The holoscan flickered to nothingness. Mace Windu turned brief but seemingly significant glances upon the other two Masters in attendance, both holoscans themselves: Ki-Adi-Mundi from the fortified command center on Mygeeto, and from a guerrilla outpost on Kashyyyk, Yoda.

Then he turned to Anakin. "Take this report to the Chancellor."

"Of course I will, Master."

"And take careful note of his reaction. We will need a full account."

"Master?"

"What he says, Anakin. Who he calls. What he does. Everything. Even his facial expressions. It's very important."

"I don't understand-"

"You don't have to. Just do it."

"Master-"

"Anakin, do I have to remind you that you are still a Jedi? You are still subject to the orders of this Council."

"Yes, Master Windu. Yes, I am," he said, and left.

Once Skywalker was gone, Mace Windu found himself in a chair, staring at the doorway through which the young Jedi Knight had left. "Now we shall see," he murmured. "At last. The waters will begin to clear."

Though he shared the command center with the holoscans of two other Jedi Masters, Mace wasn't talking to them. He spoke to the grim, clouded future inside his head.

"Have you considered," Ki-Adi-Mundi said carefully, from faraway Mygeeto, "that if Palpatine refuses to surrender power, removing him is only a first step?"

Mace looked at the blue ghost of the Cerean Master. "I am not a politician. Removing a tyrant is enough for me."

"But it will not be enough for the Republic," Ki-Adi-Mundi countered sadly. "Palpatine's dictatorship has been legitimized-and can be legalized, even enshrined in a revised Const.i.tution-by the supermajority he controls in the Senate."

The grim future inside Mace's head turned even darker. The Cerean was right.

"Filled with corruption, the Senate is," Yoda agreed from Kashyyyk. "Controlled, they must be, until replaced the corrupted Senators can be, with Senators honest and-"

"Do you hear us?" Mace lowered his head into his hands. "How have we come to this? Arresting a Chancellor. Taking over the Senate-! It's as though Dooku was right-to save the Republic, we'll have to destroy it . . ."

Yoda lifted his head, and his eyes slitted as though he struggled with some inner pain. "Hold on to hope we must; our true enemy, Palpatine is not, nor the Senate; the true enemy is instead the Sith Lord Sidious, who controls them both. Once destroyed Sidious is . . . all these other concerns, less dire they will instantly become."

"Yes." Mace Windu rose, and moved to the window, hands folded behind his back. "Yes, that is true."

Indigo gloom gathered among the towers outside.

"And we have put the chosen one in play against the last Lord of the Sith," he said. "In that, we must place our faith, and our hopes for the future of the Republic."

The landing deck canopy parted, and the blue-and-white Jedi starfighter blasted upward into the gale. From deep shadows at the rear of the deck, Obi-Wan watched it go.

"I suppose I am committed, now," he murmured.

Through electrobinoculars produced from his equipment belt, he examined that suspiciously shiny spheroid high above on the tenth level. The spray of spines had to be droid-control antennas. That's where Grievous would be: at the nerve center of his army.

"Then that's where I should be, too." He looked around, frowning. "Never an air taxi when you need one . . ."

The reclosing of the deck canopy quieted the howl of the wind outside, and now from deeper within the city Obi-Wan could hear a ragged choir of hoa.r.s.ely bellowing cries that had the resonance of large animals-they reminded him of something . . .

Suubatars, that was it-they sounded vaguely like the calls of the suubatars he and Anakin had ridden on one of their last missions before the war, back when biggest worry Obi-Wan had had was how to keep his promise to Qui-Gon . . .

But he had no time for nostalgia. He could practically hear Qui-Gon reminding him to focus on the now, and give himself over to the living Force.

So he did.

Mere moments of following the cries through the shadows of deserted hallways carved into the sandstone brought Obi-Wan in sight of an immense, circular arena-like area, where a ring of balcony was joined to a flat lower level by spokes of broad, corrugated ramps; the ceiling above was hung with yellowish lamp-rods that cast a light the same color as the sunbeams striking through an arc of wide oval archways open to the interior of the sinkhole outside. The winds that whistled through those wide archways also went a long way toward cutting the eye-watering reptile-den stench down from overpowering to merely nauseating.

Squatting, lying, and milling aimlessly about the lower level were a dozen or so large lizard-like beasts that looked like the product of some mad geneticist's cross of Tatooine krayt dragons with Haruun Kal ankkoxen: four meters tall at the shoulder, long crooked legs that ended in five-clawed feet clearly designed for scaling rocky cliffs, ten meters of powerful tail ridged with spines and tipped with a horn-bladed mace, a flexible neck leading up to an armor-plated head that sported an impressive cowl of spines of its own-they looked fearsome enough that Obi-Wan might have thought them some sort of dangerous wild predators or vicious watchbeasts, were it not for the docile way they tolerated the team of Utai wranglers who walked among them, hosing them down, sc.r.a.ping muck from their scales, and letting them take bundles of greens from their hands.

Not far from where Obi-Wan stood, several large racks were hung with an array of high-backed saddles in various styles and degrees of ornamentation, very much indeed like those the Alwari of Ansion had strapped to their suubatars. Now he really missed Anakin . . .

Anakin disliked living mounts almost as much as Obi-Wan hated to fly. Obi-Wan had long suspected that it was Anakin's gift with machines that worked against him with suubatar or dew-back or bantha; he could never get entirely comfortable riding anything with a mind of its own. He could vividly imagine Anakin's complaints as he climbed into one of these saddles.

It seemed an awfully long time since Obi-Wan had had an opportunity to tease Anakin a bit.

With a sigh, he brought himself back to business. Moving out of the shadows, he walked down one of the corrugated ramps and made a slight, almost imperceptible hand gesture in the direction of the nearest of the Utai dragonmount wranglers. "I need transportation."

The Short's bulging eyes went distant and a bit gla.s.sy, and he responded with a string of burbling glottal hoots that had a decidedly affirmative tone.

Obi-Wan made another gesture. "Get me a saddle." With another string of affirmative burbles, the Short waddled off.

While he waited for his saddle, Obi-Wan examined the dragonmounts. He pa.s.sed up the largest, and the one most heavily muscled; he skipped over the leanest built-for-speed beast, and didn't even approach the one with the fiercest gleam in its eye. He didn't actually pay attention to outward signs of strength or health or personality; he was using his hands and eyes and ears purely as focusing channels for the Force. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he trusted that he would recognize it when he found it.

Qui-Gon, he reflected with an inward smile, would approve.

Finally he came to a dragonmount with a clear, steady gleam in its round yellow eyes, and small, close-set scales that felt warm and dry. It neither shied back from his hand nor bent submissively to his touch, but only returned his searching gaze with calm, thoughtful intelligence. Through the Force, he felt in the beast an unshakable commitment to obedience and care for its rider: an almost Jedi-like devotion to service as the ultimate duty.

This was why Obi-Wan would always prefer a living mount. A speeder is incapable of caring if it crashes.

"This one," he said. "I'll take this one."

The Short had returned with a plain, st.u.r.dily functional saddle; as he and the other wranglers undertook the complicated task of tacking up the dragonmount, he nodded at the beast and said, "Boga."

"Ah," Obi-Wan said. "Thank you."

He took a sheaf of greens from a nearby bin and offered them to the dragonmount. The great beast bent its head, its wickedly hooked beak delicately withdrew the greens from Obi-Wan's hand, and it chewed them with fastidious thoroughness.

"Good girl, Boga. Erm-" Obi-Wan frowned at the Short. "-she is a she, isn't she?"

The wrangler frowned back. "Warool noggaggllo?" he said, shrugging, which Obi-Wan took to mean I have no idea what you're saying to me.

"Very well, then," Obi-Wan said with an answering shrug. "She you will have to be, then, Boga. Unless you care to tell me otherwise."

Boga made no objection.

He swung himself up into the saddle and the dragonmount rose, arching her powerful back in a feline stretch that lifted Obi-Wan more than four meters off the floor. Obi-Wan looked down at the Utai wranglers. "I cannot pay you. As compensation, I can only offer the freedom of your planet; I hope that will suffice."

Without waiting for a reply that he would not have understood anyway, Obi-Wan touched Boga on the neck. Boga reared straight up and raked the air with her hooked foreclaws as though she were shredding an imaginary hailfire droid, then gathered herself and leapt to the ring-balcony in a single bound. Obi-Wan didn't need to use the long, hook-tipped goad strapped in a holster alongside the saddle; nor did he do more than lightly hold the reins in one hand. Boga seemed to understand exactly where he wanted to go.

The dragonmount slipped sinuously through one of the wide oval apertures into the open air of the sinkhole, then turned and seized the sandstone with those hooked claws to carry Obi-Wan straight up the sheer wall.

Level after level they climbed. The city looked and felt deserted. Nothing moved save the shadows of clouds crossing the sinkhole's mouth far, far above; even the wind-power turbines had been locked down.

The first sign of life he saw came on the tenth level itself; a handful of other dragonmounts lay basking in the midday sun, not far from the durasteel barnacle of the droid-control center. Obi-Wan rode Boga right up to the control center's open archway, then jumped down from the saddle.

The archway led into a towering vaulted hall, its durasteel decking bare of furnishing. Deep within the shadows that gathered in the hall stood a cl.u.s.ter of five figures. Their faces were the color of bleached bone. Or ivory armorplast.

They looked like they might, just possibly, be waiting for him.

Obi-Wan nodded to himself.

"You'd best find your way home, girl," he said, patting Boga's scaled neck. "One way or another, I doubt I'll have further need of your a.s.sistance."

Boga gave a soft, almost regretful honk of acknowledgment, then bent a sharper curve into her long flexible neck to place her beak gently against Obi-Wan's chest.

"It's all right, Boga. I thank you for your help, but to stay here will be dangerous. This area is about to become a free-fire zone. Please. Go home."

The dragonmount honked again and moved back, and Obi-Wan stepped from the sun into the shadow.

A wave-front of cool pa.s.sed over him with the shade's embrace. He walked without haste, without urgency. The Force layered connections upon connections, and brought them all to life within him: the chill deck plates beneath his boots, and the stone beneath those, and far below that the smooth lightless currents of the world-ocean. He became the turbulent swirl of wind whistling through the towering vaulted hall; he became the sunlight outside and the shadow within. His human heart in its cage of bone echoed the beat of an alien one in a casket of armorplast, and his mind whirred with the electronic signal cascades that pa.s.sed for thought in Jedi-killer droids.

And when the Force layered into his consciousness the awareness of the structure of the great hall itself, he became aware, without surprise and without distress, that the entire expanse of vaulted ceiling above his head was actually a storage hive.

Filled with combat droids.

Which made him also aware, again without surprise and without distress, that he would very likely die here.

Contemplation of death brought only one slight sting of regret, and more than a bit of puzzlement. Until this very moment, he had never realized he'd always expected, for no discernible reason-That when he died, Anakin would be with him.

How curious, he thought, and then he turned his mind to business.

Anakin had a feeling Master Windu was going to be disappointed.

Palpatine had hardly reacted at all.

The Supreme Chancellor of the Republic sat at the small desk in his private office, staring distractedly at an abstract twist of neuranium that Anakin had always a.s.sumed was supposed to be some kind of sculpture, and merely sighed, as though he had matters of much greater importance on his mind.

"I'm sorry, sir," Anakin said, shifting his weight in front of Palpatine's desk. "Perhaps you didn't hear me. Obi-Wan has made contact with General Grievous. His attack is already under way-they're fighting right now, sir!"

"Yes, yes, of course, Anakin. Yes, quite." Palpatine still looked as if he was barely paying attention. "I entirely understand your concern for your friend. Let us hope he is up to the task."

"It's not just concern for Obi-Wan, sir; taking General Grievous will be the final victory for the Republic-!"

"Will it?" He turned to Anakin, and a distinctly troubled frown chased the distraction from his face. "I'm afraid, my boy, that our situation is a great deal more grave than even I had feared. Perhaps you should sit down."

Anakin didn't move. "What do you mean?"

"Grievous is no longer the real enemy. Even the Clone Wars themselves are now only ... a distraction."

"What?"

"The Council is about to make its move," Palpatine said, grim and certain. "If we don't stop them, by this time tomorrow the Jedi may very well have taken over the Republic."

Anakin burst into astonished laughter. "But sir-please, you can't possibly believe that-"

"Anakin, I know. I will be the first to be arrested-the first to be executed-but I will be far from the last."

Anakin could only shake his head in disbelief. "Sir, I know that the Council and you have . . . disagreements, but-"

"This is far beyond any personal dispute between me and the members of the Council. This is a plot generations in the making-a plot to take over the Republic itself. Anakin, think you know they don't trust you. They never have. You know they have been keeping things from you. You know they have made plans behind your back-you know that even your great friend Obi-Wan has not told you what their true intentions are . . . It's because you're not like them, Anakin-you're a man, not just a Jedi."

Anakin's head drew down toward his shoulders as though he found himself under enemy fire. "I don't-they wouldn't-"

"Ask yourself: why did they send you to me with this news? Why? Why not simply notify me through normal channels?"

And take careful note of his reaction. We will need a full account.

"Sir, I-ah-"

"No need to fumble for an explanation," he said gently. "You've already as much as admitted they've ordered you to spy upon me. Don't you understand that anything you tell them tonight-whatever it may be-will be used as an excuse to order my execution?"

"That's impossible-" Anakin sought desperately for an argument. "The Senate-the Senate would never allow it-"

"The Senate will be powerless to stop it. I told you this is bigger than any personal dislike between the Council and myself. I am only one man, Anakin. My authority is granted by the Senate; it is the Senate that is the true government of the Republic. Killing me is nothing; to control the Republic, the Jedi will have to take over the Senate first."

"But the Jedi-the Jedi serve the Senate-!"

"Do they?" Palpatine asked mildly. "Or do they serve certain Senators?"

"This is all-I'm sorry, Chancellor, please, you have to understand how this sounds . . ."

"Here-" The Chancellor rummaged around within his desk for a moment, then brought forth a doc.u.ment reader. "Do you know what this is?"

Anakin recognized the seal Padme had placed on it. "Yes, sir-that's the Pet.i.tion of the Two Thousand-"

"No, Anakin! No!" Palpatine slammed the doc.u.ment reader on his desktop hard enough to make Anakin jump. "It is a roll of traitors."

Anakin went absolutely still. "What?"

"There are, now, only two kinds of Senators in our government, Anakin. Those whose names are on this so-called pet.i.tion," Palpatine said, "and those whom the Jedi are about to arrest."

Anakin could only stare.