[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Covalent Bonds

Chapter 34

Ansion's eternal winds blew Count Dooku's cloak stiffly to the east, mirroring the grasses' waving seedheads.  For early summer, the heat was mild, though it was still morning. The battle ought to be over with by afternoon. What would Qui-Gon have said about this? Would he be standing here with me? A Dark Lord of the Sith such as Dooku was should have no doubts. Dooku had none about his latest purchase from JediNow! and he was trying to eliminate doubt about Ansion's importance. For his long-range tactics to succeed, he would need this latest battle plan from Grievous to prove itself spectacularly on this pivotal world. From Dooku's vantage point behind a small clump of trees overlooking the wide rippling fields, the plan surpassed his fondest hopes. It was worth it to leave the Outer Rim for this Mid-Rim dirtball. If only Grievous were at least near-human, I could confide in him my approval of his plans ... no. These new aides are more worthy than he.

"Macrobinoculars, Milord?" Six could not stand anymore to see his brothers in the battle scream and shake. He wiped off the frames where they had touched his skin as the MagnaGuard had instructed him and held them out for Dooku.

He thinks me aged, weak. "When and if I need them, I shall ask. Tell me, clone, has the Republic battalion to the far west formed into squares yet?"

Six forced himself to look through the macrobinoculars again. "As before, Milord, they're defending themselves from the droids' charge, all weapons outward." Six's specialty was the quick formation of defensive hollow squares and in fact, his squad had won a few bets by squaring up in under fifteen seconds. He lowered the frames, giving himself a break from the view of his brothers' impending doom.

"Then you have my leave to give the artillery command to fire on their position when ready." A test for these plebeians.

The kriffing bastard. From out the corner of his eye, Six could see ARC397 drop character and his jaw at the same time. Six whirled with a broad smile towards the rest of his squad, as if overwhelmed by the honor. He blinked, "Stay on target," in rapid Jedi code before turning to his task. ARC397 resumed his sullen attitude, playing his part once more.

Forgive me, brothers near and far. I'm only following orders, Jedi orders to infiltrate. "Fire," Six said into the commlink.

Their small hill shuddered as the third elite company of artillery droids marched from behind the trees' cover in pairs, spaced themselves appropriately and prepared their calculations for distance, wind and angle. The kneeling member of the pair firmed its grip on the rail detonator slung over one shoulder, the standing member entered the coordinates on the weapon and fired it. For a glorious second, Six hoped that the magnetic discharge launching the flechette would malfunction sooner rather than later as it had in some companies. His hopes were dashed as the standing droid prepared another launch. Six had employed rail detonators himself in a limited fashion, always closer to the enemy than this. The enemy. My brothers.

The rest of Six's squad busied themselves cleaning their weapons, waiting for the chance to use them against Dooku and any other Separatist who would give them cause to fire. Six tapped the fingernail where the onychotransponder had been and cursed the fact that such transponders lost power more quickly than others. It fell on him to decide when this mission was over, and something akin to prescience whispered, "Not yet." He knew it wasn't the Force.

xxxxx

Ansion's waving grasses had fewer bloodstains than other battlefields this day. Two blows arrived in deadly flechettes: nanobots screaming debilitating waves of sound coupled with pods, bursting with asphyxiating shvash gas, suffocating the agonized troopers after they had yanked off their helmets with tremor-ridden hands. When a trooper's eyes and ears bled, when his teeth rattled nearly out of his head with the sonic blast, he called on his reserves but lost strength so fast that the only impulse left was for self-preservation, along with the belief that even without his helmet, he could fire a weapon. That reasoning proved false, because as his high-tech helmet rolled away on Ansion's uneven ground, a hovering bubble of shvash gas attuned to his body heat broke near his mouth, he heaved a breath of air mixed with the gas, and his short life was soon over. His throat cooled to nearly forty degrees below freezing, his larynx spasmed and he died thrashing in three minutes, but with very little blood. The two human Jedi generals and their simpering Padawan commander acolytes had lasted little longer.

By midmorning, Dooku was bored with Grievous' tactic, though he had to admit it was methodical enough. A standard artillery bombardment to soften up the massed Republic troops, the droids charged, the Republic forces squared up to repel the charge, the droids retreated to allow the artillery to target their special rounds, the flechettes did their dirty work, the droids closed in to slaughter any wayward trooper. So like a droid's dull programming, call himself a cyborg as he will. Still, this is better than wetnursing the Separatist leaders. I am heartily sick of their infighting. Grievous remained on Byss, ending his tedious overseeing of the crystal droids' manufacture and training. Dooku had not yet seen a crystal droid in battle action. He was looking forward to it.

By the shadowless time of day on any planet, Dooku was ready to throw in the single crystal droid prototype, more as an example to his aides and MagnaGuards than anything else, because each and every Republic warrior lay dead on the field. "Clone, deploy our special forces," Dooku said to Six, not noticing the man's stony expression.

"Take the cover off the case, boys," Six ordered dispiritedly. ARC397 alone straightened his slumped shoulders and complied. The camouflage tarp crumpled to the ground, ARC397 pressed a blue button and the clear plastene case opened. A crystallite droid emerged from its chrysalis, moving fluidly on multiple-jointed leg-analogs. It stood stock-still, gathering information for its computer-chip body, then its processor processed and it gravitated to the Count of Serenno.

"Orders." The voice was glass being turned into ground glass.

"Verify dead of the stack of human bodies ... over that ridge." Dooku pointed to the nearer ridge, the one with the cluster of clone bodies nearly obscured by the pile of droid carcasses. A regimental banner lay draped undisturbed by the ongoing wind, anchored to the grass by two clones' bodies. The sight failed to move Dooku. As the crystallite droid turned its back on him and moved down the slope, he drew his lightsaber and slashed it in two at its waist, deliberately neglecting his usual salute to an opponent. The red blade withdrew into its hilt before the droid reformed, but not by much. Without any comment or backwards look, the droid sealed itself together. Any fused crystals dropped off with no discernible loss of mass to the ambulatory necklace of crystal. It continued down the hill.

Six took notice when the crystallite droid reached its assignment. Please be all dead. His wish was granted as the droid lifted each dark head of Delta Company's corpses, shook hit roughly by its regulation haircut and then returned to their vantage point with its odd gliding stride. It has five sets of knees. Its head is a mask of crystal nubs. How can we stop this thing? He glanced at his squad, whose fatigue had dissolved. He didn't need to blink code at them for them to start thinking on a way to defeat the undefeatable.

Meanwhile, in the southeast hangar of the Jedi Temple ...

"Tending my kybuck, I was, when your incoming urgent message I received." Yoda sat eye to eye with Obi-Wan on his jittery kybuck, who jerked his horned head at Anakin before Yoda hauled in its reins. "Beast, be calm, you will." The kybuck snorted and tossed its head, flinging foamy lather at the two standing Jedi. Yoda patted its arched neck. "Proceed."

"Master, we have reason to believe that the Separatists have planted a listening device in the Temple." Obi-Wan insisted on walking toward the exit as he talked, gesturing to them both to follow. Yoda allowed the procession, using the time to socialize his ornery ride, hauling back on the reins as the kybuck made to rear before entering the elevator to the Council's spire. By the time the three had reached the chambers, the kybuck's energy had receded to a steady walk instead of a prance.

"Padawan Starstone, look aghast, do not, and return my mount to its stall, if you please," Yoda said to the chamber receptionist of the day. The scrawny girl lowered her blue eyes and removed the animal by reins and one horn, yanking its browsing lips away from nibbling her tabard. The creature was contrary as a Grizmallt nerf, thought Obi-Wan, as he plunged into their tale. He finished in under five minutes, a record.

"Immediate censorship of Soul Healer Regork's office is my recommendation, Master."

"He is involved somehow, think you?"

"We must suspect everyone," Obi-Wan replied, sounding much like Tholme. "What could the Separatists have overheard?"

"Things of a personal nature, no doubt. Battle plans? Unlikely, Master Kenobi. Soul Healer Regork is the, eh, soul of discretion." Yoda spread his special pillow on his council seat and relaxed with a sigh. "Riding again, get used to it, I must."

"Pardon, Masters, but personal information could be used against Jedi, against our standard officers, against our clones, against the Republic itself -- "

"Padawan Skywalker, good point you make, but how could tactics be discussed in a Soul Healer's office? Affairs of the soul, affairs of the heart" -- ah, Padmé, youthful Padmé, too old I am for training in your ways, I fear -- "but affairs of state or of war? I think not."

"It would be demoralizing to be in battle and have one's secrets broadcast through a battle command channel. I have secrets, well, we all do, and even inconsequential ones could distract at a critical moment." Obi-Wan settled in his own chair, ignoring Anakin, who braced himself for a long session of standing in the hot spot in the middle of the room. The metal shape seemed a brand against his chest.

Yoda gestured to Ki-Adi-Mundi's seat. "Rest, Padawan. Continue, Obi-Wan. Tired, also, you look."

Anakin's mouth dropped open as he was relieved from being center of attention and took in the fact that he, Padawan Anakin Skywalker, was seated in a Council seat. He crossed his legs in the favored way of Obi-Wan and listened with everything he had in him to the Masters' discussion.

"Nevertheless, someone could let a name slip, a reference that Skorr or Vos or Bulq could use against us if they reported it to Dooku and Grievous -- "

Yoda's eyes grew hooded as he smoothed his gimer stick. "Worry not about Vos."

Obi-Wan accepted the fact that much was kept from him about his erstwhile friend Quinlan Vos as he continued. "But Master, you do see a danger. Regardless of the content of the intel, the fact that someone has planted a device in such a lamp in the very heart of Jedi hearts -- "

"And returns to it from time to time to replace its tunnel diodes which our powerhouse of the Force keeps corroding, yes, yes, agree on that, we do. A spy, an imposter past our guards, a listening beam out device, troubling it is, troubling, indeed." Yoda shifted on his Osk-shaped pillow. "Mmmm. Healer Bant, perhaps I should see."

"Bant is back?" Obi-Wan's enthusiasm made Anakin smile. Anakin was fond of the gentle Mon Calamarian, too.

"Since one week ago. Light duty in the infirmary, she has."

"She's ill?"

Yoda steepled his claws. "Seen much on New Holstice and other hospitals, she has. Ill? Not of the body, yet a small disturbance of the soul. A large heart, she has." Yoda shifted again. "Done, it will be. Quarantine of Regork's office, plant intel when meet with Master Tholme, we shall consider." He shot a glance to Obi-Wan and Anakin. "From your tale, rough treatment the Shrine of Kooroo dealt you."

Anakin shifted himself in his seat. "The plant creature was extremely kinetic and -- "

" -- its roothairs were most invasive," Obi-Wan continued, squirming in tandem . "Yes, we'll go with you, to see Bant and have her talents used to their fullest. She is a wonderful Healer, Master Yoda."

Yoda smiled broadly. "Felt her soft touch, I have. A gift from the Force, it is." He took the lead down to the infirmary.

TBC
For early summer, the heat was mild, though it was still morning. The battle ought to be over with by afternoon. What would Qui-Gon have said about this? Would he be standing here with me? A Dark Lord of the Sith such as Dooku was should have no doubts. Dooku had none about his latest purchase from JediNow! and he was trying to eliminate doubt about Ansion's importance. For his long-range tactics to succeed, he would need this latest battle plan from Grievous to prove itself spectacularly on this pivotal world. From Dooku's vantage point behind a small clump of trees overlooking the wide rippling fields, the plan surpassed his fondest hopes. It was worth it to leave the Outer Rim for this Mid-Rim dirtball. If only Grievous were at least near-human, I could confide in him my approval of his plans ... no. These new aides are more worthy than he.Ansion's eternal winds blew Count Dooku's cloak stiffly to the east, mirroring the grasses' waving seedheads.

"Macrobinoculars, Milord?" Six could not stand anymore to see his brothers in the battle scream and shake. He wiped off the frames where they had touched his skin as the MagnaGuard had instructed him and held them out for Dooku.

He thinks me aged, weak. "When and if I need them, I shall ask. Tell me, clone, has the Republic battalion to the far west formed into squares yet?"

Six forced himself to look through the macrobinoculars again. "As before, Milord, they're defending themselves from the droids' charge, all weapons outward." Six's specialty was the quick formation of defensive hollow squares and in fact, his squad had won a few bets by squaring up in under fifteen seconds. He lowered the frames, giving himself a break from the view of his brothers' impending doom.

"Then you have my leave to give the artillery command to fire on their position when ready." A test for these plebeians.

The kriffing bastard. From out the corner of his eye, Six could see ARC397 drop character and his jaw at the same time. Six whirled with a broad smile towards the rest of his squad, as if overwhelmed by the honor. He blinked, "Stay on target," in rapid Jedi code before turning to his task. ARC397 resumed his sullen attitude, playing his part once more.

Forgive me, brothers near and far. I'm only following orders, Jedi orders to infiltrate. "Fire," Six said into the commlink.

Their small hill shuddered as the third elite company of artillery droids marched from behind the trees' cover in pairs, spaced themselves appropriately and prepared their calculations for distance, wind and angle. The kneeling member of the pair firmed its grip on the rail detonator slung over one shoulder, the standing member entered the coordinates on the weapon and fired it. For a glorious second, Six hoped that the magnetic discharge launching the flechette would malfunction sooner rather than later as it had in some companies. His hopes were dashed as the standing droid prepared another launch. Six had employed rail detonators himself in a limited fashion, always closer to the enemy than this. The enemy. My brothers.

The rest of Six's squad busied themselves cleaning their weapons, waiting for the chance to use them against Dooku and any other Separatist who would give them cause to fire. Six tapped the fingernail where the onychotransponder had been and cursed the fact that such transponders lost power more quickly than others. It fell on him to decide when this mission was over, and something akin to prescience whispered, "Not yet." He knew it wasn't the Force.

xxxxx

Ansion's waving grasses had fewer bloodstains than other battlefields this day. Two blows arrived in deadly flechettes: nanobots screaming debilitating waves of sound coupled with pods, bursting with asphyxiating shvash gas, suffocating the agonized troopers after they had yanked off their helmets with tremor-ridden hands. When a trooper's eyes and ears bled, when his teeth rattled nearly out of his head with the sonic blast, he called on his reserves but lost strength so fast that the only impulse left was for self-preservation, along with the belief that even without his helmet, he could fire a weapon. That reasoning proved false, because as his high-tech helmet rolled away on Ansion's uneven ground, a hovering bubble of shvash gas attuned to his body heat broke near his mouth, he heaved a breath of air mixed with the gas, and his short life was soon over. His throat cooled to nearly forty degrees below freezing, his larynx spasmed and he died thrashing in three minutes, but with very little blood. The two human Jedi generals and their simpering Padawan commander acolytes had lasted little longer.

By midmorning, Dooku was bored with Grievous' tactic, though he had to admit it was methodical enough. A standard artillery bombardment to soften up the massed Republic troops, the droids charged, the Republic forces squared up to repel the charge, the droids retreated to allow the artillery to target their special rounds, the flechettes did their dirty work, the droids closed in to slaughter any wayward trooper. So like a droid's dull programming, call himself a cyborg as he will. Still, this is better than wetnursing the Separatist leaders. I am heartily sick of their infighting. Grievous remained on Byss, ending his tedious overseeing of the crystal droids' manufacture and training. Dooku had not yet seen a crystal droid in battle action. He was looking forward to it.

By the shadowless time of day on any planet, Dooku was ready to throw in the single crystal droid prototype, more as an example to his aides and MagnaGuards than anything else, because each and every Republic warrior lay dead on the field. "Clone, deploy our special forces," Dooku said to Six, not noticing the man's stony expression.

"Take the cover off the case, boys," Six ordered dispiritedly. ARC397 alone straightened his slumped shoulders and complied. The camouflage tarp crumpled to the ground, ARC397 pressed a blue button and the clear plastene case opened. A crystallite droid emerged from its chrysalis, moving fluidly on multiple-jointed leg-analogs. It stood stock-still, gathering information for its computer-chip body, then its processor processed and it gravitated to the Count of Serenno.

"Orders." The voice was glass being turned into ground glass.

"Verify dead of the stack of human bodies ... over that ridge." Dooku pointed to the nearer ridge, the one with the cluster of clone bodies nearly obscured by the pile of droid carcasses. A regimental banner lay draped undisturbed by the ongoing wind, anchored to the grass by two clones' bodies. The sight failed to move Dooku. As the crystallite droid turned its back on him and moved down the slope, he drew his lightsaber and slashed it in two at its waist, deliberately neglecting his usual salute to an opponent. The red blade withdrew into its hilt before the droid reformed, but not by much. Without any comment or backwards look, the droid sealed itself together. Any fused crystals dropped off with no discernible loss of mass to the ambulatory necklace of crystal. It continued down the hill.

Six took notice when the crystallite droid reached its assignment. Please be all dead. His wish was granted as the droid lifted each dark head of Delta Company's corpses, shook hit roughly by its regulation haircut and then returned to their vantage point with its odd gliding stride. It has five sets of knees. Its head is a mask of crystal nubs. How can we stop this thing? He glanced at his squad, whose fatigue had dissolved. He didn't need to blink code at them for them to start thinking on a way to defeat the undefeatable.

Meanwhile, in the southeast hangar of the Jedi Temple ...

"Tending my kybuck, I was, when your incoming urgent message I received." Yoda sat eye to eye with Obi-Wan on his jittery kybuck, who jerked his horned head at Anakin before Yoda hauled in its reins. "Beast, be calm, you will." The kybuck snorted and tossed its head, flinging foamy lather at the two standing Jedi. Yoda patted its arched neck. "Proceed."

"Master, we have reason to believe that the Separatists have planted a listening device in the Temple." Obi-Wan insisted on walking toward the exit as he talked, gesturing to them both to follow. Yoda allowed the procession, using the time to socialize his ornery ride, hauling back on the reins as the kybuck made to rear before entering the elevator to the Council's spire. By the time the three had reached the chambers, the kybuck's energy had receded to a steady walk instead of a prance.

"Padawan Starstone, look aghast, do not, and return my mount to its stall, if you please," Yoda said to the chamber receptionist of the day. The scrawny girl lowered her blue eyes and removed the animal by reins and one horn, yanking its browsing lips away from nibbling her tabard. The creature was contrary as a Grizmallt nerf, thought Obi-Wan, as he plunged into their tale. He finished in under five minutes, a record.

"Immediate censorship of Soul Healer Regork's office is my recommendation, Master."

"He is involved somehow, think you?"

"We must suspect everyone," Obi-Wan replied, sounding much like Tholme. "What could the Separatists have overheard?"

"Things of a personal nature, no doubt. Battle plans? Unlikely, Master Kenobi. Soul Healer Regork is the, eh, soul of discretion." Yoda spread his special pillow on his council seat and relaxed with a sigh. "Riding again, get used to it, I must."

"Pardon, Masters, but personal information could be used against Jedi, against our standard officers, against our clones, against the Republic itself -- "

"Padawan Skywalker, good point you make, but how could tactics be discussed in a Soul Healer's office? Affairs of the soul, affairs of the heart" -- ah, Padmé, youthful Padmé, too old I am for training in your ways, I fear -- "but affairs of state or of war? I think not."

"It would be demoralizing to be in battle and have one's secrets broadcast through a battle command channel. I have secrets, well, we all do, and even inconsequential ones could distract at a critical moment." Obi-Wan settled in his own chair, ignoring Anakin, who braced himself for a long session of standing in the hot spot in the middle of the room. The metal shape seemed a brand against his chest.

Yoda gestured to Ki-Adi-Mundi's seat. "Rest, Padawan. Continue, Obi-Wan. Tired, also, you look."

Anakin's mouth dropped open as he was relieved from being center of attention and took in the fact that he, Padawan Anakin Skywalker, was seated in a Council seat. He crossed his legs in the favored way of Obi-Wan and listened with everything he had in him to the Masters' discussion.

"Nevertheless, someone could let a name slip, a reference that Skorr or Vos or Bulq could use against us if they reported it to Dooku and Grievous -- "

Yoda's eyes grew hooded as he smoothed his gimer stick. "Worry not about Vos."

Obi-Wan accepted the fact that much was kept from him about his erstwhile friend Quinlan Vos as he continued. "But Master, you do see a danger. Regardless of the content of the intel, the fact that someone has planted a device in such a lamp in the very heart of Jedi hearts -- "

"And returns to it from time to time to replace its tunnel diodes which our powerhouse of the Force keeps corroding, yes, yes, agree on that, we do. A spy, an imposter past our guards, a listening beam out device, troubling it is, troubling, indeed." Yoda shifted on his Osk-shaped pillow. "Mmmm. Healer Bant, perhaps I should see."

"Bant is back?" Obi-Wan's enthusiasm made Anakin smile. Anakin was fond of the gentle Mon Calamarian, too.

"Since one week ago. Light duty in the infirmary, she has."

"She's ill?"

Yoda steepled his claws. "Seen much on New Holstice and other hospitals, she has. Ill? Not of the body, yet a small disturbance of the soul. A large heart, she has." Yoda shifted again. "Done, it will be. Quarantine of Regork's office, plant intel when meet with Master Tholme, we shall consider." He shot a glance to Obi-Wan and Anakin. "From your tale, rough treatment the Shrine of Kooroo dealt you."

Anakin shifted himself in his seat. "The plant creature was extremely kinetic and -- "

" -- its roothairs were most invasive," Obi-Wan continued, squirming in tandem . "Yes, we'll go with you, to see Bant and have her talents used to their fullest. She is a wonderful Healer, Master Yoda."

Yoda smiled broadly. "Felt her soft touch, I have. A gift from the Force, it is." He took the lead down to the infirmary.

TBC

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter