Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones Read online

  The Waitress Droid cleaning the booths was initially unhelpful when he asked to see Dexter. “He’s not in trouble,” Obi-Wan told her. “It’s personal.”

  The droid gave him a long, evaluating look. Then she called through the open serving hatch, “Someone to see you, honey.” Lowering her voice slightly, she added, “A Jedi, by the looks of him.”

  A cloud of steam and a huge head poked out of the serving hatch. “Obi-Wan!” Dexter called cheerfully. “Take a seat! I’ll be right with you!”

  Smiling slightly, Obi-Wan chose an empty booth. The Waitress Droid, reassured at last, brought over two mugs of steaming ardees. A moment later, Dexter emerged from the back room. He hadn’t changed much since the last time Obi-Wan had seen him—he was a little older, a little balder, and perhaps a little heavier, though with his bulk a few more pounds made almost no difference. Beaming, he squeezed his bulk and his four arms into the seat across from Obi-Wan.

  “So, my friend, what can I do for you?” he asked, gesturing with all four arms.

  “You can tell me what this is,” Obi-Wan said, sliding the dart across the table.

  Dexter’s eyes widened. “Well, whaddya know,” he said softly. With a delicacy surprising in one so large, he picked up the dart and turned it over. “I ain’t seen one of these since I was prospecting on Subterrel, beyond the Outer Rim.”

  “Do you know where it came from?” Obi-Wan asked, leaning forward.

  Dexter grinned. “This baby belongs to them cloners. What you got here is a Kamino Saberdart.”

  So much for “If I can’t tell you, nobody can,” Obi-Wan thought with considerable satisfaction. “A Kamino Saberdart?” he repeated. “I wonder why it didn’t show up in our analysis archive.”

  “It’s these funny little cuts on the side that give it away,” Dexter said, pointing. “Those Analysis Droids you’ve got over there only focus on symbols, you know.” He grinned again, hugely pleased, and added slyly, “I should think you Jedi would have more respect for the difference between knowledge and wisdom.”

  “Well, Dex, if droids could think, we wouldn’t be here, would we?” Obi-Wan said, and they both laughed. Obi-Wan looked at the dart again, and sobered. “Kamino,” he said thoughtfully. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Is it part of the Republic?”

  “No, it’s beyond the Outer Rim,” Dexter told him. “About twelve parsecs outside the Rishi Maze, toward the south. It should be easy to find, even for those droids in your archive.” He paused briefly; when Obi-Wan didn’t react, he went on, “These Kaminoans keep to themselves. They’re cloners. Damned good ones, too.”

  Obi-Wan looked at Dexter, considering. “Cloners? Are they friendly?”

  “It depends,” Dexter replied seriously.

  “On what, Dex?”

  This time, Dex’s grin had very little humor in it. “On how good your manners are…and how big your pocketbook is.”

  The hold of the freighter was dark and crowded; nothing at all like the light, airy spaces of the royal Naboo cruiser. This is what star travel is like for most people, Padmé told herself. It reminded her a little of her work with the relief group on Shadda-Bi-Boran when she was eight. She hadn’t thought about that in years.

  Giving herself a shake, she studied the faces around her. Some seemed tired and worn; some seemed bursting with new hope. None of them looked like a possible assassin. But what does an assassin look like? I’ve never seen one. Just that droid at my window last night. Maybe assassins look just like anyone else. She shivered, wondering what kind of person would hunt and kill other intelligent beings for a living.

  Beside her, Anakin shifted in his sleep once again. He had been tossing and turning ever since he lay down. Padmé was just wondering whether this was normal for him, when she heard him mutter, “No,” and then, “No! Mom, no!” She leaned toward him and saw that he was sweating. Gently, she laid a hand on his arm, hoping she wouldn’t have to shake him awake.

  Anakin was apparently a light sleeper. His eyes opened, and he looked at her in evident confusion. “What?”

  “You seemed to be having a nightmare,” Padmé told him.

  Anakin gave her a penetrating look. Padmé looked away and saw R2-D2 rolling up, carrying two chunks of bread. As she blinked in mild surprise, the little droid extended a tube and filled two bowls with mush. I thought this ship didn’t serve droids. Well, I always knew R2 was resourceful. “Are you hungry?” she asked Anakin.

  He nodded, and she passed him one of the bowls. “Thanks,” he said.

  “We went to lightspeed a while ago,” Padmé said neutrally. If he didn’t want to talk about his nightmare, she wouldn’t force him to.

  “I look forward to seeing Naboo again. I’ve thought about it every day since I left. It’s by far the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.” He gave her an intense look as he spoke, as if willing her to understand some secret meaning in his words.

  Padmé shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t want him to mean more than what he said. She certainly didn’t want him idealizing Naboo and…and its people. He would surely be disappointed. “It may not be as you remember it,” she said. “Time changes perception.”

  “Sometimes it does,” Anakin said, still with that same intense gaze. “Sometimes for the better.”

  More uncomfortable than ever, Padmé looked down and took a mouthful of mush. Time to change the subject, she thought. “It must be difficult having sworn your life to the Jedi,” she said. “Not being able to visit the places you like, or do the things you like…” Too late, she remembered that Anakin had been a slave when they met, even less in control of his life than a Jedi apprentice. To him, being a Jedi must mean more freedom in his life, not less.

  But Anakin was nodding. “Or be with the people I love,” he said.

  “Are you allowed to love?” Padmé asked. “I thought it was forbidden for a Jedi.”

  “Attachment is forbidden,” Anakin said slowly. “Possession is forbidden. But compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi’s life. So you might say we’re encouraged to love.”

  Was this thoughtful, serious young man the same Anakin as the little boy she remembered? “You have changed so much,” she said without thinking.

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” Anakin told her. “You’re exactly the way I remember you in my dreams. I doubt if Naboo has changed much, either.”

  He dreams about me? She wasn’t sure whether that pleased her or frightened her. “It hasn’t,” she admitted, and then firmly turned the subject. “You were dreaming about your mother earlier, weren’t you?”

  Anakin looked away. “Yes. I left Tatooine so long ago, my memory of her is fading. I don’t want to lose it. And lately I’ve been seeing her in my dreams—vivid dreams. Scary dreams.” His voice became lower and softer. “I worry about her.”

  No wonder he would rather dream about me…and Naboo, of course. Padmé looked at him in sudden sympathy. He ducked his head to continue eating. He’s more worried than he wants to admit. And he’s a Jedi; they just know things sometimes. A shiver of apprehension ran through her as she remembered the strong, gentle woman she had met so long ago on Tatooine. She wanted to believe that nothing awful could have happened to her, but Shmi Skywalker had been a slave, like her son, and Tatooine had so many dangers.…

  The Jedi archives had always been one of Obi-Wan’s favorite places in the Jedi Temple, at once peaceful and busy. The silent banks of computer panels held more information than any other data center in the galaxy, and no matter what the time of day or night, three or four consoles were always occupied by Jedi studying trends or searching for some key piece of knowledge that would aid them on their missions. Today, not only were several consoles occupied, but four or five Jedi sat scattered around various tables in the center of the room, studying printed materials from the archives. Even with all the information the Storage Droids had put into the computers, some things still needed to be loo
ked at in their original forms.

  It should have been simple to get the coordinates for Kamino from the computers, but to Obi-Wan’s surprise, there were no records of the place. After spending half an hour fruitlessly searching the information banks, Obi-Wan pressed a button that would summon one of the archivists to help him. Then he stood up, stretched, and began to pace, careful not to disturb his fellow Jedi at their work.

  Near the doorway, Obi-Wan stopped by a row of bronze busts. He realized after a moment that the bust directly in front of him was Count Dooku, and he studied it with interest. There was nothing in the long, chiseled face and stern expression to hint at the path he had chosen. Leader of the Separatists, who might well plunge the Republic into civil war—how could a Jedi, even one who had left the order, come to that? And why had he left? It had happened shortly after the Naboo war. Obi-Wan had been off-planet and busy with his new responsibilities as a full-fledged Jedi Knight; by the time he came back to Coruscant, the Count was gone. He had never found out what happened.

  He heard a small sound, and turned to find the Jedi archivist, Jocasta Nu, standing next to him. With her neat gray hair and thin face, she looked deceptively frail in her Jedi robes; most people would never guess that she was more than a desk-bound librarian. Obi-Wan knew better. Jocasta had been a formidable Jedi warrior in her youth, and though she now spent most of her time organizing and searching the archives for her fellow Jedi, she still went out on missions from time to time. “Did you call for assistance?” she asked pointedly.

  “Yes,” Obi-Wan said, tearing his eyes away from the bust. “Yes, I did.”

  Jocasta smiled in understanding. “He has a powerful face, doesn’t he? He was one of the most brilliant Jedi I have had the privilege of knowing.”

  “I never understood why he quit,” Obi-Wan said. Jocasta Nu was also a Jedi; surely she had wondered the same things he did. “Only twenty Jedi have ever left the Order.”

  “The Lost Twenty,” the archivist said with a sigh. “And Count Dooku was the most recent—and the most painful.” She paused. “No one likes to talk about it. His leaving was a great loss.”

  If nobody wanted to talk about it, there was only one way to find out. “What happened?” Obi-Wan asked bluntly.

  Jocasta smiled slightly, but answered readily enough. “Well, Count Dooku was always a bit out of step with the decisions of the Council.” She gave Obi-Wan a look that he could not decipher. “Much like your old Master, Qui-Gon Jinn.”

  “Really?” The idea was surprising…and disturbing. But Master Qui-Gon would never have left the Order. Never.

  “Oh, yes,” the elder Jedi said. “They were alike in many ways. Very individual thinkers. Idealists…” She looked at the bust and went on, half to herself, “He was always striving to become a more powerful Jedi. He wanted to be the best. With a lightsaber, in the old style of fencing, he had no match. His knowledge of the Force was…unique.”

  He sounds a little like Anakin, Obi-Wan thought, and frowned.

  Jocasta sighed and turned her head, as if she could not bear to look at the bust any longer. “In the end, I think he left because he lost faith in the Republic. He always had very high expectations of government. He disappeared for nine or ten years, then just showed up recently as the head of the Separatist movement.”

  Obi-Wan waited, but she didn’t seem inclined to say any more. “Interesting,” he said at last. “I’m still not sure I understand completely.”

  “Well, I’m sure you didn’t call me over here for a history lesson,” the archivist said. “Are you having a problem, Master Kenobi?”

  Obi-Wan gestured at the screen he had been using. “Yes, I’m trying to find a planet system called Kamino. It doesn’t seem to show up on any of the archive charts.”

  “Kamino?” Jocasta repeated. “It’s not a system I’m familiar with. Let me see.” She studied the screen for a moment. “Are you sure you have the right coordinates?”

  “According to my information, it should be in this quadrant somewhere—just south of the Rishi Maze.”

  “No coordinates?” The archivist frowned. “It sounds like the sort of directions you’d get from a street tout—some old miner or Furbog trader.”

  “All three, actually,” Obi-Wan said with a smile, thinking of Dex.

  Jocasta gave him a skeptical look. “Are you sure it exists?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She looked at him a moment longer, then nodded. “Let me do a gravitational scan.” Her fingers flew over the controls, and the screen display changed. She studied it for a moment, and pointed. “There are some inconsistencies here. Maybe the planet you’re seeking was destroyed.”

  That was possible, but—“Wouldn’t that be on record?”

  “It ought to be,” the archivist admitted. “Unless it was very recent.” She looked at him and shook her head. “I hate to say it, but it looks like the system you’re searching for doesn’t exist.”

  Obi-Wan thought of the toxic dart in his pocket. “That’s impossible. Perhaps the archives are incomplete.”

  Jocasta stiffened, as if he had insulted her personally. “The archives are comprehensive and totally secure, my young Jedi,” she snapped. “One thing you may be absolutely sure of—if an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist!”

  This was starting to sound familiar—If I can’t tell you where it came from, nobody can…If it isn’t in our records, it does not exist…Obi-Wan stared at the map screen and frowned suddenly. Gravitational anomalies…something had been where Dexter said the Kamino system was, records or not.

  Obi-Wan shook his head. None of this made sense. According to the Jedi records, Padmé’s attempted assassin had been killed by an unidentified dart from a nonexistent world. He didn’t know which was more disturbing—reaching a dead end in his investigation or finding such obvious gaps in the Jedi information systems. And he had run out of other sources.

  He thanked the archivist for her help, and copied the map to a portable display reader, to think about later. He must know someone who could think of another place to try.

  Naboo looked and sounded and smelled even better than Anakin’s memories of it. The rose-gold domes of the city, the flowers that scented the air, the distant music of the waterfalls—nothing had changed. Well, this time there were no armies of Trade Federation Battle Droids trying to kill them, but that could only be counted a plus. Except for the cold, it was perfect.

  Padmé seemed to enjoy being back on Naboo as much as he did. She insisted that they go straight from the spaceport to the palace, so that she could report to the Queen, but once that was settled, she seemed to shed some of her fierce, determined Senatorial persona. She seemed more like the Padmé Anakin had known on Tatooine when he was small. The thought made Anakin wonder about Padmé’s girlhood, and he asked, “Tell me, did you dream of power and politics when you were a little girl?”

  Padmé laughed, startled, and turned to look at him. “No, that was the last thing I thought of.” Her face took on a thoughtful, remembering look. “I was elected for the most part because of my conviction that reform was possible. I wasn’t the youngest Queen ever elected, but now that I think back on it, I’m not sure I was old enough.” She glanced back toward the palace, and her eyes lingered on a section of the polished surface that was newer than the rest, shaped like a blaster scar that had been repaired. “I’m not sure I was ready,” she murmured.

  “The people you served thought you did a good job,” Anakin pointed out, hoping to cheer her up. “I heard they tried to amend the Constitution so you could stay in office.”

  “Popular rule is not democracy, Annie,” Padmé said. “It gives the people what they want, not what they need. Truthfully, I was relieved when my two terms were up—but when the Queen asked me to serve as Senator, I couldn’t refuse her.”

  “I think the Republic needs you,” Anakin said firmly as they reached the palace steps. “I’m glad
you chose to serve.”

  Padmé smiled at him, and they went inside. An aide conducted them up the stairs to the marble-lined throne room. It was odd to see Queen Jamillia on the throne, wearing the royal face paint, when in Anakin’s memory it was Padmé who belonged there. But the handmaidens in their flame-red robes were the same, and so were some of the Queen’s advisors. Anakin even recognized one of them, Sio Bibble, who had stayed on Naboo during the war.

  The Queen greeted Padmé like an old friend. “We’ve been worried about you,” she said, taking Padmé’s hand. “I’m so glad you are safe.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” Padmé replied. “I only wish I could have served you better by staying on Coruscant for the vote.”

  “Given the circumstances, Senator, it was the only decision Her Highness could have made,” Sio Bibble said sternly.

  “How many systems have joined Count Dooku and the Separatists?” the Queen asked.

  “Thousands,” Padmé said. “And more are leaving the Republic every day. If the Senate votes to create an army, I’m sure it’s going to push us into a civil war.”

  Anakin let his attention drift as the two women discussed the possibility of war, the reactions of the bureaucrats, and the position the Trade Federation would take in any conflict. He never had understood what Padmé found so interesting about politics. His attention came back to the conversation with a snap when he heard Padmé say, “There are rumors, Your Highness, that the Trade Federation Army was not reduced as they were ordered.”

  The Queen looked startled and skeptical. Anakin didn’t blame her; after what they had done on Naboo, it was unthinkable for the Trade Federation to keep their huge armies of Battle Droids. But Anakin suspected that Padmé was right, and he wondered why the Jedi had not investigated the rumors. He remembered the Naboo war all too well, and it galled him to think that the Trade Federation had weaseled out of its well-deserved punishment.