The shuttle touched down with a heavy thud and Malgus hurried out. Upon seeing him, the Imperial soldiers snapped to attention and offered a salute. The workers backed away, fear in their eyes. Perhaps they’d heard of what he’d done at the hospital.

Malgus walked up to Captain Kerse, a powerfully built man whose bald head sat like a boulder upon his thick neck. Malgus towered over him.

“Darth Malgus, there is a fuel gas leak in the small-craft landing area. We evacuated while the safety system—”

“Where is Eleena?” Malgus asked.

“She is …” Kerse looked around the crowd. His skin turned blotchy. To one of his men, he said, “Where is the Twi’lek?”

“I saw her near the other shuttle, sir,” replied another of the soldiers. “I assumed she followed.”

Malgus grabbed Kerse by his plasteel breastplate and pulled him nose-to-nose.

“She was with you before the gas leak?”

Kerse’s head bobbed on his neck. “Yes. She—”

“Take me.”

“The fuel gas, my lord.”

“There is no fuel gas! It is a ruse to get to Eleena.”

To get to him.

“What?” Kerse said.

Malgus threw Kerse to the ground and strode past him for the port’s doors. Behind him, he heard Kerse call out for the other soldiers to follow. By the time the doors slid open before Malgus, he had six elite soldiers with blaster rifles in orbit around him.

“This way, my lord,” said Kerse, taking position beside him.

“SPEED AND PRECISION,” Zeerid said, as much a reminder to himself as to Aryn. “Speed and precision.”

They watched the launch doors pull back to vent nonexistent fuel gas. The open doors revealed the landing pad below. Zeerid saw the two Imperial shuttles, the Dragonfly-class drop ship. The sirens continued to scream. The automated voice on the speakers continued to drone on.

Zeerid would hijack the drop ship. He’d have to dodge Imperial fighters and cruisers on his way out of Coruscant’s space. The shuttles would fly like the square heaps they were, and he’d get shot down as soon as he cleared the atmosphere. The dropship, at least, would give him a decent chance of getting clear.

He took Aryn by the bicep. “You can still come with me, Aryn.”

She looked him in the face and he saw once more, for the first time since seeing her again, the deep understanding that lived in her eyes.

“I can’t,” she said.

“You can,” he insisted. “You’ve honored your Master’s memory.”

“Time to go,” she said. “Speed and precision, you said.”

He bit back his reply and once more they wrapped T7 in their shared grasp and leapt into the void. Again Aryn’s power slowed their descent and cushioned their landing.

They hit the pad’s metal-and-duracrete floor, assaulted on all sides by the wail of the sirens and the relentless voice on the loudspeakers. Zeerid took quick stock of the situation.