Part 27 (1/2)

The holoscan flickered to nothingness. Mace Windu turned brief but seemingly significant glances upon the other two Masters in attendance, both holoscans themselves: Ki-Adi-Mundi from the fortified command center on Mygeeto, and from a guerrilla outpost on Kashyyyk, Yoda.

Then he turned to Anakin. ”Take this report to the Chancellor.”

”Of course I will, Master.”

”And take careful note of his reaction. We will need a full account.”

”Master?”

”What he says, Anakin. Who he calls. What he does. Everything. Even his facial expressions. It's very important.”

”I don't understand-”

”You don't have to. Just do it.”

”Master-”

”Anakin, do I have to remind you that you are still a Jedi? You are still subject to the orders of this Council.”

”Yes, Master Windu. Yes, I am,” he said, and left.

Once Skywalker was gone, Mace Windu found himself in a chair, staring at the doorway through which the young Jedi Knight had left. ”Now we shall see,” he murmured. ”At last. The waters will begin to clear.”

Though he shared the command center with the holoscans of two other Jedi Masters, Mace wasn't talking to them. He spoke to the grim, clouded future inside his head.

”Have you considered,” Ki-Adi-Mundi said carefully, from faraway Mygeeto, ”that if Palpatine refuses to surrender power, removing him is only a first step?”

Mace looked at the blue ghost of the Cerean Master. ”I am not a politician. Removing a tyrant is enough for me.”

”But it will not be enough for the Republic,” Ki-Adi-Mundi countered sadly. ”Palpatine's dictators.h.i.+p has been legitimized-and can be legalized, even enshrined in a revised Const.i.tution-by the supermajority he controls in the Senate.”

The grim future inside Mace's head turned even darker. The Cerean was right.

”Filled with corruption, the Senate is,” Yoda agreed from Kashyyyk. ”Controlled, they must be, until replaced the corrupted Senators can be, with Senators honest and-”

”Do you hear us?” Mace lowered his head into his hands. ”How have we come to this? Arresting a Chancellor. Taking over the Senate-! It's as though Dooku was right-to save the Republic, we'll have to destroy it . . .”

Yoda lifted his head, and his eyes slitted as though he struggled with some inner pain. ”Hold on to hope we must; our true enemy, Palpatine is not, nor the Senate; the true enemy is instead the Sith Lord Sidious, who controls them both. Once destroyed Sidious is . . . all these other concerns, less dire they will instantly become.”

”Yes.” Mace Windu rose, and moved to the window, hands folded behind his back. ”Yes, that is true.”

Indigo gloom gathered among the towers outside.

”And we have put the chosen one in play against the last Lord of the Sith,” he said. ”In that, we must place our faith, and our hopes for the future of the Republic.”

The landing deck canopy parted, and the blue-and-white Jedi starfighter blasted upward into the gale. From deep shadows at the rear of the deck, Obi-Wan watched it go.

”I suppose I am committed, now,” he murmured.

Through electrobinoculars produced from his equipment belt, he examined that suspiciously s.h.i.+ny spheroid high above on the tenth level. The spray of spines had to be droid-control antennas. That's where Grievous would be: at the nerve center of his army.

”Then that's where I should be, too.” He looked around, frowning. ”Never an air taxi when you need one . . .”

The reclosing of the deck canopy quieted the howl of the wind outside, and now from deeper within the city Obi-Wan could hear a ragged choir of hoa.r.s.ely bellowing cries that had the resonance of large animals-they reminded him of something . . .

Suubatars, that was it-they sounded vaguely like the calls of the suubatars he and Anakin had ridden on one of their last missions before the war, back when biggest worry Obi-Wan had had was how to keep his promise to Qui-Gon . . .

But he had no time for nostalgia. He could practically hear Qui-Gon reminding him to focus on the now, and give himself over to the living Force.

So he did.

Mere moments of following the cries through the shadows of deserted hallways carved into the sandstone brought Obi-Wan in sight of an immense, circular arena-like area, where a ring of balcony was joined to a flat lower level by spokes of broad, corrugated ramps; the ceiling above was hung with yellowish lamp-rods that cast a light the same color as the sunbeams striking through an arc of wide oval archways open to the interior of the sinkhole outside. The winds that whistled through those wide archways also went a long way toward cutting the eye-watering reptile-den stench down from overpowering to merely nauseating.

Squatting, lying, and milling aimlessly about the lower level were a dozen or so large lizard-like beasts that looked like the product of some mad geneticist's cross of Tatooine krayt dragons with Haruun Kal ankkoxen: four meters tall at the shoulder, long crooked legs that ended in five-clawed feet clearly designed for scaling rocky cliffs, ten meters of powerful tail ridged with spines and tipped with a horn-bladed mace, a flexible neck leading up to an armor-plated head that sported an impressive cowl of spines of its own-they looked fearsome enough that Obi-Wan might have thought them some sort of dangerous wild predators or vicious watchbeasts, were it not for the docile way they tolerated the team of Utai wranglers who walked among them, hosing them down, sc.r.a.ping muck from their scales, and letting them take bundles of greens from their hands.

Not far from where Obi-Wan stood, several large racks were hung with an array of high-backed saddles in various styles and degrees of ornamentation, very much indeed like those the Alwari of Ansion had strapped to their suubatars. Now he really missed Anakin . . .

Anakin disliked living mounts almost as much as Obi-Wan hated to fly. Obi-Wan had long suspected that it was Anakin's gift with machines that worked against him with suubatar or dew-back or bantha; he could never get entirely comfortable riding anything with a mind of its own. He could vividly imagine Anakin's complaints as he climbed into one of these saddles.

It seemed an awfully long time since Obi-Wan had had an opportunity to tease Anakin a bit.

With a sigh, he brought himself back to business. Moving out of the shadows, he walked down one of the corrugated ramps and made a slight, almost imperceptible hand gesture in the direction of the nearest of the Utai dragonmount wranglers. ”I need transportation.”

The Short's bulging eyes went distant and a bit gla.s.sy, and he responded with a string of burbling glottal hoots that had a decidedly affirmative tone.

Obi-Wan made another gesture. ”Get me a saddle.” With another string of affirmative burbles, the Short waddled off.

While he waited for his saddle, Obi-Wan examined the dragonmounts. He pa.s.sed up the largest, and the one most heavily muscled; he skipped over the leanest built-for-speed beast, and didn't even approach the one with the fiercest gleam in its eye. He didn't actually pay attention to outward signs of strength or health or personality; he was using his hands and eyes and ears purely as focusing channels for the Force. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he trusted that he would recognize it when he found it.

Qui-Gon, he reflected with an inward smile, would approve.

Finally he came to a dragonmount with a clear, steady gleam in its round yellow eyes, and small, close-set scales that felt warm and dry. It neither s.h.i.+ed back from his hand nor bent submissively to his touch, but only returned his searching gaze with calm, thoughtful intelligence. Through the Force, he felt in the beast an unshakable commitment to obedience and care for its rider: an almost Jedi-like devotion to service as the ultimate duty.

This was why Obi-Wan would always prefer a living mount. A speeder is incapable of caring if it crashes.

”This one,” he said. ”I'll take this one.”

The Short had returned with a plain, st.u.r.dily functional saddle; as he and the other wranglers undertook the complicated task of tacking up the dragonmount, he nodded at the beast and said, ”Boga.”

”Ah,” Obi-Wan said. ”Thank you.”

He took a sheaf of greens from a nearby bin and offered them to the dragonmount. The great beast bent its head, its wickedly hooked beak delicately withdrew the greens from Obi-Wan's hand, and it chewed them with fastidious thoroughness.

”Good girl, Boga. Erm-” Obi-Wan frowned at the Short. ”-she is a she, isn't she?”

The wrangler frowned back. ”Warool noggaggllo?” he said, shrugging, which Obi-Wan took to mean I have no idea what you're saying to me.

”Very well, then,” Obi-Wan said with an answering shrug. ”She you will have to be, then, Boga. Unless you care to tell me otherwise.”

Boga made no objection.