Jedi Detention Center: Day 2

"Droid!"
I call the servant bot as he rolls past my cell.
"Yes, sir?", he stops and turns to me. His voice is eerily like mine. Maybe we have the same synthesizer.
"What can you do about getting me a new hand?", I doubt that the Jedi are willing to make me whole, again, but at least I'm willing to try.
"I'll summon a medic right away, sir.", he says.
Hell, that was easy. I should have tried this yesterday.
The droid turns and starts to roll away.
"Wait!", I may as well utilize him while he's here, "Bring me a ham sandwich, too."
"Right away, sir." he calls back.

The thing I like about droids is that they can be very efficient. The servant droid must have summoned the medic as I was asking; it only took 2 minutes before he showed up.
My ham sandwich arrived only a minute later. Now, that's service.

Watching a hand reconstruction is pretty fascinating, even on yourself. The medic has me place both arms on the table, the left hand is for measurements in reconstructing the right hand. He pulled out a tray full of small gears, pistons, nuts, bolts, sticks of metal and a ton of small tools. I wonder how all those parts could be kept organized, let alone put to good use; but he goes right to work.

First, a needle in my arm to numb the pain. Then he cuts a millimeter off of the end of my cauterized nub and starts stuffing bits and pieces into my flesh and bone, constructing a frame and placing pistons and little brackets all over; sometimes using all four of his robot arms at once.
What amazes me more is that, even with all this precision work going on, he is still able to have a jovial conversation with me.

"How are you, this morning?", he asks. The typical default conversation starter that's programmed into all droids.
I notice that his voice is also similar to mine, just without human emotion behind it. I decide to dick with him, a little.
"I am doing fine, sir.", I mock his emotionless speech to a 'T'.
With a mechanical voice box I can change my voice, to a certain point. I can even copy some humans.
He doesn't even blink, if a droid could blink, that is.
"I see you have a VS-400Si series synthesizer.", he casually responds, "I can install the upgraded version of that for you when I'm done with your hand, if you'd like, sir. It will make you sound more human."

I'd never thought about it before; an upgrade to my voice box to sound more human. But, then again, I'd sound more human. I like my growl.
"No thanks", I say.
"Very well. I'm done for now, sir."

I look at my new robotic hand; the metal fingers and palm all move at my will. It works perfectly. The medic hands me a black glove.
"I won't be able to cover your hand with synthetic skin until I get a copy of your skin color back to the lab. I shouldn't take more than a day.", the medic says as he places a sensor against my forearm and quickly leaves.

"Does it hurt?", a little voice comes from outside the cell.

"Not as bad as any pain I've felt before.", I answer. I don't even have to look to see who it is.
"What are you doing here this early, Shorty?", I suddenly realize that I don't know her real name. I don't really care; a Jedi is a Jedi.

"My name's not Shorty. It's Michelle. I was named after my grandma.". She replies very-matter-of-fact.
I can't help but hide a giggle at her straight-forwardness.
"Well, Shorty, does your mother know you're hanging out with a known criminal?", I drive her new nickname home.
"She knows.", Shorty steps forward, "She says that as long as you're behind these bars, I'm safe from harm.", she says. "My mom also wants to know when you left Earth."

Here we go. Bring on the twenty questions.
"I left Earth in 1987, when I was 10." I figure that a little information wouldn't hurt and I sit, crossed legged, near the cell bars.
I go on to tell her about my mother, the explosion, meeting my master and all about the spiders on Dagobah.

"Where is your master, now?", she asks after she absorbed all this information. "He's probably worried about you."
She forces me to think back; think about what he's done for me, all he taught me and led me to be the person I am, today.
"He's dead.", I stand and walk to the far end of the cell, leaning on the ice wall. The cool feeling soothes the pain that's beginning to churn in my stomach.
What's this? I notice a small crack in the ice; a tiny hairline fracture. The weak link in the wall.

"How did he...", Shorty starts, but I cut her off,
"Leave."
"Why? Did I say something wrong?", she gasps. I can feel her worry.
"No, Just...leave.", I take a step toward her, loudly growling and showing my teeth.
She's startled and falls back, even though the bars between us would never allow me to touch her.

She stands up and dusts herself off. "Don't worry, Doug. I can sense good in you.", she says before running off. What the hell is that supposed to mean?
"I'm DARTH DRAGGER, goddamn it!", I yell. I'm not sure if she heard me, or not.

Turning back to the far wall, I concentrate on the crack.
Using the Force, I try to expand the fracture.

The wall starts to shake as small pieces start to crumble away and fall to the ground.

"You do realize that there are over 100 feet of ice behind that wall, don't you?", an older voice comes from behind me. It's a Jedi woman.

If I actually liked Jedi, I might find her attractive. Her long blonde hair is tied up in the traditional Jedi bun, exposing her slender jawline and thin neck. She has a familiar pear shaped face.
Her light blue eyes pierce me. I know them, but from where?
"It's going to take you awhile to get through all of that.", her arms crossed.

"I was just excersizing.", I try to hide my intentions, even though I know I was caught trying to break out.
"I bet.", she shoots me with a suspect smile.

"My name is...", she starts, but I cut her off, "Lori",I just remembered where I knew her from.
"We were in Miss Coverly's class together, in third grade?", she says.
"Yeah, I remember you. You were the richy-rich girl that sat a few seats behind me.", I growl.

"I always wondered where you went after I heard about your mother.", she sounded like a long lost friend, but I had always hated this girl.
"So, how did a wealthy girl end up getting off Earth?", I ask, rudely.
"Well,", she starts, "About a year after you disappeared..." Oh, god. She's going to give me the whole story, " ...my father met a man who said that he could enroll me in a school that would allow me to be the best that I could be. When I finally met him, he was wearing a 1930s style tuxedo, complete with a little scarf in his pocket.", a giggle escapes her, "He was definitely behind the times."
It appears that all off world people didn't realize how far Earthlings had come.
She leans up against the wall, "Little did I know that this man was a Jedi Knight."

She goes on to tell me about how the Jedi Master brought her to the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV, every now and then bringing her back to Earth for 'vacations' to cover the fact that her father thought she was in Europe. That was until she became 18 when she finally told her father the truth.

"So, what happened to you?", she asks, finally.
"Go ask your daughter. I just filled her in.", I say, dryly, trying to look as disinterested in her conversation as I could.

Lori turns and walks away, letting me return to the crack on the wall.
I concentrate on the crack, forcing more pieces to come off the wall when I hear, "It's still over 100 feet thick!", in the distance.
"Bah!", I lay back down on my bed.

I pass the time by counting the stalactites that are forming on the ceiling and start to think about what Lori had said about her past.

About Yavin IV.