Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (star wars)

by Robert Anthony Salvatore

  Over by the door in Padme's room, R2-D2's lights went on. The droid's domed head swiveled about, scanning the room, and he gave a soft "wooo" sound. But then, apparently detecting nothing amiss, the droid shut back down. Outside, a small tube came forth from the probe droid, moving to the hole in the window, and crawling through it, into Padme's room, came a pair of kouhuns, like bloated white maggots with lines of black legs along their sides and nasty mandibles. Dangerous as those mandibles looked, though, the true danger of the kouhuns lay at the other end, the tail stinger, dripping of venom. The vicious kouhuns crawled in through the blinds and started immediately toward the bed and the sleeping woman.

  "You look tired," Obi-Wan said to Anakin in the adjoining room. The Padawan, still standing, opened his eyes and came out of his meditative trance. He took a moment to register the words, and then gave a little shrug, not disagreeing. "I don't sleep well anymore."

  That was hardly news to Obi-Wan. "Because of your mother?" he asked.

  "I don't know why I keep dreaming about her now," Anakin answered, frustration coming through in his voice. "I haven't seen her since I was little."

  "Your love for her was, and remains, deep," Obi-Wan said. "That is hardly reason for despair."

  "But these are more than…" Anakin started to say, but he stopped and sighed and shook his head. "Are they dreams, or are they visions? Are they images of what has been, or do they tell of something that is yet to be?"

  "Or are they just dreams?" Obi-Wan said, his gentle smile showing through his scraggly beard. "Not every dream is a premonition, some vision or some mystical connection. Some dreams are just… dreams, and even Jedi have dreams, young Padawan."

  Anakin didn't seem very satisfied with that. He just shook his head again.

  "Dreams pass in time," Obi-Wan told him. "I'd rather dream of Padme," Anakin replied with a sly smile. "Just being around her again is… intoxicating."

  Obi-Wan's sudden frown erased both his and Anakin's smiles. "Mind your thoughts, Anakin," he scolded in no uncertain tone. "They betray you. You've made a commitment to the Jedi Order, a commitment not easily broken, and the Jedi stand on such relationships is uncompromising. Attachment is forbidden." He gave a little derisive snort and looked toward the sleeping Senator's room. "And don't forget that she's a politician. They're not to be trusted."

  "She's not like the others in the Senate, Master," Anakin protested strongly.

  Obi-Wan eyed him carefully. "It's been my experience that Senators focus only on pleasing those who fund their campaigns, and they are more than willing to forget the niceties of democracy to get those funds."

  "Not another lecture, Master," Anakin said with a profound sigh. He had heard this particular diatribe repeatedly. "At least not on the economics of politics."

  Obi-Wan was no fan of the politics of the Republic. He started speaking again, or tried to, but Anakin abruptly interrupted.

  "Please, Master," Anakin said emphatically. "Besides, you're generalizing. I know that Padme-"

  "Senator Amidala," Obi-Wan sternly corrected.

  "— isn't like that," Anakin finished. "And the Chancellor doesn't seem to be corrupt."

  "Palpatine's a politician. I've observed that he is very clever at following the passions and prejudices of the Senators."

  "I think he is a good man," Anakin stated. "My instincts are very positive about…"

  The young Padawan trailed off, his eyes widening, his expression becoming one of shock.

  "I sense it, too," Obi-Wan said breathlessly, and the two Jedi exploded into motion.

  Inside the bedroom, the kouhuns crawled slowly and deliberately toward the sleeping Padme's exposed neck and face, their mandibles clicking excitedly.

  "Wee oooo!" R2-D2 shrieked, catching on to the threat. The droid tootled a series of alarms and focused a light on the bed, highlighting the centipede invaders perfectly as Obi-Wan and Anakin burst into the room.

  Padme awoke, her eyes going wide, sucking in her breath in terror as the wicked little creatures stood up and hissed, and came at her.

  Or would have, except that Anakin was there, his blue lightsaber blade slashing across, just above the bedcovers, once and again, slicing both creatures in half.

  "Droid!" Obi-Wan cried, and Anakin and Padme turned to see him rushing for the window. There, hovering outside, was the remote assassin, its appendages retracting fast.

  Obi-Wan leapt into the blinds, taking them with him right through the window, shattering the glass. He reached into the Force as he leapt, using it to extend his jump, to send him far through the air to catch hold of the retreating droid assassin. With his added weight, the floating droid sank considerably, but it compensated and stabilized quickly, leaving the Jedi hanging on to it a hundred stories up.

  Off flew the droid, taking Obi-Wan with it.

  "Anakin?" Padme asked, turning to him. When she saw him return the look, and saw the sudden flicker of intensity in his blue eyes, she pulled her nightdress higher about her shoulders.

  "Stay here!" Anakin instructed. "Watch her, Artoo!" He rushed for the door, only to stop abruptly as Captain Typho and a pair of guards, along with the handmaiden Dorme, charged in.

  "See to her!" was all that Anakin explained as he scrambled past them, running full out for the turbolift.

  Not without defensive systems, the probe droid repeatedly sent electrical shocks arcing over its surface, stinging Obi-Wan's hands.

  The Jedi Knight gritted through the pain, having no alternative but to hold on. He knew he shouldn't look down, but he did so anyway, to see the city teeming far, far below.

  Another shock nearly sent him plummeting toward that distant bustle. Reflexively, and hardly considering all the implications, the Jedi fumbled with one hand, found a power wire, and pulled it free, ceasing the electrical shocks.

  But ending, too, the power that kept the probe droid aloft. Down they went, falling like stones, the lights of the various floors flashing past them like strobes as they dropped.

  "Not good, not good!" Obi-Wan said over and over as he worked frantically to reconnect the wire. Finally, he got it. The probe droid's lights blinked back on, and off the remote soared, with Obi-Wan hanging on desperately. The droid wasted no time in reigniting the series of electrical shocks, stinging the Jedi, but not shaking the stubborn man free.

  Anakin was in no mood to wait for a turbolift. Out came his lightsaber, and with a single well-placed thrust the Padawan had the doors open, though the turbolift car was nowhere near his floor. Anakin didn't even pause long enough to discern if it was above him or below, he just leapt into the shaft, catching hold of one of the supporting poles with one arm, propping the side of his foot tight against it, and spinning downward. His mind whirled, trying to remember the layout of the building, and which levels held the various docking bays.

  Suddenly that sixth sense, feeling through the Force, alerted him to danger.

  "Yikes!" he yelled as he looked down to see the turbolift racing up at him. Grabbing on tighter to the pole, he held his open palm downward, then sent a tremendous Force push below, not to stop the lift, but to propel himself back up the shaft, keeping him ahead of the lift with sufficient speed for him to reorient himself and land, sprawled, atop the speeding car. Again, whipping out his lightsaber, he stabbed it through the catch on the lift's top hatch. Ignoring the shrieks from the car's occupants below, Anakin pulled open the hatch, grabbed the edge as he shut off his blade, then somersaulted into the car.

  "Docking bay level?" he asked the pair of stunned Senators, a Sullustan and a human.

  "Forty-seven!" the human responded at once.

  "Too late," the Sullustan added, noting the rolling floor numbers. The diminutive Senator started to add, "Next is sixty-something," but Anakin slammed the brake button, and when that didn't work fast enough for him, he reached into the Force again and grabbed at the braking mechanisms, forcing them even more tightly into place.

  All three went off the floor wit
h the sudden stop, the Sullustan landing hard. Anakin banged on the door, yelling for it to open. A hand on his shoulder slowed him, and he turned to see the human Senator step by, one finger held up in a gesture bidding the eager young Jedi to wait. The Senator pushed a button, clearly marked on the panel, and the turbolift door slid open.

  With a shrug and a sheepish smile, Anakin had to fall to his belly and squeeze through the opening to drop to the hallway below. He ran frantically, left and then right, finally spotting a balcony adjacent to the parking garage. Out he ran, then vaulted over a rail, dropping to a line of parked speeders. One yellow, snub-nosed speeder was open, so he jumped in, firing it up and zooming away, off the platform and then up, up, heading for the line of traffic flowing high above.

  He tried to get his bearings as he rose. What side of the building was he now on? And which side had Obi-Wan flown away from? And what angle had the fleeing probe droid taken?

  As he tried to sort it all out, Anakin realized that only one of two things could possibly put him on Obi-Wan's trail, dumb luck or… The Padawan fell into the Force yet again, searching for the sensation that he could identify as his Jedi Master.

  Zam Wesell leaned against the side of her speeder, impatiently tapping her gloved fingers on the roof of the old vehicle. She wore an oversized purple helmet, front-wedged and solid save a small rectangle cut out about her eyes, but while that hid her assumed beauty, her formfitting grav-suit showed every feminine curve.

  Zam didn't think much about it at that time, though, for with this particular mission it was more important that she merely blend in. Often she had taken assignments where her assumed feminine wiles had helped her tremendously, where she had played upon the obvious weakness of a male to get close.

  Those wiles weren't going to help her with this assignment, though, and Zam knew it. This time, she was out to kill a woman, a Senator, and one who was very well guarded by beings absolutely devoted to her, as protective of her as a parent might be to a child. Zam wondered what this woman might have done to so invoke the wrath of her employers.

  Or at least, she started to wonder, as she had started to wonder several times since Jango had hired her to kill the Senator. The professional assassin never truly let her thoughts travel down that path. It wasn't her business. She was not a moral gauge for anyone, not one to decide the value of her assignment or the justice or injustice involved-she was just a tool, in many ways, a machine. She was the extension of her employers and nothing more.

  Jango had bade her to kill Amidala, and so she would kill Amidala, fly back and collect her due, and go on to the next assignment. It was clean and it was simple.

  Zam could hardly believe that the explosive charge she had managed to hide on the landing platform had not done the job, but she had taken that lesson to heart, had come to understand that the weaknesses of Senator Amidala were not easily discerned and exploited.

  The changeling banged her fist on the roof of the speeder. She hated that she had been forced to go outside for help, to procure a probe droid to do the task that she so relished handling personally. But now there were Jedi about Amidala, by all the rumors, and Zam had little desire to do battle with one of those troublesome fanatics.

  She glanced into the speeder, to the timepiece on the console, and nodded grimly. The job should be completed by now. The poisonous kouhuns had been delivered, likely, and one scratch of a venomous stinger should be more than enough.

  Zam stood up straight, sensing something, some sudden feeling of uneasiness.

  She heard a cry, of surprise or of fear, and she glanced all about, and then her eyes, within the cut-out rectangle of the helmet, went wide indeed. She watched in blank amazement as the probe droid, her programmed assassin, wove through the towering buildings of Coruscant, with a man, dressed like a Jedi, hanging on to it! Zam's fear lessened and her smile widened, though, as she watched the droid go into defensive action, for this one was well programmed. It smacked against the side of a building, nearly dislodging the Jedi, and when that didn't work, the clever droid dived back into the traffic lane, soaring behind a speeder, just above the vehicle's exhaust.

  The Jedi squirmed and tucked and somehow managed to keep himself out of that fiery exhaust, and so the droid swooped off to the side, taking a different tack. It flew in low over the top of one building.

  Zam's eyes widened as she watched the spectacle. She was impressed at the way the Jedi did not allow himself to be slammed off, but rather tucked his legs enough to run along the rooftop as the droid skimmed across it. Oh, he was good!

  This was truly entertaining to the confident bounty hunter, but enough was enough.

  Zam reached into the speeder and pulled out a long blaster rifle, casually lifting and leveling. She fired off a series of shots, and explosions ignited all about the Jedi and the droid.

  Zam looked up from her sights, stunned to see that the crafty man had somehow avoided those shots, had dodged, or had, she mused, used his Jedi powers to deflect them.

  "Block this," the bounty hunter said, raising the rifle again. Taking aim at the Jedi's chest, she lifted the barrel just a bit and squeezed the trigger.

  The probe droid exploded.

  The Jedi plummeted from sight.

  Zam sighed and shrugged, telling herself that the cost of the probe droid was worth the show. And hopefully the victory. If Senator Amidala lay dead in her room, then that cost would be a minor thing indeed, for this bounty exceeded anything Zam had ever hoped to collect.

  The bounty hunter slipped her rifle back into her speeder, then bent low and squeezed in, soaring off into the Coruscant traffic lanes.

  Obi-Wan screamed as he dropped… ten stories… twenty. There was nothing in his Jedi repertoire to save him this time. He looked all about frantically, but there was nothing-no handholds, no platform, no awning of thick and padded cloth.

  Nothing. Just another five hundred stories to the ground!

  He tried to find his sense of calm, tried to fall into the Force and accept this unwelcomed end.

  And then a speeder swooped beside him and he saw that cocky smile of his unruly Padawan, and never in his life had Obi-Wan Kenobi been happier to see anything. "Hitchhikers usually stand on the platforms," Anakin informed him, and he swooped the speeder near enough for Obi-Wan to grab on. "A novel approach, though. Gets the attention of passing traffic."

  Obi-Wan was too busy clawing his way into the passenger seat to offer a retort. He finally settled in next to Anakin.

  "I almost lost you there," the Padawan remarked.

  "No kidding. What took you so long?"

  Anakin eased back in his seat, putting his left arm up on the door of the open speeder and assuming a casual posture. "Oh, you know, Master," he said flippantly. "I couldn't find a speeder I really liked. One with an open cockpit, of course, and with the right speed capabilities to catch your droid scooter. And then, you know, I had to hold out for just the right color-"

  "There!" Obi-Wan shouted, pointing up to a closed-in speeder, recognizing it as the one behind the assassin who had been shooting at him. It soared above them, and Anakin cut hard on the wheel and the stick, angling in fast pursuit.

  Almost immediately, an arm came out of the lead speeder's open window, holding a blaster pistol, and the bounty hunter squeezed off a series of shots.

  "If you'd spend as much time working on your lightsaber skills as you do on your wit, young Padawan, you would rival Master Yoda!" Obi-Wan said, and he ducked, getting jostled about, as Anakin cut a series of evasive turns.

  "I thought I already did."

  "Only in your mind, my very young Padawan," Obi-Wan retorted. He gave a little cry and ducked reflexively as Anakin dived in and out of traffic, narrowly missing several vehicles. "Careful! Hey, easy! You know I don't like it when you do that!"

  "Sorry, I forgot you don't like flying, Master!" Anakin said, his voice rising at the end as he took the speeder down suddenly to avoid another blaster bolt from the stubbor
n bounty hunter.

  "I don't mind flying," Obi-Wan insisted. "But what you're doing is suicide!" His words nearly caught in his throat, along with his stomach, as Anakin cut hard to the right, then dropped suddenly, punched the throttle, pulled back to the left, and lifted the nose, zipping the speeder up through the traffic lane and back in sight of the bounty hunter-only to see another line of blaster bolts coming at them.

  Then the bounty hunter dived to the side suddenly, and both Jedi opened their eyes and their mouths wide, their screams drowned out by a commuter train crossing right in front of them.

  Obi-Wan tasted bile again, but somehow, Anakin managed to avoid the train, coming out the other side. Obi-Wan looked over to his Padawan, to see him assuming a casual, in-control posture.

  "Master, you know I've been flying since before I could walk," Anakin said with a sly grin. "I'm very good at this."