Star Wars: Rogue Planet (39 page)

“Motivation is everything in business.”

“Lord Ziro, I suspect you really have no need to ask. Would
you
put your future in their hands?”

“I wouldn’t trust the Republic to do anything for Hutts except try to stop us from making a living.”

Ziro saw Jedi and Republic as one entity. Dooku had reached a similar conclusion years before. “And anyone who doesn’t want to be part of their happy Republic family must be a tyrant or an anarchist. If a world wants to leave, it’s accused of being undemocratic, because the will of its inhabitants doesn’t suit Coruscant. Such a beautifully embroidered veil of irony.”

“You don’t have to sell me on Separatism, Dooku. I don’t care about your politics, but I know in which sauce my gorog is marinated.” Ziro seemed the braggart in Jabba’s extended clan, but sometimes Dooku saw hints of a subtler intelligence underneath. He kept a cautious eye on that. “You help me get what I want, I help you get what
you
want.”

“Welcome to politics,” said Dooku. “Don’t delude yourself that it has to have party labels.”

Dooku steeled himself to relax. The doors suddenly snapped apart; two droids strode in at a brisk pace, and Dooku slid quietly into a shadowed alcove to watch unnoticed from the sidelines.

“Exalted Lord,” one said in a flat monotone. “We have bad news. Your nephew’s son has been kidnapped by criminals.”

Ziro reared up in feigned shock, then settled down again with a noise like slapping a wet stone. “It’s an
outrage
! Have they demanded a ransom? This is an insult to all Hutts! Organize a search team. We’ll find the scum who did this to poor Jabba.”

Ziro wasn’t a bad actor, all things considered. But even if he’d rehearsed it, his choice of words was revealing. Dooku noted that it was more about loss of face than concern for the child’s safety. But Hutts didn’t think like humans, and the social rules of organized crime were not those of middle-class Coruscant. He tried not to judge when his own species had so little to boast about at times.

Dooku listened, waiting for the droid to leave.
Now to the next stage. Now to making sure that we lure the Jedi to Teth …

“There has been no ransom demand yet, Lord,” the droid said. “Most unusual.”

“I’ll see the scum fed to a rancor.” Ziro held out an imperious hand to the second droid. Dooku couldn’t quite see the other droid around the edge of the alcove. “Get me the comlink. Let me console my nephew. I expect all Hutts to rally around and help him.”

He’s really getting into the role …

“Lord Jabba is said to be inconsolable. He has asked the Republic to help—to send Jedi to find the child.”

Dooku was a hard man to surprise, but the thought of Jabba—
Jabba
—throwing himself on the sympathy of the Jedi hit him like a punch.

Why would the head of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the galaxy, who could buy any number of bounty hunters and an intelligence network that many governments might envy, beg the Jedi for help?

It was an inexplicable move for a species—a gang lord—so concerned about loss of face, about looking weak, about being seen to be an easy target.

Not Jabba. And it
will
be explicable, if I think about it …

The Hutt was up to something appropriately slippery. Dooku wasn’t sure what that might be, so he was instantly on his guard. But it was the most
perfect
stroke of luck—unnaturally perfect—for Jabba to ask the Jedi to walk into his setup and implicate themselves in the kidnapping.

Some would say it was meant to be.

And while Dooku didn’t believe in luck half as much as he believed in the less random patterns of conspiracy, plot, and counterplot, he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity.

He hoped the Jedi Council would do the decent, upstanding,
moral
thing, and say yes.

He was certain that they would.

TWO
 

“I
NEVER THOUGHT
I’
D HEAR
L
ORD
J
ABBA SAY
THAT
,”
P
ALPATINE
murmured as the holomessage repeated in a shimmering blue loop. TC-70, Jabba’s droid, delivered the appeal for help to find Rotta while his master looked on, blinking and swaying slightly, clearly agitated. “He must be in enormous distress to ask for outside help.”

The Chancellor looked around at the Jedi assembled in his office to gauge their reaction. He could
feel
it, but it was always interesting to watch their little physical tells—the frowns, the twitches, the slight lifts of the shoulders—that hinted at the anxieties within.

Mace Windu stroked his chin, grim and unmoved. The man never looked so much as even slightly satisfied with his life. The others—Plo Koon, Luminara Unduli, Bolla Ropal—seemed to be leaving it to him to say what was on all their minds. Nobody was rushing to Jabba’s aid.

Palpatine nudged gently for a reaction. “A suitable job for Jedi. Nothing can be hidden from you for long, after all.”
Except me, of course
. Even now, after all these years of delicately careful planning, he had moments when the ease with which he moved undetected among them as a Sith Lord made him pause and marvel.
You don’t deserve to be the guardians of the galaxy, do you?
“Come along, Master Windu, what’s the problem?”

Windu leaned back in his seat. “It’ll be a sorry day for the Republic when we divert resources to helping criminal scum.”

“Harsh words, my friend. But I’m sure he speaks highly of you, too …”

“Chancellor, Jabba probably knows who’s done this—no doubt some other gangster he’s crossed.” Windu’s tone wasn’t exactly serene. “He’s never shied from kidnapping as a tactic himself. Why would he ask
us?
And why should we divert Jedi to a basic police task when there’s a war to fight?”

“Because it’s
right
, Master Windu.” Palpatine had no real need to leap to the moral high ground, but it amused him to do it and labor the point.
Such blind spots, Jedi. This is how I shall remember you when you’re long gone—unable to see what was right before your eyes, from me to your own duty
. “A child is
missing
. If it were a human child, would we be having this conversation? Does the parent’s
lifestyle
have any bearing on the child’s plight? Or do Hutt parents not feel the same grief that we do?”

“Would we be having this conversation,” Windu said, not rising to the bait, “if the human child’s father was the head of Black Sun?”

“We would, if he could deliver
this
.” Palpatine sat down and activated a holochart. It hovered above his desk, a complex web of lines and clusters of light representing the major points of the known galaxy. He tapped the control to remove layers of detail, and entire star systems and planets winked out of existence—so easily done, so very
easy
—to leave a few snaking threads of colored light that ended in the Outer Rim. “A hologram, as they say, is worth a thousand words.”

The threads were hyperspace routes. And they were all controlled by the Hutts.

Windu looked like a granite monument to disapproval. Eventually, he tilted his head slightly to one side. “I still feel uneasy. There’ll be more to this than a simple ransom demand or a settling of scores. I sense it.”

Palpatine allowed himself a sad smile, with just the right blend of I-share-your-concern and you-know-I’m-right. “You might not like doing deals with the Hutt, Master Windu, but these are trying times, and we can’t be too exacting in our qualification requirements for allies. As long as they help more than they hinder, that has to be good enough for us. This Hutt has control of the hyperspace access we need to move troops and matériel to the Outer Rim, and we have the expertise to find the unfindable. Mutual advantage.”

“I still say there’s more going on here than a simple kidnapping. It’s a sting of some kind, knowing Jabba.”

“I didn’t realize you were that well acquainted.”

“Based on his track record …”

“Then you need to put as many Jedi on this case as you can … based on his track record.”

“Chancellor, that’s impossible. We’re at overstretch. I have no Jedi to spare.”

“And our
troops
will be spread even more thinly if we can’t reach the Outer Rim and keep a resupply chain functioning.”

“I’m inclined to agree with the Chancellor,” said Unduli. She’d been totally silent until then. “Regardless of the reasons for this kidnapping, we
have
to negotiate with Jabba, and this would give us an excellent bargaining position.”

“A win-win, as you might call it,” Palpatine said quietly, in almost a whisper. “Save a child, and save our army.”

Windu was silent again for a few moments, then spread his hands in reluctant concession. “Kenobi and Skywalker have just taken Christophsis. The planet’s largely secured, so if anyone can be redeployed, it’s them.”

“Very well, send them,” said Palpatine. “I’ll contact Lord Jabba and reassure him.”

The Jedi stood and bowed their heads politely, almost synchronized. Palpatine returned the nod and watched them file out of his office. In a few moments, he’d open a comlink to Jabba and set the wheels in motion.

Lord Jabba, you have our sympathies. You must be beside yourself with worry
.

Windu had a point, even if he didn’t know it. Why
would
Jabba expose his weakness like that so conveniently? Dooku would have to exercise appropriate caution.

We’ll put our best people on it, Lord Jabba …

Jabba’s plea saved time in the plan to take one more potential ally away from the Jedi, once they were suitably incriminated, of course. In the longer run, it was also one of the finely balanced thrusts and counterthrusts that would keep the war in an uneasy balance until everything was in position, until the Jedi were in just the right state of vulnerability, and Palpatine could choose to end the war—and with it the Jedi Order itself.

Fascinating, how they didn’t jump into action when they heard the child is missing. He really is: Dooku’s made sure of it. Jabba might be corrupt, but the child … he’s still an innocent
. Fascinating … 
how the social acceptability of the parent affects the willingness to aid the child
.

They were very selective, these Jedi, about where they focused their legendary compassion.

Palpatine hoped nothing went wrong and that the Huttlet was returned unharmed when he’d served his purpose. Rotta was, after all, another
very
long-term potential ally in his plan.

But if anything happened to the poor thing—ah, here he was, falling into the platitude trap of being a politician, lies repeated so often that they eventually persuaded even the speaker that he meant what he said, and had done no wrong.

There were always innocent casualties of war, but war still had to be fought. And Jabba would be even more firmly in the anti-Republic camp if anything happened to his son.

Fascinating and … yes, still
strange
occasionally to play both sides of this game as if I want each to win
.

Palpatine opened the comlink on his desk. “I want to speak to Lord Jabba,” he said. “This is the Chancellor of the Republic.”

“Steady with the polish, sir,” said the squad sergeant, checking the fluid level on a hemostatic hypospray. “If you shine it up any more, we’ll have to put a camo net over you.”

Clone Captain Rex paused in midsweep, razor held between thumb and forefinger as he shaved his mirror-smooth scalp, and ran his other palm over his head to test for missed stubble. Hair was just
annoying
under a helmet. And regrowth
itched
. Shaving was now both a necessity and a diversion in quieter moments, a comforting ritual.

Rex went on dragging the razor across his head in precise, slightly overlapping strips, one boot resting on his helmet as it lay on the ground. “Use me for signaling. Should be able to see me from orbit.”

“You missed a patch, sir. Going for the tufted look?”

“Maybe a topknot.” Rex allowed himself a smile, then pocketed the razor. “Or a fancy braid like those Weequay pirates.”

It was the first chance he’d had to sit back and take a breather for days, and his head buzzed with fatigue. The armies of Separatist droids here had been reduced to scrap and a few pockets of resistance; Christophsis had finally fallen to the Republic. In the shelter of a colonnaded doorway that was doubling as a first-aid station, he took out his datapad to check the casualty reports coming in, conscious of an injured trooper sitting on an upturned crate while the sergeant—Coric—tended to the man’s shrapnel injury. Plastoid armor was said to be the best credits could buy; Rex staked his life on it. But it had to have joints, gaps, and seals—and they were always vulnerable. The trooper had taken a spray of jagged fragments as razor-sharp and as lethal as fléchettes. Some had penetrated the gap between back plate and shoulder.