Clone Wars Gambit: Siege by Karen Miller Page A

you, Devi,” said Anakin, smiling. “You’ve been a great help.”
    She shrugged, feigning indifference. “There’ll be no one in the charter house this early, mind. You’ll have to wait for Teeba Brandeh to start her day and let you in.”
    “We don’t mind,” said Anakin. “Being new here, we can look around until she comes. You have a fine village in Torbel.”
    “We do,” said Devi, dimpling. “Thinking to make it your home, are you?”
    “You’ve guessed it,” said Obi-Wan. “If it turns out we suit each other. Devi, thank you. Please don’t let us make you late to the plant.”
    “We’ll see you again soon, I hope,” Anakin added, with all his charm.
    “You will,” she said, and with a jaunty wave and a delighted little smile of her own left them beside the open square.
    “Come on,” said Obi-Wan, ignoring Anakin’s grin. “We don’t have all day.”
    The charter house’s once ornate but now shabby double doors were locked. Peering inside through one of the two front windows, Anakin nodded.
    “The comm hub’s there. We need to get inside.”
    “Well, then, what are you wai—”
    Footsteps warned them that more villagers were approaching. In perfect unison they blurred themselves within the Force.
    “Right,” said Anakin, once it was safe to speak. “One break and enter, coming up.”
    Watching Anakin manipulate the doors’ tumble locks, Obi-Wan smothered a smile. Sometimes he thought his former apprentice would never outgrow his childish delight at playing with the Force. Using it to juggle fruit, pluck a comrade’s lightsaber from her belt, float his precious little astromech droid upside down around a hangar bay—or, in this case, unlock a door. Hardly the proper use of Jedi powers, but he’d long since given up protesting. Anakin would have his fun, regardless… and besides, in these trying times it felt churlish to deny him a fleeting moment of levity.
    The locked doors yielded, they slipped inside and found a modest room with a table and chairs ranged around it, shelves stacked with folders of flimsies, and more faded flimsies pinned to a notice board on the right-hand wall. The comm equipment, ranged against the back wall, appeared ominously old-fashioned.
    Anakin scowled. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
    “Now who’s the pessimist?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Come on. Let’s take a closer look.”
    “It’s no good,” Anakin said at last, frustrated. “This thing’s useless. Junk. No way does it have enough juice to punch a signal straight through to Coruscant. I’d say it practically fries its innards trying to reach the city.” His fist struck the wall. “
Stang.
”
    Arms folded, Obi-Wan sighed. “Now, now, Anakin, let’s not admit defeat quite so quickly. Surely we can do what we did before, and piggyback our signal onto an outgoing Separatist comm. I realize it won’t be easy given our distance from Lantibba, but it is doable.”
    Anakin thought about it, then shook his head. “Even if we managed to find the right signal to piggyback, I don’t think this antique’s got the power to maintain the connection all the way home. And if I boost its output I’ll probably blow the hub. Besides, I don’t fancy pulling my lightsaber apart. Not when it’s the only weapon I’ve got.”
    Obi-Wan tugged at his beard. “Do we know for certain that hooking a diatium power cell into the hub will burn out the equipment?”
    “Obi-Wan, come on,” Anakin retorted. “
Look
at it. This hub gives antiques a bad name. There’s a better-than-even chance it won’t survive a diatium boost. Are you willing to risk it?”
    No, he wasn’t willing. Not only because they might need the comm hub later on, but because the loss of such vital equipment on the heels of two strangers appearing on their doorstep would inevitably raise the villagers’ suspicions.
    “We’ll have to stow ourselves on board the damotite convoy,” he said, not at all pleased by the