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“Belok Rhal would,” Leia said. “Those were no stun bolts.”

“This one agrees,” Saba said, peering over the heads of both Solos at the datapad in Han’s hands. He was holding it out for others to view, but being careful to keep the screen high enough to prevent Allana from seeing the violence. “If Rhal will kill on the stepz of the Jedi Temple, he will kill anywhere.”

The grainy image zoomed in on a Devaronian journalist lying motionless in a narrow stone stairwell, then focused on a pair of smoking scorch holes that left no doubt about the nature of the bolts that had struck her chest. Saba noted the corpse’s absolute stillness and the awkward angle of its limbs, and she knew that Madhi Vaandt had been dead before the holosignal reached Coruscant.

A tinny clatter sounded from the datapad’s speaker—a section of stone wall collapsing off camera—and it was followed an instant later by the screech and drone of a blaster-on-lightsaber battle. The cam operator lingered on the smoke rising from Vaandt’s body long enough to establish firmly that she had been killed, then zoomed out to show two Jedi Knights—a powerful-looking Chev named Sothais Saar and a slender, dark-haired human named Avinoam Arelis—fighting their way into the bottom of the stairwell.

For a moment the pair stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their bright blades weaving a basket of color as they batted blaster bolts back at their Mandalorian attackers. Then, moving so smoothly and swiftly that Saba almost missed it on the grainy transmission, they executed a perfect shield manuever, with Sothais stepping forward to protect both of them while Avinoam remained motionless, a little behind him and to one side. Dropping his lightsaber to his side, Avinoam raised his free hand and started to wag it gently. Armored Mandalorians suddenly began to fly back and forth, crashing into the stone walls and dropping to the stairs in flailing heaps of beskar’gam armor, spraying stray blasterfire everywhere.

The blurry image of Belok Rhal appeared at one edge of the tiny screen, pointing a blaster toward the cam and shouting orders that were not quite audible over the din of the battle behind him.

“Stang!” There was more alarm in Han’s voice than anger, and Saba understood him well enough to realize that he was worried about the cam operator’s safety. “I think we’re about to lose our feed.”

But even as Han spoke, another figure was moving into the frame, blocking Rhal’s firing angle.

“This is Madhi Vaandt’s production assistant, Shohta, reporting live from a droid-repair shop in Arari on the planet Blaudu Sextus.” As Shohta spoke, he turned to present his profile to the cam, revealing the heavy-boned face of a middle-aged Chev. “As you know if you have been watching our live report …”

A flurry of wildly inaccurate blaster bolts came flying over Shohta and bounced out of sight. He cringed and ducked, but continued to speak.

“As you know,” he repeated, “the mercenary commander Belok Rhal has killed Madhi in an attempt to prevent us from reporting the Mandalorian massacre of Octusi slaves taking place right now a few dozen meters beyond that wall. But Madhi Vaandt would not be silenced, and neither will we.”

Shohta frowned in the direction of his cam operator, then nodded. He stepped out of the image to reveal Rhal, retreating up the stairs toward the cam and pouring fire down toward Sothais Saar. Saar was advancing calmly, his lightsaber blade barely moving as he deflected bolt after bolt into the stairwell walls. Behind the Chev Jedi Knight, Avinoam Arelis was disarming the half a dozen Mandalorian survivors he had already beaten into submission by Force-slamming them into the walls and one another.

“During our short time together,” Shohta said from off cam, “one of the things that Madhi repeated to me many times is that it is a journalist’s duty to report the story, not to interfere with it. I hope that, just this once, you will forgive me for disobeying her.”

As Shohta spoke, a huge boot appeared in the image, then planted itself square in Rhal’s back and sent him tumbling