A few flashlights. A single self-defense blaster—ultra-low power, of course; barely enough strength to kill a womp rat. Cots and fold-out couches that haven't hosted company for three years since the expedition evacuated Ossus at the start of the Clone Wars. Useless, the lot of this. Sae huffs out of frustration as she roots through one of the hole-pocked prefab buildings that once comprised on-site housing for the Ossus historical expedition here before the mountainside Jedi temple. Maybe the war made these scientists and scholars pack up and leave in a hurry, but they could've left something useful behind. Instead all Sae finds is lonely buildings, empty storage closets, and echoes. Vestiges of a galaxy where academic adventures and studying for learning's sake still had a place. Now it's all war research and weapons testing. The ruins of the Jedi temple might be the real relic, but this abandoned research site feels no less lost to time. Three years and eternity.
"Still nothing," Tamri sighs from across the room as she roots through a trunk. "Master, do we really need to dig around in here? The ship has plenty of supplies. How long are we even going to be searching through the temple anyway?"
"I have no idea," says Sae. "The Council told me we're looking for anything about a Sith Lord named Ludo Kressh, and about any sort of Sith weapon or powerful device he might've had. And that the Separatists, apparently, might or might not know about thanks to that Ternon Tath guy Skywalker was after."
"That's really descriptive."
Tell me about it, Sae thinks. All this mess because Skywalker found some ancient…thing…in the estate of a man who supposedly was on speaking terms with Count Dooku. Needles and haystacks. But Sae can't turn around and call it a day now. Not after what happened on Belderone. Not with more deaths piling up on her shoulders, burdens she will never shake. She can't let it all be for nothing. And hey, maybe Count Dooku really is after some Sith superweapon. Whatever the Sith thing that Skywalker found truly was, it was enough to concern the Council. Just not concerning enough to pull anyone off of the front lines.
Sae opens a cabinet and grins. "Ah, here we go. See? Sometimes things work out."
"What'd you find?" says Tamri, perking up. She wanders up behind Sae only for her smile to fade when she sees her discovery. "Oh. Ration packs. Great."
"Don't get too excited, now," says Sae, scooping up a dozen of the plastifoil-wrapped pouches and dumping them into her backpack. "It's supposed to be a big library. We might be in there for a while. Days, maybe."
"We could just come back to the ship where it's nice and warm."
"We could. Or we could not leave things to chance."
"What exactly would that leave to chance?"
Sae won't say it out loud, if only because she doesn't want to make the girl anxious. Perhaps it is all the time she has spent slipping through the galactic underworld in her Jedi duties, but mercenaries have never inspired trust in her. Neelotas and Lendon might not be overtly piratical, but if Rastic already paid the duo in full, then for all Sae knows they'll get the bright idea to abandon them on Ossus at the first sign of trouble. Honor and mercenaries do not mix. She will only rely on them for as long as she has to. "Just play along," says Sae. She digs a miniature moisture vaporator out of the back of the cabinet and closes the doors. "This'll be enough to keep us going for a while. C'mon. Let's get a move on."
"Finally," mutters Tamri.
The cold-desert wind whips at Sae as she steps outside. All about is lifelessness. The absence of a spark. Dead plains and dead hills and dead rocks all slumbering beneath a stale sky. Tasteless dust swirling in the breeze. Thousands of years since anything or anyone truly called this planet home. Yet when Sae looks towards the gaping hole in the side of the mountain—that gap through which lies the old temple and library—she feels as if something is waiting for her in there. She cannot see it, she cannot hear it. There is no smell, no tingle to raise the hairs on the back of her neck. But a presence lurks inside. Maybe she will find something on this rock-encrusted dirt ball after all.
Maybe she will not like what she finds.
"In we go," she says, raising her hood.
The hole is wide enough to ride three banthas through, and its edges are jagged and crumbling as if some antediluvian giant punched the mountain and reached inside. A curious warmth and even stranger stillness in the air within. A faint smell carrying from deeper inside. Sae sniffs, makes a face, trying to put a word to a sense. The smell. Almost floral.
"Uh, it's a little dark," says Tamri, looking around about the cavernous entrance hall. Stone columns stretch down from the ceiling like stalactites. The light finds few refuges in here. "Maybe we should've brought one of those flashlights after all."
"You have a lightsaber," says Sae.
"That's not going to make that much light."
Sae holds up a flashlight and clicks it on. "Relax. Some of us thought ahead."
The first thing the light catches is an enormous stone statue at the front of the hall. In its heyday perhaps it inspired guests, even captured their imagination, but now it feels like a microcosm of Ossus sliced from the rock. A monument to the Order once, now just a chipped statue of a robed Jedi knight, the head missing, the lightsaber just a hilt and the hint of a blade. At one time the Jedi must have had a companion, because next to the headless warrior is a pair of stone feet and nothing else. Sae wants to laugh. A headless, nameless champion armed with a broken weapon—and boots. As if the Jedi are naught but some ancient curiosity, a forgotten religion, wardens left only to stand guard in historical texts and university archives.
"Creepy," says Tamri as she looks up at the headless statue, wrapping her cloak around her shoulders tightly.
"Sad, more like," Sae says. "This planet must've been something once. Now it's just…gone. Like there's not even any hope left."
Tamri glances at her. "That's kinda dark."
"This whole place is—eh, forget it. Let's just keep moving."
Corridors branch off from the entrance hall like tunnels in an insect hive. Here, at least there is light: While the electric wall fixtures are thousands of years past being powered, colonies of neon-blue bioluminescent fungi litter the stone walls like striations in an ore vein. High ceilings, wide hallways: A place where all sorts of Jedi, all kinds of life, might mingle. Now only ghosts wander.
Left turn, then a right. Sae has no idea where all these halls might lead, but something unseen is pulling her on. After another turn she stops before a solid rock wall. Archeological tools and fine-excavation machinery litters the floor before it. "Dead end?" says Tamri, examining the tools. "Looks like the scholars gave up on it."
"Why would it be here, though? Why have a dead end?" says Sae. She presses her hand to the stone. Closes her eyes. "Oh."
"What?"
Sae shakes her head. "Just give me a second. There's a mechanism in the wall."
"There is?" says Tamri. She presses her palm to the rock. "I don't feel anything."
"Just hang on," Sae says. She concentrates, focuses, searches for an opening, a gap in the wall. But it is not like a door, with a key and a handle to twist: Instead she finds what she can only describe as a hand reaching out from the depths of her feelings. Like an eidolon buried in the rock. Focus just a little more. There: She makes contact, finger to finger, skin to skin, feeling to feeling. The wall shudders. A glowing yellow line slices vertically down the rock. Then the stone comes apart, shifting aside, exposing a cavern beyond. "It's a Jedi temple," says Sae. "Something's past here that only a Jedi was supposed to see."
Tamri looks at her hands, her expression downcast. "I didn't feel anything."
"It's just a door. Come."
But Tamri doesn't budge, rooted in place and looking at the stone as if it has rejected her. Sae puts a hand on her shoulder. "It was old and probably busted," she says. She tries to smile. "Are you going to let the busted door keep you out?"
Tamri shakes her head and moves on. There you go.
Inside stands a number of transparisteel tanks linked by tubes and wires. Interspaced between them are what Sae imagines might be flowerbeds or medical stations, now just sunken troughs where the bioluminescent fungus collects in abundance. Durasteel walls and floor. Computer terminals line the room, but Sae's futile button-mashing fails to wake their programming. "More busted things," she mutters. "Some kind of lab? Medical bay, maybe?"
But Tamri does not answer. "Master," she says. "Look."
"What?"
"Just look!"
In the furthest flowerbed—or whatever they are—is the purest blossom Sae has ever seen. The only spark of light imaginable on this blasted planet. It's a white flower no larger than her palm, seven petals like lunar beams pluming from a pistil as blue as a mountain lake. It doesn't belong here in this old, forgotten tomb of a temple. Yet it fits so oddly well in Tamri's hand. "I thought these only grew on Tython," she coos.
"Too pretty a flower for this place," says Sae.
"They need just the perfect mix of soil to grow," Tamri says. She looks back to Sae with a bright smile, all the dejection from the Force-door gone. "It's called a moon's grief."
Sae grins. "Way too sad of a name."
"It's from an old legend," says Tamri. "When—er, never mind. It's kind of a long story."
Sae looks around. "Are we in a hurry?"
"Well, no. I guess not."
"Then regale away. It beats banging on dead computers."
Tamri looks hesitant, but when she sees Sae bend down and inspect the flower she breaks through her misgivings and begins. "Way back before the Republic, explorers from Vulpter landed on Tython," she says. "The Vulptereen faith has a big pantheon, gods and goddesses and stuff, and when their explorers found a whole cave full of these flowers, they thought they were so beautiful that they named them after their beliefs."
"They worship the moon or something?"
"Sort of. One of their goddesses is goddess of the moon. In their ancient days she just was the moon. And, so they believe, the moon had a son. When a great war happened between the gods, the moon begged her son not to fight. She promised him all of the stars and the night sky if only he would stay with her. But he was determined, and eventually the moon relented. Her son was strong and he became a hero, but during the night of the final battle of the gods, he was killed. And the moon came down then to the battlefield with the fight raging all around her, picked up his body, and carried it away with her—and, to put an end to the fighting, she pulled all the light from the night so that the gods couldn't see each other and fight anymore. From then on the nights were dark and the moon never left the sky again out of mourning. Hence: Moon's grief," says Tamri. She rubs one of the petals between her fingers, looking pensive. "The Vulptereen say the moon left only a flower to mark where her son died. Like this: The white petals are the moonlight. The blue center is the moon's tears."
Sae tilts her head. "Huh."
"Oh, sheesh. It's a pretty story. Worth more than a 'huh,'" says Tamri. "I just want to know how it's growing here. There's no way it should be able to survive."
Sae leaves her to the flower, pushes open the door at the far end of the room gingerly, and peers in. She closes her eyes, leans against the door frame, and says, "Think I might have an idea."
"What? Really?"
"See for yourself."
Tamri looks past her. Gasps: "Oh!" Then she rushes past Sae into the next room.
Sae looks on from the doorway with a smile. Beyond is a cavernous vault retaken by nature: Glowing fungus lines the walls so thickly and so brightly that it may as well be dawn within. Earth and rock cover the ground, and within that untouched soil, undisturbed for thousands of years until Tamri's feet race over it, is a whole field of flora. Small shrubs, ferns, flowers. Blooms of every color in the soft light: Yellow and white and red and violet. A whole patch of moon's grief blossoms sprout from near the center where Tamri kneels, hands outstretched, looking as if the world is nothing but here and now.
And to Sae it is. This, she thinks, is what she wants. After three years of war and violence and death, after a career as a Jedi Sentinel slinking through filth and crime and poverty, after a lifetime in the Order, all she wants is to see something beautiful. Then look: Stop. Freeze this moment. Treasure it forever. Your apprentice—your apprentice?—amid a field of flowers and life, smiling, happy. Nothing more alive. If the Force is a connection between us all, if it flows in all life and unites us, then this is it.
Take a moment more so that you never forget. Close your eyes. Let out your breath. Then steel yourself and push onwards once more into the dark.
She plucks the moon's grief from the flowerbed. Stuffs it in a pocket in her cloak. Then Sae sucks in air and looks away, glancing off into the shadows. Don't do this yourself. You still have a job to do. And she does: For whatever presence she has felt, whatever specter is beckoning to her from beyond the veil of her feelings, she has yet to reach it.
She leaves Tamri alone and walks around the perimeter of the vault, hand brushing against the wall, eyes searching through the dusk. She is here to learn about a Sith Lord. She is here to find a secret. But what is she really here for? Not the Council's call, not the war's imperative—what is hers and hers alone within this mausoleum?
Step by step she probes the forgotten stone. Peers through the ancient air.
Then she takes the wrong step.
The earth beneath her feet shakes. The rock trembles, quivers. She only has enough time to look back at Tamri once more before the ground gives way beneath her and sends her plunging into the darkness below.
Flashing lights and the whine of urbanity. The air reeks with the fragility of life. There is little in the galaxy as dirty as the lower levels of Coruscant, but Anakin thinks that Taris's Lower City might have them beat.
Everywhere there are alleys. In this one a Selkath is beating a Nikto bloody. In the next two Rodians smoke death sticks and look as if they are knocking on death's door. Dying is everywhere. Crime, dirt, filth. Death. Battlefields are more pleasant. Anakin holds his nose and adjusts the hood of his cloak as he, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Rex weave through the crowds and the miasma of this world locked in by steel and city, above, below, on all sides. They are all cloaked and dirty, looking to all of the Lower City as if they are nothing but another four miserable subjects of this empire of poverty. "Well," says Anakin, glancing at an advertisement board to their left. "I guess we know what the bounty is on Jedi these days."
That bounty, at least on Anakin himself, is two hundred thousand credits. His face flashes on the digital screen, along with a replay of the events that unfolded at the Tath estate. Ahsoka's face comes next: Three hundred thousand. "Got you beat there," says Ahsoka.
"Looks like they missed me," Rex grunts behind her.
"Ah, don't take it too personally, Rex," says Anakin. "Maybe the Taths ran out of money."
Obi-Wan rolls his eyes. "I'm sure that will happen soon," he says. "Just keep an eye out for any enterprising bounty hunters."
"My favorite," says Rex. "Probably every other person we pass down here is a bounty hunter."
"It'd probably be best if we can find somewhere to hunker down," Ahsoka says. Her stomach rumbles loudly enough to make Obi-Wan's eyebrows rise. "Sorry. I didn't eat much."
"Let's think about the here and now, then," Obi-Wan says. He glances down an alley. "We need a plan, and we need to plan. Wandering in circles won't help us. And doing so on empty stomachs will be even worse. Anakin, you and Ahsoka make sure this alley is clear. Rex, let's find something edible down here."
Anakin grins. "Eat. Fight. Pretty much all we've done on this world so far."
"Why not keep it up? Look how great things have gone so far," says Obi-Wan. "Besides, Ahsoka, I want to hear what you found at the comms tower. Come on, Rex."
When they are gone, Anakin slips down into the alley with Ahsoka. He dares not draw his lightsaber here—not with a six-figure credit bounty on his head and every other neon-framed billboard lighting up with Hosha and Solan Tath's faces calling the Jedi murderers and terrorists—but in places like this knives threaten from every shadow. He will not hesitate if the moment arises.
But it does not, not this time. The alley is empty. He sighs and shakes off his hood. "We really go to some great places, huh?" he asks Ahsoka. Across the street in pink neon glows the sign for a brothel. Next to it is an advertisement for kath hound pit fighting (See them battle to the death!) "I think I'll petition the Council to send us back here when we've made it back to Coruscant."
"Ha-ha," murmurs Ahsoka, but Anakin can tell from the shade in her eyes that her heart isn't into it.
"All right, what is it?"
"It's nothing."
"That's definitely a look that tells me it's nothing," Anakin says. He sits down on a crate next to her. "We've gone through worse, Ahsoka, come on. This isn't half of what Zygerria was."
Ahsoka shrugs. "Yeah," she says. "It's just—I'm sorry I got everyone into this, Master."
"Okay, slow down. How did you get us into this?"
"When I was at the comms tower, I got a signal that pointed me to the skybridge. I thought maybe it was a trap, but maybe it was also someone on the inside trying to help. Like maybe they'd figured us out and wanted to take down the Taths, or had information on them. I rushed into it and, well, you see where that went."
Anakin nods. "Yeah, it went pretty badly."
"I should've been more patient."
"Yeah, probably. But Obi-Wan and I walked right into their trap, too," he says. He puts on arm around Ahsoka's shoulder. "Listen, Ahsoka. We make mistakes. We get hurt. We pay the price. But we keep getting back up and we keep going forward. Think about how far we've gotten, all the bad places we've ended up. We're still here. Still going forward."
"I know, it's just now that—"
"Listen: We're still going," says Anakin firmly. He looks right into her eyes. "I might get on you at times, but we're a team. Nothing's going to change that. You made a mistake. You'll learn. And the next planet we go to, the next trap we stumble into, you'll know. And even if that goes badly too, even if it's way worse than this, you can always keep getting back up and going forward. Just like every time before. Right?"
She grins. "Right."
"Besides," Anakin says, leaning away, "I know if I chewed you out then, Obi-Wan would just come back here and get on my case. He always takes your side."
"Not always."
"Whatever you say."
Suddenly Anakin feels strangely at ease as he leans against the mold-spotted alley wall, as if his words were meant to cheer himself up and not Ahsoka. Isn't this how it should be? He hates the politics, the gamesmanship—always has. He hates putting on a face and pretending. Now he has all of Taris against him, blasters and credits and bounty hunters and all. The objective is no longer muddied and buried. It's no longer an investigation. It's survival: Get through the obstacles, get off Taris, get home safely. So simple. So clear. And he knows now too, really knows, that what he felt on Empress Teta wasn't a lie: The Taths are up to something bad. The Jedi relics and the massive kyber crystal he saw when scouting out their treasure vault at night are a testament to that. He knows the danger, knows what's at stake, and knows the opponents—even if that last one is a whole planet and the obscenely rich family trying to take control of it.
And what is so clear, what is so time-tested, as the tale of a man against the world?
It's better this way. No matter what Obi-Wan says about keeping up appearances and no matter what Padme says about negotiation—and not the aggressive type—being the best solution, Anakin will always prefer the battle where the other side is nothing but the enemy.
"You're looking rather pleased, given the circumstances," Obi-Wan says to Anakin as he and Rex return with bowls filled with gray sludge.
"I'm just thinking of…well, now I'm thinking of what in the world that is," Anakin says as he eyes what must pass for food in the Lower City. "What exactly is that?"
Rex shrugs. "Slug soup?"
"My favorite," says Ahsoka, taking a bowl and eying it as if something in the sludge yearns to reach out and pull her in. "Maybe it's even edible."
"Anything is edible if you imagine hard enough," Anakin says, although even he has a hard time imagining this settling in his stomach. Keep going forward, he supposes. "Bottoms up, I guess."
"Perhaps slowly is the best way to drink it," says Obi-Wan. "Besides, I want to hear what Ahsoka and Rex found. That'll be harder to do with you retching."
Rex nods towards the end of the alley. "Might be best if I keep watch, General," he says. "Never know who's listening."
"C'mon, Rex, enjoy this luxurious meal with us," says Anakin. "Besides, if anyone's listening hard enough, then they probably already know we're here."
"I don't intend for us to stay down here forever," Obi-Wan adds. "If we're going to shelter anywhere, it's short-term only. Not enough time for anyone to ferret us out." He takes a drink from the soup, scrunches up a face, and forces it down. "It's, er, delightful. Now, Ahsoka, why don't you tell us your findings? If for not other reason than I can have something else to focus on besides what exactly is sliding down my throat."
When Ahsoka has finished retelling her and Rex's story, Obi-Wan nods. "Interesting."
"It's probably all junk," says Ahsoka. "If the Taths were setting us up the whole time, then they probably loaded their comms center up with garbage."
"Possibly, but not necessarily," says Obi-Wan. "Sleheyron…it's a major slaving world in Hutt space. It is virtually ungoverned. And a lot, a lot, of money passes through there."
"So what, the Taths are into slavery now, too?" Anakin growls. "Actually, I guess that'd fit. They seem like the type."
Obi-Wan shakes his head. "It's more than that, Anakin," he says. "Think: The Taths are extraordinarily wealthy, yet they keep a low profile. They are not the Tagges or the Seinars or the other elite families of the galaxy. Why? And where did they make all of this wealth without anyone noticing? We don't have the answers. In fact, no one's bothered to even look into these questions until Ternon showed up on our radar. Slavery is a dirty business."
"You don't have to tell me that."
"I'm saying it because the Taths are, most likely, funneling in most of their wealth beneath the table of galactic commerce. It doesn't have to even be slavery itself, although on a world with tens of billions of people like Taris, it would be easy to pluck thousands out of the Lower City here and send them off into Hutt Space with no one noticing. More importantly—I'm thinking about what you found on Empress Teta and what you told me about their treasure vault in their estate here."
Anakin frowns. A light clicks on in his head. Gears churn, machines spark. "Jedi artifacts and kyber crystals. Valuable stuff."
"Wait, they're smuggling kyber crystals now?" blurts out Ahsoka.
"Hold on," Anakin says. "Shipping in anything that valuable and noticeable would draw attention somewhere. But if they routed those sorts of things through Hutt Space first—"
"Nobody would know. For all any commercial authorities might know, the Taths are buying things secondhand," finishes Obi-Wan. "It would allow them to stay under the radar while they could search and loot old Jedi and Sith artifacts and sites as they please. There's even more money in that sort of thing than in slavery, if taken far enough."
"And if they found something powerful, the Jedi would never know. They could send it to Dooku right away," Anakin adds. "He could have all sorts of secrets in his hands that we have no clue about.":
Rex looks up from his bowl. "Makes even more sense if the Separatists are financing them. They could do business at a loss."
"That," says Obi-Wan, "is good thinking. You should go into business, Rex. Once you're done with the warring, at least. Also, how have you almost finished that sludge?"
"It's not that bad, as far as bad soup goes"
"You have an interesting sense of what passes for merely 'bad'. But you're right: If they have a powerful investor, it makes this all even easier. It doesn't even need to be Dooku directly. It could be someone or some institution with operations in Hutt Space who in turn has ties to the Separatists. Channels within channels. But if we want to get to the heart of this, if we want to find out what the Taths' real aim is—and I doubt it ends with political control of Taris—and if that has ties to Dooku, than we will need to work our way up the chain."
"But why leave that in their comms network?" says Ahsoka. "I found it pretty easily."
"How'd you get that data out, exactly?" says Anakin.
Ahsoka frowns. "Not really sure. I used a slicing program another Padawan made for me."
"Who, exactly?"
"Uh, you wouldn't know her, Master. Her name's Tamri."
Obi-Wan strokes his beard. "Sae's Padawan? She's good at that sort of thing, I hear."
"Who?" Anakin says.
Rex snorts. "Too many Jedi to keep track of? It's even worse with us clones."
Obi-Wan sighs. "Do you pay any attention to things back at the temple? You know, never mind. What may have happened is that you got in before they knew and tripped a security alert during the slicing," he says. "I wouldn't discount that information you've gained just yet."
"All right, what this says to me is that one thing's clear," says Anakin. "We have to get out of here. We need to get back to Coruscant. And…well, we have to get out of here. That's it."
"Easier said than done with everyone looking for us," Rex says. "Lotta ship traffic on this planet, though. We might be able to sneak out on a bulk freighter or something."
"Let's worry about the how once we've had a look around," says Obi-Wan. "Besides, I haven't had a chance to truly take in the scenery."
"Definitely worth coming out all this way," Anakin says, looking down the alley. But he is confident now: The sting of falling for the Taths' trap has faded, and now his purpose is clear. His objective is clear. And the stakes are as they always are in the most dangerous of situations: Life or death.
Anger. The pathway to the darkness. But is it not equally is harmful to suppress that anger, to let it fester and build until it degenerates into hate? Is that not too the path to the Dark Side?
Taron Malicos does not know, nor will he entertain the idea, for right now he is angry, and he does not hide it. "Teyr?" he rages at the holotransceiver on the bridge of the Might of the Shield-Bearer. "There is nothing on Teyr but a giant canyon and some tourists! We have fortified defenses here at Ghorman. Leaving them is foolish. It's beyond foolish. The Separatists want for us to chase them there."
Before him in holographic glory sits the Jedi Council. Minus one member, Malicos notes—Obi-Wan Kenobi is nowhere to be seen. Interesting. "It is not a question of defenses, Master Malicos," Ki-Adi-Mundi says over the holo, "it is a question of necessity. The Separatist fleet strikes at Teyr, and Grievous is at its helm. If they seize Teyr, they are in a position to bypass Ghorman entirely and strike at Fondor, and then the Core Worlds."
"Fondor is a fortress. Even Grievous would crash upon it like a wave on rocks," Malicos spits.
"Nevertheless," says Mace Windu, "we cannot let a vulnerable world like Teyr fall, not one that lies on an important hyperlane." He leans forward. "Think, Malicos. If you stand pat at Ghorman, what's to stop the Separatists from moving more reinforcements in to Thyferra and Teyr, cutting you off, seizing Fondor, and encircling you on every hyperlane?"
"The fact that I could strike at Thyferra while they maneuver. Our best strategy is fortified defenses and waiting for an opening, Master," says Malicos. "We cannot abandon them. Grievous wants me to move. He wants us to chase him so that he might destroy us in open combat."
How do they not see? Are they blind? Are they choked by their own dogma? Has the Council gone mad? Malicos wants to say so many things that he cannot before them. He might be a Jedi Master, but he knows what the Council thinks: He has taken to war too easily. He concentrates so much on military strategy that he leaves behind the mysteries of the Force—those fantasies that Master Yoda and Windu and the others lose themselves in, high ideals so easily betrayed by hard reality. There is only one truth: This is war. This is the Republic and the Separatists, the Jedi and their enemy. They will not win with debate. They will not win with meditation. They will only win with tactics, with strategy, with will, and with action. Foolishness will only get them killed.
Right now, Malicos thinks the Council is trying to get him killed. So Grievous has struck at Teyr. What of it? Nothing of value there. Let him have it: He will only stretch himself thin. Malicos will hold the line. Grievous is trying to lure him out into a vulnerable position, and Malicos knows better than to take such blatant bait.
But apparently the Council has other ideas. "We have already instructed the fleet at Andara led by Knight Danba Nago to advance on Teyr," says Master Mundi. "You will have ample reinforcements, Master Malicos. You will have numbers. Together, you and Nago's fleets will be more than enough. You can save Teyr and hold your position at the same time."
Malicos grimaces. Fools. All of them, fools. They have thrown another Jedi and his navy at Teyr, thrown them away already. If Malicos does nothing, Jedi Knight Danba Nago's fleet will break upon Grievous's guns, and Malicos will be to blame. If he abides by the Council's decision and moves to assist Nago, he will waltz right into whatever inevitable trap Grievous is laying.
They can't see. They can't see. They CAN'T SEE.
Yet he relents. He will not defy the Council, even if they are throwing him into the jaws of the enemy. He will have to rely on his own ability, his own tactics that have won battles again and again in this war. He may be walking into a trap, but he will simply have to be better. Stronger. "I'll make preparations at once, Masters," Malicos says, his voice resigned like the monotone of a dead man. "We will support Nago at Teyr."
"Report to us when the battle is finished," Windu says. "May be the Force be with you, Master Malicos."
He nods as the holo cuts out. What else is there to do? What is there to say? They are throwing him away, and all they can do is wish that the Force is with him. He needs much more than that to win the coming day.
Commander Card approaches. Great. The clone again. Malicos sighs as the commander salutes. "General Malicos. Orders?"
He smiles. Going into a doomed battle with a ship full of unquestioning lackeys. If nothing else, no one can call him a coward. This is a moment for either bravery or sheer idiocy. "How would you like," Malicos says, turning to the clone commander, "to fly to our deaths? Because that's what we're doing!"
He can do no more but laugh.
