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“Fifty, General.”

Grievous nodded. “That should suffice.” He glanced at the viewport a final time, then turned his gaze on the Neimoidian bridge crew. “Carry on. Consider every Republic vessel a target of opportunity.”

“I’m sorry, Master, but the beacon still isn’t transmitting.”

Yoda continued to pace the floor of the Temple’s computer room, then stopped and pointed the business end of his gimer stick at the Jedi seated at the beacon’s control console.

“Nothing for which to be sorry,” he said in reprimand. “The Separatists’ fault this is. Jamming transmissions from this sector of Coruscant, Grievous is.”

The Jedi—a brown-haired human female named Lari Oll—lifted her hands from the console and shook her head in confusion. “How could Grievous—”

“Dooku,” Yoda cut her off. “Shares our secrets with his confederates, he does.”

“If one of our starfighters could get past the Separatist blockade, there might be a way of relaying a message through the HoloNet.”

Yoda nodded. “Already considered that, Master Tiin has. Attempt to recall Jedi from Belderone, Tythe, and other worlds, he will.”

“Can they get back here in time?”

“Hmph. On Grievous’s objective, that depends. Leave Coruscant soon and only slightly bruised, he might. Wait, we must, until he reveals his plan.” Yoda paused to consider his own words, then leaned his weight on the gimer stick and looked hard at Lari Oll. “Enabled the comm is?”

“Intermittently, Master Yoda.”

He nodded his chin to the communications console. “Call Master Windu.”

Moments later, Windu’s voice issued indistinctly from the console’s annunciators.

“… Fisto and I … Senate building. Shaak … Allie … to the Chancellor’s quarters in Five Hundred Republica. We … with them—”

“Raised, the defense shields are. Among one another, districts are unable to communicate.” Yoda grimaced, then nodded once more. “Master Ti, try.”

Lari Oll tried several frequencies before giving up. “I’m sor—” She caught herself. “No response.”

Yoda paced away from the console, deliberately turning his back to the glut of devices, screens, data displays, in a kind of countermeasure.

Shutting his eyes to distance himself farther, he stretched out with his feelings, placing in his mind’s eye Mace and Kit Fisto skimming through the deranged sky; Shaak Ti and Allie Stass hurrying toward Palpatine’s quarters in 500 Republica; Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, Bultar Swan, and other Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights streaking from Coruscant’s envelope in their starfighters, local space flashing with energy bolts and globular explosions, ships too numerous to count embroiled in a monumental battle …

Grievous was loosing his war machines against both military and civilian targets, firing at anything and everything that wandered into his sights, commanding his droid fighters to dash themselves against Coruscant’s defensive umbrellas or race down through traffic lanes, initiating chain reactions of collisions.

And yet, for all the diversion, disruption, and terror those stratagems incited, they had little to do with the real battle.

As was true of the war itself, the real battle was being fought in the Force.

Yoda stretched out farther, immersing himself fully in the Force—only to feel his breath catch in his throat.

Frigid, the current became.

Arctic.

And for the first time he could feel Sidious. Feel him on Coruscant!

Captain Dyne stepped cautiously from the platform that had dropped the team into the unexplored depths of 500 Republica. Here, at an intersection of spooky corridors made of permacrete and surfaced with panels of plasteel, no water dripped, no insects constructed hives, no conduit worms nursed on electrical current. Strangely, however, the air was stirred by a faint and fresh breeze.

Dyne took a breath to steady his nerves. He was trained for combat, but had spent so many of the past few years doing routine Intelligence work that his once sharp reflexes were shot. Commanding the hovering probe droids to go to stasis mode, he deactivated the handheld processor and hooked it on his belt.

Drawing his Merr-Sonn