He half fell into a chair and pressed the edge of his flesh hand against his eyes.

When he could overcome his embarra.s.sment enough to speak, he said softly, "I'm sorry, Padme. I'm sorry. I know I've been . . . difficult to deal with. I just-I feel like I'm in free fall. Free fall in the dark. I don't know which way is up. I don't know where I'll be when I land. Or crash."

He frowned against his fingers, squeezing his eyes more tightly shut to make sure no tears leaked out. "I think it's going to be a crash."

She sat on the wide-rolled arm of his chair and laid her slim arm along his shoulders. "What has happened, my love? You've always been so sure of yourself. What's changed?"

"Nothing," he said. "Everything. I don't know. It's all so screwed up, I can't even tell you. The Council doesn't trust me, Palpatine doesn't trust the Council. They're plotting against each other and both sides are pressuring me, and-"

"Surely that's only your imagination, Anakin. The Jedi Council is the bedrock of the Republic."

"The bedrock of the Republic is democracy, Padme-something the Council doesn't much like when votes don't go their way. All those who gain power are afraid to lose it-that's something you should remember." He looked up at her. "You and your friends in the Senate."

She took this without a blink. "But Obi-Wan is on the Council; he'd never partic.i.p.ate in anything the least bit underhanded-"

"You think so?"

Because it's not for the record, Anakin. You must be able to understand why.

He shook the memory away. "It doesn't matter. Obi-Wan's on his way to Utapau."

"What is this really about?"

"I don't know,'' he said helplessly. "I don't know anything anymore. All I know is, I'm not the Jedi I should be. I'm not the man I should be."

"You're the man for me," she said, leaning toward him to kiss his cheek, but he pulled away.

"You don't understand. n.o.body understands. I'm one of the most powerful Jedi alive, but it's not enough. It'll never be enough, not until-"

His voice trailed away, and his eyes went distant, and his memory burned with an alien birthing table, and blood, and screams.

"Until what, my love?"

"Until I can save you," he murmured.

"Save me?"

"From my nightmares."

She smiled sadly. "Is that what's bothering you?"

"I won't lose you, Padme. I can't." He sat forward and twisted to take both of her hands, small and soft and deceptively strong and beyond precious, between his own. "I am still learning, Padme-I have found a key to truths deeper than the Jedi could ever teach me. I will become so powerful that I will keep you safe. Forever. I will."

"You don't need more power, Anakin." She gently extricated one of her hands and used it to draw him close. "I believe you can save me from anything, just as you are."

She pulled him to her and their lips met, and Anakin gave himself to the kiss, and while it lasted, he believed it, too.

A shroud of twilight lowered upon Galactic City.

Anakin stood at what a clone trooper would have called parade rest-a wide, balanced stance, feet parallel, hands clasped behind his back. He stood one pace behind and to the left of the chair where Palpatine sat, behind his broad desk in the small private office attached to his large public one.

On the other side of the desk stood the Senate delegation.

The way they had looked at him, when they had entered the office-the way their eyes still, even now, flicked to his, then away again before he could fully meet their gaze-the way none of them, not even Padme, dared to ask why the Supreme Chancellor had a Jedi at his shoulder during what was supposed to be a private meeting ... it seemed to him that they already guessed why he was here.

They were simply afraid to bring it up.

Now they couldn't be sure where the Jedi stood. The only thing that was clear was where Anakin stood-Respectfully in attendance upon Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

Anakin studied the Senators.

Fang Zar: face creased with old laugh lines, dressed in robes so simple they might almost be homespun, unruly brush of hair gathered into a tight topknot, and an even more unruly brush of beard that sprayed uncontrolled around his jaw. He had a gentle, almost simplistic way of speaking that could easily lead one to forget that he was one of the sharpest political minds in the Senate. Also, he was such a close friend of Garm Bel Iblis that the powerful Corellian Senator might as well have been present in person.

Anakin had watched him closely throughout the meeting. Fang Zar had something on his mind, that was certain-something that he did not seem willing to say.

Nee Alavar and Male-Dee he could dismiss as threats; the two stood together-perhaps needing each other for moral support-and neither had said anything at all. And then, of course, there was Padme.

Glowing in her Senatorial regalia, the painted perfection of her face luminous as all four of Coruscant's moons together, not a single hair out of place in her elaborate coif-Speaking in her Politician Voice, and wearing her Politician Look.

Padme did the talking. Anakin had a sickening suspicion that this was all her idea.

"We are not attempting to delegitimize your government," she was saying. "That's why we're here. If we were trying to organize an opposition-if we sought to impose our requests as demands-we would hardly bring them before you in this fashion. This pet.i.tion has been signed by two thousand Senators, Chancellor. We ask only that you instruct your governors not to interfere with the legitimate business of the Senate, and that you open peace talks with the Separatists. We seek only to end the war, and bring peace and stability back to our homeworlds. Surely you can understand this."

"I understand a great many things," Palpatine said.

"This system of governors you have created is very troubling-it seems that you are imposing military controls even on loyalist systems."

"Your reservations are noted, Senator Amidala. I a.s.sure you that the Republic governors are intended only to make your systems safer-by coordinating planetary defense forces, and ensuring that neighboring systems mesh into cooperative units, and bringing production facilities up to speed in service to the war effort. That's all. They will in no way compete with the duties and prerogatives-with the power-of the Senate."

Something in the odd emphasis he put on the word power made Anakin think Palpatine was speaking more for Anakin's benefit than for Padme's.

All those who gain power are afraid to lose it "May I take it, then," Padme said, "that there will be no further amendments to the Const.i.tution?"

"My dear Senator, what has the Const.i.tution to do with this? I thought we were discussing ending the war. Once the Separatists have been defeated, then we can start talking about the Const.i.tution again. Must I remind you that the extraordinary powers granted to my office by the Senate are only in force for the duration of the emergency? Once the war ends, they expire automatically."

"And your governors? Will they 'expire,' too?"

"They are not my governors, my lady, they are the Republic's," Palpatine replied imperturbably. "The fate of their positions will be in the hands of the Senate, where it belongs."

Padme did not seem rea.s.sured. "And peace talks? Will you offer a cease-fire? Have you even tried a diplomatic resolution to the war?"

"You must trust me to do the right thing," he said. "That is, after all, why I am here."

Fang Zar roused himself. "But surely-"

"I have said I will do what is right,'" Palpatine said, a testy edge sharpening his voice. He rose, drawing himself up to his full height, then inclining his head with an air of finality. "And that should be enough for your . . . committee."

His tone said: Don't let the door crunch you on the way out.

Padme's mouth compressed into a thin, grim line. "On behalf of the Delegation of the Two Thousand," she said with tight-drawn formality, "I thank you, Chancellor."

"And I thank you, Senator Amidala, and your friends-" Palatine lifted the doc.u.ment reader containing the pet.i.tion. "-for bringing this to my attention."

The Senators turned reluctantly and began to file out. Padme paused, just for a second, to meet Anakin's eyes with a gaze as clear as a slap on the mouth.

He stayed expressionless. Because in the end, no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much it hurt . . . he couldn't quite make himself believe he was on her side.

=15=.

Death on Utapau When constructing an effective Jedi trap-as opposed to the sort that results in nothing more than an embarra.s.singly brief entry in the Temple archives-there are several design features that one should include for best results.

The first is an irresistible bait. The commanding general of an outlaw nation, personally responsible for billions of deaths across the galaxy, is ideal.

The second is a remote, nearly inaccessible location, one that is easily taken and easily fortified, with a sharply restricted field of action. It should also, ideally, belong to someone else, preferably an enemy; the locations used for Jedi traps never survive the operation unscathed, and many don't survive it at all. An excellent choice would be an impoverished desert planet in the Outer Rim, with unwarlike natives, whose few cities are built in a cl.u.s.ter of sinkholes on a vast arid plateau. A city in a sinkhole is virtually a giant kill-jar; once a Jedi flies in, all one need do is seal the lid.

Third, since it is always a good idea to remain well out of reach when plotting against a Jedi's life-on the far side of the galaxy is considered best-one should have a reliable proxy to do the actual murder. The exemplar of a reliable proxy would be, for example, the most prolific living Jedi killer, backed up by a squad of advanced combat droids designed, built, and armed specifically to fight Jedi. Making one's proxy double as the bait is an impressively elegant stroke, if it can be managed, since it ensures that the Jedi victim will voluntarily place himself in contact with the Jedi killer-and will continue to do so even after he realizes the extent of the trap, out of a combination of devotion to duty and a not-entirely-unjustified arrogance.

The fourth element of an effective Jedi trap is a ma.s.sively overwhelming force of combat troops who are willing to burn the whole planet, including themselves if necessary, to ensure that the Jedi in question does not escape.

A textbook example of the ideal Jedi trap is the one that waited on Utapau for Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi.

As Obi-Wan sent his starfighter spiraling in toward a landing deck that protruded from the sheer sandstone wall of the biggest of Utapau's sinkhole-cities, he reviewed what he knew of the planet and its inhabitants. There wasn't much.

He knew that despite its outward appearance, Utapau was not a true desert planet; there was water aplenty in an underground ocean that circled its globe. The erosive action of this buried ocean had undermined vast areas of its surface, and frequent groundquakes collapsed them into sinkholes large enough to land a Victory-cla.s.s Star Destroyer, where civilization could thrive below reach of the relentless scouring hyperwinds on the surface. He knew that the planet had little in the way of high technology, and that their energy economy was based on wind power; the planet's limited interstellar trade had begun only a few decades before, when offworld water-mining companies had discovered that the waters of the world-ocean were rich in dissolved trace elements. He knew that the inhabitants were near-human, divided into two distinct species, the tall, lordly, slow-moving Utapauns, nicknamed Ancients for their astonishing longevity, and the stubby Utai, called Shorts, both for their stature and for their brief busy lives.

And he knew that Grievous was here.

How he blew, he could not say; so far as he could tell, his conviction had nothing to do with the Force. But within seconds of the Vigilance's reals.p.a.ce reversion, he was sure. This was it. One way or another, this was the place his hunt for General Grievous would come to a close.

He felt it in his bones: Utapau was a planet for endings.

He was going in alone; Commander Cody and three batallions of troopers waited in rapid-deployment vehicles-LAAT/i's and Jadthu-cla.s.s landers-just over the horizon. Obi-Wan's plan was to pinpoint Grievous's location, then keep the bio-droid general busy until the clones could attack; he would be a one-man diversionary force, holding the attention of what was sure to be thousands or tens of thousands of combat droids directed inward toward him and Grievous, to cover the approach of the clones. Two battalions would strike full-force, with the third in reserve, both to provide reinforcements and to cover possible escape routes.

"I can keep them distracted for quite some time," Obi-Wan had told Cody on the flight deck of Vigilance. "Just don't take too long."

"Come on, boss," Cody had said, smiling out of Jango Fett's face, "have I ever let you down?"

"Well-" Obi-Wan had said with a slim answering smile, "Cato Neimoidia, for starters ..."

"That was Anakin's fault; he was the one who was late ..."

"Oh? And who will you blame it on this time?" Obi-Wan had chuckled as he climbed into his starfighter's c.o.c.kpit and strapped himself in. "Very well, then. I'll try not to destroy all the droids before you get there."

"I'm counting on you, boss. Don't let me down."

"Have I ever?"

"Well," Cody had said with a broad grin, "there was Cato Neimoidia . . ."

Obi-Wan's fighter bucked through coils of turbulence; the rim of the sinkhole caught enough of the hyperwinds above that he first few levels of city resided in a semipermanent hurricane. Whirling blades of wind-power turbines stuck out from the sinkhole's sides on generator pods so scoured by the fierce winds that they might themselves have been molded of liquid sandstone. He fought the fighter's controls to bring it down level after level until the wind had become a mere gale; even after reaching the landing deck in the depths of the sinkhole, R4-G9 had to extend the starfighter's docking claws to keep it from being blown, skidding, right off the deck.

A ribbed semitransparent canopy swung out to enfold the landing deck; once it had settled into place around him, the howl of winds dropped to silence and Obi-Wan popped the c.o.c.kpit.

A pack of Utai was already scampering toward the starfighter, which stood alone on the deck; they carried a variety of tools and dragged equipment behind them, and Obi-Wan a.s.sumed they were some sort of ground crew. Behind them glided the stately form of an Utapaun in a heavy deck-length robe of deep scarlet that had a lapel collar so tall it concealed his vestigial ear-disks. The Utapaun's glabrous scalp glistened with a sheen of moisture, and he walked with a staff that reminded Obi-Wan vaguely of Yoda's beloved gimer stick.

That was quick, Obi-Wan thought. Almost like they've been expecting me.

"Greetings, young Jedi," the Utapaun said gravely in accented Basic. "I am Tion Medon, master of port administration for this place of peace. What business could bring a Jedi to our remote sanctuary?"

Obi-Wan sensed no malice in this being, and the Utapaun radiated a palpable aura of fear; Obi-Wan decided to tell the truth. "My business is the war," he said.

"There is no war here, unless you have brought it with you " Medon replied, a mask of serenity concealing what the Force told Obi-Wan was anxiety verging on panic.

"Very well, then," Obi-Wan said, playing along. "Please permit me to refuel here, and to use your city as a base to search the surrounding systems."

"For what do you search?"

"Even in the Outer Rim, you must have heard of General Grievous. It is he I seek, and his army of droids."

Tion Medon took another step closer and leaned down to bring his face near Obi-Wan's ear. "He is here!" Medon whispered urgently. "We are hostages-we are being watched!"

Obi-Wan nodded matter-of-factly. "Thank you, Master Medon," he said in a thoroughly ordinary voice. "I am grateful for your hospitality, and will depart as soon as your crew refuels my starfighter."

"Listen to me, young Jedi!" Medon's whisper became even more intense. "You must depart in truth! I was ordered to reveal their presence-this is a trap!"

"Of course it is," Obi-Wan said equably.

"The tenth level-thousands of war droids-tens of thousands!"

"Have your people seek shelter." Obi-Wan turned casually and scanned upward, counting levels. On the tenth, his eye found a spiny spheroid of metal: a Dreadnaught-sized structure that clearly had not been there for long-its gleaming surface had not yet been scoured to matte by the sand in the constant winds. He nodded absently and spoke softly, as though to himself. "Geenine, take my starfighter back to the Vigilance. Instruct Commander Cody to inform Jedi Command on Coruscant that have made contact with General Grievous. I am engaging now. Cody is to attack in full force, as planned."

The astromech beeped acknowledgment from its forward socket, and Obi-Wan turned once more to Tion Medon. "Tell them I promised to file a report with Republic Intelligence. Tell hem I really only wanted fuel enough to leave immediately."

"But-but what will you do?"

"If you have warriors," Obi-Wan said gravely, "now is the time."

In the holocomm center of Jedi Command, within the heart of the Temple on Coruscant, Anakin watched a life-sized holoscan of Clone Commander Cody report that Obi-Wan had made contact with General Grievous.

"We are beginning our supporting attack as ordered. And-if I may say so, sirs-from my experience working with General Ken.o.bi, I have a suspicion that Grievous does not have long to live." If I were there with him, Anakin thought, it'd be more than a suspicion. Obi-Wan, be careful-"Thank you, Commander." Mace Windu's face did not betray the slightest hint of the mingled dread and antic.i.p.ation Anakin was sure he must be feeling; while Anakin himself felt ready to burst, Windu looked calm as a stone. "Keep us apprised of your progress. May the Force be with you, and with Master Ken.o.bi."

"I'm sure it will be, sir. Cody out."