Part 11 (2/2)

But even as he spoke another sheet s.h.i.+mmered into existence across the mouth of the corridor they'd just left, and two more sizzled into place to seal the corridors to either side.

They were boxed in.

Caught.

Obi-Wan stood there for a second or two, blinking, then looked at Anakin and shook his head in disbelief. ”I thought we were smarter than this.”

”Apparently not. The oldest trap in the book, and we walked right into it.” Anakin felt as embarra.s.sed as Obi-Wan looked. ”Well, you walked right into it. I was just trying to keep up.”

”Oh, so now this is my fault?”

Anakin gave him a slightly wicked smile. ”Hey, you're the Master. I'm just a hero.”

”Joke some other time,” Obi-Wan muttered. ”It's the dark side-the shadow on the Force. Our instincts still can't be trusted. Don't you feel it?”

The dark side was the last thing Anakin wanted to think about right now. ”Or, you know, it could be that knock on the head,” he offered.

Obi-Wan didn't even smile. ”No. All our choices keep going awry. How could they even locate us so precisely? Something is definitely wrong, here. Dooku's death should have lifted the shadow-”

”If you've a taste for mysteries, Master Ken.o.bi,” Palpatine interrupted pointedly, ”perhaps you could solve the mystery of how we're going to escape.”

Obi-Wan nodded, scowling darkly at the ray s.h.i.+eld box as though seeing it for the first time; after a moment, he took out his lightsaber again, ignited it, and sank its tip into the deck at his feet. The blade burned through the durasteel plate almost without resistance-and then flared and bucked and spat lightning as it hit a s.h.i.+eld in place in a gap below the plate, and almost threw Obi-Wan into the annihilating energy of the ray s.h.i.+eld behind him.

”No doubt in the ceiling as well.” He looked at the others and sighed. ”Ideas?”

”Perhaps,” Palpatine said thoughtfully, as though the idea had only just occurred to him, ”we should simply surrender to General Grievous. With the death of Count Dooku, I'm sure that the two of you can ...” He cast a significant sidelong glance at Anakin. ”. . . negotiate our release.”

He's persistent, I'll give him that, Anakin thought. He caught himself smiling as he recalled discussing ”negotiation” with Padme, on Naboo before the war; he came back to the present when he realized that undertaking ”aggressive negotiations” could prove embarra.s.sing under his current lightsaber-challenged circ.u.mstances.

”I say . . . ,” he put in slowly, ”patience.”

”Patience?” Obi-Wan lifted an eyebrow. ”That's a plan?”

”You know what Master Yoda says: Patience you must have until the mud settles and the water becomes clear. So let's wait.”

Obi-Wan looked skeptical. ”Wait.”

”For the security patrol. A couple of droids will be along in a moment or two; they'll have to drop the ray s.h.i.+eld to take us into custody.”

”And then?”

Anakin shrugged cheerfully. ”And then we'll wipe them out.”

”Brilliant as usual,” Obi-Wan said dryly. ”What if they turn out to be destroyer droids? Or something worse?”

”Oh, come on, Master. Worse than destroyers? Besides, security patrols are always those skinny useless little battle droids.”

At that moment, four of those skinny useless battle droids came marching toward them, one along each corridor, clanking along with blaster rifles leveled. One of them triggered one of its preprogrammed security commands: ”Hand over your weapons!” The other three chimed in with enthusiastic barks of ”Roger, roger!” and a round of spastic head-bobbing. ”See?” Anakin said. ”No problem.”

Before Obi-Wan could reply, concealed doors in the corridor walls zipped suddenly aside. Through them rolled the ma.s.sive bronzium wheels of destroyer droids, two into each corridor. The eight destroyers unrolled themselves behind the battle droids, haloed by sparkling energy s.h.i.+elds, twin blaster cannons targeting the two Jedi's chests.

Obi-Wan sighed. ”You were saying?”

”Okay, fine. It's the dark side. Or something.” Anakin rolled his eyes. ”I guess you're off the hook for the ray s.h.i.+eld trap.” Through those same doorways marched sixteen super battle droids to back up the destroyers, their arm cannons raised to fire over the destroyers' s.h.i.+elds.

Behind the super battle droids came two droids of a type Anakin had never seen. He had an idea what they were, though. And he was not happy about it.

Obi-Wan scowled at them as they approached. ”You're the expert, Anakin. What are those things?”

”Remember what you were saying about worse than destroyers?” Anakin said grimly. ”I think we're looking at them.”

They walked side by side, their gait easy and straightforward, almost as smooth as a human's. In fact, they could have been human-humans who were two meters tall and made out of metal. They wore long swirling cloaks that had once been white, but now were stained with smoke and what Anakin strongly suspected was blood. They walked with the cloaks thrown back over one shoulder, to clear their left arms, where they held some unfamiliar staff-like weapon about two meters long-something like the force-pike of a Senate Guard, but shorter, and with an odd-looking discharge blade at each end.

They walked like they were made to fight, and they had clearly seen some battle. The chest plate of one bore a round shallow crater surrounded by a corona of scorch, a direct blaster hit that hadn't come close to penetrating; the other bore a scar from its cranial dome down through one dead photoreceptor-a scar that looked like it might have come from a lightsaber. This droid looked like it had fought a Jedi, and survived. The Jedi, he guessed, hadn't.

These two droids threaded between the super battle droids and destroyers and casually shoved aside one battle droid hard enough that it slammed into the wall and collapsed into a sparking heap of metal.

The one with the damaged photoreceptor pointed its staff at them, and the ray s.h.i.+elds around them dropped. ”He said, hand over your weapons, Jedi!”

This definitely wasn't a preprogrammed security command Anakin said softly, ”I saw an Intel report on this; I think those are Grievous's personal bodyguard droids. Prototypes built to his specifications.” He looked from Obi-Wan to Palpatine and back again. ”To fight Jedi.”

”Ah,” Obi-Wan said. ”Then under the circ.u.mstances, I suppose we need a Plan B.”

Anakin nodded at Palpatine. ”The Chancellor's idea is sounding pretty good right now.”

Obi-Wan nodded thoughtfully.

When the Jedi Master turned away to offer his lightsaber to the bodyguard droid, Anakin leaned close to the Supreme Chancellor and murmured, ”So you get your way, after all.”

Palpatine answered with a slight, unreadable smile. ”I frequently do.”

As super battle droids came forward with electrobinders for their wrists and a restraining bolt for R2-D2, Obi-Wan cast one frowning look back over his shoulder.

”Oh, Anakin,” he said, with the sort of quiet, pained resignation that would be recognized instantly by any parent exhausted by a trouble-p.r.o.ne child. ”Where is your lightsaber?”

Anakin couldn't look at him. ”It's not lost, if that's what you're thinking.” This was the truth: Anakin could feel it in the Force, and he knew exactly where it was.

”No?”

”No.”

”Where is it, then?”

”Can we talk about this later?”

”Without your lightsaber, you may not have a 'later.' ”

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