Author Notes - OH BOY, I just adore slow update times! Sorry, but this story is rather low-priority compared to my others. The fact that my 'current object of obsession' shifts every other day doesn't help. Don't worry though; you can bet your saber I'll get this done eventually. And yes, I know that saying that just lowers the odds of me completing this, so I'll do you a favour and never tell you the odds.

Aboard the Axiom- I mean, the Millennium Starship! Perhaps not the most creative name in the world, but I think it gets the point across.

CHAPTER SIX - SANITARY

The Star Commuter made its way to the gigantic ship's docking bay far faster than Artoo expected. One moment, he was surrounded by the beauty of space. The next, he found himself in a docking bay that seemed a lot smaller than he expected. The Commuter landed gently, surrounded by other ships that apparently weren't working right. Everything looked totally different to what he was used to. No more sand, dust, or grit. Every surface was a bright, pristine white. And it was so well lit. If that was where Threepio was from, no wonder he was so shiny.

Speaking of which... where was that Protocol droid? The door to the Commuter opened, and its two passengers stepped out and onto a platform pulled out just for them. Artoo, jettisoning himself out of his spot, watched as a green Twi'lek approached his new friend.

'Looks like you got back in one piece.' She remarked with a smile.

'And I can't even begin to explain how!' Threepio said. 'That planet was completely inhospitable. Thank the Maker I won't have to spend another second on that wasteland!'

'I do have to apologise. You are never supposed to leave this starship, let alone be sent to a planet that you are unlikely to survive on.'

'And I do hope my masters are disbanded from duty permanently. Oh, but that doesn't matter. If anything, it was good they sent me there, for I have found just what we were looking for!'

He held up the data card, and allowed The Boss to take it from his hand. She looked at it closely, and her eyes sparkled. A smile developed on her face, which got replaced by a far more serious expression.

She handed the plans back to him. 'Good job, pilot Dameron, for getting this droid back here as speedily as possible.'

'Just doing what I need to do to get paid, Commander Syndulla.' The Pilot said. 'Which better be a lot, for putting up with his complaining.'

'Uh-huh. See-Threepio, we must escort you to The Captain as quickly as we can. Make sure no citizens find out about your findings, just in case this unfortunately turns out to be a false alarm. We've had too many of those to celebrate now.'

'I couldn't agree more, Ms Syndulla. This has been more than enough of an adventure for a century. Why, when I first arrived on that planet...'

The Boss sighed, clearly sick of hearing one of his rambling stories once again. Artoo watched as his friend and the Twi'lek walked down the ramp and disappeared through a door.

'TWEEP?!'

Oh no, Artoo was not going to lose his friend after going to this massive ship. Using his jetpack to glide down gently, he clanked against the floor. Few organics or droids were in that relatively small hanger, and none of them had noticed a rouge astromech.

'Woaaaa!'

That sound had not come from Artoo. He spun his dome around to see another astromech standing right beside him. Where did he come from? Not important. Artoo was unfamiliar with the design. This other droid - completely white except for some orange highlights - was basically just a small dome on a ball. The small dome in question moved about the round surface, looking at Artoo from multiple angles in curiosity.

'Wuh... bidda tweet?' Artoo asked.

'Wahh wooo!'

Huh. So this little guy's name was Bee-Bee-Ate. Artoo had to admit, this odd-looking astromech was rather cute. And very marketable. A toy of him would fit rather well with his collection at home.

'Weee-weooo?'

Gah, Artoo had no time for questions like 'where did you come from'? He had a golden Protocol droid to track down!

'Beepa boo!'

Leaving this 'Bee-Bee-Ate' on that note, Artoo sped off towards the door he saw his friend and the Twi'lek leave through. Bee-Bee-Ate didn't understand this sudden and somewhat rude behaviour, but a droid that scuffed up on a ship otherwise as clean as could be must've had a good story to tell. So, he rolled after the dirty astromech.

When Artoo got through the door, he was hoping he'd find his golden friend straight away. He did not expect to see such a massive hall. The absolutely huge room that opened up before him resembled a gigantic and somewhat complex mall, with tons of various shops and cantinas open. An innumerable amount of people - mostly organics of various species but with the occasional fellow droid - walked about everywhere, enjoying themselves and the various facilities.

Artoo found himself overwhelmed. All the people, all the noise, all the things moving around... and no shiny gold in sight. It'd be hard to find anything shiny in a place as sterile and clean as that.

'Mmmrrr...'

His dome spun around everywhere. He couldn't figure out where to even begin searching for his friend. Moving forward slowly, no one seemed to even notice the grungy astromech rolling along the floor. Strangely, nothing got in his way. It seemed as though all the people walking around followed paths laid out on the floor. As for why, he couldn't begin to guess.

He glanced at the many, many facilities open to the organics (not so droids, it would seem). Cantinas, spas, arcades, battle simulators, dance halls... in other words, luxury. All the people looked so happy and content.

'Two glasses. I'm feeling it today.'

'Yeah! Two in one bullet shot. Two hundred points!'

'And then I told him, but you said you were going to wash the dishes tonight. Then he...'

'Weather's nice today, huh?'

Weather? What weather? All Artoo could see above him was the roof of this massive mall, covered in a fake sunny sky with an artificial sun. It even had the words 'MOSTLY SUNNY' written in big red lettering on one of the 'clouds'. The heck kind of a ship was this? And, more importantly, where was Threepio? Artoo kept looking around the place, calling his name, and got so distracted with searching for him that he-

*BONK*

-did not notice someone standing right in front of him. He bounced off a noticeably hard surface as his processors took a little while to get over the shock.

'Do you mind?' Came the voice of the being he ran into.

The first thing Artoo saw was a shine. Before he could celebrate, he noticed the shine wasn't quite right. Getting a better look, he saw that they were a Protocol droid just like his friend. One major difference - this droid was covered in a lovely silver. Not to mention the much more feminine programming.

'I have a lot to deal with, as I always do.' This new droid complained. 'So you should get out of here before I call the authorities on you. Astromechs are not allowed in this part of the ship. You should know that!'

Artoo was supposed to know that? He figured she must've assumed he was always on this ship, despite how dirty he was compared to everything else.

'Beep bippi tweert.'

The Protocol droid put her hands on her hips. 'I've heard that excuse fifty times already. Today. No outsiders could possibly be on this...' She peered at him closer. 'Actually, on second thought, you are far dirtier than anything on this ship could be. But where could you have possibly come from?'

'Wooot bzzzrp bip!'

'You... you hitched a ride with the gold one?'

The silver droid took a moment to process the chances of that. Granted, she cared less for odds than the golden one did, but still.

'Yeah, story checks out.' She said. 'I'd be shocked over the possibility of an outsider droid, but with how tired I am twenty-four-seven I cannot possibly feel the emotion of shock right now.'

'Wee?'

'Why?' She made a scoff-like sound. 'I, Teesee-Fourteen, have been designated as the droid who keeps order in this mall. Do you know how taxing that is? Say one thing wrong, and a Wookiee rips your arm off. Tell someone they're breaking a rule, and suddenly a Mon Calamari is spraying ink in your face. It's literally just retail. But worse. So much worse.'

Artoo could hear the frustration in her voice, and the tone of simply being fed up.

'Wee woo bippa?'

'Why don't I just stop? Yeah, that's a good idea. Come on. Even an outsider like you should know why. If I defect, best case scenario I get a memory wipe. Worse, they terminate me.'

'Bzzrt?!'

'How do you think I feel? They'll probably just terminate me for having this conversation alone. It's so much fun when everyone around you thinks you don't feel anything just because you're a droid.'

For a droid, the sarcasm was very thick in her voice. Heck, even most organics couldn't sound that sarcastic. Now Artoo felt some distrust for this place - sounded like droids were treated poorly. Hopefully his friend was spared.

Speaking of which...

'Bippa Twee-pwee-woah?' He asked.

'Have I seen Threepio? Do you mean Ee-Threepio? I would hope not. Last time I tried to talk to him, he just gave me a dismissive wave. Nice guy, that one.'

'Bzz-zzrt. Wee-Twee-pwee-woah.'

Teesee was taken just a little aback. Perhaps she should've expected that after he mentioned the 'golden one', but her tired circuits wouldn't have been able to calculate two plus two.

'See-Threepio, of course! So an outsider droid actually knows him?'

'Woo-woo!'

'I've always pitied that droid. Poor thing never got a single memory wipe since his assembly. How horrible! It's sooo much better being forced to forget everything every few years.'

Now she was out-sarcasming herself somehow.

'Bippa boop?'

'Envy? Ya don't say! Can I be honest for a moment? I'm stuck here dealing with these fools, without even my counterpart Arfour-Peeseventeen to keep me company, and Gold Dome gets to relax with The Captain!'

Even though she yelled out her issues for all to hear, almost no organics responded. They seemed to believe she didn't even exist. The ones who did weren't pleasant about it; the 'nicest' thing Artoo heard was a disgruntled 'stop complaining'. A Lasalt in particular threatened to smash her atoms to pieces.

'Sorry.' Teesee said far more calmly. 'What were you asking? It was something about See-Threepio.'

Artoo stood silently for a moment. 'Wuhhh... tweeeep mroop?'

'Ah. I see. So you want me to take you to him. I don't blame you for getting lost. I have every single square inch of this entire ship in my memory banks, and even I find it easy to lose someone. I'd help you out, really, but getting terminated for disobeying orders isn't exactly my idea of fun.'

Artoo emitted a quiet, half-disappointed and half-annoyed, murmur. He'd never find his friend at this rate.

'At the same time,' Teesee continued. 'I think I prefer being terminated. Alright, I'll lead you to your friend.'

'Bippa? Woo tweet?'

'No, I'm actually going to throw you in the trash compactor. Of course I'm going to help you! Any excuse to get away from my job is one I'll take.'

'WOOOO!'

Artoo ran a little circle around her, much to her confusion. When he completed his orbit, he sat in place and awaited an 'order' like a loyal little puppy. In fact, Teesee could've sworn he was giving her the puppy-dog eyes somehow.

'Just don't make such a big deal out of it.' She said. 'I want as few organics as possible to realise I'm gone. Not that any of them will. Now come along... what was your name?'

'Wah-hoo-twee-woo.'

'Artoo-Detoo? Of course. Organics are very clever when it comes to droid names. Now, unlike your golden friend, I won't get us caught up by talking non-stop. We should head off right this minute if we wanna catch up to him.'

Teesee walked in a direction - well thought out to her, seemingly random to Artoo - and the astromech followed her with the loyalty that had been programmed into him.

'Finally, having the entire layout built into me will be useful. For once.'

Meanwhile...

'Waahhhh...!'

Bee-Bee-Ate already had a bit of a difficult time tracking down that dirty R2 unit through all the organics that were tall enough to tower over the both of them. Now, he had finally found the guy and the silver girl led him away again! He bashed his dome into the floor in frustration, and proceeded to do it one more time to be sure. If he knew this place at all, maybe it'd be a little less frustrating.

But for real, this was what had been going on behind that door this whole time? An entire mall full of people? And they had forced him to work on the ships since the day he was assembled!

'Waaaoooh...!'

It dawned on him that he should probably keep moving, just in case his masters decided to get involved for once. But it wasn't like he had to worry about getting caught. No one could catch a droid that rolled as fast as him!

'HEY, Bee-Bee-Ate!' The Pilot called from far behind him. 'Where are you going?'

'Wuh whoa!'

And with that, Bee-Bee-Ate dashed away. Whether or not he'd end up finding that droid would be via happenstance.

Author Notes - By the way, BB-8 plays the role of MO in this story. Because MO is precious and needs more movies.

Oh, did I not mention that other droids from the movies would appear? For the droids who barely got any, if at all, character development, such as TC-14 and R4-P17, I'll be giving them a bit more of a personality. Such as right here. I decided to take TC-14 down the 'sarcastic and fed-up' route. Mostly just making sure that she isn't just 'female Threepio'.

And yes, I know that TC-14 had no counterpart, let alone had R4-P17 as hers. I've already taken enough liberties, so why not take more? It's about being entertaining and interesting, dang it!