Jedi were capable of incredible bursts of speed when necessary, at least over short distances. Tories used every bit of that capability, his legs pumping in a blur against the ground as he slipped around the end of the picket line now beginning to close into a semicircle around the beleaguered clone troopers. A pair of droid stragglers suddenly loomed in front of him in the darkness and then collapsed into broken rubble as he used the Force to shove them backward. By the time the burst of energy and speed faded and he trotted to a halt, he was standing at the southeast corner of the plant, just clear of the forbidden south lawn, facing a sheer, three-story-high wall.

He gazed up at the dark slab rising above him. Three stories was an impossible jump, at least for him. But halfway up the wall, a distance he could reach, was a line of louvered air vents, each about ten centimeters across.

He could only hope Lord Binalie's father had built the vents and louvers with the same ruggedness with which he'd built everything else in Spaarti Creations. Getting a good grip on his lightsaber, making sure his hand was safely away from the activation stud, he bent his knees, stretched out to the Force, and jumped.

He was near the top of his arc when he spotted the nearest vent, dimly lit by the flashes of laser and blaster fire coming from Roshton's position.

With a quick flick of his mind, he reached out to the louvers, angling them up into a horizontal position.

And as his upward momentum slowed to a halt, he slipped his lightsaber hilt between two of the louvers.

The metal creaked in protest as his full weight came onto the hilt, but to his relief the louvers held. Stretching out to the Force, he pulled down hard against the wedged lightsaber, hurling himself upward again.

He made it with three centimeters to spare, catching the edge of the roof with his outstretched fingertips and heaving himself the rest of the way up to sprawl onto his belly on the cold permacrete. Swiveling around, he leaned partway over the edge, extricating his lightsaber hilt from the louvers and calling it back to his hand.