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Vader nodded. “I already know that, Commander. And I haven’t come halfway across the galaxy to chase them down.” He drew himself erect with a haughty air. “I’ve come to deal with the ones who allowed them to escape.”

Climber immediately stepped forward. “That would be me.”

“And us,” the rest of Ion Team announced in unison.

Vader stared down at the commandos. “You disobeyed a direct order from High Command.”

“The order made no sense at the time,” Climber answered for everyone. “We thought it might be a Separatist trick.”

“What you ‘thought’ has no bearing on this,” Vader said, pointing at Climber. “You are expected to follow orders.”

“And we follow any reasonable ones. Killing our own didn’t qualify.”

Vader continued to point his forefinger at Climber’s chest. “They weren’t your allies, squad leader. They were traitors, and you sided with them.”

Climber stood his ground. “Traitors how? Because a few of them tried to arrest Palpatine? I still don’t see how that warrants a death penalty for the lot of them.”

“I’ll be sure to notify the Emperor of your concerns,” Vader said.

“You do that.”

Shryne closed his mouth and swallowed hard. Jedi had tried to arrest Palpatine. The Republic now had an Emperor!

“Unfortunately,” Vader was saying, “you won’t be alive to learn of his response.”

In one swift motion he drew aside his cloak and pulled a lightsaber from his belt. Igniting with a snap-hiss, the hilt projected a crimson blade.

If Shryne had been confused earlier, he was now overwhelmed.

A Sith blade?

The four commandos fell back, raising their weapons.

“We’ll accept execution for our actions,” Climber said. “But not from some lapdog of the Emperor.”

Quickly Salvo and his officers stepped forward, but Vader only showed them the palm of his hand. “No, Commander. Leave this to me.”

With that he moved on the commandos.

Spreading out, they fired, but not a single bolt made it past Vader’s blade. Deflected bolts went straight through the helmet visors of two of the commandos, and in two furious sweeps Vader opened the pair from shoulder to hip, as if they were flimsy ration containers. Climber and the third commando took advantage of the moment to break for the nearby tree line, firing as they fled. A deflection shot from Vader caught Climber in the left leg, but the bolt didn’t so much as slow him down.

Vader tracked them, then motioned to his cadre of troopers. “I want them alive, Commander Appo.”

“Yes, Lord Vader.”

Appo’s shock troopers raced off in pursuit of the commandos. Not one of Salvo’s officers had fired a weapon, but now all of them were regarding Vader with vigilant uncertainty, their rifles half raised.

“Don’t let my weapon fool you,” Vader told them, as if reading their thoughts. “I am not a Jedi.”

From off to Shryne’s left, a familiar voice shouted. “But I am!”

Bol Chatak had unwound her headcloth, revealing her vestigial horns, and had ignited the lightsaber Shryne thought she’d had sense enough to ditch when they were captured.

Vader whirled, watching Chatak as she began to stalk him, prisoners and troopers alike giving her wide berth.

“So much the better that one of you survived,” he said, waving his lightsaber back and forth in front of him. “The commandos saved your life, and now you hope to save theirs, is that it?”

Chatak held her blue blade at shoulder height. “My only intent is to take you out of the hunt.”

Vader’s angled his blade to point toward the ground. “You won’t be the first Jedi I’ve killed.”

Their blades met with an explosion of light.

Fearing that the prisoners would use the distraction to scatter, Salvo’s men hurried in to form a cordon around them. Pressed in among everyone, Shryne lost sight of Chatak and Vader, but he could tell from the angry clashes of their blades that the duel was fast and furious. Momentarily immobilized, he allowed himself to be swept up in the surge of the crowd, so that he might be raised up over the heads of those in front of him.

For a moment he was.

Just long enough to glimpse Chatak, all grace and speed, working her way