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“Don’t let what happen again? Oh. Yes. Forgetting. Although technically it was not we who forgot, but your mechanic.” Which itself was a fabrication, since the mechanic had in fact not visited the Millennium Falcon at any point, but the lie was a plausible one.

Tweetle-tweetle-blort.

“Oh, goodness, time is running out.” C-3PO spun in place. “Come, Artoo. If we’re to avoid a fate even worse than being shredded …”

Seha watched the two droids flee. She glanced at her mechanic—the Jedi apprentice Bandy Geffer, who was black-haired, earnest, and good with mechanical tasks—and gave him a thumbs-up. Then she trotted up the boarding ramp.

In moments she had hit the button to raise the ramp to its up and locked position and had shut the light partition door between the cockpit and the passenger cabin. She moved to the back of the cabin, shutting the sliding covers over the side viewports as she went. Then she opened small hatches, ones that should have provided access to luggage storage, above the rear seats port and starboard. But these hatches showed emergency system backup controls—fire extinguishers, atmosphere, backup holocomm.

On the small keyboard of each panel, she typed in a short encrypted command. The panels slid forward, revealing that there were horizontal coffin-sized enclosures beyond, enclosures extending aft even farther than the passenger compartment did.

Enclosures containing Jedi.

Master Kyp Durron blinked at her, shading his eyes from the sudden light of the main cabin. “Delivery?”

“Finally.”

Opposite, Master Octa Ramis pulled herself halfway out of her smuggling compartment, then levered her legs free and dropped nimbly to the floor. Dark-haired and appealing, she wore a white hooded rain cloak of thin material over the sort of dark, innocuous business dress that was ubiquitous in the Senate Building.

Kyp also pulled himself free, struggling a bit to fit his broader shoulders through the aperture. He chose to fall face-first and roll to his feet. “Let’s see it.”

Seha handed him the toolbox. While Kyp laid out the contents on a shuttle seat, Seha brushed dust from the cabin floor off his back.

“Thanks. What do we have here … Identities. Credcards.” Kyp held up the cylinder R2-D2 had given Seha and read its lettering. “TWO KILOS MALLEABLE EXPLOSIVE. DO NOT OPEN PRIOR TO USE.”

Octa settled into the seat opposite. “The building’s chemical sniffers will detect it once the container is open.”

“Right. Um, makeup supplies, spray-on skin tone, and hair color.”

Octa inserted one of the identicards into a datapad. She looked at the screen as data began to scroll by. “This one’s yours, Kyp. You’re Izzen Fray, a financial analyst with the tertiary support detail of Senator Treen of Kuat.”

Seha offered a dismayed expression. “Tertiary?”

Kyp nodded. “Yes, she’s known for maintaining lots of resources here. A good choice. She’s also known for discouraging anyone prying into her affairs, meaning that many of her people don’t know one another by sight.”

Octa offered him a little grin. “Of course, as a Kuati male, you’re a second-class citizen. Time to practice your bowing and scraping.”

“Yes, madam. Hey, it’s still a step up from a slave miner, which I’ve been for real.” He inserted the other identicard in the other datapad. “You’re Olya Merker. Same delegation. A comfort specialist.”

Octa snorted, amused. “Ah, good, I’ll need to sharpen my pillow-fluffing skills.” Then something occurred to her. “Seha—how did the date go?”

Seha shrugged. “It was nice. Dinner, dancing. He was just aggressive enough to show he was interested, but not so much so that I’d need to throw him out a viewport.”

Octa gave her a cautionary look. “Remember, as nice as he may be, he’s security. Naturally suspicious and probably inclined to poke around for information he shouldn’t have. Plus, if he ever finds out you’re a Jedi using him for access to the Senate Building …”

“Yes, yes.” Seha rolled her eyes. “I can pretend to be living a normal life occasionally, can’t I? For an hour?”

Octa and Kyp looked at each other.