main doors of the Temple, so it could record those coming in or leaving.
Aryn’s mouth was dry. She was afraid to blink for fear of missing something, though that was ridiculous since T7 could freeze, replay, and even magnify any image on the screen.
They watched as a cloaked figure and a Twi’lek woman armed with blasters walked through the Temple’s enormous doors.
“Does the Temple post guards?” Zeerid asked.
Aryn nodded.
Neither of them needed to say what must have happened to the guards.
As the pair walked brazenly down the entry hallway, the cam showed people gathering on the balconies above, looking down.
“They didn’t know what to make of him,” Zeerid said.
Aryn nodded.
“He is big,” Zeerid said.
“Freeze on his face and magnify,” Aryn said to T7.
The image froze, centered on the man’s hooded face, and magnified. She could make out nothing in the shadowed depths of his cowl except what looked to be the bottom of a mask of some kind.
“Is that a mask?” Zeerid asked.
“I don’t know. The Twi’lek, Tee-seven,” she said, and T7 pulled the image back, recentered on the Twi’lek, and did the same.
The Twi’lek’s face filled the screen.
“Skin color is unusual,” Zeerid said. He leaned forward in his chair, peering intently.
She was beautiful, Aryn allowed.
And she was a murderer. Or at least associated with one.
“See the scar,” Zeerid said. He stood and pointed a finger at the screen, at the Twi’lek’s throat. There, a jagged scar cut an irregular path across her neck. “Between that and her skin, maybe we can identify her?”
“Maybe,” Aryn said, and tried to swallow. She was less interested in the Twi’lek than she was in the hooded figure. “Continue, Tee-seven.”
They watched as the two strode halfway down the hall. Aryn’s breath caught when she watched Master Zallow emerge from off cam to confront the Sith and the Twi’lek. Six other Jedi Knights accompanied him.
“Freeze, Tee-seven.”
The frame stopped, and Aryn studied Master Zallow’s face. He looked as he always had—stern, focused. Seeing him somehow freed her to grieve with something other than tears. She recalled some of their training sessions, how he had at first insisted that she fight with his style, but had later relented and allowed her to find her own path. The memory made her smile, and cry.
“Are you all right?” Zeerid asked.
She nodded, wiped away the tears with the sleeve of her robe. “Tee-seven, let me see the faces on the other Jedi.”
T7 flipped through a variety of footage from recorders at different angles until it finally captured the faces of the other Jedi. Aryn recognized each of them, though she did not know them well. Still, she recited their names. She figured she owed them at least that.
“Bynin, Ceras, Okean, Draerd, Kursil, Kalla.”
“Friends?” Zeerid asked, his voice soft.
“No,” Aryn said. “But they were Jedi.”
“It’s not possible that this Sith and Twi’lek took down those Jedi and the Temple alone,” Zeerid said, though he sounded uncertain. “Is it?”
Aryn did not know. “Continue, Tee-seven.”
The footage started again. Master Zallow went face-to-face with the Sith. The other Jedi ignited their blades. Aryn stared at Master Zallow and the Sith warrior, seeing if they exchanged words, gestures, anything. They didn’t, at least as far as she could see.
“Stang,” Zeerid breathed.
“What?” Aryn said. “Freeze it, Tee-seven. What is it?”
The image froze. She saw nothing unusual happening between Master Zallow and the Sith.
“There,” Zeerid said. He bounced out of his seat again and pointed at something beyond the Temple’s tall entrance, something in the sky. Aryn did not see it.
“What is it?”
“A ship,” Zeerid said. “Here. See it?”
Aryn stood and squinted at the screen. She did see it, though it was hard to distinguish against the sky through the slit of the Temple’s floor-to-ceiling open doors.
“Note the silhouette,” Zeerid said. “That’s an NR-two gully jumper, a Republic ship. Like the kind I used to fly. See it?”
Aryn did, but she did not understand its significance.
“Magnify, Tee-seven,” said Zeerid, and the droid complied. The ship came into clear view.
“No markings,” Zeerid said. “But look at its nose, its trajectory. It’s coming down, right at the Temple.”
“You sure?”
“It doesn’t look damaged,” Zeerid said thoughtfully. “Back out to normal magnification and play it, Tee-seven.”
They watched in awed silence as the gulley jumper crashed through the Temple’s entrance, tore through the hall, collapsing columns as it went, a rolling mass of metal and flame, until it stopped right behind the Sith facing Master Zallow.
Neither the Sith nor Master Zallow had moved.
“Mid-section is still intact,” Zeerid said, “It must have been