggered out of their Force-sprint, and he nearly sobbed aloud. The fancy groundcar was still there. But there was no time to give thanks because rolling right behind them were five shielded droidekas, and, marching behind them countless
undamaged droids.

  He saw blood, but looking at Obi-Wan he couldn’t tell where it came from. Focus. Focus. He’s not dead yet, and neither are you. “We can do this. Do you want my lightsaber?”

  “No,” said Obi-Wan tightly. “You might need it. Get to work, Anakin. I’ll hold them off for as long as I can.”

  As Obi-Wan turned to face their attackers, lightsaber in one hand, the other extended ready to Force-repel the approaching droids, he took a deep, painful breath—and extinguished all emotion, narrowing his focus to this thing, this one thing, that he knew how to do better than any other thing he had learned in his life.

  Machines, and how to make them. How to mold them. How to rule them.

  Dimly aware of Obi-Wan’s furious defense of him, with no time for care or finesse, he used the tip of his lightsaber to slice off the groundcar’s rear engine housing, then rested the weapon on the vehicle’s roof. It was a beautiful machine, sleek and powerful. It pained him to mutilate it, but he didn’t have a choice.

  Come on, Anakin. Think. Locate the antigrav platform. Isolate the repulsor circuits and cross-wire them. Rip out the height limiter. That’s all you have to do.

  The groundcar’s engine was an elegant model of simplicity. He’d never seen its design before, and yet with one look he knew it, he knew it, as intimately as he knew the curves and planes of Padmé’s beautiful face. It had been this way his whole life. Machines spoke to him. He understood instinctively every last one of their sweetly whispered secrets.

  And there was the antigrav platform. There were the repulsor circuits. Hello, circuits, meet your new best friends. Goodbye, height limiter. Knuckles skinned and bleeding, horribly aware of the blasterfire behind him, around him, screaming past him close enough to crisp his hair and his clothes, he worked the machine harder and faster than he’d ever worked one before. And then he saw the state-of-the-art security tracker and fried it with his lightsaber, for good measure.

  “Anakin!” called Obi-Wan. “Anakin, hurry up! I don’t—I can’t—”

  Looking over his shoulder he saw that Obi-Wan was swaying, the thrust and slash of his lightsaber weakening. Hardly any of the attacking droids were falling now. A blaster bolt ripped by him and blew a hole in the ferrocrete less than a meter away. Any moment now they’d be surrounded—and dead.

  He dropped his weapon and hotwired the groundcar’s ignition. The machine roared into life, a promise of speed and power and life.

  “Obi-Wan!” he said, yanking the front passenger door open, then summoning his lightsaber to his filthy, bloodstained hand. “I’ve got this. I’ll cover you. Get in, we’ve got to go.”

  Obi-Wan turned, almost overbalancing, and stumbled for the groundcar. Half falling, half crawling, he got inside and pulled the door shut after him. Anakin, the blood roaring in his head, the Force howling in his blood, threw himself forward and flung every last bit of himself at their swiftly closing enemy. The first two rows of clankers tumbled like leaves in a storm. He screamed with the effort, screamed with the pain.

  And as the droids clattered and shot one another and fell to pieces on the ground, he turned and ran back to the groundcar. Obi-Wan opened the driver’s-side door for him. Deactivating his lightsaber he clambered in, slammed the door closed again, and grabbed hold of the controls.

  “Get the shield up. Find the shield,” he snapped at Obi-Wan as he fired the engine harder. Oh, it was sweet, this thing, it was sweet like a bird, sweet like honey on the tongue. Eager and responsive almost to a thought.

  Obi-Wan found the shield switch on the console and flipped it, just in time. A barrage of blaster bolts smacked them from every side.

  “Hold on!” Anakin said, his breathing ragged, his vision bleary with sweat and sudden fear. “This might not be pretty.”

  And he rammed them out of the roofed parking area, scattering droids like skittles.

  With the height limiter ripped out and the repulsor circuits enhanced, the groundcar soared upward like an airspeeder—sort of. The droids fired after them, to no avail. The ground fell away. The droid army swiftly dwindled. Shuddering, awkward now but still with glorious power, they flew over the compound fencing and into the night-dark sky.

  Exhausted, hurting, Anakin smiled and smiled and smiled.

  Beside him, Obi-Wan nodded. “You did it. Well done.”

  He sounded shattered. He looked worse, pushed almost to passing out, his face chalky white in the console’s pale running lights. There was more blood, too, on both arms and legs. His pathetic Lanteeban clothing had been no protection at all.

  Anakin felt a thump of fear. “Hey—are you okay? You’re not going to faint on me, are you?”

  “Faint?” said Obi-Wan, somehow managing to sound offended. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine. In fact that was so entertaining I say we go back and do it all over again.”

  “You’re a riot, you know that?” he retorted. “No. We are not going back.”

  “Oh, well,” said Obi-Wan, with a small, pained shrug. “It was just an idea.”

  Beyond the shielded front viewscreen the night stretched on, seemingly limitless. Anakin could see no ground lights, nothing that might indicate their location. The groundcar’s controls felt heavy in his hands, but they were doing all right. They were airborne—and alive.

  Stang. I am good.

  “So, Obi-Wan,” he said, sideways glancing again. “What’s the plan? I don’t think we can risk the spaceport, do you?”

  Obi-Wan snorted. “Hardly. They’ll be on full alert by now. We wouldn’t make it five steps. What’s our altitude?”

  Anakin looked at the console. There was no altimeter. “Your guess is as good as mine. You seem to be forgetting that this thing’s not meant to fly.”

  “And yet here we are, flying,” Obi-Wan murmured. “How long before we stop flying and start falling, do you suppose?”

  “Ha,” he retorted. “You need to have more faith, Master Kenobi.”

  Obi-Wan gave him another pointed look. “Really? Well, I’ll certainly try to take your advice, Anakin. Though I feel bound to point out to you that since we’ve no idea where we are, or where we’re going, or what we’ll do when we get there, my supply of faith is sorely overstretched as it is.” He peered out the passenger window. “It’s as dark as the inside of a bantha out there. Can’t see a blasted thing below us.”

  “And I can’t see a blasted thing in front us,” Anakin said. But I’m not worried. I’m not. I’m not. “No way we can risk putting the headlights on. Cross your fingers that we don’t fly into a tree.”

  “Or a house,” said Obi-Wan. “Or a hill. Or a droid ship. Really, the possibilities for disaster are endless.”

  He was sounding almost cheerful. Maybe a piece of flying droid had clipped him on the head… “So maybe I should turn around and go back after all?”

  Obi-Wan looked at him. “Please don’t.”

  The groundcar was shuddering a little now. Fighting him. Great. The blasted machine’s scared of heights.

  “Okay,” he said, wrestling the vehicle back under control. “The Lanteeb briefing notes Agent Varrak gave us. What did they say? They said one city, with the space port, then nothing but scattered villages. So we head for the country. Fly this thing until it’s ready to drop then ditch it somewhere it won’t be found and lay low in a village until we can work out how to get off this rock.”

  Obi-Wan spared him another eloquent look. “Yes, that sounds terribly plausible, Anakin, except for the part about this groundcar not being found. In fact I expect the Seps are already tracking it, which means—”

  “No, they’re not,” he said smugly. “I burned out the transponder.”

  “Oh,” said Obi-Wan, after a moment. “Good job.”

  That first wild burst of elation and adrenaline had faded, leaving an uncertain dread in its wake. But somehow he managed to dredge up a smile. “No big deal. Just doing what my Master taught me.”

  “Of course you were,” said Obi-Wan.
Then he sighed, and all his escaping pain was in the sound. “So. Here we are in dire straits. Again. Really, I should be used to this by now.”

  The groundcar’s blunt nose dipped, threatening a dive. With a head-throbbing effort, Anakin wrenched it up again.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re okay,” he said, risking another sideways look at Obi-Wan. “We’re okay.”

  “Oh, Anakin,” said Obi-Wan. There was no color at all left in his face. “Let’s not kid ourselves, shall we? You and I are anything but okay.”

  Anakin wanted to argue. He wanted to say, Obi-Wan, you’re wrong. But he couldn’t. How could he?

  Stang. Stang. We really are in trouble.

  And at that moment, for the life of him, he couldn’t see a way out.