Finding a tunnel that wasn't caved in was difficult, but Luke did his best. He knew which tunnels led where—he thought; he no longer had the effortless access to those memories, and his mind scrabbled for details like his brain was a directory for corrupted data files—and tried to aim for the ones that led to the queen's chamber, where he'd last seen Aphra and the queen. But too many were blocked.

He stared up at the fallen rocks three metres into one of the back entrances to the hive, feeling insignificant beside it. His heart thundered.

Clumsily, with unpractised hands, he reached out in the Force, the way Barriss Offee—the Other Jedi in the Geonosian hivemind—had done countless times before. Vader had collapsed the tunnels on top of them. Were they alive?

Shouldn't he be able to tell if they were alive?

Perhaps, but he didn't get the chance. The moment he touched that shining light, darkness bled in like rot, cold and clammy and looking right at him. Vader reached a hand with long claws towards him, and Luke threw up the barriers to his mind and backed away, as if Vader was standing in this tunnel with him.

Vader was still looking for him, even as Luke was looking for them. And Vader knew he wasn't dead.

But Luke had to know, too.

Even like this, drawn away from him and balled into a tight knot of light inside his own heart, Luke felt the oppressive claustrophobia of being under that stare. He shuddered, violently—violently enough that the parts of his wings rattled together. That soothed him, strangely enough. He thought about what Aphra always said about how machines, droids, electricity just spoke to her. A mechanical language that always made sense, even when the galaxy was upside down.

Luke understood that. His wings, the ship, even the pieces in his comlink had an order to them that nothing else had. On the way here, even if he'd not had the time to waste, he perched in the highest opening on the top of the Stalgasin spire to go through the contents of his pack. Vader had given it back to him—he might have put something else in it. In his paranoia and stress, Luke had taken his comlink apart and put it back together three times. No trackers lurking inside of it.

Maybe Vader didn't need a tracker, with the Force knotting them together like two points in a spider's web, but it had calmed him down. Trying and failing to hail Aphra had not. She hadn't responded.

Was the comlink damaged?

Was she indisposed?

Was she dead?

Now, he forced himself to take several long breaths to calm down, settle his shoulders, and think.

Vader couldn't just track Luke through the Force because they both happened to be Force-sensitive. That wasn't enough to justify this enormous darkness trying to blot out everything he could see. It wouldn't have such an effect on him—none of this would have such an effect on him—if they didn't matter to each other. Ben's journals, and his constant concern about his former padawan Vader hunting him down—and wasn't that another misconception to unpack?—had been clear about Force bonds, and what they could do.

He was tracking him like this because he was Luke's father. He was the father Luke had clung to, after he'd lost everyone else; he was the Jedi Luke had aspired to be, gone dark; he was the example Luke had tried so fiercely to live up to.

Luke meant something to Vader—a realisation that was as dizzying as it was terrifying. Luke hadn't thought he'd mean anything to anyone in that way ever again, after his aunt and uncle had died.

After Vader had had them killed.

But if Vader could track Luke through the Force because Luke meant something to him…

Even after everything—even after this whole adventure—Aphra meant a lot to Luke.

There was one Force talent aside that had determined the outcome of his entire trip to Geonosis. He just had to use it again.

The stones sang when he put his hands on them, of exploding and cracking and falling and crashing. But these ones hadn't seen anyone pass, hadn't crashed into anyone in particular, so he moved on. They hadn't escaped this way. He'd find another route through to the centre until the walls talked to him and told him what he wanted to hear.

It was a gruelling few hours. Vader must still be looking for him, but Luke kept batting him away, trying to disguise where exactly he was in the maze of catacombs and the haze of history. All these walls had so much to say, but time in the hivemind had taught Luke how to process that much information at once and find what he needed. Guide his thoughts to find it. Sift through the memories injected into the Force like he was trepanning for gold.

It was a middle catacomb, finally, when Luke made progress. This tunnel, too, had collapsed. Luke dropped his focus, and a stray, unrelated image sifted through: the tunnel's construction, dozens of drones milling back and forth in the harsh sun, building a roof over their heads with paste that hardened into rock-solid walls. How many years of work had gone into this? Even if the Geonosians had survived, somehow, how many years of work would it require to rebuild?

His anger and despair formed a hard pip in his chest. He slipped his eyes shut and tried to calm himself again, but his wings were whirring against his will, and he realised he was already hovering a foot off the ground. When he opened his eyes to see that, there were cracks in the rock he'd put his hand on.

They spread out from him, through all the stones in the tunnel. He frowned, looking from them to his hands. He thought about what the Jedi used to be able to do to this place: bring down support beams. Strangle Geonosians from a distance. Bend the fabric of the universe to their will.

He thought about how terrifying it had been to fight Vader.

All he knew of the Jedi so far were stories. Ben's stories. The stories that objects told Luke at a single touch. The memories the Geonosians nursed like grudges. He had never known where the stories ended, or where they bled into nostalgia and myth. All he had were relics and echoes. He had never known what his people could actually do.

Maybe it was time to find out.

He laid his hands on the rocks blocking his way and closed his eyes.

Another few hours of damage and destruction later, he finally found life. It made his heart sing again. His hands, cracked and scratched from the effort with the stones, unfurled from their fists.

The first life he found was the crushed and broken shell that used to be Switchboard. Life was a difficult term, but when Luke knelt beside him to start fiddling with him, what he felt stampeded him. Life was required to create the Force. But it was not required to feel emotions.

Switchboard knew order. It knew what it was meant to do: build, and defend, but mostly build. That was what all Geonosian creations were for, whether they were of the queen's flesh, of the queen's mind, or products of their hands and factories. Building and defending was coded into Switchboard's heart so tightly it staggered when orders were given to do something else.

Geonosian programming was like the Geonosian hivemind, like the central database their droids reported to and communicated through: it was flexible. When Luke's human thoughts were blaring into the hivemind, they adapted their worldview to account for it. When new coding was incorporated, it adopted it. There was a reason Geonosians had been the ones who introduced independent processing units to their droids, creating droids that thought independently and making the Clone Wars that much more competitive. That was how their own hivemind worked. A mind within a larger mind. The collective intelligence of a thousand intelligences.

All of them valued. All of them left to their own devices. All of them aware of and providing information for each other's choices.

But Switchboard had been snatched away. Aphra was a good slicer and programmer, but she'd had minutes and done a hack job of it. The Geonosian programming consumed and incorporated hers the way it had consumed and incorporated Luke. Her voice still dominated Switchboard's thoughts, but so did Queen Karina's. At first, they had sung in unison.

Inform the queen that she can have my Jedi friend and lead me to her.

Bring the Jedi and the other interloper to me.

But then they had sung separately.

Destroy the hive.

Protect the hive.

Destroy the hive.

Protect the hive.

Destroy the hive.

Protect the hive.

Conflicting instructions, absorbed into a system uniquely situated to reconcile them. Switchboard had done what he did best: he followed his orders and used his own thought to do it.

"They're not dead, then?" Luke murmured, with his hand reassuringly on Switchboard's shoulder. He laid him out so that he was propped up against the wall, brushing off the dust, then noticed his wings were bent out of shape. Luke settled beside him and started to repair them as best he could. "You didn't kill them, Switchboard?"

Switchboard said something in Geonosian hivemind, the clicks and squeals clearly recorded. Luke grimaced.

"Sorry, buddy, I don't speak that when I'm not attached to the hivemind. I know your Basic language module hasn't been used in a while other than a few words, but could you try for me?"

Switchboard did try. "Protect the hive," it said. Luke relaxed. The stories he got from Switchboard's destroyed carapace, filled with conflict and decision though they were, had been filtered through the lens of a distinctly artificial mind, and he hadn't been certain. "Destroy the hive. Destroy the catacombs—and the tunnels—and the entrances. The Stalgasin hive is destroyed."

Luke swallowed, but let it finish.

"Protect the hive. Remove threats from the future of the hive. Do not destroy that which is necessary to continue."

"The birthing chamber," Luke said. "You planted charges everywhere except the birthing chamber."

"Correction: Nor did I plant charges in any load-bearing or significant locations that may affect the safety of the birthing chamber."

"The younglings aren't dead, then." Luke's heart fluttered with relief. "What about Queen Karina? I—"

"Situation unknown. I am disconnected from the hivemind." It sounded mournful.

The hive was alive, even if Queen Karina was not—not necessarily.

Luke tried for a smile. "Why don't we get you over there and reconnect you, then?"

They did. They were hailed as heroes. And once they, and the dozens upon dozens of newly born Geonosians and surviving droids who were working their way through the catacombs reunited, they too got to work.

Luke was exhausted by the time they broke through the last rock to get to the queen's chamber. The Force trembled around him, and Vader was certainly still watching, but it would take him a long time to find his way in this deep. What mattered was the rock in front of them, how it corroded and dissolved under what the Geonosian younglings used on it—they had said something to him in Geonosian hivemind, and he thought he remembered the word faeces, but that didn't seem right—then shattered under his hand. Again and again. Onto the next tunnel. The next. They kept moving, until—

He recognised this archway.

The stones blocking it shattered and flew away under his hands. The droids and the younglings clicked loudly and celebratorily behind him, but he drove forwards—their communication had been limited at best, they hadn't told him what he knew they must know through the hivemind, he needed to see—and into the queen's chamber.

He saw the queen first, of course. She was still seated on her dais, unable to move far or fast. She looked at him and inclined her head, her crest twitching in sudden excitement.

He scanned the hall and saw Aphra. His breath released in one long sigh.

She looked terrible. Her goggles, always the first sign of her mental state, had fallen away from her face and were lying in the dirt beside her. She was sitting with her back against the dais, head bent over her datapad in a way that seemed like it would be uncomfortable, fingers typing frantically. But even as Luke clocked that, she started to slow, her fingers tapping less and less frequently, until she put aside her datapad and sat up, crossing her legs.

But she was alive.

She and the queen had survived.

Luke ran towards her. "Aphra!"

She opened her eyes, more at the shout than from recognition, he thought, and frowned when she saw him skid to his knees in front of her. He didn't reach for her hands or to touch her, but his own hands did hover worriedly, taken in her dusty, bedraggled appearance. She looked exhausted.

Her eyes peered at him, then her mouth smiled in a smile that wasn't hers. It wasn't until something emerged from her right ear—something fat and yellow—that he realised what was happening.

"You?" he asked as the worm wriggled out, much faster than even Luke had realised those things could move. "They wanted you for the hivemind?"

He reached out to catch the worm on its fall. It fell into his palm and immediately tried to crawl up his elbow, presumably to get him, again, but he pinched it between thumb and forefinger and held it out from him. "You're not doing that. You just came out of Aphra's ear."

"Even you think I'm dirty inside and out?" Aphra muttered.

"What?"

"What?"

Luke looked at her, concerned. "Are you alright? What…" He stopped, then just gestured with the worm. He didn't know how to ask about this. He shot Queen Karina a befuddled look as well, but her serene expression didn't budge.

"Luke?" she asked, peering at him.

"I—"

She hugged him.

A gasp slipped out of Luke's chest, and he stalled, eyes widening. Then, after a moment, he put his arms around Aphra in return. She was warm and solid against him. Her belt, as always, bristled with weapons. He tried not to put his hands near them.

Aphra pulled back after a few beats and stood up, not meeting his gaze. "Didn't think Vader was gonna let you live," she said.

Luke tilted his head. "Then why'd you bring him to me?"

"Thought the queen wouldn't let you live either. And Vader's the boss. I gotta get paid."

"Right," Luke said. "You've gotta get paid."

She didn't get defensive, for once. "Yeah."

Luke glanced around the chamber, nodding and smiling at Queen Karina, even as his chest scrunched into a stress ball of conflict. "Vader said that you were dead," he said. "All of you."

"I'm not that easily killable," she shot back, her signature smirk crawling back onto her lips like a half-dead millipede.

"I know." He looked down again, at the datapad in Aphra's hand and the worm in his. It had stopped wriggling, at last, and was just looking at him, unimpressed. "What's going on? I heard about the explosions—"

"Eh. A few tunnels collapsing. We've only been trapped down here for what, seven hours?"

We. They'd been working together, then. That made sense. Aphra was brilliant—she could sweet talk anyone into helping her, at least in the short term.

A ghost of a smile crawled onto Luke's face, too. "Insignificant, to you."

She winked. "Hardly worth mentioning. An excellent opportunity to actually find what I came for."

"You…"

He looked up at Queen Karina again. She inclined her head back to Aphra, and Aphra bounced the datapad in her head. Luke took it before she could lock it and dragged in a breath at the schematics there.

The Death Star plans.

He recognised them. He'd been a part of the hivemind, just as much as Aphra had been; when they'd all, collectively, thought about what Vader and Aphra wanted and why Geonosis had been destroyed in the first place, it all looped back to the Death Star plans. They'd flashed in front of his eyes; he knew how they worked, how the place was built; he knew exactly what the weaknesses were and how to mitigate—or use—them.

He'd known, at least. With his isolated human mind again, trying to hold all that information was like sand running through his fingers. His head ached trying to remember it. Whispers dogged his ears.

"You're still hoping to work for Vader, then," Luke said, handing them back. "After he left you for dead."

"A lot of people have left me for dead, kid."

"And you've left a lot of people for dead."

She paled, but she looked him in the eye. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse. "I have."

"These will not be handed to Invader," Queen Karina announced, interrupting their hesitations. Luke had to reflect, he liked the transmutation of Vader's name to Invader. It wasn't incorrect. "We and Boop have formulated a deal."

"Boop?" Luke asked.

"Shut up, Wormie."

"We do not need to explain. You will understand." The worm in Luke's fingers started writhing again. It escaped his tight grip and curled around his wrist, inching up his arm.

Luke's heart jackhammered in his throat.

He threw the worm to the ground. After he threw it, it occurred to him that it might splatter or shatter, but it bounced and rolled in the dust, lifting its head to look at him judgementally. He ignored it, trying to calm his heart rate when he looked up at Queen Karina.

"I'm not coming back," he hissed. Then he calmed his breathing as best he could, his voice ringing out more clearly. "No, thank you. I don't belong here."

Queen Karina drew back, just as all the drones flocking in the chamber did. Luke looked around. He'd been too distracted with Aphra to notice, but everyone else had filed in after him, breaking down the last few rocks barricading the chamber, so that every archway stood clear and led through to uninterrupted darkness. The dozens of drones risen from the birthing chamber, still pinkish yellow in their flesh and slimy with growth, stumbled on their newly used two legs. Droids had come in as well, beaten in various places—missing arms, crushed legs dragging behind them, heads that were so bent out of shape he couldn't tell what shape they'd originally been—and mingled among the drones. The queen's two offspring, standing together for the survival of the whole hive.

"You saved us," Queen Karina said.

"You needed a Jedi. You needed a way to tell how your people had died, and reconstruct what had happened to everyone, so it didn't poison the next generation the way it nearly killed you." He addressed Karina directly. She'd been the only living Geonosian, when they landed here, not counting the larvae that would die before growing to personhood because of the lack of food. "You survive off of those you've lost, but they were torn away from you, and you couldn't survive that."

He gestured around at the drones who were rescuing her. "You don't need me anymore."

"Our dead are infinite, Wormie," Queen Karina said. "We will need you for years."

His chest constricted. "But I can't stay for years," he said. "You have a hive again. Together, we brought them back. They can build droids that can detect the poison. They can serve as food themselves for the next generation. I can't help you rebuild further than this! And I don't want to!"

Queen Karina tilted her head to the side. "You are angry with us."

"Yes!" He clenched his fists after the outburst, as if his nails puncturing his own skin would draw his anger out of him as well as his blood. "You— you could have asked! I would have helped you, if you'd asked. You didn't have to force an alien mindset on me, walk me around and use me like a puppet while I struggled to adapt to it, pit me against my friends! I didn't ask for your trauma in my head as well as my own!"

Aphra stared at him. He thought he saw something wet on her cheeks, but she turned away.

"I would have helped you if you'd asked me to," he said. "If you'd explained. But you didn't give me a choice."

He didn't know who he was talking to, anymore.

"We are not accustomed to explaining, Wormie," Queen Karina said. Aphra said nothing.

Luke sighed. "I know. I— I appreciate, that you're talking to me like this. I know language is an alien a concept to you, like the hivemind is to me."

"You learned to communicate with us. We shall use your methods, in return." A pause. "We did not control you, Wormie. We invaded. We overwhelmed. But we did not control. Your choices were your own."

"I know," he said, a sob breaking out of him. "I know that." He was the one who couldn't look at Aphra, now.

He looked over his shoulder. Switchboard was with the other droids, still recognisable by its damaged face. Luke pointed at it.

"Switchboard wasn't controlled by Aphra," he said. "It's like that. Aphra reprogrammed Switchboard, and it incorporated the new programming against its will, and look at the damage that did." He gestured around at the dusty, ruined chamber. "You reprogrammed me."

"You don't have to put it like that, kid," Aphra muttered. "Now I feel bad."

"You should."

He expected a witty retort. None came.

"We know now," Queen Karina said slowly, "that you would have helped. But we did not know before. We have only ever hated Jedi, but we needed one. Force seemed our only option."

Then, she moved more than Luke had ever seen her move. She shuffled forwards, not quite off the dais but almost. Her entire torso bent forwards and leaned over the edge, anchored by her enormous abdomen. One tiny arm reached out.

Geonosians did not express affection in this way. He knew this, in the way he knew a thousand tiny things about them, their ways and philosophies etched into his mind. But just as he knew that the Geonosians didn't, Queen Karina knew that humans did.

Her skin was thick and papery, dry with dust. Her face loomed above him, enormous. It should have been horrifying, the way Vader's mask was horrifying. It would have been, were it not familiar.

"Forgive us," she pleaded.

Luke stepped forwards to clasp her proffered arm, looking up into that terrible face.

"I do," he said.

Still holding onto him, she said: "Boop has transcribed the Death Star plans. They are not for Invader. They are for you."

"What?"

"We believed you dead, but still, they were for you. They are for your Rebellion."

Luke's back stiffened, but of course she knew he had ties to Leia and the Rebels; she'd seen into his mind. And Aphra had seen into the hivemind herself, now.

There were no more secrets. Everyone's trauma was out in the open.

Still, Luke wondered why he could not disentangle Queen Karina's loneliness, her desperation to find her people, to bring them back, from his own.

"It is the most terrible thing we have ever created. We would not see it wipe out other peoples. Destroy it."

Alderaan. Alderaan was a potential target, Vader had said.

Leia.

He looked over his shoulder at Aphra. Her datapad was clutched tightly in her hand, and she watched them both with a blank expression.

"We will help, too, in any way we can."

He turned back to Queen Karina. "They're the Alliance to Restore the Republic. You were Separatists. You didn't like the Republic."

"We did not like the Empire that the Republic was. We dislike it still. It destroyed us a thousand times over."

"Empire," Luke repeated.

She hummed. "We now know the meaning of that word, fully."

Luke had to smile, at that.

But the queen wasn't finished. "We would require a liaison to this Alliance."

Luke stiffened again. "I need…" He paused. What did he need to do? What did he want to do?

"You need to restore your own people," Queen Karina agreed. "We hold some knowledge about the Jedi. But you already have it all. You will have a far more complicated task than us in recovering more."

"I know."

"You have much to begin with, however. And you know that you can ask us for help," she tilted her head, "if you require it."

Luke blinked fiercely. "I know."

"Our liaison will be your friend." Luke's eyebrows shot up, and he was halfway to mouthing Aphra? in a shocked tone before the queen continued, "The one you call Switchboard. He has known both worlds, as you have. He can be our voice."

Luke's eyebrows didn't lower. He hadn't thought of Switchboard as anything like a diplomat or ambassador. But Queen Karina knew her droids better than he did. Perhaps he would rise to the task.

"Vader thinks you're dead," he said. "He thought that a cave-in would be enough to kill you."

Queen Karina snorted.

"He's looking for me, but if I escape the planet without him tracking me here, there's no reason for him to think you survived." He glanced sidelong at Aphra. "Any of you."

"I know someone who can get a getaway vehicle," Aphra said. "I'll comm him, then you can escape that way. I'll wait for Vader to give chase to you, then head off with the Ark Angel."

"You won't come with me?"

The words were out before Luke could process them. He turned away from the queen, letting go of her hand, so she could rise up to the dais again. His tone was distinctly whiny, and he winced; Uncle Owen wouldn't be proud. He sounded like a kid again. A kid who hadn't lost everything.

But that was what Aphra always called him.

She gave him a shaky grin. "You don't want a cynic like me dragging down your investigation."

"You're an archaeologist. Your job is to investigate the dead." He winced, but he pushed onwards. "You've always been exactly what I need."

"Your getaway guy can help with that too." She hesitated. "And you know that's not true."

She stuck her free hand in her pocket. Luke tensed, wondering what weapon she might have in there now, and she raised her eyebrows, bringing it out again. It was empty. Luke relaxed. Her smile was as close to apologetic as he'd ever seen Aphra get.

"Besides," she added softly. "You can tell the history of objects by touching them? You're an archaeologist yourself, kid."

Luke didn't know how to respond to that.

Aphra thought about it a little longer, then asked, "When we first met. Y'know, when you stopped those dig notes of mine from falling into the engine—"

"Your engine is insanely dangerous."

"You told me." Her smile widened. "Did you get anything from them?"

Luke blinked. He hardly remembered that sheaf of notes he'd caught in mid-air on their arc towards incineration. He had got something, but it was just what he got from a lot of things on the Ark Angel. Voices rustling through them. Shared experiences, and the loneliness that came from their abrupt end.

That was what permeated the entire Ark Angel. That was what defined Aphra herself.

"They meant a lot to you," Luke said.

Aphra nodded. "She still does." She glanced down. "Why did you stay with me? I've read those journals of yours. I went through your comlink."

"You what?"

"And I've seen your mind in the hivemind. You have a sister. She's a princess—right? Or did I get that wrong?" He nodded. "She and her parents will take you in. They'll look after you. Why the hells would you want to stay with me?"

Luke reached out for the hand Aphra had held up to show it was empty. He took it in his and squeezed it.

Even now, knowing that he needed to deliver them the Death Star plans, he dreaded it. He dreaded seeing them. He loved them without knowing them, but… he didn't want to explain himself, and he didn't know if they would understand.

But here? Now?

"You've seen my mind in the hivemind," he said. "You know why, Aphra."

She nodded, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. It was like his confirmation was an impossible burden for her to bear. Then she squeezed his hand back and dropped it.

"Good luck, kid," she said. "You've been a pretty good partner."

"I thought I was your assistant."

She winked at him.

"If Vader's looking for you, you should make your escape now," she said. "Get as far away from that guy as possible. He's not above—uh—some light choking."

"What?"

Aphra moved on. "What does he want you for, anyway? Do you know? Knowing that'll help you formulate your escape plan."

"He used to be a Jedi," Luke said.

"Oh?"

"His name was Anakin Skywalker."

"Oh." The word was a filler sound while Aphra processed—she didn't seem to recognise the name at first, then her eyes went wide. "Oh."

Luke nodded.

Aphra grimaced. "My condolences."

But she wasn't looking at him like he was a monster. Maybe she was just in shock or hadn't processed it yet. He just inclined his head to acknowledge that. She gave him a look, but he didn't know what it meant.

"We should go," he said, before he could lose his nerve. He looked up at Queen Karina. "Do you have, uh, a method of contacting me? Something—"

"Switchboard will go with you," she said. "We can contact him."

Luke smiled to himself. "Alright."

"We will remember you, Wormie. We will remember your people, too."

"The Jedi?" He appreciated the thought, but… "Hopefully you won't have to."

"Your aunt and uncle," she corrected. "We will cherish their memories, for you. They will live forever."

A pang in his chest made him gasp. Tears, unbidden, spilled over his cheeks.

"Thank you," he said hoarsely.

They didn't say anything more.

The walk out of the catacombs wasn't too long, but it was long enough that he and Aphra had to say something. Luke's wings twitched, considering that maybe he could fly out and cut the time altogether, but he didn't want to leave Aphra. He'd leave her soon enough, when he made a mad dash across the surface to avoid Vader. There was no need to expedite that.

"I've commed the guy who'll get you out," Aphra said. "Say hi to him from me."

"I will," Luke said. There was nothing else to say.

Thankfully, Aphra filled the silence with her chatter, as usual. Luke didn't really feel able to speak right now.

"You know, I've been super interested in Geonosian society from the start," she said, as Switchboard traipsed along ahead of them, leading the way. Luke and Switchboard exchanged a look. "So—the worms? They're babies."

"You know this," Luke said, somewhat amused. "You were in the hivemind." So far, Aphra didn't seem to have shown many adverse effects from the experience, other than what she'd said to him immediately after coming out of it. He didn't know what to make of that.

"But it's fading already, and this is the stuff I wanna remember, 'cause it's weird and interesting to know." She paused, holding out her fingers to count on them. "The worms are the larval stage. They're also what generates the hivemind."

"Each full grown Geonosian has a worm in their brain, connecting them to the hivemind. I don't think even they know exactly how it works. We don't know how a lot of the human body works."

Aphra pushed: "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. But—it works after death?" She shook her head. "You know, Vader and I thought you were building a zombie army."

Luke smirked. "I was. Sort of."

"Weren't much of an army. They went down so easily."

"They're a last line of defence."

"Because they're not meant for combat," Aphra said, lowering her voice into solemnity—or the closest approximation of it she could handle. "I was so confused. Why would you want dead bodies rotting at the centre of your hive? Isn't that a disease risk?"

"They're food," Luke agreed. "The bodies die, and the worms into the brains pilot them back to the hive, to fall into the birthing chamber. There, the worms eat the bodies from the inside out and grow into youngling Geonosians themselves."

"With their own worms." Aphra hummed. "The first, second, and third lives."

"Worms. Drones. Food." Luke kicked a rock on the floor. "The queen is separate, but—"

"Like other bug species. She gets fed differently—more bodies. That way she grows bigger and can lay eggs." Luke nodded. The awe in Aphra's voice was actually really wonderful to hear. She wasn't just passionate about shallow quips and killing people. Her curiosity ran deeper than that. "The worms aren't mind control."

"They're a hivemind."

"I thought they were the same thing."

Luke looked away. "I wasn't mind controlled," he agreed, looking away suddenly. His heart was in his throat. "And I was angry. I'm sorry."

Aphra laughed and slapped him on the shoulder, making him jolt. "Kid, I knew that."

He raised his eyebrows.

"You chose the merciful way to try and kill me. If I were you, or if the queen had been controlling you completely, you'd have flayed me alive for what I did."

It wasn't an apology. But Luke hadn't been expecting one.

"Thanks for coming after me, by the way," she added, her voice a little softer. "You didn't have to."

He bumped her shoulder with his. "I did."

"Make sure you comm me whenever you find anything juicy about the Jedi. The guy you'll be with—he's a bit of a nutjob about them, can run away with his theories. Don't listen to everything he says. Comm me if you need me to set the record straight. Sometimes, it's not a great battle between light and darkness, it's just two grammarians bickering about language."

Luke raised his eyebrows. "That sounds specific."

"Oh, you have no idea." But the joking tone to her voice faded as quickly as it has before. There was a light at the end of the catacombs. "We're almost here. Take care of yourself, kid."

"Objection," Switchboard said.

"Huh?"

"Who's gonna take care of you, Aphra?" Luke teased. "We're not nearly there. This is the arena. We've gotta pass through it to get to some of the other clear tunnels."

"Roger roger," Switchboard confirmed.

Aphra grimaced, jabbing her thumb at Switchboard. "Good luck with this guy. He's gonna be real fun." She stopped. "Luke?"

He hadn't realised he'd stopped walking until she did too. Every cell in him shivered. The light at the end of the tunnel reached for him, but it was darkness incarnate, black and glowing, wrapping around his shoulders like a shawl and dragging him towards…

Aphra peered in the direction where he was staring. "Oh," she said. "Shavit."

"My son," a low voice boomed. "Do not try to hide from me."

"Skywalker, huh?" Aphra muttered. Luke ignored her. His feet dragged him inexorably forwards.

And of course, in the open sunlight, before the ruined pillars and flanked by the rising stands of the arena, stood Vader.

"There is no escape," he said. Of course there wasn't.

Luke should have known better than this.

There is nothing but serenity humming between us, other than the plans that whirl no matter what we do. If we are to help the Rebellion, there is a vast future of construction ahead of us, perfect for our new drones to turn to. We will grow.

We look forwards with glee. We look backwards with peace.

What we have lost, we will regain. Our friends leave, but they will return. We have far more allies in this dark, bleak galaxy than we ever expected to have again.

Together, we are strong. Together, we can answer whatever call we listen for. Alliances are meant to be honoured, whatever path they lead us down. We have always been prepared to make the necessary sacrifices. Sacrifice proved that, and he reminded us as well.

The past is dead. The present is painful. But the future is yet to be built.