Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [9]
Anakin could only shake his head in wonder. In Mos Espa, on Tatooine, he and his mother had lived simply, and never wanted for anything.
His grin was short-lived.
Anger and despair made him grit his teeth.
Upward: until they reached the citadel’s semicircular projection of launching bays, which overlooked the surrounding lake and a ridge of forested mountains.
Anakin brought his team to a halt. One of the commandos held up his hand, palm outward, then tapped the side of his helmet to indicate an incoming transmission. The commando listened, then spoke to Anakin with hand signals.
Gunray’s party is nearby.
“They’re testing escape vectors for the shuttle by lowering the defensive shield and launching decoys,” the commando said quietly. “Turbolaser fire has allowed several of the decoys to get past our blockade and reach orbiting core ships.”
The muscles in Anakin’s jaw bunched. “Then we have to act quickly.”
No one contested when Anakin held point position. The commandos accepted without question that body armor and imaging systems were primitive compared to the power of the Force. They moved vigilantly through a maze of elegant corridors, abandoned in a rush, strewn with belongings dropped during flight.
Approaching an intersection, Anakin made a halting gesture with his left hand.
He listened for a moment; heard from around the corner the telltale heavy footfalls of super battle droids. The commando to Anakin’s left nodded in confirmation, then extended a finger-thin holocam around the corner and activated his gauntlet holoprojector. Noisy images of Nute Gunray and his entourage of elite officers formed in midair. Hurrying down the corridor, tall headpieces bobbing, rich robes aswirl, safeguarded front and rear by burly battle droids.
Anakin motioned for silence, and was just about to step into the intersecting corridor when a banged-up silver protocol droid appeared from across the hall, raising its hands in delighted surprise.
“Welcome, sirs!” it said loudly. “I can’t tell you how good it is to find guests in the palace! I am TeeCee-Sixteen and I am at your service. Nearly everyone has left—because of the invasion, of course—but I’m sure that we can make you comfortable, and that Viceroy Gunray will be most pleased—”
One hand clamped over TC-16’s small rectangle of vocabulator, a commando yanked the droid to one side, but it was too late. Anakin leapt around the corner in time to see the Neimoidians set off at a run, red-eyed, flat-nosed Gunray casting a nervous glance over his shoulder.
As for the super battle droids, they had about-faced and were marching stiff-legged in Anakin’s direction. Catching sight of him, their right arms elevated, twisted downward, locked into firing position.
And the corridor began to fill with blaster bolts.
Qui-Gon Jinn hadn’t believed in baiting, Obi-Wan thought as he and the commandos rode the turbolift to the fortress’s lowest level. Baiting implied a certain amount of advance planning, and Qui-Gon had no patience for that. He took situations as they came, throwing back his shoulders and striding boldly to the center of things, relying as much on his instincts as his lightsaber to deal with the consequences. It must have been difficult for him to have served under a methodical master such as Dooku, consummate planner, consummate duelist.
Now a Sith.
But that made sense, of a sort.
The desire to dominate and control.
For a time the same issues had stood at the center of Obi-Wan’s conflicts with Anakin. Clearly