Five days after Barriss Offee arrived on Serenno. During class, Master Rennic placed three small memory cores on the bench in front of me and folded his hands behind. "These are not the same," he said. I leaned closer, and they looked the same to me. Tiny black cylinders with silver contact rings, two had old maker marks etched near the bottom. One had a scratched side and a little strip of yellow tape stuck across the top. I pointed at the one with tape. "That one has been fixed before."
"Yes." He said while I pointed at the middle one. "That one is custom-made?"
"Yes."
I pointed at the last one. "I honestly dont know about this one." Rennic blinked before explaining. "That one is standard palace stock." We were back in the small classroom today. Rain tapped lightly against the windows. The half-built droid hand sat on the left side of my workbench. I had fixed the crooked finger yesterday. The hand could open, and it could close. It could also slap the table if I sent the wrong signal. "The palace stock core," he continued, touching the first cylinder, "is reliable. It is also restricted."
"Restricted how?"
"It cannot retain certain categories of independent mapping data without authorization." I narrowed my eyes. "Why?" I couldn't help but ask. "Because some years ago, a visiting noble's son programmed three serving droids to map the estate." I picked up the palace stock core with two fingers. "It logs." Rennic took the core from me before I could drop it. The classroom door opened before I could ask about the second core. A servant stepped inside and bowed.
"Your Highness." I set down the tool in my hand. "Yes?" I looked over at them."Master Rennic, His Majesty asks that you bring Princess Liora to the lower engineering hall." Rennic's eyebrows lifted slightly. "The lower engineering hall?" I asked. "Yes, Your Highness." I looked at Rennic. "Did you know what this is about?"
"No." That made me feel better and worse at the same time. Rennic began putting the memory cores away. He did not rush, but his hands moved faster than usual. "Take your gloves."
"My gloves?"
"Yes. The engineering hall is not a classroom. There are things in there that can damage your flesh if not careful." That sounded promising. I grabbed the small work gloves from the side drawer and pulled them on while following the servant out. The gloves were still too stiff across my knuckles. The palace hallway outside smelled faintly of rain and floor polish. Two guards fell in behind us at their usual distance. Rennic walked beside me, carrying a slim tool case.
"Is this a test?" I asked him.
"Almost certainly."
"Wonderful."
"You wanted to learn droids." I gave him a look. He kept walking like he had said nothing strange. The lower engineering hall was not in the main palace wing. We passed through two guarded doors, crossed a covered walkway, and took a lift down far enough that my ears popped. When the doors opened, the air changed at once. A deep machine hum moved through the floor and up into my legs.
The hall was huge, the ceiling rose high overhead, crossed by rails and hanging lights. Work platforms lined the walls. Half-built droids stood in repair cradles. Some had heads but no arms. Some had arms but no plating. One tall loader droid near the back was missing its entire left side while two engineers worked inside its open torso. The room had noise everywhere, tools clicking and motors whining. Voices calling out measurements. A scanner chirping somewhere to my right.
I loved it immediately. Rennic noticed. "Close your mouth, Your Highness." I closed it and then opened it again. "This place is beautiful."
"It is loud, hot, and constantly behind schedule." We stepped onto the main floor. A few engineers looked up. Most of them bowed or dipped their heads before returning to work. One woman with short grey hair gave Rennic a quick nod and then went back to arguing with a diagnostic screen. At the far end of the hall, Father stood near a long table covered with droid parts.
He was not alone; Master Luminara stood to his left, hands folded inside her sleeves. Barriss stood beside her, watching the engineers with quiet interest. Aunt Jenza was there too, because apparently, if something involved me, she had a gift for appearing. Father turned as I approached. His eyes moved once over my gloves. "Prepared?"
"Not mentally," I said, which caused Jenza to smile while Rennic bowed. "Your Majesty."
"Master Rennic." Father looked at the table. "I thought it best that today's lesson take place somewhere more suited to the subject." I looked at the droid parts, then at him. Then back at the droid parts. "Am I in trouble?"
"No, you are not in trouble." Barriss watched me from beside Luminara. She had been doing that a lot over the last few days. The first time she tried my moving meditation, she moved so stiffly, and the second time was better. Father rested one hand on the edge of the table. "You asked Master Rennic about independent droid operation."
Rennic's face went very still as I looked at him, but he did not look back. "I asked a general education question." Jenza lifted one eyebrow. I sighed. "Fine. A specific education question." Father's mouth did not move, but his eyes changed enough that I knew he was amused. "You will be allowed to begin studying the foundation," he said. "With limits."
I folded my hands in front of me. "What limits?" His eyes sharpened as he looked down at me. For the first time in a long time, I felt his pressure on me."No weapons systems." I opened my mouth, but his look didn't ease at all. "No unsecured long-range transmitters," he continued. "No independent access to palace networks. No memory core above the class Rennic approves. No unsupervised behavioral architecture. No live deployment outside the palace grounds."
I clenched my fist tightly. He tilted his head slightly. "You may speak."
"That is a lot of no."
"It is a beginning."
"It sounds like the beginning of a cage."
"It is the beginning of a door with hinges strong enough not to crush your fingers," Luminara said. Nothing, but I saw Barriss glance at her. The Jedi were listening closely, Of course, they were. Father had made sure they were here for this. Rennic cleared his throat. "Your Highness, if I may."
I turned to him, He picked up a small silver processor from the table. "Independent operation begins here, not with arms, legs, or weapons. A droid that can walk into danger and survive but cannot make decisions is only a remote-controlled tool. A droid that can make decisions without limits is a danger to its own master."
I blinked while Jenza laughed under her breath. Rennic continued as if he had not said anything funny. "We start with decision trees. If this happens, do that. If that fails, attempt this. If both fail, retreat or request instruction."
I looked at the parts. "That sounds simple."
"It is not." He seemed to shake his head when he spoke. He set the processor down and picked up one of the droid heads on the table. It was small, round, and plain, with empty eye sockets and no outer casing. Wires hung from the base like messy hair. "This is from a courier droid. Basic movement. Basic speech. Good route memory. Poor defense. Minimal improvisation."
He set it down and lifted another head, narrower and flatter, with a heavier sensor frame. "Security assistant. Better sensors. Better threat recognition. Too rigid for delicate work unless rebuilt carefully." Then a third head was not a full head at all. More like a central sensor pod with six little mounting points around it.
"Maintenance crawler," Rennic said. "Good for vents, ducts, tight spaces, and repairs." My eyes stayed on that one. "You like that one?" Barriss asked. I looked at her. "It can go places people can't." She nodded slowly. "That is useful."
Rennic placed all three on the table. "His Majesty asked me to show you options for small-frame development. Nothing autonomous yet. Nothing armed. But you may choose a frame type to study." I moved closer. The table held more than heads. Small limbs. Wheel mounts. Repulsor plates. Sensor clusters. Light manipulator arms. Battery packs. Shell plating in different weights.
I wanted to build something that could leave. A droid could board a ship where I could not. A droid could enter a market and hear what people said when no princess was in the room. A droid could find someone, the apprentice of my father; I needed her on my side. A droid could carry warnings, money, maps, tools, medicine, and things to make sure she survives and would become someone I could rely on.
I touched the maintenance crawler sensor pod. "What is the range?" Rennic's eyes moved to Father before returning to me. "With legal civilian comms? Short. Palace grounds at most. With relay support, farther. With illegal modifications, very far."
"I said nothing about illegal modifications." I gave him a look. "No. Your eyes did." Jenza coughed. Luminara stepped closer to the table. "What would a maintenance frame normally be used for?" Rennic answered her without hesitation. "Pipe inspection. Hull crawling. Internal repairs. System checks inside walls or ships. Some are used for search work after natural disasters."
Barriss looked at the little pod again. "Rescue work?"
"Yes. Small frames can enter places rescue crews cannot." I looked from her to the droid pod. There were many reasons to build droids. Some of them were even respectable. "If one had good sensors," I said, "it could find people in damaged buildings?"
Rennic nodded. "If designed for that, yes." I turned back to Rennic. "Could it carry small medical supplies?"
"For emergency delivery? Yes. Not much, but yes." Barriss spoke before I could ask the next thing. "You are planning to build a rescue droid?" The question sounded simple. I looked at her. She was watching me with that careful Padawan face. "I don't know yet," I said.
"Those are very to the point questions for not knowing."
"I like knowing what things can do."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the answer I have." Her eyes narrowed slightly, and Luminara looked between us. "A useful droid can have more than one purpose." Rennic nodded. "Most good ones do." Father finally spoke. "Purpose is decided before construction begins. If it is not, the design becomes nothing but scrap."
Jenza pointed at me. "There it is again." I dropped the face I had made without realizing. Father ignored her. "Choose one primary purpose." I looked at the parts again and thought for a moment. I needed to set things into motion, and it would take time, so I needed to set my foundation right. I tapped the maintenance pod lightly. "Search and repair."
Rennic's eyes softened a little. "Good choice."
"Small frame. Good sensors. Able to enter places people can't. Carry a small emergency kit. Basic repair tools."
"And what does it do when it finds danger?" Father asked. I looked up at him. "Report and retreats. If it can help someone without making things worse," I said, "it helps. If helping would get both destroyed, it marks the location and preserves its data."
Rennic's eyebrows rose while Father studied me for a moment. "Better." Barriss looked down at the droid pod. "That seems cold." I turned to her. "What does?"
"Leaving someone because the droid might be destroyed." Right, what did I expect from someone who has never experienced death? "If the droid is destroyed and no one knows where the person is, they both die."
Barriss seemed not to like that answer. "If the droid survives and brings help, the person might live."
"What if there is no time?"
"Then it chooses the best chance it has."
"And if the best chance is small?"
"Small is better than nothing."
The hall noise filled the space between us for a few seconds. Barriss looked at me like I had stepped half a pace out of whatever box she had put me in. Luminara's voice stayed calm. "That is difficult thinking for a rescue tool."
"It is difficult when people do it too," I said as I stared up at her. Rennic placed the maintenance pod in a padded tray. "Then this will be the base study frame. You will not assemble a working unit today. You will map the required systems."
I tried not to look disappointed while Rennic ignored it with the mercy of a teacher. "Frame. Locomotion. Sensor suite. Power. Decision architecture. Communication limits. Emergency function. Maintenance access. That is your list."
He slid a blank tablet toward me, and I stared at it. "I thought we were building."
"We are."
"This is a list."
"This is how building begins." I picked up the tablet as Aunt Jenza stepped closer and peered over my shoulder. "At least your handwriting cannot suffer." She patted my shoulder once and moved away before I could think of a reply. Rennic took me through the first section as I spent the first hour writing notes. Barriss and Luminara stayed nearby. They did not interrupt much. Luminara asked Rennic a few questions about safety protocols and whether rescue droids ever developed bad pathing habits in collapsed structures. Rennic answered plainly. Barriss mostly watched the parts.
After a while, Father was called aside by Captain Varin near one of the side doors. They spoke quietly, but I still caught only pieces. Nothing that sounded like an emergency. Still, Father's face went still in the way that meant someone was about to have a very bad afternoon through legal channels. Jenza drifted toward them, and that left me with Rennic, Luminara, and Barriss.
Rennic placed two small locomotion assemblies in front of me. One had four tiny legs. The other had six. "Six," I said. He nodded. "Why?"
"Stability. If one leg is damaged, it can still move."
"Good."
"Harder to fit through narrow spaces, though."
"Yes." I looked at the four-legged assembly again. "Can a six-leg frame fold tighter?"
"Possible. More complex."
"More failure points?"
"Yes." I sighed. "Everything useful is complicated." Rennic looked at Barriss. "She says this often." Barriss looked like she was trying not to smile. "I believe it." I pointed my stylus at her. "Don't side with him."
"I did not say I disagreed." She actually smiled then. Small, quick, gone almost as soon as it appeared, but Luminara saw it. Rennic moved to the sensor section next. He showed me two basic visual modules, a heat sensor, an air tester, and a little vibration reader used for checking structural stress.
I picked up the vibration reader carefully. "Can this tell if a wall is about to collapse?"
"It can suggest stress patterns."
I turned it over. "Can the droid learn what stress patterns are bad?"
"With enough data."
"How much data?"
"More than you want to gather."
"I want to gather a lot." His expression said he believed me and found it unfortunate. Barriss moved closer. "How does it learn?" Rennic looked at her. "Pattern comparison at first. Later, adaptive and real-time adaptation." Barriss stared as I leaned toward her. "It means the droid sees ten walls fall and starts to notice what those walls had in common."
"Oh." She looked at the sensor again. "That seems useful."
"And depressing."
"Yes."
Rennic gave me a look. "Your Highness."
"What? It is." We worked for another half hour. My list grew into sections. Then the sections grew into branches. Every answer opened three more problems. I placed the tablet down and rubbed my forehead. Barriss looked at the messy diagram. "May I see?" I slid it toward her.
She studied it carefully, and she did not pretend to understand everything. "You put communication here twice," she said. "One is for reporting. One is for an emergency signal."
"Are those not the same?"
"No. Reporting is normal information. Emergency signal will send a wide range signal to any friendly's." Barriss looked up. Rennic quietly took a step back. Barriss asked, "Why would it need that?"
"Because things can and will at somepoint go wrong."
"That sounds like you speak from experience."
"It sounds like common sense." She did not push while Luminara stepped toward the table. "Princess Liora." I looked at her. "Yes?"
"Why droids?"
I glanced at Rennic, and He gave me no rescue. "Because they can do things people can't," I said. "That is true of many tools."
"Droids can think more than most tools."
"Some can."
"They can help people."
"Yes." She waited. I looked down at the tablet. "Because I am a princess and I just want to learn it." Barriss blinked. Rennic stopped pretending he was not listening. Even Luminara's face changed a little, not much, but enough for me to see that I had pulled the conversation away from where she thought it was going. I kept my eyes on the tablet for another second, then looked up at her.
"If I learn to fix one droid, that helps in one way. If I learn how droids are built, what they need, what they can do, and where they fail, then someday I can have more built. Not as toys. Not as servants to carry drinks. Useful ones. Search droids, repair droids, medical runners, inspection units for old tunnels and damaged buildings. Things that can be sent where sending people would be stupid."
Rennic made a small sound at the word stupid, but he did not correct me. That meant he either agreed or had decided this was not the best moment to fight me over manners. I touched the maintenance pod with the end of my stylus and slid it a little closer.
"People like to talk about helping," I said. "But help that arrives late is only good for cleaning up what is left. If something breaks in a lower district, or a mine shaft collapses, or a ship has a hull breach, the first question should not be how long it takes an important person to notice. It should be what tools are already close enough to fix the problem."
Barriss looked down at the pod again. Her face had gone still in. Luminara did not look away from me. She was careful, but not cold, and that made answering her harder. "You see this as public work," she said.
"I see it as royal work," I answered. "If I am going to have a title, then it should do something besides make people bow at me in hallways." Jenza's mouth curved, but she said nothing. Father had returned from speaking with Captain Varin, and I knew he had heard that last part because his eyes settled on me with that calm look he used when he was deciding if I had just done something clever or dangerous. Sometimes those were the same thing.
Luminara folded her hands inside her sleeves. "Many rulers would consider such work something to assign to engineers." I couldnt help but short. "They should," I said. "I am not trying to replace engineers. That would be dumb, and Master Rennic would probably die from stress."
"I would not die," Rennic said. "I am already employed by the palace, Your Highness." Jenza laughed once, soft and quick. Even Barriss looked down to hide a smile. I took the chance to breathe and pull my thoughts back into order. "I need to understand enough to know what I am asking for," I said. Rennic nodded at that. "That is, unfortunately, correct."
"Only unfortunately?"
"Mostly." Father stepped closer to the table. "And you believe this begins with one crawler frame?" He know the real reason but he was giving me face, to make my own story right now. "No," I said. "It begins with me learning." That made Rennic look pleased. He tapped the tablet with one finger. "Your first idea is not bad. It is incomplete."
"That sounds like a polite version of bad." I looked at Luminara again. "That is why droids. Because a princess can order machines she does not understand, or she can learn enough to build something that will still help people when she is not able too."
Barriss was quiet for a few seconds. Then she asked, "And if people use those droids for something else?" The future was full of good things twisted into weapons. Armies called peacekeeping forces. Clones called property. Droids made to help and droids made to kill.
"Then the design was not finished," I said. Barriss frowned. "A design cannot control every person who touches it."
"No, but it can make some wrong uses harder." I turned the tablet toward her and pointed to the section I had marked for memory limits. "A droid meant for disaster work does not need private bedchamber maps, noble family records, or access to palace networks. It needs routes, hazard data, tool commands, and emergency reporting. If someone wants to turn it into a spy, they should have to break it first."
Rennic leaned over the tablet. "That is not wrong." I glanced at him. Jenza stepped beside Father, her arms folded. Father looked from my tablet to me. "A crown-supported civil droid service." The words sounded heavier when he said them. My fingers tightened around the stylus, but I made myself not pull back from the idea. "Eventually," I said. "A civil program would require standards," Father said. "Safety laws. Approved frames. Maintenance stations. Inspection authority. Funding. Trained operators."
I nodded. "Yes."
"And accountability when one fails."
I nodded again, slower. "Yes."
"And the first time one fails publicly, the same people who never cared about the lives it saved will call it wasteful, dangerous, or proof that the crown is overreaching." My mouth went dry. "Probably."
"Not probably," Father said. "Certainly." The hall noise carried around us. Someone called for a power cell near the far wall, and a loader droid answered in a flat voice. I kept my eyes on Father because looking away would feel like losing ground.