Jedi Trial (19 page)

“Have you issued weapons yet?” Halcyon asked.

“Taking care of that, sir,” an ensign replied.

“Good. What is your job, Ensign?”

“I’m a structural engineer, sir.”

“You know this ship, then, don’t you?”

“Yessir.”

“Commander, I’ll go forward with the two guards and this ensign, assess the threat, and hold them up. I want you to organize the crew and form them into an attack force to follow me. Clear?”

“Clear, sir.”

With his suit secure and life-support systems running, Halcyon raised the ship’s bridge. “Captain, Halcyon here. We are going aft to assess the situation. I’m leaving your exec here to organize a party to repel boarders. What can you see from up there?”

“The propulsion room has lost atmosphere. Someone’s in the next forward compartment, cutting through the air lock. Please be advised, a malfunction has prevented us from sealing the air lock between where you are and the propulsion unit. Be prepared for loss of atmosphere momentarily. Droids don’t need it, but we do.”

“We’re all right. Everyone’s suited up and armed. Will keep you informed.” Suddenly the atmosphere rushed out of the
Ranger
’s aft compartments with a roar so violent it nearly knocked them off their feet. Just as suddenly the wind and roar ended in the deep, still silence of airless space. Halcyon had counted twenty crew on the bridge and fifty more behind them who’d
been suiting up. That meant a hundred crew members were unaccounted for, dead if they hadn’t been killed in the attack or failed to don their zero-atmosphere suits in time. “Ensign, I’m only familiar with certain parts of this ship. I need you to guide us to the stern. Guards, are you ready?”

“Yes,” one responded.

The other added somberly, “The rest of our detachment is back there somewhere. Yeah, we’re ready.”

Halcyon held up his lightsaber and activated it.

“Pretty light,” one of the guards commented.

“You should hear it sing,” Halcyon replied.

“I’ve never seen a Jedi Master or one of those things before,” the other guard said.

“Well, you’re seeing us now. I’ll lead the way. Ensign, you stay close behind me. Guards, ready your weapons and bring up the rear. Don’t fire unless you have a clear target, and whatever you do, don’t shoot me!”

“I’d never shoot a Jedi, sir. Don’t know about a general, though.”

“When we get through this, I’ll have both of you assigned to my personal staff.”

“We don’t deserve a reward like that, sir,” the one protested.

Halcyon laughed. “That’s no reward. After a while, you’ll wonder what you did to deserve such punishment. Come on, stay alert.”

They passed the ship’s medbay. The medical staff hadn’t had time to suit up. “Poor guys,” one of the guards whispered.

“I’m afraid that’s only the first of many,” Halcyon
said. “Ensign, are we going the right way? By the way, what is your name?”

“Yessir, right way. Six compartments ahead there’s a hatch that leads us to B Deck, then back six more compartments and we’re there, if they haven’t moved ahead. Uh, my name, sir, is Dejock.”

“Captain, update, please,” Halcyon said into his comlink.

“As far as we can tell they’re having trouble with the hatches. We couldn’t seal them airtight, but the crew did manage to close some of them manually and dog them and they’re having to cut through.”

“Guards, what do I call you?”

“I’m Corporal Raders, sir.”

“I’m Private Vick, sir.”

“Call me General. And no more jokes from here on out.”

They came upon the battle droids just as three of them entered the crew’s compartment. Halcyon didn’t hesitate. His lightsaber flashed in a whirl of energy, easily deflecting the bolts from the droids’ laser rifles. He slashed into them, one-two-three, and the machines disintegrated before his companions could point their blasters at the intruders. Halcyon stood flat against the bulkhead and, as the next three battle droids came through the hatch, disposed of them in turn. In six seconds he had turned the compartment into a junkyard.

“Blast through that hatch!” Halcyon ordered. “Exec, we’ve got them stopped. Bring up the rest of the force.”

The two guards advanced using fire-and-maneuver, one directing bolt after bolt of energy through the open
hatch while the other rushed to the left, to continue delivering fire when his companion broke to the right and took cover up against the bulkhead. Ensign Dejock followed the second guard. “Sir, this next area is a storage compartment. The one directly aft of that is a repair shop and then the propulsion room.”

Halcyon went through the hatch. The compartment was full of battle droids, all of which opened fire at the same time. Halcyon parried the blaster bolts with his lightsaber. Most of the bolts arced back onto the droids that had fired them. Halcyon pressed forward. The two guards followed him. In seconds the repair shop was a shambles, but the droids in it were all destroyed.

Halcyon’s suit was nearly melted through in places from near hits; one of the guards had sustained a bad burn on his thigh, but the self-sealing material in his suit had saved his air supply.

“We have them on the run!” Ensign Dejock shouted.

“Yes, we’ve pushed them back. Come on, let’s clear out the next compartment.” Halcyon started forward.

“Hold it!” The ship’s exec stepped through from the crew compartment, followed by twenty heavily armed men. “You don’t look so good, sir. Your suit’s sustained some damage.” He looked around the compartment, littered with destroyed droids, and glanced up at the hull. “It’ll take some time to repair that damage,” he said. “General, you’d better get back up to the bridge and get out of that suit before it fails. Take these others with you. We know what to do. We’ll finish what you started.” He looked around the compartment
again and whistled. “You really did a job on them.”

Supporting the wounded guard between them, the trio staggered back up to the bridge. Within a few minutes the ship’s exec and his team had cleared the boarding party. The crew sustained no further casualties. Damage control was already working on restoring hull integrity, and atmosphere was being restored in some of the forward compartments—but the
Ranger
was out of the battle.

“I’m very sorry about your ship and her crew, Captain,” Halcyon said.

“They were good troops and she’s a good ship, sir, but I’ve already made arrangements to transfer to another vessel. We’ll scuttle her. General, if it hadn’t been for you, we’d all be dead now.” Quegh held out his hand and they shook.

“Take good care of those two guards, Captain. When I get to the ground I want them assigned to my staff. Hard to get good help these days.”

“Commander Skywalker is already deploying his troops, sir.”

“Good! Get me down there, or he’ll have the war won by the time I can land and claim the glory.”

U
sing ground-skimming navigation, Anakin expertly guided the troop landing craft, letting it roar along at a scant ten meters above the ground. Grudo sat strapped into the copilot’s seat, gripping the armrests as Anakin delicately shifted the steering yoke just enough to clear the top of a hill that flashed beneath them. “Just missed that one, Grudo! Check our troopers, would you?” He was delighted to be flying the transport, and perversely amused that at last he’d found something that made the Rodian soldier nervous.

Glad to have an excuse to take his eyes off the terrain that was whipping past too close beneath them, Grudo slid the cabin door open and glanced back at the fifty clone troopers strapped into the troop compartment. They sat there calmly, silently, as if they were riding a bus to a picnic. The platoon commander glanced at Grudo and gave him the thumbs-up sign. Grudo turned back to Anakin.

“The troopers are doing well. Can you slow down a bit, or do you enjoy giving me heart failure?”

Behind them, at somewhat higher altitudes, the sky was dark with other craft, each carrying fifty combat-loaded
soldiers. The plan was to approach the pre-designated landing zones from about one hundred kilometers out, flying close to the ground to avoid detection, instead of landing straight from orbit where the landing craft’s entire trajectories would be subject to observation and direct enemy fire. From orbit, the armada could easily be discerned by the huge cloud of dust it kicked up as it passed over the planet’s surface.

The combat engineers had already landed, and thousands of labor droids were preparing defensive positions for the infantry. Once Anakin’s force had landed and reinforced the engineers, the rest of the army would touch down in huge transport ships.

“Relax, Grudo! I’ve been flying like this since I was a boy!” Anakin shouted. “One day I’ll give you a ride in my starfighter.” He glanced over at the Rodian.

“Please,” Grudo groaned, “keep your eyes straight ahead.”

“Get ready!” Anakin warned the hundreds of pilots following him. “We are zero-three from touchdown. I’ll see you on the ground.” He turned to Grudo. “I just hope some of Slayke’s army has survived.”

Identification codes are essential to distinguish between friend and foe. The Republic forces were issued a standard datapad called a Signal Operating Instruction, which was updated every month. The datapad contained a sign and a countersign for each day of the month that would be used by all the major units of the Republic forces to identify themselves. The dates were cross-referenced to those on Coruscant where the codes were made up, so no matter where one was in
the galaxy the same signs and countersigns would be used. For instance, on the day Anakin Skywalker landed his army on Praesitlyn, the sign was
Jawa
and the countersign was
Eclipse
. These codes were different from identification-friend-or-foe, which were highly secret code messages used to determine if military vessels were hostile or friendly.

The encoding process used to protect these datapads was infinitely complicated, and thus far the Separatists had not been able to compromise it.

So as soon as the droid ship blocking communications was destroyed, Halcyon’s fleet communications officer transmitted
Jawa
repeatedly to Slayke’s communications system, but since Slayke had destroyed his equipment prior to abandoning his command post and retreating to strongpoint Judlie, there was, naturally, no response. Thus Anakin landed the army without certain knowledge that anyone from Slayke’s force had survived.

The landing on Praesitlyn was to proceed in four waves: first, the combat engineers, supported by infantry and other arms to prepare defensive positions; then Anakin with his division, followed by Halcyon’s division. Each division was assigned its own landing zone in an area thought to be far enough away from where the enemy force was entrenched to afford the troops ample opportunity to land, deploy, and take defensive positions before they could be attacked. Once the entire force was on the ground, with or without whatever might remain of Slayke’s army, they would commence operations against the enemy.

*    *    *

“A withdrawal in the face of the enemy is one of the most difficult tactical maneuvers there is. You are the commander on the scene and the choice of tactics is yours, but can you do such a thing?” Count Dooku’s image shifted before Pors Tonith’s eyes.

“Droids do not panic, Count Dooku, and the enemy has not yet consolidated his forces. If I withdraw now to the plateau, I can do it essentially without interference. That will give me the advantage of occupying the high ground, as well as tightening my grip on the communications facility. They’ll have to be very careful about using their heavy weapons to dislodge me, and when they finally attack, they’ll have to maneuver uphill. If I stay where I am now, their combined force will overwhelm me. Of course if I was reinforced—”

“Surely you understand that we are committed on a broad scale across the entire galaxy. As important as your mission is, there are other commanders similarly engaged in strategic maneuvers. I have to weigh one priority against another. You shall be reinforced when the forces are available. Has any of your fleet survived?”

“Yes. Those ships have fled to join the fleet at Sluis Van. I will not commit them until I am reinforced. Otherwise they would be severely outnumbered and destroyed. The droid control ship that was blocking communications from here was destroyed also. They now have open contact with Coruscant.”

“No matter. That investment worked well for as long as we needed it. We do not need it anymore.”

“Prisoners tell me I am facing a Zozridor Slayke. What can you tell me about him? He has conducted a
brilliant defense up to this point. Nevertheless, I was on the verge of wiping him out when the relief force from Coruscant arrived.”

“Zozridor Slayke is an extraordinary man. We could use one like him.” Count Dooku went on to recite Slayke’s recent history.

“A renegade? I’m not surprised, sir. The man’s troops fight like pirates with their backs to the wall.”

“I’ll tell you something else. The force now opposing you is led by a Jedi Master, Nejaa Halcyon, and a young Padawan named Anakin Skywalker.” He went on to tell Tonith something about the history of the two Jedi. “Nejaa Halcyon, you will find, is careful and predictable, but beware the young Jedi—he is volatile. This is both a danger to you and a possible weakness you can exploit.”

“Jedi can be killed, Count Dooku, but it’s Slayke I think I should worry about, if he can fool a Jedi like he did. I imagine the two might have some problems sharing their command.”

“Don’t count on it. Jedi are not likely to let their personal feelings interfere with their duty. But if either is liable to succumb to his emotions, it is Skywalker.”

“There is one more matter, Count. Reija Momen. I want to use her for propaganda.”

Count Dooku’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits as he steepled his fingers. “What do you propose?”

“Sir, I will put her on a HoloNet transceiver transmission to the Republic Senate, a live hookup. She will read a prepared statement to them. To wit: ‘Remove your troops from Praesitlyn or Admiral Tonith will kill us.’ ”