"Well, I don't like being bossed around," Anakin muttered.
Tru gave him a sidelong look. "This isn't a game of sabaac, Anakin. No one is keeping score. We're all just trying to do the right thing."
"I don't like the way he operates, that's all," Anakin said.
Tru shook his head. "You're doing the same thing he's doing, Anakin. You're thinking ahead. You're coming up with ideas. You two are the most experienced Padawans on the mission. It's natural. I like Ferus. You would, too, if you gave him a chance. He has plenty of friends for a reason."
"Ferus doesn't have friends. He has followers" Anakin said. He didn't like the way the conversation was going, so he began to study the console. "This is pretty standard."
Tru bent over some large-scale holofiles. "I found the blueprint of the system," he said. "We should be able to pinpoint the problem. Fixing it is another matter."
"Let me try the rangefinders first," Anakin said. He bent over the tech console, his fingers flying. He was lucky that he had excelled in his tech classes. He hadn't been content to merely learn what the Masters had wanted him to. He had haunted the tech rooms at the Temple, eager to find out how everything worked.
Anakin tried sending a series of messages, then backtracked through the system, attempting to locate the precise problem.
Puzzled, Anakin frowned.
"I know, I don't get it, either," Tru said, jumping into the middle of a conversation they weren't having, as he usually did. "It doesn't make sense. If the toxin had created a disturbance in the atmosphere, the sensors should be recording the activity."
"Everything checks out on the planet itself," Anakin said, clicking a few more keys. "The system should be working."
"Only it isn't," Tru said. "You've got to trust reality over a sensor. No matter how much it hurts."
"Sensors don't lie unless they're broken," Anakin said.
"And these aren't." Suddenly, he looked up and met Tru's silvery gaze.
"No," Tru said.
"Yes," Anakin said. "What else can it be? The comm system isn't being jammed in the planetary atmosphere. It's being jammed from space."
Tru whistled under his breath. "Which means someone, somewhere, wants to cut the planet off. And that can only mean one thing."
"Invasion," they said together.
Chapter Thirteen
Curi sat in the office, a plate of untouched food pushed away from her and a datapad in front of her. She rested her head against her hand, and, behind her mask, her eyes were closed.
Obi-Wan and Siri paused. If Curi was resting at last, they didn't want to disturb her.
Without opening her eyes, she spoke. "We can't find it.
Whatever makes Wilk immune to the toxin, we might never know. We've checked out everything."
"I'm sorry," Siri said.
Curi opened her eyes. She started to scratch her head, then remembered she was in her bio-iso suit. She grimaced.
"There's something else. We used our lab facilities to run the tests. While we waited for results, I looked up everything on the toxin. I'd already done that when this first happened, but things were moving so fast… I didn't have time to look closely. There are gaps in the research."
"What do you mean?" Obi-Wan asked. "Gaps in the way it was conducted?"
"No," Curi said. "Gaps in the records. There are files missing."
"So it's possible that — " Siri began.
"That the accident wasn't an accident," Curi finished.
They left Curi, who was about to return to her lab to investigate further. Obi-Wan looked at Siri.
"The ferry ships should have landed by now."
She nodded. "Let's go."
The Avoni fleet had landed on the outskirts of the Isolation Sector. Obi-Wan and Siri took Curi's airspeeder, which she'd made available for their use. They stopped the speeder a few hundred meters away from the ferry ships, hiding it behind a rocky outcropping.
The wind was strong here, driving the dust against their clothes. The bio-iso suits protected their eyes and skin from the peppery blasts.
The gleaming black ships had landed in formation. A few Avoni workers dressed in bio-iso suits were ferrying skiffs out the cargo loading doors.
"No doubt they're going to use the skiffs to ferry the Radnorans from Aubendo to the fleet," Obi-Wan murmured.
"There must be another ship on the other side of the energy gate for Tacto."
"Then why off-load them now?" Siri asked. "And why are they full of durasteel crates?"
"Good question," Obi-Wan said. "Let's get closer."
They moved from rock to rock, trying to get close enough to see what was inside the skiffs. As they lingered in the shadow of a ship's wing, the passenger ramp suddenly lowered. An Avoni officer strode down.
"Progress report!" he called out to the workers.
The worker quickly approached him with a datapad. Obi-Wan glanced at Siri, and after a wordless communication they both dashed up the passenger ramp.
The ship hallway was deserted. Quickly they made their way down it. Now they were in the cargo hold of the ship. There were no ground craft here. No guards or officers.
Obi-Wan accessed a door, keeping himself well out of sight as it slid open. He peered into the doorway. He found himself looking inside a large cargo bay. It was filled with Battle Droids that were ominously familiar.
"These are the Prototype Droids we fought in the Clear Sector," Siri said. "How did the Avoni get them?"
They stepped through the doorway. At that instant, a detector light turned red.
"Mistake," Obi-Wan muttered. "I think we just tripped a silent sensor."
Suddenly an alarm sounded. "Intruder," a pleasant voice announced. "Intruder."
"Not so silent," Siri said grimly. "Let's get out of here while we can."
But even as they turned, the first line of attack droids snapped to life. Behind them, the next line flipped into position. And blaster fire erupted around the Jedi.
Chapter Fourteen
Obi-Wan and Siri knew that they were no match for this many droids. And at any moment, Avoni troops could appear.
Blaster fire pinged around them. Behind them, the door began to slide shut.
Obi-Wan and Siri deflected blaster fire as they moved backward. The frequency of the fire was astonishing. The air filled with smoke. In their bio-iso suits, the Jedi could not move with their customary grace. Obi-Wan felt blaster fire uncomfortably close to his shoulder.
"Obi-Wan!" Siri called.
The doors were closing, and they were too far to make it.
Obi-Wan stepped forward and, with one smooth motion, sliced a droid in half. He took the severed trunk of the body and tossed it back just in time to land between the closing door and the wall. With a grating noise, the door closed on the droid. The metal began to compress with a terrible groaning sound as the door struggled to shut. The gap was just wide enough for Siri to fit through. Even as she squeezed past, the door was closing. Obi-Wan's lightsaber danced, a blade of light that deflected the ongoing blaster fire of the droids. He squeezed through the opening after Siri. A Prototype Droid tried to follow and smashed into the door. Obi-Wan tumbled into the hallway as another droid fired between the gap. Blaster fire zinged past their ears. The droid tried to barrel its way through the remains of the first droid and the closing door.