"As a sunny day," Norra says.

"Let's do this." Han and Jas skulk off, sticking to the lower level. Norra has Sinjir and Jom form up behind her as they take to the second floor.

Norra keeps her blaster out-not pointed at anything, and her finger on the guard, not on the trigger. Wedge was fond of giving everyone lectures about trigger discipline, which means not putting your finger on that trigger until you're just ready to pull it.

Wedge.

She misses him.

She understands his choice not to come along. He's a pilot for the New Republic. He has his loyalties. And yet she's angry at him, too. Because he's a part of this. He should do like she did, and follow her heart- Oh, that's just absurd, isn't it? She chastises herself for the thought. Follow her heart where? To a prison ship on a slave planet?

Maybe Wedge had the right idea after all.

The moment they reach the second floor is when the silence of the ship is suddenly broken.

A voice comes over the comm speakers, filling the whole ship with its booming presence, a voice that vacillates between male and female as it runs through a series of babbled languages. Norra recognizes some, like Ithorese, Gand, and Huttese, but not all. It races through them, almost as if calibrating itself- Then it begins to speak in a language they all understand.

"Life-forms: eighty percent human, twenty percent Zabrak. Attuning language to Basic. Greetings, trespassers! This is Predori Prison Ship, Ashmead's Lock. I am the ship's IPU, or Intellectual Processing Unit, designation SOL-GDA: Synthesized Operating Layer, Grid-Based Drive Array. Welcome to my ship. Please speak the passcode aloud to continue."

Sinjir almost laughs. "What did it say?"

"'What did it say' is not an acceptable passcode. One out of three attempts used. Please speak the passcode aloud to continue."

Norra sticks her finger up against her lips to shush Sinjir and Jom before they say anything else. Whatever this passcode is, Aram never gave it to them. That means he set them up. Because of course he did. Damnit! Why did the system trigger so late? Why not when they first stepped inside? A grim thought enters her mind: All the better to trap us here.

She starts to flag them to turn around and head back down the steps. Best to leave now and reformulate the plan.

But then the computer-now settling on a female voice-says: "'What the hell is this?' is not an acceptable passcode. Two out of three attempts used. Please speak the passcode aloud to continue."

Who the? What the?

Solo.

Damnit! She mouths the word move three times over, and they start heading back down the steps- A voice bellows from somewhere below. Solo again.

"Gimme the damn Wookiee, you crazy computer!"

And of course, SOL-GDA's response is: "'Give me the damn Wookiee, you crazy computer' is not an acceptable passcode. Three out of three attempts used. Passcode failed. System moving to lockdown. Please remain still for incorporation."

Lockdown? Incorporation?

That doesn't sound good at all, does it? Norra waves her arms, urging the others forward- The ship begins to rumble: a low, mechanized growl accompanied by a high-pitched whine that drills deep into her ear.

Above them and alongside them, the black mirrors begin to slide back with a whir. Out of each newly exposed chamber steps a pair of droids. Their faces are polished mirrors-not black like the walls but rather, a burnished gunmetal. The arms of the droids are configured like skeletal spines: countless joints allowing the hyperflexible limbs to drag behind them like tentacles. They lean forward with the predatory gait of a hungry beast, feet clicking as they begin to lope toward Norra and the others. Already she hears Solo's blaster and the bounty hunter's slugthrower-she fires her own. "Run!" she screams.

But down below, more droids are rushing up to meet them.

- The way out is locked and blocked. So the bounty hunter and the smuggler go the only direction they can: They hard-charge it deeper into the bowels of the prison ship. Solo's just ahead, bolting forward, his blaster spitting lasers. Jas fires her slugthrower from the hip as she follows. Ahead, droids lurch and lunge, their whiplike arms lancing the air- But they go down, one by one. Solo's lasers take their legs out from under them. Her slugs punch holes through those mirrored masks as they fall-droid heads whipping back and vomiting sparks, the machine-beings clattering hard against the floor and skidding.

One comes out of the wall at the smuggler- The tip of its segmented arm glistens.

A needle, she thinks. It stabs toward Solo's neck.

No time to do anything else. She fires. The slug shears off the end of the attacker's limb, sending up a spray of hot metal chips. Solo cries out, clapping his free hand against his neck as he staggers against the wall.

"Keep moving," she hisses in his ear as she comes up behind him, shouldering him forward.

"You shot me!"

"I shot near you."

His hand comes away wet with red.

Ahead, more droids-he sneers and draws the second blaster at his hip and peppers the hallway ahead with searing light. Droids spin and spark.

They pass an adjoining passageway, and she catches his elbow with her hand. "There!" Down that way: an open space and what looks to be some kind of command center.

Han Solo fires off a few more shots and follows after her.

Jas hopes the others have found somewhere safe, too.

- They're everywhere.

Norra's on the ground-her back against the metal, her blaster up and firing at a droid diving toward her. Her shot tears the thing's faceless mask off, exposing a sizzling circuit board. It collapses against her, limbs flailing uselessly against the metal-she rolls it off her and fires two more shots into its open skull. It stops moving.

Jom is just ahead, thrashing about as two of them crawl up on him, pinning him to the wall even as he bashes one in the skull with the butt of his rifle and kicks the other away. Two more swiftly replace those that fell-a segmented arm coils around his blaster and twists it from his grip.

He head-butts the thing in return.

It bloodies his nose. His skull cracks the thing's mask in two.

Norra stands steady and lines up a shot- She hears the click-clack behind her just as something-a lashlike limb-curls around her neck and tightens. A sound comes out of her-gkkk!-and instantly her head starts to pulse and throb as the blood pools and her airway closes. Everything seems to go oozing and slow; Jom goes down as one of the droids sticks a needle in his neck; she can't even see Sinjir, but then when her head is wrenched back, she spies the ex-Imperial up, up, up above her as the droid crawls up the walls, carrying him with it toward an open portal glowing blue; then a needle sticks into her neck with a stabbing prick. She tries to cry out, but can't...

Her body goes weak. It's as if her limbs aren't even hers anymore-like they're just sacks of meat stapled to her torso. She tries to do something, anything, but the blaster clacks against the ground and her vision starts to smear like grease on a window. She begins to fly, lifting up off the ground, and for a moment she feels giddy-I'm escaping, I'm flying-but that's not it at all. They're carrying her just like they did Sinjir.

Where are they taking me?

What are they going to do to me?

Help- Someone- Anyone- She chokes.

And darkness sweeps the light aside.

- Mister Bones sits cross-legged on the ground in front of the door. He has his vibroblade out, and it crackles and spits as he saws through a stick, one cut after the next, until he's got a little cairn of equally sized stick bits in front of him. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.

He sweeps the pile away, then grabs another stick to begin anew.

"What are you doing?" Temmin asks.

"CUTTING THINGS."

"Why?"

"I ENJOY IT."

He shrugs. "Fair enough." The droid is weird. He knows that. He programmed Bones to be functional, yes, but also...independent, in his own way. Problem is, Temmin isn't really sophisticated enough to know exactly what he did when creating his bodyguard's personality matrix.

So what he got was...this.

Whatever. That's not important now.

What matters is: "They haven't come out yet."

"THIS IS A TRUE STATEMENT, MASTER TEMMIN."

"They should've come out."

The droid suddenly stands. As if eager. "YES."

"Which means they might be in danger."

"I ENJOY DANGER, MASTER TEMMIN." The battle droid's vulture-like head tilts back and forth on its axis with little whirs and ticks. His jagged teeth gleam in the half-light. There's an eager tinge to the droid's discordant voice.

"If they're not coming out, we may have to go in."

"WILL THERE BE VIOLENCE?"

"If they're in danger."

Bones's fingers tickle the air. "THEN LET US HOPE THEY ARE IN DANGER SO THAT I MAY PERFORM EGREGIOUS VIOLENCE." One finger flips back and the datalink emerges, its fiber-optic tip glowing. "MAY I OPEN THE DOOR NOW?"

Temmin snaps his fingers, suddenly nervous. "Yeah, Bones. Open her up." Please be okay, Mom. Before, he was excited for the promise of action. Now, though, that rush of excitement has been replaced by a river of fear.

- The door mechanism is cratered from one of Jas's slugs, and static arcs of electricity jump from it as it sizzles. She and Solo crouch down behind a bank of computers as the droids work to cut through the door.

The room they're in is hexagonal. It's out in the open-in a massive central area seen easily through the scalloped windows that surround them. The windows are thankfully impenetrable blast glass; the droids continue to hammer against them with their lashing arms, but so far they've only served to scratch the surface. The door, though? They'll come through that soon.

The computers aren't like anything Jas has ever seen: no keypad, just a smooth convex bubble sitting in front of a green holoscreen. When Solo's hands move across the bubble, the monitor flits from screen to screen. None of it in Basic. None of it making any sense to them.

"I...I don't know what I'm looking at," Solo says, exasperated. "I'm a smuggler, not a damn slicer. This is some kinda...machine language, maybe, or something old, real old." He roars in frustration-sounding not unlike his Wookiee copilot-and brings his fist down onto the control pad. "Blast it!"

His neck is still bleeding. But not gushing, though-so, thank the stars for small favors, right?

The door bangs as it rises up a few centimeters off the floor. Segmented droid arms slide in under the gap, whipping across the floor like agitated serpents before finally pausing to lift. The door groans and moves up a few centimeters more. Jas says: "They're coming in."

She leans around the side of the computer bank.

Bang. Bang.

Two shots in quick succession, and the arms break apart into metal vertebrae that spin and slide across the metal floor.

Through the window, she sees dozens of mirrored masks staring in at them, now-implacable and emotionless. Like drones. They've stopped bashing at the window. Now they're just waiting.

Above them comes the voice of SOL-GDA, the ship intelligence- "SOL-GDA welcomes you to lay down your weapons. You will be intercepted and held in stasis until your purpose here can be determined." It repeats that phrase in Zabraki: "SOL-GDA thisska chu hai gannomari. Chu tai captak azza kan chutari geist fata-yith-ga."

"Computer!" Han barks. "You give me my friend, Chewbacca, or I'm gonna tear your IPU right out of its brain hole and throw it into an engine fire! You hear me!"

"SOL-GDA possesses a wide variety of prisoners, all of them held in eternal stasis. They invite you to join them." This, too, she repeats in Zabraki.

Solo stands and fires his blaster at the computer. It peels back like a metal flower, and a small electrical fire burns.

"We could've used that," Jas says.

"Be my guest. I improved it."

The door lifts up another dozen centimeters. Mirrored faces now stare through that gap, gleaming. One struggles to get its head underneath the door. Jas bares her teeth and lines up another shot- Suddenly the droid in her scopes hitches and shakes. Its mirrored mask vibrates and pops off as an ember-hot vibroblade bisects the machine's skull. Cinders rain before the droid goes dark.

Jas pulls back on the rifle.

Could it be?

Out there, through the window, the mirrored droids noticed the defeat of their fellow. But they're too slow.

A pair of glowing vibroblades spins through the air as Mister Bones dances through the droids, pirouetting-mirrored skulls popping free like a child flicking the heads off bugs.

"That who I think it is?" Solo asks.

"It is."

"That thing is terrifying."

"Just be glad it's on our side."

The mirrored droids mob Bones-their arms lashing at him. He ducks and leaps, slicing off segments of limb bit by bit with his blades.

"The door," Solo says. "Let's get it open while we have a chance."

She nods- But the door is still opening of its own volition. It cranks up another few centimeters-which is enough for someone to slide through. She takes aim, but Solo palms the barrel of her rifle and pushes it to the ground.

"Whoa, hold up, Emari. Look."

It's Temmin. He smiles sheepishly, his hair stuck to his sweat-slick forehead. "Hey, guys. Need a hand?"

- Impossible visions.

Norra drifts along, stitching in and out of consciousness, her breath coming in a keening wheeze. She feels loose, unmoored, utterly disconnected from the world. She floats through a dark room. She hears a song played on a valachord. Brentin is home. Lightning flashes at windows that weren't there moments before, and she sees the skull masks of stormtroopers staring in-Temmin is crying, Brentin is yelling, and the Imperials kick in the door and drag him away. Outside isn't outside. Outside is inside: the tangled conduits and piping of the Death Star battle station's interior. Power cablings spark and energy lines shine red and now she's in her Y-wing again, and she turns to peel away down a passage in order to lead the TIEs away from the Falcon but the flight stick is reversed and she pulls right but the fighter tugs left-her ship clips the Falcon, putting both of them into a spin. She sees the freighter slam into a massive concrete-and-steel post, dissolving into a ball of fire and debris.

Then her eyes are open-torn wide in a paroxysm of fear.