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“Admit us, Viceroy. Or shall I instruct my elite to lay waste to everything that stands between me and you?”

Haako spun on his heel and hurried for the suite’s rear hatch.

“Where are you going?” Gunray said. “Running will only make us appear guilty!”

“We are guilty!” Haako threw over his shoulder.

“He doesn’t know that.”

“Viceroy!” Grievous rasped.

Haako stood in the open hatch. “He will.” And disappeared through it.

Gunray paced for a moment, wringing his hands, then, straightening robes and miter and pulling his shoulders back, he pressed a fat finger to the hatch release.

The general swept into the suite, the four MagnaGuards in his angry wake spreading out to both sides, ready for violence.

“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” Gunray said from the center of the main room. “Your Masters will not tolerate such ill treatment of me!”

Grievous glowered at him. “They will when they learn what you’ve done.”

Gunray touched himself in the chest. “What are you talking about, you … abomination. When Lord Sidious hears that you promised us a world you could not deliver—”

Stepping forward, a MagnaGuard thrust his staff to within a millimeter of Gunray’s face.

“Lord Sidious’s alloy puppet,” Gunray said, his voice quavering. “If not for the Trade Federation, you would have no army to command.”

Grievous raised his right claw and pointed to Gunray. “The mechno-chair. I want to see it.”

Gunray gulped. “In a fit of anger, I had it destroyed and purged from the ship.”

“You’re lying. There was no problem with my transmission to you. The chair relayed my message.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“The chair is no longer in your possession. It has somehow fallen into enemy hands, and, through it, the Republic was able to learn of my plan to attack Belderone.”

“You’re brain-dead.”

Grabbing Gunray by the neck, Grievous lifted him a meter off the floor.

“Before I leave here, you will tell me everything I wish to know.”

Poor Gunray, Dooku thought. Pitiful creature …

But for having left the mechno-chair behind on Cato Neimoidia, he deserved all the fear Grievous had put into him.

Secluded in his castle on Kaon, Dooku had just spoken with the general and was pondering how best to handle the situation. While the incident at Belderone wasn’t conclusive proof that the Republic had managed to decrypt the Separatist code and intercept Grievous’s transmission to Gunray, it was prudent to assume that this was the case. Dooku had already ordered the general to refrain from using the code for the time being. But the matter of the expropriated hyperwave transceiver was cause for added concern. The very fact that the Republic had tipped its hand at Belderone, declaring the success of its eavesdropping, implied that the mechno-chair had furnished more than intelligence. Clues to secrets that would astonish even Grievous.

The general was not accustomed to losing in battle. Even when a general among his own species, he had suffered few defeats. That was orginally what had brought him to the attention of Sidious. After the Sith Lord had expressed interest in Grievous to Dooku, Dooku, in turn, had expressed interest in Grievous to Chairman San Hill, of the InterGalactic Banking Clan.

Poor Grievous, Dooku thought. Pitiful creature …

During the Huk War, and later, while in the employ of the IBC, Grievous had survived numerous attempts on his life, so an assassination attempt was ruled out almost immediately. Hill himself had come up with the idea of a shuttle crash, though that, too, presented risks.

What if Grievous should actually die in the crash?

Then the Separatists would simply have to look elsewhere for a commander, Dooku had told Hill. But Grievous had survived—and only too well. In fact, most of the life-threatening injuries he sustained had occurred after he had been pulled from the flaming shuttle wreck, and with great calculation.

When at last he had agreed to be rebuilt, promises were made that no critical alterations would be made to his mind. But the Geonosians had ways of modifying the mind without a patient ever being