“Rex! Rex!” Ahsoka broke from Altis and Callista, who were struggling to hold back the droid front ranks. “Take Vere and go.”
The mass of metal was getting seriously congested now. If the tinnies ever had a smart thought, they’d break off a few platoons from the back and try another route to the side, but the images from the remote told Rex that they weren’t. The side roads had been blocked by barricades thrown up by the rebel mob.
See, we’d just get a demolition team to blow a gap in it and run through. Tinnies don’t think.
“He’s dead,” Rex said, and opened fire again.
“Oh.”
“We can’t keep this up much longer. Give me a couple of minutes to rig some charges across the street, then bang out.”
“I could hold them back long enough for everyone else to make a run for it.”
Rex snapped a grenade launcher to his rifle. It was a mod the DC-15 wasn’t supposed to have, but it did now, and it worked okay. He took aim at a point just behind the front ranks and fired. Shrapnel arced high in the air and fell fizzing around him.
“Noble,” he said. “And useless, because I can’t lose a Jedi on my watch.”
“I can run like anyone else. You know I can.”
“My squad,” he said, wondering why he couldn’t feel any panic now, just this awful choking anger. He counted his supply of grenades and tried to calculate how far the reel of high-yield detonite tape would stretch. “My decision. Hold that line while I lay the charges.”
“You’ll be killed.”
“And the maximum number extracted. You know what your bosses say about attachment, littl’un. Don’t get too attached to me.”
Ahsoka blinked for a moment, then backed away, lightsaber drawn to deflect blasterfire as if it was an afterthought.
“Experienced captains are worth more than meat cans,” Boro said. “Why don’t I—”
“Okay, the line for senseless square-jawed sacrifice starts over there,” Rex said irritably. “Take a ticket and we’ll get to you as soon as we can.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“No, my fault. I’m sorry. As soon as we get this primed, get ready to grab Ahsoka and get her out of here.”
“Would we be doing this if it hadn’t been Pellaeon’s girlfriend, sir?”
“Yes. Because that’s what we’d want someone to do for us.”
The ground underneath his boots was shaking. At first he thought it was artillery pounding away somewhere, but then he saw the cracks in the paving. They appeared as hairlines snaking across the permacrete, soon gaping apart in places to form wider fissures.
“Master Altis?” Rex yelled. “What’s happening?”
Altis looked down. He still had his hand raised as if he were pushing against an invisible door where he wasn’t a welcome caller. Callista and Ahsoka stood frozen in the same pose.
“Oh, that again,” he said. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “We’re generating so much pressure that it’s causing subsidence.”
Masonry toppled from buildings on either side of the road. Some debris plunged onto the droid ranks. And what had seemed like a ghost town suddenly erupted into desperate life as people boiled out from doorways, locals who’d been hiding until the fighting passed. Now they were flushed from their hiding places by the threat of collapsing buildings.
“I think you ought to let go and run,” Rex said.
“Good idea,” said Altis. “Or I’ll end up killing more non-combatants than the enemy.” The Jedi Master grabbed Callista’s shoulder as if to break her out of a trance, making her whip her head around. “Your trooper’s passed. I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” said Rex. “Coric?” He flashed the shuttle on his comlink. “Coric, we’re pulling back now. Stand by.” He gestured to Altis. “Give us a count, then, sir.”
“In three… two… now!”
Well, three seconds’ warning was better than nothing.
As soon as the Jedi released the Force push, the building to the right of the droid front line collapsed in a rumbling plume of dust that raced across the street like a volcanic eruption.
Boro looked back a few times as he ran. He had a piece of Vere’s armor in his hand, a shoulder plate, but Altis ran to him to do the necessary before Rex did. The old Jedi put his hand on the trooper’s back and said something. Whatever it was, it got Boro moving. Rex sprinted for the side roads, expecting the worst.
“Sir, stay put,” said Coric’s voice in his earpiece. “We’re coming for you. We’re setting down at the end of the street. Can you see the metal railings at the intersection?”
Rex did an about-turn and signaled everyone else to stop. There were no droids on their tail yet—they were probably still trying to negotiate the rubble because the stupid kriffing things couldn’t climb—but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t get attention from anything airborne.
“I see it,” Rex said. “And I told you to wait.”
“Agent Devis said to come back for you, sir.” Coric sounded as if he was trying extra-hard to make light of things. “An officer’s missus always outranks him, so she’s like a commodore. And she’s in my face.”
“Okay, give us time to make our way down there.”
They ran again, sprinting in bursts and keeping well spaced apart, just in case any of the locals were armed and aggrieved enough to settle a few scores with a Republic that had done nothing for them.
Good old Coric. How does a man know when you really, really wish he’d disobey an order?
It was too late for Vere. Rex could feel himself putting his anger to one side again, bolting it down to make sure it was just fuel for focusing on the job at hand. He’d let rip later, when nobody was around to watch him fall apart.
The familiar chuntering noise of the shuttle’s drive was now audible, muffled by the buildings until it moved into the open street with a sudden burst of noise. It hovered a meter above the pavement; its downdraft sent water spray leaping from the puddles. Ross and Ince jumped out to take up defensive positions, then the vessel settled on its dampers, still sitting on what looked like a cushion of mist.
“Boro,” Rex yelled, “go.”
He grabbed Boro’s shoulder to push him ahead, surprised that his instinct right then wasn’t to look after Ahsoka but to take care of his men. He sent the others racing for the shuttle one at a time, then ushered the two troopers inside. He didn’t even have time to dog the hatch shut behind him before Coric lifted off.
“Good timing,” Coric said. Rex hung on to the safety rail and looked down. “The tin-can army’s arrived.”
Beneath them, clunking along in orderly ranks as if nothing untoward had happened, battle droids moved toward the spot where the vessel had set down just moments earlier. There were a lot fewer of them; so these were the slightly smarter or randomly luckier ones that managed to blunder through the debris. They raised their blasters with the precision of a ceremonial honor guard at a state funeral, aimed, fired—and missed. Blaster bolts passed beneath the shuttle’s hull in red streaks.
Rex realized that all he knew about funerals—any funerals—was gleaned from what he’d seen on HNE. He pulled the hatch closed and sat back on one of the benches with his eyes shut for a few moments. When he looked up again, Hallena Devis was staring right at him.
She couldn’t tell if he was looking at her or not, of course. All she saw was a closed helmet with a T-shaped visor like every other clone’s. Just to be diplomatic, he took it off and let her make eye contact.
“Thanks for saving my life,” she said. He could see a big lump in her hairline. A medic would need to check that out. “And I’m sorry that it cost one of your men.”
“That’s the job, ma’am.” Rex actually wanted to say something else, but it wasn’t her fault, and he was the one who’d volunteered them for the mission. “You understand that as well as anybody.”
“Never be a prisoner and never take one. That’s what the Irmenu say.”
Rex thought that wa
s a conversation waiting to happen, and he wasn’t the man to have it. He noted that Ince, Boro, Joc, Hil, and Ross had all fallen silent, the unnatural absolute silence of men who had cut their comms. They were on their own frequency. Rex didn’t intrude. Whatever they were sharing, they must have needed that privacy badly; it was one of those points of etiquette that he observed strictly. If they thought he was an idiot, if they were cursing him, or if they were just in the first throes of grief, then that was their business, and he’d only override that circuit in an emergency.
This is the first time they’ve had a buddy die on them. Easy to forget that.
Altis, wedged up against Boro on one of the seats, seemed to be able to hear something anyway. The Jedi Master simply put his hand on Boro’s forearm and said nothing.
Now, there’s a kind man.
“Anyway, you tied this up so fast that we’ll be back on board before General Skywalker catches up with us,” Rex said. “Good job, everyone.”
The shuttle streaked toward the upper atmosphere, rising above the cloud cover through shades of blue, then violet, then black. All they had to do was dock in Leveler as fast as they could, and leave JanFathal behind.
It was lost to the Republic for now.
But the worst was behind them today, Rex thought, and then cursed himself for tempting fate.
Republic Torrent Fighter Echo-97,
Entering Fath System and Inbound for Janfathal
Anakin wondered if the Force was finally teaching him a lesson for defying the rulings of his Masters.
I goof off, and my men end up in trouble.
I shouldn’t have to sneak around to see my wife.
Okay, that’s an excuse. It’s true, but it doesn’t justify this.
“Skywalker to Leveler.” He could see the warship’s motionless transponder icon on his cockpit display. “I’m getting some scary traces from Rex’s comlink. What’s happening?”
Anakin didn’t get the usual comm officer. Pellaeon answered the call personally. “He’s inbound now, from JanFathal.”
“I’ve been bouncing in and out of hyperspace all the way from Coruscant trying to track him. How did he end up there?”
Pellaeon sounded oddly restrained. He was always an enormously confident man, exceptionally unapologetic even in the face of an angry admiral, but there was something making him uncomfortable. Anakin could feel it strongly.
“We were tasked to extract a Rep Intel agent when the enemy invaded,” Pellaeon said. “The lady is known to me, by the way.”
Anakin let that sink in. Pellaeon’s tone said it all. Well… not much room for me to complain about that, is there? Even if there’s any complaining to be done.
“Understood, Captain. What’s the security situation?”
“We’re standing off some distance because some of our systems aren’t entirely trouble-free yet. If Rex looks as if he might run into Sep problems, though, we’ll engage.”
“I can escort him in,” Anakin said. “What am I looking for?”
“A replenishment shuttle. It might still be showing a spoof transponder code, so be cautious.”
Okay, I’ll feel if it’s Rex or not, but saying that tends to make folks nervous. “I’ll confirm visually before I open fire, Captain.”
“Well, he has Jedi with him, so you can probably ping them with your Force radar or whatever it is that you fellows do.”
“Ahsoka insisted on going, then.”
Pellaeon inhaled very quietly as if negotiating a delicate issue. “Yes, along with Master Altis and two of his followers.”
No, Anakin wasn’t expecting that.
Altis.
Anakin vaguely knew the name, but, staring into the starfield around his Torrent to let the memory come to him, he didn’t know why. It took a few moments to remember.
Qui-Gon Jinn, his Master-who-never-was, the man who wanted him to be a Jedi despite the Jedi Council’s refusal to train him, had mentioned Altis. He had mentioned Dooku, too, as his former Master. Qui-Gon had mixed with the most challenging and unorthodox of Jedi—the thinkers, the debaters, the iconoclasts, and, ultimately, even the traitors.
Anakin couldn’t recall what Altis’s brand of dissent had been. But that didn’t matter. Now he had a chance to relive happy memories of his old mentor. He missed Qui-Gon.
“General, are you there?”
“Sorry, Captain. Just trying to recall the name.” Anakin shut his eyes for a moment and centered himself, letting the ebb and flow of the Force wash over him. Yes, he felt a cluster of strong presences. It was harder to feel clearly these days with all the backwash of violence and fear muddying the Force waters, but he had a bearing now that no ship’s nav computer could give him.
“That’ll give us something to chat about in your shiny new wardroom.”
Pellaeon paused again. It was the merest fraction of a second, less than a blink, but Anakin heard it. “Your Padawan will no doubt fill you in on that.”
Ahsoka must have been really testing Pellaeon’s patience. His tone said it all.
“And JanFathal? I’ve been out of comm contact. Is Master Yoda sending forces to repel the invasion?”
“I understand from Intel that he decided against it, given the popular support for the regime change. We’d be fighting on two fronts.”
“We need to pick better allies…”
“Indeed. We’re in comm contact with Rex’s shuttle now, so I’ll warn him that you’re coming.”
Anakin calculated the sublight transit time to the planet from his current position at the edge of the Fath system and decided to jump to hyperspace. It was a matter of seconds, and pretty wasteful of fuel, but if Rex needed an escort then he needed it right now—and not in half an hour.
Anakin hit the jump control and watched the starscape stretch and distort as the fighter leapt almost instantly into the heart of the system. Short jumps were the riskiest maneuvers of all. The smallest error, a moment’s lapse, and his fighter might drop out of hyperspace into the mantle of a star.
It didn’t, of course. He prided himself on his piloting, not just his preternatural Force skills but also the basic discipline and long hours common to Jedi and mundane pilot alike.
I worked hard to get this good. I’m more than lucky. More than my Force senses, too.
The Torrent dropped back into realspace almost as soon as it had jumped. Its viewscreen was now filled with the almost-full disk of green and white marble that was JanFathal.
“Skywalker to Rex, over…” Anakin’s sensors showed a number of Sep vessels close to the planet. “Skywalker to Rex…”
Coric’s voice cut in. “Receiving you, General. We don’t have a visual on you yet.”
“Still using a bogus ID?”
“Yes, sir. We had to bang out in a hurry, and we thought we might have company.”
“I’ve got you on my screen. Can you confirm you’re showing as a Trade Federation fleet tender?”
“Confirmed.”
“Apart from the brief excitement you had on JanFathal, is everyone okay?”
“’Fraid not, sir. We lost Trooper Vere.”
Vere? Anakin hadn’t even met him yet. Now he never would. He’d only been assigned to the 501st a matter of days ago. Rex wasn’t going to be in the best of moods, then; the man was good at keeping up a stoical front, but Anakin’s Force senses saw past the veneer and knew just how passionately Rex felt about things.
“I’m sorry. I should have been with you. Tell Rex that—”
“Stang,” Coric muttered. “Apologies, General, but are you picking up something moving fast on a direct course with Leveler?”
On the Torrent’s sensor screen, a yellow enemy icon appeared to have separated from the rest of the Sep flotilla and was heading for Pellaeon’s ship. A warship that didn’t want to be found and could minimize its footprint on background space was a small target in that infinity. Folks put too much faith in sensors—but it was all that the vast majority had.
&nb
sp; “Yeah, Sep ship,” Anakin said. “They’ve found Leveler.”
“They worked out we need to dock with a much bigger target nearby.”
Anakin opened the link to the warship. “Leveler, this is Skywalker—you’ve got one Sep vessel heading your way at speed, grid seven-seven-nine-five. I’m going in.”
“We’re tracking it, General.”
“What’s your operational status?”
“Concussion missile targeting is offline, but we have a laser cannon and torpedoes.”
“Okay, I’m on it,” Anakin said.
The simplest thing would have been for Leveler to jump to hyperspace. As Anakin headed on an intercept course with the Separatist vessel, he reflected on the fact that the enemy thought the Republic wouldn’t do that kind of thing. It wouldn’t abandon its own to attack or to a lonely death while trying to reach the nearest base with dwindling oxygen.
A decent captain would wait to let the shuttle dock, even with an enemy warship homing in on it.
The Seps had to be counting on it.
And Anakin was counting on the Seps wanting Leveler—refitted, state-of-the-art, full of technology and classified data—in one piece.
Chapter Eight
I’m a Corellian. As the saying goes, we won’t be driven.
—GILAD PELLAEON
Republic Assault Ship Leveler,
Just Outside Janfathal Space
“Safeguard, safeguard, safeguard. All hands to action stations.”
Leveler was fighting for real now; the work-up seemed a lifetime ago. Pellaeon stood on the darkened bridge, hands flat on his command console, and stared out into a void that would reveal nothing until it was too late. Intel data said the Sep ship was the light cruiser Discord, but Pellaeon now wondered if he’d trust Rep Intel to tell him the correct time of day.
The Clone Wars: No Prisoners Page 12