Siege Page 24

  “Apprehend them we will, Supreme Chancellor,” said Yoda, emotionless. “A lie that is not.”

  “I’m sure you’ll try,” said Palpatine, sounding anything but convinced. “But unless you can tell me you’ve seen a successful outcome in the Force, I must proceed upon the assumption that your continued failure is as likely, if not more likely, than your success. Can you guarantee me success, Master Yoda?”

  Bail dropped his gaze to the carpet. Never had he heard Palpatine upbraid Yoda like this. How distraught must he be to chastise his most important and valuable ally in their desperate fight for the Republic’s survival? How shaken was his confidence in the Jedi?

  How shaken is his confidence in me?

  Yoda resettled his grasp on his gimer stick. “Seen in the Force the outcome of these events I have not, Supreme Chancellor. But faith in our ability to prevail I have.”

  “Faith is all very well, Master Yoda,” said Palpatine, unyielding, “but I can’t wave it in front of the HoloNet droidcams. Nor can I display it to the Senate as proof that we are doing our jobs. Therefore my decision stands. I want that planet out of Separatist hands by any and all means necessary. Do I make myself clear?”

  Yoda nodded. “You do, Supreme Chancellor.”

  “And you, Senator Organa,” Palpatine snapped. “Can I trust you’ll ensure no other world suffers the same fate as Chandrila?”

  “You can, Supreme Chancellor,” he said. “We won’t rest until Lok Durd is back in Republic custody and every last drop of that bioweapon is accounted for—then destroyed.”

  Palpatine’s lips thinned. “I shall hold you to that oath, Senator. Now what of your scientist friend? Doctor Netzl? Surely by now he’s concocted a defense against Durd’s weapon?”

  “I’m afraid not yet, Supreme Chancellor.”

  “Not yet,” Palpatine echoed. “Then perhaps your faith in him is misplaced. There are many, many scientists in our grand Republic, Senator Organa. Perhaps the time has come for—”

  “Forgive me, Supreme Chancellor, but no,” Bail said flatly. “Tryn Netzl is our best choice. He’s very close now. All he needs is one last breakthrough.”

  Palpatine stared at him, unblinking. “Do you concur with the Senator, Master Yoda?”

  “Concur I do,” said Yoda, nodding. “In Doctor Netzl do I sense great integrity and dedication. No mercy will he show himself until the answer he has found.”

  Almost imperceptibly, Palpatine softened. “You like him.”

  “Irrelevant my feelings are,” said Yoda. “Relevant only is what I know.”

  “Truly, Supreme Chancellor, Doctor Netzl is the right scientist for this task,” Bail added. “He knows billions of lives are counting on him to succeed.”

  “I am counting on him to succeed, Senator,” said Palpatine. “Tell him that when next you see him.”

  “I will, sir.”

  In silence Palpatine considered him and Yoda, so much wearier now than on the day of his election. Wearier, sadder, grimmer. The war was taking an unkind toll.

  “You think I’ve been harsh,” he said at last. “You think I don’t understand how hard you both work to protect our precious Republic. You’re very wrong. But you misjudged this situation from the outset and now Chandrila has paid the price. I very much doubt any of us can afford another misjudgment.

  “Master Yoda?” said Palpatine, shifting his gaze.

  Slumped over his gimer stick, looking even older than his nine hundred years, Yoda sighed. “Put right this will be. On that you have my word as a Jedi.”

  “And I accept your word,” said Palpatine. “I don’t deny you’ve disappointed me, Master Yoda—but I am not a man to hold a grudge. We must put this unfortunate misstep behind us and go forward to victory. For I do believe victory is closer to hand than we might think. Indeed, I have every faith that the future I am working so hard to bring about will come to pass.”

  “Sadden me it does to know that disappointed you I have, Supreme Chancellor,” said Yoda, lowering his head.

  “I know,” Palpatine said. “And I have no fear you’ll disappoint me again. In truth, I fear only one thing. Tell me, Master Yoda—can you bring Anakin safely home? I confess the thought of losing him is more than I can bear.”

  “The Force is with him, and with Obi-Wan,” Yoda said after a long silence. “If to Coruscant they are meant to return, then return they will.”

  Palpatine sat at his vast, polished desk. “And that, I suppose, is the best I can hope for.” Briefly he pressed a hand to his eyes. “Now, don’t let me detain you any longer. You have much work to do, as have I.”

  Returning Yoda to the Temple, guiding his speeder along Coruscant’s clogged slipstreams of traffic, Bail risked a personal question. “Are you all right, Master?”

  “This attack on Chandrila,” Yoda said softly, rubbing his head. “Created a great disturbance in the Force it has. Much fear and pain and sorrow do I feel.”

  He wasn’t the only one. “I knew Palpatine would be upset, but—I wasn’t expecting him to be so aggressive. Were you?”

  “The hope of billions has he become,” said Yoda. “Now look to him billions will and wonder if misplaced their hope is.”

  Such was the inevitable risk of being a popular leader. “You didn’t challenge him when he blamed us for his decision to rely on Obi-Wan and Anakin.”

  Yoda snorted. “Neither did you.”

  “Politics?”

  “Politics,” Yoda agreed. And then he snorted again. “Fond of politics I am not.”

  And on days like this, Master Yoda, neither am I.

  Bail hesitated. “I haven’t told Tryn about the attack. Have you?”

  “No,” said Yoda, after a moment. “But tell him I can, if see him now you cannot.”

  “No, I can see him,” he said, feeling ill. “I’ve made the time. I owe him that much.”

  Small in the passenger seat beside him, Yoda pursed his lips. “Responsible for this calamity you are not, Senator. Your best you have done at every turn. Ask more than that no one can. Not Palpatine, not I, not Obi-Wan Kenobi. Expect more of yourself than your best you should not.”

  It was wise advice. He wished it made him feel better about the decisions he’d made, but it didn’t. On close approach to the Jedi Temple now, he throttled back and slid them into the almost empty Priority Alpha lane. Security chips beeped as the sensors recorded their positional shift.

  “You know,” he said, almost to himself, “not once growing up did I think there’d come a day when I’d hold men’s lives in the palm of my hand. When I could tell a Jedi, Go risk your life there, and he’d go because he trusted me. We were at peace for so long. War was unthinkable. And now it’s all I ever think about, Master Yoda. I’ve seen things—done things—that have changed me forever. I’m no longer the man my wife married. The man who walked into our Senate Building for his first session.” He had to clear his throat. “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?” said Yoda, so gently, as they were swallowed by the shadows of the soaring Jedi Temple.

  “Of forgetting the man I used to be. Of becoming someone who won’t know how not to think of war.”

  Yoda shook his head. “Fear that you should not, Senator. Lost that man has not been. Put aside, yes, while dark the times are. But lost? No. Love you and know you do your wife and your friends. Let that man fall by the wayside they will not.” And then Yoda smiled. “Let him fall by the wayside I will not. For value that Bail Organa I do.”

  Stunned to grateful silence, Bail guided the speeder up and up until he reached Yoda’s private landing platform. Then he and the Jedi Master made their way into the Temple.

  “Informed I will keep you, Senator, regarding our assault on the planet,” said Yoda.

  “I’d appreciate it, Master,” he said, bowing. “And of course whatever intel my investigations uncover will be passed to you straightaway.”

  Yoda withdrew to take care of his pressing business, and Bail made his way to
Tryn’s underground lab.

  * * *

  “BAIL!”

  Tryn practically danced across the lab floor. The scientist was dressed in fluorescent green today, his lucky lab coat slung over a stool. His long hair was messily confined with a length of string and his eyes were their natural color, a washed-out shade of blue. Clearly he hadn’t shaved in several days, and from the jittery wildness in him Bail guessed his friend’s diet consisted of not much more than very strong caf. When he’d last slept was anyone’s guess.

  “Bail, this is perfect timing,” Tryn said, his voice raspy with fatigue. “Because I’m there. Well, I’m almost there. I’ve identified the missing molecular sequence and I’ve tagged the essential properties required to complete the antidote. Now all I need to do is identify a source for those properties and—” He stepped back. The fervent light in his eyes faded, and with it his excitement. “Bail, what’s wrong?”

  “Tryn—” He didn’t want to revisit the horror or destroy his friend’s fragile, fleeting triumph. He didn’t want to be the man who brought Tryn’s world crashing down.

  But I am that man. That’s what I do now. To make my omelets I break other people’s eggs.

  “Durd’s used the bioweapon on Chandrila. Maybe ten thousand are dead.”

  “Oh,” said Tryn blankly. “Oh.”

  This was the part where he was supposed to say something encouraging, something comforting. You can’t blame yourself, Tryn. You’re doing your best. Keep up the good work. We’ll win in the end. But the tired old platitudes stuck in his throat. And while he didn’t blame Tryn for not having the answer already, still…

  In an unexpected explosion of rage, Tryn snatched up a data-pad from the bench beside him and threw it across the lab.

  “Why did you tell me that, Bail?” he demanded. “After days of ignoring me, why did you come all the way down here just to tell me ten thousand people are dead? What—did you think I needed more incentive? Did you think I wasn’t taking this seriously enough? Did you think you might catch me with my feet up, drinking a cocktail and smoking a cigarra and planning my next wild holiday on Umgul?”

  The heavy datapad had struck the wall, shattered, and now lay in bits on the ferrocrete floor. Shocked, Bail looked from the wreckage to his friend.

  “Tryn—no—of course I didn’t, that’s not why I—”

  “I didn’t need to know about any attack on Chandrila!” Tryn raged, and began a furious stamping around his lab. “Stang, Bail, what you asked me to do is hard enough without you putting me under any more pressure!” He spun around, his breathing ragged. “How am I supposed to keep working, huh? How am I supposed to go on being the scientist, accepting science’s limitations, its trial-and-error approach to finding the truth, when now every time I don’t make that final, crucial connection I’ll hear you telling me ten thousand people are dead!”

  He could feel his heart beating through every bone beneath his skin. “I never meant to do that, Tryn.”

  “Then why did you tell me?” Tryn demanded. “Why?”

  “Because—because I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Well, guess what, Organa!” Tryn shouted. “You thought wrong!”

  “Tryn, I’m sorry,” he said. “What can I do to make this right? How can I—”

  “You can’t,” Tryn spat, fetching up against a lab bench crowded with a bewildering collection of pipes and beakers and test tubes and monitors. “There’s nothing you can do, Bail—except go away. So why don’t you do that? And don’t comm me. I’ll comm you.”

  Bail swallowed. “All right. Only—there is one more thing.”

  Tryn looked up, resentful and hostile. “What?”

  “We’re launching an assault on Lanteeb. We’re taking the planet away from the Separatists.”

  “Really? That’s nice. Although it’s a pity you didn’t think of doing that before ten thousand people died, isn’t it?”

  And what was he supposed to say to that? There was nothing he could say to that. So he left Tryn to his test tubes, making sure to close the lab door softly behind him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  AFTER HIS PASSIONATE AND PITCH-PERFECT ADDRESS TO THE Senate and the Republic at large—after coolly elegant Mon Mothma responded to his inspirational words and brought every gullible fool in the echoing Senate chamber to his or her or its feet, Palpatine retired to his private retreat on the pretext of needing solitude in which to meditate upon these grave matters of state.

  There he donned his Sith robes and contacted Dooku.

  “My lord,” said the old man, bowing. “How can I be of service?”

  Sidious let a hiss escape him. “Did you order the attack on Chandrila, Lord Tyranus?”

  Dooku’s head snapped up. “Attack? What attack?”

  “Are you telling me, Tyranus, that you are unaware of what has happened?”

  “Lord Sidious, my ship has only just emerged from a communications dead spot,” said Dooku. “Not all of our comm systems have come back online.”

  Sidious felt rage scald through his veins. There are no dead spots in the Force. At least not for a Sith. How could something so momentous be unknown to his most important pawn?

  “The bioweapon has been used on Hanna City.”

  “Durd has acted without authorization,” said Dooku, his eyes wide with shock. “I will take care of him at once. There are plenty of scientists in the—”

  “No, Tyranus,” he said. “The Force tells me Durd still has a part to play. Besides, without realizing it the Neimoidian has done us a small service. Not only is the Senate in an uproar and the Republic with it, a battle group will leave shortly to liberate Lanteeb. Send Grievous to intercept it. I want the planet under full blockade—but I don’t want the Republic Cruisers destroyed too quickly. What I want is a siege, so that as many GAR ships and troops as possible are dragged into the fray. Such an engagement will take a heavy toll.”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Dooku, obedient. “And Durd?”

  “Let him continue unhindered. When the time is right you will discreetly facilitate our little general’s escape from Lanteeb,” he replied. “Be sure to hide him somewhere inaccessible.”

  Dooku nodded. “My lord.” Then his face tightened. “There is still the matter of Kenobi and Skywalker.”

  Indeed there was. “They will be taken care of. They are not your concern.”

  “My lord,” said Dooku, bowing again. Then he straightened. “But Durd cannot go unpunished. He acted without permission. In launching his attack on Chandrila he—”

  “Did what we were always going to do, Tyranus,” Sidious said firmly. “Do not allow your pricked pride to blind you. Though there is but one destination, more than one road can lead us to it. Trust in the dark side—and follow my instructions. The rest you can leave to me.”

  Dooku wanted to argue, but wisely refrained. Instead he bowed a third time, lower than ever. “Yes, Lord Sidious.”

  “Tyranus,” he added, letting his voice snap a little. “You have caught me in a generous mood. Were I you, I would not rely upon that in the future.”

  And on that ominous note, he cut their hololink.

  Trust in the dark side.

  Darth Sidious did, of course. The dark side was everything, heat and light and food and wine, his promise of greatness and his only true home. What it showed him came to pass without exception. He could trust it absolutely, for it had never let him down.

  Show me Anakin, my true apprentice. Show me the son of my heart.

  Easily, triumphantly, the dark side showed him. And so, being shown, he stopped worrying about Anakin. How the boy escaped from Lanteeb wasn’t important. What mattered was that he would indeed escape. What mattered was his future, which would in due course come to pass.

  Suitably somber, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine went back to work.

  PADMÉ HURRIED straight from the spaceport to Bail’s Senate office, where Minala Lodilyn greeted her with a strained, apologetic smil
e.

  “I’m so sorry, Senator Amidala, but he’s not here,” she said, as her desk’s comm console flashed with six—no, seven—incoming comms. “He was pulled back to Strategic Ops for another holoconference.”

  Padmé felt her breath hitch. “New intel?”

  “Yes, I think so,” said Minala, guarded. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be difficult, but—”

  “You’re not cleared to say. It’s all right. I understand.” Frustrated, she tugged on the end of her braid. “Look. I appreciate how busy you are, but do you mind if I wait? I need to see him, and I need to catch up on what’s happened, and I don’t want to waste his time or mine playing tag.” She patted her workcase. “I’ve got my portable workstation with me, I won’t need to touch his. I just need a quiet place to sit and get myself sorted out.”

  “Of course, Senator,” Minala said, standing. “I’ll take you through. Can I get you anything while you work? A caf? Something to eat?”

  Bail’s personal assistant was a treasure. “A pot of strong caf would be enormously appreciated, Minala. And after that I’ll leave you alone.” She nodded at the comm console. “Clearly you don’t need anything else to worry about right now.”

  Settled at Bail’s tidy desk, Padmé buried herself in answering the flood of messages texted to her workstation, and returning the voice comms left on her comlink. As Naboo’s Republic representative she was required to draft an official response to the Chandrila atrocity for Queen Jamillia’s approval, so she did that first. Next she put her own personal assistant Sovi on to coordinating with the Chandrilan senatorial offices regarding Naboo’s participation in the relief effort; thanks to her special relationship with Chandrila’s Sisterhood of Ta’fan-jirah, Naboo enjoyed a range of special considerations. Now it was time to repay the favor.