The Vergence Scatter
Bendu covered his eyes with both hands, moaning in horror as one after another, General Grievous killed all of Sidious's loose ends. Not only had their plan failed, they had accomplished one of the Sith Lord's goals for him.
What was supposed to have happened was for Passel Argente to advocate for a ceasefire. Moments later, they were supposed to get a message from the tactical droid Scirocco, seemingly on its own accord, announcing a ceasefire. The Separatist Council would accuse Argente of treason, blaming him for instructing the droid to unilaterally announce a ceasefire with the Republic Commodore Los'ean. Argente would be held in detention on Utapau while Grievous and the other Separatist leaders relocated to Mustafar.
At that point, Argente would be broken out by his own loyalists, whereafter he would receive a message from Saleucami from Isshikabukk and Sivode—Isshikabukk was, of course, really the Loth-wolf Halfdan. The data and capture of the Jedi had been carried out entirely by Bendu and the other Veil Dwellers themselves.
The plan was that, while Grievous and the other Separatists fight a vicious battle on Mustafar, Argente would be safely on his way to Saleucami to pick up the Jedi and take them to the Separatist Senate in Raxulon. One emergency session later, and all of Sidious's Clone Wars machinations would have been undone. The war would have been over and Order 66 exposed.
That was what should have happened.
Now, for reasons Bendu could only guess, he was standing in front of the portal to Utapau, alongside a dozen Loth-wolves and a few other Force-sensitive Veil Dwellers, watching the entire plan collapse. The messages had reached the Separatist Council in the wrong order. They had found out about the captured Jedi before the ceasefire announcement and all agreed to a ceasefire.
Except Grievous, who had turned on them. Passel Argente was dead, and Grievous was tearing through an army of droids, hunting down the surviving members of the Separatist Council in the streets of Utapau before Bendu's eyes.
"This is bad," hissed Mirkgol, guardian of the Web Weaver Spiders.
"It's not a total loss," Zoltan growled hopefully. He gestured a paw to a Neimoidian, who was hiding behind a fruit stand. "Nute Gunray is still—oh."
Before the Loth-wolf had even finished his sentence, Grievous had flipped the fruit stand table over, and plunged a green lightsaber into the Trade Federation leader's chest.
"How is this possible?" asked Ito, another Loth-wolf.
Bendu closed his eyes for a moment, reaching out into the ebb and flow of time itself. He had no definitive answer, but the textures, all in place but in the wrong order, gave him a very plausible theory. He spoke without opening his eyes.
"It's possible that with four captured Jedi instead of two, the priority of the message was changed… Or perhaps the Koorivar subcommander was more easily able to pull strings with news that seemed more important to the Corporate Alliance Hierarchy than just the capture of Quinlan Vos and Stass Allie. It doesn't matter either way. Passel Argente is dead. We need either another plan for the Separatist Senate or a way to intervene on Utapau without being detected." Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes again.
The blue-gray furred Loth-wolf, Skathi, now looked to the portal with glowing white eyes. Briefly, her eyes flashed almost like a holocam snapping a photo, then turned back into their normal hue.
"Skathi?" Bendu asked breathlessly. The Loth-wolf was filling the Force with her own comforting certainty, it was exactly what Bendu needed.
Eyes still fixed on the portal, she waited a long while, then answered. "I have an idea. There is someone on Utapau who will help us."
The view in the portal shifted to what, at first, appeared to be a Fosh with bright green feathers and a black beak. However, when Skathi pawed the portal, causing it to zoom out, this bird-looking thing actually turned out to be attached to a four-legged lizard body. On its back it held a saddle.
"Boga saved Obi-Wan in the other timeline," Skathi purred. "Perhaps she can save Passel Argente here."
"Boga!" Mirkgol scoffed, her mandibles twitching. "Boga is not even a sentient lifeform!"
Skathi turned around, pawing at the ground, clearly struggling to overcome a nervous tick. "Varactyls are very intelligent. I would go as far as to argue they are semi-sentient. I am certain a Varactyl as intelligent as Boga can easily memorize the best path to Passel Argente's shuttle if we bring her here and explain the situation."
Mirkgol let off a squelch of disgust. "Explain the situation! She can't even speak Basic… can she?"
There was a growling chuckle from the Loth-Wolf. "She's a trained riding beast—she'd have to understand it."
o.o.o.o.o
PASSEL ARGENTE
"No!" Passel Argente screamed as the spinning table top sliced through the air, inching closer and closer. Just when it seemed like all hope was lost, there was a loud crash and then all Argente could see was green.
The Koorivar cried out in alarm as the table top flew by over his head, so close that the wind tugged on the cloth wrapped around his pointy horn. Then something hot and wet squirted onto the side of his face. A quick glance in the direction San Hill had been standing confirmed it.
The Muun was dead. Decapitated. A puddle of blood poured from his head which now wore a permanently-shocked expression. Somehow, a green thing had deflected the flying table upward, high enough to get Argente out of its path, but not high enough to save San Hill.
Argente screamed again as something bit down on the back of his tunic, jabbing and scratching his back as it lifted him into the air. He thought that what was happening was teeth sinking down into his back, but when he was set down into a saddle, he found himself staring into the giant eyes of a bird face.
The creature cawed at him with such volume that he cried out and covered his ears. Before he could get his bearings, they were off, his impromptu mount sprinting across the metal floor and away from the bloodshed as he held on tightly. A few moments went by before the Koorivar realized this steed to be one of the local Varactyls.
With a glance back, he saw Grievous now leaping over tables, stomping down on droids and organics alike. When he ran out of cowering targets to trample, the cyborg began twirling his sabers like fanblades, eviscerating row after row of battle droids.
Argente whimpered in terror at that sight and screamed "HURRY!"
The Varactyl slipped slightly as it ran, droids parting ways to allow the Magistrate of the Corporate Alliance a path to escape. It zig-zagged down the core ship's curved corridors without any input from the Koorivar, then finally leapt out an open hangar door.
A shriek of terror escaped Argente's mouth as they fell, but two seconds later, the Varactyl landed on solid ground and began running again. Even cushioned by the creature's musculature and long shock absorber-like arms, the Koorivar had the wind knocked out of him..
There didn't seem to be any sign or pursuit, and Argente gingerly pat the creature on the back of its feathery head. "Okay now, you can set me down, I am sure—"
Familiar, mad cackles erupted from behind. "AHAHAHAHA!"
Argente shuddered. Grievous was a hundred or so meters behind, riding inside of a giant wheeled vehicle that vaguely resembled the unholy child of one of the Alliance's NR-N99 droid tanks and a Banking Clan Hailfire droid.
A Tsmeu-6, but how did he!?
Argente's mental question was promptly answered by the two MagnaGuards that leapt off the sides of the vehicle, one firing a compact rocket rifle into a pursuing STAP, blowing it apart while the other ensnared a droideka with an electrowhip. Clearly not all of Grievous's MagnaGuards had been deactivated, and their programmed loyalty had overrode the Council's orders.
His Varactyl turned right, leaving the battle between the MagnaGuards and other droids behind them as it sprinted into a narrow alleyway. Pauans and Utai laborers scattered in every direction to avoid being trampled. Continuing on their course, the creature knocked over pots, droids, stacks of fruit, everything and anything that was in the way.
A clothesline of wet towels caught on Argente's horn, nearly yanking him off his steed's back.
Cocking its head back towards Argente, the Varactyl let off a caw that the Koorivar swore must have been a question like are you okay?
"I'm fine!" Argente yelled, throwing the towels off his horn. He cursed under his breath, questioning his own sanity for speaking to a steed, then shuddered again. The noise from Grievous's wheel bike was getting closer and closer.
o.o.o.o.o
BENDU
The Vergence Scatter
Bendu's stomach tightened as, through the portal, Grievous's wheel bike drew nearer and nearer to Passel Argente and the Varactyl. He gasped when the bike ran over the Varactyl's tail and up its back, crushing the Koorivar flat, landing on the poor reptavian's head and splattering the sandy cobblestone with blood. Driving on, Grievous let off a triumphant roar.
A chorus of Loth-wolf yelps and howls filled the air.
"BOGA!"
"BOGAAAAA!"
"WE HAVE TO SAVE BOGA!"
"Boga is not the key to stopping Sidious!" Bendu yelled back incredulously. He gave the portal another look, where both Boga and Passel Argente's carcasses sat there, slowly attracting a growing crowd of Pauan onlookers. The puddle of blood had grown so large that it spanned the alleyway from one building to another and was now being tracked around in footprints.
"All you care about is that Koorivar!" Zoltan snarled, biting out the word Koorivar like it was the ugliest word in the whole Galaxy. He whimpered, chasing his tail in a circle. "Boga was so kind and positive and cheerful. She was… she was so nice."
"It—she died in the previous timeline," Bendu sighed, correcting his pronouns. "We might not be able to save her, but through saving Passel Argente, we will undo Sidious's plans. Everything hinges on him."
Zoltan had stopped chasing his tail and was now staring at Bendu with an expression of utmost seriousness. "I don't care one iota about Passel Argente. Passel Argente is evil, greedy… He only wants to do the right thing when he has no other… Passel Argente is—PASSEL ARGENTE IS POOP!"
"We must be able to save both of them," Skathi sighed. "Passel Argente is riding on top of Boga, so if we stop Grievous somehow…"
"I thought all of this was to avoid having us personally insert ourselves into the timeline," Mirkgol hissed, circling Skathi as if to wrap the Loth-wolf in a web.
"Yes, but that's why there are contingencies," Skathi growled, then looked to Bendu. "All we need is to give Boga a head start. She was doing great up until…"
"Up until that twisted cyborg on his stupid Tsmeu-6 personal wheel bike," Zoltan muttered to himself. "He's lucky that stupid bike didn't have a glitch. Over-engineered piece of—STANG!" His eyes widened and his fluffy white ears shot straight up.
Skathi looked to her cousin. "Zoltan?"
"Is stang good or bad?" Bendu asked, sending calming waves through the Force.
"I have an idea," Zoltan said. With a thoughtful expression on his face, he stood on his hind legs, paws moving back and forth as if steering an imaginary wheel bike… or perhaps shifting gears. It had been millennia since Bendu cared much for technological gizmos.
Ito, one of the other Loth-wolves began yipping so excitedly that her voice rose to a high-pitched shriek. "Oh! Oh! OH! OHHH! I KNOW! LET ME GUESS!"
"No time for guessing," Zoltan snorted.
Ito began answering in a series of excited woofs. "Hijacking! YOU'RE GOING TO HIJACK IT! No—no, let me guess… You're going to push Grievous's wheel thing over the edge? No? Are… are we going to—"
"Tsmeu bikes are notorious for having an overly sensitive driver's assist package," Zoltan explained, ignoring Ito's wild guesses. He circled around Skathi, then sat down in front of Bendu. "They had so many problems in the civilian versions that they shipped off the military versions with all driver's assist features disabled. If I were to re-enable it, in the narrow alleyway, Grievous's bike would detect obstacles left and right. It would throttle his speed to forty kilometers an hour, tops. If he caught up to Boga again, the frontal collision avoidance system would kick in, automatically applying the brakes before he reached her tail."
"No fair, that's what I was going to guess next!" Ito pouted indignantly.
Bendu frowned. Zoltan's instincts on technology had been a useful asset so far, but he really wondered if it would be this simple. "How close do you have to be?"
o.o.o.o.o
ZOLTAN
After a most unpleasant trip sneaking around a closed Z-Gomot dealership on Aargau, Zoltan had traversed the World Between Worlds and emerged on Utapau. The Loth-wolf was now wearing an improvised uplink dish strapped to the top of his head with rope and buckles, precariously-perched directly between his ears.
Across the galaxy, high-end vehicle dealers used devices such as these to patch necessary service updates to vehicles during regular tuneups, wirelessly and without having to physically connect anything to the onboard computer. The device contained a remote repository of all of the latest Tsmeu updates.
"Please don't fall off my head," Zoltan whispered to himself, his eyes glowing white as he reached out to the device to connect with it, and also simultaneously to hold it in place. It would do no good to travel all the way from the Core to the Outer Rim with a stolen device, to then have that device fall off his head and into the alleyway below.
The street is awfully far down, Zoltan thought, worrying about the range of this uplink. There would be seconds at most for the driver's assist package to upload to Grievous's bike as he zipped by.
Groaning under the Loth-wolf's weight, the tin roof of the shop he now stood on buckled slightly.
"Oh no… Please don't break," Zoltan whimpered. "I'm not that heavy. I eat an appropriately low fat diet for a canine of—AAHH!" He yelped as his front paws slid out from under him. At the edge of the roof, three rivets broke loose, sending tiny metal shards sprinkling into the street below. Prone, he felt the roof, heated by the direct sunlight, warm against his belly.
The fur on the back of his neck bristled as he sensed a panic flow through the Pauan crowd below. Boga suddenly leapt into view, trampling an empty street vendor stand below, sprinting through the alleyway, and letting off nervous caws of alarm.
Zoltan ignored her, ignored the Separatist leader riding on her back, and focused on the Tsmeu-6 wheel bike now zipping into view.
Gotcha.
o.o.o.o.o
GRIEVOUS
Adrenaline pumped through the cyborg's remaining veins, causing him such exhilaration that he could do nothing to release it but laugh. Laugh and kill Passel Argente. That traitor who caused all of this.
Thanks to that coward—that coward who wanted to spare the Jedi—Grievous's previously bright white armor was scorched and blackened by blasterfire. Every droid in the city except his ever-loyal MagnaGuards seemed to treat him as public enemy number one, and he could only hope that the droids in the fleet would still obey his commands and reset their orders.
If not, he would have no choice but to alert Sidious. Either that or flee.
One complication at a time. This one first!
Grievous let out a roar of triumph. Wind ripped across his eyes as he pushed down on the pedal and simultaneously pressed down on the lever to his left, shifting up to the highest gear. Faster and faster he accelerated, his engines' roar almost matching the pitch of his own.
"AHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHA! AHAH—AGH!"
Without any input from him, his brakes engaged. The Varactyl and its rider were escaping.
Shifting back into gear, Grievous pressed down on the pedal again. Once more, he was accelerating. Passel Argente turned around, crying out in terror.
"AHAHAHAHA!" Grievous laughed again, cackling madly. His front wheel rolled just centimeters behind the Varactyl's tail. Closer. Closer. Now—
This time, the brakes engaged so hard that Grievous was thrown into the yokes despite being magnetically adhered to the seat. His chest impacted the dashboard so hard that the wind was pushed from his lungs. In the middle of his wheezing curses and fist-pounding on the control panel at his side, his eyes suddenly noticed a red light that hadn't ever been flashing before.
COLLISION ALERT!
Collision alert! I want to collide with that Varactyl!
The light faded just as the Varactyl's tail whipped around to the right into another alley and out of sight before he could aim the blaster cannons as a backup plan. Grievous yelled, banging the control panel until the red light stopped, then accelerated again.
COLLISION ALERT!
Grievous shrieked as, this time, the Tsmeu-6 seemed to object to being too close to the stalls on the left and right. It let off an annoying beep as he got too close to the stall on the right, resulting in a slight steering correction that jerked him to the left.
Letting off even louder shrieks, Grievous became increasingly physically violent, bashing his fist onto the control panel until it shattered.
In response, the Tsmeu did the most infuriating thing yet. Its wheel stopped rotating entirely, and its climbing legs unfolded. At a leisurely pace of less than ten kilometers per hour, the useless piece of filth began slowly walking down the alleyway.
An overwhelming all-consuming rage filled the cyborg. Without a second thought, he ignited all four of his lightsabers and cut through the wheel bike in every direction—up, down, to the left, to the right. He eviscerated the very seat he had sat on just seconds earlier, then turned his attention to the wheel itself, shredding it in a furious rain of green, blue, and sparks.
Locals, who had been observing Grievous's groundcar troubles with fascination, suddenly fled in every direction screaming at the tops of their lungs.
But Grievous ignored them as he stalked from the wreckage. One step, two steps, and by the third he was picking up speed, rapidly increasing his pace to a sprint. Passel Argente could not be that far ahead.
o.o.o.o.o
BENDU
The Vergence Scatter
Zoltan returned to an excited congratulatory commotion, tail wagging as he bobbed his head back and forth until the improvised uplink dish slid off, clattering to the floor. Not seeing his father when he looked around in the dark mirror-filled cosmos, his excitement decreased slightly, then picked up again when he thought of how proud his dad would be.
"Uh, I think this celebration is premature," growled Mester, standing behind Zoltan and staring into the Utapau Portal.
"What happened this time?" Bendu sighed.
"Boga dropped him off at the gateway to the permacrete meadow—"
"Landing platform!" Zoltan snarled, once again losing patience with the utter disdain the other Loth-wolves had for technology and artificial environs.
Mester narrowed his eyes. "Landing platform then. Boga dropped the Passel Argente off at the gateway to the landing platforms, but the Koorivar ascended instead of descending."
"What in the name of the Force," Zoltan gasped in astonishment, watching the scene beyond the portal unfold.
At the entryway to the landing platforms that made up Pau City's Civic Level, Passel Argente leapt off Boga's back. Having completed her task, Boga ran away, returning to the Varactyl rental agency to which she belonged. A Corporate Alliance SoroSuub was parked on landing platform 12a, which was downstairs. Passel Argente took the staircase up to platform 12b.
Wheezing as he ran, the Koorivar rounded the corner in the stairwell then stepped out onto an empty landing platform. "I'm here! Grievous is right on my tail," he panted breathily into his wrist-comm. "Where are you?!"
His pilot's reply was inaudible through the dampening effects of the portal, but they all heard Passel Argente swear aloud in Koorivar, then yell in Basic. "WHERE IS LANDING PLATFORM 12-A THEN!" Seeming to have received an answer, the Koorivar returned to the stairwell and began descending several flights of stairs.
By the time he passed by the entryway, the cyborg had caught up to him. Passel Argente let off a cry of pain and terror as he was eviscerated, body parts rolling down the stairs.
"Does he want to die?!" Zoltan snarled, only half joking.
"Perhaps it is the will of the Force then," Bendu sighed. "We'll have to think of something else."
A pair of mandibles clicked. "No, Bendu. I have an idea."
All eyes fell on the Wookiee-sized arachnid, Mirkgol.
o.o.o.o.o
Grievous
Jumping from balcony to balcony, two levels above the streets below, Grievous used the height of the buildings to keep an eye on his much faster quarry. A few hundred meters away, in front of landing platform 12, Passel Argente leapt down from his Varactyl savior, and bolted into the door.
With a furious roar, Grievous jumped a few meters forward from the edge, knocking down a few potted plants, and latched his claws on the side of the building. He allowed himself to fall four meters, then caught himself, before falling again until he was on the street.
By now, the Varactyl was cawing loudly and running back towards the Core Ship, using the much wider street along the edge of the sinkhole instead of the back alleys.
Grievous ignored the animal, crawling as quickly as he could on six legs out of the alleyway and into the wider ring road. An Utai riding a speeder bike nearly ran him over, swerving violently to the left to avoid a collision. Responding with a disdainful roar, the cyborg kicked it, sending it swerving into a nearby building, and continued crawling. He had three more close calls, two with land speeders, and one with a large cart being pulled by a Varactyl.
But he could not slow down. If Passel Argente escaped, it would be the end of Grievous's leadership, and the end of any hope to destroy the Jedi once and for all.
When he reached the stairwell, Grievous stood up as tall as he could, listening. Echoing footfalls pitter-pattered from somewhere upstairs, rapidly coming down.
Did that traitor go the wrong way? Grievous wondered to himself, and fought hard to stifle a laugh. He would be able to laugh as loudly as he wished after Argente was dead.
The next second felt to Grievous like the universe had just handed Passel Argente on a silver platter. The foolish Koorivar emerged from around the corner, bolting right past the door to the stairwell as he headed downstairs.
Grievous stepped into the stairwell, igniting his lightsabers, and yelled, "AHAHAHAHA! DIE TRAIT—"
Something completely beyond the cyborg's ken had interrupted him. His head jerked back, colliding with something invisible—or nearly invisible. A web of thin transparent wires spanned the top of the doorway, well above Koorivar height, but just low enough to snag Grievous.
Reaching an arm up, Grievous screamed, trying to yank the shimmering webs off from his face, but then his arm was stuck too.
The Koorivar yelled prayers and curses, screaming with terror as he ran, before stumbling clumsily down the stairs and out of sight.
Left behind in the entryway, Grievous attempted to follow. However, the Force was not on the Cyborg's side today. His head whiplashed backwards, still snagged so firmly in these webs, which were so strong he could not break them. After sliding about fruitlessly on his own feet for a few seconds, the cyborg changed strategies and lifted his feet off the ground. He expected the webs to finally give way under the tremendous weight of his chassis. Instead, he dangled in mid air, all six limbs squirming like a trapped insect.
Only one explanation for what had transpired came to mind, and it was secret Corporate Alliance technology. The treachery was infuriating.
"PASSEL ARGENTE! YOU ARE DOOMED!" Grievous shrieked, igniting three of his lightsabers in a last ditch attempt to break free. He swung one straight into the webs and, as expected, it cut through releasing him.
What Grievous had not anticipated, however, was that the webs were flammable. Flames now engulfing his head, Grievous slapped his upper hands over his eyes to protect them. Enraged beyond words, the cyborg tore himself out of the doorway and unleashed a scream so loud that it drowned out the sounds of Passel Argente's Horizon-class star yacht roaring to life.
There was absolutely no way Grievous could report a failure this great to Sidious. His only hope was to hide the fact he killed the entire Separatist High Council as long as possible, and to kill Passel Argente before the Koorivar was able to take over the Separatist Alliance.
Still, he was due to report. He had to tell Sidious something.