Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Chapter Eighteen

When the call beamed into the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, using scramble code 5 and in care of "the old folks home," Mace Windu and Yoda knew that it was important. Extremely important.

They took the call in Yoda's apartment, after Mace checked the corridor both ways, then pointedly closed the door.

The hologram of Obi-Wan Kenobi appeared before them. The man was obviously on edge, glancing repeatedly over his shoulder.

"Masters, I have successfully made contact with Lama Su, the Prime Minister of Kamino."

"Ah, good it is that your planet you have found," Yoda said.

"Right where your students predicted," Obi-Wan replied. "These Kaminoans are cloners-best in the galaxy I've been told, and from what I've seen, I don't doubt the claims."

Both Jedi Masters frowned.

"They are using a bounty hunter named Jango Fett to create a clone army."

"An army?" Mace repeated.

"For the Republic," came Obi-Wan's startling answer.

"What's more, I have a strong feeling that this bounty hunter is behind the plot to assassinate Senator Amidala."

"Do you think these cloners are involved in that, as well?"

"No, Master, there appears to be no motive."

"Do not assume anything, Obi-Wan," Yoda advised. "Clear, your mind must be if you are to discover the real villain behind this plot."

"Yes, Master," Obi-Wan said. "Prime Minister Lama Su has informed me that the first battalion of clone troopers are ready for delivery. He also wanted me to remind you that if we require more-and they've another million well on the way to completion-it will take more time to grow them."

"A million clone warriors?" Mace Windu asked in disbelief.

"Yes, Master. They say Master Sifo-Dyas placed the order for the clone army almost ten years ago. I was under the impression he was killed before that. Did the Council ever authorize the creation of a clone army?"

"No," Mace answered without hesitation, and without even looking to Yoda for confirmation. "Whoever placed that order did not have the authorization of the Jedi Council."

"Then how? And why?"

"The mystery deepens," Mace said. "And it is one that needs unraveling, for more reasons than the safety of Senator Amidala."

"The clones are impressive, Master," Obi-Wan explained. "They have been created and trained for one purpose alone."

"Into custody, take this Jango Fett," Yoda instructed. "Bring him here. Question him, we will."

"Yes, Master. I will report back when I have him." Obi-Wan glanced over his shoulder again and abruptly instructed R4 to cut the transmission.

"A clone army," Mace remarked, alone with Yoda once again, the hologram gone. "Why would Sifo-Dyas-"

"When placed, this order was, may provide insight," Yoda said, and Mace nodded. If the timing of the order was correct, then Sifo-Dyas must have placed it right before he died.

"If this Jango Fett was involved in trying to kill the Senator, and just happened to be chosen as the source for a clone army, created for the Republic…" Mace Windu stopped and shook his head. The coincidence was too great for those two items to be simple chance. But how could one tie in with the other? Was it possible that whoever decided to create the clone army was afraid that Senator Amidala would be a strong enough voice to prevent that army from being used?

The Jedi Master rubbed a hand over his forehead and looked to Yoda, who sat with his eyes closed. Probably contemplating the same riddles as he was, Mace knew. And equally troubled, if not more so.

"Blind we are, if the development of this clone army we could not see," Yoda remarked.

"I think it is time to inform the Senate that our ability to use the Force has diminished."

"Only the Dark Lords of the Sith know of our weakness," Yoda replied. "If informed the Senate is, multiply our adversaries will."

For the two Jedi Masters, this surprising development was troubling on several different levels.

Obi-Wan moved along the corridor carefully. He knew nothing of Jango Fett's accomplishments, but he figured they must be considerable, given the selection of the man as the prototype for a clone army. Pausing, he closed his eyes and reached out to the Force, searching for hidden enemies. A moment later, convinced that Jango wasn't in the immediate area, he approached the door. Gently, he ran his fingers along the frame, sensing for potential traps, then finally touched the locking mechanism. Holding one hand there, he tried the door.

It didn't budge.

Obi-Wan reached for his lightsaber thinking to shear through the portal, but he changed his mind, preferring subtlety. He closed his eyes and sent his strength through his outstretched hand and into the lock, manipulating the mechanism easily. Then, one hand going to his lightsaber, he tried the door again, and it slid open.

As soon as he viewed the room inside, he knew that he wouldn't be needing his weapon. The apartment was in complete disorder. The drawers of every cabinet hung open, some lay on the floor, and the chairs were knocked all askew.

To the side, the bedroom door was open, and it, too, was a wreck. All the signs within pointed to a hurried departure.

Obi-Wan glanced all about, looking for some clue, and his gaze finally settled on a thin computer screen set on a counter in the main living area. Rushing to it, he turned it on and recognized it at once as a security network, tied in to various cams set about the immediate area. Obi-Wan scrolled from view to view, noting the corridor he had just traversed and various angles of the apartment itself. An outside view of the area showed the apartment's rain-lashed roof-and he could see himself through the transparisteel window.

He continued his scroll, widening the lens and zooming in on anything suspicious.

Then he got a shot of a nearby landing pad and an odd-looking ship with a wide, flat base, narrowed to a point on the closest end and thinning as it climbed to a small compartment, perhaps large enough for two or three men. Rushing about the parked craft was a familiar figure, either Boba Fett or another clone.

Obi-Wan nodded and smiled knowingly as he followed the boy's movements, recognizing from the fluidity and randomness of some small actions that this was indeed Boba and not a perfectly controlled and conditioned clone.

Obi-Wan's grin didn't hold, though, as another familiar figure came into view. It was Jango, dressed in the armor and rocket pack the Jedi had seen before, on the streets of Coruscant. If Obi-Wan had had any doubts that Jango was the man who had hired Zam Wesell, those doubts were now gone. He bolted from the apartment and ran down the corridor, looking for a way out.

"Yeah, I'll let you fly it," Jango said to Boba.

Boba punched a fist into the air in triumph, thrilled that his father was going to let him get behind the controls of Slave I. It had been a long time, months, since Boba had been allowed to sit behind the controls.

"Not to take her out, through," Jango added, somewhat dimming the boy's jubilance. "We're going out hot, son, but we'll take her back out of lightspeed early so you can get some time working her about."

"Can I put her down?"

"We'll see." Boba knew that his father really meant "no," but he didn't press the point. He understood that something big and dangerous was going on around him, and so he decided to take whatever his dad offered, and be happy with that. He hoisted another bag and climbed up the ramp to the small storage hold. He looked back at Jango as he did so, then looked past Jango, to a human form rushing out of the tower's turbolift and toward them through the driving rain. "Dad! Look!"

As Jango swung about, Boba's eyes went wider still. The running figure was their Jedi visitor-and he was drawing his lightsaber and igniting a blue blade that hissed in the downpour. "Get on board!" Jango called to him, but Boba hesitated, watching his father pull out his blaster and fire off a bolt at the charging Jedi. With amazing reflexes, Obi-Wan snapped his lightsaber about, deflecting the bolt harmlessly wide.

"Boba!" Jango yelled, and the boy came out of his trance and scrambled up the ramp and into Slave I.

Obi-Wan launched himself through the air at the bounty hunter. Another blaster shot followed, then another, and the Jedi easily picked them both off, deflecting one and turning the other back at Jango. But as the bolt ricocheted toward him, the bounty hunter leapt away, his rocket pack flaring to life, sending him up to the top of the nearby tower.

Obi-Wan tumbled headlong, turning while he rolled to come around as Jango fired again. Without even thinking of the movement, letting the Force guide his hand, the Jedi brought his lightsaber to the left and down, knocking the energy bolt aside.

"You're coming with me, Jango," he called.

The man answered with a series of shots, a line of bolts coming at the Jedi. The lightsaber went alternately left then right, picking off each one, and when Jango altered the pattern, left, right, left, right, then right again, the Force guided Obi-Wan's hand true.

"Jango!" he started to call out. But then he realized that the bounty hunter's latest shot was not a bolt but an explosive pack, and the next moment he was diving, enhancing his leap with the Force.

All of Slave I recoiled from the explosion outside, and the jolt sent Boba tumbling to the side. "Dad!" he cried. He scrambled to the viewscreen, flicking it on and orienting the cam on the scene below.

He saw his father immediately, and burst out in tears of relief. He calmed himself quickly, though, scanning the area for the enemy Jedi, and saw Obi- Wan coming over from a roll, back to his feet-and blocking another series of bolts with seeming ease.

Boba scanned the panel, trying to remember all his lessons about Slave /, glad that he had been so diligent in his studies. With a wicked grin that would have made his father proud, Boba fired up the energy packs and clicked off the locking mechanism of the main laser. "Block this, Jedi," he whispered. He took a bead on Obi-Wan and pulled the trigger.

"You have a lot to answer!" Obi-Wan called to Jango, his voice sounding thin in the thunderous downpour and lashing wind. "It'll go easier on you, and on your son, if-"

He stopped suddenly, registering the report of a heavy laser somewhere in his subconscious. The Force had him moving instinctively before he even understood what was happening, leaping and flying across the air in a double somersault.

He landed to find the ground shaking violently under his feet, quaking from the thunder of Slave 7's heavy laser cannon, which swung around to follow him.

Obi-Wan had to dive again, but this time the bouncing report sent him sprawling to the ground, his lightsaber skidding from his grasp across the rain-slickened surface.

Fortunately, Slave 7's cannon went quiet, the energy pack depleted for the moment, and Obi-Wan wasted no time leaping to his feet and charging at Jango Fett, who was coming hard his way.

A blaster bolt led the bounty hunter in, but Obi-Wan leapt above the streaking line of energy, flying forward and spinning around to snap-kick the weapon from Jango's hand.

The bounty hunter didn't flinch. He charged right into the Jedi as Obi-Wan landed, looping his arms over Obi-Wan's and bearing him backward. He tried to wrestle Obi-Wan to the ground, but the Jedi's feet were too quick for that, setting him in perfect balance almost immediately. He slid one leg between the bounty hunter's feet and started to twist to the side, weakening Jango's hold on his arms.

Jango smiled wickedly and snapped his forehead into Obi-Wan's face, dazing him for a moment. The bounty hunter pulled a hand free and launched a heavy punch, but realized his mistake immediately as the Jedi ducked the blow and did a tight, stationary somersault right under the swinging arm, double- kicking out as he came over, his feet slamming Jango in the chest and throwing him backward.

Now Obi-Wan had gained the initiative and he used it with a fierce charge, slamming into the stumbling bounty hunter, thinking to bring him down to the ground beneath him, where the encumbering armor the man wore would work against him.

But Jango showed the Jedi why he had been chosen as the basis for the clones. He went with the flow of the tackle for a moment, then suddenly reversed his footing and his momentum, stopping Obi-Wan's progress cold. Jango launched a left hook. Obi-Wan ducked and snapped out a straight right in response. Jango slipped his head to the side so that the blow barely grazed him. A short rocket burst had him in the air and spinning a circle kick out at Obi-Wan, who dropped to his knees and ducked it, then came up high in a leap, over the second kick as Jango came around again. Now Obi-Wan snapped off a kick of his own, but Jango accepted the blow against his lowered hip and snapped his left arm down across the Jedi's shin, locking the leg long enough for him to drive a right cross into Obi- Wan's inner thigh.

The Jedi threw his head and torso back, lying flat out and lifting his left leg as he did, kicking Jango under the side of his ribs. A sudden scissor- twist, right leg going down and across, left leg shooting across the other way above it, had Jango and Obi-Wan spinning sidelong. Obi-Wan caught himself with extended arms as he turned facedown, broke his feet from their hold on Jango, and mule-kicked the falling man backward. Then, going down to the platform to launch himself right back up to his feet, he turned about and rushed forward, gaining an advantage on the off-balance and struggling Jango.

A right cross smashed the bounty hunter across the face, followed by a looping left hook that should have laid the man low. But again, with brilliant reflexes, Jango ducked the brunt of that blow and caught the surprised Obi-Wan with a sudden and short, but heavy, left and right in the gut.

The Jedi's right hand waved across between his face and Jango's, and he used a quick Force shove to throw the man back a step until he could straighten and find a defensive posture once more.

Jango came right back in, fiercely, wildly, kicking and punching with abandon.

Obi-Wan's hands worked vertically before him, hardly moving, amazingly precise, turning blow after blow harmlessly aside. He turned one hand in and down suddenly, taking the momentum from a heavy kick, then came right back up to lift Jango's jabbing fist up high. Then he snapped his hand straight out, his stiffened fingers smashing against a seam in the bounty hunter's armor. Jango winced and fell back. Obi-Wan launched himself forward, diving onto the man, going for the victory.

But Jango had an answer, firing his rockets and lifting both himself and the grappling Jedi up into the air. A burst of a side-thruster sent the pair out past the landing pad proper to the sloping skirt of the structure. Jango's hands worked almost imperceptibly, twisting in and about the Jedi's arms and hands, expertly loosening Obi-Wan's grip. Then he fired his thrusters, left and right, causing a sudden and repeated jerk that broke him free of Obi-Wan's grasp.

Obi-Wan hit the deck hard and slid perilously close to the edge-close enough to hear the great waves breaking against the platform's stilts below him. He caught a hold and reached into the Force, using it to grab his lightsaber, recognizing that he was suddenly vulnerable. He heard a shot from the side, not the screech of a blaster bolt, but a pfizzt sound, and rolled as far as he could.

But not far enough. He lost his concentration, along with his grasp on his lightsaber, as a thin wire slid under his wrists, then wrapped about them, securing him tightly.

And then he was sliding, back up the sloping skirt and across the platform, towed by the rocket-man. With reflexes honed by years of intensive training, and with the Force-strength of a Jedi Master, Obi-Wan snap-rolled his body forward, back up over his outstretched arms, tumbling to his feet, then leaping out to the side as the towline again went taut, jerking him along. He rolled about a pylon and came back to his feet again, now having the leverage of the metal pole helping to hold him there.

Reaching deeply in the Force once more, he grounded himself, becoming, for an instant, almost as one with the platform.

Immovable.

The wire snapped tightly, but Obi-Wan didn't budge.

He felt the angle of the pull change dramatically as the rocket-man plunged to the deck, his pack breaking away.

Obi-Wan started around the pole, but stopped and shielded his eyes as Jango Fett's rocket pack exploded with a burst of light and a tremendous concussion.

"Dad!" Boba Fett cried as the rocket pack blew apart, his face coining right to the viewscreen. But then he saw Jango, off to the side and apparently unharmed, though tugging frantically against the pull of the wire-that was now being controlled by the Jedi.

Boba slapped one hand helplessly against the screen, mouthing "Dad" again, and then he winced as the Jedi slammed into his father, kicking and butting him, and both of them, locked together, went rolling off the back edge of the landing pad, sliding fast down the skirt and toward the raging ocean.

Obi-Wan kicked and tried to find his way back to the Force, but Jango punched him repeatedly. He could hardly believe that the bounty hunter would waste the effort, with certain death awaiting them both at the end of the slide and fall. He managed to pull back somewhat and saw Jango lift one forearm, a strange smile on his face. The bounty hunter clenched his fist, and a line of claws popped forth from the armor.

Obi-Wan instinctively recoiled as Jango lifted that arm higher, but then the bounty hunter slammed it down, not on Obi-Wan, but on the platform skirt. At the same time, Jango worked his other hand, releasing the locking mechanism of the wire-launching bracelet, and it slid free of his arm. He screeched to a halt, and Obi-Wan slid past him. "Catch a roller fish for me," the Jedi heard Jango say, and then he was falling, over the lip and down toward the raging whitecaps.

"Dad! Oh, Dad!" Boba Fett cried in relief as he spotted his father clambering back over the skirt lip and onto the platform. Jango climbed to his feet and stumbled toward Slave /, and Boba rushed to the hatch, sliding it open and reaching down to help his father aboard.

"Get us out of here," the dazed and battered Jango said, and Boba grinned and rushed to the control panel, firing up the engines.

"I'll put her right to lightspeed!"

"Just break atmosphere and take her straight out!" Jango ordered, and his words came out with a growl of pain as he held his bruised side. Then he noticed his son's wounded look. "Get the nav computer on line and have it set the coordinates for the jump," he conceded.

Boba's smile beamed brighter than ever. "Liftoff." he shouted.

Obi-Wan used the Force to grab the trailing, loose end of the wire that still held him by the wrists, and he threw that end out, looping it over a crossbeam in the platform structure. His descent stopped with a sudden jerk.

He glanced around, then began to swing, back and forth, gaining momentum until he was far enough out to pull himself free of the bond and drop lightly onto a small service platform, barely above the lashing waves. He took only a moment to catch his breath, and then opened the door of the service turbolift with a wave of his hand. Even before the door opened at the landing platform, he heard the engines of the bounty hunter's ship roar to life.

He came over the lip, spotting his lightsaber immediately and calling it in to him with the Force.

But he was too late. The ship was already shuddering, ready to blast away. Obi-Wan pulled a small transmitter from his belt and threw it out long and far at Slave I. The magnetic lock of the tracking device grasped on to the ship's hull just in time.

Rain and steam pouring all about him, Obi-Wan Kenobi stood there for a long while until Slave I disappeared from view.

He looked around at the platform, replaying the battle in his head, his respect for this bounty hunter, Jango Fett, growing considerably. He understood now why Jango had been selected by Sifo-Dyas, or Tyranus, or whoever it was that selected him. The man was good, full of tricks and full of skill.

He had taken Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi Knight, the man who had defeated the Sith Lord Darth Maul, to the very precipice of disaster.

But Obi-Wan was still pleased at the way it had played out. He would track Jango now. Perhaps at the end of the coming journey, he would finally get some answers instead of even more riddles.