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A final turn to the north brought the two gunships to the mouth of a narrow urban ravine, where they hovered for the moment it took to lower the particle shield that safeguarded the shelters, tactical and communications centers, landing platforms, and the network of tunnels that linked them. The complex could be reached by alternative means—under normal circumstances, Palpatine would have been conveyed by repulsorlift speeder through deep tunnels that arrived from 500 Republica, the Great Rotunda, and the Senate Office Building—but the ravine was the best way of entering from anywhere west of the Senate or Financial Districts.

Shaak Ti didn’t allow herself to relax until the gunships had been cleared through the shimmering screen and had been issued approach vectors for landing.

Her relieved exhale seemed to go on and on.

The escort gunship shot ahead and was already on the pad when Shaak Ti and the rest arrived moments later. The craft bearing the Supreme Chancellor had scarcely touched down when the side doors flew out and back, and the Red Guards hurried Palpatine off to a waiting speeder. The commandos leapt out to reinforce the bunker’s contingent of troopers.

Shaak Ti instructed the four Jedi Knights to accompany the Red Guards, promising to join them after she and Stass Allie had apprised the Temple of their safe arrival.

The two Jedi women watched the speeder race off into the broad tunnel that accessed the bunker, then swung themselves down to the landing pad. Allie grabbed her comlink and depressed the SEND button. After several failed attempts to reach the Temple, she glanced at Shaak Ti.

“Too much interference. Let’s move away from the ship.”

It was the interference that saved them from the explosion that mangled and consumed the gunship. As it was, the blast set their robes on fire and hurled them ten meters through the air. Retaining consciousness, Shaak Ti used the momentum to propel herself through a tucked roll that carried her almost to the edge of the landing platform. Stass Allie lay facedown nearby. The missile that had destroyed the gunship had been launched by the craft that had preceded them into the ravine. That same craft’s several cannons were firing now, laying waste to other vessels and making short work of the troopers.

Shaak Ti saw several soldiers jump from the gunship’s doors and move with astounding speed into the mouth of the access tunnel. She raised herself to one knee, then sprinted to Stass Allie’s side to put out the flames that had engulfed her cloak.

Allie stirred and raised herself on the palms of her hands.

“Stay down,” Shaak Ti warned.

As the gunship was lifting off—no doubt to gain a better vantage on the landing platform—additional troopers appeared from somewhere below the landing pad. Rocket-propelled grenades swarmed after the rising craft, several of them infiltrating the vented nacelles of the repulsorlift engines. The ensuing detonation resounded in the ravine and cast fiery hunks of metal in all directions.

Shaak Ti curled her body and tucked her head to her chest. A wave of intense heat washed over her and Allie, and a hail of fragments clanged and clattered down around her.

One of the last pieces to land—not two meters from her face—was the charred head of a battle droid.

Mace and Kit stood in the open doorway of the Republic gunship as it threaded its way among the monads and skyscrapers of the Senate District. Grievous’s gunboat raced ahead, darting left and right as it fired continuously at its pursuer.

Mace backed into the gunship as bolts sizzled past the doorway, nearly catching the underside of the starboard wing. The fact that it had taken so little effort to track and catch up with the Separatist craft gnawed at Mace. Neither he nor Kit could shake the feeling that the gunboat had practically been waiting for them above the squat Senate Building, and had only then attempted to go evasive. And yet it had obviously eluded the original gunship that had