"Droids! Form a cordon to the transport!" Obediently, the droids abandoned their encirclement positions, scurrying or rolling or lumbering, as their capabilities allowed, toward the vehicle squatting a dozen meters away. They were lining up into two rows, their weapons pointing outward, when another explosion caught the transport's right front corner, bouncing the vehicle a meter into the air and leaving a section of armor plating black and twisted.

"This is impossible!" Gehad shouted. "How do they do this?"

"Ask questions later!" Ashel growled, pointing toward the Spaarti plant.

"Look! Here is our air support."

And impressive air support it was, too, Tories had to admit. A hundred STAPs had appeared in the sky, sweeping in from both east and west as they converged on the Binalie estate.

But the STAPs were still out of range, the droids in their cordon had their weapons and sensors aimed outward as they searched for their unseen attackers, and the Neimoidians were far too preoccupied with their own safety to be watching their prisoners. Time to go to work.

"Now," Ashel said, ungluing himself from the partial protection of the doorway and sprinting between the rows of droids toward the transport.

Grabbing Corf s arm, Gehad started to follow, tugging the boy along behind him. They didn't get far. Reaching forward, Tories caught the boy's other arm and planted his feet solidly into the ground just outside the mansion's doorway. For a moment, Corf was stretched between them like a pull-war cable, and then Gehad stopped and spun around. "What do you-?" he snarled. He never finished his question. In that same brief second, the two combat droids that had been marching along a meter behind them, caught offguard by Tories' sudden halt, arrived at either side of the Jedi. And in a single smooth motion, Tories reached beneath his robe, pulled out his lightsaber, and ignited it.