From out of nowhere, as if sneaking suddenly between veils of stars, Charza Kwinn's old YT-1150 screamed over the field, guns yelping out quick bolts that shattered the two Starfighters before they could even think about a return run. Their smoking remains slammed into the side of the mountain and started a rumbling avalanche that spilled down over the palace ruins. Boulders tumbled across the field, huge and implacable, worse than any phalanx of warriors.

Obi-Wan raised his blade and swung it over his head as a beacon.

The Star Sea Flower whipped up on end and glided backward like a falling leaf just meters above the smoking, grinding flow of rock and dirt. Its loading ramp dropped like a jaw. Obi-Wan vaulted over the edge of the ramp, and the ship lifted him away just as the last of the landing field was reclaimed by the mountain.

Obi-Wan sloshed through the dank corridors to the pilot's cabin. Food-kin scampered out of his way, snapping with excitement.

"They have your Padawan," Charza Kwinn bristled, bending over backward to peer at the Jedi. "Sit down and buckle up."

Anakin felt as if he had been swallowed alive. He huddled next to his ship, hand on the fuselage, feeling her quiver in the capture harness. Shoulders hunched, he controlled his rapid breathing and tried to come up with a plan, any plan, to regain control over his life.

He could not shake the vision of the dying Blood Carver. Firing lasers at droids was no preparation for his first personal kill, and the way he had done it…

Anakin moaned. The four guards in the bay turned at the sound, shrugged, and looked away. Just a frightened youngster.

Jabitha appeared beside him. Anakin looked up and blinked. Again the image shifted, and Jabitha became Vergere, then the Magister. Anakin stood and sidled up against the nose of his ship. He did not know if he could stand any more of Sekot's illusions.

"They are trying to destroy the settlements," Sekot said, seeming to kneel beside him. "I can't let this go on much longer."

"What can you do?" Anakin asked in a low whisper.

"The Magister prepared for this, but we have never…" Sekot seemed at a loss for words. "Practiced? We have never had a drill and tried everything all at once."

"Tried what?"

Sekot stared straight ahead. "The engines, the hyperdrive cores.

"What, you're all going to escape in big ships?"

"We will do what we need to survive. Do you know where you are?"

"In a sky-mine delivery ship. I'm a prisoner," Anakin said.

"You are in orbit around me. You are part of the fleet I may have to destroy soon. I would regret harming you."

"You can do that? Blow up all these ships?"

"It's possible. I'm trying not to be too destructive all at once, but the Magister never had time to teach me everything. I do not know what we are all capable of, the settlers and me, working together."

"Did you kill any Far Outsiders?"

"I must have," Sekot said.

"Would this be any different for you?" Somehow, that seemed important.

"I don't know. Every experience is new. I do not know myself very well. I am only now aware of how much death there is in my own parts, how they compete with each other and keep a balance of coming and going, being and ending. All across my surface there is death and birth, all the time. Do I feel bad about this? Do you know when the parts of your body kill invading organisms?"

"No," Anakin said. Some Masters were fully aware of all the minute living things within their bodies. Padawans were rarely taught such skills. They could be distracting.

A guard came over to check him out. "Who are you talking to?" the guard asked, glancing at the ship in her harness.

"The planet," Anakin said. "It's getting ready to blast you out of the sky."

The guard grinned. "It's a backwater, a jungle," he said. "Putting up a pretty good fight, I hear, but nothing we can't beat."

Anakin pressed his lips together. The guard could not face the boy's direct gaze. He backed away, then returned to his post, shaking his head.

Sekot returned. "I wish there was another way. I mean you no harm," it said.

"You have to defend yourself."

"I wish there was more time."

Anakin shivered. "So do I," he said. Time to calm his inner turmoil and prepare for the proper passage, for the death of a Jedi apprentice.

Tarkin was beside himself with pride. "They thought they could keep their secrets from us," he said to Sienar as they emerged from the turbolift onto the bridge. The captain of the mine ship, a disheveled, scum-yellow-haired fellow well into old age, received a look of disdain from Tarkin and scuttled back into the recesses to get out of the way of the commander of the fleet.

"The Republic's forces need a manicure and a heavy trim," Tarkin confided to Sienar, a display both of good humor and determination. "And after this success, I'll be the barber, Raith."

"I shall sweep up after you," Raith said tonelessly.

Tarkin chuckled again. "My success will reflect well on all around me," he said. "Even that cuticle hiding from his superiors. I can't wait to get back to the Einem and finish our work."

"We could just leave them with this warning-as a resource for future investigation," Sienar suggested halfheartedly. "I doubt they'll be going anywhere."

Tarkin did not reply. He stared down through the captain's broad viewport at the cloud-shrouded southern hemisphere, and above the equator at the battle still being fought between the planet's defenses and droid starfighters. Flashes and sparkles of laser fire and blazing jungle illumined the night-bound planet beyond the orange and gray band of the terminator.

He was not pleased with what he saw. "Still not subdued."

"You're trouncing their defenses badly," Sienar said. Other lights glimmered in the darkness, as well, and Sienar, less arrogant and less pleased with himself, traced their outlines with interest. Longitudinally oriented rectangles hundreds of kilometers long were outlined by what looked like lightning. Some large change was disturbing the atmosphere.

He doubted starfighters could be blamed for that.

"How soon until we dock with the Einem?" Tarkin called back to the captain, still hidden in shadow.