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He paused to regard the droid with obvious respect. “Or so I had thought. I had spared no expense, ordered the most thorough quantum cleansing available. Apparently I-Five possesses subroutines and resources that are proof even to that.”

“It took me a very long time,” the droid said with harsh emphasis on the last three words, “but I was at last able to recover my full memory.”

The Sakiyan shook his head. “That should not have been possible. And yet, here you are. And here am I. Unlike you, I have never managed to claw my way back. Eventually, I gave up trying. Especially once I discovered that the takeover of my businesses was not, shall we say, an idea original to my competitor. I confronted him, some years down the line, and learned that he had been bank-rolled by then-Senator Palpatine himself. My ‘friend’ was essentially acting as a proxy, though I daresay he was allowed to keep a good deal of what he took.”

“Why?” Jax asked. “What did you have that the Emperor wanted?”

“I suspect I was simply an easy target,” Sal said, bitterness dripping from each word. “My financial circumstances made me vulnerable, and Palpatine, while by no means in desperate straits, like all politicians preferred to use someone else’s money to finance his governmental takeover.” He smiled a hard, painful smile. “You know what they say: ‘It’s not personal—’ ”

“ ‘—it’s just business,’ ” Den finished. Yes, they’d all heard those words before.

“And I have, I must admit, used, if not those very words, certainly the spirit behind them, more than once. But I was never stupid enough to cross the government.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was that very hesitancy on my part that made me seem easy prey. Whatever the reason, the new regime ruined me. Worse than that, they blacklisted me and made it impossible for me to recover. Even Black Sun wouldn’t do business with me, which has implications I’m reluctant to think about.” He hesitated, then added, “It wasn’t just the businesses, though the gods of misfortune know how devastating that was. No, I also lost my family—my mate, my children.”

“Ah,” said I-Five. “Ironic, isn’t it, how fickle people can be. Even those you expect to be loyal.”

“It wasn’t fickleness,” Tuden Sal said with some asperity. “It was fear. I didn’t just lose my visibility, I lost the ability to dare visibility. There is still a bounty on my head, I’m sure of it, though I’ve never been able to confirm it. When someone attempted to kidnap my youngest child, I sent my family offworld. I had no choice.”

“And you’ve been living down here, lying low?” Jax shook his head. “I hope you weren’t hoping to hide out with us. I’ve got a price on my head, too. And like you, I don’t know why.”

“I’m through lying low,” announced the Sakiyan. “I’m fighting back. I’ve joined the Whiplash, which is how I came to find you.” He nodded at Jax.

“You joined the Whiplash?” Jax repeated. “For the purpose of finding I-Five?”

Den well understood the skepticism in Jax’s voice. The Whiplash—the underground organization of which Den and his companions were a part—was dedicated to undermining the Empire’s doings and rescuing its victims. It was an organization that thrived on secrecy to the extent that its operatives often didn’t communicate openly for long periods of time, were informed of missions on a need-to-know basis, and did not admit new “members” without having first subjected them to stiff scrutiny.

“No,” the Sakiyan answered. “For the purpose of fighting the Empire. Finding you and I-Five was serendipitous. I had given up on finding you. In fact, I was convinced you were dead and the droid had been broken up for parts by some yokel who had no idea what he was holding. I would never have found you if my first assignment with the Whiplash hadn’t introduced me to Laranth Tarak.”

Jax reacted visibly to the mention of the Twi’lek’s name, but before he could do much more than gape like a Sullustan Fluke fish, I-Five interjected: “Which begs the question—why have you found us?”

The Sakiyan was suddenly quivering