Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [166]
Anakin gave Obi-Wan a fierce grin. Let someone he loves pass out of his life? Not likely. “What are we waiting for?” he said. “Let’s go!”
From Invisible Hand’s bridge, the ship’s spin made the vast curve of Coruscant’s horizon appear to orbit the ship in a dizzying whirl. Each rotation also brought a view of the lazily tumbling wreckage of the conning spire, ripped from the ship and cast out of orbit by centripetal force, as it made the long burning fall toward the planetary city’s surface.
General Grievous watched them both while his droid circuitry ticked off the seconds remaining in the life of his ship.
He had no fear for his own life; his specially designed escape module was preprogrammed to take him directly to a ship already primed for jump. Mere seconds after he sealed himself and the Chancellor within the module’s heavily armored hull, they would be taken aboard the fleeing ship, which would then make a series of randomized microjumps to prevent being tracked before entering the final jump to the secret base on Utapau.
But he was not willing to go without the Chancellor. This operation had cost the Confederacy dearly in ships and personnel; to leave empty-handed would be an even graver cost in prestige. Winning this war was more than half a matter of propaganda: much of the weakness of the Republic grew from its citizens’ superstitious dread of the Separatists’ seemingly inevitable victory—a dread cultivated and nourished by the CIS shadowfeed that poisoned government propaganda on the HoloNet. The common masses of the Republic believed that the Republic was losing; to see the legendary Grievous himself beaten back and fleeing a battle would give them hope that the war might be won.
And hope was simply not to be allowed.
His built-in comlink buzzed in his left ear. He touched the sensor implant in the jaw of his mask. “Yes.”
“The Jedi almost certainly escaped the conning spire, sir.” The voice was that of one of his precious, custom-built IG 100-series MagnaGuards: prototype self-motivating humaniform combat droids designed, programmed, and armed specifically to fight Jedi. “We recovered a lightsaber from the base of the turbolift shaft before the spire tore free.”
“Copy that. Stand by for instructions.” One long stride put Grievous next to the Neimoidian security officer. “Have you located them, or are you about to die?”
“I, ah, I ah—” The security officer’s trembling finger pointed to a schematic of Invisible Hand’s hangar deck, where a bright blip slid slowly through Bay One.
“What is that?”
“It’s, it’s, it’s the Chancellor’s beacon, sir.”
“What? The Jedi never deactivated it? Why not?”
“I, well, I can’t actually—”
“Idiots.” He looked down at the cringing security officer, considering killing the fool just for taking so long to figure this out.
The Neimoidian might as well have read Grievous’s thought spelled out across his bone-colored mask. “If, if, if you hadn’t—er, I mean, please recall my security console has been destroyed, and so I have been forced to reroute—”
“Silence.” Grievous gave a mental shrug. The fool would be dead or captured soon enough regardless. “Order all combat droids to terminate their search algorithms and converge on the bridge. Wait, strike that: leave the battle droids. Useless things,” he muttered into his mask. “A greater danger to us than to Jedi. Super battle droids and droidekas only, do you understand? We will take no chances.”
As the security officer turned to his screens, Grievous again touched the sensor implant along the jaw of his mask. “IG-One-oh-one.”
“Sir.”
“Assemble a team of super battle droids and droidekas—as many as you can gather—and report to the hangar deck. I’ll give you the exact coordinates as soon as they are available.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will find at least one Jedi, possibly two, in