The frame stopped, and Aryn studied Master Zallow’s face. He looked as he always had—stern, focused. Seeing him somehow freed her to grieve with something other than tears. She recalled some of their training sessions, how he had at first insisted that she fight with his style, but had later relented and allowed her to find her own path. The memory made her smile, and cry.

“Are you all right?” Zeerid asked.

She nodded, wiped away the tears with the sleeve of her robe. “Tee-seven, let me see the faces on the other Jedi.”

T7 flipped through a variety of footage from recorders at different angles until it finally captured the faces of the other Jedi. Aryn recognized each of them, though she did not know them well. Still, she recited their names. She figured she owed them at least that.

“Bynin, Ceras, Okean, Draerd, Kursil, Kalla.”

“Friends?” Zeerid asked, his voice soft.

“No,” Aryn said. “But they were Jedi.”

“It’s not possible that this Sith and Twi’lek took down those Jedi and the Temple alone,” Zeerid said, though he sounded uncertain. “Is it?”

Aryn did not know. “Continue, Tee-seven.”

The footage started again. Master Zallow went face-to-face with the Sith. The other Jedi ignited their blades. Aryn stared at Master Zallow and the Sith warrior, seeing if they exchanged words, gestures, anything. They didn’t, at least as far as she could see.

“Stang,” Zeerid breathed.

“What?” Aryn said. “Freeze it, Tee-seven. What is it?”

The image froze. She saw nothing unusual happening between Master Zallow and the Sith.

“There,” Zeerid said. He bounced out of his seat again and pointed at something beyond the Temple’s tall entrance, something in the sky. Aryn did not see it.

“What is it?”

“A ship,” Zeerid said. “Here. See it?”

Aryn stood and squinted at the screen. She did see it, though it was hard to distinguish against the sky through the slit of the Temple’s floor-to-ceiling open doors.

“Note the silhouette,” Zeerid said. “That’s an NR-two gully jumper, a Republic ship. Like the kind I used to fly. See it?”

Aryn did, but she did not understand its significance.

“Magnify, Tee-seven,” said Zeerid, and the droid complied. The ship came into clear view.

“No markings,” Zeerid said. “But look at its nose, its trajectory. It’s coming down, right at the Temple.”

“You sure?”

“It doesn’t look damaged,” Zeerid said thoughtfully. “Back out to normal magnification and play it, Tee-seven.”

They watched in awed silence as the gulley jumper crashed through the Temple’s entrance, tore through the hall, collapsing columns as it went, a rolling mass of metal and flame, until it stopped right behind the Sith facing Master Zallow.

Neither the Sith nor Master Zallow had moved.

“Mid-section is still intact,” Zeerid said, “It must have been reinforced.” He looked over to Aryn. “There’s something in it. A bomb, maybe.”

“Not a bomb,” Aryn said, beginning to understand.