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“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 with unwholesome excitement. Or at least the glint in his pale eyes made it seem unwholesome to Den.

“I have a mission for I-Five. One for which his special modifications—specifically his concealed weaponry and his lack of certain … standard inhibitions—would suit him ideally.”

“And that would be?” asked I-Five.

“You, my old friend,” said the Sakiyan, smiling for the first time, “would make the ideal assassin.”

“You want I-Five to assassinate somebody?” Jax shook his head. “That’s not the sort of mission the Whiplash usually involves itself in. We protect people, extricate them from unhealthy situations, find them safe passage offworld. We don’t indulge people’s vendettas.”

“This could be seen as something in the nature of a personal mission,” Sal admitted. “Though I assure you it will serve all lovers of freedom, including the Jedi, in ways you can’t imagine. With I-Five’s modifications and the anonymity that comes with being a droid … well, there couldn’t be a more perfect liquidator.”

“Now, just a moment here.” Den raised his hands and slid down from the window embrasure, noting as he did that the wan light falling through it from outside—a weak trickle of half-dead sunlight from above and artificial illumination from below—made his shadow on the ferrocrete floor loom many times his real height. He was glad of that, because he needed to feel bigger just now. Tuden Sal’s last words had turned his insides to quivering gel. “I-Five, an assassin? What kind of sick nonsense is that? He may be just an anonymous automaton to you, but to me he’s … he’s …”

Den hesitated, realizing that he had never articulated what I-Five was to him. He also realized that the droid’s ocular units were trained right on him. “He’s my friend, okay? And Jax’s friend. And we don’t want to see him put in harm’s way with the callous disregard you’d show a—a …”

“A machine?” finished I-Five with a tone of voice that in an organic would have been accompanied by a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah. He admitted it himself not a minute ago, Five. You’re not a programmable toy. We can’t just pump you full of code and send you into a dangerous situation as if you were some expendable piece of equipment. You have volition. You’re a person.”

Den felt those words in that moment as perhaps he never had before, knowing to the soles of his boots that he would not—could not—send I-Five into a potentially no-win situation alone. A swift chill cascaded down from the crown of his head. And just what did that imply? That he would volunteer to go along?

I-Five’s gleaming metal face was, as always, expressionless. “Yes,” the droid said, “as you point out, I have volition. Which means that I have both the capacity and the right to determine, in consultation with the team, of course”—he