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By Root 899 0

area on the top level—an area, Kell pointed out, that he had laboriously cleaned and emptied of machinery parts until it was fit for occupation—to give them her evaluation. It was now set up with chairs—made of some antiquated plastic material and curved in artistic patterns that Luke thought he’d once seen in a museum display, combining comfort with dated pretension—and one functional medical droid that Bhindi had assembled from parts of several damaged ones. The repairs had not been completely successful; the droid walked with a wobble caused by the fact that its right lower leg section was identical to its left, throwing it a bit off-balance.

“What we have here,” Bhindi said, “is two different scientific stations put together. Both of them operations of Imperial Intelligence, the first of them dating from about fifty years ago, though this complex has been here for centuries. And this is CPD-One-Thirteen, who has been here since the commencement of this station’s third stage of operation. One-Thirteen?”

“Greetings,” the droid said. Its voice was thin, cultured, with a distinct Coruscant accent. “You are all intruders. Prepare to die.” It turned to look across all its visitors.

“This is the part where the military droids jump out of their niches and kill us all,” Bhindi said. She reached over and fiddled with the restraining bolt plugged into the droid’s chest. “One-Thirteen, our continued presence here is proof that we are authorized personnel.”

“That is correct,” the droid said. “I am CPD One-Thirteen, medical droid, optimized for suspended life process maintenance. You are all intruders here. Prepare to die.”

“What is this complex?” Mara asked.

CPD 1-13 stood more upright, and his voice became cheerier. “Welcome to the Pasarian Memorial Atmospheric Reclamation Complex Project, Substation One, formerly the Coruscant Atmospheric Reclamation—”

“Quiet,” Bhindi interrupted. “I’ll synopsize.”

“If you must.”

Bhindi glared at 1-13 and he slumped. “The Complex,” she continued, “all its various substations put together, is a sort of worldwide air-scrubber. Quite a while back, once Coruscant’s leaders built over the last forested regions, the planet lacked sufficient natural resources to manage the atmospheric pollutants produced by the world’s industrialized species. The government had that covered, though, in building a series of very efficient facilities that converted carbon dioxide into oxygen, removed waste gases, that sort of thing. That ‘red goo’ several stories up doesn’t just act as a devourer tank. It’s a variant of the devourer organism, especially engineered for high-efficiency conversion of carbon dioxide to oxygen. It functions with the same efficiency as several thousand square kilometers of tract forest. And there are hundreds of similar substations all over Coruscant. Well, there were. Some may be damaged or destroyed now, but most were built at bedrock level. Lots of them could have survived so far.”

“Wait, wait.” Luke frowned. “They have to have some sort of active air-pumping mechanism.”

“That’s correct—”

“You are all intruders. Prepare to die.”

Grimacing, Bhindi did something to the droid’s restraining bolt. CPD 1-13 jerked as if electrocuted each time. “Each station,” Bhindi continued, “is attached to an elaborate network of intake and output ducts. In with the bad air, out with the good. And it’s those ducts that are most likely to have failed planetwide with the destruction Coruscant is experiencing. But the thing is, each one of those stations could serve as a resistance center—if I can get to it and get into it.”

Face gave her a disbelieving look. “Are they all secret, like this one?”

“Every one.”

“Why?”

“That was the second stage of the operation.” Bhindi stared forbiddingly at 1-13. “Think you can give them some history … without death threats?”

“I have made no threats. Only announcements of impending doom.” CPD 1-13 straightened. “The second state of this complex, according to the maintenance droids that preceded me here, began with the gradual elimination, through retirement and