Completely blocking the vehicles waiting behind it.

"That's it!" Roshton shouted over the pandemonium, a savage grin on his face. "All units withdraw!" He grabbed Doriana's arm.

"Come on, Doriana."

They didn't stop running until they were two assembly areas into the plant and the noise outside had faded to a dull roar.

"Clever," Doriana said, breathing hard as Roshton slowed them down to a fast jog. "You block the exit ramp, and they're stymied until they can clear out the wreckage. But what exactly did it gain you?"

"Options, of course," Roshton told him, glancing back over his shoulder.

Doriana looked, too, to see the clone troopers following in an orderly retreat. "Before we did that, there would have been no way to retreat without bringing the battle into the plant, which you had forbidden us to do. We would have had to stand and die."

He gestured ahead of them with his blaster. "Now, we should have time to get through that tunnel of Binalie's and go to ground." Doriana felt his lip twist. Nine hundred clone troopers, ready and waiting to harass the Separatist army. This was not how it was supposed to have gone. "So what exactly did Tories tell you?"

Roshton threw him a smile. "You'll see. Come on, and save your breath for running."

They stood on the hill at the edge of the Binalie estate: Tories, Binalie himself, Doriana, and Commander Roshton, the latter now disguised in civilian clothing. "So that's it, is it?" Binalie asked.

"For now, yes," Tories told him, gazing across the grassy strip that lay between them and Spaarti Creations as the pinks and yellows of sunset began to fade from the western sky.

And the shadows from the smoldering hulks of half a dozen AAT battle tanks stretched across the forbidden grassland. "My compliments to your gunners," he added.