Attack of the Clones (13 page)

Gradually, very gradually, the club resumed its previous atmosphere, with conversations beginning again. Seeming hardly concerned, Obi-Wan motioned for Anakin to help him, and together they helped the assassin out to the street.

They lowered her gently to the ground, and she started awake as soon as Obi-Wan began to attend her wounded arm.

She growled ferally and winced in agony, all the while staring up hatefully at the two Jedi.

“Do you know who it was you were trying to kill?” Obi-Wan asked her.

“The Senator from Naboo,” Zam Wesell said matter-of-factly, as if it hardly mattered.

“Who hired you?”

Her answer was a glare. “It was just a job.”

“Tell us!” Anakin demanded, coming forward threateningly.

The tough bounty hunter didn’t even flinch. “The Senator’s going to die soon anyway,” she said. “It won’t end with me. For the price they’re offering, there’ll be bounty hunters lining up to take the hit. And the next one won’t make the same mistake I did.”

Tough as she was, she ended with a grunt and a groan.

“This wound’s going to need more treatment than I can give it here,” an obviously concerned Obi-Wan explained to Anakin, but if the younger man even cared, he didn’t show it. His expression angry, he came forward.

“Who hired you?” he asked again, and then he continued, throwing the full weight of the Force into his demand, a strength that surprised Obi-Wan, that came from something more than prudence or dedication to his current job. “Tell us. Tell us now!”

The bounty hunter continued to glare at him, but, lips twitching, she started to answer. “It was a bounty hunter called—”

They heard a puff from above and the bounty hunter twitched and gasped, and simply expired, her human female features twisting grotesquely back into the lumpy form of her true Clawdite nature.

Anakin and Obi-Wan tore their eyes away from the spectacle to look up, and heard the roar as they watched an armored rocket-man lift away into the Coruscant night, disappearing into the sky.

Obi-Wan looked back to the dead creature and pulled a small item from her neck, holding it up for Anakin to see. “Toxic dart.”

Anakin sighed and looked away. So they had foiled this attempt and killed one assassin.

But it was clear to him that Senator Amidala—Padmé—remained in grave danger.

A
nakin stood quietly in the Jedi Council chamber, encircled by the Masters of the Order. Beside him stood Obi-Wan, his Master, but not one of
the
Masters. Obi-Wan, like the majority of the ten thousand Jedi, was a Knight, but these select few sitting around the edges of this room were Masters, the highest-ranking members of this Order. Anakin had never been comfortable in this esteemed company. He knew that more than half of the Jedi Masters sitting here had expressed grave doubts about allowing him into the Order at the advanced age of ten. He knew that even after Yoda had swayed the vote to allow him to begin studying under Obi-Wan, a few continued to hold those doubts.

“Track down this bounty hunter, you must, Obi-Wan,” Master Yoda said as the others passed the toxic dart about.

“Most importantly, find out who he’s working for,” Mace Windu added.

“What about Senator Amidala?” Obi-Wan asked. “She will still need protecting.”

Anakin, anticipating what might be coming, straightened as Yoda turned his gaze his way.

“Handle that, your Padawan will.”

Anakin felt his heart soar at Yoda’s declaration, both because of the confidence obviously being shown in him, and also because this was one assignment he knew that he would truly enjoy.

“Anakin, escort the Senator back to her home planet of Naboo,” Mace added. “She’ll be safer there. And don’t use registered transport. Travel as refugees.”

Anakin nodded as the assignment was explained, but he knew immediately that there would be a few obstacles to such a course. “As the leader of the opposition to the Military Creation Act, it will be very difficult to get Senator Amidala to leave the capital.”

“Until caught this killer is, our judgment she must respect,” Yoda replied.

Anakin nodded. “But I know how deeply she cares about this upcoming vote, Master,” he replied. “She is more concerned with defeating the act than with—”

“Anakin,” Mace interrupted, “go to the Senate and ask Chancellor Palpatine to speak with her.” The tone of his voice made it clear that they had spent enough time on these issues. The Jedi Knight and his Padawan had their assignments, and Yoda dismissed them with a nod.

Anakin started to say something further, but Obi-Wan had his arm almost immediately, guiding him out of the room.

“I was only going to explain Padmé’s passion about this vote,” Anakin said when he and Obi-Wan were out in the hall.

“You made Senator Amidala’s feelings quite clear,” Obi-Wan replied. “That is why Master Windu bade you to have the Chancellor intervene.” The two started
walking down the corridor, Anakin biting back any responses that came to him.

“The Jedi Council understands, Anakin,” Obi-Wan remarked.

“Yes, Master.”

“You must trust in them, Anakin.”

“Yes, Master.” Anakin’s response was automatic. He had already gone past this issue in his thoughts. He knew that Padmé wouldn’t be easily convinced to leave the planet before the vote, but in truth, it hardly mattered to him. The important thing was that he would be with her, guarding her. With Obi-Wan off chasing the bounty hunter, Padmé would be his sole responsibility, and that was no small thing to Anakin.

No small thing at all.

Anakin was not nervous in the office of Chancellor Palpatine. Certainly he understood the man’s power, and certainly he respected the office itself, but the young Padawan felt very comfortable here, felt as if he was with a friend. He hadn’t spent much time with Palpatine, but on those few occasions when he had spoken with the man privately, he had always felt as if the Supreme Chancellor was taking an honest interest in him. In some ways, Anakin felt as if Palpatine was an additional mentor—not as directly as Obi-Wan, of course, but offering solid and important advice.

More than that, though, Anakin always felt as if he was welcome here.

“I will talk to her,” Palpatine agreed, upon hearing Anakin’s request that he speak with Padmé about leaving Coruscant for the relative safety of Naboo. “Senator Amidala will not refuse an executive order. I know her well enough to assure you of that.”

“Thank you, Your Excellency.”

“And so, my young Padawan, they have finally given you an assignment,” the Chancellor said with a wide and warm smile, the way a father might talk to a son. “Your patience has paid off.”

“Your guidance more than my patience,” Anakin replied. “I doubt my patience would have held, had it not been for your assurances that my Jedi Masters were watching me, and that they would trust me with some important duties before too long.”

Palpatine nodded and smiled. “You don’t need guidance, Anakin,” he said. “In time you will learn to trust your feelings. Then you will be invincible. I have said it many times, you are the most gifted Jedi I have ever met.”

“Thank you, Your Excellency,” Anakin replied coolly, though in truth, he had to consciously stop himself from trembling. Hearing such a compliment from one who did not understand—like from his mother—was much different than hearing it from Palpatine, the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. This was an accomplished man, more accomplished, perhaps, than anyone else in all the galaxy. He was not an underling of Yoda or Mace Windu. Anakin understood that a man like Palpatine would not throw out such compliments if he did not believe them.

“I see you becoming the greatest of all the Jedi, Anakin,” Palpatine went on. “Even more powerful than Master Yoda.”

Anakin hoped his legs wouldn’t simply buckle beneath him. He could hardly believe the words, and yet a part of him did believe them. There was a strength within him, a power beyond the limits the Jedi seemed to place upon him, and upon themselves. Anakin sensed that clearly. He knew that Obi-Wan didn’t understand, and that was his biggest frustration with his Master. To Anakin’s thinking, Obi-Wan’s leash was far too short.

He had no idea of how he might answer Palpatine’s continuing compliments, so he just stood in the center of the room and smiled for a bit, while the Chancellor stood by the window, looking out at the endless streams of Coruscant traffic.

After many moments had passed, Anakin worked up the courage to move around the desk and join him following the Supreme Chancellor’s gaze up at the traffic lanes.

“I am concerned for my Padawan,” Obi-Wan Kenobi said to Yoda and Mace Windu as the three walked along the corridors of the Jedi Temple. “He is not ready to be given this assignment on his own.”

“The Council is confident in this decision, Obi-Wan,” Yoda said.

“The boy has exceptional skills,” Mace agreed.

“But he still has much to learn, Master,” Obi-Wan explained. “His skills have made him … well, arrogant.”

“Yes, yes,” Yoda agreed. “It’s a flaw more and more common among Jedi. Too sure of themselves, they are. Even the older, more experienced Jedi.”

Obi-Wan considered the words with an assenting nod. They certainly rang true, and the current conditions among the Jedi in this time of mounting tension were a bit unsettling, with many off on their own far from Coruscant. And had not arrogance played a major role in Count Dooku’s decision to depart the Order, and the Republic?

“Remember, Obi-Wan,” Mace remarked, “if the prophecy is true, your apprentice is the only one who can bring the Force into balance.”

How could Obi-Wan ever forget that little fact? Qui-Gon had been the first to see it, the first to predict that Anakin would be the one to fulfill the prophecy. What
Qui-Gon, or anyone else for that matter, had failed to explain, was exactly what bringing balance to the Force might mean.

“If he follows the right path,” the Jedi Knight said to the two Masters, and neither of them corrected him.

“Attend to your own duties, you must,” Yoda reminded, drawing Obi-Wan from his distracting contemplation as surely as if he was reading the Jedi’s mind. “When solved is this mystery of the assassin, other riddles might be answered.”

“Yes, Master,” Obi-Wan replied, and he held the small dart he had taken from the dead Clawdite up before his eyes.

With gentle hands, Shmi Skywalker Lars lifted the dull bronze chest piece up to the wiry droid, setting it in place. She smiled at C-3PO, and, though his face could not similarly twist, she could tell that he, too, in that curious droidlike way, was pleased. How often he had complained about the sand blowing into his wiring, chipping away at the silicon coverings, even breaking through and causing jarring jolts on a couple of occasions. And now Shmi was taking care of that problem, was finishing what Anakin had started in building the droid
.

“Now?” she managed to ask aloud, through lips caked with dried blood. No, she realized, it was not now. She had covered C-3PO all those days ago—or was it weeks ago, or even years ago?—when Cliegg had taken her to the moisture farm. Yes, there were spare coverings to fit the protocol droid in the garage area, against the wall, under an old workbench.

She remembered that, so clearly, but she had no idea of when it had been.

And now … now she was … somewhere.

She couldn’t open her eyes to look around; she didn’t have the strength at that moment, and the blood on them had dried, making any flutter of her eyelids painful.

She thought it curious that her eyelids were the only place where she actually felt any real pain at that moment. She thought she was injured.

She thought …

Shmi heard something behind her. Shuffling footsteps? Then some mumbling. Yes, they were always mumbling.

Her thoughts went back to C-3PO, poor 3PO, who still needed his battered wiry arms covered.
Gently, she lifted the covering …

She heard a sharp sound—or she knew it was a sharp sound, though she heard it only distantly—then felt a brush across her back.

There were no nerves left there to register the bite of the whip any more clearly than that.