Stealth Read online

A muscle leapt along Avrey’s narrow jaw. “I’m saying we’ve got a better than even shot at it, yes, sir.”

  “How long, Lieutenant?”

  “To rig Indomitable? An hour, give or take.”

  “Then another two hours for Pioneer and Coruscant Sky?” Yularen shook his head, frustrated. “That’s three hours neither we nor Kothlis have to spare. Have you looked through the viewport? Grievous’s forces are invading as we speak.”

  “Lieutenant,” said Obi-Wan, mildly, as though they weren’t facing an utter disaster. “Can you tightbeam detailed instructions for the comm officers on our other two ships? If all three of you work simultaneously, your plan might still succeed in time to do us some good.”

  Avrey snapped out of her almost imperceptible slump. “Yes, General Kenobi. I can do that.”

  “Then get on to it,” said Yularen. “Every minute wasted means more lost lives.”

  “Wait,” said Anakin, abruptly unsettled. I have a bad feeling… “What about our fighters? And the larties?”

  “They should be unaffected, General,” said the lieutenant. “They’re not linked into our comm systems.”

  He looked at Obi-Wan. “No. But if Grievous can remotely activate a computer virus—”

  “Then he might have the power to jam our ship comms,” said Obi-Wan. There was unease in him now, too, the bad feeling shared. “Despite our anti-jamming precautions. I suggest we find out before we launch an attack.”

  Leaving dourly silent Yularen and frantically working Lieutenant Avrey, Obi-Wan and Anakin made their way to Indomitable’s flight deck. The hangar’s deckhands, on standby now that they’d prepped the fighters, watched them with wide eyes. Gold Squadron’s pilots were in their barracks, mentally preparing for action.

  “Don’t disturb them,” said Obi-Wan as he swung himself into his own fighter’s cockpit. “If it is bad news, best they’re spared hearing it for as long as possible.”

  And it was bad news.

  Sickened, Anakin stared at his Aethersprite’s unresponsive comm panel. Then he looked over at Obi-Wan, whose expressionless face said it all. “So, Grievous isn’t taking any chances.”

  Obi-Wan nodded. “Apparently not.”

  Computer viruses and broadband jamming equipment? The barve’s gone and got himself some serious upgrades. I wonder how long we’ve got before he can take out our tightbeam as well? “If he’s jamming the fighters, it’s a good bet he’s taken out the gunships, too.”

  Another nod. “A very good bet.”

  Stang. “Artoo—can you unjam us?”

  Already locked into his wing position, R2-D2 emitted a dismal whistle.

  Anakin slammed his fist against the open cockpit’s frame. “Great.”

  “Come on,” said Obi-Wan, all emotion ruthlessly repressed. “Yularen’s waiting.”

  The admiral took one look at them as they returned to the bridge and spat a soft curse. “Then that’s it.”

  “Not at all,” said Obi-Wan, eyebrows lifting. “We can’t afford to wait until communications are restored. Kothlis needs us now. We go in.”

  “You mean fight blind?” said Anakin, disbelieving. “And deaf? Obi-Wan—”

  “I grant you it’s not an ideal way to conduct a war,” said Obi-Wan, the merest glimmer of bleak humor in his eyes. “But I don’t see another choice. Do you?”

  Stang. He didn’t. Grievous was delivering mayhem and slaughter while they stood here helpless, watching. He wasn’t even bothering to divert any of his cruisers or droid starfighters their way, so arrogantly confident was he that he’d rendered them impotent.

  So let that be his first and final mistake.

  “How do you want to play it, then?” Anakin said, his belly jumping with nerves. He felt shock run through the officers close enough to overhear this crazy conversation, and Yularen’s dismay, swiftly stifled for the sake of his crew. “It’s not like we can communicate with hand signals or color-coded flags.”

  “Actually, Anakin, your task is relatively simple,” said Obi-Wan. “Engage the enemy and keep on shooting his ships out of the sky until none is left.”

  Simple? Yeah, right. Although, being coldly dispassionate, Obi-Wan wasn’t too far off the mark, come to think of it. “Fine. But what about you?”

  “Using the fighters as cover, the clones and I will run Grievous’s gauntlet in gunships, make atmospheric entry, and insert on the ground. Kothlis has only two points of interest—the capital, Tal’cara, and the spynet facility on the city’s northwest outskirts. We’ll target those two areas first and see what happens once they’re secured.” Obi-Wan looked at Yularen. “Unless you can think of a better plan, Admiral.”

  Yularen shook his head. “No. We’ll go with yours. For one thing it’s uncomplicated—barring disaster, we won’t need communications once all cruisers and squadrons are reading from the same flimsi. Besides, it’s too risky asking the larties to tackle Grievous’s droid starfighter defenses.”

  Anakin nodded. Spaceworthy the gunships might be, but top-of-the-line fighters they assuredly were not. “Agreed. So, Obi-Wan, that gets you boots on the ground. And then what?”

  Again, that wry, dry glimmer of humor. “Oh, I’m bound to think of something. Imminent death tends to stimulate the imagination.” He turned. “Lieutenant Avrey—”

  The comm officer looked up from her console while she was pushing the systemwide purge as hard and fast as it could take. “General?”

  “Have you some spare data crystals? I’ve a few instructions for the other clone companies—and the captains of Pioneer and Coruscant Sky.”

  “Sir,” she said, and nodded at a slot in the comm console. “Help yourself.”

  “Excellent,” said Obi-Wan, accepting her invitation. “Anakin, it’s time you briefed Gold Squadron. I’ll need you ready to launch in fifteen minutes.”

  “Obi-Wan, if you’re recording orders for our other pilots then maybe I should—”

  Obi-Wan smiled tightly, his hand full of data crystals. “Just this once let me speak on your behalf.”

  Again, that ugly jump of nerves. Blast it, I think we really are crazy. “Fine. Tell them to use their best judgment. Tell them to keep their eyes peeled and—and think of themselves as one-man squadrons. Tell them to launch on my mark—once Gold Squadron’s clear of Indomitable, Hammer Squadron launches from Pioneer and then Arrow Squadron from the Sky. After that they’re on their own. Obi-Wan—”

  His mentor—his friend—nodded. “Yes, Anakin. I’ll take care of your Padawan.”

  “Make sure you take care of yourself while you’re at it,” Anakin replied.

  Obi-Wan just smiled. He smiled back, not even trying to muffle his feelings, then turned to leave—but Yularen raised a hand. “I know you Jedi don’t believe in it—but I wish you good luck, General Skywalker. And don’t worry. Comm or no comm, we’ll have your backs.”

  “Thank you, Admiral,” Anakin said, nodding. He trusted the man, even though Yularen’s reservations about the Jedi lived close to his surface. “Good hunting to you, too.”

  On the way down to his pilots Anakin took a swift detour via the clone troops’ barracks where Rex and Ahsoka and Torrent Company were geared up and waiting.

  “Master!” said Ahsoka, practically gasping, as she and Rex answered his beckon from the opened hatch. “What’s going on? What’s the—”

  “Be quiet and listen,” he said, quelling her with a frown. “Grievous beat us here. His invasion of Kothlis is well under way—and to make things interesting the comms are jammed, so we’re going in blind. Indomitable and the other two cruisers will be escorted through the upper atmosphere by our fighters. On my signal you’ll go in on gunships, then while you’re taking care of Grievous’s ground troops we’ll mop up his warships and droid starfighters. The action’s going to be hard, fast, and dirty, so stay on your toes.”

  Ahsoka blinked at him, for once in her short life lost for words. Clasping his hands in front of him, Rex frowned. “When you say
all comms…”

  “I mean all comms,” he said quietly, meeting Rex’s concerned gaze. “Except your troops’ helmet tightbeams—we hope.”

  Rex’s eyebrows lifted. “Are the regular comms going to be restored?”

  “Maybe. And there’s a chance we’ll be able to call for help if we need it.”

  “Um… how good a chance, exactly?” said Ahsoka, her blue eyes wide.

  Beneath her bold exterior Anakin could feel her anxiety. He resisted the urge to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The last thing he needed was Torrent Company thinking either of them was worried.

  “Good enough,” he said, keeping his voice clipped and businesslike. “But that’s not your concern. Follow Obi-Wan’s lead and you’ll all be fine.”

  “And what about you, sir?” said Rex. Nothing in his attitude indicated unease, but the Force told a different story. Like Ahsoka, the experienced clone captain was deeply unsettled.

  And I don’t blame him. I’m not exactly turning cartwheels myself.

  “Forget about me,” Anakin snapped. “I’ve got the easy job.”

  “So if we don’t have communications,” Ahsoka said slowly, “how will we know when it’s time to launch the ground assault?”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll know. Now hop to it, Rex. Get your men down to the gunship hangar—those larties are lonely. Obi-Wan will join you there shortly—and I’ll see you both when the party’s over.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Rex, nodding smartly. “Good hunting, General.”

  “May the Force be with you, Master,” Ahsoka whispered.

  “The force will be with us all, Padawan,” he replied. Then he left them, before his self-control slipped and he revealed the depth of his own doubts.

  Gold Squadron, with their unerring instinct for imminent trouble, was waiting for him on the hangar deck, laconic and restively ready for action. Clone Captain Fireball, his clipped hair dyed an eye-searing scarlet, a single black-and-scarlet scalp-lock proclaiming his stubborn individuality, greeted him as he joined them.

  “General.”

  “Game on, Fib,” he said. “With a twist—we’ve got no communications.”

  His captain’s only reaction was a raised eyebrow. “Fine. I’ll take fighting over chitchat any day.”

  Oh, these men. He loved them. “It means we’re going in hot and wild, no plan but this: blast those kriffing Sep ships out of my sky.”

  Fireball grinned with ear-to-ear ferocity. “It’ll be our pleasure, General.”

  The rest of Gold Squadron was listening, their focused attention and absolute belief in him as warm and as reassuring as his mother’s hand on his back.

  “Grievous is out there, sitting on his clanky butt thinking he’s got us whipped before we fire a single shot,” he told his pilots, sharing with them his own unbridled ferocity. “I’m in the mood to contradict him, boys. How about you?”

  They roared with one voice, clenched fists punching the air above their heads.

  “Forget about the comm troubles,” he added. “You don’t need me telling you what to do. You were born knowing what to do. You’ve done it before, and after today you’ll do it again.”

  Another roar, louder this time.

  “Torrent, Cascade, and Waterfall companies are depending on us to sweep the streets for ’em,” he finished. “And we are not going to let them down. Agreed?”

  “Agreed!” his pilots shouted, so loud this time that the hangar’s metal struts and deck plating thrummed with the sound.

  He was so proud of them—and at the same time so afraid. The brutal reality of combat meant the odds were they wouldn’t all come home. They knew it, too, but no one would read that in their faces—faces that were at first glance, to the uncaring observer, identical. But he knew them as individuals, and he loved them for themselves. He could list each man’s scars, recite each man’s quirks, describe each man’s idiosyncratic hair. Close-helmeted, in full body armor, he knew every one of them by his walk.

  Blindfold me and I’ll tell you who laughed.

  Letting his gaze touch each unique, committed pilot, he locked their faces tightly in his memory, in case this was the last time.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said. “On me in standard formation until we clear the ship. Once we hit free space take care of business in your own time. Last man home buys the drinks.”

  Laughing and eager, the clones broke ranks and headed for their fighters. R2-D2 hooted and whistled as Anakin climbed up to their ship’s cockpit.

  “Don’t panic, Artoo,” he told the agitated droid. “Someone’s working on the problem.”

  More anxious whistling.

  “No. Right now I need you more than Lieutenant Avrey does,” he replied, starting his pre-flight check. “So while we’re kicking tinnies into the gutter out there, Artoo, you do your thing and I’ll do mine. And if you have to tell me something, write me a note.”

  This time the little astromech droid sounded dismayed.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” he insisted, even as fear shivered down his spine. Padmé. I will see her again. I’m not dying today. “Grievous hasn’t found the machine yet that can touch us. Got it?”

  R2 beeped a mournfully hopeful reply.

  “Good,” he said, and took a quick look around the hangar to make sure Gold Squadron was locked and loaded. Yes. Every starfighter was tight and right, canopies engaged. He felt burning in the Force: his pilots’ united determination to prevail, to defeat the enemy no matter what was thrown their way.

  I’m so lucky to have them. Please, don’t let me let them down.

  His own cockpit canopy he left unsecured, for the moment. Waited for a messenger from the bridge to say they were go for launch.

  Come on, come on. What are we waiting for? Time means lives, people. Let’s not hang around.

  Obi-Wan stood by himself on the bridge, staring through Indomitable’s main viewport across the airless abyss between himself and the enemy battle group, at unseen Grievous, who stood on his own bridge orchestrating helpless Kothlis’s subjugation. His skin was crawling with the need to act. The Separatist general’s warship vomited another droid troop carrier. Sick with loathing, he watched its purposeful plummet toward the undefended planet.

  Grievous.

  Early in the war he’d tried to fathom what drove the creature. What fed its hate and violence, its mindless desire for death and destruction. An answer stubbornly eluded him, and finally he gave up. Understand Grievous or never understand him: it made no difference. There was not, could never be, a hope of peace between them. The sentient cyborg was committed to destroying the Republic. He was a creature of the dark side, and in joining Dooku, he’d sealed his fate.

  Obi-Wan could feel, trembling on the edge of his awareness, a sense of what had transpired on Kothlis. If he opened himself, he’d feel it completely. The Force would show him in intimate, merciless detail; would plunge him deep inside the pain and the terror and the death that lay distant and waiting, that he and Anakin must stop.

  He kept himself rigorously closed. At times like this, empathy was a curse.

  Though most of his attention was focused beyond Indomitable’s bridge, some small part of his mind was aware of every being behind him, every conversation, every half-formed thought, every bead of sweat trickling down spines, tickling ribs, and sticking hair to foreheads. This was a fine crew, one of the Republic’s best, but they were organic, not programmed droids. Beneath their disciplined veneers they were afraid.

  I could be afraid, too, if I permitted it. But I can’t. Fear is a luxury I cannot afford.

  Yularen joined him. “Your tightbeamed orders are received and understood, General. Give the word and we’ll get this mission under way.”

  Give the word… Such a small, innocuous phrase. Give the word… and sign who knew how many death warrants? How many clones would die today because he gave the word? How many more would be born in their sterile containers on Kamino, subjected to accele
rated maturation and comprehensive conditioning, because he gave the word? He wouldn’t know until the end of the engagement. If he perished during it he might never know. If he perished during it, defending Kothlis, protecting his men, would that make up for those artfully constructed lives drawing their first, stunted breaths, because he gave the word?

  Hardly. One day there will be a reckoning for this. One day we will be asked to account for these duplicate lives. One day…

  He felt a sudden stabbing ache behind his eyes, and sighed. So. It was back. The pain was an unkind legacy from his exploits on Zigoola. After all this time not even the Jedi healer Vokara Che had managed to banish it. Neither could he, despite deep meditations and the occasional, resentful surrender to chemical help. But then, perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps it was a reminder of mortality, a sharp lesson in consequences.

  And perhaps I’m being morbidly maudlin. Enough. I’ve work to do.

  Yularen, a patient man, was waiting for him to speak. With a sideways glance he nodded. “The word is given, Admiral.”

  “General,” said Yularen, and raised a hand. It was the only sign his crew needed. As his officers prepared for battle, a junior officer sprinted for the bridge transport, heading for the starfighter flight deck. She carried with her a brief, portentous command.

  Gold Squadron, you have a go.

  And so it would start, the fighting and the dying.

  Anakin, be careful.

  He could feel Yularen’s considering gaze. “Young Skywalker’s an extraordinary pilot, General. Don’t forget that.”

  Sympathy, from Wullf Yularen? It wasn’t what he’d expected. They had a cordial relationship and worked well together. But the admiral was a reserved, cautious man who didn’t, at heart, appreciate Jedi on his bridge. He was too disciplined, too professional, to allow his doubts to interfere with his duties, but they did shape his attitude. And yet here he was, offering an awkward, odd kind of comfort.

  Odder still, I do feel comforted.

  He nodded. “I know, Admiral. Indeed, he’s the best we’ve got.”

  But if our best isn’t good enough…

  He wished he could see the outcome of this battle. He wished he could sense what would happen next. But even out here, so far from Coruscant and the Outer Rim Sieges, the dark side smothered his feeling for the future; torqued and twisted the light side, rendering it opaque. He was so much more sensitive to it now. Another legacy of Zigoola. Which he supposed was a good thing, even though it made him feel ill. He felt a constant hum of nausea, malignantly whispering.