Yoda, Dark Rendezvous

by Sean Stewart

  swinging for the girl, but the Force was strong in Scout, too, in this place and

  hour, and her parry was there before the killing blow could fall.

  Whie swept out his lightsaber. The room was bedlam and fire, the smell of

  smoke and hot metal.

  Another prickle of premonition shivered up Scout's spine and she gasped,

  seeing Ventress use the subtlest of Force grabs to lift the forgotten neural

  eraser from Fidelis's metal hand. "Solis!" Scout screamed, as the trigger

  punched down. "Behind you!"

  Too late.

  Lines of blue flame streaked along Solis's spine. "Run!" the droid shouted.

  He fired at Ventress with mechanized speed and accuracy, sending a stream of

  superaccelerated metal through her left leg. The neural-net eraser took hold and

  he was shooting behind her; and then he was shooting at nothing at all as his

  limbs jerked and spasmed. Whie, white-faced, watched him start to die.

  "Come on!" Scout shouted, grabbing him by the collar. "We've got to get out

  of here and find Master Yoda!"

  She dragged him through the far door, and the two of them raced up into the

  unfamiliar house. Sirens were going off and bells were ringing. They turned down

  a corridor at random and Scout sprinted toward an archway that seemed to lead

  into a large entry hall. She stopped dead as a burst of blasterfire came

  spitting through the arch. "All right—next choice," she gasped, and they picked

  a different door.

  Behind them, Asajj Ventress tore a length of cloth from her own shirt and

  wrapped it around her bleeding leg, growling. The wound wasn't critical, but it

  hurt, and she meant to make the Padawans pay for it. She pulled the makeshift

  bandage tight and sprinted after them, growling deep in her throat. She darted

  down the same passageway, following the sound of blaster-fire, and leapt through

  the doorway into the great entry hall of Château Malreaux. "Now I've got you!"

  she snarled . . .

  . . . And found herself face to face with Obi-Wan and Anakin. "True as you

  tell it," Obi-Wan said, ever urbane. "But what are you going to do with us?"

  Behind him, Anakin's lightsaber hissed into sizzling life.

  Ventress turned and ran.

  "Blowing up, your house is," Yoda remarked, peering at the various

  holomonitor displays with interest. A light blinked on the comm console. A

  special, red light. Dooku stared at it, then tore his eyes away.

  "Message," Yoda said helpfully. "Answer it, should you?"

  Sweat was running freely down the Count's face.

  "Or maybe someone it is you do not want me to see. Your new Master calls.

  Dooku, ask yourself: which of us loves you better?"

  "I serve only Darth Sidious," Dooku said.

  "Not my question, apprentice."

  The red light blinked. There was another explosion from downstairs. A siren

  went off, and several of the holomonitors began to flash.

  "Come," Yoda said urgently. He put his hand once more on Dooku's arm. "Catch

  you, I said I would. Believe you must: more forgiveness will you find from your

  old Master than from the new one."

  A rush of panicked footsteps, and the housekeeper burst into the room.

  "Master, which there are Jedi in the ballroom. They're coming to take my Baby!"

  she shrieked.

  Dooku flicked through the security monitors until he found the ballroom.

  "Ah," he said. Something in his face seemed to freeze, and die. "I see you

  brought your protege."

  "Understand you, I do not," Yoda said.

  "You didn't mention bringing young Skywalker," Dooku said, pointing to the

  holomonitor. "And Obi-Wan, too. That changes the odds considerably. There's your

  Wonder Boy now, fighting the assassin droids I have standing sentry duty at the

  front door." His hand was wonderfully steady now. "Your new favorite son."

  "Bring him, I did not!"

  "And yet, there he stands, with Obi-Wan. A miracle and a prodigy to be sure.

  I suppose you left him under cover. Perhaps you missed a rendezvous. So easy to

  lose track of time, chatting with old friends," the Count said.

  In the entryway, Whirry was shifting from foot to foot in extremes of

  agitation. "Please, Master! Don't let the Jedi steal my Baby again! Do something

  for me, for all my hard work, Master?"

  Dooku glanced up. "Do something for you?" His eyes flicked to Yoda and the

  lightsaber at the Jedi Master's belt. "Of course I'll do something for you."

  With a flick of his hand, he picked up the heavyset woman with the Force and

  hurled her through the window casement. Yoda's eyes went wide with shock. "You

  might want to help her," Dooku said.

  With a bound, Yoda was at the casement. Whirry was windmilling down through

  the black air, screaming and tumbling toward the flagstones. Narrowing his eyes,

  Yoda reached out through the Force and caught her not three meters from the

  ground.

  Instantly he was in the air himself, spinning away from Dooku's vicious

  attack before he was even consciously aware it was coming. The blinding scarlet

  blur of Dooku's lightsaber split the air, slashing a burning line along Yoda's

  side before chopping his desk in half.

  Yoda whipped out his blade while trying to set Whirry gently down on the

  cobblestones below. "Wish to hurt you, I do not!"

  "That's odd," Dooku remarked. "I intend to enjoy killing you."

  As Yoda released Whirry from his mind's hold, and let her spill gently onto

  the flagstones far below, the tip of Dooku's lightsaber scored a burning line

  across his shoulder. The Count's blade was quick as a viper striking. Among the

  other Jedi, perhaps only Mace Windu would have been his equal on neutral ground:

  but here on Vjun, steeped in the dark side, his bladework was malice made

  visible—wickedness cut in red light. "I've hurt you!" Dooku cried.

  "Many times," Yoda said. He considered his pain: let it drop. Now he had

  nothing but Dooku to focus on, and his lightsaber gleamed with the same fierce

  green light that flickered from under his heavy-lidded eyes. "But killed me you

  did not, when you had the chance. A mistake, that was. More than eight hundred

  years has Yoda survived, through dangers you could not dream."

  "I know how to kill," Dooku hissed.

  Yoda's eyes opened wide, like balls of green fire. "Yes—but Yoda knows how to

  live!"

  Then their blades clashed together in a lace of fire, green and red: but the

  green burned hotter. Slowly, slowly, Dooku gave way: and in the dark, drunken

  Vjun air, Yoda was terrible to behold.

  "Yes," Dooku whispered. "Feel me. Feel the treason. All those years of

  teaching me, raising me. Trusting me. And here am I, the favored son, butchering

  your precious Jedi, one by one. Hate me Yoda. You know you want to."

  Count Dooku lashed out with his lightsaber. Yoda took a quick step back and

  felt the heat of the red blade as it sliced the air centimeters from his tunic.

  He jumped, spun, and struck at Dooku's back before he landed. Dooku turned aside

  at the last moment, whipping his blade across the space where Yoda was seconds

  earlier. Facing each other again, their blades met, clashed, froze.

  "Cunning, are you," Yoda said, breathing hard.

  "I've had excellen
t teachers," Dooku said.

  Yoda dropped and rolled to the side, his lightsaber blazing, reaching for

  Dooku's ankles. Dooku leapt up and flipped backwards landing lightly to face

  Yoda squarely. On his feet again, Yoda whirled and struck at Dooku, his green

  blade meeting Dooku's and pushing him back. Dooku attacked with reckless abandon

  fueled with hatred. Their blades hummed together, hissing and sparking.

  Dooku brought his blade down toward the diminutive Jedi Master and Yoda

  parried, locking his blade against Dooku's. Yoda breathed, calming himself. "And

  yet, even here on Vjun, where the dark side whispers and whispers to me . . .

  love you enough to destroy you I do."

  Pushing Dooku back yet again, blades flashed and flared stutters of light,

  blood red and sea green.

  Sweat ran in streams through Dooku's beard as he countered Yoda's every move,

  and his lips were white. Holobattles raged around them as the consoles showed

  Obi-Wan and Anakin clashing with wave after wave of battle droids. Dooku shot a

  quick glance at the red button on his desk and, with a Force push, he punched it

  in.

  Yoda cocked his head. "A choice made, have you, Count?"

  "I notice I am no longer your apprentice," Dooku said between breaths. "There

  was always a chance you could overpower me, of course." Yoda attacked: Dooku

  parried. "So I put a missile in high orbit, slaved to this location. It's

  falling now. Gathering speed." Dooku stepped warily back to the open window

  casement. "Can you feel it dropping? A thorn, a needle, an arrow. Faster all the

  time." He paused to get his breath. "Obi-Wan and your precious Skywalker and

  your little Padawans will be wiped out when the missile hits. So what you need

  to decide is, what means more to you, Master Yoda? Saving their lives—or taking

  mine?"

  And with that he leapt backward, out the window. Yoda bounded after him. In

  the dark Vjun air it was all he could do not to leap after Dooku, to fall on him

  like a green thunderbolt and annihilate him utterly.

  ... But already he could feel the missile, too, dropping in a red scream

  through the atmosphere, two hundred armored kilos of explosive aimed for Chateau

  Malreaux. With a snort, Yoda turned his eyes to the sky and picked out the

  glowing dot racing in from the horizon.

  Below him, Dooku landed softly on the ground and melted into the rose

  gardens.

  The missile was coming in with terrible speed and power: too much coming at

  Yoda too fast ever to wholly stop it, even if he had time and perfect peace. But

  he reached out to pull up the Force binding even Vjun's bitter green moss and

  twisted thorn-trees, and let it flow through him like a wind: the breath of a

  world, gathered and released in a push-feather game with all their lives on the

  line, not to oppose the missile's force with force, but to touch it gently on

  the side—just enough to send it screaming by the broken window casement to

  plunge a kilometer offshore into the cold and waiting sea.

  A long instant later, water fountained from the ocean in a blaze of light

  three hundred meters tall, and then fell back.

  The château and all those inside it had been spared: but Dooku was gone.

  Moments later, Yoda trotted down into what had once been the great entryway

  of Château Malreaux, now a shattered and smoking ruin.

  Obi-Wan was thoughtfully toeing the remains of a prime combat droid that his

  partner had cut in half. "Nice work, Anakin." He looked around generally,

  surveying the carnage. "If you were considering a career in interior decoration,

  though, you might want to take a few more classes."

  "Oh, no," Anakin remarked. "This is the New Brutal-ism. I think it will be

  all the rage if these Clone Wars don't end soon."

  "Master Yoda!" Obi-Wan said, running across the hallway as the old one came

  down the great curving staircase. "Are you all right?"

  "Sad am I, but unhurt." The old Jedi sighed. "So close, I was!"

  "Did you almost kill Dooku?" Anakin said sympathetically. "How frustrating!"

  Yoda gave him an odd look—almost angry.

  Anakin didn't notice. "Perhaps we can still catch him—he must be around here

  somewhere. I thought we were going to get Ventress once and for all, but she

  gave us the slip. This place is crazy—honeycombed with secret passages."

  "And battle droids behind every wall," Obi-Wan added. The familiar rumbling

  sound of a starship engine coming to life started up in the distance. Obi-Wan

  headed for the front door.

  "Masters!" Anakin hissed. He put a finger over his lips, signaling the others

  to keep quiet, and edged along the wall of the entry hall until he came to a

  doorway that led into the mansion's interior. Touching his lightsaber to life,

  he leapt into the corridor with a bloodcurdling yell—at exactly the same moment

  that Scout and Whie leapt from the other direction. For a long, comical instant

  the three of them were frozen in battle stance, lightsabers glowing, screaming

  at one another.

  Yoda doubled over, wheezing with laughter.

  Anakin was the first to recover. "Hey—it's the small fry!"

  "Glad to see you, am I!" Yoda said. "But hurt you are," he added, his long

  ear tips furled with worry. Whie's robes were scorched and slashed by stray fire

  from Solis's death throes, and Scout's hair was clotted with blood.

  "It's nothing," Scout said, grinning. "We couldn't be better."

  Whie laughed and threw his arms around Anakin in sheer joy. "I'm so glad

  you're not coming to kill me!"

  Anakin clapped him on the back, bemused. "Me, too." Looking back over his

  shoulder, he said, "You might want to check this one for a head injury, Master."

  "Anakin?" Obi-Wan said.

  "Yes?"

  "You remember that the first time I met Asajj Ventress, I stole her

  spaceship?"

  "On Queyta, right?"

  "And then we met again, and we took her ship again?"

  "Right. Why do you mention it?" Anakin said, coming to stand in the doorway

  beside Obi-Wan.

  Together the two of them watched their lovely Chryya rise slowly into the

  weeping Vjun sky and head for space, accelerating hard. "Oh, no reason," Obi-Wan

  said.

  12

  Obi-Wan's hands played over the controls of the secondhand Seltaya Yoda had

  purchased in the Hydian Way . After hours of haggling, the Master had gotten an

  excellent price, once they included the trade-in value of the two Trade

  Federation gunships they had hijacked to get off Vjun. "Ready to drop out of

  hyperspace?"

  "More than ready," Anakin said.

  The older Jedi glanced over at the young man, who was grinning with

  anticipation. I envy him, he thought, surprised.

  "What are you thinking, Obi-Wan? I saw you smile."

  "Do you remember Yoda's little maxim about humility?"

  "Humility endless is," Anakin quoted.

  "That's the one. Did you ever hear Mace Windu's translation?" Anakin shook

  his head. "You're never too old to make another big mistake."

  Obi-Wan set the controls for the drop into subspace. "Coming out of

  hyperspace into Coruscant space on three: two: one."

  The starship lurched as if taking a wave, the smea
red stars collected back

  into twinkling points, and Coruscant hung burning in the blackness before them

  as if lit by the souls of her billions.

  Anakin looked hungrily at the image of the planet growing larger on the

  viewscreen, as if, even from the very edge of the solar system, he could almost

  pick out a particular street, a certain residence, one lit window where another

  pair of eyes looked up into the stars, waiting for him. "I'm so glad to be

  home," he said.

  At the far end of the ship, Scout and Whie were looking at the same

  viewscreen image. Scout shook her head. "Funny to think we'll be back in the

  Temple tomorrow. I wonder if it will all seem like a dream." The instant she

  said it, she regretted the word dream.

  "No, we're awake now," Whie said quietly. "The Temple was the dream."

  "Maybe . . . maybe it won't come true, your last vision," Scout said. "Or

  maybe you misunderstood."

  "Maybe." She could tell he didn't believe it. "But it's all right. I'm afraid

  of dying," Whie said. "But I was even more scared that I was going to . . ." He

  trailed off. "Still, that didn't happen, thanks to you. What you said—it was

  like you gave me myself back. You gave me permission to be good."

  Scout shook her head. "No mind tricks here, Whie. I didn't do anything. I

  just knew which way you were going to choose."

  Whie smiled. "Have it your way. Actually, it's kind of interesting seeing you

  be humble. I think it's . . . cute."

  Scout Force-slapped him upside the head, but only a little. Not nearly enough

  to stop him laughing. "Vermin," she said with dignity.

  Yoda bustled in from the galley carrying a tray with a bottle of something

  amber-colored and three glasses. "Worry not," he said. "Chances to be bad will

  you have again." He cackled, pouring out a glass for each of them. "And good.

  Every instant, the universe starts over. Choose: and start again."

  Scout lifted her glass and peered dubiously at the contents. Yoda snuffed

  indignantly. "Something nasty Master Yoda would give, think you?"

  Scout and Whie exchanged looks. Gingerly, they tilted their glasses and

  sniffed. The fragrance of fine Reythan berry juice stole through the little

  cabin, sweet as sunshine on millaflower. "Almost home," Scout said, bravely