Doriana told him. "Has Lord Binalie found a place to settle in yet?"

"We've got one, yes," Tories said.

"Good," Doriana said. "Take me there, and we'll all sort it out together."

For just the briefest moment Tories continued to gaze at him in that discomfiting way Jedi all over the galaxy seemed to have learned to perfection. Then, reluctantly, Doriana thought, he nodded. "All right. Follow me."

He headed off down the deserted streets. Doriana followed, scowling to himself. It was Tories' fault, after all, that the situation had ended up the way it had, with Roshton and his clone troopers holding the plant while the Separatist droid armies waited uselessly outside. It wasn't at all the way Darth Sidious had planned this operation, and he winced as the thought of what the Sith lord would say about it the next time Doriana contacted him.

Still, the situation was far from lost. Republic reinforcements were undoubtedly days away, which gave Doriana time to put things back on track.

And as for the Jedi...

He gazed at Tories' broad back as the other picked his way around yet another missile crater. Now that he thought about it, Tories' unabashed heroics tonight might actually work to Doriana's advantage. Certainly the other had risen to new heights of respect and prestige in the handful of days since Doriana had landed on Cartao.

Which would make it that much more of a pleasure to bring the Jedi down.

With the tunnel under the Spaarti Creations' south lawn collapsed and impassible, there was no longer any reason for the Neimoidians controlling the Separatist forces to occupy the Binalie estate. They had occupied it anyway, probably out of spite for the way Tories had helped chase them out of the mansion not too many hours earlier. With his home occupied by battle droids, it had become necessary for Lord Binalie and his son Corf to find other accommodations.

The estate's greenhouse had been probably the least likely possibility, given the near-complete visibility through the building's long transparisteel panels. Which was precisely why Tories had suggested it. What any searchers would assume-at least, what Tories hoped they would assume-was that there was no chance of anyone hiding in such an open place and move on to more likely prospects.