Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [159]
“But—the forward towers are already overloading, sir.” The officer’s voice trembled on the edge of panic. “They’ll be at critical failure in less than a minute—”
“Burn them out.”
“But sir, once they’re gone—”
The rest of the senior gunnery officer’s objection was lost in the wetly final crunching sound his face made under the impact of an armorplast fist. That same fist opened, seized the collar of the officer’s uniform, and yanked his corpse out of the chair, ripping the crash webbing free along with it.
An expressionless skull-face turned toward the junior gunnery officer. “Congratulations on your promotion. Take your post.”
“Y-y-yes, sir.” The newly promoted senior gunnery officer’s hands shook so badly he could barely unbuckle his crash web, and his face had gone deathly pink.
“Do you understand your orders?”
“Y-y-y—”
“Do you have any objections?”
“N-n-n—”
“Very well, then,” General Grievous said with flat, impenetrable calm. “Carry on.”
This is General Grievous:
Durasteel. Ceramic armorplast-plated duranium. Electro-drivers and crystal circuitry.
Within them: the remnants of a living being.
He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t eat. He cannot laugh, and he does not cry.
A lifetime ago he was an organic sentient being. A lifetime ago he had friends, a family, an occupation; a lifetime ago he had things to love, and things to fear. Now he has none of these.
Instead, he has purpose.
It’s built into him.
He is built to intimidate. The resemblance to a human skeleton melded with limbs styled after the legendary Krath war droids is entirely intentional. It is a face and form born of childhood’s infinite nightmares.
He is built to dominate. The ceramic armorplast plates protecting limbs and torso and face can stop a burst from a starfighter’s laser cannon. Those indestructible arms are ten times stronger than human, and move with the blurring speed of electronic reflexes.
He is built to eradicate. Those human-sized hands have human-sized fingers for exactly one reason: to hold a lightsaber.
Four of them hang inside his cloak.
He has never constructed a lightsaber. He has never bought one, nor has he recovered one that was lost. Each and all, he has taken from the dead hands of Jedi he has killed.
Personally.
He has many, many such trophies; the four he carries with him are his particular favorites. One belonged to the interminable K’Kruhk, whom he had bested at Hypori; another to the Viraanntesse Jedi Jmmaar, who’d fallen at Vandos; the other two had been created by Puroth and Nystammall, whom Grievous had slaughtered together on the flame-grass plains of Tovarskl so that each would know the other’s death, as well as their own; these are murders he recalls with so much pleasure that touching these souvenirs with his hands of armorplast and durasteel brings him something resembling joy.
But only resembling.
He remembers joy. He remembers anger, and frustration. He remembers grief and sorrow.
He doesn’t actually feel any of them. Not anymore.
He’s not designed for it.
White-hot sparks zipped and crackled through the smoke that billowed across the turbolift lobby. Over Anakin’s shoulder, the unconscious Jedi Master wheezed faintly. Beside his other shoulder, Palpatine coughed harshly into the sleeve of his robe, held over his face for protection from caustic combustion products of the overloading circuitry.
“Artoo?” Anakin shook his comlink sharply. The blasted thing had been on the blink ever since Obi-Wan had stepped on it during one of the turbolift fights.
“Artoo, do you copy? I need you to activate—” The smoke was so thick he could barely make out the numerals on the code plate. “—elevator three-two-two-four. Three-two-two-four, do you copy?”
The comlink emitted a fading fwheep that might have been an acknowledgment, and the doors slid