But Malgus could not shake the unease he felt. He hailed his personal pilot and summoned the shuttle back to the Temple. He knew where Eleena and her team had set down—the Liston Spaceport. He would look for her there first.

Day Three

THE SKY LIGHTENED to the east. Zeerid checked his chrono. Almost dawn. The night had disappeared on him. He was too wired to feel fatigue. He worked up the nerve to ask his question of Aryn.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

She did not look at him, and he took that as a bad sign. “I’m going to get you into the spaceport and you’re going to fly back to your daughter.”

Assuming he could dodge Imperial cruisers on the way out, which would be no mean feat.

“That isn’t what I mean, Aryn, and you know it. What are you going to do with her?”

Aryn did not answer, but the set of her jaw told Zeerid all he needed to know. He regretted mentioning the Twi’lek to Aryn. His honesty would cost Aryn her soul. Hunting the Sith who had murdered her Master was one thing. Killing the Twi’lek simply to hurt Malgus was something else. As he drove, he found himself hoping that the Twi’lek had left the spaceport.

Ahead, the port came into view. He scanned the sky, saw nothing. The control tower was still dark. The Empire had done a poor job of securing the port—they had far too few men guarding a location with many potential entry points—but Zeerid supposed they had limited troops and an entire planet to police. He was glad of it. Otherwise, his plan would have had no chance to succeed.

“I’ll circle wide and we’ll go up top. The key to this is speed.”

“Won’t they spot us on scanners?”

“The tower’s dark and I don’t see any hardware around. If they have orbiting surveillance on the port, well …”

He shrugged. If the Empire had orbiting surveillance or high-altitude surveillance droids watching the spaceport, he and Aryn would have problems.

“Speed is still the key,” he said. “Even if they see us, if we can get in and out fast enough, we can still pull it off.”

Aryn brushed her hair from her face. “Where did you see her? The Twi’lek?”

“There,” he said, pointing at the large transparisteel windows that opened onto the small-craft landing pad where he had spotted the shuttles, the drop ship, and the Twi’lek. Without bringing his macrobinoculars to bear, all he could see through the windows were indiscriminate gray shapes, presumably the shuttles. Aryn stared at the windows for a moment, then nodded to herself.

“Let’s go,” she said.