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Chatak glanced at her Padawan. “That’s what battle droids were created for.”

Starstone gnawed at her lower lip. “What about Master Loorne and the others?”

Shryne made adjustments to his comlink. “Still no response from any of them. And not because of signal jamming.”

Knowing that Chatak was doing the same, he stretched out with the Force, but no reverberations attended his call.

Chatak’s shoulders slumped. “They’ve been killed.”

Starstone sighed and hung her head.

“Draw on your training, Padawan,” Chatak said quickly. “They’re with the Force.”

They’re dead, Shryne thought.

Starstone looked up at him. “Why have they turned on us?”

“Salvo implied that the order came from high up.”

“That can only mean the Office of the Supreme Chancellor,” Chatak said.

Shryne shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Palpatine owes his life to Skywalker and Master Kenobi.”

“Then this has to be a miscommunication,” Starstone chimed in. “For all we know, the Corporate Alliance broke the High Command code and issued counterfeit orders to our company commanders.”

“Right about now that would be a best-case scenario,” Shryne said. “If our comlinks were powerful enough to contact the Temple …”

“But the Temple can contact us,” Starstone said.

“And it might yet,” Chatak said.

“Maybe Passel Argente cut a deal with the Supreme Chancellor to spare Murkhana,” Starstone said.

Shryne glanced at her. “How many more theories are you planning to offer?” he said, more harshly than he meant to.

“I’m sorry, Master.”

“Patience, Padawan,” Chatak said in a comforting voice.

Shryne slipped the comlink back into its pouch. “We need to avoid further engagements with droids or mercenaries. Lightsaber wounds are easy to identify. We don’t want to leave a trail.”

Exiting the building, they resumed their careful climb into the hills.

Everywhere they turned, the streets were crowded with clone troopers, battle droids, and masses of fleeing Koorivar. Before they had gone even a kilometer, Shryne brought them to a halt once more.

“We’re getting nowhere fast. If we ditch our robes, we might have better luck at blending in.”

Chatak regarded him dubiously. “What do you have in mind, Roan?”

“We find a couple of mercenaries and take their robes and headcloths.” He gazed at Chatak and Starstone in turn. “If the troopers can switch sides, then so can we.”

Salvo ended his helmet comlink communication with Murkhana’s theater commanders and joined Climber at what had become the troopers’ forward command base. The other three commandos were searching for the escaped Jedi, but Salvo didn’t want the squad leader out of his sight.

“General Loorne and the two Jedi Knights he arrived with were ambushed and killed,” Salvo shared with Climber. “Apparently no troopers among the Twenty-second staked a claim to the moral high ground.”

Climber let the remark go. “Did you report our actions to High Command?”

Salvo shook his head. “But don’t think I won’t. Like I told you, it depends on whether we’re able to kill them. Just now I don’t want your actions reflecting negatively on my command.”

“Did you learn anything about what prompted the execution order?”

Salvo spent a moment arguing with himself about what he should and should not reveal. “Theater command reports that four Jedi Masters attempted to assassinate Supreme Chancellor Palpatine in his chambers on Coruscant. The reason is unclear, but it appears that the Jedi have been angling from the start to assume control of the Republic, and that the war may have been engineered to help bring that about.”

Climber was stunned. “So Palpatine’s order was put in place because he anticipated that the Jedi might try something?”

“It’s not unusual to have a contingency plan, Climber. You should know that better than anyone.”

Climber thought hard about it. “How does it make you feel, Commander—about what the Jedi did, I mean?”

Salvo took a moment to respond. “As far as I’m concerned, their treachery just adds more enemies to the list. Other than that, I don’t feel one way or another about it.”

Climber studied