Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (11 page)

Palpatine nodded. "But, Anakin-"

Anakin looked up. The turbolift doors still stood open. "Wait here, sir."

He opened himself more fully to the Force and in his mind placed himself and Obi-Wan balanced on the edge of the open doorway above. Holding this image, he leapt, and the Force made his intention into reality: his leap carried him and the unconscious Jedi Master precisely to the rim.

The altered gravitic vector had made the turbolift shaft into a horizontal hallway of unlit durasteel, laser-straight, shrinking into darkness. Anakin was familiar with the specs for Trade Federation command cruisers; the angled conning spire was some three hundred meters long. As it stood, they could walk it in two or three minutes. But if the wrong gravity shift were to catch them inside the shaft . . .

He shook his head, grimly calculating the odds. "We'll have to be fast."

He glanced back over his shoulder, down at Palpatine, who still huddled below. "Are you all right, Chancellor? Are you well enough to run?"

The Supreme Chancellor finally rose, patting his robes in a futile attempt to dust them off. "I haven't run since I was a boy on Naboo."

"It's never too late to start getting into shape." Anakin reached through the Force to give Palpatine a little help in clambering up to the open doorway. "There are light shuttles on the hangar deck. We can be there in five minutes."

Once Palpatine was safely within the shaft-hall, Anakin said, "Follow me," and turned to go, but the Chancellor stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Anakin, wait. We need to get to the bridge."

Through an entire shipful of combat droids? Not likely. "The hangar deck's right below-well, beside us, now. It's our best chance."

"But the bridge-Grievous is there." Now Anakin did stop. Grievous. The most prolific slaughterer of Jedi since Durge. In all the excitement, Anakin had entirely forgotten that the bio-droid general was aboard.

"You've defeated Dooku," Palpatine said. "Capture Grievous and you will have dealt a wound from which the Separatists may never recover."

Anakin thought blankly: I could do it.

He had dreamed of capturing Grievous ever since Muunilinst-and now the general was close. So close Anakin could practically smell him . . . and Anakin had never felt so powerful. The Force was with him today in ways more potent than he had ever experienced.

"Think of it, Anakin." Palpatine stood close by his shoulder, opposite to Obi-Wan, so close he needed only to whisper. "You have destroyed their political head. Take their military commander, and you will have practically won the war. Single-handed. Who else could do that, Anakin? Yoda? Mace Windu? They couldn't even capture Dooku. Who would have a chance against Grievous, if not Anakin Skywalker? The Jedi have never faced a crisis like the Clone Wars-but also they have never had a hero like you. You can save them. You can save everyone."

Anakin jerked, startled. He turned a sharp glance toward Palpatine. The way he had said that . . . Like a voice out of his dreams.

"That's-" Anakin tried to laugh; it came out a little shaky. "That's not what Obi-Wan keeps telling me."

"Forget Obi-Wan," Palpatine said. "He has no idea how powerful you truly are. Use your power, Anakin. Save the Republic." Anakin could see it, vivid as a HoloNet feature: arriving at the Senate with Grievous in electrobonds, standing modestly aside as Palpatine announced the end of the war, returning to the Temple, to the Council Chamber, where finally, after all this time, there would be a chair waiting, just for him.

They could hardly refuse him Mastership now, after he had won the war for them . . .

But then Obi-Wan shifted on his shoulder, moaning faintly and Anakin snapped back to reality.

"No," he said. "Sorry, Chancellor. My orders are clear. This is a rescue mission; your safety is my only priority."

"I will never be safe while Grievous lives," Palpatine countered. "Master Kenobi will recover at any moment. Leave him here with me; he can see me safely to the hangar deck. Go for the general."

"I-I would like to, sir, but-"

"I can make it an order, Anakin."

"With respect, sir: no. You can't. My orders come from the Jedi Council, and the Council's orders come from the Senate. You have no direct authority."

The Chancellor's face darkened. "That may change."

Anakin nodded. "And perhaps it should, sir. But until it does, we'll do things my way. Let's go."

"Sir?" The thin voice of the comm officer interrupted Grievous's pacing. "We are being hailed by Integrity, sir. They propose a cease-fire."

Dark yellow eyes squinted through the skull-mask at the tactical displays. A pause in the combat would allow Invisible Hand's turbolaser batteries to cool, and give the engineers a chance to get the gravity generators under control. "Acknowledge receipt of transmission. Stand by to cease fire."

"Standing by, sir." The gunnery officer was still shaking.

"Cease fire."

The lances of energy that had joined the Hand to the Home Fleet Strike Force melted away.

"Further transmission, sir. It's Integrity's commander."

Grievous nodded. "Initiate."

A ghostly image built itself above the bridge's ship-to-ship hologenerator: a young human male of distinctly average height and build, wearing the uniform of a lieutenant commander. The only thing distinctive about his otherwise rather bland features was the calm confidence in his eyes.

"General Grievous," the young man said briskly, "I am Lieutenant Commander Lorth Needa of RSS Integrity. At my request, my superiors have consented to offer you the chance to surrender your ship, sir.''

"Surrender?" Grievous's vocabulator produced a very credable reproduction of a snort. "Preposterous."

"Please give this offer careful deliberation, General, as it will not be repeated. Consider the lives of your crew."

Grievous cast an icy glance around his bridge full of craven Neimoidians. "Why should I?"

The young man did not look surprised, though he did show l trace of sadness. "Is this your reply, then?"

"Not at all." Grievous drew himself up; by straightening the angles of his levered joints, he could add half a meter to his already imposing height. "I have a counteroffer. Maintain your ease-fire, move that hulk Indomitable out of my way, and withdraw to a minimum range of fifty kilometers until this ship achieves hyperspace jump."

"If I may use your word, sir: preposterous."

"Tell these superiors of yours that if my demands are not met within ten minutes, I will personally disembowel Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, live on the HoloNet. Am I understood?"

The young officer took this without a blink. "Ah. The Chancellor is aboard your ship, then."

"He is. Your pathetic Jedi so-called heroes have failed. They are dead, and Palpatine remains in my hands."

"Ah," the young officer repeated. "So you will, of course, allow me to speak with him. To, ah, reassure my superiors that you-are not simply-well, to put it charitably-bluffing?"

"I would not lower myself to lie to the likes of you." Grievous turned to the comm officer. "Patch in Count Dooku."

The comm officer stroked his screen, then shook his head "He's not responding, sir."

Grievous shook his head disgustedly. "Just show the Chancellor, then. Bring up my quarters on the security screen."

The security officer stroked his own screen, and made a choking sound. "Hrm, sir?"

"What are you waiting for? Bring it up!"

He'd gone as pink as the gunner. "Perhaps you should have a look first, sir?"

The plain urgency in his tone brought Grievous to his side without another word. The general bent over the screen that showed the view inside his quarters and found himself looking at jumbled piles of energy-sheared wreckage surrounding the empty shape of the General's Chair.

And that-that there-that looked like it could have been a body . . .

Draped in a cape of armorweave.

Grievous turned back toward the intership holocomm. "The Chancellor is-indisposed."

"Ah. I see."

Grievous suspected that the young officer saw entirely too well. "I assure you-"

"I do not require your assurance, General. You have the same amount of time you offered us. Ten minutes from now, I will have either your surrender, or confirmation that Supreme Chancellor Palpatine is alive, unharmed-and present-or Invisible Hand will be destroyed."

"Wait-you can't simply-"

"Ten minutes, General. Needa out.v

When Grievous turned to the bridge security officer, his mask was blankly expressionless as ever, but he made up for it with the open murder in his voice.

"Dooku is dead and the Jedi are loose. They have the Chancellor Find them and bring them to me."

His armorplast fingers curled into a fist that crashed down on the security console so hard the entire thing collapsed into a sparking, smoking ruin.

"Find them!"

=6=

RESCUE

Anakin counted paces as he trotted along the turbolift shaft, Obi-Wan over his shoulder and Palpatine at his side. He'd reached 102-only a third of the way along the conning spire-when he felt the gravity begin to shift.

Exactly the wrong way: changing the rest of the long, long shaft from ahead to down.

He put out his free arm to stop the Chancellor. "This is a problem. Find something to hang on to while I get us out of here."

One of the turbolift doors was nearby, seemingly lying on its side. Anakin's lightsaber found his hand and its sizzling blade burned open the door controls, but before he could even move aside the sparking wires, the gravitic vector lurched toward vertical and he fell, skidding along the wall, free hand grabbing desperately at a loop of cable, catching it, hanging from it-And the turbolift doors opened.

Inviting. Safe. And mockingly out of reach: a meter above his outstretched arm-And his other arm was the only thing holding Obi-Wan above a two-hundred-meter drop down which his lightsaber's handgrip now clanked and clattered, fading toward infinity. For half a second Anakin was actually glad Obi-Wan was unconscious because he wasn't in the mood for another lecture about hanging on to his lightsaber right now, and that thought blew away and vanished because something had grabbed on to his leg-He looked down.

It was Palpatine.

The Chancellor hugged Anakin's ankle with improbable strength, peering fearfully into the darkness below. "Anakin, do something! You have to do something!"

I'm open to suggestions, he thought, but he said, "Don't panic. Just hang on."

"I don't think I can ..." The Chancellor turned his anguished face upward imploringly. "Anakin, I'm slipping. Give me your hand-you have to give me your hand!"

And drop Obi-Wan? Not in this millennium.

"Don't panic," Anakin repeated. The Chancellor had clearly lost his head. "I can get us out of this."

He wished he were as confident as he sounded. He had been counting on the artificial gravity to continue to swing until the haft turned back into a hallway, but instead it seemed to have topped where it was.

This would be an especially lousy time for the generators to start working right.

He fixed a measuring glance on the open lift doorway above; perhaps the Force could give him enough of a boost to carry all three of them to safety.

But that was an exceedingly large perhaps.

Obi-Wan, old buddy old pal, he thought, this would be a really good time to wake up.

Obi-Wan Kenobi opened his eyes to find himself staring at what he strongly suspected was Anakin's butt.

It looked like Anakin's butt-well, his pants, anyway-though it was thoroughly impossible for Obi-Wan to be certain, since he had never before had occasion to examine Anakin's butt upside down, which it currently appeared to be, nor from this rather uncomfortably close range.

And how he might have arrived at this angle and this range was entirely baffling.

He said, "Um, have I missed something?"

"Hang on," he heard Anakin say. "We're in a bit of a situation here."

So it was Anakin's butt after all. He supposed he might take a modicum of comfort from that. Looking up, he discovered Anakin's legs, and his boots-and a somewhat astonishing close-up view of the Supreme Chancellor, as Palpatine seemingly balanced overhead, supported only by a white-knuckled death-grip on Anakin's ankle.

"Oh, hello, Chancellor," he said mildly. "Are you well?"

The Chancellor cast a distressed glance over his shoulder. "I hope so ..."

Obi-Wan followed the Chancellor's gaze; above Palpatine rose a long, long vertical shaft-Which was when he finally realized that he wasn't looking up at all.

This must be what Anakin had meant by a bit of a situation.

"Ah," Obi-Wan said. At least he was finally coming to understand where he stood.

Well, lay. Hung. Whatever.

"And Count Dooku?"

Anakin said, "Dead."

"Pity." Obi-Wan sighed. "Alive, he might have been a help to us."

"Obi-Wan-"

"Not in this particular situation, granted, but nonetheless-"

"Can we discuss this later? The ship's breaking apart."

"Ah."

A familiar electrosonic feroo-wheep came thinly through someone's comlink. "Was that Artoo? What does he want?"

"I asked him to activate the elevator," Anakin said. From the distant darkness above came a clank, and a shirr, and a clonk, all of which evoked in Obi-Wan's still-somewhat-addled brain the image of turbolift brakes unlocking. The accuracy of his imagination was swiftly confirmed by a sudden downdraft that smelled strongly of burning oil, followed closely by the bottom of a turbolift pod hurtling down the shaft like a meteorite down a well.

Obi-Wan said, "Oh."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time-"

"No need to get defensive."

"Artoo!" Anakin shouted. "Shut it down!"

"No time for that," Obi-Wan said. "Jump."

"Jump?" Palpatine asked with a shaky laugh. "Don't you mean, fall?"

"Um, actually, yes. Anakin-?"

Anakin let go.

They fell.

And fell. The sides of the turboshaft blurred.