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K’sar words were swallowed by the sound of servomotors and hydraulics. Around a bend in the gloomy tunnel raced a dwarf spider droid, its long-barreled blaster cannon already sweeping side to side, in search of targets.

Someone’s coming,” Obi-Wan warned Travale.

They were standing on a narrow gantry that accessed the control panel for Escarte’s number three tractor beam coupling station. Six meters high, the tower rose from a circular platform that projected from the wall of a deep air shaft. They’d had to wait for full power to return to the area before seeing to the task of disabling the tractor beam. Initially, Travale had made a few mistakes, but he had sorted through his confusion and was almost done.

Obi-Wan peered around the corner of the tower in the direction of the voices he had heard. Three Geonosian security guards were approaching the coupling station from a corridor on the far side of the shaft.

“Never a lightsaber when you need one,” Travale whispered. “Can you divert them somehow?”

Obi-Wan considered his options, then made a flicking motion with the fingers of his right hand. An unidentifiable sound issued from deeper in the corridor the guards had taken. Whirling, the three Geonosians hurried off to investigate.

Travale shook his head back and forth in appreciation of Obi-Wan’s skill. “It’s a wonder the war isn’t over yet.”

“Too few of us.”

Travale studied Obi-Wan for a moment. “Is that the reason?”

Obi-Wan touched Travale on the arm, and motioned with his bearded chin to the tower. “No time to waste.”

The Jedi watched over Travale’s shoulder as he dialed the coupling power feed to zero.

“These things are the future,” Travale said. “Fill a ship with enough tractor beam arrays and you could prevent an enemy from jumping to hyperspace.”

“There aren’t ships large enough.”

“There will be,” Travale said. “To ensure that another war doesn’t happen.”

Mainstay of the Commerce Guild’s mining operations, the dwarf spider droid was a hunter-killer. The spider didn’t stand much taller than a Trade Federation battle droid, but it was agile and equipped with two powerful blaster cannons. Perched at the juncture of four splayed legs, the hemispherical body was dominated by two huge circular photoreceptors, which appeared to be fixed on Anakin and K’sar as the droid rushed in to make the kill.

Anakin threw K’sar to one side and rolled as the dwarf spider fired. Two glaring bolts gouged a trench in the hewn floor of the tunnel, and the report of the cannon resounded deafeningly from the walls. The head pivoted, photoreceptors finding Anakin, and the weapon discharged again.

Anakin flipped himself away. Calling on the Force, he swirled his hands in front of him to prevent the intense heat from engulfing him. Rolling once more, he tried to get underneath the droid’s striding legs, but the spider anticipated him, skittered backward, and loosed another burst.

Anakin leapt.

Propelled by the Force, as well as the force of the explosion, he struck the arched ceiling and fell hard to the floor. Blacking out for a moment, he awoke to find the droid charging toward him, reorienting the smaller of its cannons to place him in the crosshairs. Catapulting to his feet, he flew forward, intent on ripping the power cells from beneath the droid’s dome. No less determined, the droid countered by retreating and rearing up. Falling short of the mark, Anakin curled his body, counting on momentum to carry him forward.

The spider continued to retreat, then dropped back on all fours, traversing its cannon.

Feigning a sidestep, Anakin hurled himself completely under the droid, but still couldn’t find cover. He heard the sound of the spider’s dome rotating, then the sound of the muzzle of the long cannon hitting the scabrous wall. Realizing that it had entered a section of the tunnel too narrow to allow for a half turn, the droid stamped its legs in frustration, then began to back itself into the wider stretch.

Without a clear plan in mind, Anakin chased it, heard the dome begin to pivot once more, then the sound of a hand