“What do you think they’re talking about?” Reya asked, worried. After being kicked off of the ship, she and the others had retreated to the house in silence, still processing the revelations Adrian had sprung on them. Reya was busying herself with preparing tea for her and Rann. Reaching for the boiling water, she filled two white ceramic mugs with the steaming liquid. The water immediately began turning a pale yellow.

  Rann blinked, snapping out of her thoughts. “They’re probably discussing what to do with the robot. Can you believe it? Adrian’s old captor turned out to be a machine created by the gru’ul. And they want to bring her over here.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about. First, Adrian has to interact with his old tormentors and now this? He must be having a rough time of it, dealing with the people who hurt him.”

  “At least he doesn’t have to decide what to do about it. What do you think the Tribunal is going to decide? There’s no way they’d bring something so dangerous here, right?”

  “We don’t know how dangerous she actually is.”

  “Are you actually defending her?”

  “No,” Reya shook her head. “I hate her for having harmed Adrian,” she said in a hard voice. “She’s one of the people that scarred him and that will never go away. I’m simply pointing out that she might not be as dangerous as we’re making her out to be.”

  Rann snorted. “Sure, because a super advanced machine that’s achieved sentience isn’t something to be wary of.” She watched Reya remove the teabags from the mugs and waited patiently to receive hers. Gingerly accepting the piping hot mug, she led Reya out of the kitchen and into the living room where they could sit and talk.

  “Fair enough,” Reya conceded as she sat down on one end of the couch. Rann sat on the other, taking a sip of her tea as she settled. “We’ll have to wait for Adrian or Tassie to know the whole story, if they’re even allowed to tell us.”

  “You think the Tribunal is going to stuff a gag order on this? For the people that are already the most involved in the mission? I’m sure they’ll be allowed to talk about it with us.”

  “We’ll have to ask,” Reya said. The pair continued their discussion, speculating on possible outcomes when Adrian and Tassie came through the door, looking thoroughly drained. The pair made their way into the kitchen where Tassie offered to make both of them a cup of tea.

  Reya and Rann waited patiently for them to finish their business in the kitchen, slowly sipping their piping hot tea. It wasn’t long before Adrian and Tassie joined them in the living room. Tassie took up the recliner while Adrian sat on the other couch so that he could properly speak to Reya and Rann. He flashed Reya a tired smile, doing little to alleviate her worries.

  “How did it go?” Reya asked once the newcomers were settled. She paid particular attention to Adrian, waiting for his reaction.

  “It went about as you’d expect,” Adrian sighed, sagging heavily in his seat. “I got to see what the rest of the Tribunal looks like, so there’s that. It’s nice to be able to put faces to the people that run the show around here.”

  “What about the robot?” Rann blurted out before Reya could respond. “What did they decide to do with it, finally? Did they bring it over? Is that why you took so long?” Her rapid-fire questions made answering them a difficult affair.

  Adrian looked over towards Tassie. “How much do you think we’re allowed to say?” he asked her. Tassie frowned, trying to determine how much they could reveal.

  “I don’t even know if we’re allowed to talk about it,” Tassie finally said.

  “Technically they didn’t stop us from talking about it,” Adrian pointed out. “I think it’s safe to tell them.”

  “Are you sure?” Tassie asked. “I feel like this is the kind of thing they’d want kept a secret.”

  “Then call your general and ask. She should have a sufficient enough understanding of the situation to be able to make that decision.”

  “You would bother the General over something like this?” Rann balked.

  “Why not? This is exactly the kind of thing you call a general for. We’re dealing with highly classified information that they might not appreciate you knowing without their consent.”

  “That,” Rann trailed off, “makes a surprising amount of sense.”

  “Thank you,” Adrian said dryly. “I do have my moments.”

  “Tassie, ring up the General so that Adrian can speak with her.”

  “Rann, are you sure?” Tassie asked hesitantly. She guessed the General was probably incredibly busy after what had happened and was incredibly reluctant to bother her with such a minor problem. Rann waved her off and repeated her instructions. Sighing, Tassie went to go get her data slate, which was on the kitchen table. Returning, she sat back down in her spot and shot Rann one last glance. “I hope you’re right about this.”

  Tassie called Nessah and waited nervously for her to pick up. When Nessah’s face appeared onscreen, Tassie felt her mouth run dry. “Please tell me nothing else happened in the short amount of time since we last spoke,” Nessah said wearily. Tassie shook her head and explained the situation.

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  “We’d like to know if it’s alright to tell the others about what happened,” Tassie asked once she was done. “We weren’t sure if we were allowed to or not, so here we are.”

  Nessah hummed. “Normally anything relating to the Tribunal remains strictly classified. On the one hand, your team already knows much about the events that were discussed, so there’s little point in keeping the rest of it hidden. On the other, they shouldn’t even know that much to begin with.” Pinching the bridge of her nose, she came to a decision. “Tell them if they want to know. I can’t see how it will make much of a difference at this point.”

  Having received the permission they sought, the call ended soon after. “She didn’t appear to be too upset,” Adrian commented. “She looked more tired than anything else.”

  “Can you just tell us what happened already?” Rann asked impatiently. “We’ve got permission, so hurry up.”

  Tassie chuckled. “Calm down, Rann. We’ll get to it.” She looked over towards Adrian. “You’re the one that did most of the talking. You should be the one to talk about what happened.”

  Adrian nodded. He eyed Rann, who bounced her leg up and down in anticipation of what he had to say. Reya was equally curious but did a much better job at hiding it. The gleam in her eyes was hard to conceal from him. Smiling internally, he proceeded to recount what happened after they left.

  It took a while, but nobody dared to interrupt him while he spoke. Tassie also listened in, Adrian providing a more detailed summary of his conversations than what he had offered the Elders. By the time he was finished, Rann was staring at him, mouth agape. “They really decided to bring her over?” she asked in disbelief. “That’s a huge risk! What if she has access to our computers? Who knows what kind of havoc she could unleash!”

  “I’m sure they’re going to be keeping her far away from any technology,” Tassie assured her. “If we’re lucky, the Tribunal will strike a deal with her so that she can work with me and Irric to learn more about the facility. There’s still so much we have left to uncover. The Elders most likely want to make use of her. It’s almost a shame their imprisoning her until further notice.”

  Adrian’s face soured at the reminder. He was still feeling very conflicted about Ava being locked away. Reya noticed. “How are you holding up?” she asked. “I know this must have been hard for you.”

  “That’s an understatement.” Adrian barked out a short laugh. “Not only did I have to talk to all three of the people who hurt me, I had to help one of them. It confuses me. I want to see her suffer for what she’s done to me and my friends. If she really just gained sentience, then that wasn’t necessarily her fault. I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. A jumbled mess just about sums it up.”

  Reya put her mug down on the side table beside her. She walked over to Adrian and sidled up next to him. He returned her hug and leaned into her. “I’m proud of you. You faced down the people that hurt you. That takes courage.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” Adrian said glumly.

  “Hey now,” Reya said softly, nudging him, “none of that. I know this isn’t easy. We’ll work through your problems one step at a time. You’re not alone anymore.”

  Adrian flashed Reya a tender look. “You’re right,” he said before planting a kiss on her head. “Thank you.” Reya flashed him a brilliant smile and snuggled closer, sighing in contentment.

  Rann cleared her throat from where she sat. “If you two lovebirds wouldn’t mind saving that for later,” she said, making Reya flush, “I’d like to know more about the android.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “How is it that you never knew she was a machine?”

  Adrian shook his head. “I didn’t interact with her very much. She mostly oversaw my experiments, when she was present. What few times I did spend around her, she appeared perfectly normal. As normal as one can be when they’re in charge of human experimentation.”

  “That’s all she did? Watch you from afar?”

  “No. She was also in charge of our punishments. Those she saw to herself,” Adrian said with a shudder.

  “What kind of punishments could they possibly give you beyond being experimented on?”

  “Believe me, she made it very clear what would happen to us if we didn’t cooperate fully,” Adrian said grimly. Reya grabbed Adrian’s hand, concerned. Later, he mouthed to her. She gave him a near imperceptible nod and didn’t push the issue.

  “What I’m curious about,” Tassie said, “is what kind of bargain they’re going to strike with her. What will they give her in exchange for her information and cooperation?”

  “For starters, they could not murder her,” Adrian said. “That option is still entirely on the table. I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

  “It is rather drastic,” Reya agreed.

  Adrian nodded. “It’s enough to make me wonder if your Tribunal had the same conversation about me. I’m sure Jyn would be more than happy to see me go.”

  “I don’t think Jyn would go that far,” Rann said half-heartedly. If she was being honest with herself, Rann didn’t know how Jyn was going to react to anything related to Adrian anymore. Luckily, Jyn had left well enough alone while he licked his wounds after being openly rejected by Reya when she started her relationship with Adrian.

  “He’s sure showed me after all this time,” Adrian said flatly. “Face it, the man would pounce on any opportunity to control me. Even if that means controlling my death.”

  An uneasy silence descended upon the room, nobody able to refute Adrian’s claims. “Hopefully,” Reya said, breaking the spell, “it’s going to be a long time before we anything to do with Ava again.” Adrian had told everybody the name that the android wanted to be called by. Why she picked that name was a mystery to everyone, but at least they had something to call her by.

  “I wouldn’t get my hopes up about that,” Tassie said. “At the very least, I’ll probably be dealing with her sometime soon. I can’t imagine that the Tribunal is going to sit around and do nothing. Once they decide their course of action, things are going to happen very quickly. The Elders are itching to learn anything they can about the facility. Ava can teach them. That’s motive enough.”

  “I won’t have to interact with her and that’s all that matters to me,” Adrian said. “Since she can speak your language, I don’t need to translate anything. And if I’m not translating anything, I don’t need to speak with her or the Elders.” Standing up, he collected everyone’s mugs and brought them into the kitchen, placing them in the sink. He could deal with them later.

  He sat back down in his previous spot and Reya curled back up against him. “Ava’s a problem for another day,” Reya said. “Today’s been taxing on all of us, and I think we could all use a break.” Rann looked like she was going to protest but was silenced by a look from Reya. Whatever she wanted to know could wait until tomorrow, when they’d all had time to process what had happened tonight.

  The conversation shifted to lighter topics, as Reya hoped it would. Cuddled up with Adrian, she could feel the tension in his body whenever he spoke about Ava. As the evening progressed, she felt him relax against her. She craned her neck and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Any leftover tension immediately drained out of Adrian. He looked over towards her and smiled. Reya felt her heart flutter.

  “What was that for?” Adrian asked, amused. He certainly didn’t mind the display of affection. He quite liked it, if he was being honest with himself. Rann playfully mimed herself gagging over the kiss, earning a smirk from Tassie.

  Reya nuzzled him. “No reason. I just wanted to.” Adrian held her closer and for the moment, all was right. Their problems could wait until tomorrow.