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“Good evening, Master Anakin,” said the caregiver droid in Anakin’s chambers. An enhanced protocol model, the TDL droid was programmed to perform a majority of the functions required to care for a young child. TDL models had been marketed across the galaxy as nanny droids for busy politicians, space military personnel, and even smugglers who had children but too little time to spend with them.

The TDL droid had a silvery surface with all corners and sharp edges smoothed for comfort. Because nannies and mothers were expected to need more than the usual set of hands, TDL nanny droids had four fully functional arms, all of which were covered with warm synthetic flesh—as was the torso—to provide a more nurturing experience for a baby held in robot arms.

Anakin cooed with pleasure to see the droid, said a word resembling its name. Winter patted the baby on the back, saying good night.

“Do you have a preference from the large selection of lullabies and bedtime music I have available, Mistress Winter?” the droid said.

“Make a random selection,” Winter answered. “I want to get back to the operations room. Something … doesn’t feel right tonight.”

“Very well, Mistress Winter,” the nanny droid said, cradling Anakin in her arms. “Wave good night.” She plucked up Anakin’s pudgy hand and puppeted a wave.

Winter made it to the door of the operations room just before the intruder alarms went off. She rushed into the control center, scanning the big screens that showed outside images of the stark landscape.

Sonic booms thundered through the thin air, as large objects streamed down in a tight cluster. Winter saw the last of a group of projectiles impact at the base of the nearest spire of rock.

Winter activated the automated defense systems. She closed the massive shield doors that covered the entrance to the hangar grotto. Through the rock she could feel the heavy vibration as the metal doors slammed together.

She saw movement below, just out of range of the cameras. Then a long metal leg bent up on a huge articulated joint; a foot spiked with claws smashed into the rockface, creating traction with explosive bolts. Then the huge machine levered itself out of view around an outcropping.

Winter enhanced the audio pickup, listening to the groaning sounds of straining machinery, pulleys and grinding engines, the clank of treads.

Working rapidly, she switched to another set of image enhancers mounted on a distant pinnacle. The picture that appeared made her gasp in amazement and fear—an extreme reaction, considering her usual unemotional and inflectionless manner.

The smoldering hulks of protective reentry pods lay strewn about the landscape. The metal shells had cracked open like black vermin eggs and unleashed mechanical monstrosities—eight-legged, arachnidlike machines.

Each of the heavily jointed legs moved along different axes as the clawed feet helped the ellipsoid body scuttle over rugged terrain, finding footholds in the rock and scaling the sheer peak in which Winter and Anakin hid.

Eight Imperial Spider Walkers swarmed up the stone pinnacle, firing bright-green blasts against the thick walls of the stronghold, searching for a way in.

13

The Jedi trainees gathered in the dusty, abandoned war room of the Great Temple. They had chosen it as the most fitting place to plan their battle against Exar Kun.

On the third level of the ancient ziggurat the war room had once been used by the Rebel Alliance as a control center for their secret base. Here the tactical genius General Jan Dodonna had planned the strike against the first Death Star.

Cilghal and the others had cleared away much of the debris that had collected in the decade since the Rebels had left the base behind. Multicolored lights flickered on the control panels of the few functional sensor networks; grime-caked viewing plates and cracked transparisteel screens made the signals refract and glitter. Atop a tactical map the tiny hash-mark footprints of a skittering reptile