Jedi Trial (30 page)

“What were you doing in there?” Erk asked.

“Uh, well …” She glanced nervously at all the officers. “I knew someone on the defense force and … We had lunch up there and—” She shrugged. “—I got to know how the center was laid out.”

“Take her along,” Halcyon said.

“Sir,” Erk put in, “take two shuttles. You’ll need a backup.”

“If we had a cleaning droid in here, maybe we could ask it for advice, too,” an officer remarked.

“Excuse me, sir, but that’s standard procedure, and if you do that, I volunteer to fly the second shuttle,” Erk said. “And if you’re taking my wingmate here,” he added, laying his good hand on Odie’s shoulder, “you’ve got to take me, too. I insist.”

“Lieutenants don’t insist,” Anakin said, “they follow orders.”

“I insist, sir. I know you. I know your reputation. Well, I’m a fighter pilot, one of the best, and I’m tired of being stuck here on the ground.”

Anakin looked intently at Erk for a moment. Then he nodded.

Erk grinned at him. “Looks like I got my orders.”

“But you’re wounded, Lieutenant,” Halcyon protested.

“I’m better now, sir. Besides, I’m so good I could fly with my feet if I had to.”

“I believe him,” Anakin said. “I’ll take him, the recon trooper—and two shuttle craft.”

“Very well.” Halcyon shrugged. “If nothing else it’ll
get all these hangers-on out of my command post and give me room to breathe in here. When will you leave?”

“As soon as I gear up and we study the layout of the center, sir.”

“Very well.” Halcyon turned to his officers. “We’ll lay everything we’ve got on those lines again. I want all the infantry to maneuver as if we’re attacking with our entire force right up the middle. Soon as we’ve got the enemy’s attention, Anakin goes in. When he’s rescued the hostages and we know they’re safe, Admiral, you direct everything you’ve got against that mesa. Slag the place. We can rebuild the communications center later. Commander Skywalker, this plan of yours is very risky—but I think it’ll work. That commander up there will never see it coming.” He held out his hand. “May the Force be with you, Anakin,” he said. Then he shook hands with each of the other four.

“Well,” Anakin said, “let’s do it.”

The two guards slapped palms.

D
ondo Foth, captain of the picket frigate
Mandian
, was a thoroughgoing professional military man who spent most of his time when he was aboard his vessel on her bridge, alert, tending to the affairs of running a starship. That was one reason his vessel had been picked to patrol the outer rim of the cordon Halcyon had thrown around Praesitlyn. At this time he was 150,000 kilometers from the orbital fleet, a bit farther out than his orders called for. But acting on his own initiative, he took up his patrol course at that distance.

“Just in case,” he told Lieutenant Commander Vitwroth, the
Mandian
’s executive officer. “Frankly, I think we should be out a million kilometers, far enough away from the main fleet that we can give them plenty of warning if anyone tries to sneak up on us.”

“Well, it’s mighty lonely out here, Skipper,” Vitwroth replied. “I like bright lights and plenty of company.” He grinned.

Foth was from New Agamar, stocky, approaching middle age. He grinned back. “Let’s see those promotion packets,” he said to the military protocol droid that had been programmed to be his writer. One of the
crew, probably with the droid’s connivance, had stenciled a first-class yeoman’s chevrons on its forehead. The crew’s name for the droid was Yeoman Scrapheap.

“They are all ready, perfectly prepared according to naval regulations, Captain,” the droid answered. “You are recommending six of the crew for promotion: one to chief, two to first-class ratings—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know their names, too, Yeoman Scrapheap,” Captain Foth said. “I just want to make sure you haven’t made any mistakes. Last week you transposed two letters in a report to fleet. Tsk, tsk, we’ll have to have you scrapped if that happens again.”

“That was a mere software glitch, Captain,” the droid protested, “and it has been fixed, I assure you.”

“You don’t assure me of anything, Yeoman Scrapheap—it is I who assures you, and I assure you, it’s the Lucky Bag for you.” The “Lucky Bag” was a storage compartment on the vessel where useful odds and ends were kept. Captain Foth laughed and took the promotion disks. Even though the droid was a machine, sometimes it was impossible not to think it was sentient, and Foth enjoyed sparring with it like this. He had no intention of relegating Yeoman Scrapheap to the Lucky Bag.

“Captain,” the watch officer called, “we’ve detected an approaching object, twenty-five degrees to starboard, three hundred thousand kilometers out, closing slowly!”

“Sound general quarters,” Foth responded in a normal tone of voice. He handed the promotion disks back to Scrapheap. “I’ll look at these later. Lieutenant,” he said, turning to the watch officer, “get me a visual.
Give me its speed and course. Notify fleet. Blasters, lock on target.”

“General quarters, sir,” the watch officer responded.

“Visual, sir. I do not see any other objects out there, Captain,” the rating operating the
Mandian
’s radar suite responded.

“Message to fleet, sir,” the signals officer responded.

“Speed, twenty-one thousand. It’s headed directly toward Praesitlyn,” the ship’s navigator reported.

“Guns locked on target, sir,” the gunnery officer announced.

“Twenty-one thousand kilometers an hour? Whatever it is, it’s moving slowly. Where are those visuals?” The screens gradually revealed a shapeless black object, almost a cloud. “Give me more definition,” Foth ordered. “Blasted thing doesn’t look like a vessel.”

“That’s the best our equipment can do until it gets closer, sir.”

“We didn’t have time to upgrade our visual observation equipment before we left Coruscant,” Vitwroth said.

“I know, I know. Guns, when will it be in range?”

“At that speed, on my mark, two hours, twenty-seven minutes—mark.”

“Then we wait, unless fleet orders us to approach closer. Do you think it’s a cloaked Separatist ship?” Foth asked Vitwroth.

“We have to assume it is, sir.”

“Sir, fleet message received and authenticated: ‘Maintain your position, observe and report. Fire only if fired on,’ ” the signals officer announced.

“So we wait,” Foth announced. “Two hours? Two
hours, twenty-seven minutes, no, twenty-six minutes now, and then maybe we’ll find out more.” The palms of his hands were sweaty, but to the crew on the bridge he appeared icy calm. “Everybody, on your toes. This could be it.”

“We’re going in fast and we’re traveling light,” Anakin told his assault force, gathered in a small bunker attached to the command post. The force had grown to include a squad of fully armored clone infantry to go in Erk’s ship as security for the transport craft while they were on the ground inside the center. “Erk, we’re going to push those transports at top speed and fly them as close to the ground as we can get. Are you up to that?”

“Yessir.”

“Getting out of here is going to be a problem. The ships are protected in revetments, but in order to avoid being hit by enemy gunners, we’re going to have to make a dash for it, so everyone be prepared for a very hard takeoff. I expect to have hard landings, too, but we’ll talk about that later. Everyone look at this graphic of the mesa and memorize as many of the features as you can in the short time we’ve got. Also, this display.” He punched up a floor plan of the main communications building. “Trooper Subu, does any of that look familiar?”

“Yessir. This long corridor leads to the main control room.” She used a laser pointer to highlight the area she was talking about. “These side corridors here,” she said, pointing to three corridors in quick succession, “lead to various other parts of the complex. Here, this
leads to the courtyard where the staff often take their breaks and eat their meals. These rooms are staff quarters. Back here are storage rooms, repair shops. Where are they holding the hostages?”

“In the main control room. If they move them, I’ll know. Everyone look at this.” Anakin highlighted an area outside the main building. “We are going to land here, among these outbuildings, hopefully screened by them and these trees. We’ll go in hard, so everyone be sure to secure yourselves for a rough landing. From there it’s a very short sprint.” He pointed to a large doorway. “If it’s locked, we blow it open. It leads directly down this corridor to the main control room. Hardly any possibility of getting lost on our way to the main control room. It’s these side corridors that we should worry about. They offer opportunities for an ambush, so I want to leave one trooper at each intersection to cover them so we can leave our exit route open. Sergeant,” he said to the clone trooper, “you pick those troopers now, and deploy them as we go in. You two—” He turned to the guards, Raders and Vick. “I want you in the transport with me. Your job will be to patrol that main corridor and back up the troopers who’ll be watching the side corridors. Shoot anything that’s made of metal and moves.

“We’re traveling light, weapons and equipment only. If we’re in there more than ten minutes, we’ll be visiting. The hostages are heavily guarded. Surprise will be our best weapon. We’ve got to get in there, take the guards out, and get the hostages to the transports as quickly as possible. If I go down, he will be in charge—” Anakin pointed to the ARC sergeant. “Lieutenant
H’Arman, you stay with your transport and the infantry escort. Trooper Subu, you come into the building with me. Your job will be to get the hostages moving and back to the transports.”

Private Vick gave Odie a grin. She smiled back. Erk noticed the exchange and, despite himself, felt a tiny twinge of jealousy.

“How many hostages are there?” he asked, taking his mind off Odie.

“The original staff was fifty technicians and specialists. We don’t know how many of them may have been executed. I know none of you saw the clip of Reija Momen, but she said the Separatist commander threatened to kill one hostage every hour that we didn’t give in to their demands. We think the enemy commander was bluffing, but, well, he had fifty potential victims—some could have been executed. We won’t know until we get in there. Remember this: we won’t have any time to search for anyone left behind. The hostages themselves can tell us if we’ve gotten everyone out. We’ll just have to rely on that to ensure we don’t leave anyone behind. It’s a chance we’re going to have to take.”

As Anakin spoke, Odie watched him closely. He was a handsome young man, maybe only a little older than she was, but it was clear from the way he spoke and the way he held himself that he was very much in charge.

“Everyone take a few minutes and study these charts until they’re burned into your brains. One more thing. The signal for the fleet to open fire is the common Basic word
finished
. When that signal is transmitted to General
Halcyon, the fleet will open up with its heavy weapons, so we need to be totally clear of that mesa when the signal is given.” Anakin leaned forward toward his team. “This operation has to come off with split-second timing. Once the enemy realizes we’re in the center, he’ll kill the hostages. He knows as well as we do that once the hostages are no longer in his power, his lease on life is up. All right, five minutes until we mount up.”

Strapped into the copilot’s seat, Odie’s heart pounded with excitement; she had never traveled this fast over the ground before. Anakin kept the aircraft no more than fifteen meters above the ground as it roared along at top speed. He controlled the craft expertly, almost effortlessly as far as Odie could tell. His adjustments of his flight pattern were so perfectly in time with his velocity, it was as if he could see the terrain before it showed up in front of them.

“Ever fly in one of these?” he asked her conversationally.

“Not up in the cockpit,” she answered. A small hill flashed beneath them as Anakin spurred a few meters of altitude out of the transport.

“Ever do any Podracing?”

“Nossir.”

“That lieutenant behind us is one fine pilot,” Anakin observed. “I understand that you’re pretty good on a recon speeder.” He keyed his throat mike. “Okay, Erk, we break here. Just follow me. Everyone get ready, check your weapons and equipment. Three minutes to touchdown.”

“Yessir, I am pretty good as a recon trooper.” Odie was surprised at how level her voice was; she’d been scared before, scared plenty, but this was terrifying. Calmly, hands steady, she undid the flap on her blaster holster, checked the charge and the safety, and slid it back in. Anakin, on the other hand, seemed almost happy to be at the controls of a ship that could crash one second or be blown out of the sky the next. That must be how Erk felt in his fighter during combat, she thought.

Odie’s checking her weapon didn’t go unnoticed, and Anakin smiled. “You know how to use that thing, don’t you?”

Her sunburned face turned even redder. “Yessir.”

Anakin realized she thought he was thinking about the incident with Grudo. “What happened with Grudo was an accident,” he told her. “I don’t hold it against you—put it out of your mind. Think about what’s ahead of us and get ready to use that blaster again.”

The mesa loomed a few kilometers ahead. It glowed and pulsated with artillery fire, both incoming and outgoing. Halcyon’s attack was proceeding.

“Prepare for landing,” Anakin announced on his command net. “Erk, set down next to me. All right, everybody, here we go!”

Anakin’s landing craft slammed down between two low buildings and stopped in a swirl of dust just in front of a grove of trees. Even before it was stopped, the rear ramp thudded down and the ARC trooper and clone infantry were out and running for the entrance to the main communications building. All around them the air hummed and buzzed and cracked with the blasts
from high-energy weapons; a hundred meters beyond the trees was a maelstrom of fire as Halcyon’s guns blasted Tonith’s positions, but so far no one seemed to have noticed the landing craft—two now, because Erk’s landed just beside Anakin’s and the clone infantry emerged to set up perimeter security. The ARC trooper blew open the door to the communications center and, followed closely by Anakin and Odie, dashed inside.