Lott Dod came to his feet as Gunray was preparing to leave. "Should I remain in your absence, Viceroy?" Gunray thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "Come with me. You are better at dealing with procedures and legalities than I am. But let us be quick about it, Senator, I don't wish to miss any more of the summit than I have to." A hundred meters above the floor of the summit hall, Qui-Gon and Boiny hurried through the network of walkways, gantries, and trusses that spanned the upper reaches of the building from wall to wall. The martial bellowing of the trumpets resounded off the curved walls, playing tricks with the sound. Sunlight, colored by the enormous ocular window in the center of the dome, poured in.
Suspended by brackets from the ceiling, or cantilevered from the walls, the walkways had openwork floors and tubular handrails and were just wide enough for a human of normal size to pass through. At regular intervals, especially where walkways intersected, were balconies that permitted maintenance to be performed on speaker arrays or banks of spotlights.
There were innumerable places where a lone shooter, armed with a remote or a blaster, might conceal himself.
Qui-Gon and Boiny hadn't gone far before they encountered the first security agent, who raised a hand weapon as they approached and demanded to know what business they had there.
Qui-Gon explained in as few words as possible, at the same time regarding the agent through the Force to determine if his demeanor of righteous authority was genuine.
Disconcerted by Qui-Gon's revelations, the agent activated his comlink and notified every agent in the vicinity to recheck the documents of anyone in the walkways, whether their badges identified them as fellow agents or technicians. In the same breath, he ordered that all exits leading to the periphery corridor behind the media booths be sealed off.
Within moments, Qui-Gon, Boiny, and the agent were joined by additional security personnel. Forming up into three groups, they fanned out into the walkways.
Qui-Gon and Boiny angled away from the perimeter and out over the floor of the hall. Directly below them stood the two lines of trumpeters and drummers.
They reached another intersection and split up.
Stretching out with his feelings, Qui-Gon moved warily toward the next balcony.
A security agent rushed into view, a blaster rifle cradled in his arms.
"I received word over the comlink," he said. "There are two technicians on the next balcony.
I suggest we start with them." The agent stepped aside to let Qui-Gon pass.
Qui-Gon sprinted forward. But the Force drew him up short.
He began to turn.
Someone shouted, "Jedi!" Qui-Gon spun and saw Boiny running full-out toward him. The security agent was between them, the blaster rifle still angled across his chest.
Boiny pointed to the agent. "That's-was The agent glanced at Qui-Gon.
"He's with me," Qui-Gon started to say.
The agent crouched and fired, hitting Boiny square in the chest and hurling him backwards on the walkway. Then he whirled on Qui-Gon, firing steadily.
Qui-Gon unleashed his lightsaber. But the blaster bolts were delivered with such speed and precision that he was hard-pressed to deflect all of them.
Two whizzed past his blade, grazing his left arm and right leg.
He stumbled slightly.
Drawn by the sounds of the blasterfire, a trio of agents raced into view from the same direction Boiny had come. Havac's shooter drew a second weapon from a shoulder holster and unloaded on the agents, wounding two of them.
Qui-Gon changed the cant of his blade to deflect bolts off to each side, rather than back at the shooter, for fear of hitting any of the reinforcements. By now the agents were returning fire, but showing little concern for Qui-Gon's predicament.
The shooter was dazzlingly fast with his hands and body, dodging bolts and throwing himself from one side of the narrow walkway to the other, concealed body armor absorbing the few shots that did manage to find him.
Qui-Gon leapt forward. Slashing horizontally with his blade, he severed two of the walkway's tubular vertical supports.
Then he slashed downward to rend the struts that braced the platform.
Abruptly both sections of the cleaved walkway tilted, sending Qui-Gon and Havac's shooter staggering toward each other and the increasing gap between the now dangling ends of the platform.
A crazed yell tore from the shooter's throat.
He slipped to the floor and began to slide along the grating, firing both weapons at Qui-Gon as he fell.
Into the brief silence the musicians inserted between the second and final fanfares, came a rush of voices raised in panic.
Seated stiffly at the center of the Coruscant delegation's rostrum, Valorum wasn't sure what had provoked the screams until he saw Sei Taria, with one hand pressed to her mouth, pointing toward the hall's ceiling.
In the maze of walkways below the dome's oculus window, blaster bolts darted and crisscrossed in the tinted light. Others glanced from a lightsaber's green blade. Sparks showered down on the drummers and trumpeters like a benediction.
Sei screamed.
Jedi Masters Adi Gallia and Vergere rushed forward, their swords ignited.
Then a figure plummeted from one of the walkways.
From the Trade Federation's side of the hall, the chair of the directorate watched open-mouthed as a blaster fight erupted in the overhead trusses and gantries. On the floor, at the same time, three Jedi and several judicials were moving quickly if surreptitiously toward the directorate rostrum.
The Kuati glanced between the ceiling and floor. Had the summit been engineered to trap the directorate? he asked himself. Would the Republic be so bold as to attack them in public?
The security droids had gone from standing at attention to postures of readiness, crouching slightly, with arms crooked and left legs extended behind. They were programmed to answer to any or all of the directorate members-or at least relay a directorate member's commands to the central control computer on board the Trade Federation vessel-but the droids responded best to the Neimoidians.
The Kuati chair looked around for Viceroy Gunray and realized that he hadn't returned. At a loss for what to do, he swung to one of his aides.
"Activate the force field!" he ordered.
The sounds of blasters and panic on the floor infiltrated the media booth Havac had secured.
Seated in a chair with a hand weapon leveled at Havac, Cohl heard the holocam click on and saw Havac glance at it.
"Am I correct in assuming that you intend to kill me?" Havac asked.