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“Well, nothing Thul does would surprise me at this point, and Dorvan’s feeding his half of the sandwich to his chitlik.” Indeed, the cam, with the nanosecond memory that the holojournalists appeared to have had these days, had gone from the grisly sight of a corpse to a close-up of a small, adorable animal sitting in Dorvan’s lap, holding a piece of bread crust in its forepaws as it ate.

Han snorted in disgust, but Leia suddenly froze. Han eyed her. “What is it? What did you just figure out?”

She turned to him, smiling slowly. “How we can help the Jedi.”

Seha Dorvald was exhausted, filthy, and hungry. She and her Master, Octa Ramis, each with six apprentices, had been exploring as many sealed-off, built-over, or otherwise inaccessible egresses from the Temple as they could for the last seven hours. Some of the apprentices were small enough to wriggle down shafts that were impassable for adults. Thus far, however, there had been nothing large enough for even the smallest ones to scramble through.

The good news, if there was good news, was that none of these secret … airholes, Seha supposed was the most accurate way to describe them, had attracted the notice of the Mandalorians. That was something. And initial signs indicated that some of them could possibly be enlarged.

She was crawling through a narrow passageway to report back to Master Ramis. A glow rod was tied around her neck, offering at least some light. The tunnel was covered on all four sides with ancient tile slicked with mold. Some of the tiles were broken, and the smell of moist soil and rotting things assaulted her nostrils. Seha moved forward slowly, her gaze two meters ahead. She was tired, and damp and chilled, and as she was returning rather than venturing forth, she wasn’t paying close attention. Her hand came down on something soft that squelched beneath it. A fetid stench assaulted her and she had to struggle not to vomit. It was some sort of vermin, she didn’t really want to know what. She shoved the decaying corpse aside, wiped her hand on the tiles, and continued on.

Her comlink chirped. She made a slight face of irritation and halted, turning awkwardly on her side to bring it out.

“Seha here.”

“Seha … have you noticed anything … unusual?” It was her Master.

“Um, no, Master, not really. I gave you all the information I gathered on the way out. I don’t know how old this tunnel is, but it hits a dead end.” She was confused by the question.

“Well … make haste, child. There’s something here you need to see.”

Exhausted as she was, Seha felt curiosity stir, and she picked up the crawling pace. Within fifteen minutes, the ancient tile lining the sides of the tunnel gave way to some kind of metal, and then she saw a glimmer of light ahead. A few minutes later, she dropped down from the shaft into a supply room, where Octa was waiting.

“Okay, so what’s so …”

Her voice trailed off. Octa Ramis stood beside a set of shelves that were loaded with small boxes of various sizes. Seha didn’t know what they contained, and right now she didn’t care. Because at Octa Ramis’s feet were no fewer than three rodents. They were in no way cute or appealing; these were vermin, plain and simple. But they sat on their haunches as if they were trained, and there was something tied to each of their backs.

“What …?”

“There are more. Lots more. They’ve come in through every aperture wide enough to permit them passage,” Octa said. She was grinning. “We didn’t understand what was going on at first, and some of them were frightened away or killed. We thought we’d disturbed some kind of huge, secret nest. But then Master Horn noticed this.”

She reached and picked up one of the filthy things and held it out to Seha. The animal remained quiet and calm.

Bound to its back was a small vial of liquid.

“The medication Cilghal was running out of,” Seha said quietly. “The sedatives to keep the sick Jedi from harming themselves.” Suddenly, the little animals didn’t look like disgusting, filthy vermin at all. Suddenly, they looked like the most beautiful, most wonderful