"Ridiculous," Roshton insisted. But he had his comlink out and was tapping at the key. "How could they have?..."

"I'm not getting anything," Doriana said, trying another channel.

"Commander?"

"They've been blocked," Roshton said, the skepticism abruptly gone from his voice.

"What do we do?" Binalie asked nervously, looking around as if he expected to see a droid army clawing its way up out of the drainage grilles.

"We prepare to meet the enemy," Roshton said, his voice icy calm. Drawing his blaster, he aimed it at the ceiling and squeezed the trigger.

Even amid the loud auditory mosaic of factory noises, the distinctive sizzle of a stun blast easily cut through the noise.

Roshton fired three more times, paused, then fired twice.

Doriana strained his ears. From the next chamber over, he heard the faint sound of an answering signal. 'The alert's being passed," Roshton said, putting away his comlink but keeping his blaster in his hand. "Come on-my command center's in the next assembly area."

A clone trooper lieutenant and the senior master tech were waiting when the three of them arrived at the command center, the former standing stiffly to attention, and the latter looking almost comical as he nervously shuffled his weight back and forth between his feet. "Report," Roshton ordered, glancing at the status schematic that showed troop disposition.

"One Trade Federation C-9979 currently hovering over the plant," the lieutenant replied. "Approximately twenty STAPs running air support; three have crashed to the south. One Trade Federation Lucrehulk-c\ass control core ship has appeared over the horizon.

No other vehicles currently in detection range."

"How bad?" Binalie murmured.

"Bad enough," Roshton told him. "A single C-9979 can carry eleven MTT

large-transport vehicles, with a hundred twelve battle droids each, and a hundred fourteen AAT battle tanks.