Before Reath could figure out how vulnerable he might be to that expression, Leox’s voice came over the comms. “The final ships are boarding all passengers to the station. You guys ready out there?”

“Absolutely,” Reath said. The moment was broken; he could focus on his duty again. “Come on, Nan. Let’s greet the guests.”

She made a face. “Mizi? Orincans? You can call them whatever you want…but they’re not going to act like guests.”

“What will they act like?” Reath asked.

Nan had a mischievous smile. “Wait and see.”

Good thing the bracing joints held on this station, thought Affie Hollow as she made her way along the walkway, through a tangle of vines. Otherwise this thing would’ve imploded, and who knows where we’d have wound up?

(Somewhere else preprogrammed into the computer. Some other location Scover had downloaded, not knowing what traps might have been set for her in old navicomputers.)

Affie had chosen to wander upward, along the lone spiral walkway that traveled along the central globe of the Amaxine station, leading toward the topmost rings. From her vantage point, she could survey the layout almost completely. Outer ring: several metal arches separating the various segments, each of which had an airlock of its own. Central sphere: several enclosures set up along the walkway, but otherwise completely an arboretum. (She would’ve thought it was always intended to be one, if it weren’t for the fact that the Amaxines had built this. The legends suggested they weren’t the “tranquil gardener” type.) Through the transparent plates, she could see some of the other ships coming in to dock.

They put the Orincan ship next to the Mizi? Oh, that’s going to be a huge mess. These Jedi might be brilliant monk-wizards, but they were also completely uninformed about this part of the galaxy, especially which species within it hated each other. As she passed the one large, irregular airlock in the sphere, Affie was tempted to head back to the bridge to help Leox and Geode sort through the resulting squabbles—and to witness the poleaxed expressions on the Jedi’s faces.

(She didn’t dislike any of the Republic types, actually, but it was verrry obvious how much they thought they were the ones bringing wisdom and knowledge. About time they learned better.)

But while plenty of the ships would be crewed by beings that loathed each other, none of them seemed likely to make war. It would be a mess, not a disaster.

Probably.

So that meant Affie was free to explore on her own.

Lower rings? She still didn’t know. Upper rings?

Affie looked up; by then she was within meters of the tunnel that would lead up and out. Time to discover just what else this station had to offer.