Episode I: Part 4

Clang shifted his weight uneasily and frowned at the unarmed battle droid. This was not something he was trained for.

"Ok, slow down a minute. What do you mean you come in peace? You're a battle droid."

"Affirmative, Stormtrooper. Both are fact. Unit 5532 at your command." The battle droid tilted its head after a moment's hesitation. "Permission to speak?"

Why not? Clang thought. How much stranger can it get? "What is it?"

"Incoming." The droid said before it dropped out of sight behind the kitchen's durasteel buffet counter.

Immediately following the droid's statement, there was the dull thump of impact on the back door of the kitchen. Clang ducked behind the counter just before an explosion scattered shrapnel in a dozen directions across the room. The debris and dust had yet to settle before repeated volleys of blaster bolts peppered the kitchen's walls and appliances.

"Corridor! Now!" Blaster bolts scorched the walls around Clang as he raced for the temporary safety of the corridor. A heartbeat later, Unit 5532 appeared next to him. Once the battle droid was outside the Mess Hall, Clang hit the keypad by the door to seal it closed.

Cover, need cover. Clang thought quickly. Most of the rooms were crew bunks, he mused. Not much to hide behind. We need someplace unexpected.

Then he remembered one room that was not crew quarters. Behind the trooper and the battle droid, the door to the Mess Hall suddenly buckled from a shower of blaster fire.

"Damn! Move!"

"Roger, Roger!"

The unlikely pair raced from one corridor to another. Behind them, a cluster of hovering messenger droids modified with hold out blasters, gave chase. Finally, two corridors back from the Mess Hall Clang found the room he wanted, a small maintenance closet attached to the main power shaft of the station. He punched the door switch and shoved the battle droid inside before he ran in as well. The door snapped shut just before the familiar hum of messenger droid repulsorlift gear grew louder, drew abreast of the door, then passed slowly by.

After a few minutes, when their pursuers could no longer be heard, Clang turned and aimed his carbine at the battle droid. Unit 5532 silently raised its arms in response.

"I come ..."

"... in peace. I know, you said that. What you didn't say was why? I've got a freighter full of questions for you. For starters, why did you save me? Oh, and here's a good one, why are those droids armed?"

Unit 5532 looked around the small maintenance room. With a motion not unlike a sigh, the droid looked back at Clang.

"If you were shot, you wouldn't have listened to me. If you had been killed you couldn't listen to me. So I had to rescue you."

"Ok, I'll give you that one. Go on."

"This is a trap."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

"Lance Corporal."

"What?"

"Lance Corporal. My rank designator is 'Lance Corporal'."

Clang blinked a bit in surprise and confusion. "Wait, you mean droids have rank? No, never mind, I don't want to know, I'll get a headache." He sighed. "Ok, so what in the Twin Suns are those droids doing shooting at anyone? They're not supposed to do that."

Unit 5532 tilted his head again slightly while he looked at the stormtrooper. Clang blushed as he realized what he said. "Well, present company excluded ... after all, you're supposed to shoot at people. It's what you're programmed to do." Clang's voice faltered again. "All right, I get it, I get it. They've been made into assassin droids."

"Roger, roger."

The trooper relaxed a bit, with a wave of a hand, he gestured for the battle droid to lower his arms. "Why go to all the trouble though? Who's doing this?"

"I do not know the Master's name, he does not use it. I do know he harbors a great anger towards organics."

"Organics. You mean citizens ... people?"

The battle droid nodded. Clang made a sour face under his helmet.

"Great, so why are you so different?"

"The Master had grown lonely of late. He dislike the 'prattle' of protocol droids but instead wanted a less talkative, but still intelligent being to speak to."

"So he made you."

"Repaired and modified, not made. He created my droid brain from various components like a battle droid's combat algorithms and chassis, a protocol droids' language circuits, parts from a Jedi Temple records droid, and so on. Over the short time I was around him, the Master would talk a little of his overall scheme. While it's efficient, it will kill thousands. I just could not sit by while that happened."

Confused, Clang reached up and scratched his chin under his helmet. "But why would you care? You're a droid."

Unit 5532 made a passing attempt at a rather human-like shrug. "The main bios and OS algorithm the Master used to repair me was taken from a medical droid."

"Point taken."

Just then a rain of blaster fire ruptured a door to a room close by.

"They're searching the rooms. I estimate they will be here in two point three two minutes."

"I can do without the countdown." Clang triggered the comlink in his helmet but heard only static. The backup comlink at his belt reacted the same way. He sighed. "They're jamming comlink signals." The trooper looked around the room at the array of power couplings and wires. "We've got to get out of here and warn my squad about those droids." Clang's eyes settled on a small hatch nearly hidden behind some cabling.

"There." Clang holstered his carbine, knocked aside the wiring and jerked the handle to open the hatch.

"Officer?" Unit 5532 asked.

"TK3342. My squad-mates call me 'Clang'. I'm not an officer, I work for a living." The clone replied while he yanked the door open.

"I see. Clang, the droids will be able to follow us through that."

"I'm hoping they do."

"I don’t understand."

"You will in a bit."

Clang pushed the door back closed, leaving the smallest hint of an opening visible. "Now, we climb."

"To where?"

The clone grinned beneath his helmet and pointed to a vent grating at the top of the maintenance room. "There, and beyond."

Several decks above in the station's command and control room, Lieutenant Kells checked his chronometer again with a slight air of impatience.

"Still nothing?"

FiveSpot shrugged from where he sat in front of a security console on the side of the room nearest Kells.

"I don't get it, sir. I've been over the wiring four times. As best as a medical scanner can be hooked to a room's security system, this one is. I'm picking up ourselves and traces of the dead bodies we found, nothing else."

Dison Kells hated loose ends. He valued efficiency and order, and this did not resemble either one. "Do the sweep again. I can't believe there isn't anything to find."

One of the two doors to the command and control room slid open, Sith Adept Gerri Dron-Ilis entered followed by Jammer. The young Sith learner's face was lit by a pleased smirk. "We may not know who did this, but we've got an idea where they went."

"Oh?"

Jammer handed over a datapad to the Imperial officer and pointed to the display. "It was subtle, but there is a faint energy trail from a shuttle's energy emissions leading down to the surface of Aldair itself. Ghost is still checking the sensor readings but it looks like more than one trip was made over the same route."

"Why didn't we see this before?"

"The killers were clever. Once out of the hanger, they used the attitude thrusters to move the shuttle into a high atmosphere magnetic storm that tends to rage regularly in Aldair's atmosphere. From there, they could slip down undetected by the station's sensors. Ghost thinks they boarded the station in the same way. The shuttle they used had a bad motivator, which left a small energy wake. The leak is so small, we're certain the killers are probably unaware of it."

Kells nodded while he read the sensor readouts and listened to what the biker scout described. "Clever, indeed." The lieutenant finished reading and handed the datapad back to Jammer with a smile. "Well done Sergeant, it's our first catch of the day. Lieutenant Seevo is completing his sweep of the lower decks not far from engineering with Alpha team. I'll take Bravo team and one of the station's remaining shuttles down to Aldair. Perhaps we'll pick up the trail."

Gerri smiled slightly at Kells. "Watch your back."

"No reason to be concerned. After all, we've the element of surprise since no one knows we are coming." With a small smile in return to Gerri, he walked out of command and control, narrowly missing the faint glow of a tiny pair of electronic eyes that shone from one of the room's ventilation shafts.