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She whispered, “Tonin. Aldivian colloquialism. Definition: Little Atton.”

Then she waited.

If she was right, if she’d done her work correctly, the passwords she’d just spoken would be causing events to transpire deep within her R2 unit. The extra hardware she had buried within his power unit would be activating. The memory backup it contained would be pouring out across the droid’s circuitry, appending itself to and overwhelming Tonin’s current programming.

And in a few moments, once again, she would have a—

A single word, READY, appeared before her eyes. It looked as though it were sculpted out of metal and floating in darkness a meter from her, but she knew that it was merely being projected onto the goggles she wore.

“Don’t communicate audibly,” she whispered, though Tonin’s transmission of his first query as text suggested that he understood the need for secrecy. The fact that all data being transmitted between them was going across a direct wire connection made it very unlikely that her observers would be able to detect their communication. “Before we do anything, I want to apologize.”

FOR WHAT?

“For being selfish,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have brought you. I’ve put you in danger. I may get myself killed here, and if I do, the same will probably happen to you.”

I’M GLAD I’M HERE.

“Me, too. You’re my only friend, Tonin.” She closed her eyes for a moment, all too aware of how pathetic that sounded. Then she forced them open. “I also have to apologize for what I’ve done to you. I wiped your main memory on Aldivy. Anytime anyone but me puts a restraining bolt on you or opens you up, your memory will wipe. Anytime I say the right words, your backup memory will reload. So you may experience some memory gaps. I’m sorry. It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

I UNDERSTAND, LARA.

“I had an idea as to how we can destroy Iron Fist. You’ll have to do most of the work. But if we succeed, you may become the most famous R2 unit ever. Well, maybe second, after Artoo-Detoo.”

THAT WOULD BE NICE. WOULD THE WRAITHS LIKE YOU AGAIN?

“No. They’ll never like me again. So I have to do this for myself. I have to do this because it’s right. I have to do this because I have nothing else to do.”

WHAT DO I DO?

“Well, Zsinj, except when he’s paying for really good employees and mercenaries, is notoriously cheap. Which means he probably won’t have my quarters monitored when I’m not in them. If I stay away from my quarters all day long, that gives you plenty of time to work. I’ll tell you what you need to do. But first … when we’re alone like this … could you call me Kirney?”

YES, KIRNEY.

12

Half an hour after Lara’s departure from her quarters the next morning, Tonin became active. He rolled out of the closet to the door, deployed and extended his fine-work grasper arm, and got to work on the door controls. Within minutes, he had rewired the controls and mechanism so he could open the door and close it fractionally as well as fully.

He opened the door a bare three centimeters and extended his video sensor through it nearly at floor level, giving him a 360-degree view of the corridor. A passerby was not likely to notice the slight gap in the doorway or the protrusion from it.

He waited.

It was nearly an hour before his first opportunity arose. Certainly, in that time, many of the trapezoidal MSE-6 utility droids passed his doorway, but always under the eye of a passerby. This time, one little droid, rodentlike in its scurrying motion and nervousness, was alone, unobserved.

Tonin signaled it, a chirp that constituted a come-here order. The droid stopped its forward progress, turned toward the doorway, ran the request through its very simple processor, and determined that accepting this new order was not likely to delay accomplishment of its standing orders significantly. It approached the door.

Tonin snapped his heavy grasper arm out through the gap and snared the little droid. It gave a squeal of alarm and spun its wheels into reverse, but he hauled it up off its wheels. Tonin opened the door wide enough to accommodate