“It would be our absolute pleasure,” Lina Soh responded, apparently unperturbed by Elzar’s disregard for protocol.

Stellan waited for the chancellor to lead Elarec farther down the line before he turned to raise his eyebrows at Elzar, who mouthed a characteristic What?

Some things never changed.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Dynamo

Mantessa Chekkat’s ship was spotless. This, Ty Yorrick could appreciate. Her own ship, now safely docked on Port Haileap, was old, but it was never messy. Ty was a firm believer in a place for everything and everything in its place. It was one of the few things that she and her admin droid agreed on. The Dynamo, however, was something else. An army of tiny droids was constantly rolling from deck to deck polishing and sanitizing until every console gleamed and the filtered air smelled like a medcenter.

Considering her obvious predilection for cleanliness, it came as no surprise when Mantessa had taken one look at Ty’s ship and insisted that they traveled on the Dynamo, much to the chagrin of both KL-03 and R0-VR, who had whined like the lovelorn puppy the astromech so often resembled. If she was honest, Ty appreciated the break from both droids, although she was beginning to worry that she’d be decontaminated if she stood in one place for too long.

The gig had been a simple one. Mantessa wanted a bodyguard. That was fine. Ty had performed enough babysitting gigs. They were largely without incident, and if things did take a turn for the worse, she could handle herself, which she guessed was the point. So far, so good … and then Ty had heard where they were going and flat-out refused.

Not Valo. Uh-uh. Not the Republic Fair. She didn’t mind the crowds and she certainly didn’t mind the weather, but there was no way in this reality or the next that Ty was going to a planet that would be crawling with Jedi.

Of course, K-L had other ideas and had pointed out how the stabilizer still needed to be fixed. And the fuel intermixers. And the entire sensor array. And just about everything else for that matter.

Ty had allowed herself to be swayed by the droid’s logic (known in other parts of the galaxy as “incessant nagging”) and now found herself studying maps of Lonisa City, her eyes wandering repeatedly to the partially completed Jedi outpost near the Republic Fair site. Yes, their lack of credits was the only reason she was going near that thing, definitely not the tiny voice in the back of her head that kept telling her that this was the path she was supposed to tread. Why did she get the feeling K-L wasn’t the only force in the universe that wouldn’t take no for an answer?

“Would you like something to drink?”