"I'm not afraid of words, Obi-Wan! If it's treason, then so be it. I would do this right now, if I had the Council's support. The real treason," Mace said, "would be failure to act!"

"Such an act, destroy the Jedi Order it could," Yoda said. "Lost the trust of the public, we have already-"

"No disrespect, Master Yoda," Mace interrupted, "but that's a politician's argument. We can't let public opinion stop us from doing what's right.''

"Convinced it is right, I am not," Yoda said severely. "Working behind the scenes we should be, to uncover Lord Sidious! To move against Palpatine while the Sith still exist-this may be part of the Sith plan itself, to turn the Senate and the public against the Jedi! So that we are not only disbanded, but outlawed."

Mace was half out of his pod. "To wait gives the Sith the advantage-"

"Have the advantage already, they do!" Yoda jabbed at him with his gimer stick. " Increase their advantage we will, if in haste we act!"

"Masters, Masters, please," Obi-Wan said. He looked from one to the other and inclined his head respectfully. "Perhaps there is a middle way."

"Ah, of course: Ken.o.bi the Negotiator." Mace Windu settled back into his seating pod. "I should have guessed. That is why you asked for this meeting, isn't it? To mediate our differences. If you can."

"So sure of your skills you are?" Yoda folded his fists around the head of his stick. "Easy to negotiate, this matter is not!"

Obi-Wan kept his head down. "It seems to me," he said carefully, "that Palpatine himself has given us an opening. He has said-both to you, Master Windu, and in the HoloNet address he gave following his rescue-that General Grievous is the true obstacle to peace. Let us forget about the rest of the Separatist leadership, for now. Let Nute Gunray and San Hill and the rest run wherever they like, while we put every available Jedi and all of our agents-the whole of Republic Intelligence, if we can-to work on locating Grievous himself. This will force the hand of the Sith Lord; he will know that Grievous cannot elude our full efforts for long, once we devote ourselves exclusively to his capture. It will draw Sidious out; he will have to make some sort of move, if he wishes the war to continue."

"If?" Mace said. "The war has been a Sith operation from the beginning, with Dooku on one side and Sidious on the other-it has always been a plot aimed at us. At the Jedi. To bleed us dry of our youngest and best. To make us into something we were never intended to be."

He shook his head bitterly. "I had the truth in ray hands years ago-back on Haruun Kal, in the first months of the war. I had it, but I did not understand how right I was."

"Seen glimpses of this truth, we all have," Yoda said sadly. "Our arrogance it is, which has stopped us from fully opening our eyes."

"Until now," Obi-Wan put in gently. "We understand now the goal of the Sith Lord, we know his tactics, and we know where to look for him. His actions will reveal him. He cannot escape us. He will not escape us."

Yoda and Mace frowned at each other for one long moment, then both of them turned to Obi-Wan and inclined their heads in mirrors of his respectful bow.

"Seen to the heart of the matter, young Ken.o.bi has."

Mace nodded. "Yoda and I will remain on Coruscant, monitoring Palpatine's advisers and lackeys; we'll move against Sidi-ous the instant he is revealed. But who will capture Grievous? I have fought him blade-to-blade. He is more than a match for most Jedi."

"We'll worry about that once we find him," Obi-Wan said. A slight, wistful smile crept over his face. "If I listen hard enough, I can almost hear Qui-Gon reminding me that until the possible becomes actual, it is only a distraction."

General Grievous stood wide-legged, hands folded behind him, as he stared out through the reinforced viewport at the towering sphere of the Geonosian Dreadnaught. The immense ship looked small, though, against the scale of the vast sinkhole that rose around it.

This was Utapau, a remote backworld on the fringe of the Outer Rim. At ground level-far above where Grievous stood now-the planet appeared to be a featureless ball of barren rock, scoured flat by endless hyperwinds. From orbit, though, its cities and factories and s.p.a.ceports could be seen as the planet's rotation brought its cavernous sinkholes one at a time into view. These sinkholes were the size of inverted mountains, and every available square meter of their interior walls was packed with city. And every square meter of every city was under the guns of Separatist war droids, making sure that the Utapauns behaved themselves.

Utapau had no interest in the Clone Wars; it had never been a member of the Republic, and had carefully maintained a stance of quiet neutrality.

Right up until Grievous had conquered it.

Neutrality, in these times, was a joke; a planet was neutral only so long as neither the Republic nor the Confederacy wanted it. If Grievous could laugh, he would have.

The members of the Separatist leadership scurried across the permacrete landing platform like the alley rats they were-- scampering for the ship that would take them to the safety of the newly constructed base on Mustafar.

But one alley rat was missing from the scuttle.

Grievous shifted his gaze fractionally and found the reflection of Nute Gunray in the transparisteel. The Neimoidian viceroy stood dithering in the control center's doorway. Grievous regarded the reflection of the bulbous, cold-blooded eyes below the tall peaked miter.

"Gunray." He made no other motion. "Why are you still here?"

"Some things should be said privately, General." The viceroy's reflection cast glances either way along the hallway beyond the door. "I am disturbed by this new move. You told us that Utapau would be safe for us. Why is the Leadership Council being moved now to Mustafar?"

Grievous sighed. He had no time for lengthy explanations; he was expecting a secret transmission from Sidious himself. He could not take the transmission with Gunray in the room, nor could he follow his natural inclinations and boot the Neimoidian viceroy so high he'd burn up on reentry. Grievous still hoped, every day, that Lord Sidious would give him leave to smash the skulls of Gunray and his toady, Rune Haako. Repulsive sniveling grub-greedy sc.u.m, both of them. And the rest of the Separatist leadership was every bit as vile.

But for now, a pretense of cordiality had to be maintained.

"Utapau," Grievous said slowly, as though explaining to a child, "is a hostile planet under military occupation. It was never intended to be more than a stopgap, while the defenses of the base on Mustafar were completed. Now that they are, Mustafar is the most secure planet in the galaxy. The stronghold prepared for you can withstand the entire Republic Navy."

"It should," Gunray muttered. "Construction nearly bankrupted the Trade Federation!"

"Don't whine to me about money, Viceroy. I have no interest in it-"

"You had better, General. It's my money that finances this entire war! It's my money that pays for that body you wear, and for those insanely expensive MagnaGuards of yours! It's my money-'"

Grievous moved so swiftly that he seemed to teleport from the window to half a meter in front of Gunray. "How much use is your money," he said, flexing his hand of jointed duranium in the Neimoidian's face, "against this?"

Gunray flinched and backed away. "I was only-I have some concerns about your ability to keep us safe, General, that's all. I-we-the Trade Federation cannot work in a climate of fear.

What about the Jedi?"

"Forget the Jedi. They do not enter into this equation."

"They will be entering into that base soon enough!"

"The base is secure. It can stand against a thousand Jedi. Ten thousand."

"Do you hear yourself? Are you mad?"

"What I am," Grievous replied evenly, "is unaccustomed to having my orders challenged."

"We are the Leadership Council! You cannot give us orders!

We give the orders here!"

"Are you certain of that? Would you care to wager?" Grievous leaned close enough that he could see the reflection of his mask in Gunray's rose-colored eyes. "Shall we, say, bet your life on it?"

Gunray kept on backing away. "You tell us we'll be safe on Mustafar-but you also told us you would deliver Palpatine as a hostage, and he managed to escape your grip!"

"Be thankful, Viceroy," Grievous said, admiring the smooth flexion of his finger joints as though his hand were some species of exotic predator, "that you have not found yourself in my grip."

He went back to the viewport and rea.s.sumed his original position, legs wide, hands clasped behind his back. To look on the sickly pink in Gunray's pale green cheeks for one second longer was to risk forgetting his orders and splattering the viceroy's brains from here to Ord Mantell.

"Your ship is waiting."

His auditory sensors clearly picked up the slither of Gunray's sandals retreating along the corridor, and not a second too soon: his sensors were also registering the whine of the control center's holocomm warming up. He turned to face the disk, and when the enunciator chimed to indicate the incoming transmission, he pressed the accept key and knelt.

Head down, he could see only the scanned image of the hem of the great Lord's robes, but that was all he needed to see.

"Yes, Lord Sidious."

"Have you moved the Separatist Council to Mustafar?"

"Yes, Master." He risked a glance out the viewport. Most of the council had reached the starship. Gunray should be joining them any second; Grievous had seen firsthand how fast the viceroy could run, given proper motivation. "The ship will lift off within moments."

"Well done, my general. Now you must turn your hand to preparing our trap there on Utapau. The Jedi hunt you personally at last; you must be ready for their attack."

"Yes, Master."

"I am arranging matters to give you a second chance to do my bidding, Grievous. Expect that the Jedi sent to capture you will be Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi."

"Ken.o.bi?" Grievous's fists clenched hard enough that his carpal electrodrivers whined in protest. "And Skywalker?"

"I believe Skywalker will be . . . otherwise engaged."

Grievous dropped his head even lower. "I will not fail you again, my Master. Ken.o.bi will die."

"See to it."

"Master? If I may trouble you with boldness-why did you not let me kill Chancellor Palpatine? We may never get a better chance."

"The time was not yet ripe. Patience, my general. The end of the war is near, and victory is certain."

"Even with the loss of Count Dooku?"

"Dooku was not lost, he was sacrificed-a strategic sacrifice, as one offers up a piece in dejarik: to draw the opponent into a fatal blunder."

"I was never much the dejarik player, my Master. I prefer real war.

"And you shall have your fill, I promise you."

"This fatal blunder you speak of-if I may once again trouble you with boldness ..."

"You will come to understand soon enough." Grievous could hear the smile in his Master's voice. "All will be clear, once you meet my new apprentice."

Anakin finger-combed his hair as he trotted out across the restricted landing deck atop the Temple ziggurat near the base of the High Council Tower. Far across the expanse of deck stood the Supreme Chancellor's shuttle. Anakin squinted at it, and at the two tall red-robed guards that stood flanking its open access ramp.

And coming toward him from the direction of the shuttle, shielding his eyes and leaning against the morning wind that whipped across the unprotected field-was that Obi-Wan?

"Finally," Anakin muttered. He'd scoured the Temple for his former Master; he'd nearly giving up hope of finding him when a pa.s.sing Padawan had mentioned that he'd seen Obi-Wan on his way out to the landing deck to meet Palpatine's shuttle. He hoped Obi-Wan wouldn't notice he hadn't changed his clothes.

It wasn't like he could explain.

Though his secret couldn't last, he wasn't ready for it to come out just yet. He and Padme had agreed last night that they would keep it as long as they could. He wasn't ready to leave the Jedi Order. Not while she was still in danger.

Padme had said that his nightmare must be only a metaphor, but he knew better. He knew that Force prophecy was not absolute-but his had never been wrong. Not in the slightest detail. He had known as a boy that he would be chosen by the Jedi He had known his adventures would span the galaxy. As a mere nine-year-old, long before he even understood what love was, he had looked upon Padme Amidala's flawless face and seen there that she would love him, and that they would someday marry.

There had been no metaphor in his dreams of his mother. Screaming in pain. Tortured to death.

I knew you would come to me, Annie . . . I missed you so much.

He could have saved her.

Maybe.

It had always seemed so obvious to him-that if he had only returned to Tatooine a day earlier, an hour, he could have found his mother and she would still be alive. And yet-And yet the great prophets of the Jedi had always taught that the gravest danger in trying to prevent a vision of the future from coming to pa.s.s is that in doing so, a Jedi can actually bring it to pa.s.s-as though if he'd run away in time to save his mother, he might have made himself somehow responsible for her death.

As though if he tried to save Padme, he could end up-blankly impossible though it was-killing her himself. . .

But to do nothing ... to simply wait for Padme to die . . .

Could something be more than impossible?

When a Jedi had a question about the deepest subtleties of the Force, there was one source to whom he could always turn; and so, first thing that morning, without even taking time to stop by his own quarters for a change of clothing, Anakin had gone to Yoda for advice.

He'd been surprised by how graciously the ancient Jedi Master had invited him into his quarters, and by how patiently Yoda had listened to his stumbling attempts to explain his question without giving away his secret; Yoda had never made any attempt to conceal what had always seemed to Anakin to be a gruff disapproval of Anakin's very existence.

But this morning, despite clearly having other things on his mind-even Anakin's Force perceptions, far from the most subtle had detected echoes of conflict and worry within the Ma.s.ster's chamber-Yoda had simply offered Anakin a place on one of the softly rounded pod seats and suggested that they meditate together.

He hadn't even asked for details.

Anakin had been so grateful-and so relieved, and so unexpectedly hopeful-that he'd found tears welling into his eyes, and some few minutes had been required for him to compose himself into proper Jedi serenity.

After a time, Yoda's eyes had slowly opened and the deep furrows on his ancient brow had deepened further. "Premonitions . . . premonitions . . . deep questions they are. Sense the future, once all Jedi could; now few alone have this skill. Visions . . . gifts from the Force, and curses. Signposts and snares. These visions of yours ..."

"They are of pain," Anakin had said. "Of suffering." He had barely been able to make himself add: "And death."

"In these troubled times, no surprise this is. Yourself you see, or someone you know?"

Anakin had not trusted himself to answer. "Someone close to you?" Yoda had prompted gently. "Yes," Anakin had replied, eyes turned away from Yoda's too-wise stare. Let him think he was talking about Obi-Wan. It was close enough.

Yoda's voice was still gentle, and understanding. "The fear of loss is a path to the dark side, young one."

"I won't let my visions come true, Master. I won't."

"Rejoice for those who transform into the Force. Mourn them not. Miss them not."

"Then why do we fight at all, Master? Why save anybody?"

"Speaking of anybody, we are not," Yoda had said sternly "Speaking of you, and your vision, and your fear, we are. The shadow of greed, attachment is. What you fear to lose, train yourself to release. Let go of fear, and loss cannot harm you."

Which was when Anakin had realized Yoda wasn't going to be any help at all. The greatest sage of the Jedi Order had nothing better to offer him than more pious babble about Letting Things Pa.s.s Out Of His Life.

Like he hadn't heard that a million times already. Easy for him-who had Yoda ever cared about? Really cared about? Of one thing Anakin was certain: the ancient Master had never been in love.

Or he would have known better than to expect Anakin to just fold his hands and close his eyes and settle in to meditate while what was left of Padme's life evaporated like the ghost-mist of dew in a Tatooine winter dawn . . .