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Ahead of him, ghost-like in the dismal light, the commandos were moving toward the thick door at the end of the hall, keeping close to the walls, with weapons raised. Valiant had the point, with the squad’s explosives expert close behind, a thermal detonator in hand.

Dyne stepped between the powered-down pair of probe droids, TC-16 following in his footsteps.

They hadn’t advanced three meters down the corridor when Dyne’s ears pricked up at the sound of gurgled voices.

He could sense TC-16 come to a sudden halt behind him.

“Why, someone is speaking Geonosian,” the protocol droid started to say.

Whirling, Dyne found himself staring down the wide muzzles of two organic-looking sonic weapons, grasped in the thick-fingered hands of two Geonosian soldier drones, barely visible in the shadows, their wings angled down toward the corridor’s grimy floor.

The next few moments unfurled in silent slow motion.

Dyne understood that it wasn’t his life flashing before his eyes, but his death.

He saw the commandos drop in their tracks, as if blown over by a gale-force wind. He watched Valiant and the explosives expert leave the floor and hurtle headlong into the door. He observed a storm of probe droid parts whirl past him. He felt himself go airborne and crash into the wall, and his insides turn spongy.

It was possible, in that eternal moment of silence, that the troopers had reacted quickly enough to get off a few bolts, because when Dyne looked to his right, along the way he had come, there were no signs of the Geonosians or, for that matter, TC-16.

Then again, for all he knew he had lapsed into unconsciousness for an undetermined amount of time. He was vaguely aware of being slumped against the wall in a position that didn’t come naturally to a human being. It was as if every bone in his body had been made pliant.

Soundlessly, the distant door opened inward, and light flooded into the corridor. The light was either red or tinted so by the blood that was filling his ruptured eyeballs.

Still set on slow motion, the immediate world came in and out of focus. What remained of his vision registered a room filled with blinking equipment, screens filled with scrolling data, a holoprojector table, above which drifted a Trade Federation battleship, halved and in flames. Two machine intelligences emerged from the room, their slender, tubular bodies identifying them as assassin droids. Behind them walked a human of medium height and build, who stepped nonchalantly over Valiant’s grotesquely twisted body.

His liquefying brain notwithstanding, Dyne found a moment to be astonished, because he recognized the man instantly.

Incredible, he thought.

As the Jedi suspected, the Sith had managed to infiltrate the highest levels of the Republic government.

The fact that the man had made no attempt to mask himself assured and comforted Dyne that he was about to die, and shortly after the realization, he did.

Where is the Chancellor?” Shaak Ti demanded of the three Red Guards stationed outside the entrance to Palpatine’s suite in 500 Republica.

Alongside her hurried Stass Allie, one hand on the hilt of her lightsaber. In their adamant wake followed four members of the building’s small army of security personnel, who had escorted the Jedi women from a midlevel skydock to the penthouse level.

Despite having been notified of their arrival, the imposing Red Guards kept their force pikes raised in defensive postures.

“Where?” Stass Allie said, making it clear that she was going to get past them, one way or another.

Shaak Ti had her hand raised to part the doors with a Force wave when the guards lowered their pikes and stepped aside.

One punched a code into a wall panel, and the pair of burnished doors opened.

“This way,” the same guard said, gesturing the Jedi inside.

A broad hallway lined with sculptures and holo-art images led into the suite itself, which, like Palpatine’s chambers in the Senate Office Building, was predominantly red. There was no telling