Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(61)

The droid gave a muffled grunt of acknowledgment and slid open the hidden compartment in the top of his dome. Thrawn slipped around Anakin’s other side, striding past the two of them and moving to catch up with the Serennian—

“Halt,” one of the B2s ordered.

Obediently, Anakin and R2-D2 stopped. But Thrawn kept moving. “I must speak,” he called toward the Serennian. The super battle droids snapped their blasters up, hurrying to catch up with him, passing Anakin and R2-D2.

And with everyone’s attention elsewhere, Anakin stretched out with the Force and pulled his lightsaber from R2-D2’s dome. He dropped it to just above ground level and sent it floating back behind them across the courtyard. It flew out of his shadow, glinted briefly in the light streaming down from the wall, then angled up from the ground and tucked itself alongside the bent gun arm of one of the two rearmost droids. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Serennian jerk to a halt and spin around. “Stop!” he snapped.

“My apologies,” Thrawn said, finally coming to a halt. The B2 droids did likewise, their blasters still trained on him. “I merely wished to ask a question.”

“Questions can wait,” the Serennian growled, glaring at the Chiss. He looked at the B2s and gestured their blasters back down. “Come.”

“The question is important,” Thrawn insisted, not moving.

Again, the B2s’ blasters came up. “I said otherwise,” the Serennian said.

For a moment the human and the Chiss stood facing each other, locking eyes and wills. Anakin stayed where he was, watching the battle droid patrol continue its march, keeping his lightsaber half concealed beside the droid’s arm. This was going to take exquisite timing…

“This had better be good,” the Serennian said at last.

“You’ve suggested this droid may have come from the Republic,” Thrawn said. “The thieves tried to force the freighter to their own destination. In warfare, some believe that if one cannot gain a prize, neither shall anyone else.”

For a pair of heartbeats the Serennian just stared at him. Then, abruptly, his head jerked as he turned toward R2-D2. “Droids!” he shouted, backing rapidly away. “That astromech—quick-scan for explosives!”

Anakin looked past him to the row of switches by the wall, stretched out with the Force, and opened all of them, then turned his eyes back to the droid patrol. As the floodlights winked out he caught a glimpse of his lightsaber, falling out of concealment toward the ground, and reestablished his Force grip on it. R2-D2 gave a wailing scream—

And as a chorus of startled human and droid screeches erupted across the courtyard, Anakin ignited the lightsaber and sent it whirling and slashing through the droid patrol.

In the heat of a real battle, such a maneuver would have meant quick death. Not only did he have only limited control over the weapon at this distance, but with his lightsaber that far away he was completely open to enemy fire.

But for making it look like a Jedi had suddenly appeared from concealment, he couldn’t have asked for better.

It also wasn’t a trick he could play for long. He sent one final slash through the last droid, then closed down the lightsaber and threw it toward the top of the eastern building. He hated to part with it, even for a short time, but someone could turn the lights back on at any second and the last thing he wanted was for the Serennian to see a Jedi weapon sailing toward his outstretched hand.

It was just as well he hadn’t dawdled. An instant later the floodlights came back on, one of the beams catching the lightsaber hilt for a fraction of a second before the weapon arced out of its reach into the darkness.

And in the newly restored light, he saw that the courtyard had dissolved into chaos.

Droids were everywhere: the two remaining groups of B1s trotting across the open space, their long, cylindrical heads turning rapidly back and forth as they searched for a target; four more B2s appearing from somewhere and lurching along, their arms stretched out with wrist blasters pointed stolidly in front of them. The two Serennians over in the corner were racing toward the pile of scrap metal that Anakin had just created from the droid patrol, their cloaks flapping behind them, comms held urgently to their lips as they barked out orders. A door at the courtyard’s northeast corner opened and another group of B1s streamed out.

“What was that?” Anakin gasped.

“You fool,” Thrawn bit out. “The droid was no bomb. It was a distraction. He stowed away aboard our ship!”

“Oh, esehigi!” Anakin snarled, spitting out a local curse Thrawn had taught him. “Come on—we need to get out of here.”

He took off, slapping Thrawn on the shoulder for emphasis as he passed, sprinting past the still-backpedaling Serennian toward the door.

“Wait!” the Serennian shouted.

Anakin kept going, reaching to the Force for warning. If the other was suspicious, or if the B2s were programmed to act on their own—

But no double-vision warning came of blaster bolts blazing toward his back. The Serennian had seen the lightsaber; and if he hadn’t actually seen anyone wielding it, Anakin knew that human minds and memories were very good at adding in unseen but logically obvious details.

Anakin had covered half the distance to the door when he heard footsteps coming up behind him. He half turned, assuming it was Thrawn, just as a heavy hand came down on his shoulder. “I said wait,” the Serennian snapped, forcing Anakin to slow to a fast jog. “You can’t be in there alone.”