Chapter 2: The Lost Droid
When I left the building, the Speeder was still waiting for me outside. "How did it go officer?" The driver asked. "It went fine, I got what I came for". The rest of the trip we flew without speaking a word.
The Station felt cold and lonely when its staff wasn't there. I had spent hours by myself in the archives searching for any scrap of information regarding the events surrounding the 'attack'. But it was hard to find anything. There had never been any anomalies in those areas for as long as the Empire could remember. As a matter of fact, there hadn't been much activity there of any kind. Was it some new technological scheme invented by the Rebel Alliance? They were not known to attack civilian mining stations. It couldn't have been them. Pirates? It was hard to say. I scrolled through more files. "Probe Droid Records" I skimmed through that one too "PD 99862: Lost contact 4/11. How curious. It was the same date as the Incident took place. Maybe it had been present during the attack? It was nearly impossible to find a droid alone in space, deactivated and dead, but it was worth a shot. If any of its data logs were still intact, the information would prove invaluable.
I would need higher approval to carry a deep space mission, so I would have to consult a ranking officer. I had made an appointment with him earlier and now I was waiting outside his office. After months on Station, life quickly turns into a series of repeated traditions and loops. Waking up, showering for exactly two minutes to preserve water, and then reviewing logs and hyperspace data, all meanwhile the coldness and emptiness of space stood forever unchanged outside.
"Leodar Tritim… Leodar Tritim" I snapped out of my daydreaming. I really needed an adventure, to break the monotony. "Leodar, you have an audience". "Yes, right, I do" I walked through the cold steel corridor to the Officers room. "Now, I'm a busy man, and I believe you are too, so make it quick". I collected myself and spoke up "I'm asking to be granted a Shuttle, a pilot and four stormtroopers for a deep space investigation on a Hyperspace anomaly". "So you expect me to divert resources from the war effort, to aid you in some endeavour on a mining station?" "How did you-" he stopped me "Don't worry, I read the reports, I'm sorry, but the shuttle is needed elsewhere". "Sir, this is potentially the largest anomaly in Imperial history, it might change the tide of war, from what I have heard first hand, we are talking of a vessel of such magnitude it could lay siege on a world all by itself, so please reconsider. This might be an interdimensional invader, of likes we have never seen before".
"I will give you four weeks, no more. Finish the job."
Leodar, This is your crew, Dari, the pilot, Brev, Rale, Hans and Revaq, the stormtroopers you asked for. They all stood in a line and saluted me as was Imperial tradition. "No need for that, treat me as an equal, this is an exploration mission after all"
The Shuttle had seen a couple of missions, but everything seemed fine and operational. Dari ran diagnostics and checked that all systems were operational and functioning. "We're all green Leodar". "Perfect, we have no time to spare". The Troopers boarded the shuttle and made ready for the flight of the station. The pilot pressed a few buttons and flipped some switches on the control board. Green and red lights were flashing, and then all of a sudden the spacecraft started shaking as the engine blocks powered on. The Shuttle extended its wings as it lifted up from the landing pad, hovering in the middle of the hangar. The Pilot guided the ship out of the station, and out into space.
"Preparing for hyperspace jump to the Ansion system, ten seconds". I leaned back comfortably in my seat, watching out of the transparisteel cockpit as the hyperdrive accelerated the craft into hyperspace. "We haven't been briefed on the current objective sir, would you care to explain?". "The officer didn't care too? Well, there is nothing for me to keep from my crewmen, I am Leodar Tritim, I work for the Imperial office of hyperspace anomalies. There has been a major anomaly here in the Ansion system, and we have been tasked with investigating a mining station that has been destroyed by a potentially interdimensional invader". The troopers nodded, showing that they understood. "I permit you to remove your helmets, no need to hide your faces during transit." The Troopers looked relieved as they removed their white plasteel helmets showing their faces.
Brev was a young man, it couldn't have been long since he left the academy. He had luscious blond hair and blue eyes. He had a permanent look of confusion about his face, but he seemed sure and held his E-11 blaster firmly. In contrast to Brev, Revaq was an old man. He had dark skin and looked like he had spent much time in the sun, and he had some burn marks on his barren head. His facial features were rough and serious, and he gave off a vibe of veterancy. Hans on the other side was hard to read. It couldn't be said what that man had been through. His dark eyes stared emptily into the hyperspace rift we flew through, and he seemed consumed by his own thoughts. The last one of the troopers was Rale. Rale had the features of a Republic age clone. I knew that some of them were still in service, but I had never seen one in the flesh. Could he be one of the warriors from that pre-Imperial age? "Rale, can I ask you some personal questions?". I asked him carefully. "Sir, any questions, I'm an open book." "Did you serve in the Republic clone army?". "Yes sir, or at least I was about to, never had time. 673 company, one of the last generations". The clones were good fighters, trained from birth in warfare, martial arts and strategy. It was said that one Republic clone, was worth five Imperial Stormtroopers.
"Five minutes until re-entry and arrival". "Good Dari, faster than I expected". Soon after the ship snapped out from Hyperspace. This sector was distant from the system start, and the large mineral-rich asteroids were but mere shadows in the darkness. Dario pressed a few buttons and booted the radar screen "Scans indicate no reports of any vessels, except for… I found the mining station, all systems are offline, it's all dark sir".
We flew closer to the station. You could see the shadow of it in contrast to the dimly lit space around it. "Dari, turn on the floodlights". The Station looked mostly intact except one cleanly cut a large hole in the hull. It looked like something had cut itself into the side of the station, and quite violently eaten its way into the vacuum-sealed rooms. "Bring us closer Dari". The shuttle moved sideways, swinging around to get a better view closer to the opening. It looked like machine teeth had eaten their way through the durasteel plating leaving small but visible marks on the station. Like a large drill had worked its way to the inside. It looked like the station was unharmed on the inside, and that the failsafe bulkheads had activated and sealed off the station in time. In theory, it should still be safe to enter.
So this must have been the landing pad from where Josegian escaped and left his fellow miners. The shuttle had to activate its magnetic landing gear now when the artificial gravity was deactivated. "Rale and Hans, follow me, Brev and Revaq, you see if you can find and activate the generator". The ship docked to the station and opened up to pressurize the docking section. I put on my oxygen rebreather and void safe mask, and signalled the troops to be ready for entry. I had brought a sidearm blaster, just to be sure, and it hangs loosely in its holster swinging back and forth on my hip in the zero-G environment.
The airlock was blasted open and revealed the cold metal walkway in front of us. I turned on the flashlight attached to my helmet and started floating carefully through the dark corridors of the station. There was stuff floating everywhere, recreational items, foodstuff, and mining equipment. "Anything on you scanners?" I asked the troopers accompanying me. "Nothing yet sir" Rale answered through the comlink system.
All of a sudden the rooms filled with a whirring sound, and soon the light started flickering on. "We found the generator Leodar" Brevs voice sounded over the radio channel. All three of us were abruptly thrown towards the floor as the artificial gravity was activated. Now when the light was turned on, I could see a large room opening up in front of us. It was a horrid scene. Some parts of the walls were splattered with blood, and brain matter had dried into the ceiling, floor and walls, and right there in the blood, large craters had been formed. The metal around it was deformed and melted, like explosive projectiles had burrowed in and detonated. Whatever had been through here had been an exceptionally efficient killer.
On the floor in the centre of the room laid something yellowy white. I got closer to try to decipher what it was. It looked like some sort of cranium. It was a skull, fuzed with a machine. The technology looked ancient, and little arms and scanners stuck out from the back. One of the skulls eyes was filled with one red metallic, cyber-enhanced lens. I reached out to touch it, but then out of nowhere, the eye lit up. It made a beeping noise, not much unlike a droid. Its behaviour was also droid-like as it floated in front of me. It seemed to be scanning for something. This machine scared me, and I unholstered my blaster. In return, the skull extended a small arm, fitted with a peculiar looking piece of technology. "Get to cover, it might be dangerous!" I could here Rale shout over the comlink. He was right, and I snapped out of my curiosity to quickly leap behind a piece of large mining gear. I wasn't a second late, because just mere moments after, a laser-cut through the air just behind me. Rale opened fire on the skull, and in two decisive blaster shots, he destroyed the thing, the smell of scorched electronics and burnt fat filling the air. I got out of my hiding spot. I saw brains, oils and chemical smeared across the floor with fragments of bone and metal tubing, still smoking from the two blaster shots of superheated plasma that had pierced and boiled the biomechanical horror from the inside.
We searched through the rest of the station, finding nothing of importance, this time always on the watch for more skull probes, but we found none. Now it was time to find the lost Droid. I figured that it couldn't be far off, after all, it was stationed in this general subsector of space. Once again I and the exploration crew boarded the shuttle and readied for the flight back into space. "I have calibrated the deep space-sonar scanner and I was just waiting for you to give me the authority to use it," Dari said when we climbed back into the ship. He had been waiting on board just in case we needed a quick escape. "Take us to the closest asteroid field, they tend to hide among the rocks".
The asteroids just floated there, gigantic and solid, concealed in shadow. As the ship's floodlights painted the rough rocky surface of the asteroids in light, you could see rich ore vines stretching across the surface. The shuttle, although being quite a large ship for its class, felt incredibly small in the vast contrast to the gargantuan rocks. "Pinging for radio signals". Dario flipped a switch, activating the subspace sonar. Nothing. "We must go deeper into the asteroid field". The shuttle disappeared in between the large rocks. We couldn't see the light from the station anymore. We were completely in the dark. The sonar pinged frequently, searching for any trace of the lost Droid.
"That's it, lock on to that signal" I pointed at a small blip on the scanner, alone among the rocks. "Are you sure that's it, sir?" Dari asked. "Yes, I have done this type of work before, that perfectly matches the signal of an Imperial Probe droid". We closed up on the signal until we could see the deactivated droid with the large ship-mounted flashlight. "There is a magnetic arm on this thing, is there not?" "Yes, I'm booting its systems right now" Dari answered me as he activated the mechanical arm attached to the underside of the ship.
When we returned to base it was busy as normal. TIE fighters were being repaired by maintenance staff, landers were being primed for combat, and shuttles were waiting idly for orders. "Dari, refuel the ship, Rale, help me to get this droid going, or at least remove the databank". I and Rale moved the hulking machine to the workshop, where we had the necessary tool to get it open. We unscrewed the sides of the machine, trying not to activate the main core. If we turned it on, or somehow awakened it, we were scared that the data may corrupt, or even worse, that the droid would self destruct.
After much tinkering and power tool work, we managed to safely remove the databank and the recorder. I brought both of them to my office and started feeding the raw data into my machine. There were video and audio logs. There were also other data logs and sensory information, but that needed an imperial droid to decrypt. I started viewing some of the video files. There was mostly darkness, but at one instant, you could see the strong light flashes that the miner told me about. There were only a few frames, but there was enough to validate my beliefs.
I walked out of my office and started searching for a diagnostics and data droid that wasn't occupied when I suddenly saw a man walking quickly towards me. It was Dari, although it was hard to see now when he wasn't wearing his Navy uniform. "Leodar, there is something you should see, this might concern us". Dari grabbed me and stared me in the eye. "It's been sighted again, this time just light-years from Dathomir. The reports don't say much, but if we hurry there might just be enough time for an investigation".
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