Binalie was waiting beneath a cluster of trees, along with a pair of armored clone troopers. "Master Tories," Binalie greeted the Jedi, his voice and sense tight with nervous anticipation.

"Anyone see you?"

"No one shot at me, anyway," Tories told him, eyeing the camouflaged roof. "We aren't going to have to raise the whole roof to get in, are we?"

Binalie shook his head. 'There's a service stairway along the side."

"Then let's get to it," Tories said, peering into the sky. A dozen STAPs were circling in the east, patrolling the sky over the plant and the landing ship beside it.

"Shouldn't we wait for the diversion to start?" Binalie asked.

"We can't afford to," Tories said. "We'll need every bit of diversion time just to move all those people out of the plant."

"You're right." Binalie took a deep breath, and set off across the open ground. "Follow me."

The section of roof over the service stairway swung open with gratifying speed and silence. Binalie led the way down the steps, then waited at the bottom for the others to catch up before using the small control panel attached to the railing to seal the top again. "All the wiring is in place," he said as he flicked on a pair of glow rods and handed one to Tories. "But I thought running any power in here, even just enough to handle the lights, might be risky."

"Good point," Tories agreed, turning to the clone troopers. "You two stay here and guard the exit," he ordered.

"Acknowledged," one of them said.

Tories nodded, and he and Binalie set off at a quick jog down the empty tunnel. Ten minutes later, they reached the other end.

"There should be a set of pumps right here, and the intake for the tunnel's ventilator system about here," Binalie said, pointing out spots to the left and right of the wall. "It would make this operation a whole lot cheaper if you could manage to miss both of them."