There. Someone is cutting through the crowd. She spies the golden helmets of the Senate Guard following after- Wait. It's not someone cutting through the crowd.

It's two people.

One of them isn't a person. It's a droid. A droid she recognizes.

Mister Bones. Oh no. No, no, no. Not now. Temmin, what have you done? Now she sees him, too-the tousle of hair in a topknot. He looks to her. Their eyes meet. He's yelling something and waving his arms about, but it doesn't matter. The applause is thunderous again, a vibrant roar that swallows all other sound.

- Sloane stares out over the balcony's edge, her elbows down, her chin resting on steepled fingers. The chancellor goes on and on. Freedom this, democracy that, never once acknowledging that the greatest threat the galaxy faces is not from Imperial order but from its absence.

All she can do is hope that the attack will soon commence. She knows Rax will be watching-this entire monkey show is being broadcast across the HoloNet. Her jaw tightens and she prays he has this under control.

Commence attack already, she wishes. As if her thoughts can be broadcast through time and through space. The time is now.

- "We have lost many along the way, but today is not a look back at what we've sacrificed but a look forward to the future," Mon Mothma says. "A future that we now possess thanks to those liberated from the Imperial black-site prison: heroes like Garel's once-governor, Jonda Jae-Talwar; the surgeon consul of Hosnian Prime, Plas Lelkot, who helped hide Imperial refugees in his own chteau; the radio operator Brentin Wexley from Akiva, who single-handedly transmitted our message across the Outer Rim and whose own wife, Norra, led the team to rescue him and all these others..."

Norra hears her name but it's a distant sound, a noise lost to the weight of deep water. All she can do is watch her son struggle against the tide of people. She snaps out of it and turns to Brentin to tell him- But what she sees makes no sense. Brentin has his arm up and extended out.

In his hand is a small pistol: a three-shot hold-out blaster.

He points it right at Chancellor Mon Mothma.

Norra screams and grabs his arm, yanking it upward- But it's too late.

The blaster fires.

- No!

Temmin sees his own father draw something-a matte-black pistol, small and concealable. As he points it at the chancellor, Temmin sees that his father is not alone. All the liberated captives have them.

His mother sees it, too. She grabs for the gun- It goes off just as someone tackles Temmin. Pain coruscates through him as one of the batons jabs hard into his side. His teeth clack and his tongue feels thick. For a few moments, his body seems like nothing more than a sack of meat, and the guard flips him over- Bones grabs the guard and flings him backward like he's not much more than an old ratty poppet-doll.

Two more guards advance, and Bones meets them, blades out.

- A flash of white cloth and the chancellor falls.

Norra twists Brentin's arm upward so that he can't fire another shot-and he spins to meet her. His face is a mask of horror. It's as if he can't believe what he just did. His mouth is open in a hopeless oh, eyes glistening with tears. He mouths, I'm sorry, then he drives a knee into her stomach- "Brentin," she cries.

He slams the gun down on the back of her head and she drops.

Norra rolls over, groaning. The stage is chaos. She realizes now, only too late, how her husband is not alone in his act-the other captives also have pistols up and out, and they're firing at those gathered on stage and into the crowd. Searing bolts cross open space. Someone falls near her-one of the chancellor's own advisers, Hostis, drops hard on his side, a serpent of smoke rising from a cooked hole in his head. Norra strains to look around her. Brentin is nowhere. Panic is everywhere. One of the liberated steps in front of her-it's the first one the chancellor mentioned, Jonda Jae-Talwar, a tall woman with white hair. Her face is a mask of unrecognizable rage as she fires into the crowd.

Norra grabs the woman's leg and yanks hard. The traitor cries out and drops onto her back, the air blasting out of her lungs. It takes little effort to twist the pistol out of her grip- On the woman's face, an odd moment of clarity passes in front like a cloud clearing away from the sun. She says something, something that's hard to hear over the sound of blasters and screams and thundering crowds. Something that might be, "What have I done?"

Norra doesn't know how to answer her.

The only answer she can supply is a straight fist to the woman's nose. Jae-Talwar's eyes flutter and she goes unconscious.

Norra gets up, then almost falls-a fresh starburst of pain radiates out from the base of her skull where Brentin hit her. Her vision goes double, then triple, then blurry once more. Ahead she sees a white crumpled shape: Mon Mothma, still on the ground. And ahead is Commodore Agate wrestling with one of the liberated, a Rodian man waving a pistol. Norra staggers toward them- Flash. The pistol goes off. Agate's head snaps back. She screams, rocking hard against the podium as the Rodian man lifts the gun, aiming to finish the job. Norra now recognizes him as Esdo, once a senator's aide from Coruscant before ending up locked away in that prison ship-she rushes him, slamming him back. He falls. She kicks the gun away.

Agate is clutching at her face. Between the fingers, Norra sees the dark char and blistered skin. "Go," Agate hisses. "Get clear."

Norra nods. Ahead she sees the Togruta woman, Auxi, helping Mon Mothma up-she's not dead, Norra thinks. A small bit of good news on this dire, dread day. The chancellor's shoulder is wet with red.

Guards swarm the stage, firing stun blasts at the scattering liberated captives. Norra doesn't see Brentin anywhere.

She needs to find him. Now.

- The epiphany that Sloane experiences is not one she expects, nor is it one she desires. As she watches the events unfold down below her balcony, she realizes grimly: This is the attack Rax was planning.

His fingerprints are all over it. How, she doesn't know. These rebels who returned from the prison have been...programmed in some way. Turned into traitors. Changed into killers.

It is genius.

And it disgusts her.

She says as much to Adea standing behind her even as Sloane cannot tear her eyes away from the chaos below. "This is not war," she says, her voice drawn out and ragged. "This is not battle. This is something else." A test, says a small voice inside her. "This is not how we conduct ourselves. This is how they do it. Insurgency and terror."

These were not the events Sloane figured she would witness today. Where are the ships? Where is her fleet, scouring Chandrila with sacred Imperial fire? But here it is, and deal with it, she must.

Mothma left her and Adea up here with a guard contingent: treating Sloane like an honored guest, but still taking precautions. Sloane turns. Five New Republic guards remain. And two of her own-the red-cloaked Royal Guardsmen stand silent and still.

Adea hovers nearby. Trembling just slightly.

To the two Royal Guards, Sloane gives a gentle nod.

The guards of the New Republic have no chance. Those picked to serve Palpatine and wear the elite red cloaks are blank soldiers filled only with the knowledge of how to defend and how to kill. A swoosh of their cloaks and a spin of the blades and in less than ten seconds, the bodies of the fallen Republic guards litter the floor.

Sloane tells those redcloaks: "Go. Clear the way and secure my ship. Adea and I will be along shortly thereafter."

They say nothing. They do not even offer a nod.

They simply do as commanded.

"We need a plan," Sloane says to Adea.

"As you said, the guards will clear the way-"

"No," Sloane says with a sharp rebuke. "A larger plan. This aberration of an attack must not become our dominant mode of doing business, Adea. We must deal with Rax quickly. Mercilessly. If he is given time, he will spin this as only he can. He will attempt to convince the others that it was sensible, a necessary evil."

"What if they do? Surely the New Republic will be left reeling-"

Sloane turns and again looks out over the balcony. Now she sees guards swarming the stage. The chancellor is up and disappearing in a circle of protectors. So, Mon Mothma is alive. Good. That woman must not die. She must kneel in fealty-that is the only fate Sloane will accept for the foolish chancellor.

"Don't be seduced by Rax," Sloane says, still watching below. Madness has seized the crowd beyond. "I was. Temporary idiocy on my part. I became complacent and now? This happened. We should've brought the fleet. We need to demonstrate martial ability. The Empire is a hammer striking down disorder, not a knife slipped between unsuspecting ribs. Rax must be arrested. And then executed. I will be the one to do it."

Adea says nothing.

The silence from her is deafening.

And then comes the second unwanted epiphany.

"Adea," Sloane says, turning toward her assistant. Her assistant stands there, one of the guards' own blaster rifles in her hand. Its barrel points right at Sloane's head. Adea isn't trembling anymore. She is firm-footed and sure of her actions. Sloane sighs. Not her. Please, not her. "I'm too late, aren't I? We were both fools, Adea."

"Rax is the way forward. The Empire must be willing to change. We must be willing to do anything to show the galaxy what it is to defy us."

"Don't point that weapon at me, Adea."

"This was a test. He wanted you to embrace it. To see things his way. It didn't have to be like this. You could have helped him rule. And I would be with you both, helping reshape the Empire and the galaxy beyond."

"I do not want the Empire reshaped by his hands. And I don't want you reshaped by him, either. We worked well together, you and I. You trusted in my vision. Didn't you?" Now, though, she understands. Adea has been betraying her all along, hasn't she? Giving intel on her to Rax. It's how he knew where she was on Coruscant. How he knew about her meeting with Mas Amedda. About everything. Maybe there's still hope. "Put that rifle down. I'll give you no more chances, Adea. Put. It. Down."

But Adea does no such thing.

She is resolute.

She is his.

So be it.

Sloane feints left, then moves right. Adea isn't combat-trained-the rifle follows Sloane's first movement and fires. The blaster bolt tears through the space where Sloane was moments before.

Sloane drives a fist into Adea's kidneys.

The girl cries out, tries to wheel on Sloane with the rifle- Which is exactly the wrong thing to do. Sloane easily pivots the weapon out of the girl's hands and fires a bolt point-blank into her chest.

Adea's eyes go wide, and in them Sloane sees a young women she trusted. A woman she thought could've been her daughter in another lifetime.

Adea's lips work soundlessly.

She falls.

Sloane takes a moment.

And in that moment, rage surges through her like acid.

I am going to kill Gallius Rax.

Sloane leaves the room, rifle in her hand.

- Brentin...

Norra fights against the crowd. They're panicked. They should be. She is, too. From somewhere, she hears someone weeping. Then more blasterfire. She tries to imagine what happened and what is happening even still, but she can't get her head around it-to see these captives held up on a well-deserved pedestal only to turn around and attack is incomprehensible.

Brentin...

Her husband is part of it. He tried to assassinate the chancellor. Who else would he have attacked if she hadn't stopped him?

And where did he go?

She has to find him.

To stop him, yes. But also to understand what happened. To look in his eyes once more and try to find out if the man who did this thing is still her husband-or if her husband is even there at all.

Brentin, why?

She fights her way across the plaza. Looking for her husband. But also looking for her son. Temmin knew. He tried to warn her.

Now where is he?

Get higher.

She's a pilot. She needs height, like a falcon scouting for prey. She pushes her way through to the Old Gather-House, then laps a couple of steps, almost running out of breath as she does. She sees a body in the hall-an Ottegan senator. Eyes as glassy and dead as a droid's. That means more captives were here, too, doesn't it? Of course they were. They weren't all on stage. Some of them were probably here. Watching. Waiting.

Norra moves on. Nothing to be done here.

She finds her way to one of the now empty terraces. The crowd has already started to disperse below, and the guards are locking down the plaza. Good. Hopefully they'll catch as many of these people as they can.

Someone needs to get answers.

And then, Norra sees him.

Brentin Wexley-to the far right of the plaza. He's crossing one of the skybridges, heading in the direction of the landing platforms.

Norra grits her teeth and moves in that direction.

- "Stop."

Temmin stands behind his father as the man flees to the end of the skybridge-beyond, hundreds of landing platforms ring the far side of Hanna City, and beyond them waits the sea.

His father, pistol still in hand, freezes.

Temmin has no weapon. He's alone, too. Bones is gone, left back in the crowd to distract the guards so that Temmin could flee.

Slowly, Brentin turns around.

"Tem," Dad says. It sounds like Dad. His voice wavers.

"Mom was right. You aren't you."

"I am. But..." His father's words die on the vine before bearing fruit. He just stands there. Then he slowly raises the pistol. Almost as if he doesn't want to. As if something is lifting his arm-an invisible string tugging on his wrist. Or maybe Temmin is just imagining that. Maybe Dad wants to kill him. Either way, Temmin stands there. Chin up and out. Trying not to cry and failing miserably because he feels his cheeks tighten and his eyes go wet. He has no weapon to point, so instead he points an accusing finger.

"You killed people."

"Don't say that."

"You did. You're the Empire. Were you always? Was it all just a lie? Playing the good guy so we didn't know how bad you were?"

"No. No! I was...I never..."