Clone Wars Gambit: Siege

Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller Read Free Book Online
Authors: Karen Miller
Tags: Fiction, Star Wars, SciFi, Galactic Republic Era, Clone Wars
me
.
    But he wasn’t about to let guilt cripple him. There was way too much at stake for that. “We can point fingers later, Master Yoda. Right now we’ve got another crisis to avert. If Obi-Wan and Anakin are in trouble—”
    “Hmmph,” said Yoda, and kept on pacing. “
If?
A Jedi you need not be, Senator, to know that trouble Obi-Wan Kenobi and young Skywalker have likely found.”
    Clasping his hands behind his back, Bail braced his shoulders. “In that case, Master Yoda, what do you intend to do about it?”
    Yoda stopped his slow pacing. Planting his gimer stick before him, both hands braced, he pulled his chin to his chest. “Nothing.”
    “Nothing?” Even though he’d been half expecting the answer, still it shocked him. “Master Yoda, we can’t abandon them. Forget the fact that we have a personal stake in what happens—for all we know Obi-Wan and Anakin hold the key to defeating Durd and his bioweapon. We
can’t—

    Another emphatic rap of the gimer stick. “We can and we must, Senator. No clue is there to what is happening on Lanteeb. Rush to help them we could, yes, and make things worse. Patient we must be. Trust in Obi-Wan and his former Padawan we must have.”
    Trust wasn’t the issue. This was a matter of honor and obligation.
I got them mixed up in this. I can’t leave them twisting alone
. “But—Master Yoda—”
    “Senator Organa—” Abruptly, Yoda’s severe expression eased. “For your friend fearful you are. Understand that I do. But a survivor Obi-Wan Kenobi is. Know that better than anyone
you
do. The Force is with him. Your own battles now you should fight. Enemies our Republic has both inside and out. The Senate your arena is. The Jedi you must leave to me.”
    He could argue, of course, but there’d be little point. In this place Yoda was the supreme authority. And to rail at him for being a Jedi would only threaten their new and in many ways tentative partnership.
    “Of course, Master Yoda,” he said, bowing. “But if the time comes when I can be of assistance—”
    “Call upon you I shall, Senator Organa,” said Yoda. “Doubt that do not. A loyal friend to the Jedi you are.”
    And as a friend he had to admit his own part in their current dilemma. “I’m very sorry, Master Yoda, that my actions have once again put Obi-Wan in harm’s way. And that this time Anakin’s at risk, too.”
    Sighing, his gaze downcast, Yoda traced a small circle on the floor with the tip of his gimer stick. “No. Done that the war has, Senator. If not trouble on Lanteeb then trouble elsewhere would they have found. In these dark times finding trouble every Jedi is.” He looked up. “Your scientist friend. Doctor Netzl. Progress has he made in defeating Lok Durd’s weapon?”
    Bail hesitated, then shook his head. “Not yet. But he’s committed to finding an answer.”
    “And believe, does he, that an answer can be found?”
    I really don’t want to answer that
. But he had to. “Master Yoda, he’s hopeful.”
    “Hmmm.” Turning, Yoda again stared out across never-sleeping Coruscant. “Hope we must all have. But win a war hope will not. Save lives hope will not. Defeat the Sith hope will not.”
    He’d never imagined he’d hear Yoda sounding discouraged. “The Jedi defeated the Sith once. You can do it again.”
    “But defeat them we did not, Senator,” Yoda retorted. “Only into hiding did we drive them.”
    “And you’ll drive them out again. Out of hiding and to their destruction. They can’t prevail, Master Yoda. Two Sith against so many Jedi? It’s just not possible.”
    “Yes. Yes,” said Yoda. He sounded so weary. “Hope that we must.”
    Tendrils of fog were creeping through the city’s forest of buildings. Illuminated holo-billboards and beacons and the headlights of passing speeders and other vehicles glowed luminous and strange, rainbow colors muting and smearing. Fog turned Coruscant from brash and beautiful to mysterious.
    It’s a wonder it

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