Read Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for Free Online Page A

"When they do what?"
    "Disengage and fall back for no reason."
    "There's always a reason, Master."
    Obi-Wan nodded. "That's why I hate it."
    Anakin looked at the litter of smoking droid parts scattered throughout the hangar bay, shrugged, and snugged his black glove. "Artoo, where's the Chancellor?"
    The little droid's datajack rotated in the wall socket. Its holoprojector eye swiveled and the blue scanning laser built a ghostly image near Anakin's boot: Palpatine shackled into a large swivel chair. Even in the tiny translucent blur, he looked exhausted and in pain-but alive.
    Anakin's heart thumped once, painfully, against his ribs. He wasn't too late. Not this time.
    He dropped to one knee and squinted at the image. Palpatine looked as if he'd aged ten years since Anakin had last seen him. Muscle bulged along the young Jedi's jaw. If Grievous had hurt the Chancellor-had so much as touched him-The hand of jointed durasteel inside his black glove clenched so hard that electronic feedback made his shoulder ache.
    Obi-Wan spoke from over that shoulder. "Do you have a location?"
    The image rippled and twisted into a schematic map of the cruiser. Far up at the top of the conning spire R2 showed a pulsar of brighter blue.
    "In the General's Quarters." Obi-Wan scowled. "Any sign of Grievous himself?"
    The pulsar shifted to the cruiser's bridge.
    "Hmm. And guards?"
    The holoimage rippled again, and transformed into an image of the cruiser's General's Quarters once more. Palpatine appeared to be alone: the chair sat in the center of an arc of empty floor, facing a huge curved viewing wall.
    Anakin muttered, "That doesn't make sense.''''
    "Of course it does. It's a trap."
    Anakin barely heard him. He stared down at his black-gloved fist. He opened his fist, closed it, opened it again. The ache from his shoulder flowed down to the middle of his bicep-And didn't stop.
    His elbow sizzled, and his forearm; his wrist had been packed with red-hot gravel, and his hand-His hand was on fire.
    But it wasn't his hand. Or his wrist, or his forearm, or his elbow. It was a creation of jointed durasteel and electrodrivers. "Anakin?"
    Anakin's lips drew back from his teeth. "It hurts."
    "What, your replacement arm? When did you have it equipped with pain sensors?"
    "I didn't. That's the point."
    "The pain is in your mind, Anakin-"
    "No." Anakin's heart froze over. His voice went cold as space. "I can feel him."
    "Him?"
    "Dooku. He's here. Here on this ship."
    "Ah." Obi-Wan nodded. "I'm sure he is."
    "You knew?"
    "I guessed. Do you think Grievous couldn't have found Palpatine's beacon? It can hardly be accident that through all the ECM, the Chancellor's homing signal was in the clear. This is a trap. A Jedi trap." Obi-Wan laid a warm hand upon Anakin's shoulder, and his face was as grim as Anakin had ever seen it. "Possibly a trap set for us. Personally."
    Anakin's jaw tightened. "You're thinking of how he tried to recruit you on Geonosis. Before he sent you down for execution."
    "It's not impossible that we will again face that choice."
    "It's not a choice." Anakin rose. His durasteel hand clenched and stayed that way, a centimeter from his lightsaber. "Let him ask. My answer is right here on my belt."
    "Be mindful, Anakin. The Chancellor's safety is our only priority."
    "Yes-yes, of course." The ice in Anakin's chest thawed. "All right, it's a trap. Next move?"
    Obi-Wan allowed himself a bit of a smile of his own as he headed for the nearest exit from the hangar bay. "Same as always, my young friend: we spring it."
    "I can work with this plan." Anakin turned to his astromech.
    "You stay here, Artoo-"
    The little droid interrupted him with a wheedling whirr.
    "No arguments. Stay. I mean it."
    R2-D2's whistling reply had a distinctly sulky tone.
    "Listen, Artoo, someone has to maintain computer contact; do you see a datajack anywhere on me?"
    The droid seemed to acquiesce, but not before wheeping what sounded like it might have been a suggestion where