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The second droid did not look at her. It kept up its withering fire against her father and Jag. But its torso swiveled toward Jaina, and a hatch opened. Jaina could see two parallel series of micro-rocket warheads displayed there. She switched off her lightsaber, and hoped she could dodge the first rocket to give her time to reactivate her weapon.

Then the surviving YVH droid flew backward, away from her. In her peripheral vision, Jaina could see her mother gesturing, a shove, a focus for the Force technique she’d just employed, a telekinetic push. As the droid flew toward the hole by which it had entered the room, blasterfire from her father, Jag, and the security agents converged on the open hatch.

The droid hurtled back into its original chamber and exploded, torn apart by the simultaneous detonation of its entire load of micro-rockets. Leia and Jaina threw arms across their eyes, turned away from the explosion. Han and Jag dropped below the lip of what remained of the table.

And then there was silence.

Comparative silence. As Jaina’s hearing began to return, she could hear alarms, cries of dismay from out in the hallway, a colorful and multilingual series of curses from her father.

Leia deactivated her lightsaber and rushed over to Allana, who lay, wide-eyed but unhurt, where Jaina had left her. Jag rose, his blaster covering the holes through which the intruder and droids had entered. Suddenly he was surrounded in three-point formation by his surviving security agents. More security agents burst through the door; in that first instant, they and Han nearly traded fire before they recognized each other as friendlies. C-3PO was waddling back and forth, hands up in the air. R2-D2, carbon scoring from a blaster bolt now marking his cylindrical body, stayed where he was, dome head turning, assessing data.

Jaina saw her father go to her mother’s side, then lean close to whisper into her ear. Thinking it might be important to know what they were saying, she used the Force to augment her hearing.

“Now we know why Daala was stalling,” Han said. He reached down and scooped Allana in his arms. “And it really burns my jets.”

Treen and Lecersen watched the entire event unfold on three monitors. One showed the holocam feed from Tolann’s goggles; acting as a distorted wide-screen holocam, they continued to record portions of the assassination attempt even after Tolann died and fell. The other two showed the feeds from the YVH droids’ optics until each was destroyed in turn.

When the second YVH feed cut out and went to static, the chief comm officer announced, “Five seconds.”

Lecersen turned to Treen. “You see the difficulty in terminating Fel when his Jedi girlfriend and other Jedi are present.”

She nodded. “I do. So you count this attempt as a failure.”

“No, a success at the expected level.” He pressed a button on the arm of his chair. “Let’s move out.”

A watery voice from an overhead speaker answered: “Yes, sir.” The passengers shifted all but invisibly as the disguised speeder began to move.

Lecersen gestured at the Tolann feed. An Imperial security agent was now shown in exaggerated and distorted detail as he bent over Tolann’s body and, curious, reached for the goggles. “This feed is going to fall into the hands of news broadcasters. Head of State Attacked; Saved by Jedi. Head of State Dines with GA–Jedi Negotiators. Head of State Dines with Longtime Enemies of the Galactic Empire. Head of State Says a Very Bad Word. Head of State Endangers Little Girl.” Lecersen shrugged. “The story will be spun a dozen different ways for a dozen different audiences, and each one will come away with a poorer impression of Jagged Fel. As with the campaign against Daala, we build it in layers, over time.”

“Of course.”

“Anyway, the investigation will link our would-be assassin to like-minded reactionary traditionalists,” Lecersen continued. “But that isn’t going to fool the Jedi. They’re going to see through the