Vader had no sooner turned his back to the prisoners than Shryne was in motion, edging, elbowing, shouldering his way through the crowd to Starstone, whose narrow shoulders heaved as she attempted to suppress her grief at her Master’s death. Realizing Shryne was at her side, she turned into his comforting but brief embrace.
“Your Master is with the Force,” he told her. “Rejoice for that.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why didn’t you help her?”
“I thought we’d agreed to abandon our lightsabers.”
She nodded. “I abandoned mine. But you could have done something.”
“You’re right. Maybe I should have challenged ‘Lord Vader’ to a fistfight.” Shryne’s nostrils flared. “Your Master reacted in anger and in vengeance. She would have been more use to us alive.”
Starstone reacted as if she had been slapped. “That’s a heartless remark.”
“Don’t confuse emotion with truth. Even if Bol Chatak had defeated Vader, she would have been killed.”
Starstone gestured vaguely in Vader’s direction. “But that monster would be dead.”
Shryne held her accusing gaze. “Vengeance isn’t becoming in a Jedi, Padawan. Your Master died for nothing.”
The prisoners were on the move now, troopers herding them toward the boarding ramp of the military transport.
“Fall back,” Shryne said into Starstone’s ear.
The two of them slowed down, allowing other captives to maneuver around them.
“Who is Vader?” Starstone asked after a moment.
Shryne shook his head in ignorance. “That’s something we might be able to learn if we can remain alive.”
Starstone took her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry about what I said, Master.”
“Don’t worry about that. Tell me how Bol Chatak was able to keep the lightsaber hidden from the guards.”
“Force persuasion,” Starstone said quietly. “At first we thought we might be able to escape, but my Master wanted to wait until she knew what had happened to you. We were locked away in a building and left to fend for ourselves. Very little food, and troopers everywhere. Even if my Master had used her lightsaber then, I don’t know how far we would have gotten before troopers were all over us.”
“Did you use Force persuasion at any time?”
She nodded. “That’s how I was able to hold on to my Master’s beacon transceiver.”
Shryne eyed her in surprise. “You have it with you?”
“Master Chatak told me to keep it.”
“Foolish,” he said, then asked: “Were you able to learn anything about the war?”
“Nothing.” Starstone let her misgiving show. “Did you hear Vader say that he would tell the ‘Emperor’?”
“Could the Senate have named Palpatine Emperor?”
“Seems like something the Senate would do.”
“But Emperor of what Empire?”
“I’ve been asking myself that.” He glanced at her. “I think the war has ended.”
She thought about it for a moment. “Then why were the troopers ordered to kill us?”
“Jedi on Coruscant may have attempted to arrest Palpatine before he was promoted—or crowned, I suppose I should say.”
“That’s why we were ordered into hiding.”
“Good theory—for a change.”
They were closing on the lip of the boarding ramp now, almost at the end of the line. Accepting the inevitable, most of the prisoners were demonstrating remarkable discipline, and many of the troopers were drifting away as a result. Two troopers were stationed at the top of the ramp, one to either side of the rectangular hatch, and three more were moving more or less alongside the two Jedi.
“Vader is a Sith, Master,” Starstone said.
Shryne showed her a long-suffering look. “What do you know of the Sith?”
“Before Master Chatak chose me as her Padawan, I trained under Master Jocasta Nu in the Temple archives. For my review, I elected to be tested in Sith history.”
“Congratulations. Then I don’t need to remind you that a crimson blade doesn’t guarantee that the wielder is a Sith, any more than every person strong in the Force is a Jedi. Asajj Ventress was a mere apprentice to Dooku, not a true Sith. A crimson blade can owe to nothing more than a synthetic power crystal. Then crimson is simply a color, like Master Windu’s amethyst blade.”
“Yes, but Jedi normally don’t wield crimson blades,” Starstone argued, “if only because of their association with the Sith. So even if Vader was nothing more than another apprentice of Count Dooku, why is he now serving Palpatine—Emperor Palpatine—as an executioner?”
“You’re assuming too much,” Shryne said. “Even if you’re right, why is that so hard to believe, when Dooku did just the opposite—went from serving the Jedi order to serving the Sith?”
Starstone shook her head. “I suppose it shouldn’t be hard to believe, Master. But it is.”
He looked at her. “Here is what matters: Vader suspects that two Jedi are going to be aboard the prison transport. Eventually he’ll identify us and we’ll be killed, unless we take our chances, here and now.”
“How, Master?”
“Drop back with me to the end of the line. I’m going to try something, and I hope the Force is with me. If I fail, we board as instructed. Understood?”
“Understood.”
The last of the captive mercenaries and Koorivar moved past the two reluctant Jedi, up the ship’s ramp and through the hatch. At the top Shryne made a passing motion with his hand to one of the troopers.
“There’s no reason to detain us,” he said.
The trooper gazed at him from inside the helmet. “There’s no reason to detain them,” he told his comrades.
“We’re free to return to our homes.”
“They’re free to return to their homes.”
“Everything’s fine. It’s time for you to board the ship.”
“Everything’s fine. It’s time for us to board the ship.”
Shryne and Starstone waited until the final trooper had filed inside; then they leapt from the ramp onto the clay field and concealed themselves behind one of the landing gear pods.
When an opportunity presented itself, they hurried from beneath the ship and escaped into the thick vegetation, heading for what remained of Murkhana City.