Blast from the past alert! If one of the scenes in this chapter seems vaguely familiar to some of you, it's because I was listening to a certain favourite old album when I was first visualizing the action and got indulgent. Think: cover art, and you'll get it.
THE ESSENCES OF LIFE
Chapter 19 – A Clear Unpleasant Danger
Lissa's hunch had been right. Grievous returned so fast that he could not possibly have gotten even so far as the bridge before changing his mind and turning around. He marched right back in without warning, jammed to a halt in front of her workstation, and thrust his head forward, still looking exactly as mad as when he'd left. Despite herself, even though she already knew how he'd answer, Lissa couldn't help exclaiming, "Are you all right?"
"No!" Grievous snapped. "Tell me again why you suspect the Munns!"
She went over all of it again, carefully, expounding on her suspicions and interpretations of what he'd said to her. Grievous stood hunched over the entire time, staring into her eyes, but his attitude was really not as threatening as it first appeared; she could tell he just wanted to get his face down close to her own to better judge whether she was speaking truthfully. Once she was done, he abruptly straightened up, jerked his head aside, then headed for her viewport. He started to pace, each step slow and deliberate, his gaze fixed, becoming glazed.
Lissa watched him glumly. She hated seeing him resort to one of his myriad stereotypic behaviours, but couldn't think of what else she could do just then to help him cope; there was only so much familiarity Grievous would allow. His upset grew, showing clearly in his body language. Even in the midst of this latest crisis Lissa couldn't help but notice how well the far more nuanced emotions he now felt were spilling over and being reflected in the way he moved and held himself. His ability to manipulate his droid components had become perfect. It was the most remarkable example of man/machine integration she'd ever seen, a degree of cyborg sophistication she'd never expected to see achieved within her lifetime. What a shame it had been accomplished largely though duplicity and force and for no other reason than to create yet another means of sowing destruction. Who knew what Grievous might have made of himself had he been a fully aware and willing participant from the start. More than just a murderous, driven warlord, surely…
She swallowed her lapse and tried to refocus on the matter at hand. "Am I wrong?" she asked.
Grievous's only reply for a long while was the rhythmic clacking of his footsteps. Then he seemed to come out of it. "I don't know," he muttered. He turned his head to regard the woman and blinked. "There is…Hill did ask me twice if I wanted more work. He said his associates were interested in me, in securing my services. I am trying to remember the sequence…yes, the first time was several months before the crash, then he asked several weeks beforehand."
"Oh," said Lissa. Worse and worser, as some of her dimmer workmates used to put it. "He meant Dooku, didn't he? He was asking on Dooku's behalf." Grievous came to a halt. His expression became aggrieved and a little bewildered.
"Is it so obvious to you? I never gave it much thought, what he meant by 'associates'. I had no intention of accepting any other offers. It was bad enough to have to work for the Munns and I wanted only to be done with our contract and to return to Kalee."
"Well, it's…it just seems likely that it was Count Dooku. Do you know who else the IBC was dealing with back then? Important people that they might have considered associates?"
"No."
His hunched posture with his legs splayed outward, his hanging head, his obvious distress…it was the closest Lissa had ever seen him come to looking utterly dejected. She shifted in her seat, uneasy and tense. An angry, aggressive Grievous was far easier for her to take than one that was miserable and sulking and liable to do anything next.
"Er, General?" she asked, more hesitant now. "I don't mean to pry, but how is it you came to be working for the Munns in the first place? If I knew more, maybe I could…help you."
Instant suspicion clouded the cyborg's eyes. How was he supposed to accept any alien's offer of assistance anymore when he was in the very midst of winnowing out all this new evidence of treachery? Grievous struggled briefly, torn between his need for support and his instincts. His decision, once made, came with an audible grunt and a quick stalk back over to the infirmary chair. He sat down hard enough on the seat to make his limbs clatter together, leaned forward and propped his metal elbows on his thighs, and said, "We had a war. With the Huk."
"Ooo-kay," Lissa replied, unsure of how she ought to respond to such a loaded statement. "Um, just to clarify for myself, these are the same people who call themselves the Yam'rii, right? Big insectoids?"
"Correct. We share a solar system. For a long time after we became aware of one another we tended mostly to our respective business, trading sometimes in the beginning, skirmishing later on isolated occasions. The Huk expanded their realm and claimed several colony worlds while we minded our affairs on Kalee and said nothing. And then…"
Grievous squinted his eyes half-shut, as if gripped by sudden pain. He pressed his palms together and his fingers began interlacing restlessly. "You have to understand—my world has few resources," he continued on, no longer looking at the woman. "We have barely enough to sustain ourselves. Yet those creatures chose to plunder us even so. They were very sly and insidious about it. They came at first in the guise of wanting to reopen our old trading traditions and managed to capture hundreds before we discerned their true intentions. We Kaleesh, we make terrible slaves. Many fought back so savagely when caught that they were fatally injured, a complete waste. After that, the Huk began to target the juveniles, thinking that they would be more docile, and the ones they couldn't subdue, they fed upon. When my people learned of this new outrage, we went wild. We all rose up in a fury, determined to destroy the invaders or die as a species in the attempt. I was in charge of the army and all the clans' militia by then and began to organize and coordinate our resistance."
At this point Lissa finally started and opened her mouth to protest. Oh, she couldn't have just heard what she thought she'd heard…could she? Grievous, immersed in his remembrance, ignored her reaction and continued on grimly, his duranium-clad fingers clicking like tapping bones as they rubbed together. Lissa sank back without saying a word and listened with increasingly horrified fascination. She'd just wanted to know why he was working for the Munns, she hadn't meant to unleash this seething diatribe!
"We appealed to the Republic for help, but they never listened. Never! It was too—they wouldn't believe us. But we won even so. All by ourselves! First we stole their ships and weapons. They thought us so naïve, the fools, they took no care at all. My men and I, we drove them from their camps. We drove them…drove them off Kalee, and when they tried to escape, into space, we went after them. That shocked them, it did. They didn't understand our pride, didn't know the depths of their sins. Idiot bugs! We slaughtered all that we could find and catch, the traders, the soldiers, their colonies on Abbaji and Tovarskl—all of them! Even the ones on their blasted homeworld, I could have found and killed them all if the Republic hadn't sided with them and stopped us!"
"What?" Lissa exclaimed. She'd been holding her breath for so long that it came out as a faint little squeak. "But you said— The Republic wouldn't—"
"Would not what? Choose the side of slavers? They would and they did! Because the Huk were successful slavers and the Republic only cares about those with wealth. Those are the people they welcome and help, the ones that can repay them. Never the victims!"
The cyborg's eyes flashed as he spat out the last word of his accusation. Lissa half-imagined she saw sparks fly, he was getting so hot. Abruptly, he shot back up onto his feet, overwhelmed by his own ill temper. Lissa stayed put, overwhelmed as well. His rollercoaster emotions were starting to wear her out, badly, and she almost wished she could tap into the rage which always seemed to energize him at such moments, hounding him like Furies.
Grievous went back to wearing a path in the deck before her viewport. When he resumed his tirade, his words were so curdled with snarling hatred that Lissa could barely understand him at first. It turned out that he was talking about the Jedi team sent to adjudicate the conflict.
"—ordered us to stand down. Arrogant cur! I answered with my sword, slashed open his chest before he knew what hit him. They disarmed and held me then. They killed my Izvoshra, my protectors."
Lissa felt her spirits sag all the more and shook her head a little in disbelief. What did you expect? she thought. What were you thinking, attacking them like that? Of course she didn't dare voice any of that aloud. She'd had quite enough already of the repercussions of provoking Grievous for one night.
Grievous wasn't voicing everything either. There was far more to the scene than he was relating. The Jedi hadn't just retaliated, they'd humiliated him, had flung him to the ground and frozen him in place with the Force while they dealt with his elite. Galien, Adelan, Belquil…all his dearest and most faithful, cut down in their prime, and all he'd been able to do was lie there watching and cursing and howling out his impotent rage and grief. The memory of it fired him up all the more. He whirled about at the end of his pacing path and started forward with a little lunge, a restrained version of the way he'd launched himself at the Jedi leader who'd demanded he cease his aggressions. If only he'd had his metal body back then! He'd've torn the man in two for his insolence, would have shredded them all.
"They ended the war then. They forced us to stop, to leave it unfinished, our enemies still free. I had no choice…" Another violent spin and lunge, punctuated with a twist of his head to one side, a savage shake of negation. "That was the worst, to stop us before we could claim our prize. Fighting the Huk had devastated us. Our herds were in shambles, my people so weakened by then. We needed the supplies we captured, just to survive. We needed the Huk's world and their resources, as was our right, to recover. But the Republic, they denied us that. They denounced us as the aggressors—us!—and imposed sanctions on Kalee. That was the end for us. We could no longer trade and no one would help us. We began to starve, first hundreds, then thousands. My own family went hungry during that time. Do you know what that is like, to watch your beloveds starve? To see them become weaker and thinner every day because of injustice and your own inadequacies?"
The cyborg's audience of one didn't, and what's more, didn't know what to feel anymore. Lissa had already shuffled Grievous from one moral category to another in her own mind so often that any fresh insights just made her head ache. She met the wounded glance he flung her way with an expression laced with equal hurt and much confusion.
"I'm sorry, General," she finally managed. "I don't know what to say."
"No. You wouldn't. I doubt that you have suffered as we suffered."
Lissa mulled over that one. It was painfully true, in part. All of her worst agonizing had been over intangibles. Grievous paced on. He was still striding fast, his head up, still taut and angry enough to scrape his talons through his turns, yet starting to simmer down despite all that. Ranting out his frustrations did seem to help, the physician within Lissa observed idly. Too bad it left his listeners somewhat bruised.
She concentrated again on what he'd said, trying to ignore how he'd said it. "I presume this is when San Hill first showed up," she prompted quietly. Grievous snorted, a clear sound of disgust.
"Yes, the bloody coward. He came and said his people wanted someone to lead their army. Ha! Some army. A collection agency with teeth is what it was. But what could I do. They were the first to offer us assistance…food… And the Banking Clan was already powerful, even then. They didn't fear the Republic's disapproval or censure. So, I worked for them. Anyone they wished to threaten, they sent me. And I was good at it! I had a reputation, I discovered—the Kaleesh warlord who beat back the Huk. It terrified them. Sometimes I would—"
Grievous all at once jolted to a halt. "I WAS good," he said with almost comical emphasis, as if trying to convince himself. "Why would they risk losing that? Risk killing me?" he added, addressing Lissa.
The woman shrugged. "Bigger concerns by then?" she guessed. "A way to ingratiate themselves with the new Confederacy leaders?"
"It would have been less risky to amend my contract, try and coerce me further."
"I think it was important to them that you be rendered more controllable, General," said Lissa, trying to choose her words with a certain delicacy. "Maybe they were even afraid that you'd turn on them eventually. They didn't want to chance giving you so much responsibility and power without some guarantee in place that you'd do only as told."
Grievous glowered back at that, breathing hard. "Guarantee. Like with a droid."
"I suspect they had more of a biodroid in mind, a highly sophisticated one. Some of your brain-work…I'm sorry, but the more I study it, the more it reminds me of that, like an attempt to excise or at least suppress your free will without losing anything at all of your creative processes." She shrugged again. "They failed, obviously."
"No," Grievous countered. "There is still too much uncertainty in what you say. I was too valuable to the Munns to…to experiment on."
"True, but I'd wager that as you are now, you're considered far more valuable. And that's for the benefit on the entire Confederacy."
Back to pondering… His fit seemed to have blown over completely. The look on his face was positively contemplative. He was also stuck on the notion of being experimented on; Lissa could see it was bothering him. "I still believe it more likely that the Jedi wanted me dead," Grievous said. "What you suggest…I don't like it."
"I know. And it's not like I enjoy upsetting you, sir—upsetting both of us, to be honest. I just—well, you did say you wanted to hear it all, good and bad. I just wish there was some way of confirming this. It's still just speculation on my part. I guess you can't very well call up San Hill and demand he tell you the truth."
Grievous huffed and bobbed his head. "That would be imprudent. And pointless. He is as devious as he is cowardly. The only ones I would ever trust to investigate this matter all live on Kalee."
"Oh, too bad. I suppose there's no way you could go home for a visit, is there, sir? Maybe fabricate some logical war-related reason to do so?"
"No. There is no reason. Any attempt would only draw suspicion upon me. And I should not even be thinking of home, I believe. I don't think I ever did, before."
"You couldn't swing a patrol that way? Pretend you have to investigate or chase something, just you in one of your fighters?" She stopped because Grievous had started looking at her very strangely indeed, as though she were impossibly dense. "Okay, forget that," she amended. "It'd be way out of your range anyway, I guess. Dumb idea."
"No, it is not," Grievous said. He paused, blinked several times, his whole demeanour brightening. "If I could find an opportunity…"
"Really?" Lissa sat up straighter. She hadn't expected him to take her seriously. "That'd be great then, General. You could get your sources to maybe find out for sure what happened. And you could see your family, make sure they're safe."
Grievous nodded his head. "Yes…yes, I worry about that. My wives, they always did try to spare me when I was away. They didn't want me fretting over family matters. I've wondered sometimes whether all is as well as they say."
"Then you should definitely try to get home, sir, if there's any chance at all. With a little luck, you'll even be able to confirm that the whole crash thing was a set-up, just like I said, and then you can stay home for good."
Lissa knew within three seconds that she'd just blown another one. Grievous started and stared at her again, an outright gawk this time. He almost looked aghast, his eyes had popped open so wide. "What?" he exclaimed, so startled that it almost sounded like a gasp.
"Er…your sources…could confirm it? Couldn't they?"
"You think I would stay home?"
"Uh… What?"
Now the poor woman was completely bamboozled. And Grievous wasn't just staring at her anymore as if she were dense, he looked as though he thought her a first-grade moron.
"You truly believe, after all this, that I would just go home?" he expanded, still sounding incredulous.
"Wouldn't you?" Lissa said, floundering ever further. "I mean, if you knew for sure— If San Hill had—"
"No! What is wrong with you! You yourself just spoke of my superiors' treachery!" Grievous roared.
"But— Well— I'm lost."
"Are you! Then let me provide navigation. Learning the truth would change nothing for me—nothing!—until the war is won and my service is done. I can't go home until then, no matter what the circumstances. And if I did try, if anyone of authority ever learned of OUR truth and what you have done to me, I would be destroyed. You would be destroyed. Kalee would be destroyed. That, my physician, are the terms you have wrought and which we must live by now. Stay home…stay home indeed! To be blown to the heavens!"
"Oh. Oh!" Lissa quavered. "I didn't think of that." Which was no defence at all, of course, and which only served to infuriate him into a fresh fit of helpless rage. It was such a bad one that he lost all his Basic. Only the growling curses of his own tongue would do as he stomped back and forth, temporarily lost in a satisfying fantasy world of vengeance and retribution and blood-letting. As for Lissa, she was imagining dealing out some punishment of her own—on herself. She'd done just what she'd sworn time and time again she wouldn't do, project her own human morality and expectations of behaviour onto another, and couldn't believe she'd fallen for doing it with Grievous again, despite everything she knew of the man by now. She was indeed a fool, a right twit. And if she had to listen and watch him rave on for a while longer because of it, even though it made her feel sick and scared inside and gave her the shakes, well, so be it.
A bad possibility all at once arrested the cyborg's stride. He stood frozen for a moment, then swung his head around and fixed his ugly glare on Lissa. She was still just sitting there, stricken, too absorbed by some concern of her own to take any notice of his glower. Grievous angrily swooped down on her.
"Are you going to break our agreement?" he demanded.
Lissa looked up, startled. Her face was pale and wet-looking.
"Excuse me?" she exclaimed.
"I said, are you going to break our agreement!"
"What? No!"
Much to his surprise, she jumped up, so suddenly that he had to jerk his head aside and straighten up to prevent her hitting him.
"Why would you— Damn it, I can't believe you'd even ask me that!" Now she was turning a blotchy red, the same as during her unexpected rant at Dooku all those months ago. Just as he had back then, Grievous regarded his physician with a certain fascination and befuddlement over what it was that had set her off. He sensed that he was the source of her aggravation, yet had no clear idea as to why.
His confusion cooled his own anger and he became sarcastic instead. "I fail to understand the cause for your indignation," he said, his voice tight. Lissa scowled, not at all mollified by his admission. She was thinking that it was his thoughtless remarks about Marku all over again.
"You've got some nerve assuming I'd break my word at all," she replied, just as stiffly.
"I have just told you of how my associates did just that," Grievous pointed out.
"I'm not like your associates! Geez!" Frustrated anew, she turned her back on him and retreated into her work alcove where she found some outlet in seizing hold of her heaviest wrench and slamming it back down on her table. Grievous's fascination flared into alarm. He had a sudden flashback of his first wife throwing a piece of firewood at him, back when he'd still been courting her and had inadvertently ticked her off.
Luckily for him, Lissa had more self-control. All she did was continue noisily repositioning her tools, then, once satisfied with their placement and calmer, she planted a hand on one hip and turned to confront him again.
"Look, I'm sorry that you've had a lot of bad experiences with people and can see why you'd be resentful and angry about it. But you can't just throw me in there with them—you can't! I said I would help you and I will."
"Humans—" He choked off the rest of it, but it didn't help. Lissa knew exactly what he'd been about to say anyway.
"—lie, that's it, isn't it? You were going to say humans lie! Well! Thank you very much for that vote of confidence, General. Thank you for comparing me to Dooku and—and whatever horrid cronies hang around him, and for thinking we're all such liars and conniving scum, even though I'm not like Dooku at all—I'm not! Y-you can't compare us. I'm just trying to survive here!"
Her voice rose again, her words becoming ever more incoherent as she sputtered on. Grievous became aware for the first time of how close he'd crept to Lissa during the course of their argument. He'd backed her right into very end of her alcove, was virtually looming over her in his frustrated impatience to understand, and just like any trapped animal, she'd begun to cower away from him despite her brave front. Of all people for him to be threatening—what was he doing! His physician was the one person he couldn't afford to alienate, not even in the slightest. Disgusted with himself, he averted his face and backed up several steps. Why was he always letting the blasted woman rattle him like this? He never had any trouble with all the other living nuisances who served him!
The sight of Grievous actually distancing himself jerked Lissa back to a painful reality all her own. Her rant choked off in mid-sentence, overcome by the appalled realization that not only had she just yelled at one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the galaxy but that she'd also intimated that everybody he worked for were treacherous scumbags. Nice one, she thought, cringing lower and avoiding eye contact with the doom hovering just above her shoulder. Of all the criminal offences common to any military she'd ever had dealings with, insubordination had to be among the worst.
The man she'd just insulted was harder to ignore. Grievous stood looking down at her, expressionless, his very silence a slap in the face. Lissa, deeply embarrassed, hung her head.
"I apologize, sir," she mumbled. "That was uncalled for."
The big cyborg stared steadily back at her, even though she was unable to meet his gaze. "It has been a long time," he said, "since I was scolded by a female."
It was such an odd and unexpected response that it startled Lissa into sneeking a peek. Grievous had tilted his face to one side. He looked as puzzled as she over what had just come out of his vocabulator.
"I didn't mean to scold," said Lissa, seizing the moment, infinitely glad that for some inexplicable reason he'd chosen to let her serious breach slide. Far better to be thought a nag than insubordinate, after all. "It wasn't even about you. Not really," she added. "I shouldn't have blown up at you even so, though."
Grievous regarded her solemnly. "Why did you?" he asked.
"You questioned my loyalty," she replied.
A knot of heat seemed to clench at the cyborg's few remaining vitals. The sensation spread. Even his true skin began to feel warm. Lissa, who was still scanning his face for some clue to his feelings, saw the light in his eyes shift and misinterpreted its meaning completely.
"It…was upsetting to me, sir," she went on in an earnest attempt to clarify. "The same way I'm sure it's upsetting to you when someone assumes you must be barbaric and simple-minded just because of your heritage. Not that I think you are, of course, not at all. It's just…that assumption… You get tired of it after a while."
This time Grievous suppressed a start. He'd been nursing his personal torments for so long and in such solitude that it was a shock for him to discover that they were by no means inviolate or unique. The wild idea that Lissa had been talking to Dooku in secret flitted through his mind. No, impossible...she clearly despised the Count. Yet how else could this little chit of a non-Kaleesh possibly comprehend and—even worse—share in his grievances?
As he often did when confronted by the inexplicable, he retreated again into sarcasm. "I did not realize, Miss Veleroko, that you were privy to what other people thought of me in private," Grievous remarked, doing his best to infuse his words with a dismissive sneer.
The woman just shrugged. "I'm not, sir. It just seems likely, based on other experiences I've had."
He had no immediate come-back for that one. Lissa waited in silence while her superior continued to study her. Her head was still spinning from struggling along in the cyborg's emotional wake. Quarrelling for real, not just amiably and to tease, had sapped her even more and she suddenly felt exhausted. Lissa no longer even cared anymore whether she'd made amends enough to avoid a reprimand. She just wanted out of this latest altercation with her skin intact.
Grievous was inclined to oblige her. The unpleasant conference, the impromptu battle, the terrible new possibilities put forth by his physician…it had drained him. "You are dismissed," he ordered.
It took a few seconds for Lissa to comprehend that she'd just been chucked out of her own office. Her mouth opened in protest, but the words died in her throat, withering beneath the cyborg's stony countenance. She dropped her gaze and made for the door as commanded. Grievous was still partially blocking her way and wouldn't move. Lissa had to squeeze way over to try and edge past him.
His arm shot out, stopping her. Lissa, fearful and unsure of what was wanted of her, looked up. Grievous carefully examined her face. "Tell Nagas I said you are to have the day off," he added, and turned away.
Lissa, surprised anew, looked over at her nearest monitor. She hadn't even thought about the time, yet he was right; the chronometer on the screen indicated that a new workday was indeed about to begin. She looked back at Grievous, but he'd already gone to her viewport and was staring out, his back turned. Hint taken, she took her leave, too tired and afraid of her temperamental superior's wrath to risk irritating him any further. She'd just have to put off tidying up her office and trying to repair any lasting damage done to their relationship until later.
Grievous paid no attention to his physician's departure. He was already too immersed in his new concerns to take any further notice of her.
The General's personal worries were soon overridden by a quandary. He'd returned to a fleet stuffed full of fresh supplies and ordnance which he was itching to use, yet had brought back two hard-worn task groups which were now sorely in need of replenishment of their own. Some of the returning vessels were also no longer battle-worthy. They'd need repairs, a commander to oversee the work…just the thought of having to go back into port and hang about the Resstoph Base all over again gnawed at Grievous's taut nerves. Then he recalled a certain backburner ploy and his bloodthirsty spirits rekindled and lifted. An hour's worth of scheming and several communiqués later, he was back in hyperspace and already back at battle stations, charging off again while his flagship's crew was still trying to muddle their way through their latest orders.
Grievous could have cared less about his subordinates' frazzled state. Neimoidian lives meant about as much to him as those of crawlies, the Kaleesh version of annoying gnats and mites: lower creatures that no doubt had their part in the overall scheme of life, but which he'd never hesitated to squash when they annoyed him. He also didn't care about the feelings of the Geonosian battle team who'd hastily come aboard and deployed to their usual station off the main hangar deck or those of his personal physician, who'd enjoyed all of about three hours of her supposed day off before being startled out of a sound sleep and back into action. For the moment, the General's battle-lust prevailed.
Lissa's grumpiness over being robbed of the benefits of what she'd thought was one of Grievous's rare magnanimous gestures vanished when they finally emerged from hyperspace and she noticed for the first time that the Invisible Hand was all alone—the rest of the fleet was nowhere in sight. The mystery deepened when they soon afterwards encountered and hooked up with a whole new collection of Confederate warships, most of them vessels of a type somewhat familiar to Lissa by now, some of them more exotic and unknown. The entire lot then promptly jumped again, a short hop this time, and emerged already overlooking a pretty blue and green hued planet. Six of the biggest warships at once swept forward and began disgorging smaller ships and fighter droids. The Invisible Hand began to run astern, assuming a command position and enfolding herself more deeply within the new fleet's protective wings. Lissa tore herself away from her office viewport at that point and paid a last preparatory visit to her washroom. She'd seen enough naval action by now to recognise the beginnings of a major strike and expected to be called out to play her part in the attack at any moment.
Down in the Invisible Hand's main hangar bay, the Geonosians on duty in the repair shop were also enjoying a show. The great carrier's war machines were coming to life. Thousands of droid brains had already sparked into action. Thousands more still lay quiescent but mobilized nonetheless, borne within carriers or sleds or other vessels all waiting their turn to rush into battle. As always, the din of the departing machines was horrific and the level of activity insane. The watching Geos had to clap their hands over their ear apertures at times as they hopped about, excited by the prospect of violence and death, even if at a distance removed. Towards the end, once the hangar was almost emptied, Grievous himself marched out onto the deck to join them and they watched together as several last colossal new weapons were deployed. The sight of them drew immediate clicks and coos of admiration from the insectoids and added a haughty, confident swing to the cyborg's stride when he led his MagnaGuard elite to their waiting ops shuttle.
Grievous's target on this occasion was Ballinex, a world whose immigrant colonies of humans and near-humans had so far managed to remain neutral due in large part to their relative obscurity. Ballinex lay in the Seswenna Sector, near enough to the Perlemian Trade Route to obtain all that was needed to maintain a comfortable level of civilization, yet distant enough not to attract outsiders. Most of the people living on Ballinex considered this a good thing. They liked their rather rustic way of life just fine and didn't like outsiders, or visitors either. Given the identity of the very latest visitors about to descend on them, such insular attitudes were perhaps forgivable.
Separatist fighter droids swooped in and took control of the skies over the planet's largest city, Hallidarfax, before its residents even grasped that an invasion was underway. Ballinex had no defences beyond municipal police forces and a modest volunteer army called out to deal with the odd natural disaster. It was simplicity itself for the invaders to overcome their shocked victims' equally modest technology and disable their communications before any resistance could be organized and then it was a free-for-all, with Hallidarfax already helpless and poised for grinding beneath the Confederate heel. Yet Grievous for once practised restraint. He had very special reasons for wishing to leave the city undamaged, and for long minutes the alien air machines did naught but cruise back and forth in precise formation. The watching Hallidarfaxians' terror began to ease, replaced by fearful wonder. Some even quit their shelters to come out for a better view and stood on the streets and sidewalks looking up, still apprehensive yet gripped by curiosity over what was happening.
A low crump of sound heralded an explanation of sorts. Plumes of smoke began to rise above the skyline on one of the long peninsular arms of land enfolding the port city. The fighter droids guarding the skies banked and streaked away towards the disturbance and converged again in a great cloud, so distant now that they appeared as nothing more than a swarm of gnats wheeling about in tight circles. Then, beneath them, looming up above the ragged line of the horizon, three great rounded shapes appeared.
The absolute smoothness of their outlines at once identified them as something artificial. More thuds—louder, closer—sounded. A flash of light flared beside one of the shapes, was joined by others. The silhouettes rose briefly, then sank again, and the startled citizens dotting the streets of the city finally realized what they were looking at; they were machines, massive machines, roaring down the slopes of the western peninsula and raining bolts of fire all about them as they came.
None of the gawking onlookers had ever seen a Commerce Guild spider droid in action. The shiny new upgrades now bearing down upon them were so staggering to behold and moved with such deceptive speed that many of the first victims of the attacking giants were fried while still standing outside their homes. The huge droids torched and swept through the outlying suburbs of Hallidarfax in mere seconds. They entered the city, bypassed its built-up center, and made straight for the harbour basin. Once there, they turned in unison and began to prowl the shoreline, using a handy promenade of railway lines. Anyone still out in the open fled before them, terror-stricken and ineffectual. The machines, utterly unopposed, inexorable, strode on.
A small flight of Voodoos broke out of the hovering cloud of fighters still accompanying the spider droids and flew down to the harbour frontage closer to the city's center. Several strafing runs took care of any lingering gawkers. A shuttle swooped down and landed briefly far out on the end of the largest dock and took off again. The passengers who'd disembarked from the shuttle spread themselves out, with eight of them—identical apparent droids despite their cloaks and head-cloths—falling into line behind a ninth far more unique figure. General Grievous, Supreme Commander of the Separatists' mighty droid armies and deputy leader of their Council, had come to town, and it wasn't for the sea air or the souvenirs. He'd come to watch his beautiful new weapons strut their stuff while Hallidarfax quaked in fear.
While Grievous was absorbed in admiring his handiwork, a reporter hiding on the third floor of an office building overlooking the harbour crept to the nearest window and from there, almost vomiting with fright and excitement, shot the footage which would make his career. The Separatists had stopping jamming communications midway through the attack. The reporter was able to stream his images offworld through his station's transmitter with little delay and they aired virtually live as breaking news on the Republican HoloNet. What viewers saw that day was stunning, what seemed at first a charming summer-day waterfront scene that would not have seemed out of place on a postcard juxtaposed against a background orgy of marine destruction. On the far shore of the harbour, three glittering alien engines of destruction strode through the shallows on lofty stilted legs, smashing aside ships still tied to their jetties and obliterating the warehouses and equipment onshore with blazing laser fire. In the foreground, loitering with his droid elite on a dock as casually as if they were a flock of tourists, stood the unmistakable gleaming white figure of General Grievous. The sea breeze was whipping his cape back off his pauldroned shoulders into a grey and scarlet pennant, otherwise he remained motionless and watched the violence unfold before him with incongruous calm. Never again would the Knight Slayer appear on camera during a battle looking so serene, so unsettling. His brazen confidence and disregard for any retaliatory fire made it clear that he'd already assessed his enemies' efforts as inconsequential and that he considered Hallidarfax as good as conquered.
Even Lissa saw the footage on the big monitor kept constantly on and tuned to the HoloNet news in the officers' mess aboard the Invisible Hand. She'd finally clued in that her services would not be needed and gone to find out what was happening from one of the sharpest people on the ship: the chief steward in the senior officers' mess. The steward, Lissa had learned, could monitor ongoing battles with almost as much precision as the entire operations team, thanks to much shameless eavesdropping, and was always eager to share his overheard conversations with one of the few people on board who was not put off by his lowly status. He was the one who finally explained to her that the fleet they'd hooked up with was the one normally commanded by Lucid Voice; Grievous had switched flagships in order to pull a fast one over the stupid Republicans, the steward opined gleefully. Lissa eventually parked herself by the wardroom's bank of viewports and let the chatty steward keep her supplied with further gossip and java juice while she moodily stared out at all at the borrowed warships. The only thing the Neimoidian couldn't tell her was why the hapless planet under attack was being targeted at all.
When the HoloNet show abruptly switched over into its breaking news format and Lissa first saw her volatile boss onscreen, she just about choked on a mouthful of java. The Neimoidian commander who was sitting nearby and snatching a quick meal dabbed hurriedly at his lips with a napkin, then jumped up and hustled out to return to his ops section. As Lissa watched, a small corvette-sized vessel bearing large lettering on its sides entered the fray from the left and began steaming across the choppy, whitecapped surface of the bay directly towards the metal titans on the other side of the harbour. Grievous's head turned fractionally, his sensor plates tilting forward. Perhaps he also issued some inaudible command intended only for droid receivers for the Commerce Guild machines began turning as well, away from their shoreline. The foremost of the super spider droids strode forward a few steps further out into the water and all three together fired their dual lasers at the charging ship. The beams flickered over the vessel, lightly. Lissa got a very brief impression of the ship falling apart into so many slices before all was consumed by an abrupt, violent explosion which geysered the remnants upward. Grievous and his MagnaGuards, still unmoving and safely out of range and still perfectly calm, watched the debris rain back down. The spider droids returned to their methodical massacre. Oh, thought Lissa, so that's why he doesn't need me down there. Those people can't fight back at all. Then she wondered, with sinking dismay, how she could have become so callous as to even think of something so inane and heartless when she'd just witnessed a bunch of people being blown sky-high.
The emotions felt by the billions of casual viewers who saw Grievous lord it over Hallidarfax that day were as nothing compared to the panicked consternation the footage engendered within the various Republic intelligence agencies. The cyborg commander was supposed to be in the Seswenna Sector, not off near the Perleman Trade Route attacking Mid Rim planets that were of little use and no threat whatsoever to the Separatists! Just as bad was the irrefutable evidence of a brand new type of major Separatist weapon whose very existence, until that broadcast, had gone completely undetected (no thanks in part to Sidious's own machinations). The int people started scrambling to catch up, most of them feeling as sick as did the reporter shooting the news footage. It was far too late for any effective damage control. Their failure was already out there, on the 'Net, for all to see.
The broadcast cut off abruptly when Grievous turned and appeared to look straight up into the recording lens. Many viewers shuddered over this parting shot, thinking that he must have detected that he was under surveillance, and feared for the luckless cameraman. In truth, the reporter had simply lost his nerve once he saw the cyborg's full grisly face and glowering eyes, and Grievous had only lifted up his head to watch his incoming ops shuttle. The shuttle landed and picked up the General and his entourage while the reporter was still trying to cram himself into the smallest, most inconspicuous ball possible under a heavy table. He never saw the Separatists blast away or even registered that the monster machines on the far side of the harbour had halted their attack.
The three super spider droids stomped out of the water in formation and carelessly smashed their way up a slope and through a district of upper-scale housing to an open greenbelt. Grievous was already there, disembarked and standing on the grass and waiting for them, and so were three hovering deployment sleds. The droids spaced themselves for retrieval and began partially retracting their legs. The sleds swooped in, descended and grappled onto their respective spider droids, and the paired machines then lifted up to fly back to the Invisible Hand, accompanied by a few covering tri-fighters and Vulture droids. Grievous watched it all with his bright eyes glimmering with satisfaction. The new spider droids had performed perfectly, just as programmed, and their support units equally so. The amount of devastation they'd wrought was even more gratifying, much better than anticipated from simulated scenarios, and, judging from the surprising lack of resistance the spineless Hallidarfaxians had offered, the droids' increased size had excellent improved intimidation factors which were well worth the added costs. Well pleased, Grievous boarded his shuttle and blasted off after his new weapons. That his simple field test had shattered or destroyed the lives of thousands and left the Hallidarfax harbour in ruins was of zero consequence to him.
Once back aboard his flagship, it didn't take long for Grievous to learn that he and his deployment exercise and weapons test had become the inadvertent stars of the HoloNet's hottest news item. The cyborg's attitudes towards the media had changed considerably since he'd regained his personal memories, and as soon as he had the time, he watched the reports his droid officers had saved up for him with a shrewd eye towards their propaganda potential. The coverage couldn't have been better than if he'd written and directed it himself. Already the audience response was switching from shock and confusion to a real rage at Those In Charge for their 'lack of preparedness' and for 'letting such a terrible thing happen'. The only part that gave Grievous pause was seeing himself standing on the dock with his MagnaGuards for the first time. A hint of the humiliation he'd often felt under Dooku's manipulations surfaced then—he looked so much like the droids accompanying him!—but it was a fleeting old ache and one he was able to quickly quash beneath logic and his vanity and memories of his physician's oft admiring glances. He ordered his staff to continue monitoring the Republic broadcasts and to start editing out and saving anything relating to himself or his actions, no matter how innocuous, until further notice.
Grievous slogged through some last necessary paperwork while his borrowed fleet stood down from battle stations and did a short jump to a nearby system. They regrouped near a spectacular multi-ringed planet supporting an extended family of fast-moving moons and began conducting a series of additional weapons tests and drills, sometimes using the moons as target practice. Even though the system was uninhabited, Grievous expected that his ships would soon be detected by Republic spies and made no effort to hide their presence and activities. He even took part, and personally led several squadrons of fighters through their paces as the hours wore on. Just after the last watch of the regular day changed over, the cyborg went out again, solo this time, in his Geonosian fanblade. He'd picked up a suspicious signal emanating from the vicinity of one of the outlying planets during his last sortie, he reported, and decided to assign himself the mission of investigating whether it mightn't be one of the anticipated spies.
It turned out to be some mission. Grievous was gone all night. When he finally did return, early the next morning, he disembarked and departed for his quarters without saying a word, and the current watch officer up on the bridge, who was sleepily trying to keep his eyes open during the last hour of his shift, merely noted that the General was back aboard without giving it any real thought. Shortly thereafter, Grievous ordered the Invisible Hand to break off and return to the Seswenna Sector, and the matter of his overnight absence and the mysterious signal was forgotten.
The hyperspace jump this time was a long one. Grievous recalled his physician and told her that a lengthy campaign was imminent and that he needed to be in tiptop condition. He wanted a complete workup, both medical and mechanical, and Lissa nodded her understanding and set about her work at once.
The first thing she insisted on doing was re-evaluating his respiratory issues. The new test results, unfortunately, only made her scowl again. Grievous's lungs hadn't improved at all. But neither had they deteriorated any further, and with some basis of normal capacity now established, Lissa felt safe in administering a little therapy. She had Grievous inhale an aerosolized dose of a drug she thought might suit his species well, then retested his lung function. This time the results left her smiling.
"That's better," she said, showing him the latest data. "We've got you up over seventy percent now, a real improvement!"
Grievous looked the numbers over dubiously. He hadn't liked the sudden sharp sensation of freezing cold he'd felt within when he'd first inhaled the drug, and it'd made him cough afterwards, once Lissa said it was all right to stop holding his breath. "I still don't feel any differently," he said.
"Maybe not, but you'll be much better able to handle any future damage now, providing the treatment has lasting effects. I'll have to keep monitoring you pretty closely, of course, until I can figure out a proper drug regimen. With a little luck, sir, we might even be able to turn this around permanently."
Her temperamental patient remained unconvinced. The last thing he wanted just then was a lot of unplanned interruption in his life. "You will have to figure it out during my scheduled routines," he told her. "I won't have time otherwise." And that was the last said about the matter on that particular day, for even Lissa caught on then that he was in a mood and unwilling to entertain the subject any longer. His brusque rejection of her concern disappointed and rather annoyed her, but—well—that was Grievous for you. Gratitude wasn't exactly up there on his list of sterling qualities.
His mood lasted throughout his appointment. It was hard for Lissa to get a handle on what was preoccupying him this time. Perhaps it was just that he was still in a snit over their last argument. Since he'd ordered the extra tests and diagnostics himself, she felt safe enough in explaining all her various findings and expressing a bit of satisfaction now and then over how good they were, yet none of it ignited any particular answering enthusiasm in him, nor did he ever truly relax, not even during his hot wash and bacta fluid change. His air of grim resolve and the cold look in his eye robbed Lissa of much of the usual pleasure she got from working on him. She took both personal and professional pride by now in having gotten Grievous to the point of actually enjoying his maintenance sessions, but there was little joy to be had for either participant during this particular encounter.
As soon as his last procedure was finished and he'd gotten Lissa's verbal stamp of approval, Grievous simply got up and started to leave. Lissa's own resolve broke at that moment. It was the trace of weary despair she'd caught surfacing in his expression as he turned to go that finally did her in.
"General Grievous!"
The unusual sharpness in her tone arrested him at once. He swivelled his head back around to regard her.
"Yes?"
"I—um…" Now that she had his full attention at last, she felt momentarily at a loss for words. "I…checked with flight control earlier. They said you were gone all night in your fanblade."
Silence. He merely waited, neither encouraging her nor forbidding her to go on.
"So I'm wondering…that is…did you manage to get home, sir?"
Her query, timidly spoken, seemed to release something in him. "Yes," he said, gusting the word out. He stood more upright and squared his angular shoulders. "I did get home, and back again, without incident."
"And everything's all right? With your family? Your world?"
Grievous appeared to consider her words carefully. "Everything is fine, yes. Kalee is still uninvolved in the war. Everyone has recovered well from the famine."
"Ah. Well, that's good!"
"Yes," he agreed, then abruptly grew distant again. "I have work to do. Nagas will inform you when you'll be needed at battle stations." And with that, he spun about and strode out of the office. Lissa stared after him, disappointed anew. All the ground she thought she'd gained with him had just seemed to crumble away.
Out in the corridor, oblivious to his physician's dismay, Grievous sped up and began to gait. He would never be able to tell Lissa—or anyone else—about the rest of it, about how his wives had begun to flinch away when he'd touched them and how his youngest children had backed up when he'd put out his arms, their little bodies stumbling and taut with baffled fright. It was exactly as he'd most feared. His family could handle his altered looks well enough. What they couldn't tolerate was what they'd sensed within, their growing suspicion that something inside of him had gone terribly wrong. It was even worse when he'd visited with one of his most trusted old friends, a former lieutenant of his who now oversaw the air defence of the whole of Kalee. His friend could access old records and checked for him whether there'd been any Republican aerospace traffic noted in the vicinity during the two days bracketing Grievous's disastrous crash into the Jenuwaa Sea. But the friend could find nothing, no records of any Republic ships near the crash site or anywhere else on Kalee within weeks of the incident. There never had been any Jedi.
Grievous winced inwardly at the remembrance and his body and head sank lower until he'd assumed his stalking predator's pose. The grief he'd kept hidden within since his return from Kalee flooded out and his golden eyes filled with a suffering as keenly felt as that of the billions upon whom he'd already unleashed his wrath. How could he have been so stupid? he thought miserably as he sped along. What had possessed him to believe his so-called rescuers and willingly allow himself to be duped into aiding their war? And once he saw what they'd done to him, how could he have been so naïve as to think that anything could still be the same afterwards, ever again?
TBC
