The Works stretched under Coruscant’s crust from pole to pole, generally accessible only through the hubs. Its pipes, lines, hoses, and conduits formed the circulatory system of the planet, through which water, heat, electricity, and any number of other necessities flowed. It represented the peak of Republic technology.

“Follow me!” she shouted above the noise, and Zeerid nodded.

Following signs and calling upon her memory, Aryn led Zeerid through the maze of raised flooring, lifts, and autostairs. Droids moved past them, oblivious, and it occurred to Aryn that the droids in the Works would probably have kept doing their work even if everyone on Coruscant were dead. The thought struck her as grotesque.

Zeerid turned circles as they walked, trying to take it all in.

“This is unbelievable,” he said to her. “I wish I had a holorecorder.”

She nodded and hurried along.

They soon left behind the mechanical tumult of the hub proper. As the sound faded behind them, the corridors narrowed and darkened, and the wall-mounted lights became less frequent. Pipes and conduits snaked on and through the ceiling, the floor, the entrails of plantwide convenience. Zeerid pulled a chemlight from one of the pockets of his flight pants, snapped it in half, and held it aloft as they advanced. Both of them were sweating in the still air of the tunnels.

“There are security droids in these tunnels,” she said. “We don’t have a proper pass. They will try to stop us.”

“Great,” Zeerid said. Then, “You sure you know where you’re going?”

She nodded, though she was beginning to feel lost.

From ahead she heard the whir of servos, the rattle of metal. A droid.

She pulled Zeerid to a stop and activated her lightsaber, fearing a security droid. Dust danced in the green light of its glow. Zeerid pulled his blaster, held the chemlight up higher.

“What is it?” he whispered.

A form moved in the shadows, small, cylindrical, a droid. Not a security droid but an astromech. It emerged into the light and she saw the flat, circular head and dun coloration of a T7. Scratches marred the droid’s surface, and loose wires dangled from one of its shoulder joints. But she knew its color and felt as if she were seeing a ghost, a specter from her past haunting the dark tunnels of the Works. Deactivating her blade, she said, “Tee-seven?”

Her voice cracked on the words.

When he beeped a greeting in droidspeak, she knew it was him, his mechanical voice redolent somehow of very human joys, triumphs, and pain, the soundtrack of her time in the Temple, of her life with Master Zallow. Tears pooled in her eyes as T7 wheeled toward them.

“You know this astromech?” Zeerid asked.

“It was Master Zallow’s droid,” she said.

She knelt before T7, daubing at the dirt on his head as she might a small child. He whistled with pleasure.