At seven in the morning, Ahsoka's communication console went off. Since she had been up for half the night, unable to sleep, she heard it and answered the call on the third ring. It was her first call since she had moved in underground.

It was just an audio call, but it was Fuller, from Gauges and Gears. "Tano?"

"Yes, boss?" She responded, remembering what he had asked her to call him from Saturday.

"Your paperwork went through, I got the confirmation overnight. If you're ready to go, you can come in today and start working. Rya offered to walk you through the first half-hour or so, and then Wheeler will check in with you as you go. Sound good?"

Ahsoka nodded, even though the hologram feature wasn't activated so he couldn't see her. "Absolutely! I'll be there in ten minutes."

"Come in through the front door," he instructed. "Rya will be waiting for you there."

"Got it," Ahsoka said, severing the call and grabbing her bag, which she had packed a few hours ago out of boredom. She slid her blaster in her new holster and ran out the door. Time to go back to the Chasm.

Breaking out into a run, she let herself enjoy her returned physical ability. It was so good to be able to move again, and her side was getting better every day. Her muscles and her body fat was finally starting to return after being sapped by the Dark Side of the Force. It was getting harder to see her ribs now, and Ahsoka was thrilled. Eating food again, especially real food, was making all of the difference. No more rations for her.

When she approached the grate to the Chasm, she looked around and made sure no one was looking. Ahsoka slid down into the tunnel again and followed it to the old shaft, her footsteps a little more sure this time. She still marveled at the tremendous cliff, but climbed up a level all the same and kept going. She had five minutes before she was supposed to meet Rya, the last clerk whom Ahsoka hadn't met yet.

It took a little bit to get from the Chasm to Gauges and Gears, but she made it with time to spare. The front door was locked again, but a blue Twi'lek woman was waiting inside for her. That must be Rya. She was a Twi'lek! Ahsoka wasn't altogether sure why, but she was excited to meet her when she saw what species she was. Maybe it was because most of the people on Coruscant were human. Only Wheeler and L...Luce? What that the Rhodian's name? Anyways, only they were alien species among the staff at the shop.

The Twi'lek, Rya, opened the door, and Ahsoka stepped inside. "I'm guessing you're Tano?" Rya asked. "My name is Rya Oura. Sorry I wasn't here on Saturday to meet you."

"Don't worry about it," assured Ahsoka. "It's great to meet you. Ry'oura. That's kind of pretty."

Those few sentences lit up Rya's face. First off, Ahsoka's Twi'lek dialect was flawless, thanks to years of exposure to Jedi like Aayla Secura. Secondly, she understood that Twi'leks' true full names were a combination of their 'first' and 'last' name, something that most other species weren't aware of. Rya instantly decided that she liked this girl, no matter what else she had heard from the local media.

"Have you been to Ryloth?" She asked, her eyes lighting up. "How did you know that?"

Ahsoka shrugged. "A couple of times. I've met other Twi'leks before. Do you just go by Rya most of the time, then?"

"Yeah, it's easier for the others." She glanced back behind the counter, at the door leading to the rest of the building. "Which reminds me, we better get started. We open to the public in half an hour. This way."

Rya led Ahsoka back to a new room, one she hadn't seen earlier. On the wall were twelve lockers, each numbered and locked by a standard keypad. Locker 7's door was open.

"This is our staff room, and we keep most of our stuff in these lockers during the day," Rya explained. "It's helpful when your workbench is all cluttered with tools and things like that. It keeps your personal items out of the way. That was Frand's, but it's yours now."

Ahsoka walked up to it and set her bag inside. She pulled her blaster from her hip and set that on top of the bag, where it would be easy to grab in case of an emergency. She didn't have anything else, so she closed the door. The keypad asked for a code to lock the door.

Rya turned away. "Just pick a four-digit code. I'm not looking."

Four digits? Like what? Ahsoka thought rapidly for a moment, trying to think of something that would be easy to remember. Then it dawned on her. 7567. Rex's birth number. She punched it in, hit enter, and the keypad locked the door.

"Got it," Ahsoka told Rya, and she followed her out of the room. "What next?"

"Come this way, and I'll explain what a normal day will probably look like for you. Just not in here, or Fuller will kick us out for wasting time."

Rya took the Togruta back to the lobby and showed her some of the orders for the weekend on the register screen while she started explaining. "Customer hours are from 7:30 to 5:30 on weekdays, but the bench workers can come in anytime from 6 in the morning to 9 in the evening on any day except Sunday. Most of the others don't normally come that early or stay that late, but if there's a really big ship that needs work or another large order due for pick up the next day, they'll put in extra time. You only need forty hours a week to meet the quota, but any extra hours per week can roll over in case you get sick or something."

Ahsoka raised her eyebrow marks. "Sounds like an easy schedule. That's less than two full rotations a week, and it's spread over six days. Is there a catch?"

Laughing, the Twi'lek opened a file. "Any breaks for lunch or dinner don't count as part of the time you put in. There's also a clock-in system, but Wheeler will walk you through that later, though. I don't completely understand it." She stepped aside to let Ahsoka see the order. "Customers will always specify what they want to be done with their repair item, and you're only obligated to do that thing. Anything else is optional, but by the rule of thumb if it isn't broken, don't fix it. No upgrades."

"You get what you pay for, I guess," Ahsoka mused. "Are there a lot of customers?"

Rya nodded. "Gauges and Gears is the best repair shop in the Lower Levels in our sector. We've had people all the way up from 100 come down here before, just because compared to the surface we're dirt cheap. I remember there was this one guy from Sector 78 that came to us for an engine tune-up."

"But that's on the other side of the planet!"

"That's what I'm saying. We're the best there is down here, and we're also legal." Rya hopped up and sat on the counter. "You can get black market repair jobs down here no problem, but they're expensive and if the feds catch wind of it, you're toast. Not to mention that private dealers aren't always reliable."

Ahsoka snorted. "Well, that makes sense. If it's someone you've never met before, how are you supposed to know if they know what they're doing? You could be paying them to make it worse, not better."

"Exactly. All of that to say, you'll be keeping busy." Rya double checked to make sure Fuller wasn't standing anywhere close, then dropped her voice and changed the subject. "Seriously, though, your accent earlier was perfect."

"It was actually one of the harder ones for me to learn," Ahsoka remembered, smiling. "It took me weeks to get used to it. People were correcting me for a long time."

Rya smirked, then asked, "What's Ryloth like?"

Ahsoka racked her brain for the last time she went to Ryloth. "It's pretty there. The terrain is so varied, though. You have everything from volcanoes to jungles to forests, and there are plenty of natural predators there, from what I've heard. Never saw any on my missions, though." Ahsoka nearly smacked herself for bringing up missions when she realized what she had said, but Rya didn't seem fazed. She was more interested in the planet itself.

She looked down and drew her fingers along the edge of the counter. "I've always wanted to go, and see where my mother grew up. When I was little, she would tell me stories about her tribe when she was a child."

Rya didn't go on, and Ahsoka knew better than to ask why her mother left or why she came to Coruscant. Twi'leks were often sold into slavery from a young age, and chances were that Rya's mother had escaped to the underground to get away from a cruel master. Ahsoka knew a little about that sort of thing, now. If it was true, she didn't want to bring it up.

The Twi'lek looked up suddenly and asked Ahsoka, "Do Togruta get sold too?"

Ahsoka must have been right about Rya's mother's past. "Sometimes. I've had to rescue my people from the Zygerian slave empire once. I don't think it happens as often though." It was true, Togruta were one most common slave species, second only to Twi'leks.

At the mention of the Zygerians, Rya's face went dark. "I hate them. Dictating the lives of others just because they're a different race."

"I had to go undercover to get inside their palace," Ahsoka admitted. "It wasn't my favorite mission ever, even though it was successful."

Rya drew her knees up under her chin. "If it weren't for them, I'd probably live on Ryloth. I wouldn't be stuck living in Republic Central."

Ahsoka didn't really have that much of a problem with 'Republic Central', but she knew exactly what Rya was talking about. There was something about being outside, in nature, that resonated deeply with Ahsoka, and she could imagine how frustrated Rya must be to have never seen her home planet. Coruscant was pretty much the opposite of Ryloth.

"Do the others know?" She asked Rya, tilting her head towards the workshop. "The others, do they know your story?"

Rya shook her head. "You know more than they do now, and I didn't even really tell you. You just know."

"Not even Luce and Wheeler?"

"I don't know, it's different for them." Rya crosses her arms. "Wheeler was a surfacer before she came down here, and Luce is so sarcastic I don't think he would care. Besides, it's not like they bring it up. You just...you understood. Right away. I didn't even have to explain it and you knew."

It was true. Ahsoka already knew about slavery and the people it affected most. It probably helped, bring a Togruta and an ex-Jedi.

"Speaking of Wheeler, she's probably waiting for you," Rya realized, and hopped down from the countertop. "She'll be in the back when you're ready. Anything I forgot, she'll help you out with."

Ahsoka nodded. "Thanks, Rya. And thanks for trusting me. It's been a while since someone has done that."

She nodded, then left silently.

As Ahsoka walked back to the shop, the weight of Rya's story rested on her mind. One of the things Ahsoka had noticed was that Coruscant was almost two-thirds human. It was especially evident on the surface, but even in the Lower Levels, it was true. That had almost never been the case in the Jedi Order. Every other person was an alien, and sometimes, like in the group of Younglings she had taken to Illum, humans had been the minority. Species didn't matter there, so long as you could use the Force and fight battle droids.

No one had dared call her out on her species while she had been a Jedi, but she didn't have that status protection anymore. Would she have heard more stories like Rya's, or maybe have more of her own stories, if she had been a civilian in the same places she had been a Jedi?

Did she already have stories? A horrifying thought coursed through her brain, and she thought back to the weapons vendor the previous day. The terrorist had been human, and she was definitely not. Was that why she was his target, rather than the second human?

And what about her trial? It was difficult for her to believe that Tarkin could have had a grudge against her just because of the way she looked, but now she couldn't get it out of her head. Normally, she had assumed the best of the people around her, but what if that wasn't the case? As Ahsoka walked to the workshop, she wondered if she had been as naive her whole life as she felt right now.