Chapter 1
"Dum de dum," Artoo whistled to himself, making his way across the outer hull of the Tantavi IV. "Nothing to see here, nope. Don't mind me just doing some repairs on the ship. La de da. Not intercepting any illicit transmissions from subversives, not me."
The Imperial cruiser loomed nearby, making his diodes burn cold. This shock and awe campaign of ol' Palpy Tine's is really working. He thought. He tried to force his mind back to the task at hand, but the image of fellow astromech droids being blasted into space around him kept creeping out from his memory drive. "Oh relax," he told himself, "If they open fire they'll just blow the whole ship apart, they won't be aiming at me." He failed to comfort himself.
Finally he reached his destination, hoping that the Imps really thought he was repairing the communications array. "Might as well give it a tune-up while I'm out here. Might even make this whole thing more convincing." He commenced to work, aware of the Star Destroyer breathing down his neck, but taking comfort in the fact that they had not in fact opened fire.
"Okay," he beeped, "Any day now. I'd like to get the info and get back inside where it's marginally safer than out here." He continued to work. "No really take your time. It's not as though there were a big f-ing ship up our a-. Oh wait, there is!" Finally he detected a transmission coming in. He sent it down through his interface arm into the ships computers, and put the finishing touches on what he'd been doing. "When was the last time they checked that thing anyway?" he wondered. "Another day or two and I'dve been fixing it for real."
"Artoo," Threepio called.
"Wow Threepio," Artoo quipped. "That was almost a half hour without you talking, that's like a record."
"Will you hush and get inside! There's no time to waste!"
Oh crud. Artoo thought. He began heading for the hatch as fast as he could, feeling the ship vibrate with the impending jump to light-speed.
"WHO PUT THE DAMN HATCH SO F-ING FAR AWAY!" he wailed, wishing he still had those thrusters attached to his legs. He made it to the hatch just in the nick of time, as the ship leaped into hyperspace. That's it. He thought, for the millionth time. No more secret missions.
The ship rocked, sending Threepio crashing into Artoo. "Now what!" the astromech complained. "I thought we escaped!"
It soon became apparent however, that they had not. Artoo and his counterpart soon learned that somehow the Star Destroyer had followed them. When the alarm sounded, they headed for the maintenance bay, the designated spot for Droids in an emergency.
The ship continued to rock as they made their way. Threepio was silent for once. Artoo fumed. Now what? This ship was no match for a Star Destroyer! And the mission had been going so well too. Had they even reached Tatooine? His thoughts were interrupted as a particularly large explosion made the entire ship quake.
"Did you hear that?" Threepio asked.
"Nope." Artoo replied. "Didn't hear a thing."
"They shut down the main reactor! We'll be destroyed for sure!"
Artoo was in no mood for Threepio's whining right now. "Promise?" he snarked.
Threepio continued to worry out loud as the situation went from bad to worse. They found themselves dodging security personnel as the ship was pulled into the docking bay of the huge imperial vessel.
"Maybe this isn't the best place for us to be standing." Artoo whistled. He and Threepio tried to make their way to a safer location but soon found themselves facing a crossfire situation. Almost without pausing, the two hurried across the corridor into another side passage, miraculously avoiding every blaster shot.
"Well that was one of the most idiotic things we've ever done." Artoo beeped. Well, Imperial attack or not, he still had a job to do. "Stay here." He said to Threepio. "I'll scout ahead."
"I beg your pardon?" Threepio said. "Scout ahead? Stay here?"
"Yes." Artoo explained patiently. "I'm smaller, make less noise when I move, and I'm the same color as most of these walls. So I'll scout ahead. You stay here because you're loud, and shiny."
Threepio stared at him for a moment. "I'll stay here Artoo. You scout ahead."
"Aye aye sir." Now all he had to do was find her. As it happened, she found him. Artoo was impressed. She was smart, not only did she know he'd be heading for Maintenance, but she'd figured out what route would be best for him to take.
"Artoo, thank goodness I've found you."
"Thanks Goodness." He replied. Sometimes he was glad humans couldn't understand him. It was probably best that they not know how much of a smart ass he was.
Leia wasted no time, but slipped him a disk containing the transmission he'd intercepted, and began recording a message for General Kenobi. When the message was completed, she looked away for a moment towards the sounds of the battle. "You must get down to the surface." She said. "Find General Kenobi and give him the message. You carry the hopes of us all little one."
"I'm on the case kid." Artoo assured her. "Hell, I bailed your mom out of a tighter situation than this, this'll be no problem."
Though she didn't understand him, she got the gist of it and smiled. "Good luck Artoo." She whispered and disappeared into the maze of passages. Artoo turned, and headed for his own escape route.
"At last," Threepio cried as Artoo approached him, "Where have you been? They're coming in this direction. What are we going to do? We'll be sent to the spice mines of Kessel or smashed into who knows what?"
"Relax. Follow me." He told the translator.
"Wait a minute, where are you going?"
"It's a surprise."
It didn't take long to find it, the escape pods were deliberately placed to be readily accessible. "Let's go Goldie." Artoo instructed.
"Hey," the protocol droid objected. "You're not permitted in there. It's restricted. You'll be deactivated for sure."
"Then tell me you mindless philosopher," Artoo said, still in no mood for Threepio's harping, "What should we do? Stay here and be sent to the spice mines of Kessel or smashed into who knows what?"
"Don't you call me a mindless philosopher you overweight glob of grease." Threepio snapped. "Now come out of there before somebody sees you."
"No can do old chum. I'm on a secret mission. Now you coming? We gotta get these plans off the ship."
"Secret mission? What plans? What are you talking about? I'm not getting in there." Stray blaster fire quickly changed his mind. He practically dove in after his shorter counterpart. "I'm going to regret this."
"Nah. It'll be fun."
"I don't like fun. Not your brand of it anyway."
To Be Continued…
