"You doing all right back there, princess?"

Ryn managed a weak affirmative, but in reality she was feeling far from all right. Her hands and arms ached from gripping the safety straps attached to the wall, and the combined smell of oil and rust wasn't helping her already-queasy stomach. She hadn't been in space since she was two years old, but if this was how it always was she had no desire to spend enough time here to get used to it.

"Not much farther now," came the voice from up at the control deck. " 'Bout another hour till we land in Republic City."

One hour. She could handle one more hour after all the months it had taken to get to this point. She'd spent almost a year planning and searching before she had finally found a ship with a pilot willing to take her to the New Republic's capital on Hosnian Prime. Months of sneaking into her uncle's office to dig through data files and freight schedules, and at least a dozen wasted trips to loading bays in the early morning hours when she'd found ships heading for the capital but was flatly refused transport by their pilots.

Ryn closed her eyes against the flashing blue light of hyperspace that filtered in through the small transparisteel windows. It was giving her a headache, on top of everything else. She tried reciting the Jedi Code silently to herself to help take her mind off things—she knew it was silly, just a game she and Cass had played, but it always made her feel calmer somehow. She had made it as far as "there is serenity" when something large and heavy slammed into her side. Instinctively, she tried to jump backwards, but only ended up hitting the wall. When she opened her eyes, she sighed with a mix of relief and irritation.

"You again?" she said, looking at the round, orange-and-white droid that was leaning at an awkward angle against her legs. "I was positive you would stay put this time."

The droid didn't reply—it was switched off, as they all were. Ryn was sure there were worse possibilities, but a cargo ship packed end-to-end with droids wouldn't have been her first choice for a ride. They kept coming loose from the holding rigs, and unless she wanted to be crushed by an avalanche of metal every time the ship banked, she had no choice but to try to secure them again. There were all kinds, everything from protocol and medical droids to the general labor variety. Ryn wasn't sure what this one's function was, but his round body shape made him especially hard to keep in place.

"I almost wish I could switch you on," she muttered as she maneuvered the droid back into place with her shoulder, moving on her hands and knees across the rough metal floor. "It'd be nice to have some company back here, and you look friendly enough." She secured the straps as tightly as she could, then slid back to her place against the wall.

One hour and two more droid repositionings later, the ship touched down on a landing platform in Republic City. As desperate as she was to get her feet back on solid ground, when the hatch opened Ryn paused to give the orange-and-white droid a pat on the head. "Good luck, little guy," she said. "I hope your new owner treats you better than this trip has."

"Well, princess, you're on your own from here." Ryn turned and saw the pilot climbing out of the cramped cockpit and making his way toward her around the army of lifeless droids. She hadn't told him her name, and he hadn't seemed inclined to share his, either. He was a big man with a scraggly beard, and he walked with a slight limp on his left side. His words were gruff, but not unkind.

"You'd best be on your way," the pilot went on. "I'm not exactly licensed for passengers, you see, and the inspectors'll be along any minute..."

Ryn took the hint. She thanked him and started down the ramp, grateful to be out of the confined space. But as soon as she set foot on the platform and looked up, she froze, completely in awe. The city opened up around her, a vast landscape of gleaming metal and flashing lights unlike anything she had ever seen. The tops of the buildings reached higher than she could see, swallowed up by the clouds, and everywhere she looked ships and speeders of all different shapes and sizes darted in between the metal structures. It seemed like a miracle that none of them crashed into each other.

She took a deep breath, trying not to let the enormity of what she was trying to do overwhelm her. She wasn't sure what she had expected Republic City to be like, but this was more than she ever could have imagined. Just getting here had been hard enough, but finding a single person in a city this size?

It felt impossible.