Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [34]
Separate conversations were in progress when the sound of clanging footfalls echoed from the long corridor that led to the briefing room. Abruptly everyone fell silent, and a moment later General Grievous appeared in the hatchway, the rounded crown of his elongated death mask of a helmet grazing the top of the opening, his high-backed collar of ceramic armorplast reminiscent of a neck brace. Sheathed in metal more suited to a starfighter, his skeletal upper limbs were spread wide, clawlike duranium hands just touching the hatchway frame. His two feet, which also resembled claws, were capable of increasing his height by several centimeters. Legs of sleek alloy bones looked as if they could propel him into orbit. His campaign cloak, slit down one side from left shoulder to floor, was thrown back so that twin pectorals of armor plating were exposed, along with the reverse ribs that began at Grievous’s hip girdle and extended upward to his shielded sternum. Beneath it all, encased in a kind of fluid-filled, forest-green gutsac, were the organs that nurtured the living part of him.
Behind helmet holes that rendered his visage at once mournful and fearsome, sallow reptilian eyes fixed Gunray with a gimlet stare. In a synthesized voice, deep and grating, he said: “Welcome aboard, Viceroy. For a moment we feared that you weren’t going to arrive.”
Gunray felt the gazes of everyone in the cabin fall on him. His distrust of the cyborg was no secret; nor was Grievous’s enmity for him.
“And I can only assume that you were very troubled by the prospect, General.”
“You must know how important you are to our cause.”
“I know it, General. Though I confess to wondering if you do.”
“I am your keeper, Viceroy. Your protector.”
Striding into the cabin, he began to circle the table, stopping directly behind Gunray, towering over him. Peripherally, Gunray saw Haako slouch deeper into his chair, refusing to look either at him or at Grievous, circling his hands in a nervous gesture.
“I have no favorite among you,” the general said at last. “I champion all of you. That is why I summoned you here: to ensure your continued protection.”
No one said a word.
“The Republic fools itself believing that they have you on the run, but, in fact, Lord Sidious and Darth Tyranus have engineered this, for reasons that will be made clear soon enough. All is proceeding according to plan. However, with your home-worlds fallen to the Republic, your purse and colony worlds throughout the galaxy threatened, you are ordered to remain a group for the foreseeable future. I have been instructed to find a safe harbor for you here, in the Outer Rim.”
“What world will accept us now?” equine-faced San Hill asked in a disconsolate voice.
“If none offers, Chairman, then I will take one.”
Grievous walked to the hatchway, his talons screeching along the deck. “For now, return to your separate vessels. When a world has been selected, I will contact each of you in the usual manner, and provide you with new rendezvous coordinates.”
Careful not to betray his sudden misgiving, Gunray traded covert glances with Haako.
The “usual manner” meant the mechno-chair inadvertently left behind on Cato Neimoidia.
A patchwork of dull red and pale brown, Charros IV filled the forward viewports of the Republic cruiser. The twin-piloted ship had been an antique twenty years earlier, but its sublight and hyperdrive engines were reliable, and with vessels deployed on so many fronts Obi-Wan and Anakin couldn’t be choosy. The cruiser’s once emblematic crimson color was obscured under fresh coats of white paint; as a result of the war, laser cannons were carefully tucked astern under the radiator panel wings, and forward, beneath the cockpit, in the space