Attack of the Clones (9 page)

How could he even look at her in such a manner?

So it was all her imagination.

Or was it her fantasy?

Laughing at herself, Padmé lifted her brush to her hair again, but she paused before she had even begun. She was wearing a silky white nightgown, and there were, after all, security cams in her room. Those cams had never really bothered her, since she had always looked at them clinically. Security cams, with guards watching her every move, were a fact of her existence, and so she had learned to go about her daily routines, even the private ones, without a second thought to the intrusive eyes.

But now she realized that a certain young Jedi might be on the other end of those lenses.

C
lad in gray armor that was somewhat outdated, burned from countless blaster shots, but still undeniably effective, the bounty hunter stood easily on the ledge, a hundred stories and more up from the Coruscant street. His helmet, too, was gray, except for a blue ridge crossing his eyes and running down from brow to chin. His perch seemed somewhat precarious, considering the wind at this height, but to one as agile and skilled as Jango, and with a penchant for getting himself into and out of difficult places, this was nothing out of the ordinary.

Right on time, a speeder pulled up near the ledge and hovered there. Jango’s associate, Zam Wesell, nodded to him and climbed out, stepping lithely onto the ledge in front of a couple of bright advertisement windows. She wore a red veil over the bottom half of her face. This was not a statement of modesty or fashion. Like everything else she wore, from her blaster to her armor to her other concealed and equally deadly weapons, Zam’s veil was a practical implement, used to hide her Clawdite features.

Clawdites were not a trusted species, for obvious reasons.

“You know that we failed?” Jango asked, getting right to the point.

“You told me to kill those in the Naboo starship,” Zam said. “I hit the ship, but they used a decoy. Those who were aboard are all dead.”

Jango fixed her with a smirk, and didn’t bother to call her words a dodge. “We’ll have to try something more subtle this time. My client is getting impatient. There can be no more mistakes.” As he finished, he handed Zam a hollow, transparent tube containing a pair of whitish centipedelike creatures as long as his forearm.

“Kouhuns,” he explained. “Very poisonous.”

Zam Wesell lifted the tube to examine the marvelous little murderers more closely, her black eyes sparkling with excitement, and her cheekbones lifting as her mouth widened beneath the veil. She looked back at Jango and nodded.

Certain that she understood, Jango nodded and started around the corner toward his waiting speeder. He paused before stepping in, and looked back at his hired assassin.

“There can be no mistakes this time,” he said.

The Clawdite saluted, tapping the tube containing the deadly kouhuns to her forehead.

“Tidy yourself up,” Jango instructed, and he headed away.

Zam Wesell turned back to her own waiting speeder and pulled off her veil. Even as she lifted the cloth, her features began to morph, her mouth tightening, her black eyes sinking back into shapely sockets, and the ridges on her forehead smoothing. In the time it took her to unhook her veil, she had already assumed a shapely and attractive female human form, with dark and sensuous
features. Even her clothing seemed to fit her differently, flowing down gracefully from her face.

Off to the side, Jango nodded approvingly and sped away. As a Clawdite, a changeling, Zam Wesell did bring some advantages to the trade, he had to admit.

The vast Jedi Temple sat on a flat plain. Unlike so many of Coruscant’s buildings, monuments of efficiency and spare design, this building itself was a work of art, with many ornate columns and soft, rounded lines that drew in the eye and held it. Bas-reliefs and statues showed in many areas, with lights set at varying angles to distort the shadows into designs of mystery.

Inside, the Temple was no different. This was a place of contemplation, a place whose design invited the mind to wander and to explore, a place whose lines themselves asked for interpretation. Art was as much a part of what it was to be a Jedi Knight as was warrior training. Many of the Jedi, past and present, considered art to be a conscious link to the mysteries of the Force, and so the sculptures and portraits that lined every hall were more than mere replicas—they were artistic interpretations of the great Jedi they represented, saying in form alone what the depicted Masters might speak in words.

Mace Windu and Yoda walked slowly down one polished and decorated corridor, the lights low, but with a brightly illuminated room in the distance before them.

“Why couldn’t we see this attack on the Senator?” Mace pondered, shaking his head. “This should have been no surprise to the wary, and easy for us to predict.”

“Masking the future is this disturbance in the Force,” Yoda replied. The diminutive Jedi seemed tired.

Mace understood well the source of that weariness. “The prophecy is coming true. The dark side is growing.”

“And only those who have turned to the dark side can
sense the possibilities of the future,” Yoda said. “Only by probing the dark side can we see.”

Mace spent a moment digesting that remark, for what Yoda referred to was no small thing. Not at all. Journeys to the edges of the dark side were not to be taken lightly. Even more dire, the fact that Master Yoda believed that the disturbance all the Jedi had sensed in the Force was so entrenched in the dark side was truly foreboding.

“It’s been ten years and the Sith still have not shown themselves,” Mace remarked, daring to say it aloud. The Jedi didn’t like to even mention the Sith, their direst of enemies. Many times in the past, the Jedi had dared hope that the Sith had been eradicated, their foul stench cleansed from the galaxy, and so they all would have liked to deny the existence of the mysterious dark Force-users.

But they could not. There could be no doubt and no denying that the being who had slain Qui-Gon Jinn those ten years before on Naboo was a Sith Lord.

“Do you think the Sith are behind this present disturbance?” Mace dared to ask.

“Out there, they are,” Yoda said with resignation. “A certainty that is.”

Yoda was referring to the prophecy, of course, that the dark side would rise and that one would be born who would bring balance to the Force and to the galaxy. Such a potential chosen one was now known among them, and that, too, brought more than a little trepidation to these hallowed halls.

“Do you think Obi-Wan’s learner will be able to bring balance to the Force?” Mace asked.

Yoda stopped walking and slowly turned to regard the other Master, his expression showing a range of emotions that reminded Mace that they didn’t know what bringing balance to the Force might truly mean. “Only if
he chooses to follow his destiny,” Yoda replied, and as with Mace’s question, the answer hung in the air between them, a spoken belief that could only lead to more uncertainty.

Both Yoda and Mace Windu understood the places that some of the Jedi, at least, might have to travel to find the true answers, and those places, emotional stops and not physical, could well test all of them to the very limits of their abilities and sensibilities.

They resumed their walk, the only sound the patter of their footsteps. In their ears, though, both Mace and Yoda heard the ominous echo of the diminutive Jedi Master’s dire words.

“Only by probing the dark side can we see.”

T
he door chime was not unexpected; somehow, Padmé had known that Anakin would come to speak with her as soon as the opportunity presented itself. She started for the door, but paused, and moved instead to retrieve her robe, aware suddenly that her nightgown was somewhat revealing.

Her movements again struck her as curious, though, for never before had Padmé Amidala harbored any feelings of modesty.

Still, she pulled the robe up tight as she opened the door, finding, predictably, Anakin Skywalker standing before her.

“Hello,” he said, and it seemed as if he could hardly draw his breath.

“Is everything all right?”

Anakin stuttered over a response. “Oh yes,” he finally managed to say. “Yes, my Master has gone to the lower levels to check on Captain Typho’s security measures, but all seems quiet.”

“You sound disappointed.”

Anakin gave an embarrassed laugh.

“You don’t enjoy this,” Padmé remarked.

“There is nowhere else in all the galaxy I’d rather be,” Anakin blurted, and it was Padmé’s turn to give an embarrassed little laugh.

“But this … inertia,” she reasoned, and Anakin nodded as he caught on.

“We should be more aggressive in our search for the assassin,” he insisted. “To sit back and wait is to invite disaster.”

“Master Kenobi does not agree.”

“Master Kenobi is bound by the letter of the orders,” Anakin explained. “He won’t take a chance on doing anything that isn’t explicitly asked of him by the Jedi Council.”

Padmé tilted her head and considered this impetuous young man more carefully. Was not discipline a primary lesson of the Jedi Knights? Were they not bound, strictly so, within the structure of the Order and their Code?

“Master Kenobi is not like his own Master,” Anakin said. “Master Qui-Gon understood the need for independent thinking and initiative—otherwise, he would have left me on Tatooine.”

“And you are more like Master Qui-Gon?” Padmé asked.

“I accept the duties I am given, but demand the leeway I need to see them to a proper conclusion.”

“Demand?”

Anakin smiled and shrugged. “Well, I ask, at least.”

“And presume, when you can’t get the answers you desire,” Padmé said with a knowing grin, though in her heart she was only half teasing.

“I do the best I can with every problem I am given,” was the strongest admission Anakin would offer.

“And so sitting around guarding me is not your idea of fun.”

“We could be doing better and more exciting things,” Anakin said, and there was a double edge to his voice, one that intrigued Padmé and made her pull her robe up even tighter.

“If we catch the assassin, we might find the root of these attempts,” the Padawan explained, quickly putting the discussion back on a professional level. “Either way, you will be safer, and our duties will be made far easier.”

Padmé’s mind whirled as she tried to sort out Anakin’s thoughts, and his motivations. He was surprising her with every word, considering that he was a Jedi Padawan, and yet, given the fire that she clearly saw burning behind his blue eyes, he was not surprising her. She saw trouble brewing there, in those simmering and too-passionate eyes, but even more than that, she saw excitement and the promise of thrills.

And, perhaps, the promise of finding out who it was that was trying to kill her.

Obi-Wan Kenobi stepped off the turbolift tentatively, warily, glancing left and right. He noted the two posted guards, alert and ready, and he nodded his approval to them. Every corridor had been like this throughout the massive apartment complex, and in this particular area, above, below, and near Amidala’s room, the place was locked down tight.

Captain Typho had been given many soldiers at his disposal, and he had situated them well, overseeing as fine a defensive perimeter as Obi-Wan had ever witnessed. The Jedi Master took great comfort in that, of course, and knew that Typho was making his job easier.

But Obi-Wan could not relax. He had heard about the attack on the Naboo cruiser in great detail from Typho,
and considering the many precautions that had been taken to protect the vessel—everything from broadcasting false entry lanes to the appointed landing pad to the many shielding fighters, the three accompanying the ship directly, and many more, both Naboo and Republic, covering every conceivable attack lane—these assassins could not be underestimated. They were good and they were well connected, to be sure.

And, likely, they were stubborn.

To get at Senator Amidala through the halls of this building, though, would take an army.