Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [168]
“Oh, come on, Master. Worse than destroyers? Besides, security patrols are always those skinny useless little battle droids.”
At that moment, four of those skinny useless battle droids came marching toward them, one along each corridor, clanking along with blaster rifles leveled. One of them triggered one of its preprogrammed security commands: “Hand over your weapons!” The other three chimed in with enthusiastic barks of “Roger, roger!” and a round of spastic head-bobbing.
“See?” Anakin said. “No problem.”
Before Obi-Wan could reply, concealed doors in the corridor walls zipped suddenly aside. Through them rolled the massive bronzium wheels of destroyer droids, two into each corridor. The eight destroyers unrolled themselves behind the battle droids, haloed by sparkling energy shields, twin blaster cannons targeting the two Jedi’s chests.
Obi-Wan sighed. “You were saying?”
“Okay, fine. It’s the dark side. Or something.” Anakin rolled his eyes. “I guess you’re off the hook for the ray shield trap.”
Through those same doorways marched sixteen super battle droids to back up the destroyers, their arm cannons raised to fire over the destroyers’ shields.
Behind the super battle droids came two droids of a type Anakin had never seen. He had an idea what they were, though.
And he was not happy about it.
Obi-Wan scowled at them as they approached. “You’re the expert, Anakin. What are those things?”
“Remember what you were saying about worse than destroyers?” Anakin said grimly. “I think we’re looking at them.”
They walked side by side, their gait easy and straightforward, almost as smooth as a human’s. In fact, they could have been human—humans who were two meters tall and made out of metal. They wore long swirling cloaks that had once been white, but now were stained with smoke and what Anakin strongly suspected was blood. They walked with the cloaks thrown back over one shoulder, to clear their left arms, where they held some unfamiliar staff-like weapon about two meters long—something like the force-pike of a Senate Guard, but shorter, and with an odd-looking discharge blade at each end.
They walked like they were made to fight, and they had clearly seen some battle. The chest plate of one bore a round shallow crater surrounded by a corona of scorch, a direct blaster hit that hadn’t come close to penetrating; the other bore a scar from its cranial dome down through one dead photoreceptor—a scar that looked like it might have come from a lightsaber.
This droid looked like it had fought a Jedi, and survived.
The Jedi, he guessed, hadn’t.
These two droids threaded between the super battle droids and destroyers and casually shoved aside one battle droid hard enough that it slammed into the wall and collapsed into a sparking heap of metal.
The one with the damaged photoreceptor pointed its staff at them, and the ray shields around them dropped. “He said, hand over your weapons, Jedi!”
This definitely wasn’t a preprogrammed security command.
Anakin said softly, “I saw an Intel report on this; I think those are Grievous’s personal bodyguard droids. Prototypes built to his specifications.” He looked from Obi-Wan to Palpatine and back again. “To fight Jedi.”
“Ah,” Obi-Wan said. “Then under the circumstances, I suppose we need a Plan B.”
Anakin nodded at Palpatine. “The Chancellor’s idea is sounding pretty good right now.”
Obi-Wan nodded thoughtfully.
When the Jedi Master turned away to offer his lightsaber to the bodyguard droid, Anakin leaned close to the Supreme Chancellor and murmured, “So you get your way, after all.”
Palpatine answered with a slight, unreadable smile. “I frequently do.”
As super battle droids came forward with electrobinders for their wrists and a restraining bolt for R2-D2, Obi-Wan cast one frowning look back over his shoulder.
“Oh, Anakin,” he said, with the sort of quiet, pained resignation that would be recognized instantly by any parent exhausted by a trouble-prone child. “Where is your lightsaber?”
Anakin couldn’t look at him. “It’s not lost,