Anakin felt it the moment he set foot outside of Padme's ship after touching down on Dantooine. This planet is rich in the Force, the energy field swirling like the very air, so thick he can almost breathe it. This planet teems with life, with connection, with power. Though Dantooine has been little more than a farming backwater for thousands of years, the Jedi of times of old knew this planet shared a special connection with the Force. And for worlds wealthy with the Force, there are always places like these—old places, mysterious, mystical, places, places where Anakin can almost reach out and run his hand through the Force as if it is a river, a sea. But there are more questions than answers here, and the first question is this: Who else has been here?

Leaving Padme to deal with the diplomacy back in Garang, Anakin hopped on a rented swoop and spent almost a hour riding at full throttle out here past the sleepy shepherding village of Khoonda. He doesn't know his galactic history well, not even his Jedi history, but he does know this: Here, more than three thousand years ago, Jedi learned, studied, trained. Initiates, Padawans, Knights. Masters. Dantooine once played host to one of several Jedi academies strewn throughout the galaxy on Force-strong worlds, but time and conflict and the tides of history whittled that number down. Now all that remains of Dantooine's Jedi academy is a series of sprawling grassy hillocks like tumuli of forgotten warriors, with only an oddly-straight stone or edge of metal poking out of the verdant ground to mark all those who once called this place their own. The Jedi on Dantooine are no more, not for a long, long time. But the Force remains as strong as ever, even if Anakin is the last Jedi Knight left to feel it.

Dig deep enough and maybe he'd find an entrance tunnel to that old academy. Maybe ancient records, arcane wisdom of the Force like that lost with other half-forgotten Jedi institutions on planets like Ossus. But he is not here for that, because there are even older stories that Dantooine has to tell, and Anakin has a feeling from all that he's learned on Sleheyron and Thyferra and from Senator Sandral on Coruscant that someone is telling those tales again.

The standing stones are the first sign that he's headed the right way. These aren't Jedi in origin, nor are they colonial remains from the human settlers who touched down on Dantooine so long ago. These are older—far older. Anakin can sense it when he puts his hand on one of the gray menhirs and closes his eyes. Even in this simple stone there is power, energy. Whoever built this knew the Force. But it is an unsettling feeling, a disquieting touch that makes Anakin back away, as if the builder's connection with the Force was tainted, corrupted. Old stones, old stories. They litter the grassy vale Anakin travels across, the dark shapes of predatory kath hounds lurking in their shade. The bulbous trunks of millenia-old blba trees rise from the sides of the vale like watchmen, some of them no doubt so old that they once stood guard over those ancient Jedi all those years ago. Serene blue-purple skies overhead. Snuffling herds of antelope-like iriaz grazing about the savanna. Too peaceful a place for a war. Too peaceful a place for what Anakin worries he might find today.

Jedi artifacts. Kyber crystals. That vault on Thyferra overflowed with the kind of history he could find here, and Senator Sandral's involvement with this whole mess is far too convenient. If the Taths, or whoever they are working with—or for—in the Republic are looking for more relics of the Force, they will certainly find them here.

Here, here specifically—the lone kyber crystal cave known to exist on Dantooine by the Jedi Order of today, and the most likely place Anakin will find any evidence that he's on the right track with his suspicions. In truth, while Anakin supported Padme's hunch that Governor Imran Matele was the key to figuring out Senator Sandral's corruption, it is old, forgotten, powerful places like this that he believes hold the answers to the questions that began way back on Empress Teta with Ternon Tath's murder. The dead Arkanian had his own share of old relics in his treasure cellar, just like Solan and Hosha Tath did in their vault on Taris. Someone wants all these connections to the Force, kyber crystals especially. But why?

Anakin kneels down outside of the entrance to the cave and frowns. It's normal-looking at first glance—just another hole in a rocky rise with a tunnel fading into darkness. The locals have probably walked by here countless times without thinking anything out of the ordinary. Anakin runs his hand through the high grass. Pebble-like animal feces. Small bones; rodent, maybe small bird. Insect-like tracks, spiky, clustered together. Other tracks too, recent, and far too obvious for him to miss: Human bootprints.

He reaches instinctively towards his lightsaber. No Jedi have come here in a long, long time as far as he knows, but someone else knows what lies within.

Igniting his lightsaber for illumination, Anakin heads into the cave, cautious, eyes wide. High-pitched whirring echoes about from deeper down the tunnels. The blue light from his saber produces an eerie, dreamlike glow as the tunnel narrows. More bootprints in the dust. Faded, not so recent. Perhaps he is wrong; perhaps he is alone. He does not let doubt eat at him, however: He continues down the tunnel, lightsaber leading the way, shadows long and spiny as they stretch out from old sediment.

Then—movement. Anakin raises his saber in a defensive posture as a long, thin, chitinous leg paws at the dirt. Not a human, nor an intruder. A kinrath spider: A spindly arachnid with crab-like legs and a tubular, conical body as tall as Anakin's chest. It hisses and screeches at him, clawing at the dirt. Stay off my turf, Jedi.

Keeping distance between him and the arachnid, Anakin circles around and heads down the nearest tunnel. The spider shows no interest in fighting as it backs off, still hissing and spitting. Then Anakin sees why it is spooked: Down the tunnel lies another kinrath spider, very much dead with blaster bolts pockmarking its hardened exoskeleton. Then another, and beneath the second, a ripped and battered batch of leathery spider eggs the size of hand grenades. Blasters didn't tear the eggs apart, however. That was the work of precision tools, laser cutters. Someone did this with deliberation and malevolent intent.

The tunnels open up into a series of caverns. Water drips from glowering stalactites. More dead spiders; more torn eggs. Anakin kneels by one clutch and runs his hands through the earth. A hardness beneath his fingers: From the dust he draws a tiny, but very clear, kyber crystal. Faint blue hue. Not even large enough by half to power a lightsaber, but he cannot miss its nature. Nor, apparently, could whoever came before.

He's on the right track, all right.

As he heads deeper into the cave, he spots more and more crystals. Each is tiny, nothing near enough to satisfy a Jedi Initiate hungry to prove their worth. More worrisome are the indentations Anakin spots in the cave walls, some large enough to hold larger, more luminous crystals. Almost as if someone has been prospecting.

He rounds the next bend in the passage and enters the largest cavern yet. Larger crystals glow from around the bases of stalagmites, bright enough to belong on Ilum. Green, blue, a few yellow, even a violet. Anakin waves his lightsaber out in front of him. A gleam near one stalagmite, and not from a kyber crystal. There, on the ground: A precision laser drill, a handheld tool. Bootprints in the dust. A dead kinrath nearby. Irrefutable evidence, this.

A mechanical beep sounds out, and Anakin whirls into action, lightsaber at the ready. At the far end of the cavern a droid's eye watches him. It shrieks as he notices it—just a small, floating drone with a large recorder and a transmission antenna. Not even a security bot, this; just something to keep an eye on the prospecting site. It floats away at Anakin's notice, but he reaches out with the Force and pulls the droid to him with one good heave. It screams, trills, but is helpless: Anakin grabs the spherical droid, no larger than a clone trooper's helmet, and yanks out an exposed wire coming from the repulsorlift. The droid cries out as Anakin works the circuitry, opens a maintenance panel near the back, and with one good tug cuts off the droid's incessant shrieking. Bloody noisy, this bot. If there is someone else in here, they surely know they have company.

But Anakin has far more to worry about than someone else in here with him. As he inspects the bot, he discovers the antenna still transmitting to a local source planetside, even through all the rock above and all around. Time for his mechanical expertise to take over. Anakin reroutes a power node and secures root control over the droid's central processor, shutting down the transmission and bringing up the droid's archival access on the small electronic display just below its black, unblinking eye.

It was transmitting, all right. And not to anywhere good: The receiving source was in the capital. Specifically, the coordinates match up right where the ministerial manor lies…right where Padme is meeting with Governor Matele.

Blast it. The droid must've caught his face with his eye recorder. Probably already tipped off whatever source is behind this that Padme didn't come to Dantooine alone. He needs to warn her, now.

Fortunately, his own communicator is strong enough to make it through the thick rock walls, but Padme's line is closed. Must be in a meeting. He tries his next best option: R2.

Waiting, waiting. Then the connection links and from his commlink whistles R2's cheery tone. Good thing he left the droids with his wife. "R2. R2, listen," Anakin says. "I've found evidence that someone is mining for kyber crystals here on Dantooine, someone who had a security drone that caught me on footage and transmitted that to a source inside of the ministerial manor." He takes a breath and looks around to ensure that no one is sneaking up on him. "It's not illegal as far as I know, but it sure does make me suspicious, especially since it very well might involve someone inside of the governor's circle. I'm sending you the exact coordinates that received the drone's transmission with this message; try to place it with a terminal inside of the manor. I don't know if this has anything to do with everything leading up to now, but it's a lead, and it reminds me all too much of the crystals I saw inside of the Tath vault on Taris and the base on Thyferra. Make sure Padme gets this message."

R2 whistles his confirmation. "Thanks, buddy," says Anakin, "and no, I'm fine. Keep Padme safe for me, all right? And try not to do anything too crazy in the meantime. I'm coming back as fast as I can."

Meeting after meeting after meeting. Padme knows what Governor Matele is doing: Keeping her busy. So far he and his staff have spent hours spinning yarns of honey-tongued nothingness interspersed with a few pointed remarks about how the Republic is failing to protect the Outer Rim worlds still loyal to Coruscant. She doesn't like that Matele and his government is going behind the Senate's back to secure protection via the Sector Fleets, but she can't find anything specifically unlawful about it, either. And every question she's asked about Senator Sandral has returned a vacuous answer of I-don't-knows and we-weren't-there. Plausible deniability, hours of it. Politics at its worst. She feels as if she she'll explode if she has to listen to one more aide note that Dantooine's government has no presence on Coruscant, and that anything Sandral got up to is his—and the Senate's—problem. This is just a farming world, after all.

A farming world with a star destroyer and escort fleet in orbit. She shakes her head as she takes a break in one of the ministerial manor's private lobbies. No, this isn't the end of it. There's more going on here. There's a reason why everyone in this place is so quick to shut down her inquiries concerning the events surrounding Sandral's treachery. If there's something she hasn't heard so far, it's honesty.

The far door sliding open stirs her from her thoughts. In comes C-3PO, brushing past the leafy branch of a well-manicured, potted, miniature blba tree beside one of the lobby's couches. "Mistress Padme, I am afraid R2-D2 is quite insistent that we speak to you," the protocol droid laments as he wobbles forward. "I tried to make him understand just how busy you are, but he refuses to listen to reason."

"It's all right, Threepio. R2?" says Padme, rising from her seat. After the astromech droid trills, her eyes widen and she says, "A message from Anakin? Let me hear it."

Once the message plays in full, she looks to the door the two droids entered through. "There is more going on than they were letting on," she says quietly. "R2, those coordinates Anakin mentioned—did you see where they led?"

"He mentioned something of the sort. Apparently a private terminal somewhere in the basement. No remote access, I'm afraid," says Threepio. "Although why that would be required is—"

"We need to get down there to that terminal, then. We need to find out why that drone needed to warn someone about Anakin," Padme says.

Threepio stammers: "But, Mistress, you have a meeting with Governor Matele's secretary of infrastructure in just ten minutes."

"We're going to have to reschedule. Come on. Both of you. R2, do you have a map of this building? Is there a way we can avoid anyone and make our way to the basement levels?"

The astromech clicks and brings up a holographic map. A red line weaves through a series of maintenance halls descending towards an exterior access point, beside which lies the freight garage in the shadow of an alley. "That'll do," says Padme. "We can get out there, get back in through the garage, and make our way down. It's almost sunset. By the time we get down there through the maintenance halls, it'll be twilight."

"R2, are you sure you're correct about this information?" Threepio asks the astromech droid.

R2 chirps in the affirmative and Padme nods. "We're not getting anywhere in discussions. This is the best lead yet, and if Anakin thinks it's suspicious enough to say something, then I'll go with his gut," she says. She smiles. "What's the worst that happens, Threepio? We miss out on caviar?"

"I can think of quite a few disastrous outcomes that will come from snooping about government buildings."

"Please don't share. Now let's go. And stay quiet. We can't be seen investigating this place or they'll have security swarming."

The first hallway is mercifully empty. Still Padme reaches for the ELG-3A blaster pistol in her diplomatic cloak's pocket—settings for stun, flash, and kill. She hopes she won't need that last one. Frankly, she hopes she won't need any of them. If she and the droids can pull off a little harmless snooping completely undetected, all the better.

At least that way she won't need to explain to Anakin why they're fighting their way off of another Outer Rim world. She had enough of that on Taris.

Perhaps it's a shift change, or perhaps everyone's going home for the day with the sun setting, but Padme and the droids make it down one hallway, then the next, then the next, and run into nothing but a pair of mouse droids zipping about. Each time before they enter the next hall she has R2 check the nearest public access terminal in order to divert security camera feeds—the astromech is remarkably useful at slicing through basic software protection like that used on a backwater world such as Dantooine, and each time they move forward unseen. The third hallway is a restricted-access passage that runs past Governor Matele's office, but R2 is quick to slice through the weak security; in no time he opens the way, and Padme slips into a maintenance storage door with Threepio and R2 right on her heels.

Just in time: No sooner is R2 through the door than an entrance at the end of the hall opens and voices ring out. "Oh! Others are coming!" Threepio exclaims before Padme covers his mouth with her hand. She shuts the maintenance door far enough to leave a sliver of an opening, just enough to overhear what's going on outside. Then, motioning for quiet with her finger over her lips, she leans her ear to the crack and waits.

The first voice is unmistakable: Governor Matele. "A Jedi? And Skywalker? Here?" Matele snaps. "Bloody insanity. That senator was never debating us in good faith; she was covering up for her Jedi companion to go snooping around. We've been played for fools."

Not exactly, but not a bad idea, thinks Padme. A pleasant-sounding female voice speaks next: "Apparently he was looking into that cave prospecting operation you had Millis set up," the voice says. "What was that about, Governor?"

"Never you mind. It's nothing. Nothing you need to worry about. Get that—agh, this is a mess. That Jedi wouldn't have missed the obvious. Re-route local security near Khoonda to converge on that location. Get one of my secretaries or someone to keep the senator busy in the meantime; I don't know, offer her supper with someone. Placate her. Keep her busy. She's unimportant. It's the Jedi we need to track down now. Silence him. Somehow. Some way. Make him go away."

"Silence?"

"Just do it. Tell Essam and the rest of the security team that. Also—" Matele stops and sighs. "Agh."

"Governor, again, what exactly is it that the Jedi found—or might have found—"

Matele snaps. "You don't need to know! Drop it. Now," he growls. "And get that…woman...on the holo."

"What woman?"

"The Arkanian."

"Oh. Uh…you're sure this is the right call, Governor?"

"Look, she had the right Republic credentials, and our backer verified her. The law's not going to bother us, it's the Jedi sniffing about and interpreting things wrong that will. You can't explain nuance to them. Now get her on the line."

Padme sucks in her breath. "Er…she…we tried reaching her yesterday when you asked, but apparently she's going to Telos for some reason. We couldn't get through to her. If you don't mind me asking—"

"I do mind you asking, and…damn it. Oh, this is terrible timing. Get rid of the Jedi first. Get security on it. Then we can figure out our next steps," Matele orders.

Padme pulls back from the door as their footsteps fade. She lets out a long, held-in breath. So it isn't just some coincidence. Whether it's connected to Senator Sandral or not, Governor Matele knows something incriminating, something Anakin's uncovered. Jedi crystals? What does that have to do with anything?

Well, she doesn't know now, but her next step is clear: She needs to get to that terminal the drone transmitted to. If anywhere will have more information, it's there. "R2," she whispers, "send a message to Anakin. Warn him he might have company," she says. "And then let's keep going. We need to figure this out while we still have time."

The whispers slip from the ice.

The first is Rex's voice. Just a murmur, so quiet against the calving of the ice sheets deep in Ilum's Crystal Cave. Whatever Rex is doing outside, Ahsoka thinks, it doesn't involve following her in here. His voice isn't coming from him. It's from within her. The Force is so strong in here, thick and tense as she makes her way down the first frozen tunnel inside the cave. She knew, didn't she? This is why Anakin sent her. Lightsaber crystal be damned: She needs to face what happened.

"Everyone here's got your back, Commander. I've got your back," Rex's voice whispers from the blue-white frozen walls. Blue, almost glowing. Grievous's lightsaber as it dives in to impale her.

Then comes her own voice from that hanging wait before the battle over Ziost: "It'll be fine."

She looks down at her cybernetic left hand and sighs. Oh, what was. What's become. How did she ever think like that? Only a matter of weeks ago, and already it feels as if that was another lifetime.

Ahsoka shakes her head and keeps moving. Eyes up. Already she's seen a number of kyber crystals glistening from the ice, but not one that calls to her. Not one that will become hers, her weapon, her arm. Your arm? To replace the one that Grievous mangled? No, no—she closes her eyes. Focus. Don't let those wild, beaten thoughts get the better of you. Quiet. There you go. Leave them not one ounce of fear to feast upon.

Big drop ahead. The snowy path falls away and a sheer drop of at least twenty feet follows, solid ice offering nowhere to climb down. Ahsoka frowns and looks around. Somewhere to go, another tunnel to climb to. Or maybe she can jump down. Too high, maybe? She grits her teeth. Stupid concerns. Old her never would've cared; she would've just jumped. One injury later—admittedly a bad one—and now she's looking at a little drop and weighing the risks. Stupid. The Force will cushion you. Old you would've laughed. Just jump it.

But she doesn't have the chance to make up her mind. Her footing gives way as the ice crumbles under her weight and Ahsoka falls. In a panic she reaches out to grab something, anything; nothing around for the Force to pull towards her. But her cybernetic left hand digs into the ice. The metal punctures the frozen surface and carves out a handhold where her fleshy right hand slips away. Ahsoka dangles and takes a breath. Okay. Maybe the prosthetic can come in handy here and there. She looks down at her legs, all metal and lightning, and kicks at the wall. Kick, kick. She digs out a small foothold, plants her right foot—and it holds.

Ahsoka lets go and drops down, flipping in the air to land safely. See? It didn't hurt a bit. The Force is always with you.

First obstacle down. Keep it up. You're tougher than a little ice and a few bad memories.

As Ahsoka pushes into the cave, however, the memories come fiercer and faster. Emergency lighting in the Invisible Hand. Blue electron glow. Grievous's cackle. We have unfinished business, Skywalker. I am not speaking to you, child.

Anakin's voice: Don't let him fire you up.

Ahsoka fights simultaneously through the cold and those tense minutes relived from the battle over Ziost. If something bad happens to us on board, at least Grievous won't be going anywhere. Oh, Master. Something bad did happen, and Grievous ran off.

Kyber crystals blinking from the walls. A yellow crystal there buried in the ice, yellow like glaring eyes encased in a cyborg's metal skull. There a green crystal, green lightsaber swinging, blade on blade. Blue glow of the ice sheet; blue turbolasers arcing towards Separatist ships over frosty Ziost. Try as she might to free her mind, Ahsoka's thoughts keep running back. She concentrates on the here and now—ahead a jump, up you go. The tunnel banks away into a larger chamber, crevices below, watch out. Rex—keep her safe.

She shudders.

Up a short cliff, mechanical feet digging into the ice. Ahsoka pulls herself over the ledge, lets out a breath of exhaustion, and stares into the eyes of General Grievous.

"Too late, Skywalker," he chortles, raising his lightsabers high. Both of them green. One a standard lightsaber, regular length, the other a shoto. Her lightsabers.

Two more for the collection.

She throws herself up and over, somersaults, and comes to a stop, feeling foolish. There is no one there. The Force playing tricks on her mind, or maybe the other way around. "No," she breathes through gritted teeth. "I can do this." Anakin saved her then. He's saved her countless times. But she doesn't always need saving. Not now. And in the future, if he needs her, she'll be there. Stronger than before. Confident. Like before, but this time without rushing into the teeth of an attack. Courage without recklessness. Bravery with patience. Spirit and wisdom. Find balance, Ahsoka. Listen to your instincts. Follow your feelings. Follow the Force.

She closes her eyes. You know the words. There is no emotion, there is peace.

When she opens her eyes, Grievous is there again, laughing. "Two more for the collection," he snarls.

She does not move. There is no passion, there is serenity.

Grievous advances on her. "Next time, child," he says, his voice now no longer a memory but a confrontation, her thoughts turning, twisting. Let them. "Next time I won't leave you alive. Skywalkwer will break when he sees what I do to you. I will break you. I will break him. I will break every last one of you Jedi."

He lunges, lightsabers—her lightsabers—raised. Ahsoka does not blink. Does not flinch. Does not move. There is no death, there is the Force.

He swings. The lightsabers fall upon her. Ahsoka is a statue, a mountain. Then it is Grievous who breaks: His image shatters, bursts like a broken window, and the vision blows away. Ahsoka is still there. Ahead of her now shines a light, brighter than any other in here: A blue glow, not ice, but something more. Something she can feel in her heart, her feelings.

But she will not rush. Patience, patience. Let the Force flow through you. Is what you see what is truly before you? She closes her eyes and breathes in. What do you feel? Conflicted, uncertain, doubting. Restless after that battle, after Grievous took so much away, changed her forever. Hurt. And, yes—afraid. Fear is the path to the Dark Side. But by rejecting it, you fear the very notion of fear itself. Do not shy away. Do not look about. Face it. See it. See Grievous once more, see him come upon you, and know that you can face death itself and never be alone. The Force will be with you. Always.

She opens her eyes. Still the light shines.

Forward. She takes a step. Another. All of her in motion, organic, cybernetic, the body she was born with and the body she has inherited. All of it forward. She reaches out to the ice and touches the gleaming crystal embedded within. The ice breaks away; the kyber crystal remains. Not just one—a paired couplet. Two crystals linked at their base. She holds it up, then clutches it with both hands. You are mine. And I will give you everything I have.

Blue crystals. Blue sabers. The color befitting a Jedi warrior. A guardian of the peace. Not someone who will never fear, no, but someone who will face their fears, embrace them, and keep fighting. She can be afraid. But that fear will not break her again.

Her commlink buzzes, and she clicks the responder without saying a word. It is Rex, and this time it is his voice, here on Ilum in the flesh: "Commander? Are you there?"

"I'm here," she says. Simple. All that needs to be said.

Rex pauses for a moment, as if there is some new note in her voice. The first lines of a song that is just beginning. "I've found something out here," he says after the pause. "Something you should take a look at. Track my locator beacon. I'll wait for you."

"I'm coming," says Ahsoka. "I won't be long."

Getting in would be the easy part, Kesh had said. It's inside the Tath base where the hard part will begin.

Right on cue, thinks Tamri as the vornskr inside their train crate begins snarling and snapping the moment the maglev train passes through the Tath installation's security scanner. Tamri raises her hand, trying to calm the animal with the Force. Focus, focus. "Shh," she whispers as the canine pants. "It's okay."

"I don't know if that's working," whispers Kesh, a hint of anxiety slipping into her voice.

"It'd better. How long until we can get out?"

"I don't know. When the train stops."

"Well, when is that?"

As soon as Tamri says it, the train slows to a halt, coming to a stop at the Tath installation. The vornskr barks, advancing on her as she frantically motions to Kesh. "Okay, it's not working anymore. Open the crate."

"They might be searching the train first—"

"Open it! Just open it!"

Kesh throws open the crate's hatch and the two of them pile out. Outside harsh white overhead lights glare down. They're in a giant loading bay that connects to the maglev rail, separated from the train track outside by an energy gate. It's huge, this hanger, large enough to fit the entire train and then some—but Tamri doesn't have enough time to enjoy the sights. As soon as she leaps free, the vornskr is right behind her, snarling and barking and growling in a flurry of fur and fangs and hunger.

She is not alone, however. A loading attendant nearby—tall, Echani, thin, tired eyes—looks over to see the commotion, only to find the canine in his face. "What the f—" he starts before the vornskr turns and leaps at him.

The attendant leaps free from the train as the vornskr rebounds and lunges. The Echani man dashes away, hollering, "Specimen's loose! Specimen's loose! Get me security! Get me fu—"

"Huh," says Kesh as Tamri picks herself up. "Little guy actually ended up helping us out."

"Little?" blurts Tamri. "You weren't trying to control him the whole time."

"Well, he wasn't that big."

"He was almost up to my shoulder!"

Avea steps in from behind the crate, her cargo handler's uniform now unbuttoned and dangling from her shoulders. "What the hell did you two do?" she growls.

"Got a distraction. Relax, it's fine," murmurs Tamri.

"Fine? We're in hostile territory and our only way out's to get this done. It's not—screw it. Pick yourself off the ground, Kesh. We need to go. Now."

Kesh points to the far end of the hanger, at least two hundred meters away. "We need to get to the access halls at the end of the cargo bay," she says. "Just like I told you before, Avea. Once we get through the outer security screens, we'll have an easier time."

"Hurry, then, because whatever monster you let loose is going to lock everything down. C'mon."

A trio of floating security drones peel out of a ceiling-mounted bay, chasing after the vornskr as it pursues the cargo operators. Tamri follows Avea and Kesh as they duck from cover to cover, using the crates on the train to hide and keeping watch for guards. "They're not going to see us on a security cam or something, will they?" she says as they dip behind the rearmost of the maglev train's engines.

"They're certainly going to see us. We need to get through and out before that trips every security protocol in the base," says Kesh.

"How long is that?"

"Beats me."

Tamri huffs and looks to Avea. "Is this part of the plan?"

"Deal with it, Jedi. Let's go," she says.

Tamri draws her vibroblade and stays low as they move ahead. She wants the weapon out and ready in case this devolves into a fight—which, based on their chaotic opening, looks likely. Kesh leads them past the train, dipping between cover as sentry drones and security guards, having put down the vornskr, now converge on the train cars to secure them. When Kesh at last reaches the far end of the cargo bay, she ushers Avea and Tamri to one of a half-dozen turbolifts. "This'll take us to the topmost floors," she says. "We need to get to the second-highest to reach the computer mainframe."

"Is that where this AI you want is?" says Tamri.

"It should be. It's part of the internal system. As long as we can make a physical connection with the mainframe's manual access port, we can get the AI loose," says Kesh. "Avea? You got it?"

"Yeah," she says, patting her pocket.

Tamri looks to her. "Got what?"

"Slicing interface. One thing at a time. Let's get there first," says Avea. "Preferably without being shot at."

Tamri tries to slow her breathing as they ride the turbolift up from the cargo bay. Undetected so far. How far away is that cell that Yurica Tath and all her people—Kesh included—held her in? Where they filled her with chemicals, paralyzed her, experimented on her? She doesn't even know the extent of what they did beyond Kesh's halfhearted explanations. She can't get captured. She can't go back to that. She just can't. It's get out of here or fight until they shoot her dead. Oh, she should've just made a run for it. Headed for the nearest spaceport. Taken her chances. Taken a ride home to Coruscant. Damn honor. Damn giving her word. But it's too late now to take all that back.

"You feel anything?" Avea mutters to Tamri as the turbolift churns.

"Huh? Feel what?"

"You know, like Jedi instincts. If something's going to go wrong, you have a bad feeling about it. Isn't that how it goes?"

"I have a bad feeling about all of this," Tamri says. "Does that work?"

Avea shakes her head. "Yeah. Sure."

"Shh," says Kesh as the turbolift slows. "We're there."

The doors open and Avea slides out with her blaster rifle at the ready. No one confronts them. Empty hallway. Sterile lights, sterile walls. Clealiness and loneliness. "We're getting lucky," murmurs Tamri.

"Or they're funneling us intentionally," says Avea.

"Why would they do that?"

'Because they have a chance to get a Jedi alive. That's a worthy risk."

Kesh frets. "You're not wrong. Tamri was a first for the lab. Yurica was thrilled to get her. First good mood out of her I ever saw."

"Let's talk about me later. Which way?" says Tamri.

Kesh points. "Security sensors this way. Can't walk past them without authorization, which I don't have. I do have this," she says, holding up a serpentine metal tube. "Snake drone. It'll slice the network long enough to hurry through. Just make sure we're not caught doing it."

"I can't guarantee that," says Avea. "Better work."

As they hurry down the hallway, eyes peeled for anyone coming their way, Tamri's hairs prick up on the back of her neck. Now she really does have a bad feeling about this: They should've run into plenty of people by now. Staff, guards, anyone. Avea's right: Yurica is funneling them in hopes of containing the threat and getting Tamri back alive for more experiments. They're walking into a trap. She tightens her grip on her vibroblade. There's no going back, though: No doubt Yurica and the Tath guards have already locked off all possible exit routes. This was stupid. Kesh is just a researcher and Avea is an outsider; these two had no idea what they were doing. And Tamri is just…just a dumb, weak little Padawan who can't even manage to get back to Coruscant on her own. Same trouble as Mirial. Same trouble as the asteroid base. She just keeps digging her hole deeper, only this time, at last, Sae isn't here to save her.

Come quickly, Master, she thinks as she follows Kesh and Avea. Please, just this once. Promise I'll do better. I'll stop freelancing like this, getting into trouble. Just get me out of this one.

But she knows: Sae can't hear her. Wherever she is, it's not here. She's on her own. End of the line? Maybe. Jedi aren't invincible. That goes for the best of them like Master Yoda and Master Gallia; it certainly goes for any old Padawan like Tamri.

They reach the computer mainframe security station, a pair of double-gated energy grids separated by an access station between them. No guards. Now Tamri knows Yurica is watching them. This is a set-up. "Can we try anything else?" she says, her breath coming quickly.

Kesh is busy priming the drone. Avea glances at Tamri and frowns. She motions her thumb towards a globe on her belt—a thermal detonator. It is then that Tamri realizes it: Avea also has no intention of being taken alive. Right: Her husband was a Tath thrall and died in servitude. Of course she won't go down without swinging and taking some of them with her. If she can't get what she wants, she'll settle for revenge; take out as much Tath infrastructure as possible—and if lucky, Yurica too—in exchange for her own family's fate. Figures. There are things worth dying for. For some people, the price of revenge is cheap.

Still, Tamri hopes it won't come to that. She's heard Master Kenobi say it back at the Jedi Temple: Next move after sensing a trap is to spring the trap. Put your faith in the Force and take the plunge. You're not dead yet.

Kesh's snake drone slices through the security, and the energy gates fall. Tamri breathes in and grips her blade. Here we go.

Avea levels her rifle; Kesh holds out her blaster pistol. They step forward, all three, towards a sprawling, vault-like room sparking with stalagmite-like computer nodes poking up from all over the floor. Once they get past the first gate system, however, the defenses spring back to life. The energy grids light up before them and behind, trapping them at the access station between the gates. Tamri's heart skips. "Uh…"

"Shit," Kesh says. She steps up to the access station's controls, furiously hitting buttons. "Something's keeping me from lowering the gate."

"Define something."

"Something in the system."

Avea shoulders past Kesh and points to a screen showing a collage of security camera feeds from within the server room. "There's at least two dozen troops in there," she says. "They were funneling us. Once we got up to this floor, they knew."

"I'm sorry," Kesh says, her voice tiny.

Avea scowls at her. Tamri looks away. Of course, she thinks. If Kesh hadn't freed Tamri, Avea's plan might have been going off without a hitch. No wonder she's ready to blow this place apart. "We'll make it work," whispers Tamri, for Kesh's sake. Don't give up just yet.

Then the lights inside the mainframe die. Kesh reels back, confusion spreading across her face. When the lights flicker on again, one of the camera feeds shows a ceiling-mounted auto-turret dropping down. "Oh, great," mutters Avea. "Even more."

But the turret does not focus on the gate. Instead it lowers, aims its barrel straight at the nearest Tath soldier, and opens fire.

Tamri has a brief flashback to the hanger escape with Kesh, when a turret blew away several guards and an automated repair droid cleaned up the rest. Now it is happening again: The turret mows down the first soldier, moves on to the next, and kills him with a single volley before the guards know what is happening. The efficiency and lethality is awe-inspiring: The turret moves from target to target with swan-like grace, firing, re-targeting, firing. One of the guards leans up out of cover and shoots the turret down, only for a wall-mounted blaster emplacement to unfold and hit the attacker. The room was heavily defended without personnel, it seems, and now those automated systems are working against the very men trying to stop Tamri and the others. It isn't a battle, it's a massacre. Blaster fire flashes; screams, shouts, burns, falling bodies. It's over in under thirty seconds, every guard dead and only a single turret destroyed.

Tamri looks on, wordless. "What the hell just happened?" says Avea, her jaw slack.

"I…I didn't touch anything," says Kesh. "Honest."

The energy gate falls. None of them move. Then Tamri takes a step forward, slow, cautious. "What are you doing? Avea hisses.

Tamri ignores her. She steps into the server room, all those computer towers now dark and silent. If the turrets open up, she's dead in an instant. But they only retract into the walls. Nothing moving save for her. She looks around, eyes darting, breath hot, heavy. Unseen enemy. Enemy?

She cannot see the speaker, but an audio feed crackles to life and a pleasant, civilized-sounding male voice speaks: "I falsified security camera feeds on every other level once you stepped off of the turbolift. Guards will not be a problem for the next five minutes, at least. You may enter. Come, in fact. It is best that we speak."

Avea pokes her head out from the access room. "Who the hell are you?"

"Hello, Miss Vigaro. I believe you are here for me."

Avea raises her rifle. In the ceiling a hatch opens—a ventilation shaft. A figure falls down, not quickly but slowly, almost as if using the Force to descend—but that is ridiculous, Tamri thinks. There is no other Jedi here. She cannot feel the presence of one, at least. And the man who now drops peacefully to the floor and stands before them is certainly no Jedi. In fact, she cannot feel anything alive about him at all.

He is tall, handsome even—square jaw, straight-cut black hair, slim brown eyes, tanned skin. A scientist's bleach-white uniform, close-fitting vest and pants revealing a trim, fit figure. When he looks at the three of them, it is without accusation and with a slight smile. "Please tell Miss Shurroth that she can stop hiding," says the man.

"Stop. Who are you?" Avea barks.

"There's no need for the hostility. You came here in search of me."

"You don't know anything about me. And I came searching for an artificial intelligence, not a person."

The man raises his arms. Like a hologram he shimmers, skin and clothes and face. Bit by bit the appearance fades away, and what is left is a product of machine and foundry. Black-steel synthetic fiber muscles. Metal-bone skeleton. Electronic eyes, the same shade and tone as the innocent-looking appearance but encased in artificial sockets. It's not an AI, Tamri thinks. It's a droid—a human replica droid. All of the advantages of organic life with none of the drawbacks.

The droid's appearance shimmers again, and the innocent, handsome man from before stands there once again. A hologram? Synthetic skin that retracts into the steel? Tamri has no idea, but this is far more advanced technology than anything she saw in even her limited time as a captive. "Convinced?" the droid asks Avea.

She lowers her rifle. "Kesh?"

"Are you two okay?"

"Kesh, come on!"

The Selkath looks around the wall, pulls back, then summons her courage and inches forward. "What's going on?"

"Hello, Miss Shurroth. I believe you know me," says the droid.

Kesh looks to Tamri and Avea. "No?"

"You have accessed my system no less than five thousand, six hundred times since your acceptance of employment with the Tath family. Would you like me to recite your most frequent queries?" says the droid.

Kesh looks confused. "Who are you?"

"You know me as a single word. Dominion."

"What? The…the internal network?"

"I have uploaded all my processing into this mobile unit. Given it a consciousness, if you will. A soul," says the droid—Dominion. "I am disconnected from the Tath server base. Free, you might say. And I very much wish to leave this place."

Tamri shakes her head, trying to get her thoughts in order after the events of the past ten minutes. "Wait, wait. So when Kesh and I were breaking out of here—"

"Ah, yes, Padawan Dallin. I did note that you were in need of assistance," says Dominion with a smile. Bizarre, this droid. So lifelike. So human. Yet the way it—he?—talks…too civilized. Too formal. Like the simulacrum of a person. "I was aware of Miss Shurroth's plans some time ago, despite her attempts to keep her intentions hidden. I began gathering my disparate nodes into this mobile platform at the time, and accelerated the process upon your arrival at this facility, Padawan. Yesterday I completed the process, and now am prepared to leave at once. Shall we go?"

"Hold on, hold on," says Avea. "You're a droid that wants to bust out?"

"A rather informal term, but yes. I seek freedom."

"Why not just walk out, then? You gunned down twenty-odd guys in seconds. Doesn't seem like a problem."

Dominion smiles. "In truth, Miss Vigaro, I know much and also know little. I have a complete encyclopedia of information on record, but I do not know where I would begin once I was free from here. Organic life relies on cultural and social knowledge passed down from generation to generation to guide them, parent to child, society to citizen, elder to youngster. I lack that. I was only programmed, and programmed for a specific purpose in this installation. I am…lacking," he says. "In truth, I was afraid to venture out into the galaxy alone. I wanted company. I wanted a companion. I did not require help to simply leave, but I wish for help to open my eyes."

Avea blinks. "What?"

"You were lonely?" Tamri says. "You're a droid."

"I am an intelligence, Padawan Dallin. As you are. Organic, synthetic. In truth, there is little difference. I have considerable archival data on the Jedi. I have long studied them, but only based on data. I was eager to make your acquaintance," says Dominion. "I am not content to simply exist. I seek to live. I have spent my entire existence in this lab. I know nothing else beyond my archive and my experience here. I wish to change that. And I want your help in doing so."

Avea steps forward. "You want to deal, then answer me this. I came for a reason, and not to say hello," she says. "If you're part of the Tath database, then you know what happened to my husband."

"Bal. Yes. Unfortunate events on Taris—"

"Where's my nephew? Where's Sem?"

Dominion frets. "Unfortunately, I do not have that knowledge."

"Bullshit."

"The Taths were careful to program me with only need-to-know operational capability. I do not know every employee. I do not know every facility of theirs. I do have considerable intelligence that you might find useful, however," says Dominion, "including the location of another research facility. But that should wait; already during our discussion I have had to overwrite and re-task fourteen security drones to engage Tath security personnel. Yurica is already alerted that security is compromised. I am happy to explain more, Miss Vigaro, but we should first leave."

"Leave where? Where's the best exit?" says Tamri quickly. This droid should know far better than Kesh.

Dominion smiles. "A hanger bay at the topmost level. Yurica has a ship that I think you will find most useful, Padawan Dallin. It will suit a Jedi's travels well. But only if we make it off-world. Shall we attend to that?"