Clone Wars Gambit: Siege Read online

  Slowly, Yoda turned. “Your investigation into leaked classified information, Senator. Concluded, is it?”

  The Jedi Master knew perfectly well that it wasn’t. So far every discreetly pursued avenue of inquiry had run into a dead end. Weeks after beginning the investigation they were no closer to learning who was behind the worrying security breaches in divisions up to and including the Republic’s executive branch.

  It was but one of the things that kept him from sleeping well at night.

  “I appreciate the sensitivity of the situation, Master Yoda, but we can’t leave Palpatine in the dark much longer,” Bail said. “For one thing I’m answerable to him—and if he learns from another source what’s going on he’s going to want to know why I didn’t brief him.”

  “If told he is that I requested your silence, no action against you will the Supreme Chancellor take,” Yoda said firmly. “Understand he does that precedence the Jedi have in matters like this.”

  “Your support is always welcome, Master Yoda, I hope you know that—but in this case I’m not certain it would help. Palpatine has to believe he can trust me. The moment I lose his trust I’ll lose my position, and at the risk of sounding arrogant, I think it’s vital that I stay where I am, doing my job.”

  “Arrogant you are not, Senator,” said Yoda, with another rap of his gimer stick on the parquetry floor. “Without doubt you are needed.” Sighing heavily, he rubbed his chin. “When heard from Obi-Wan we have—and when told us Doctor Netzl has whether or not an antidote for Durd’s bioweapon he can create—then to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine we will go.”

  “And when he demands an explanation for why we didn’t tell him any of this sooner?”

  “Remind him we will that closely is he watched by our Republic’s enemies,” said Yoda, his eyes narrowed. “Sense hidden truths, they can, therefore silent we remained on this new threat.”

  As explanations went, it sounded plausible. Now if only he thought Palpatine would buy it.

  “Even if he does accept our reasoning, he’ll be furious. You do know that?”

  Yoda shrugged, supremely indifferent. “Care for his anger, should I, when countless lives we seek to save?”

  “No, Master. Of course not.”

  “Then care will I not, Senator.” The merest glimmer of a smile. “And neither should you.”

  Mostly reassured, Bail took his leave of Yoda and returned to the Senate. Three floors of the enormous complex were given over to courtesy offices for visiting government officials. That was where he found Padmé, and joined her to compare facts and figures for the pre-vote debate.

  “Except I’ll be voting by proxy,” she said, passing him her preliminary assessment and taking his to read in return. “Queen Jamillia’s asked me to mediate a dispute between Naboo’s Artisans’ Guild and the Bonadan Silver Sand Consortium. They’ve raised their prices again, and the glassblowers are about ready to declare war.”

  Tapping his fingers on her datapad, Bail frowned. “You know, I’m starting to think belligerence is contagious.”

  Padmé gave him a brief, halfhearted smile. “And I’m starting to agree with you.”

  She was looking tired. The severity of her midnight-blue gown and sleeked-back hair only accentuated her pallor. Shadows darkened the delicate skin beneath her eyes and the hollows of her cheeks. She was fretting herself to an unhealthy slenderness, and there was nothing he could do to help.

  Moments after starting to scroll through his datapad of notes she hesitated, then hit the ’pad’s pause function. “There’s no news?”

  “No. I’d have told you if there was.”

  “Of course you would,” she said, recoiling. “I’m sorry.”

  Instantly contrite, Bail touched his fingers to her arm. “No, I’m sorry.”

  “They’ll be fine,” she said, all her vulnerability ruthlessly repressed. “They’re gifted, experienced Jedi. They’ll be fine.”

  Oh, Padmé. From your lips to the ears of any god or goddess who might be listening. From your lips to their mysterious Force…

  Not long after that she left her proxy vote with him and went to wrestle with the artisans and the Silver Sand Consortium. With his own mind made up, Bail snatched a hasty meal in the busy Senatorial dining room—where he was joined by Mon Mothma, the quietly elegant co-representative for the Bormea sector. Beneath her habitual cool poise she seemed almost agitated.

  “Forgive me for disturbing you, Bail. Do you have a moment?”

  He didn’t know her well, but what he did know he liked very much. “Of course, Mon. Please, sit.”

  She slid into the other chair at his table and folded her slender hands before her. “Umgul,” she said, keeping her voice low. “A whisper’s just reached me that its ruling council is being wooed by Count Dooku. Now, I realize that strategically the planet has little value, but—”

  But as a morale booster for the war-weary? And a potential lightning rod for the increasing unrest over Palpatine’s recent tax hikes? Umgul was way more valuable than he wanted to think about right now.

  He pushed his plate aside. “How reliable is your whisper?”

  “Reliable enough,” Mon Mothma said somberly. “Look. I don’t mean to tell you your business, Bail. You’re the security expert, not me. Only I’m thinking—”

  “What I’m thinking,” he said. “But I can’t see the Chancellor repealing the new taxes. War is expensive, and we need the money. To be honest, I don’t—” A gentle chiming sounded through the dining room: the first of three warnings that the next Senate session was due to begin. “Look—perhaps we can talk about this later? After the vote?”

  “I think we should,” Mon Mothma said as she slid out of her chair. “I think if we don’t find a way to keep Umgul from joining the Separatists we’re going to see some very ugly bloodletting.”

  Pushing back his own chair, Bail stood. “I agree.”

  He and Mon Mothma joined the trickle of colleagues leaving the dining room. “And I’ve got some ideas,” Mon Mothma replied, almost smiling. “But in the meantime, about this ridiculous brawl we’re about to vote on…”

  Tired of moping around the Temple getting nowhere trying to read the Force, and even more tired of thinking up believable answers to questions she couldn’t answer truthfully, Ahsoka registered an absence with the central database and took herself off to the GAR clone barracks where she was shocked and delighted to find Captain Rex and Sergeant Coric, returned only an hour before from the Kaliida Shoals Medcenter.

  “Nobody told me you’d been discharged,” she said, beaming. “Why didn’t anyone tell me you were being discharged?”

  Sprawled in Torrent Company’s homebase barracks rec room, wearing black fatigues and a satisfied smile, Rex shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t look at me, little’un. I just go where they point me and start shooting when I see the glow of their photo-receptors.”

  On the long low couch beside him, Sergeant Coric snickered. “You got that right.”

  The rec room buzzed with a score of comfortable conversations. Over in one corner the 501st’s newest recruit Checkers played turbo-darts with Fireball and Zap from Gold Squadron. Laughter sounded as Checkers overshot the dartboard and buried his turbo-dart up to its fins in the wall.

  Rex shook his head. “You know they’ll dock you for the repairs?” he said, lifting his voice above the raucous amusement. “Better give up while you’re ahead.”

  “I never give up, sir,” Checkers retorted, turning. There was a new scar on his face, the pink line puckered across his chin, keeping company with the old wound under his eye; either Kaliida Shoal’s bacta didn’t take or he hadn’t been treated in time. His scalp gleamed intermittently bald under the rec room’s bright lights. Since Kothlis he’d shaved it in racing stripes and dyed what was left an eye-searing green. Seeing Ahsoka, he flicked his fingers to his forehead and grinned. “Ma’am.”

  She grinned back. “Not ma’am. Ahsoka.”

  “Right, rig
ht.” He dug in his fatigues’ pocket and pulled out another turbo-dart. “Fancy a round, Ahsoka?”

  “In a minute,” she said. “Keep the darts warm for me.”

  “So,” said Rex, his gaze lazily intent as she turned her attention back to him. “What’s our General up to?”

  It was such a simple question, and yet she couldn’t answer it. Not only because of security, but because her throat was suddenly closed tight with fear.

  Rex leaned forward. “Little’un?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, gulping. “I can’t tell you.”

  He exchanged glances with Coric. “But he’s in trouble?”

  Mute, she nodded, then realized her hands were clutched tight and sweaty in her lap. Any second now she was going to cry. Stang.

  “He’s been in trouble before,” said Coric, trying to sound a lot more confident than he felt. “He’ll get out of it. He always does.”

  “He always has,” she corrected him. “But this time…”

  “You know where he is?” said Rex, fiercely frowning.

  She nodded.

  “And you—we—can’t go in after him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Ever?” said Coric, taken aback. “Or just not yet?”

  “I—I don’t know,” she whispered. “Please, you can’t say anything to anyone. This has to stay between us.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Rex, and dragged a hand down his face. “Stang.”

  Torrent Company was so cheerful. It broke her heart to see them laughing, teasing, roughhousing, as though they didn’t have a care in the world. Because if they knew what she knew…

  Rex sat back, pretending he wasn’t upset. “What have you seen, Ahsoka? What’s the Force shown you?”

  She was under strict instructions never to discuss how the Force was getting harder and harder to read. She mustn’t mention it even to Rex and Coric, whom she trusted with her life. Of course, this once she didn’t have to lie. She hadn’t seen anything, though she’d nearly passed out trying.

  “All I get is a feeling,” she said, keeping her voice low, though there was so much noise in the room. “Like I’m about to be sick, all the time.”

  “I know that feeling,” said Coric, trying to joke. “D’you reckon I could be a Jedi, too?”

  Rex stuck an elbow into his ribs. “Some Jedi you’d make. You’d give the other Padawans nightmares.”

  “Now look what you’ve done, Captain,” said Coric, miming heartstruck sorrow. “You’ve gone and hurt my tender feelings.”

  They were trying to cheer her up. Distract her. Distract themselves, too. For all they were hard men, seasoned soldiers, not given to softness or sentimentality of any kind, they adored their general.

  Because she couldn’t tell them any more, and because she was so very tired of thinking about it, of worrying about Skyguy, Ahsoka changed the subject.

  “So are you boys on furlough?”

  Rex nodded. “Don’t know for how long. Nobody’s told us.” And they knew better than to ask. “We’ll take another day or two of R and R, then we’ll get back to training while we wait for the next deployment. But if General Skywalker’s not back by then…”

  Ahsoka felt her guts tighten. “I don’t know. Nobody tells me anything, either.” She nearly added, And it’s not fair, but caught herself just in time. She had no business whining about not fair to these clones.

  “Ah well, little’un,” said Rex, with his most sardonic grin. “This is the life, isn’t it? This is what we signed up for. Hurry up and wait. Long stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.” Leaning forward again, he patted her on the knee. “So I say we play darts. What d’you reckon?”

  And there was her heart, breaking all over again for love of him. Such a decent man, he was. She bounced to her feet, determined not to disappoint him.

  “I reckon I can take you, Captain Rex.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,” Rex retorted, a twinkle in his eyes. And then it faded and he was the serious clone captain again. “But little’un—when the time comes? When you and the general need us?” He jerked his thumb at Coric, equally somber by his side. “Just say the word and we’ll be there.”

  She had to wait a moment, swallowing hard. “I know you will. And so does he.” She leapt up. “Now come along and get thrashed at darts.”

  Early the next morning Jedi Master Taria Damsin tracked Ahsoka down in the Temple arboretum, where the grass was cool and moist and the tumbling waterfall filled the warm air with spray and bright sound.

  Discreetly inspecting the Jedi Master, Ahsoka thought she seemed perfectly recovered from their wild mission on Corellia. Either Taria was an excellent actress, or her Boratavi syndrome was back under control.

  My guess is it’s a bit of both.

  “Ahsoka,” said Taria, as cheerful as ever. “I’ve been thinking.”

  Unfolding from her final meditation pose—a flower stem bends and does not break in the wind—Ahsoka treated the older woman to a grin.

  “Thinking? That’s dangerous. Should I be afraid?”

  “Cheeky brat,” said Taria. “Now listen. I know you hate that you’re stuck here, waiting for word from Masters Kenobi and Skywalker. There’s nothing worse than being left behind when your Master’s off on a mission that doesn’t require a Padawan’s presence. And the Force knows that after Corellia my appetite’s been whetted for something a little less sedate than research in the library. So what do you say we get a nice little competition going? Something to challenge the senior Padawans that’ll challenge us at the same time.”

  “That sounds intriguing,” Ahsoka admitted. “What kind of competition?”

  Taria’s tawny eyes were alight with mischief. “A race through the new training dojo. Two teams—we lead one each. First team to light the beacon at the top of the mini city’s central tower wins.”

  “Wins what?”

  “Bragging rights, of course,” said Taria, grinning. “What else?”

  The new training dojo, completed a few days before the mission to Kothlis, took up all of the Temple’s massive sublevel nineteen. Tricked out with artificial atmospherics and randomly generated zero-g pockets, terraformed into marshy quagmire, thick foliage, a ravine, a cliff, a stretch of wide-open quake-ground, a very small and self-contained river, and four large blocks of streets complete with buildings and towers, it was also populated by a panoply of actual Sep battle droids—salvaged from real battles—which had been modified to shoot stingers instead of blaster bolts. In short, it was the ultimate in urban and natural habitat warfare training terrains. The poor little Padawans were going to get their butts kicked.

  But better they were kicked in the safety of the Temple than out there in the real war, where second chances were rare and dead really meant dead.

  “So,” said Taria, teasingly taunting. “Are you game? Say yes. This could be the start of a Temple tournament.”

  “It sounds like fun,” Ahsoka said slowly. “But—a tournament means winning and losing, doesn’t it? The Jedi philosophy discourages pride.”

  “True,” said Taria, her amusement fading. “But this isn’t about pride, Ahsoka. It’s about finding a way to train without dwelling on what we’re training for. War. Padawans learn better when they aren’t afraid. When they’re actually enjoying themselves? That’s when the lessons stick.”

  And that was true, too. As for me, this might be the perfect thing to take my mind off Skyguy. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go get our teams!”

  Twenty minutes later Ahsoka stood outside the dojo with eleven eager senior Padawans. They were the Green team. Taria had won the toss, so her Blue team had twelve. The Blues were now their enemy—at least for the next hour or so. Given that this was these Padawans’ first time in a war zone, all were wielding training lightsabers designed to stun instead of kill. They wore colored bibs to identify one another, too, although the fluctuating light levels and sudden bursts of storming
rain would make it tricky to see anything clearly.

  Green team entered the dojo first, its consolation prize for losing the toss. Ahsoka’s Padawans were entirely trusting and alarmingly impressed because she was Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice and knew the best clone soldiers by nickname and had crossed lightsabers with the likes of Asajj Ventress—and lived to tell the tale.

  Hey, Skyguy. Don’t let me mess this up.

  “Right,” she said, raising her voice over the dojo’s first computer-generated cracks of lightning and howls of wind. “Focus on the objective, people: reaching the tallest tower in the center of the mini city and lighting its beacon. That means you keep your eyes peeled, and if you get into trouble then you rely on the Force… and each other. Understood?”

  “Understood!” the Padawans shouted.

  The rules only gave them a three-minute head start on the Blues. Since the opening terrain was the dreaded quake-ground, it was time to get cracking. First of all, though, she had to inspire her team. Captain Rex’s Hints for Leaders #4: If they think you’re having fun, they might forget to be terrified.

  Spinning to face her Padawans, walking backward without missing a stride, Ahsoka smiled at the youngsters closest to her. Chivas and Tabrugni smiled back, two small peas in a Kuatipod, the glow of their ignited training lightsabers reflecting in their wide, excited eyes.

  “There’s an old Hutt saying,” she told her Green team, as beneath their feet the treacherous quake-ground woke and shivered a warning. “And it goes like this: Ungdaliki-aigoto-aigoto-grutaaaaah!”

  A moment’s startled silence, and then the Green team shouted back. “Ungdaliki-aigoto-aigoto-grutaaaaah!”

  Then the game began, and Ahsoka forgot that none of this was real. Long since blooded in battle, she couldn’t think that way anymore.

  Christophsis. Teth. Maridun. Kaliida Shoals. Bothawui. Kothlis.

  Memories of each encounter rose to drown her, and instead of fighting them she let herself sink beneath their hot red surface. What she’d learned in the real war could help her now, could help these Padawans. It might even make the difference between life and death for them one day. And she owed it to Anakin to train them as well as he trained her.