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Vader focused on the weapon. “I see that you’ve abandoned your lightsaber.”

“But not my commitment to justice.” Shryne took a moment to glance down the hallway that led out of the palace. “You know how it is, Vader. Once a good guy, always a good guy. Then again, you probably don’t know anything about that.”

Vader advanced on him. “Don’t be too sure of yourself.”

“We’re just trying to help Zar get home,” Shryne said, retreating into the corridor. “Suppose we leave it at that.”

“The Emperor has his reasons for recalling Zar to Coruscant.”

“And you do whatever the Emperor tells you to do?”

In the intersection now, Vader could discern that Shryne was merely waiting for a chance to bolt through the doors. Well behind Shryne, on the far side of a footbridge that crossed a gentle curve of reflecting pool, one of Shryne’s armed accomplices was holding four Royal Guards at bay while the other was all but dragging Fang Zar toward a gated breach in the palace’s defensive wall, beyond which the conspirators surely had a getaway craft waiting.

Shryne fired a quick burst, then sprinted for the doorway. Behind him, his humanoid accomplices were also in motion, stunning the guards to unconsciousness and racing for the open gate.

Angling his blade, Vader deflected the bolts with intent, but by jinking and jagging Shryne managed to evade each parry. Vader leapt, his powerful prosthetic legs carrying him to the top of a broad but short flight of steps in time to see Shryne sprint across the bridge at Jedi speed, motioning to his accomplices to move Zar through the gate.

Vader leapt again, this time to the bridge, and to within only a few meters of Shryne, who spun about, dropping to one knee and firing repeatedly. This time Vader decided to show Shryne whom he was dealing with. Holding his lightsaber to one side, he raised his right hand to turn the blaster bolts.

Clearly astonished, Shryne remained on one knee, but only briefly. In an instant he had passed through the gate and was shouldering his way through the crowd outside the wall.

Vader’s final leap landed him just short of the rampart. Over the heads of the milling beings, at the forward edge of a landing platform, a woman with gray-laced black hair was gesturing frantically to Shryne and his cohorts, who were already hauling Fang Zar up the platform steps.

All too easy, Vader told himself.

Time to end it.

Bail and his two aides stood by the reception room holoprojector, awaiting some word of Fang Zar’s whereabouts. From the direction of the residence wing came Antilles and the droids.

“Go ahead, Threepio, tell him,” Antilles said when the three of them were within earshot of Bail.

“Master Organa, I hardly know where to begin,” C-3PO said. “You see, sir, my counterpart and I were about to enter the palace grounds—”

“Threepio,” Antilles said sharply. “Save the long story for another occasion.”

R2-D2 communicated something in bleating tones.

C-3PO turned to the astromech. “Verbose? Tiresome? Just you mind your enunciator, you—”

“See-Threepio!” Antilles repeated.

The protocol droid fell silent. “I’m very sorry, sirs. I’m simply unaccustomed to so much excitement.”

“That’s all right, See-Threepio,” Bail said. “Take your time.”

“Thank you, Master Organa. I only wanted to report that the three intruders who held us captive were apparently intent on collecting some sort of ‘bundle’—that was the word they used—at the palace’s east gate.”

“Quickly!” Bail said to his aides.

Aldrete bent to adjust the holoprojector’s controls. An instant later an east gate security cam captured a holoimage of Fang Zar, seized in the grip of two humanoids who were running him toward a landing platform that had been designated for HoloNet personnel.

A second cam found Vader, crimson-bladed lightsaber in hand, fending off blasterfire from a long-haired human male who was also racing for the east gate.

“Sir,” Sheltray Retrac said suddenly.

Following Asta’s worried gaze, Bail saw Sate Pestage striding into the reception room.

“Senator, I have just learned that Senator Zar