Sundari would be ready for war.
For Maul, it was such a simple statement, such a clear goal, as easy as igniting a lightsaber and yet so far out of reach so impossibly hard to prepare for. Patrolling one of the many lanes of the city, he bore witness to a battered landscape that was scorched by fire, bombings and ordinance. The light stung, as it was rare for him to be in open daylight where he could theoretically be spotted by a passerby. The shadows gave him comfort, or the closest thing he could call comfort. From the shadows, he could lie in wait and lay the ambush on his rivals, his enemies. In the sunlight, he was nothing short of windswept to the currents of the Force, where he would be exposed to the threads connecting everything. A contingent of armed escort certainly helped make this possible, as martial law was declared over the capital with the threat of force offered as a consequence to resisting. There would be no resistance now; that would wait. The Shadow Collective had retained control, though he knew that this world was at the brink of complete collapse. The civil unrest that had claimed the capital, sparked by Mandalorians that refused to recognize his right to rule, had left a damaged city that would only worsen in the next stage to come. A final siege was at hand. The one that was set to fall onto the climax, the climax to everything as Maul came to recognize.
The Republic's invasion of Mandalore. A plot that was years in the making, before his gaze even fell on this ancient battleground. But one he would bear witness to at its finale.
Dooku's forces were weakening according to what his web of contacts told him from the ends of Hutt space to vile underbelly of the luxurious core worlds. The droid armies that were trying to hold onto holdouts in the outer rim were keeping their gaze at their more immediate enemy, the Jedi. All the more proof of what the vision revealed.
It had been weeks since the vision, but rather than intensify the horrific images seemed to weaken with each recollection. The details of the terrible beasts and calamity, that was. What needed to be done was brighter than the sun itself.
Turrets had to be placed both outside and within the city limits, with enough ammunition for continued assault against not only gunships and armor but massive warships that would otherwise approach unrivaled. The Republic would bleed as it arrived at a war zone as it had done for the last three years. Supplies, including food stores, would be guarded as long as necessary just enough to keep his forces alive. Maintaining loyalty ensured his authority was maintained and so long as it was useful, the warrior clans would be willing to die with valor. If the populous of Mandalore starved, especially those that protested him in the first place, then let them blame the Republic for daring to invade at all. Or those that failed to prevent this crisis from occurring, such as the former Duchess Satine.
Those that could be called zealots, who dreamed of a Mandalore bred for war, carried out their tasks with a sense of divine belief. That they were destined to overcome any invader. The warriors that fought for Maul were those that believed in the glory of war. That war was rightfully glorious and a moment of conviction. Even those that fought against his rule would still be fighting with the same level of conviction, but only when they dared to show strength. The enemy Mandalorians embodied a true creed of valor that even Maul had to admit as it was a foundation for the Sith.
Peace is a lie.
Progress had to be made to prepare for this war. Streets had to be cleared of rubble, or else abandoned as makeshift barriers that would stop the flow of Republic garrisons. Anything that slowed down the stream of Republic walkers churned out by conscripted factories by even a few hours could make the difference between victory and defeat. He needed time. Time to refine the defenses to his power, not rebuild, there was not enough resources nor opportunities to do so. As tempting as it was to call upon the Pykes for weapons, armor, artillery, or even just transports to evacuate in the unlikely but ever real chance that retreat was necessary, that itself opened more dangers than rewards. Not to mention, the Pykes were growing restless. Their loyalty was becoming suspect and couldn't be relied on at Maul's peril. There was also the very real possibility that they might strike a deal with the Republic in exchange for that government turning a blind eye to various "activities" they carried out.
Retreat itself was the last resort, if he succeeded with his plan. The plan for Skywalker.
And Kenobi, he reminded himself. The momentary rage filled his veins, providing confidence as he turned to Gar Saxon. With Beskar plating fashioned to resemble the tattoos that decorated Maul's body, complete with a red coloration that coated helmet and armor alike, the resemblance was striking. With ruthless efficiency, Maul's collection of super commandos had managed to distinguish itself as not only separate from Death Watch, but in fact stronger. Where these colors went, terror would follow. Even if the wider populous never saw Maul in person.
No, especially when that was the case.
To be frightened of a man when he was present was obvious. But in absence? That was the making of terror.
The leftover remnants of his master's training had their merits, including the ability to always be in motion, each action a key to unlocking the step forward; the whisper of his movements would be just as useful as striking with a ruthless efficiency, as all ensured that his appearances would be all the more noteworthy. Infamous for being cases in which his brutality was displayed for the galaxy to fear. Where innocents were slaughtered without remorse. For now, preparations were being remedied for a lasting scar against the Republic.
"My Lord, our forces have done what we can, but we're stretched thin" Gar Saxon spoke. "Almec is growing restless. He's insistent on knowing why we're arming our old warships."
"No doubt your prime minster," Maul answered with contempt "wants to know my methods. And the reason this world is being prepared for war as it has been for centuries prior."
The Force echoed a pulse, a shift in the tides that was invisible to all except those who saw the web of deceit. The illusions. The reality of a shifting galaxy.
"The enemy will come" Maul answered softly. His men knew just enough to expect danger, it would not matter in what form that danger arose. It would be repelled with expediency and rage. "They will be weary but strong. We must expect an invasion from the Republic."
"That would be a declaration of war" Saxon snarled. "Why come for us?"
"That, is the reason for all of this. We are sending a message to the Jedi." Maul answered with a hiss. "Mandalore has proven its worth in the days of the Sith Empires, and it will do so for this war. We will draw them in, their blood will run dry and the storm that has robbed the galaxy will provide opportunity. Our chains will be broken."
If Saxon was alarmed at this, or any of the commandos, they didn't show any reservation or doubt. Maul would have sensed it, the aura they generated from their blackened hearts. They might not have the Force, or even believe in it, but they could feel the fury of battle all the same. He signaled a nearby commando wearing a similar armor scheme as Saxon's, Rook Cast, to come forward with a massive display of the cityscape and the wider districts. As the holoprojection oriented itself, the commando was firm in her speech with a crisp dialect.
"The deflector shield extends three clicks over the dome. In the shipping lanes, eighty flak-guns have been fitted. The hangers have been loaded with over fifty gunships and hundreds of Kom'rk-class fighters supplied from surrounding cities. Mines have been fitted on the streets leading to the palace and we'll have oversight from the western and southern towers. In orbit, we have corvettes on patrol, Crusader-class, guarding some retrofitted Keldabe class battlecruisers at the hyperspace entry point. They orbit just below the exosphere."
"How long can you last?" Maul asked without turning, his voice even.
"Two or three days at maximum." Saxon answered, the response anticipating the most likely scenario: a full Republic attack fleet.
"Does that include the undercity?"
"Yes, my lord." Rook replied unflinchingly.
"My lord," Saxon asked. "We will fight to the last man, woman and child if that is what it takes to repel the enemy. Our loyalty is yours. But those that resist us from within, Katan and her forces, specifically, have disappeared. We must expect fierce resistance. They might poison our own ranks."
"We will deal with them when the time comes" Maul said reassuringly, turning away from the veranda towards a hololift. "I will ease the concerns of Almec and ensure that he has nothing to fear, aside from me. All will go as promised. Ready your soldiers for war within a full rotation."
"I don't understand why they would come" Rook admitted. "Mandalore has fought wars for centuries. What can anyone hope to gain by daring to attack?"
Before he entered the now open lift, Maul gazed back with a calm but raised brow. "It's not what they have to gain." The thought of his adversaries permitted excitement to form across his tattooed face. "It's what they are set to lose."
For Quinlan Vos, each hour grows more depressing.
The quarters of the Venator seemed to be more distracting than Vos could have ever anticipated. Little details that everybody else overlooked; small scratches in the gentle upholstery; the instantaneous flicker of the plasma beams that powered the lights with refractions so infinitesimal that a passing eye would never notice; the compartmentalized desk that jutted out like the fin of a giant Opee carved into a rectangle; with loosely thrown datapads jumbled about; and finally the red patches that illuminated the door that separated Vos from the brigades of clones following their sets of orders and routines.
Sometimes it was just a whisper of gossip, rumors from distant worlds about impending crisis. Other times it was discontent with an officer or a campaign not going as planned. A weeklong rotation turning into a month-long attrition against a blockade. Sometimes the valiant Clones broke through, over times they cut their losses and fell back. But each vibration in the Force echoed in Vos' mind whenever he laid his fingers on any of the cues that reflected a ship that had seen over a year of conflict along with the crew that manned it from one battle to the next. Memories so concentrated that his head almost felt as it if he were actually living everybody else's lives. Finally, he gave up and rubbed his hands over his temples, dwelling on the fact that his life was as good as over.
His life had been ruined by battles.
Battles and battles and more battles. And not all of them were the ones that could be won with a lightsaber.
Three years ago, it would have been exciting to recount each mission partaken. Now it was just a painful reminder of how the state of the galaxy has only gotten worse over those years. Nobody ever says it outright, they pretend it's all some great trial that will be taken. That there is a master that will see to it that the collection of young and old engaged in this war will come out triumphant. Except that the only master that existed was the Force itself and it had grown silent with each passing day. The nights grew longer, stretched into a horizon that peels into itself. It was the day that got shorter but more intense, as if condensing particles of vapor into a terrible storm that is waiting to explode with thunder. Every moment of sunlight was blinding to the point that nothing was beautiful. The unspoken fears and subtleties shined like glowing stars before him while the entire galaxy gazed elsewhere. Whether skyward or not, the populace was sick of war, the Jedi were sick of war, and many politicians wanted peace even though they wouldn't dare suggest compromise, when that unspoken majority clamored for victory. What even was victory anymore, short of conquering every planet in the name of peace.
So much for being keepers of the peace.
Everything just felt pointless, even getting out of bed and seeing another world in the ever-expansive galaxy.
A memory came to surface, of a proud master that carried a conviction throughout any challenge he faced. One who fell to someone whom he misses dearly. The sudden conflict of deciding which he mourned more, the one he loved or the one who had the answers, was decisively irritating. The thought was painful but it was fleeting.
No matter how much he tried to emulate the confidence of Tholme, he could never truly believe in any conviction that the way of the Jedi was the right way. Not anymore. The dark side was dangerous and brought him nothing but pain, but the lies of the dark were easier to swallow than those of the light. Accepting that life was cruel was easier to believe than the idea that the impossible would become possible.
Look how well that worked out with Ventress, he thought dryly. Now you're sitting alone, drifting in space and ready to be expelled by the Jedi Council for defiance and losing control.
The sinking feeling that filled his chest, to the point where he felt genuine sadness at the reality of events, made him stiff and melancholy. He was going to be expelled, maybe forever. No words from Yoda could fix this.
Damn you, Windu, the thought occurred before it could be denied. He whispered the words aloud before sighing defeatedly, realizing it wouldn't help. Maybe I would succumb to the dark side if I went back. No matter what you do, you lose. Might as well get more shut eye before you have to drift aimlessly. If that was even allowed. Would they think that Vos would become another Dooku? What was going to happen? Dark thoughts tried to peer into his skull and unravel him before the doorframe was illuminated by a figure. A familiar Kel Dor strode in and took a seat at the cluttered desk, wordlessly organizing it with a wave of his hand.
"You look terrible." Plo Koon spoke.
"That bad, huh?" Vos answered. "Alright, let's hear it. 'On the behalf of the Jedi Order, I hereby renounce your title-'"
Vos couldn't even finish the sarcastic remark before turning his head away, flushed with resigned frustration. There wasn't anything that could defuse what was in his mind. He thought of Ventress again, and how she claimed that through everything she found a way to become a better person. Or at the very least, transformed from a dark side acolyte that hated the Jedi to a dark side acolyte that hated almost everybody.
Save him.
"This was my chance, Plo." Vos spoke again. "This was my chance to fix things, to get my life back together. To make all of these awful mistakes worthwhile somehow. I was hoping that maybe there would be some way I could just return to the pre-war days if I believed hard enough. But I can't. I'm sick of pretending that I can just go on without thinking anything is different. That's we're not any different. They don't respect the Jedi anymore, least of all people like me that resort to using threats of violence. The entire galaxy is going to hell and I'm just sitting here waiting for something, anything, to put my life back together."
Plo Koon was silent for too many seconds, to the point that Vos finally had to turn to face him, prepared to attempt to order the Jedi to give him the verdict. That he was indeed expelled and doomed to have no purpose. If was going to be blind to the future of the galaxy, let him at least be able to see his own.
Only that didn't happen. Instead, Jedi Master Plo Koon said "You are not the Jedi you once were. You never will be."
Vos blinked, his brow rising in frustration. For a moment he was unsure what to process until he realizes his jaw had fallen. "That's it? You're just going to listen to me claim that I can't go back to who I was? You're not even going to protest it?"
"That is not what you need to hear. Because we both know it is false."
Vos' spirits were crushed more than he could ever guessed. Even if it was optimistic, part of him hoped that maybe Plo Koon would offer some sort of counterargument to what he said. Only he agreed with it, which ensured that the thoughts that Vos were feeling were not invalid but quite the opposite.
"When I started monitoring you, your betrayal of the Order by willingly joining Dooku, Darth Tyranus, was something the council couldn't ignore. You alone decided to follow that path to destruction. Your actions did not improve the standing of the Jedi in this conflict, and they did not restore us closer to the light. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were damaged because of your actions. The Force is always in motion and those scars cannot be erased, no matter how hard you wish for it. I knew that if your situation deteriorated, that expulsion was indeed the outcome to expect. You are correct in assessing I had the means to do so. Your life, in a sense, is in my hands."
To Vos' astonishment, he was still standing. Everything cut him down with the precision and accuracy of a thousand lightsabers. But it was going to overwhelm him, and he knew that he couldn't actually stomach this dissection of his failures. Realizing also that if he could stand, he could also walk, he attempted to leave only for the superior general to grab his arm. For a moment, images flashed, a red sun in space, a frozen world, a galactic court in session. The images faded as soon as they occurred.
"It still is. Throughout these observations I couldn't go through with seeing you abandoned, even as I knew you were suffering. Especially because of that reason. I may not approve of how you responded to the decree of the council, and you will have to reflect on the meaning of control, but right now there are far more important matters than letting another Jedi forsake responsibility. Our numbers are growing few and I'm not about to let our time together come to such an abrupt conclusion."
As the words resonated through his skull, a certain realization was dawning. This wasn't an expulsion; this was simply a moment of counseling. Returning to his personal bunk, he stared up at the Kel Dor with understanding. The one thing he needed to hear was resonating stronger than ever before: acceptance. Vos was given the chance to finally look past all of his mistakes, both past and present, recognize how they were deciding his life and what path he would follow. As the master continued, Vos found himself arrested to the words spoken. Stunned that this was in fact not the end he expected. He could almost hear Tholme behind these words. All of the sudden the various imprints from his quarters and the ship itself were transformed into glimmers of life. And as Plo Koon spoke, he felt his spirit rising.
"You want to know why I didn't immediately report you to the council?" Plo Koon asked, to which Vos nodded slightly. "I'm sure you have heard about the trial of Ahsoka Tano. And how she was...abandoned."
"The alleged bombing of the temple" Vos answered. "The trial was dismissed. But she left anyway. I was told to push it out of my mind, not to dwell on it, and I have to admit I did so." Vos answered. "There's more to it isn't there."
"In another lifetime, she would have been my padawan. It was I that found her and brought her to the attention of the Jedi. Through the will of the Force, the council decided to assign her to Anakin Skywalker as a way of providing discipline for not only her but him as well. We don't say it, perhaps we never will, but letting her leave after years of service and commitment was a mistake made by the Order and we could have stopped it if we acted sooner. We wanted to wipe it clean from our minds, to ignore the risk that we had ourselves fallen and lost sight of what we were. It was easier to admit that we had failed one Jedi as opposed to the idea that we failed ourselves. We were saving our reputation at the cost of our integrity. We lost who we were supposed to be."
As Plo Koon finished he finally sat alongside Vos, his eyes staring blankly ahead behind his respiratory mask. Though his tone was muffled by his mask, he could feel emotion from the words themselves. "What happened to you was similarly wrong. Asking you to assassinate Dooku, to have to betray yourself and face your worst demons, allowed for you to have fallen as far as you did. You were one of us and yet you were treated as disposable. And if I let you fall from the path of the Jedi as Ahsoka did, then I have learned nothing. The Jedi Order needs you, Quinlan Vos. And I know you need us. You once said that you wanted this war to be won. To do that, we must save ourselves. We must trust each other to do what is right. Dooku, Sidious, they will all have to pay for their crimes. Maybe we won't live to see it, but the Jedi will live on, and someday we will triumph."
The master took a moment to pause, gazing at his lightsaber. His finger crossed over the emitter before it was tucked away, his mask turning back to his protegee. "Let us work together, as Jedi, and find real victory."
Vos exhaled in relief, realizing how much negativity he stored within himself in his gloom. And now it was gone, replaced with vigor and energy that he hadn't felt in months, maybe years. Together they stood, entering the corridor of the Venator, side by side.
"Okay" Vos admitted. "I'll trust you on this. If we have to go to Cato Neimoidia, then we'll do it. I trust the Force."
"That," Plo Koon answered. "Is the first step to the light."
Fifty meters ahead of Mace in the tunnel, Shaak Ti held up her hand, motioning for him to stop. Angling his purple blade to the floor, Mace turned to relay the signal to the commandos behind him.
Shaak Ti's whisper reached him through the Force: Movement ahead.
She gestured to the mouth of an intersecting tunnel just beyond where she stood, her profile limned blue by the glow of her raised lightsaber. Faint light spilled from the opening, as if someone with a handheld luma was approaching on foot. Mace waved a signal to Commander Valiant, whose team moved forward stealthily, hugging the walls, their T-visor helmets allowing them to see in the dark.
Normally the probe droids would have the point, playing their lights and sensors across the dusty floor and tiled walls, sending data to Dyne and his team of analysts. Mace and Shaak Ti would ride in separate speeders behind the agents, intermingled with those of the commandos. Occasionally, however, the Jedi would assume the lead on foot for a couple of kilometers, usually in response to some anomaly discovered by the droids. Ventilation, such as it was, came courtesy of ancient blowers that did little more than drag in the sooty air from above, and illumination was provided by what the team brought with them.
They were deep below an area of The Works called the Grungeon Block. Encompassing twenty square kilometers, the block had originally been a production center for Serv-O-Droid, Huvicko, and Nebula Manufacturing, but it had fallen on hard times when its three principal clients had declared bankruptcy. Unable to attract new businesses, the developers who owned the Grungeon had allowed stratts and other vermin to overrun the stamping plants, and cashed out. In the days since the raid, Mace's team had searched nearly every nook and cranny of the confusion of tunnels and shafts that undermined the Grungeon and similar assembly areas. Ten kilometers into the tunnel that led to the LiMerge building's sub-basement, a shaft had been found, leading to a deeper, older tunnel that also ran east toward the Senate District. In appearance the parallel tunnels were similar, save for the fact that the floor of the older one hosted an ancient mag-lev rail. The probe droids had discovered places along the rail where the accumulated decades of dust and debris had been blown away by the rapid passage of a repulsorlift vehicle of some sort. With no other clues to go on, the team had made the mag-lev tunnel the focus of the investigation.
Still, Mace felt that the team was on the right track.
An extensive search of the LiMerge building had revealed the remains of several Trang Robotics Duelist Elite droids that had been reduced to durasteel pieces by a lightsaber. These were once tools used by the Sith of the millennium prior, where they cut down down Republic soldiers and Jedi alike as they served their purpose in spreading destruction across worlds. Only Sidious, Dooku, or Sidious's previous apprentice could have performed the amputations that leveled these former horrors into nothing more than scrap metal. The thought of these initiation ceremonies occurring just kilometers away from the Jedi Temple was unnerving.
And there was more.
Shortly before Dooku had left the Jedi Order to return to his native Serenno, during the period when he had taken the title Count and had first gone public with his discontents about the Republic, he had been known to frequent a tavern called the Golden Cuff. Such a locale had been a watering hole for Senators, lobbyists, and aides where deals were arranged in methods that allowed for them to escape the public eye. Analysts at the Temple were going through files of security cam holoimages thirteen years old, hoping to find images of Dooku and anyone he may have met with repeatedly.
Thus far, no images of Dooku had surfaced in the recordings that had survived. Even if images of Dooku's tavern mates did surface, the Jedi had no means of identifying any of them as Darth Sidious, but the images could provide an additional starting point for further investigation. Anything to weaken the shroud of the dark side that nearly poisoned the air around them all.
By now Mace could hear movement and soft voices ahead.
Hardly a good tactic for hostiles intent on springing an ambush, but one never knew. The Sith had been known to brainwash their victims such that they never knew they were being controlled at all, let alone forced to fight without autonomy of their actions. He stretched out with his feelings, alert for diversions or clues he might have overlooked, obscured by the dark side or owing to his own neglect.
Standing nearby, Valiant looked to Mace for the go signal.
When Mace nodded, Valiant said: "Light it up!"
Weapons raised, gas and fragmentation grenades enabled, the commandos sprinted into the intersecting tunnel, firing tracer bolts into the gloom.
Tight on their heels, Mace heard Valiant yell: "Down on the floor! Don't move! I said, don't move!"
More fire erupted, then several commando voices were shouting: "Stay still! Down on your faces! Hands up! Hands up now! All four of them!"
All four of them? Mace thought.
Edging through the commandos, he reached Valiant, whose BlasTech was aimed at a cowering crowd of thirty or so four-armed insectoid aliens, who were babbling in some language other than Basic, or speaking it with an accent so thick as to make their words unintelligible.
"Lower your weapons," Mace told the commandos. "And someone bring that interpreter droid forward!"
Mace's command was relayed down the line, and a moment later a highly polished silver protocol droid tottered into the tunnel, muttering to itself. "I don't understand how I've gone from serving the Separatists to serving the Republic. Did I undergo a partial memory wipe?"
"Consider yourself lucky," one of the commandos said. "Now you're on the side of the good guys."
"Good guys, bad guys … who can tell anymore? What's more, you won't be so quick to say that should someone compel you to shift loyalties at a moment's notice."
"Droid!" Mace shouted, uninterested in hearing it babble on about its warped morality.
"I do have a name, TC-16-"
An ARC trooper interrupted it, shoving it towards Mace who grabbed ahold of the droid and pointed him in the direction of the terrified aliens. "See if you can make sense of what these folk are saying."
The droid listened to the babbling, responded in kind, and turned to face Mace. "They are Unets, General. Speaking their native language, which is called Une."
Mace regarded the huddled, shivering group. "What are they doing down here?"
TC-16 listened, then said: "They say that they haven't the slightest idea where they are, General. They arrived on Coruscant in a shipping container that was air-dropped at a decrepit landing platform some twenty kilometers from here. The personage who was to have guided them into the depths of the Uscru Sector stole all their credits and abandoned them in The Works."
"Undocumented refugees," Valiant said.
Mace frowned. The tunnels beneath the Grungeon Block held countless surprises. "They almost got themselves killed."
"Apparently that's nothing new for them," TC-16 said. "Their planet fell to the Separatists, the freighter they originally took passage on was attacked by pirates, several of them—"
"That's enough," Mace said. "Assure them that they're not going to be harmed, and that we'll see to it they reach a refugee camp." He nodded to Valiant, who in turn told two of his troopers to carry out Mace's command.
"Talk about your corridor ghouls," Dyne said, eyeing the aliens as he approached Mace. "Squatters, death stick runners, lost droids, now undocumented refugees …"
"Next it'll be Cthons," Dyne said, referring to the flesh-eating humanoids believed by many Coruscanti to inhabit the world's underground.
Shaak Ti joined them. "These corridors are highways for people who want to enter central Coruscant illegally."
Dyne sighed in disappointment. "Our chances for picking up Sidious's trail decrease with each person who passes."
"How far are we from the Senate District?" Shaak Ti asked.
"Within a couple of kilometers," Dyne said. "We might think about going directly to the buildings LiMerge Power once owned in the city core and see if we can't work our way toward The Works from those."
Mace considered the idea, then shook his head. "Not yet." Mace waved everyone back into motion, then fell into step with Shaak Ti.
"Wild gundark chase?"
She nodded. "Only because our quarry is aware that we're closing in on him. He failed to silence the ones the others searched out, and by now he knows that we've discovered his and Dooku's den. It's unlikely he will wait around for us to surprise him."
"That's true. But there's much to gain from simply identifying him. If not here, then by means of something Master Plo and Vos discover on Cato Neimoidia, something they missed."
"Assuming there's anything left after Dooku sterilizes the place. From everything we've seen, Sidious and Dooku don't make many mistakes. The only one who did was Gunray and we can't count on that happening again."
They walked in silence for a long while. They were a kilometer closer to the outlying areas of the Senate District when Dyne called to them from behind. Mace saw that the Intelligence analysts and commandos were gathered some twenty meters away. He and Shaak Ti had been so engrossed in their private thoughts that neither of them had noticed the probe droids stopping to investigate something. Joining the others, the Jedi watched the droids hover with clear purpose in front of a large niche in the tunnel wall.
Dyne's handheld sensor needed only a moment to discover a small control panel that operated the niche's sliding door.
The door concealed the entrance to a narrow, dimly lit corridor.
And all but hiding in plain sight: a repulsorlift speeder bike, semicircular in design, with an arc of a concentric seat and a single steering handle. Mace and Shaak Ti traded astonished looks.
"How did we miss seeing this?" she asked.
Mace's brow furrowed. "The answer is in the question."