Erk’s voice crackled in Odie’s headset. “Good work. Get on board and let’s get out of here.”
“We can’t. The commander’s still inside,” Odie shouted back.
“Come on. He can take care of himself,” Erk ordered. “Get on board and let’s get these people out of here.” As if to emphasize Erk’s words, a stray blaster bolt skipped between Odie’s legs and caromed off into the side of the building.
“What’s the holdup?” Raders asked, running up to where Odie stood and looking up at Erk in his cockpit.
“The commander’s still inside. We can’t just leave him,” Odie said.
“Yes, we can,” Raders replied. “Come on, mount up. You’ve done your job.”
“No!” She shook Raders’s hand from her shoulder and stepped back, just avoiding a blaster bolt that sizzled past her nose. “I’m going back inside!”
“You’re crazy!” Raders cursed. “You’ll get us all killed standing out here.”
Vick ran up. “What’s going on here?” he gasped. “They’re closing in, our line is collapsing. We’ve got to get the hostages out of here!”
The trio was on the ground in the shadow of Erk’s transport. A clone infantryman ran up. “We can’t hold them any longer,” he said, his voice as calm as if he were standing on the firing range. “Our line is collapsing. What are your orders?” As he stood there a blaster bolt hit him squarely between the shoulders, propelling him forward as it burned completely through his body armor and exploded out through his chest.
“That’s it, we’re leaving,” Vick shouted.
The deflective armor on Erk’s transport had so far saved it from any serious damage. His power system was up and ready. He shook his head sadly and raised the ramp. “Good hunting,” he whispered, his voice cracking. His transport slowly began to move forward. “I guess it wasn’t meant for us to spend our lives together.” In that instant one of the enemy’s heavy guns ranged on Anakin’s ship, and it exploded in a brilliant cascade of flame. The concussion buffeted the three on the ground and knocked out the walls on the nearby building, but they were unhurt and Erk’s ship was away undamaged.
The three looked at one another.
“Thanks, trooper, you’ve just effectively killed us all,” Vick said bitterly.
The clone troopers’ fire had ceased, and from where they lay on the ground the three could clearly see enemy battle droids moving toward them. Odie leveled her hand blaster at the nearest droid.
“Not yet.” Raders laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Let’s make a run for the building. Maybe the commander and his clones are still alive in there. Maybe we can get out somehow before they blow this place.”
“Oh, we’re dead, dead, dead!” Vick groaned.
“Stop whining!” Raders snapped. “What do you think they pay us for? On my command, run like mad for that hole in the wall over there. Ready? Go!”
Nejaa Halcyon sat as if transfixed. He knew the disturbance in the Force he was experiencing was a result of Anakin’s tapping into it. He knew Anakin was still alive. But there was something troubling—
“General, urgent report from fleet.” A staff officer stood at Halcyon’s elbow. He hadn’t even been aware of the man’s approach.
Slayke, who was standing nearby, smiled. He realized the Jedi Master had been absorbed in a reverie, and it amused him that even Jedi sometimes let their minds wander. Yet he also knew that Halcyon’s reverie concerned Anakin, and that the Master was worried about him. Despite their former differences, Slayke had come to respect, even like, Halcyon.
Halcyon sat bolt upright when he read the message just handed to him. “Listen up!” He gestured at the officers around him and beckoned at Slayke to come closer. “This campaign is shifting into a new level. A large enemy fleet is approaching.”
Slayke betrayed not even a twinge of emotion. “It’s the relief fleet. Nejaa, we’re now between a rock and a very hard place.”
“Yes, we are.” Halcyon stroked his chin. What was happening on the mesa? He turned back to the staff officer. “Have the fleet prepare for battle. Captain Slayke, I will join the fleet. You take over here and—”
“General, the hostages are free,” a communications officer reported. “The shuttle commander has just reported in.” Several officers applauded and broke into smiles.
“Pipe him in so we can all hear his report,” Halcyon ordered. “Anakin? Is that you?”
“Nossir, Lieutenant H’Arman here. Commander Skywalker is still in the communications center and his shuttle has been destroyed. I have the hostages aboard and am bringing them in.”
“Good work, Lieutenant. Land at the resupply point and wait there for further orders.”
“Well, isn’t this just great,” Slayke said. “You can’t fight that fleet and leave this enemy force behind here, Nejaa. I’m sorry, but you have to give the order to destroy the mesa before our ships are fully engaged.”
Halcyon turned to Slayke. “No. Not yet. Let’s wait a little.”
“Whatever you say, sir,” Slayke answered, but it was evident he thought Halcyon had just made a fatally wrong decision.
“Just a little while. A few more minutes won’t hurt either way.”
“Nejaa, I know how you feel about Anakin.” Slayke laid a hand on Halcyon’s shoulder. “He’s a fine young commander. But the success of this entire expedition depends on your decision now. We have to be able to turn our full attention to this new threat. You have to give the order.”
“Yes. But not just now.”
Anakin moved with the swiftness and brilliance of a burning sun. Droids rushed against him, their weapons firing indiscriminately. His lightsaber flashing in a blinding symphony of light and destruction, he parried the bolts effortlessly, sending some ripping through the walls and roof, others back into the very droids that had fired them.
He wasn’t defending now, he was attacking, attacking with such fury and destruction that nothing could stop him. And he knew where he was going—he was headed for the enemy command post.
The droids, unable to give way, unable to surrender even if Anakin would have spared them, flew apart like cheap dolls as the lightsaber cut through them in a broad swath of destruction. The clone troopers following the Jedi had difficulty finding targets, and stumbled over the debris he left in his passage through the complex. They merely followed in his wake, covering his back. Before long he was outside the building and heading with unerring accuracy toward Pors Tonith’s bunker. It seemed as if Tonith’s entire army was firing at Anakin, but as he ran at full speed over the uneven ground that separated the communications facility from Tonith’s command bunker, not a single bolt touched him. The troopers following hugged the ground and crawled painfully onward while their commander stood erect and ran unscathed through the burning trajectories of death.
Tonith’s engineer droids had constructed the command bunker with standard internal blast walls to baffle the explosive force of any demolition charge an attacker might use to blow the entrance doors open. Anakin set a thermal detonator at the base of the bunker’s massive doors and took cover in a slight depression about twenty meters from them. He counted the seconds, and was ready when the massive detonation erupted. Even before the debris from the blast had settled, he was up and through the gaping hole. The first blast wall inside had been destroyed, but where the entrance tunnel turned sharply to the right the protective permacrete was intact—and three droids waited there, weapons leveled.
Inside the bunker, Pors Tonith stood calmly, a cup of tea poised in front of his purple lips. They’d all felt the concussion of the thermal detonator when it went off, but Tonith and his technicians had been unharmed by the blast. Several of the technicians made as if to flee for cover somewhere.
“Everyone stay at your station,” he ordered. “We do not have the means to resist and we shall not.” He could clearly follow the fight in the entrance corridor by the sounds that Anakin’s and the droids’ weapons made in t
he closed space. In seconds all had fallen quiet.
He sipped his tea. One of the technicians began to whimper. “Silence!” he snapped.
Anakin stepped into the control room, his clothing smoldering from near hits, his eyes blazing with fury. The technicians gasped and shrank away from the ghastly figure. Tonith, however, merely gazed upon Anakin with a slight smile on his face. The room went deathly silent except for the gentle hum of the Jedi’s lightsaber, which he held before him, shifting its blade slightly back and forth as if looking for targets. Nobody moved.
“I surrender,” Tonith announced, smirking. “I surrender to you, Jedi Knight.” He bowed slightly from the waist, careful not to spill any of the tea in his cup. He sipped the liquid and smacked his lips. “You have won,” he continued, “and I congratulate you.”
“Give the order for your troops to cease fire,” Anakin rasped. His voice, reverberating hollowly throughout the room, sounded as if it had come out of a deep well. “Do it! Do it now!”
Tonith nodded at the technicians, who were more than happy to communicate the cease-fire order to the droid commanders.
“My dear sir,” Tonith intoned, “I am now your prisoner and claim for me and my sentient beings here and elsewhere on this position the status of prisoners of war.” He lifted his cup and insouciantly, in full confidence that he was now protected, swallowed the remaining tea. He smiled, showing his stained teeth.
Anakin was so fully filled with the Force that he was barely aware of himself. All he knew was the joy of the Force, a greater joy than he’d ever felt before. There was so much power in the Force, and all that power was his—his!—to do with as he would. He knew that, and he knew that the Muun before him was the one who led the Separatist army that had attacked and occupied the Intergalactic Communications Center. Tonith was the one who had commanded the forces that had wiped out General Khamar’s army, that had killed most of Captain Slayke’s Sons and Daughters of Freedom, the one who had brought the fight that killed so many of the clone troopers.
This was the one who had given the order to the droid that had shot down Reija Momen in front of him.
This Pors Tonith deserved to die, and Anakin Skywalker was the one to kill him.
These technicians were traitors to the Republic who had aided Pors Tonith in his murderous operation; they deserved to die, as well. Let this vile, stained-tooth creature watch as his underlings died, so he would know his fate, and fear before he died.
Anakin Skywalker, filled with the Force, the agent of vengeance, raised his lightsaber and advanced toward the nearest technician.
He stopped as a voice came unbidden into his mind.
“You must use the Force for good, Anakin.”
Confused, he looked around. The voice sounded like that of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan’s Jedi Master—the one who had seen the potential in the child Anakin and helped win the boy’s freedom from slavery. But Qui-Gon Jinn was dead…
“Master Jinn?” Anakin breathed.
“The Force is too strong to use for anything but good, Padawan. Remember that, and you can be the greatest Jedi of all,” the voice said.
Anakin stood unable to move for a long moment. Then he shook himself and severed his connection to the Force. He almost staggered from the sudden loss of so much joy and power, but controlled himself so rapidly that he was the only one in the room aware of his momentary disorientation.
Kneeling on the floor in front of him was a cowering form; Anakin realized he had been about to murder the hapless technician and shuddered.
He glanced at the others, then turned to face Pors Tonith.
“You are my prisoners,” he choked out. “I will take you back to Coruscant and hand you over to the Republic Senate for assignment to trial.” He didn’t turn off his lightsaber.
Pors Tonith, captured admiral of the Separatists, rattled a chuckle deep in his throat.
“Please, sir,” B’wuf begged in a tiny voice from the corner in which he still sat, “may I get up now?”
29
Private Vick whistled when he led the others into Pors Tonith’s control room.
Trooper Odie Subu looked up at the Muun and asked, “Is he the one in charge?”
Anakin, still breathing heavily, kept staring at Tonith and didn’t reply. For his part, Tonith was no longer defiant. He’d become afraid of this young Jedi who had captured him; he thought he was unbalanced and unpredictable.
“They’ve stopped fighting outside,” Corporal Raders announced. “The firing stopped just before we reached the bunker, sir, and—oh.” He stopped talking when he took in the tableau.
“Sir,” the ARC sergeant said in a sergeant’s command voice, “your lightsaber.”
That got Anakin’s attention. “What?”
“Your lightsaber, sir.”
“My…” Anakin looked at his hand and flinched, as though surprised that his lightsaber was activated. He turned it off and attached it to his belt.
He staggered slightly as he turned toward his troopers. Odie, thinking he was reacting normally for a soldier who’d just come through deadly combat, rushed forward to assist him. She saw his face close up—it was white as a sheet, drained, and he had lines around his mouth like those of an old man.
He waved her away, saying, “Thanks, I’m all right, I’m all right.” He smiled weakly. One of the guards, he couldn’t remember which one, handed him a canteen of electrolyte fluids and he thankfully drank it dry in one long, thirsty gulp. He handed the empty canteen back. “Thanks, thanks very much,” he said, wiping his lips with the back of one hand. He gestured at Tonith and the others. “All of these are our prisoners. Take charge of them, would you, Sergeant? Take them to General Halcyon to be locked up.”
B’wuf spoke up. “I was only a hired hand, sir. I was not a part of what this creature did here!” He pointed at Tonith. “He saved my life,” he said, pointing a finger at Anakin. “They were going to execute me. I told the admiral that what he was doing was evil and I wasn’t going to serve him anymore, and he was going to have me executed. The Jedi saved my life. They were going to kill me—he saved my life!”
The comlink installed on Anakin’s wrist bleeped. He vaguely remembered it bleeping regularly as he’d fought his way to the bunker, but he’d ignored it at the time. Now he answered it.
“Anakin?” It was Halcyon. “Is that you? Are you all right? The enemy has just stopped fighting. What’s going on?”
“Master Halcyon,” Anakin said tiredly, “I’m fine. I’m in the control bunker with my troopers. I captured the Separatist commander and his staff. We’re about to bring them to you.”
“That’s a relief,” Halcyon said. “Give your prisoners to the clone commandos to secure. I’m sending a transport to pick you up. The Separatist relief fleet is on the way, and I’m told it’s a big one. I’m having our starfighters ferried down here at once. We’ve got a big fight on our hands, and I need you right away.”
Only the technicians looked at Tonith when he gave out an anguished wail—if only he’d been able to hold out for a few more minutes!
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Anakin replied. He turned to the ARC sergeant. “You heard that?” When the sergeant nodded, he ordered, “Take control of these prisoners and secure them.”
“There’s an enemy fleet coming, sir?” Corporal Raders asked, a troubled expression on his face.
“It sounds like it.” Anakin stood erect, oddly feeling better at the prospect of more action.
The Republic fleet commander had not been idle while Halcyon pursued the ground war against the Separatists’ forces on Praesitlyn. He had planned carefully for an attack like this. Several scenarios were considered, but it was decided that whatever tactic the enemy might use, the fleet would remain intact in order to concentrate and coordinate its combined firepower. If the enemy attacked by squadrons from different directions, the Republic fleet would take on each squadron in turn; if they attacked with their ships in line ahead, an at
tempt would be made to use superior speed to cross the enemy’s line of advance and rake their ships with every weapon available. Whatever tactic was used, Halcyon’s ships would be screened by his fighter fleet.
But every battle plan becomes useless after the first shot is fired. The enemy commander chose to attack in a box formation with his flagship in the center, protected by his ships, and the fighters met in a wild melee between the two armadas. It’s not always the number and size of the ships engaged that wins battles, but the way they are used.
For this battle, Nejaa Halcyon chose to give over command of the fleet to Admiral Hupsquoch, while he led the fighter fleet against the enemy.
“A fine ship, sir!” the clone pilot who’d ferried Azure Angel II to the surface of Praesitlyn said as he helped Anakin into her cockpit.
Anakin smiled as he strapped himself in. He was in his true element now. “Thanks for bringing her down here,” he said. “How’d she handle?” Azure Angel II was heavily modified. Even though clone troopers had the natural ability to learn how to handle any aircraft, flying a modified starfighter without knowing what had been done to it could be very tricky. Anakin was both very proud and very jealous of the modifications he’d made to her on his own.
“Just fine, sir. I was very careful to follow the ‘shiny switch’ rule once I saw you’d made some major aftermarket adjustments to her control panel.”
“Very wise. Just a few customized adjustments.” He really felt uncomfortable that someone else had flown his starfighter, but that had been necessary to allow the fighter to take off from the surface. He changed the subject. “I see a big scratch along the port side. It wasn’t there before.” He grinned as he put his helmet on. The pilot just stared at Anakin, uncomprehending. “I’m only joking,” Anakin assured him.
Star Wars: Jedi Trial Page 25