Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [160]
Palpatine was struggling to rise, still coughing, sounding weak. Anakin let the Force lift Obi-Wan back to his shoulder, then picked himself up. “Perhaps you should stay down, sir,” he said to the Chancellor. “The gravity swings are getting worse.”
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