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Jax turned and looked at the droid, which had turned to follow him. Again, he could not escape a sense of urgency and concern somehow projected by it.

He took a step closer. “You don’t belong to Rokko,” he said.

The droid shook its head—another strangely human action. “No.”

“And you say my father sent you?”

“Yes. Lorn Pavan. He was—”

“My father’s dead,” Jax interrupted. “I never knew him. And now definitely isn’t the time to—”

“He died a hero’s death, Jax. He died avenging the killing of a Jedi. He died in an attempt to save the Republic from being overthrown. He died in battle with one of the most dangerous assassins in the galaxy. And,” I-Five said, its voice full of compassion and regret, “no one knows it but me.”

Jax stared at the droid, utterly at a loss for either thoughts or words. I-Five reached out, put a gentle hand on Jax’s shoulder. “It’s easy enough to test my veracity,” it said. “Use the Force. Reach out with your feelings. Listen to your heart, Jax. You’ll know it’s the truth.”

“But—you’re a droid. You have no—there’s nothing to—”

“Trust what the Force tells you, Jax. If it doesn’t confirm what I’m saying—what you know in your heart to be true—” The droid spread its hands in a gesture of defeat. “Then I belong to Rokko.”

Jax shook his head in confusion. The droid couldn’t possibly know what it was talking about. Still, it was but the work of a second to comply. And the intensity of its importuning was slightly intriguing.

He opened his mental vision to the Force.

The threads that always formed his most complete connection with the Force enveloped and infiltrated I-Five. At first there seemed to be nothing there beyond what he had expected: the pulse of lubricating fluids, the hum of capacitors and quantum couplers, the stolidity of superconductors. Beyond that, Jax could sense the restless interactions of subatomic particles that, pairing and parting and pairing again, gave I-Five a literally endless ability to process, refine, and utilize data.

Jax had never bothered to probe a droid before; what was the point? Even those without creativity dampers lacked the essential spark. One might as well look for a meaningful connection with a comlink. But now, in this outwardly unremarkable droid, he sensed—something. Something that was not explicable in terms of engineering and circuitry and mechanics. Something … more.

He pulled back, and now beheld the droid wrapped in the threads. They reached in all directions, as well as into the past and future. Often he could study them and track a person’s life holistically, seeing not just the line he or she traveled through the continuum, but the countless connections made with other beings as well. They vibrated, these threads, and the harmonic waves they produced within the Force connected everything that was to everything that had ever been, or would ever be.

He sensed I-Five’s connection with a man who had considered it not as property, but as a person. A partner. He felt the droid’s affection for this man, this man with whom Jax was now connected, through the Force threads aligned with the patterns of energy in the droid’s memory banks.

Lorn Pavan.

His father.

Jax severed the connection, snapping back with such rapidity that he almost physically rocked back on his heels. He saw Laranth watching him from over the droid’s shoulder. The droid’s immobile face seemed somehow concerned as well.

“Jax?” the droid asked. “Are you all—”

“Get away from me,” Jax said. He turned and stalked back up the hall.

Den was beginning to wonder what had happened to I-Five when a man came down the corridor and headed past him, moving at a fast pace. Den had just time enough to register that this was probably one of the Jedi whom Rokko had sent I-Five after when a female Twi’lek, who looked like she could tackle a Sullustan rockrender and walk away intact, followed quickly behind him.

Behind them both came I-Five, projecting what could only be described as anguish. “Jax!” the droid shouted.

They were all far enough