Attack of the Clones (33 page)

“He is alive,” Yoda announced, after yet another viewing. “I feel him in the Force.”

“But they have taken him,” Mace put in. “And the wheels have begun to spin more dangerously.”

“More happening on Geonosis, I feel, than has been revealed.”

“I agree,” Mace said. “We must not sit idly by.” He looked at Yoda, as did everyone else in the room, and the little Jedi Master closed his eyes, seemingly very weary and very pained by it all.

“The dark side, I feel,” he said. “And all is cloudy.”

Mace nodded and turned a grim expression on the others. “Assemble,” he ordered, a command that had not been given to the Jedi Council in many, many years.

“We will deal with Count Dooku,” Mace said through the comlink to Anakin. “The most important thing for you, Anakin, is to stay where you are. Protect the Senator at all costs. That is your first priority.”

“Understood, Master,” Anakin replied.

His tone, so full of resignation and defeat, struck Padmé profoundly. It galled the fiery Senator to think that Anakin would be stuck here looking over her, when his Master was in obvious danger.

As the hologram switched off, she moved to the ship’s console and began flicking switches and checking coordinates, confirming what she already knew. “They have to come halfway across the galaxy,” she said, turning to Anakin, who seemed not to care. “They’ll never get there in time to save him.”

Still no response.

“Look, Geonosis is less than a parsec away!” Padmé announced, flipping a few more controls to show the flight line on the viewscreen. “Anakin?”

“You heard him.”

“They can’t get from Coruscant in time to save him!” Padmé reiterated, her voice rising. She started flicking the switches on the panel, preparing the engines for
firing, but Anakin gently put his hand over hers, stopping her.

“If he’s still alive,” the young Jedi answered somberly.

Padmé stared at him hard, and he turned away and walked off.

“Anakin, are you just going to sit here and let him die?” she cried, chasing across the bridge to grab him roughly by the arm. “He’s your friend! Your mentor!”

“He’s like my father!” Anakin shot back at her. “But you heard Master Windu. He gave me strict orders to stay here.”

Padmé understood what was happening. Anakin was doubting himself. He felt himself a failure because of his inability to save his mother, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, he was truly doubting his inner voice, his instincts. She had to find a way around that now, for Anakin’s sake as much as for Obi-Wan’s. If they stayed here and did nothing, Padmé believed that she would lose two friends: Obi-Wan to the Geonosians, and Anakin to his guilt.

“He gave you strict orders to stay here only so that you could protect me,” Padmé corrected with a grin, hoping to remind him clearly that his previous orders, which he had ignored, had demanded that he stay on Naboo. She pulled back away from him, returning to the console, and flicked a few more switches. The engines roared to life.

“Padmé!”

“He gave you strict orders to protect me,” she said again. “And I’m going to save Obi-Wan. So if you plan to protect me, you’ll have to come along.”

Anakin stared at her for a few moments, and she held his gaze, her head tilted, hair loose and cascading across half her face, but hardly dimming the brightness of her determination.

Anakin knew that they were acting outside the orders of Mace Windu, whatever Padmé’s justification. He knew that this was not what was expected of him as a Jedi Padawan.

When had that ever stopped him?

Matching Padmé’s determination, he went to the controls, and a few moments later, the Naboo starship roared up into the Tatooine sky.

T
he calm beauty of the Republic Executive Building on Coruscant, with its streaming fountains and reflecting pools, ridged columns and flowing statues, masked the turmoil within. The word had passed, from Obi-Wan to Yoda and the Jedi Council, and now from them to the Chancellor and leaders of the Senate, that the Republic was crumbling. The mood inside Chancellor Palpatine’s office was both somber and frantic, everyone overwhelmed by a sense of despair and a need to act, frustrated by the apparent lack of options.

Yoda, Mace Windu, and Ki-Adi-Mundi represented the Jedi, lending an air of calm against the nervous energy of Senators Bail Organa and Ask Aak, and Representative Jar Jar Binks. Behind his great desk, Palpatine listened to it all with apparent despair, his aide, Mas Amedda, standing beside him, seeming on the verge of tears.

Silence hung in the room for several long moments after Mace Windu had finished his recounting of the message from Geonosis.

Yoda, leaning on his small cane, glanced at Bail Organa, always a reliable and competent man, and gave a slight nod. Catching the cue, the Senator from Alderaan began the discussion. “The Commerce Guild is preparing for war,” he said. “Given the report of Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, there can be no doubt of that.”

“If the report is accurate,” the fiery Ask Aak promptly responded.

“It is, Senator,” Mace Windu assured him, and Ask Aak, a Senator of action, accepted that. Indeed, Yoda understood that Ask Aak had only made the remark because he had wanted the Jedi to openly support the report, to impress upon all the others that the situation was on the verge of catastrophe.

“Count Dooku must have made a treaty with them,” Chancellor Palpatine reasoned.

“We must stop them before they’re ready,” Bail Organa said.

Jar Jar Binks moved front and center, trembling a bit but keeping his tongue in his mouth, at least. “Excueeze me, yousa honorable Supreme Chancellor, sir,” the Gungan began. “Maybe dissen Jedi stoppen the rebel army.”

“Thank you, Jar Jar,” Palpatine politely replied, and turned to Yoda. “Master Yoda, how many Jedi are available to go to Geonosis?”

“Throughout the galaxy, thousands of Jedi there are,” the diminutive Jedi Master replied. “To send on a special mission, only two hundred are available.”

“With all due respect to the Jedi Order, that doesn’t sound like enough,” Bail Organa said.

“Through negotiation the Jedi maintain peace,” Yoda replied. “To start a war, we do not intend.”

His continued calm only seemed to push the frantic Ask Aak over the edge. “The debate is over!” he cried. “Now we need that clone army.”

Yoda closed his eyes slowly, pained by the weight of reason behind the dreaded words.

“Unfortunately, the debate is not over,” Bail Organa said. “The Senate will never approve the use of the army before the separatists attack. And by then, it will likely be too late.”

“This is a crisis,” Mas Amedda dared interject. “The Senate must vote the Chancellor emergency powers! He could then approve the use of the clones.”

Palpatine rocked back at the suggestion, seeming profoundly shaken. “But what Senator would have the courage to propose such a radical amendment?” he asked hesitantly.

“I will!” Ask Aak declared.

Beside him, Bail Organa gave a helpless chuckle and shook his head. “They will not listen to you, I fear. Nor to me,” he added quickly, when Ask Aak snapped a glare at him. “We have spent too much of our political capital debating the philosophies of the separatists and arguing for action. The Senate will not see our call as anything more than overly alarmist. We need a voice of reason, one willing to reverse position, even, given the gravity of the current situation.”

“If only Senator Amidala was here,” Mas Amedda reasoned.

Without hesitation, Jar Jar Binks stepped forward again. “Mesa mosto Supreme Chancellor,” the Gungan said, squaring his sloping shoulders as much as possible. “Mesa gusto pallos,” he said deferentially to all the others. “Mesa proud to proposing the motion to give Yousa Honor emergency powers.”

Palpatine looked from the trembling Gungan to Bail Organa.

“He speaks for Amidala,” the Senator from Alderaan said. “By all understanding within the Senate, Jar Jar
Binks’s words are a reflection of Senator Amidala’s desires.”

Palpatine nodded grimly, and Yoda sensed a strong fear from the man, as if he knew that he was about to be thrust forward in the most dangerous position he and the Republic had ever known.

Twisting slowly in the force field, restrained by crackling bolts of blue energy, Obi-Wan Kenobi could only watch helplessly as Count Dooku strode into the room. Wearing an expression that showed great sympathy, but one that Obi-Wan certainly did not trust, the regal man walked up right before the Jedi.

“Traitor,” Obi-Wan said.

“Hello, my friend,” Dooku replied. “This is a mistake. A terrible mistake. They’ve gone too far. This is madness!”

“I thought you were their leader here, Dooku,” Obi-Wan replied, holding his voice as steady as possible.

“This had nothing to do with me, I assure you,” the former Jedi insisted. He seemed almost hurt by the accusation. “I promise you that I will petition immediately to have you set free.”

“Well, I hope it doesn’t take too long. I have work to do.” Obi-Wan noted a slight crack in Dooku’s remorseful expression, a slight twinge of … anger?

“May I ask why a Jedi Knight is all the way out here on Geonosis?”

After a moment’s reflection, Obi-Wan decided that he had little to lose here, and he wanted to continue to press Dooku, that he might gauge the truth. “I’ve been tracking a bounty hunter named Jango Fett. Do you know him?”

“There are no bounty hunters here that I’m aware of. Geonosians don’t trust them.”

Trust
. There was a good word, Obi-Wan thought. “Well, who can blame them?” came his disarming reply. “But he is here, I assure you.”

Count Dooku paused for a moment, then nodded, apparently conceding the point. “It’s a great pity that our paths have never crossed before, Obi-Wan,” he said, his voice warm and inviting. “Qui-Gon always spoke very highly of you. I wish he was still alive—I could use his help right now.”

“Qui-Gon Jinn would never join you.”

“Don’t be so sure, my young Jedi,” Count Dooku immediately replied, an offsetting smile on his face, one of confidence and calm. “You forget that Qui-Gon was once my apprentice just as you were once his.”

“You believe that brings loyalty above his loyalty to the Jedi Council and the Republic?”

“He knew all about the corruption in the Senate,” Dooku went on without missing a beat. “They all do, of course. Yoda and Mace Windu. But Qui-Gon would never have gone along with the status quo, with that corruption, if he had known the truth as I have.” The pause was dramatic, demanding a prompt from Obi-Wan.

“The truth?”

“The truth,” said a confident Dooku. “What if I told you that the Republic was now under the control of the Dark Lords of the Sith?”

That hit Obi-Wan as profoundly as any of the electric bolts holding him ever could. “No! That’s not possible.” His mind whirled, needing a denial. He alone among the living Jedi had battled a Sith Lord, and that contest had cost his beloved Master Qui-Gon his life. “The Jedi would be aware of it.”

“The dark side of the Force has clouded their vision, my friend,” Dooku calmly explained. “Hundreds of Senators
are now under the influence of a Sith Lord called Darth Sidious.”

“I don’t believe you,” Obi-Wan said flatly. He only wished he held that truth as solidly as he had just proclaimed.

“The viceroy of the Trade Federation was once in league with this Darth Sidious,” Dooku explained, and given the events of a decade before, it seemed a reasonable claim. “But he was betrayed ten years ago by the Dark Lord. He came to me for help. He told me everything. The Jedi Council would not believe him. I tried many times to warn them, but they wouldn’t listen to me. Once they sense the Dark Lord’s presence and realize their error, it will be too late. You must join with me, Obi-Wan, and together we will destroy the Sith.”

It all seemed so reasonable, so logical, so attuned to the legend of Count Dooku as Obi-Wan had learned it. But beneath the silken words and tone was a feeling Obi-Wan had that flew in the face of that logic.

“I will never join you, Dooku!”

The cultured and regal man gave a great and disappointed sigh, then turned to leave. “It may be difficult to secure your release,” he tossed back at Obi-Wan as he exited the room.

Approaching Geonosis, Anakin employed the same techniques as Obi-Wan had, using the asteroid ring near Geonosis to hide the Naboo starship from the lurking Trade Federation fleet. And like his mentor, the Padawan recognized the unusual and threatening posture of the unexpected fleet.

Breaking atmosphere, Anakin brought the ship down low, skimming the surface, weaving through valleys and around towering rock formations, circling mesas. Padmé stood next to him, watching the skyline for some signs.

“See those columns of steam straight ahead?” she asked, pointing. “They’re exhaust vents of some type.”

“That’ll do,” agreed Anakin, and he banked the starship, zooming in at the distant lines of rising white steam. He brought the ship right into one steam cloud and slid her down, gently, through the vent.

When they had settled on firm ground, he and Padmé prepared to leave the ship.