Dorvan knew that it was unbecoming of someone in his position within the Galactic Alliance hierarchy to be running flat-out across the square to the Temple. He knew that Daala wouldn’t like it. He knew that it would provide fodder for the reporters. He knew that if any of the Mandos whom he was racing toward had an itchy finger, he’d be dead.
None of that mattered. A man’s life was at stake.
His eyes were on the steps of the Temple. Thul had not yet emerged, but Kani’s body was still there. He slowed down slightly, holding out his ID, as a small group of Mandos broke formation and began trotting toward him.
“Wynn Dorvan, chief of staff to Admiral Daala,” he said, panting slightly from the exertion. “Let me through. Commander Rhal knows to expect me.”
They took seemingly forever looking at the ID, at him, and back at the ID again. A terrible thought struck him: what if Rhal had told them to delay him so that Thul could be executed? He wouldn’t put it past the man, after what he’d seen today.
The precious seconds ticked by. Finally they waved him through the thick lines of machines and humans, two of them dropping into formation behind him, ostensibly acting as an escort. Fine, then, Dorvan thought, let them escort me. He began to push his way through, moving as fast as he could. One of his “escorts” laughed.
“Where is it exactly you’re trying to go?”
“The entrance,” Dorvan said. “On the steps to the entrance.”
The Mando, her face hidden by her helmet, turned to regard him. “Not the best place in this world to be.”
“Doesn’t matter. Get me there.”
“All right. Your funeral.” He realized that she might very well be right—literally.
Still, having agreed to do so, she shoved her way effectively through the circle of beskar armor. Dorvan did not see Rhal, though he was most certainly here. Probably taking aim at the Temple entrance right now.
And then he was there. The steps loomed before him, looking impossibly high, taunting him that he’d never make it up there before Raynar Thul stepped out into firing range. He took them two at a time and had just cleared the top when he saw a movement beyond the pillars.
He’d been right.
Raynar Thul stepped forward, hand outstretched, and Dorvan moved to take it, clasping it hard in relief.
“Wynn,” Thul said. “You shouldn’t have come. It’s dangerous.” He tilted his head in the direction of the Mandos.
“I know,” Wynn said, gasping a little. He wasn’t unfit, but his job did render him sedentary, and he was trembling with the release of adrenaline.
“But you knew I would be here, even after what happened to Kani,” Thul said. His face was shiny, almost artificial looking, and stretched in an odd way as he smiled.
“I did,” Dorvan said.
Thul and Dorvan stepped out into what passed for sunlight on Coruscant. There was a strange sound, and Dorvan realized it was the noise of hundreds of weapons being trained on them. He swallowed hard, but Thul appeared unperturbed. He went to the first step and sat down. Several more steps down, almost to the bottom, lay Kani’s body. Thul regarded it for a moment, then he reached for the small satchel he carried. Dorvan moved to stand in front of him, lest any of the Mandos decide that the satchel held something more dangerous than the sandwich Thul now produced.
Dorvan let out a sigh and dropped to the step beside Thul.
“You didn’t bring anything for lunch?” Thul asked.
“I was … in a bit of a hurry.”
Again, Thul smiled. “Here,” he said, and handed half of the sandwich to Dorvan. He took it, not hungry at all, and gazed at Kani’s body.
Thul ate methodically, as he always did. Dorvan knew the man intended no disrespect to Kani, and in fact, suspected that one of the reasons he was here right now was to honor her sacrifice.
Oh, no, despite what Rhal had done, the Jedi weren’t cowed. Kani hadn’t been, and Thul wasn’t, and as Dorvan broke off a piece of crust to feed to Pocket, who had stuck her head out at the smell of bread, he wondered just exactly how the Jedi were going to get out of this one.
Because for all the show of force Daala had made, for all the Mandos who still kept careful aim on them both, if Dorvan were a betting man, he’d be betting on the man beside him rather than the soldiers in front of him.
“Han? You might want to take a look at this.”
Leia’s voice floated to Han, who was in the office of their safe-house apartments cleaning his blasters. They were in perfect condition, but it gave him something to do that at least marginally cheered him up.
“I don’t want to take a look at anything, unless it’s Daala’s head on a pike.” Hopefully, he added, “Is it Daala’s head on a pike?”
“No, not quite, but it is her chief of staff running up the steps of the Temple at top speed.”
Han rose and went to look at the holovid. “Huh …?” he said, baffled at the sight of the normally calm, almost emotionless Wynn Dorvan running full tilt.
“And we have confirmation that it is indeed Chief of State Daala’s right-hand man, Chief of Staff Wynn Dorvan, who is racing headlong up the steps of the besieged Jedi Temple,” Javis Tyrr was saying. “He did have a Mandalorian escort as he fought his way through the crowd, and I don’t see anyone taking aim at him, so one must assume that he is here on official Galactic Alliance business. Looks like the Jedi must have agreed to—”
Han’s mouth fell open. “Thul?”
Leia didn’t quite gape, but her brown eyes were wide.
“Why, it’s Raynar Thul,” said Javis Tyrr. The cam focused in on Thul and Dorvan shaking hands. “As our viewers of Episode 14 of The Jedi Among Us: Where Are They Now? know, Raynar Thul has been rehabilitated and has kept a kind of vigil every day at this time, having lunch on the steps of the Temple. I’ve conducted a few interviews with him. It looks like nothing, not even a Mandalorian siege, is going to keep Thul from enjoying his regular lunch break.”
“What the hell is Dorvan doing there?” Han demanded. “You think he’s trying to strike a deal with Thul?”
Leia shook her slightly-gray-streaked head slowly. “No, neither of them works that way,” she said. “I think he may have been trying to save Thul’s life.”
“Well, that’s noble of him, but he could have saved K.P’s—aw, blast it, Kani’s—life and maybe a whole bunch of others if he and Daala would just back off.”
As if on cue, the cam left the two lunching men to linger on Kani’s body and the pool of drying blood in which it lay.
“I don’t know how either of them can eat, sitting there looking at her,” Han continued, his voice growing angry again.
“Well, nothing Thul does would surprise me at this point, and Dorvan’s feeding his half of the sandwich to his chitlik.” Indeed, the cam, with the nanosecond memory that the holojournalists appeared to have had these days, had gone from the grisly sight of a corpse to a close-up of a small, adorable animal sitting in Dorvan’s lap, holding a piece of bread crust in its forepaws as it ate.
Han snorted in disgust, but Leia suddenly froze. Han eyed her. “What is it? What did you just figure out?”
She turned to him, smiling slowly. “How we can help the Jedi.”
Seha Dorvald was exhausted, filthy, and hungry. She and her Master, Octa Ramis, each with six apprentices, had been exploring as many sealed-off, built-over, or otherwise inaccessible egresses from the Temple as they could for the last seven hours. Some of the apprentices were small enough to wriggle down shafts that were impassable for adults. Thus far, however, there had been nothing large enough for even the smallest ones to scramble through.
The good news, if there was good news, was that none of these secret … airholes, Seha supposed was the most accurate way to describe them, had attracted the notice of the Mandalorians. That was something. And initial signs indicated that some of them could possibly be enlarged.
She was crawling through a narrow passageway to report back to Master Ramis. A glow rod was tied around her neck, offering at least some light. The tunnel was covered on all four sides with ancient tile slicked with mold. Some of the tiles were broken, and the smell of moist soil and rotting things assaulted her nostrils. Seha moved forward slowly, her gaze two meters ahead. She was tired, and damp and chilled, and as she was returning rather than venturing forth, she wasn’t paying close attention. Her hand came down on something soft that squelched beneath it. A fetid stench assaulted her and she had to struggle not to vomit. It was some sort of vermin, she didn’t really want to know what. She shoved the decaying corpse aside, wiped her hand on the tiles, and continued on.
Her comlink chirped. She made a slight face of irritation and halted, turning awkwardly on her side to bring it out.
“Seha here.”
“Seha … have you noticed anything … unusual?” It was her Master.
“Um, no, Master, not really. I gave you all the information I gathered on the way out. I don’t know how old this tunnel is, but it hits a dead end.” She was confused by the question.
“Well … make haste, child. There’s something here you need to see.”
Exhausted as she was, Seha felt curiosity stir, and she picked up the crawling pace. Within fifteen minutes, the ancient tile lining the sides of the tunnel gave way to some kind of metal, and then she saw a glimmer of light ahead. A few minutes later, she dropped down from the shaft into a supply room, where Octa was waiting.
“Okay, so what’s so …”
Her voice trailed off. Octa Ramis stood beside a set of shelves that were loaded with small boxes of various sizes. Seha didn’t know what they contained, and right now she didn’t care. Because at Octa Ramis’s feet were no fewer than three rodents. They were in no way cute or appealing; these were vermin, plain and simple. But they sat on their haunches as if they were trained, and there was something tied to each of their backs.
“What …?”
“There are more. Lots more. They’ve come in through every aperture wide enough to permit them passage,” Octa said. She was grinning. “We didn’t understand what was going on at first, and some of them were frightened away or killed. We thought we’d disturbed some kind of huge, secret nest. But then Master Horn noticed this.”
She reached and picked up one of the filthy things and held it out to Seha. The animal remained quiet and calm.
Bound to its back was a small vial of liquid.
“The medication Cilghal was running out of,” Seha said quietly. “The sedatives to keep the sick Jedi from harming themselves.” Suddenly, the little animals didn’t look like disgusting, filthy vermin at all. Suddenly, they looked like the most beautiful, most wonderful creatures in the universe.
“Exactly,” Octa replied, her grin widening. “I don’t know the identity of our mysterious benefactors, but I can make a guess.”
“Valin used the Force to command the creatures that lived here to help him escape,” Seha recalled. “No wonder Master Horn was the first to notice something different about these rats.”
“But this time, they’re coming to help the sick Jedi. We are still short, but there are enough vials to get us through the next twelve hours, at least. And who knows, more may come.”
“And if we can get medicines in,” Seha said slowly, “We might be able to get messages out.”
“It’s already in progress,” said Octa. “Now come on. Let’s get the vials off these little fellows and in the hands of Cilghal. And,” she added, “let’s get you a sanisteam.”
For the first time since the siege began, Seha laughed.