Tories rose to his feet and started toward him. He'd taken perhaps three steps when Roshton lifted a hand and pointed east. And suddenly, the army was on the move, blasters at the ready, running toward the landing ship towering above the treetops. The last of the troopers was passing Roshton when Tories caught up with him. "What are you doing?" he demanded, catching the commander's arm. "This was supposed to be a rescue mission."

"Out of my way, Jedi," Roshton snapped, shrugging off his arm. "Of course it's a rescue mission. It's a rescue of Lord Binalie's precious manufacturing plant."

"But..."

"No buts," Roshton cut him off, gesturing with his blaster. "This is our one chance to get into that landing ship and destroy the droid control matrix.

You want to help, fine, we'd be glad to have you. If not, just get out of our way."

Tories looked back at Binalie, still crouching beside his bush, his face rigid with anger and fear and frustration. "Go back to the estate," he called to the other. "I'll meet you there."

Binalie's eyes flicked over Tories' shoulder toward the plant.

"Go," Tories repeated.

Binalie's expression still looked pinched, but he nodded. "All right."

He slipped away through the trees, and Tories turned back to Roshton.

"I'll come with you," he said, pulling out his lightsaber. "But we will talk about this later."

"Sure," Roshton grunted. "Come on."

They headed off after the soldiers, dodging between trees and around bushes. Occasionally Tories caught a glimpse of white armor ahead of them, but the clone troopers were traveling at least as fast as they were and had a fair head start on top of it. "So what's the plan?" he asked Roshton. "The new revised plan, I mean."

"Laytron's got men up on the plant roof laying down fire," Roshton panted. 'The droids by the landing ship are currently trying to pick them off without damaging the plant. With luck, they should all have their backs to us when we hit them." Tories grimaced. And when they found their army in a crossfire, what would the Neimoidians controlling the droids do? Whatever they deemed necessary to defend themselves, including wrecking the Spaarti plant?